Another Voice

When weighing in on wannaBePresident Huey Long 2024's evil doings, and the folks who flock to it, these endeavors have made the case that the poor, uneducated, unhealthy, shitkickers are the ones to blame for their predicament. Their fate lies not in the stars or the immigrants (or the Jews, or the Negroes, or the Snowflakes), but in themselves. They continue to elect autocrats, local, state, and federal who treat them like cattle.

How did this happen? Today's NYT has a report from a hillbilly who's been there, and done that.

The truth is, Republican voters who fight against expanding human rights — who love songs like "If the South Woulda Won" and refuse to support Medicaid expansions that would provide health care to thousands in the South — are simply not rednecks, although they might think of themselves that way. Republican supporters bastardize hillbilly history; you can't claim to be from "Hicktown" if you don't fight for the hicks in it.

These are the same people who would still be living as they did in 1865 were it not for the generosity of the American taxpayer and Snowflake 1, FDR. Was FDR specifically motivated to save the South from antebellum poverty by the striking coal miners?

Then, as now, West Virginia was coal country. The coal industry was essentially the state's sole source of work, and massive corporations built homes, general stores, schools, churches and recreational facilities in the remote towns near the mines. For miners, the system resembled something like feudalism. Sanitary and living conditions in the company houses were abysmal, wages were low, and state politicians supported wealthy coal company owners rather than miners. The problems persisted for decades and only began to improve once Franklin Delano Roosevelt passed the National Industrial Recovery Act in 1933.

Yes, yes it appears so. Of course. It remains true that Red states are where Blue state tax payments go. One might wonder who in the Red states ends up with the moolah? Ya think may be it's just the rich folks?

And these shitkickers blame Blue state Liberals for their fate! If the South had remained a separate country, the North would have shed a tremendous burden of millions of ingrates. It would be a textbook example of mercantilism: the South makes raw materials and food stuffs, which they trade at poor advantage for finished good from the North. The North 'loses' the War of Northern Aggression, and gains long term (if not permanent) economic supremacy; if Congress has the wisdom to enforce capital flow restrictions.

A very different ending to the story. Not so great for the Black folk of the South, to be sure.