02-17-2017, 02:15 PM
(02-17-2017, 09:08 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: The prescribed meaning in life for millions of Americans was long "do your work, don't gripe, and be satisfied with consumerism as your compensation". The place is eastern Kentucky, never known as an intellectual haven, a place of uncritical materialism. When the mines were producing and miners got good wages for infernal work due to the then-powerful United Mine Workers, a miner could often point to his nice car, furniture, appliances, and other evidence of an above-average income, "That's why!"
Because such people are under-educated, they are unlikely to have much exposure to culture other than some folk tradition unique to themselves. They are unlikely to be entrepreneurs because they lack imagination. Doing machine-paced work will kill imagination and curiosity. If they are hooked on drugs or alcohol, they might not be the sorts of people who can develop relationships with younger people because younger people are looking for wholesome relationships with older people. Unions eviscerated, working people are quickly atomized. But pain that causes one to reach for alcohol leads to cirrhosis, a nasty way to go.
Moving to a 'blue' state? What could they do in California or Connecticut -- or for that matter, in such 'blue' cities as Columbus, Pittsburgh, Atlanta, or Louisville? The younger adults can take jobs in higher-technology manufacturing, testing themselves by making 70-mile commutes twice a day until they are no longer on probation and can rent an apartment or buy a trailer. But even that is less than, in real terms, what attracted people from the Mountain South to the auto plants in Greater Detroit.
If you think Kentucky is bad, then wait till you see Ohio and Michigan ten years from now.
Good points. In the 1980s and 90s, many young people did migrate to the blue states and cities to have a life. And they found it. But now places like California have their own kind of crisis, because they are too desirable. Housing is sky high in price, and the commute saps away our lives. Many poor people are struggling in some places now in blue states too. Higher education is more expensive than it used to be. Many whites from the Rust Belt and the red states would find the increased diversity and "color" of states like CA harder to stomach now.
Quote:Their kids will be cannon fodder in the next War for Profits. When such a war goes badly under Donald Trump, those kids will start coming back in body bags.
We've already had a taste of how badly such wars would go, in Yemen, under Drump. American voters in the Rust Belt and the red states made the choice for an incompetent CiC, and they may pay the price.