The Dark Rigidity of Fundamentalist Rural America

originally posted by: JohnnyCanuck

originally posted by: TruMcCarthy
I'm just wondering if this Canuck has ever visited or lived in middle America? These are decent, hard-working people, despite what leftist propaganda has told you. They don't deserve to be demonized by some out of touch racist elitist.

You could try asking.
I've probably seen more of the US than most Americans, and my comments on y'all are on record. And lets face it...had Trump run on the exact same platform...note for note... but called himself a Democrat, he would have been rejected by Fundamentalist Rural America. They'd have put a collective whammy on him.

Your lack of comprehension of middle America is breathtaking. I have traveled both the U.S. and Canada coast to coast and I find the same disconnects exist between the coastal elite and the true middle province Canadians that you seem to fixate on in the U.S. The great unwashed you are disparaging are the people that built our respective countries, fought its wars and fed the world.

The sad fact is that in middle American those who enjoy their rights and freedoms and asked for very little from their government were lied to and sold out by their own government which became infested with pretentious Progressive coastal elites. I value a good redneck with common sense more highly than a smug urbanite who feels that their expensive education somehow makes them a more intelligent and valuable human being.

When the corruption becomes so great that TPTB run for their bunkers the smug urban Progressive will realize that they are surrounded by millions of people who want what they have, at which point they will fully understand the laws of natural selection and social Darwinism and they will become refugees in their own cities. I wouldn't be surprised if a few of the frat boys don't find some of that religion you categorize as dark rural fundamentalism. I expect if there are any survivors they will thank god for finding a compassionate redneck to save them.

a reply to: Aazadan

if we outsourced food production elsewhere in the world.

Hahaa, second most stupid thing I've seen on ATS.
What, everyone move to the city and let the heartland grow weeds?
What are you smoking?

originally posted by: WilliamtheResoluteI value a good redneck with common sense more highly than a smug urbanite who feels that their expensive education somehow makes them a more intelligent and valuable human being.

Know what happened when society tried that? Because it's happened before. We got the bolshevik rebellion, a major famine, and Russia lost pretty much all of their skilled craftsmen.

Those educations don't make them better people, but it does give them the skills to perform more valuable tasks.

a reply to: Aazadan

"The town I mentioned living in previously, Marietta Ohio. I can point to pizza places there where every single employee has an engineering degree, but can't use it because there are no jobs and the people have no ambition."

Interesting, I was born and raised in that small town at the confluence of the Ohio and Muskingum Rivers. Seems fitting that a Progressive such as yourself would disparage a town that was the first city in the Northwest Territory and was founded by veterans of the American War of Independence. I left and I suggest that anyone who lives in a place of limited opportunity should follow suit. I also suggest that those who wish to live there be permitted to without judgment, I bet you attended Marietta College, that's were all the parents send their problem children who can't cut it in the Ivy League.

originally posted by: D8Tee
a reply to: Aazadan

if we outsourced food production elsewhere in the world.

Hahaa, second most stupid thing I've seen on ATS.
What, everyone move to the city and let the heartland grow weeds?
What are you smoking?

No, the people who enjoy those types of lives can go do it. Eventually, demand for food would be high enough that wages would encourage people to work there and grow food. Lets not kid ourselves though, that's peasant work. Who has such low ambition in their life that they want to be a peasant?

originally posted by: Aazadan

originally posted by: D8Tee
a reply to: Aazadan

if we outsourced food production elsewhere in the world.

Hahaa, second most stupid thing I've seen on ATS.
What, everyone move to the city and let the heartland grow weeds?
What are you smoking?

No, the people who enjoy those types of lives can go do it. Eventually, demand for food would be high enough that wages would encourage people to work there and grow food. Lets not kid ourselves though, that's peasant work. Who has such low ambition in their life that they want to be a peasant?

You've obviously never seen a modern farm with millions of dollars worth of equipment, 350 hp tractors that steer via GPS and have airconditioning and stereos. I'll just ignore your posts from now on, you are not worth wasting any time on.

Eventually food would be in demand enough? Do you have any idea how fast grocery shelves would empty if your supply chain broke down? You'd be one of the first to starve I'm sure, you don't seem to know your azz from a hole in the ground.

originally posted by: Aazadan

originally posted by: D8Tee
a reply to: Aazadan

if we outsourced food production elsewhere in the world.

Hahaa, second most stupid thing I've seen on ATS.
What, everyone move to the city and let the heartland grow weeds?
What are you smoking?

No, the people who enjoy those types of lives can go do it. Eventually, demand for food would be high enough that wages would encourage people to work there and grow food. Lets not kid ourselves though, that's peasant work. Who has such low ambition in their life that they want to be a peasant?

I am trying to give you the benefit of the doubt when it comes to your postings....but, I keep getting the sense that you're some millennial sitting in his parents basement making rash observations regarding things about which you obviously have no knowledge?

a reply to: WilliamtheResolute

No, I don't attend Marietta College. I went to WSCC for a few years (which is a joke of a school), and then I moved away and attend a small State University elsewhere in Ohio. Similar culture, similar size, worse off economically. Look up Portsmouth, it's a real gem of a town.

You're incorrectly labeling me a progressive though, I'm pretty much middle of the road. It's the culture that bothers me, not their politics. That's why I left. It's the sort of place, where the greatest career you can ever have, is to run a 10 employee business that doesn't innovate, but only copies their peers.

a reply to: Aazadan

When people decide to raise a family these small towns are exactly the kinds of places they chose, small towns are still the bedrock of American values. I like small towns because you can live well on 40-50K a year that would cost you over 100K a year to duplicate in a big city. You drive 10 minutes to work instead of "commute" where you ultimately end up sitting in traffic and you actually get more than a sullen glare from the people you meet....it's all relative.

a reply to: Aazadan

yes you can outsource food from other countries. but it's a bad idea. first and foremost you would have to pay a lot more for it. i have bought milk from the US, in Asia. it only cost more than $10 for a half gallon. and that in a country where most food is far cheaper than in the US. then there is the freshness issue. unless frozen fresh fruit an veggies have to be picked far too early, and even then treated with chemicals and specially cooled so it can be used due to having to travel. just look at the tasteless crap we have for bananas in the US, due to that. after eating a real, fresh bananas in Asia i can't be bothered to eat the garbage we get in the US. on top of that there is a dependency issue. is it anywhere near wise to be dependent on other countries for the food we must have? just how well has the dependency of oil from the middle east worked out over the years? or Japan's dependence on metal and other materials from the US and other countries before WW2? in fact Japan's dependence on other countries for raw materials is why they went to war. especially when the US cut them off from the supply of US scrap metal. that is the exact reasoning Japan has always stated that the war was forced upon them by the US. "we forced them to go to war, to get what they needed but we were not allowing them to get". and oil and raw materials like metal are not anywhere near as critically important as food is. food is the second most critically important strategic asset in the world. the only thing that is more important is fresh, potable water. only someone who is insane would put themselves in a position to be completely dependent on other countries for one of the two most important things in the world.

and the only reason food production holds no real economic value, is because it is so important that the government and the rich have worked hard to keep what farmers are paid low. at the same time ensuring the cost of that food remains artificially high in comparison to benefit the rich. while also insuring that it is cheap enough for people to buy. in short food prices are completely artificial. the fact is in times of shortage, like war rationing, famine and disaster, people make huge amounts of money selling food on the black market. that is the time food actually shows it's true economic value. the truth of the matter is that farmers should actually be the richest people in the world.

you are unfortunately right about those rural communities dying. and the reason is the false economics of it. many farms do not make enough to survive and pay their bills, on what they get paid. and the farm gets taken by the bank. expanding cities take some of the best farm lands to expand. the younger generations have a habit of leaving the farm, so they can make money. because they do not want to be in that situation. why toil at hard labor, often 7 days a week, 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, for no real pay, when you can do easy work and make money, only work 5 days a week, 8 or 9 hours a day, and even go on vacations?

a reply to: generik

why toil at hard labor, often 7 days a week, 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, for no real pay, when you can do easy work and make money, only work 5 days a week, 8 or 9 hours a day, and even go on vacations?

Sorry, but the farmers that I know own thousands of acres of land, have degrees in agriculture and earn six figure incomes.

Ahhh Merika..... Land of the herp home of the derp since 1776

originally posted by: VenatiusFortunatus
OK, I rarely respond to political threads, but yhis article was worthwhile. Yet, wrong. Sure, the yokals are all this by birth and verbal reinforcement. But this nation and was formed by those same types.

Actually, it wasn't. Read up on genealogy... the original immigrants were middle class merchants and others who could afford the trip across the ocean. Remember - Jamestown was starving because everyone was upper and middle class and nobody knew how to farm or do labor. It was the middle class that revolted, the middle class and upper class that set up the government. They did have indentured servants and some farmers, but this was not the group that the Southerners came from.

The first large wave (quite controversial) in the 1800's were Scottish tenant farmers who had been pushed off their land because the landowners wanted the land for sheep (called "The Removes".) In general, this is the source of the population of the southern states... that and the English, pushed out of the bigger cities, looking for opportunity.




Ask any Native. Each "colony" spun out similar offspring. Generation by generation.
The rural areas, white Americans,adopted many of there stubborn attitudes as a bulwark against moneyed interests exploiting them from the civil war through at least the 1950s. Change requires time.
Life itself, survival, effects changes. Yes,two generations ago, and now grandparents, retain the line. But times they are achanging, the 40 yo children of the hippie generation are all on the www. And ideas do find homes in even the strangest of places.
Too often change is rushed by those who want what they want and they want it now.

VF

The fundamentalists the article speaks of are not so different than the religious fundamentalists raising hell in the middle east and everywhere else they might go to.

....Ah dammit!, I said it....

Oh, #!...

a reply to: D8Tee

not any that i have ever known. relatives of mine have recently stopped farming. they were getting too old and their kids all were not willing to do the hard work, for the low pay, ie barely making ends meet. i hear the same story from farming families i know both in the US and Canada. i don't know any of the rich land baron/factory farmers.

originally posted by: generik
a reply to: D8Tee

not any that i have ever known. relatives of mine have recently stopped farming. they were getting too old and their kids all were not willing to do the hard work, for the low pay, ie barely making ends meet. i hear the same story from farming families i know both in the US and Canada. i don't know any of the rich land baron/factory farmers.

You mentioned Canada, the numbers look not too shabby would you agree?

The average net operating income in 2015 is forecast to be $77,287.
The average net worth per farm is expected to reach $2.7 million this year.

www.ctvnews.ca...

originally posted by: generik
a reply to: D8Tee

not any that i have ever known. relatives of mine have recently stopped farming. they were getting too old and their kids all were not willing to do the hard work, for the low pay, ie barely making ends meet. i hear the same story from farming families i know both in the US and Canada. i don't know any of the rich land baron/factory farmers.

Well that is a global problem. the Same thing is seen in Africa an India. Of course farms produce our food so there must be a structural economic problem. I am just about ready to get a small holding and kiss the city goodbye. Dark skies are fantastic.

originally posted by: MyHappyDogShiner
The fundamentalists the article speaks of are not so different than the religious fundamentalists raising hell in the middle east and everywhere else they might go to.

....Ah dammit!, I said it....

Oh, #!...

Nope ours have God on our side the others Satan. lol

a reply to: Aazadan

The sheer variety of "types" generates clashes of culture and ideas in the city. This is a good thing as people learn that theirs is not the only "right way". If you doubt me look at the restaurant scene in any metropolis. London rocks with fusion cuisines for all prices.

The problems that the OP has cited arise out of monocultures. Sure they have the web as a window to the greater world but many people just stick to a handful of websites/themes.

a reply to: JohnnyCanuck

While the author is (in my opinion) right to identify an adherence to religious dogma as a problem, it's clear from the language he chooses that even at the beginning of the article, he has (an already) prejudiced view of the communities he is describing.
"they don’t want to admit it is in large part because of the choices they’ve made and the horrible things they’ve allowed themselves to believe."
from para 1

Starting a piece in such a manner leads me to conclude that, rather like the subjects of his article, he's not open to contrary views.

The essence of the article seems to be "it's their own damn fault" complete with useful little tricks like saying "it's not the fault of immigrants that jobs are moved over seas"

Just look at that sentence...It's carefully crafted to defy the logic of complaining A) about companies shutting down US based factories and opening up new ones in third world economies and B) about a flood of cheap, low skilled labour driving wages down by don't of over supply.

The author plainly understands that these things are problems, but because they are sacred cows of his chosen political system, he has to do this side step so as to deny there is any legitimacy in people's concerns.

There were some important points he could have made about how things could be better for these people, but he was more concerned with pushing his own narrative than pushing the truth.

Quite ironic, but in no was surprising.

Anyway, thanks for the share, Johnny.