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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHow the Coal Industry Impoverishes West Virginia
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/01/25-4A US flag flies at half-staff at a coal processing plant near the site of a disaster that killed twelve miners in Buckhannon, West Viriginia. (Photo: Reuters/Jim Young)
Theres a joke circulating among Syrians who fled the brutal conflict devastating their country to the quiet mountains of West Virginia: We escaped the lethal chemicals in Syria only for them to follow us here. Of course, whats happening in West Virginia right now is no laughing matter. But how could the refugees not be reminded of their decimated homeland after finding themselves, along with 300,000 other West Virginians, without access to potable water? Unfortunately, West Virginia is no stranger to having its living conditions compared to those in developing countries.
Fifty years ago, Michael Harrington authored his incisive depiction of poverty in the United States, aptly titled The Other America. The bestselling booknamed one of the ten most influential books of the twentieth century by Timeis widely believed to have inspired John F. Kennedys commitment to addressing the dire conditions of the invisible poor, whom Harrington noted generally lived in rural or inner-city isolation, making them easier to ignore. After Kennedys assassination, this commitment was passed on to his successor, culminating in Lyndon Johnsons declaration of an unconditional war on poverty.
West Virginias problems figured prominently in Harringtons narrative. In one evocative passage, he describes the paradox of the states beauty and its grave socioeconomic conditions.Driving through this area, particularly in the spring or the fall, one perceives the loveliness, the openness, the high hills, streams, and lush growth. However, beauty can be a mask for ugliness, and this is what happens in the Appalachians.
This ugliness masked by supreme natural beauty has not disappeared in the fifty years since Harrington wrote these words. As a lifelong West Virginian who was raised among the southern coalfields of this state, Ive witnessed firsthand the misery that permeates life here. This irony is deep, Harrington writes, for everything that turns the landscape into an idyll for the urban traveler conspires to hold the people down. They suffer terribly at the hands of this beauty. The suffering has largely come at the hands of the coal industry, which for the past century has purchased the blind loyalty of the states most influential institutions as it exploited the population for labor in criminally dangerous conditions, all while destroying the pristine grandeur of the environment to extract the abundant coal below the surface.
theHandpuppet
(19,964 posts)Rec'd and kicked.
awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)they are killing the natural beauty, too.
theHandpuppet
(19,964 posts)awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)so people can really see how ugly it is.
theHandpuppet
(19,964 posts)No photo could do it justice.
Here are two other good sites:
http://appvoices.org/
http://ilovemountains.org/
awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)I am guilty of making fun of West Virginia in the past, but it used to be so beautiful.
theHandpuppet
(19,964 posts)But my ancestors on both sides come from Kentucky and WV and I live in WV now. My father worked the N&W RR and when I was a girl he would take us kids on long train rides through the mountains down to Bluefield (WV) and Pikeville (KY). I saw a lot back then that I'll never forget.
awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)coal miner. My GF served in WWII, came back, and went to college and became a Methodist minister. My paternal GF also served, and came back and worked for the USPS. I am two generations removed from Appalachian poverty, something that far too many of my kinfolk did not escape.
awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)the company I work for decided to give a name to our little store we have for shirts and the like. They decided to call it The Company Store. No one could understand my objections to this name.
theHandpuppet
(19,964 posts)Sheesh. I wonder if the folks running the company would like to settle their accounts in scrip.
awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)A word I haven't heard in some time. You know your history.
theHandpuppet
(19,964 posts)I would love to see Rachel Maddow do some shows from Appalachia, bring the issues and people of the region to the attention of the whole country just like Robert Kennedy did so many years ago. Interview some of the democrats and republicans who have their hands in the coal purse. I DO think that could make a huge difference.