Poverty in the Ozarks

[koshergrl]

I know. What a freaking train wreck.

"oh my gosh there are poor people in the country, too! Save them!"

There are poor people because libs prevent opportunities where they might be able to work. You've done enough for them. Now leave them the hell alone and focus on the problems in your own turf. You have plenty to keep you occupied.

 

[Esmeralda]

Who is blaming the poor on the situation they are in? It is the right wingers who are blaming them on their situation, not the liberals. I am just not blaming social welfare programs on it either. In Europe, there are plenty of social welfare programs, there is also a lot of teenage sex, co-habitating, divorce, and the other things the American social scientists blame for poverty. In Europe, poverty is not a big issue. In fact, the only real problem most countries have with poverty is do to Romas, who don't want to participate in social welfare programs, and immigration. They don't have high teen pregnance rates, they don't have the social problems the US has, not to any extent near what the US has, and they have plenty of social welfare programs. It isn't social welfare that is causing poverty in the US.

 

[koshergrl]

It's social welfare combined with public education and public interference in development/utilitization of our own resources.

You loons have plenty to keep you occupied in your own bergs. Leave the rural people alone. They don't want you.

 

[Iceweasel]

And you, a (supposedly) educated person with a marketable skill, would have a much easier time starting over than a person who has lived his life in poverty, has little education and no marketable skills.

I grew up poor, relocated across the country and had nothing. It isn't the government's duty to provide jobs or run the economy. The more it does it the worse it gets. I'm all for helping people but making them dependant on government isn't good either. Men, and women these days, can join the military like I did to get a start on life.

 

[koshergrl]

And if they are the kind of people who expect the state to provide for them, then they belong in the city.

 

[auditor0007]

First and foremost I think you for the thread. This is a reply more to the negative replies to your OP than to you but to you also. One has to wonder who has a greater lack of education. The people you refer to or your detractors? To not understand the human condition is to not know others, not know the majority, not to understand practically all of human history. What do they think? That people do not suffer? That only some people suffer, those they can relate to, which is a very limited demographic apparently. What kind of education can one have that at some point along the way open ones mind to the life of more than oneself?

I didn't know he or she had detractors. And what the hell are you babbling about? Poverty exists and that proves some people only care about themselves? That isn't thinking or the reasoning by education, it's an emotional response.

The point is that there are many poor who live in our cities or in rural America who have only known one way of life, and that is being poor. They didn't choose it; they were born into it. It is their way of life and all they know, but some want to blame them for not making better choices so they could get themselves out of the mess they live in. It's just not that simple.

Being educated and having grown up middle or upper class, it seems so easy to just believe anyone can do it, since I did it, but most of us here have had huge advantages over the truly poor in America. Not being able to understand that just shows how isolated some of us have become from reality.

Someone earlier in the thread said they drove through Appalachia and saw all these poor people but it was okay because they all seemed happy. That's because what they have is all they know and understand.

 

[Esmeralda]

First and foremost I think you for the thread. This is a reply more to the negative replies to your OP than to you but to you also. One has to wonder who has a greater lack of education. The people you refer to or your detractors? To not understand the human condition is to not know others, not know the majority, not to understand practically all of human history. What do they think? That people do not suffer? That only some people suffer, those they can relate to, which is a very limited demographic apparently. What kind of education can one have that at some point along the way open ones mind to the life of more than oneself?

I didn't know he or she had detractors. And what the hell are you babbling about? Poverty exists and that proves some people only care about themselves? That isn't thinking or the reasoning by education, it's an emotional response.

The point is that there are many poor who live in our cities or in rural America who have only known one way of life, and that is being poor. They didn't choose it; they were born into it. It is their way of life and all they know, but some want to blame them for not making better choices so they could get themselves out of the mess they live in. It's just not that simple.

Being educated and having grown up middle or upper class, it seems so easy to just believe anyone can do it, since I did it, but most of us here have had huge advantages over the truly poor in America. Not being able to understand that just shows how isolated some of us have become from reality.

Someone earlier in the thread said they drove through Appalachia and saw all these poor people but it was okay because they all seemed happy. That's because what they have is all they know and understand.

Excellent post. I grew up in a low income working class family. We didn't have much at all. My father was a janitor and my mother was a store clerk. They both had to work full time to keep us going. There were a lot of things other kids in school got that I didn't. Nothing was expected of me but to continue on in the same vein. My parents felt that it was our place in society. I wanted more and after high school went on to college and graduate school, working my way through with no financial help or emotional support from my family. But, I am the exception to the rule. Must people stay in the level to which they are born. And those born in poverty even more so because they don't see or understand how they can rise above what they are born into. IMO education is the key. It is lack of education, of being aware of what lies beyond their current state that is the key to changing their perception of reality, and the knowledge and skills that will help them do that.

 

[koshergrl]

Leave them alone, and focus on brainwashing your own children.

 

[Avatar4321]

Of course there is poverty outside the inner cities? Who has made such a ridiculous claim otherwise?

I find it difficult to believe that there is absolutely nothing they can do to pull themselves out of poverty though. You can hunt and grow food. Is there lumber in the Ozarks? They could build things if there are. Everywhere has some resources. You just have to be willing to think and work hard.

 

[Jarlaxle]

How do you know not one of them was unhappy? You really think people live that way by choice? Isn't that condescenting and patronizing? That's what people said about slaves and after slavery about poor blacks. It wasn't true.

You don't actually know what they think or how they feel. Poverty like this is generally caused by poor education and is a generational thing. According to this story, it is increasing in this area.

Of course they live that way by choice.

If they didn't choose to live there, they would move.

Where exactly would you suggest they move to? The city? Any suggestion where they are going to get first and last month's rent? That is if they can find someone who will rent to them. Move from poverty in the Ozarks to the projects in the city? Is this what upward mobility has come to in this country? Perhaps it would not be too much for this country to provide and little money for food and a respectable education so they can buy a little something from the local store and maybe start a local business, or work in someone else's. Or maybe the best idea is to pass the Ryan budget and all those "programs that don't work" can be canceled so the job creators can move jobs oversees so the price of those plastic toys in Wal-mart will become even cheaper because after all, cheap toys are better than food any day.

Try North Dakota. If they have a pulse, they will find work. Hell, McDonald's is paying $13+/hour there!

 

[Yurt]

No way to live | Springfield News-Leader | news-leader.com

Two out of every five Greene County families with children under age 18 live in poverty, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates. It jumps to nearly half when the family has a child under age 5.

Poverty in America is not something that only affects inner city minorities.

who said it did?

 

[namvet]

funny the moonshiners are making a fortune in the Ozarks. its a generation thing

 

[Pennywise]

Loretta Lynn was not an unhappy hillbilly. She became famous because she liked to sing and had the talent; she didn't get rich to get away from the country.

Wealth is completely subjective.

 

[Jarlaxle]

Completely true. Her baby sister Brenda Gail Webb did pretty well for herself, too!

You know her better by her stage name: Crystal Gayle. (Yes, she is Loretta Lynn's sister...Lynn wrote her first single.)

 

[SteadyMercury]

They didn't choose it; they were born into it. It is their way of life and all they know, but some want to blame them for not making better choices so they could get themselves out of the mess they live in. It's just not that simple.

It is part luck (or bad luck) and part choices.

There certainly are people who are born into situations where there are less opportunities, but I have a hard time believing there are none.

 

[rdean]

It's OK. Republicans aren't racist when it comes to poor people. They hate all poor people equally. Even poor Republicans hate poor people. Go figure.

 

[namvet]

It's OK. Republicans aren't racist when it comes to poor people. They hate all poor people equally. Even poor Republicans hate poor people. Go figure.

as opposed to dems who hate blacks???

 

[Avatar4321]

It's OK. Republicans aren't racist when it comes to poor people. They hate all poor people equally. Even poor Republicans hate poor people. Go figure.

And yet the only person I've seen any hate from is you.

 

[koshergrl]

We're all of like mind when it comes to governmental inference regarding the way we live:

Nevada rancher standoff turns on a states? rights debate - CBS News

 

[SteadyMercury]

Republicans aren't racist when it comes to poor people. They hate all poor people equally. Even poor Republicans hate poor people. Go figure.

God you're stupid if you believe this.