What did you think about the poor families on 20/20 last night ?

[.... callchet ....]

[Veritas_et_Aequitas]

1. Didn't catch it. What was the jist of it? nt

[stray cat]

2. Kids and families in Appalacia - didn't see it

[snappyturtle]

11. I didn't see it either but I found it on:

http://abcnews.go.com/2020

It says the whole documentary is there! I'm going to watch now.

[.... callchet ....]

4. Super poverty. Drug and alcohol and incest.

Horrific conditions, trialers with busted windows, no siding, some of the worst conditions I have ever seen. Defies description.

[Veritas_et_Aequitas]

8. Dang.

I knew someone that did Habitat for Humanities in that area, but she never mentioned that. So sad.

[glowing]

3. I didn't watch it.. I watched the show she did on Camden, NJ.. People thought

it would spark something.. an action towards poverty in America.. It didn't. Simply put, we allowed the Pukes to strip away the social safety networks and now we don't have them for those that actually need to use them.. the new poor.. the working poor/ lower middle class who have been barely hanging on for the last few years. Now, they are losing their jobs and they don't have any help. No services. Nobody to fight for them. I'm one of them.. if my hubby or myself loses our job or even loses any more hours, we will suffer greatly. My husband realized when he did the taxes this year (love him for doing that), that we made less money this past year than the year previously... Of course, his opportunities for overtime were decreased and the cost of our insurance increased.. So we made $4000.00 less than the year before. That hurts when you know gas was $4.00/ gallon during the summer months.

[bobbolink]

14. No, poverty isn't one of the priorities, and that includes with "progressives".

I live it, and I've seen firsthand the ignorance of those who are so "aware", and their lack of concern.

And what is replacing ANY concern is for the "new poor". Those of us who've been poor before this current mess can go hang.

[.... callchet ....]

25. Why do you think people are so casual and nonchalant

about strapping the poor with higher gasoline taxes?

[.... callchet ....]

26. and higher gasoline taxes only affects the consumption of the poor !

[catzies]

5. Lots of things went through my mind.

1. I was angry that that level of poverty & despair still exists in America.

2. I was angry that coal companies exploit people & our natural resources until they pull out of a town, leaving filth, squalor & lack of opportunity in their wake.

3. I was appalled that drug abuse is still so prevalent. And I say that as someone who is pro-cannabis and anti-pharmaceuticals.

3. I was disgusted that these people probably still consider themselves "conservative" and have probably voted against their own economic interests for ears.

4. I found it interesting that this was in Mitch McConnell's state, and he probably has never lifted a finger to help any of them.

5. I'm disappointed that evangelicalism is so prevalent and these people are proably prey for TV preachers who want their money.

6. I think it's disgusting that they have no health care, no education, and no opportunities yet they smoke cigarettes through toothless lips.

7. And don't get me started on trashy tattoos.

[.... callchet ....]

7. They are USAmericans. You watched it and You saw it !

Some of the worst ocnditions I have ever seen. I wonder if when people think about poor people, this is what they have in mind. I think the general concept of poor people is a quiet content suffering family that grows their own food and scrapes money to give to church on Sunday. Poor is not pretty and not pretty is easy to shun. Also, I was worried about Diane Sawyer's safety.

[SharonAnn]

23. You pretty much nailed it. Imoved to East TN 8 years ago and have been

shocked.

I don't understand their scorn for education. "I didn't finish high school andit didn't hurt me none."

Many religious fundamentalists home school their kids, it's very common here. Some end up well educated (parents are doing it because the schools are so bad) others end up miseducated (parents only focus on lessons related somehow to their interpretation of the Bible.

Lots and lots of drug addictions. Alcohol, pharmaceuticals, meth, etc. And along with that is the intertwined family codependence where a child can never break free. They set up a trailer alongside their parents and live their life the same way as they grew up.

Little effort to educate themselves, better themselves, find a place where they can get a job. Just hang around the homestead and complain.

Of course the coal companies love this, it's a captive employment pool and they encourage dependent behavior and discourage and independence or people getting together to do something as a community.

At the same time, how can we help the children see that there's a set of opportunities if they can only break free of this codependence?

[rusty fender]

29. I didn't see the show, but

everyone's description of it reminds me of "The Wire, Seasons 3 and 4". The poverty and hoplessness is everybit as devasting in parts of Baltimore as in Appalachia, but maybe not as much religion going around.

[K Gardner]

30. This is my "backyard", and these are the people I care for nightly in the ER. It is truly

a different landscape, a different mindset.. a different people.

Mountain heritage still runs dominant in Appalachia.

[OHdem10]

6. ORelly told D, Sawyer, --you cannot change them, (In other words

(it is their own fault).

This perfectly describes a conservative world view. Also, helps
one see why conservatives and liberals talk past each other.

One view: People are in poverty as a result of their own actions.
They will have to become responsible and get themselves out of poverty.
"No one owes anything". No one is entitled to anything.


Another view. Often outside forces or circumstances contribute to poverty.
A country is as good as how it treats the least fortunate. Society
as a whole needs to provide opportunities and assistance in changing
the rates of poverty.

[tomreedtoon]

9. O'Reilly was half truth and half lies.

His justification that government can't do anything, and all that, is the lie part.

The truth is that the people of Appalachia cannot be changed. Oh, an enlightened government might help ease their pain - get them electricity, as the TVA did in the Great Depression, and maybe get them food stamps. But they are so bound to ignorance, superstition and fear of change that they will never advance beyond it. You will never turn Hooterville into Chicago.

Have pity on them, sure. Help them as much as government can. But only a small handful of people who live there will ever advance beyond that state of poverty and misery. And the only way they'll do it is by moving away from their cursed, damned land and learn about the rest of the world. As Bill Maher said, there's only one thing that can help protect a small-town kid from meth labs, inbreeding and violence; a bus ticket to the nearest big city.

[dsc]

16. wow

I can only imagine how racist you would consider the flip side commentary from a small town denizen about the plight of the ghetto.

[CBR]

19. Wow! Enlightment cuts both ways.

[Two Americas]

31. that is awful

Just awful.

I have spent a lot of time over the years working with the people you are discarding and condemning here.

"A bus ticket to the bog city" would "cure" them, eh? But I thought you said that they "cannot be changed?"

And we wonder why people resent big city liberals.

Remind me again - just who is it that is prejudiced and ignorant?

[tomreedtoon]

32. Have you actually SEEN Appalacian people?

Or the people down in the bootheel of Missouri? Sorry, but somebody blew out the light in their brains decades ago and it can't be relit.

And I said "big" city. A "bog" city is one of those places in south Florida above Miami, and there is no solid ground there, since it is a bog.

[Two Americas]

34. funny

You caught a typo, but you missed that I said I have worked with the people in Appalachia.

Yes, I have "seen them."

I have relatives from the "boot heel of Missouri" so I have seen them, too.

[tomreedtoon]

36. So, I'm guessing, you don't live with them for a good reason.

And of course you have sympathy for them for a good reason as well. And you realize there is no way in Hell they will ever have any resources, education or vitality to dig their way out of poverty on their own, as long as they live in the part of America cursed by God.

Believe it or not, I grieve for you. Having relatives living in Appalachia is like having a child with incurable cancer. (And yes, I know people in that condition too.) You can spend all your money, pray and sweat and search for a cure, and you still end up with a dead child. It is a tragedy, and all a tragedy can do is teach you that God hates us all, only in different ways.

[Two Americas]

46. "them"

There is no "them." You can argue in defense of the accuracy of your stereotyping all night long, but it is still stereotyping.

"You cannot judge the individual by the group, and you cannot judge the group by the individual."

I do live with "them." I am "them." I don't have any "sympathy" - that would be condescending and arrogant. I have empathy, yes, but I have empathy for you as well, given the grip that anger and hostility seem to have over you.

Very few people would talk about dogs the way you are talking about human beings here.

Are your really saying that certain geographic regions are cursed by God?

How come North Carolina is no longer "cursed by God?" Because a bunch of upscale gentrified Yankees have moved there, who are neo-liberals - libertarianism with an "organic" or "green" label slapped on it - and who vote Democratic amd have resources and privileges?

What about all your hated hillbillies who moved to Detroit and fought in the Labor battles? Your beautiful non-hillbilly people took the reactionary and conservative position in those battles. The hillbillies brought there experience and analysis and courage from the coal mine battles to the fight.

[hfojvt]

47. by extension you said the same thing about all small towns

not just Appalachia. Having grown up in a small town, and having lived most of my life in other small towns, I certainly think that is crap. Some people even think this town of 35,000 is a small town.

[Hannah Bell]

38. Excuse me, but that's bullshit. People & cultures change all the time.

If their economic basis changes, that is.

And Appalachia doesn't consist only of what Diane Sawyer chose to show you on your tv.


"You will never turn Hooterville into Chicago"

Such a laugh. Who do you think built Chicago & lives there now? People from Hooterville.

Who do you think built, e.g., Motown? Sharecroppers from the Mississippi Delta who moved into the middle class via good-paying jobs in the auto industry.


Japan had a high crime rate post-war & before the war. Within a decade, crime dropped & stayed low for 50 years. Decent jobs for most people, & an even distribution of income.

Appalachia is a 150-year-old company town. When it stops being a company town, the culture will change.

[bobbolink]

41. Thanks for speaking sanity in the midst of so much RW ignorance!

For the life of me, I can't understand what is so hard to get about these basic truths!

[SharonAnn]

44. And yet, when the motivated ones leave, those remaining are in even worse shape.

In the small town near where I live in East Tennessee, I was struck by the high percentage of young adults who were uneducated, illiterate, addicted to alcohol or drugs, in dysfunctional family environments or personal relationships.

Then I realized that those who were motivated, wanted an education, wanted a good job, wanted to be in a healthier community had left. There is nothing here for them. So what's left is those who can't break free for whatever reason.

[Tsiyu]

10. Didn't watch but it pisses me off

in a way because you can focus on drug abuse, incest and crime anywhere in the US. I've lived in states from NY to Florida and I can say that there is no worse drug abuse here than in the other cities and towns I worked in. Oxy, hydro and meth are issues everywhere.

But suburban druggies are more sophisticated and hide their addictions well. Appalachians are the folks the States would rather spend millions incarcerating than educating, and that IS the main problem.


The poverty is a killer here. That I will agree with. But then we hear "Poor in America are so much better off than anywhere in the world."

Which makes American abject poverty sound so cheery.

It's not. Trust me.

[rvablue]

12. I saw it

It broke my heart.

Is there really any hope for those kids? I don't know.....

The football player seemed to be trying to do whatever he could to move on with his life. But it didn't work.

I only wish I had the $ to get him back in school. So, so sad.

And what I found to be the most strange was the Mountain Dew addiction and the fact that the parents are giving so much of it to the kids. So strange really?

[ThomWV]

13. Some of it didn't ring true, but a lot of it did

Twice last year I rode my bike down into that part of the country to look around and see what it was like for myself. It exists but its in isolated and small pockets. That is the utter poverty I mean, I have no idea about the drug use or the incest. You'd have to live there a while to see that firsthand I guess.

The parts about Mountain Dew were a surprise to me. I never thought the stuff was any good for you of course but I didn't think any of them were any better or worse than others. It was an eyeopener.

[Lint Head]

15. It's these people that the GOP is blaming for the economic disaster.

The Re-Pubic-Rats say they get loans from the bank they cannot pay back.

There is a major cover up as to what started the economic collapse.

OIL Prices folks. Nothing was in peril until the oil prices were manipulated by the international hedge fund criminals.

Until the specifics of the secret meetings Cheney had with the oil barons is released this is a major cover up.

The Banks did not start this. World wide oil pricing did. That is a FACT! It is a cover up because the Saudis are involved and the truth would cause an international incident that could lead to more war.



:dem:

[Mika]

17. Reminds me of pre revolution Cuba.

Appalachia needs a Fidel Castro & Che Guevara!

Before the 1959 revolution

75% of rural dwellings were huts made from palm trees.

More than 50% had no toilets of any kind.

85% had no inside running water.

91% had no electricity.

There was only 1 doctor per 2,000 people in rural areas.

More than one-third of the rural population had intestinal parasites.

Only 4% of Cuban peasants ate meat regularly; only 1% ate fish, less than 2% eggs, 3% bread, 11% milk; none ate green vegetables.

The average annual income among peasants was $91 (1956), less than 1/3 of the national income per person.

45% of the rural population was illiterate; 44% had never attended a school.

25% of the labor force was chronically unemployed.

1 million people were illiterate ( in a population of about 5.5 million).

27% of urban children, not to speak of 61% of rural children, were not attending school.

Racial discrimination was widespread.

The public school system had deteriorated badly.

Corruption was endemic; anyone could be bought, from a Supreme Court judge to a cop.

Police brutality and torture were common.

___



After the 1959 revolution
http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/43b/185.html

“It is in some sense almost an anti-model,” according to Eric Swanson, the programme manager for the Bank’s Development Data Group, which compiled the WDI, a tome of almost 400 pages covering scores of economic, social, and environmental indicators.

Indeed, Cuba is living proof in many ways that the Bank’s dictum that economic growth is a pre-condition for improving the lives of the poor is over-stated, if not, downright wrong.

-

It has reduced its infant mortality rate from 11 per 1,000 births in 1990 to seven in 1999, which places it firmly in the ranks of the western industrialised nations. It now stands at six, according to Jo Ritzen, the Bank’s Vice President for Development Policy, who visited Cuba privately several months ago to see for himself.

By comparison, the infant mortality rate for Argentina stood at 18 in 1999;

Chile’s was down to ten; and Costa Rica, at 12. For the entire Latin American and Caribbean region as a whole, the average was 30 in 1999.

Similarly, the mortality rate for children under the age of five in Cuba has fallen from 13 to eight per thousand over the decade. That figure is 50% lower than the rate in Chile, the Latin American country closest to Cuba’s achievement. For the region as a whole, the average was 38 in 1999.

“Six for every 1,000 in infant mortality - the same level as Spain - is just unbelievable,” according to Ritzen, a former education minister in the Netherlands. “You observe it, and so you see that Cuba has done exceedingly well in the human development area.”

Indeed, in Ritzen’s own field, the figures tell much the same story. Net primary enrolment for both girls and boys reached 100% in 1997, up from 92% in 1990. That was as high as most developed nations - higher even than the US rate and well above 80-90% rates achieved by the most advanced Latin American countries.

“Even in education performance, Cuba’s is very much in tune with the developed world, and much higher than schools in, say, Argentina, Brazil, or Chile.”

It is no wonder, in some ways. Public spending on education in Cuba amounts to about 6.7% of gross national income, twice the proportion in other Latin American and Caribbean countries and even Singapore.

There were 12 primary school pupils for every Cuban teacher in 1997, a ratio that ranked with Sweden, rather than any other developing country. The Latin American and East Asian average was twice as high at 25 to one.

The average youth (age 15-24) illiteracy rate in Latin America and the Caribbean stands at 7%. In Cuba, the rate is zero. In Latin America, where the average is 7%, only Uruguay approaches that achievement, with one percent youth illiteracy.

“Cuba managed to reduce illiteracy from 40% to zero within ten years,” said Ritzen. “If Cuba shows that it is possible, it shifts the burden of proof to those who say it’s not possible.”

Similarly, Cuba devoted 9.1% of its gross domestic product (GDP) during the 1990s to health care, roughly equivalent to Canada’s rate. Its ratio of 5.3 doctors per 1,000 people was the highest in the world.

The question that these statistics pose, of course, is whether the Cuban experience can be replicated. The answer given here is probably not.

“What does it, is the incredible dedication,” according to Wayne Smith, who was head of the US Interests Section in Havana in the late 1970s and early 1980s and has travelled to the island many times since.

---

"When I gave food to the poor, they called me a saint; but when I asked why people are poor, they called me a communist." --Brazilian Bishop Don Helder Camara

[FLyellowdog]

18. I was greatly disturbed by what was reported.

Whether there are only a few isolated pockets of this extreme poverty or not, that we could let this happen in America is horrendous.

A few of my thoughts...

***I noticed the change of personality in the young girl who was trying to get her mother to stay off drugs. As a younger child she still had hope and could smile and enjoy a bit of her life. Then just a couple a years later, she appears to have lost all hope and carries the persona of a depressed and trapped adolescent. The cycle has been repeated for her.

***Although I myself do not adhere to any religious doctrine, I was struck by the degree of religion that pervades this area and found that I can understand why these people would grasp at such perceived beliefs. Even more strange was that on some level I was grateful that they had these beliefs to give them whatever comfort they provided.

***The unhealthy use of prescription drugs both for consumption and for sale must be considered at least in part, the fault of the doctors who prescribe them. It's obvious that if the source of these drugs dries up, these people aren't going to be running off to the city to a doctor. There should be more oversight of the doctors in Appalachia, and alternate medications prescribed.

***While the consumption of Mountain Dew seems like such an easy thing to remedy, it should be remembered that if the drink does give a kick to the consumer, than it's understandable why it's used so much. These people are addicted to the caffeine. They can't be expected to give up one habit without replacing it with something else and no one seems to know with what to replace it.
Certainly not the Pepsico people.

***The use of cigarettes is another habit that many Americans can empathize with. Think how hard it is to quit smoking even when you have medications to help, you have friends/support groups to stand by you, and/or you have the state of mind that tells you quitting will enhance one's life. The people of this area have none of these tools.

***And I think finally, I was saddened by the realization that these particular Americans are so overlooked and forgotten in our society. I can't blame them for drinking, or smoking, or overusing drugs. Their only hope for each day is to survive...however they can. If the only way to tolerate the intolerable is to drink, smoke, and medicate, why would they change these behaviors? These people are victims of their circumstances whether by choice or by chance. And we as good progressive thinkers don't blame the victims.

I don't know what the answer is. But surely in a country as great as ours, we can come up with some kind of solutions that will improve the existence of these Americans.

If you haven't viewed this program, please do.

[Mika]

20. Limiting corporate teat sucker BONE-US pay to $500,000 will certainly help.

:sarcasm:

:cry: :cry:

[closeupready]

21. Just finished watching -

Has anyone here delivered a lecture yet about the virtue of personal responsibility and why these families are to blame for their own poverty? :sarcasm:

Heartbreaking. I thought the guy with the Rural Intiative made the best point of the show - 'the banks are collapsing, and oh, no, we have to give them hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars; people in Appalachia have no running water, and Congress shrugs.' And he's absolutely right. :mad:

[Two Americas]

35. not yet

We haven't gotten any lectures yet about the virtue of personal responsibility and why these families are to blame for their own poverty.

We have been told that they are beyond salvation and cannot be "fixed," however.

[closeupready]

22. Another good point was the physician from India, and he said the poverty is worse in Appalachia

than the part of India from where he came.

[mitchum]

24. But it will all be better in the sweet bye and bye!

suckers

[.... callchet ....]

27. I can show you the same conditions here in NW Florida.

And I am sure there are conditions like that all over the USA. The reason you don't see it very much is that it is dangerous to go into these places. I truly was concerned about putting reporters in those places. I worked in coal mines in West Virginia and you just don't go intrude in local areas like they showed on 20/20.

[Mika]

28. Its all over Miami-Dade also.

Worse than 3rd world here.

I've had my car broken into several times parked at a clinic in "Little Haiti". And I'm the practitioner.

:shrug:

[Judi Lynn]

39. I saw them there, too, and was stunned. It was near Pensacola, a U.S. Navy Air base town

for decades: dirt roads going to and past shacks which look like a strong wind will blow them over, hound dogs sitting in their yards.

Looked EXACTLY like photos I've seen of poor people in the 1920's, and 1930's. All of this probably within a half-hour's drive of very expensive beach houses.

[ThomWV]

40. You all have coal miners there too?

[bobbolink]

33. I want to know why thie person, who is posting about poverty and obviously

cares and understands it, was tombstoned?

There is certainly nothing in this thread that warrants that.

Just a because it's about poverty??????

[NNN0LHI]

37. May have something to do with what happened on another thread perhaps?

Just surmising.

Don

[Mika]

42. Maybe this thread?

I don't know why this was locked and poster TSed yesterday, it was just getting good, imo.

Prejudice assigns rotten teeth to the poor
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5052959

[bobbolink]

43. Exactly. I see NO attacks, except attacks on the person tombstoned.

STanding up for poverty is dangerous at DU, it looks like.

Hurrah for "progressives"..... :eyes:

[Sheltiemama]

45. Heartbreaking.