Appalachia needs more bus tours and actual investment

[democracy1st]

One has to be very humble when you look at the Appalachian mountain region,the projects aka the hood,the barrio etc. Quite a few Americans struggle and don't have a clue as to how they can break out of their current situation.
Without doing any research I can almost guarantee that rightwing radio covers 95% of the talk radio circuit in Appalachia.


Flashback to the Jesse Jackson "Reinvest in America" Tour,one of my past complaints about Rev. Jackson was that he allowed himself to appear so pro black that no one would approach him.
Well the Appalachian bus tour definitely did wonders as far as changing that perception.

The money we wasted in the Middle East could have been used more wisely here at home.

Here's the links to the Appalachian bus tour check it out,some of you probably never knew it happened.
http://reinvest-in-america.org/daily.htm




Appalachia’s Hard Truths by Rev Jesse Jackson

The hills of Appalachia have a hard truth about them. This is God’s country – stark, untamed yet, rich in coal, scarred by man. In Appalachia, reality hits you in the face like a hard fist, and exposes the rhetoric of Washington for what it is.

In Washington, George Bush hails the economy as strong. “My plan is working,” he says. In McClellentown, Pennsylvania, people know better. Good jobs are going abroad; unemployment is up. Pennsylvania has lost about 159,000 manufacturing jobs since Bush took office. They are not replaced by the part-time, short-term service jobs that are being created. Nearly 70,000 workers in Pennsylvania have exhausted their unemployment benefits while looking for a job that could pay the rent or the mortgage.

George Bush celebrates his education reforms, and pushes to put public money in private school vouchers. In Appalachia, kids travel 2 hours on the bus one-way to get to school. Those schools need resources to attract good teachers, upgrade dated textbooks and technology. Bush’s broken promise on funding poor schools costs the children of Beckley, West Virginia big time. Soaring college costs make it harder for the children of Appalachia to get the college educations that they have earned and that they need.

The people of Appalachia understand it. They know that the children raised in the affluent suburbs have a separate and unequal opportunity to succeed. Those children get the good teachers, the modern schools, and the advanced courses. Their children are left behind not for lack of intelligence or hard work but for lack of opportunity.

But when this nation goes to war, the young men and women of Appalachia are among the first to respond. These are proud people who volunteer to defend their country. They send their children off to the military, confident their leaders will not abuse their trust. When their children are photographed humiliating and torturing Iraqi prisoners, they are stunned. They support their commander in chief. But they aren’t about to believe that their kids did this on their own without pressure or orders from above. And they are right about that.

Black lung disease still kills in Appalachia. Life is shorter; many are crippled from the mines that still dot these hills. But fewer people have health care, and ever more are underinsured, a serious illness away from bankruptcy. Companies are cutting health care benefits for retirees and hiking prices on workers. And Washington responds by passing a prescription drug bill that prohibits Medicare from negotiating with the drug companies for a lower price. Those betrayals don’t make much sense in Athens, Ohio.

This week, I am joining with union leaders – Cecil Roberts of the United Mine Workers, Gerald McEntee of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Workers, Leo Gerard of the United Steelworkers – on a bus trip through the hills and valleys of southeastern Ohio, West Virginia and western Pennsylvania.

Our purpose is to expose the reality of poverty in America. Most poor people are not on welfare; they work everyday. They are not African American. They tend to be white, young female and single. They take the work they can get. They do the hard jobs.

They make up beds in fancy resorts. They clean the rooms. They bathe the bodies of the sick in hospitals. But when they get sick, they cannot lie down in the beds that they make up every day.

Washington calls on them to defend the nation. It sends them to the deserts of Iraq. They pay the price in blood for the hubris and miscalculations of our leaders. Yet when they come home, Washington turns its back. The Bush White House insists that we cut taxes on the wealthy rather than invest in the poor. Build schools in Iraq but not in Parkersburg, West Virginia. Ship jobs abroad, outsource hope in these hills, and call it prosperity.

It is time to change course. We need a plan to reinvest in America. Make Appalachia the center of investment in renewable energy. Build schools and make college affordable for all who earn it. Repeal the perverse tax breaks and incentives that reward companies for moving jobs abroad.

Appalachia holds a mirror to America. What kind of country are we? When we call on the sons and daughters of Appalachia to fight, what commitment do we make to them in return? Surely it cannot be that we will spend $200 billion on defeating and rebuilding Iraq, even as we starve investment in schools and good jobs in southern Ohio. Appalachia is too often ignored, but it tells a stark truth. It is time for America to listen.

http://reinvest-in-america.org/pr_6804.htm

[theHandpuppet]

1. Thank You

A big K&R for a thread which invites real discourse.

:kick:

[marions ghost]

3. so

what would you think about "bus tours" as a help to WV economy. There's already a fair amount of tourism in the state. I wouldn't like to see more.

[theHandpuppet]

4. This is the first tour I'd put on the schedule

I wrote this during the Kerry campaign but it's just as relevant today...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

Some simple things first, then some more complex...

Edited on Fri Oct-22-04 02:14 PM by theHandpuppet

First of all, its amazing to me just how quickly how so many of those who would describe themselves as "progressives" turn to angry insults and stereotyping when discussing the Appalachian vote. (Not directing that remark at you, BTW.) We as Dems have to kick this kind of blind bigotry right out of our thinking and our vocabulary (and that includes pics of "toothless hillbillies" which accompany so many posts. We're not going to reach ANYONE with such a display of disrespect).

Secondly, you don't have to share the concerns or the "live the lifestyle" (whatever that means) of people in WV to truly understand and address their concerns. I waited through three debates to hear one or both of the candidates address some particular concern that would resonate particularly with West Virginians. Guess who did? Yes, believe it or not it was GEORGE BUSH, with his stated committment to the development of "clean coal technologies". Doesn't matter whether or not the committment was real -- the fact that he even verbalized it put him front and center in the very living rooms of the people of WV in recognizing their concerns in front of a national audience! I couldn't BELIEVE Kerry let him grab that issue and then failed to follow up.

Further, I would fervently hope that President Kerry -- like Robert Kennedy did long ago -- will take up the banner of the poor and disenfranchised in rural America, so we may begin to heal the wounds in this country. Develop programs that will encourage more physicians to practice in rural America, as well as draw our best teachers. Initiate programs that offer Appalachian kids the opportunity to go to college without having to fight on the front lines to earn a dollar (WV disproportionately supplies the US with military recruits). Stop the flight of young people from Appalachia by creating a NEW industry to supplement the old -- companies that are the forefront of alternative energy technologies -- and let the people of West Virginia and Kentucky share in the jobs that can be created by the development of clean coal technologies. Revitalize the railroad industry in this nation, an industry that once provided many a family in Appalachia with their best hope of a well-paying job with benefits. That's just for starters.

Finally, about the crafty way the Repukes have won the media war with so many of these folks.... we know they're all sound byte, which brings up that old saying, "a picture is worth a thousand words". President Kerry should, as one of his first plans of office, schedule a nice, long train trip through Appalachia for his Secretaries of Education, of HHS, Labor, Commerce, of the Interior and the Vice President himself. We're not talking the Orient Express here, but the same kind of grimy train I often took with my father through the back mountains down to places like Beckley and Bluefield. Each of our esteemed Secretaries will be provided with a lunch of white bread and government surplus cheese, as well as one yellow legal pad and a #2 pencil for taking notes. Then they can take a GOOD, LONG HARD LOOK at what it's truly like to be poor and despised and forgotten in America. They will stop the train at places that have no station and talk to REAL people. Sit at their tables, break bread with them. If President Kerry's "Train of Healing" is scheduled for summer, make sure the train has no AC or, if wintertime, that it has no heat. Let it sit on the tracks for a few days with no way out and nowhere to go. Cut off their cell phones to boot, and let them get a real feel for what it's like to suffocate under the weight of isolation. At every stop each of the esteemed Secretaries shall be required to invite one Appalachian family to spend a week with them, in their own tasteful homes, in Washington DC -- all expenses paid. Let these people tell their own stories in front of an apathetic nation.

For upon their return, President Kerry will require the reports of his Secretaries be submitted to an independent commission to be immediately convened upon completion of the "Healing Train Tour". For his part, the President should agree to implement changes to existing programs and/or creation of new programs that will provide the kind of jobs, education and basic health care that will allow these very proud folks the chance to lift themselves up and take part once again in this society. Make the American dream real for them again -- and make it now.

Anyway, that's all I would have to say to our future President (as well as my fellow Dems) on that subject, for what it's worth. Unlike too many others here in WV, I'm either a hopeless optimist or perhaps hopelessly naive to still believe these words will not fall on deaf ears.

[marions ghost]

6. I see...

so that's the kind of bus tour (or train trip) that you mean. Excellent idea. Send this idea to Obama and Edwards. If they or some other high-ranking politician sponsored this, a powerful documentary could be made, so that others around the country could understand Appalachia and stop this grotesque stereotyping. It is not cool for intelligent liberals to be so narrow-minded.

Put people to work in some more environmentally sound energy-related industries in WV. Point towards a better future for this and other depressed areas. The Dems must do this. If they don't they will have failed in a fundamental way.

:thumbsup: to you handpuppet

[Clark2008]

2. Rightwing radio covers 100 percent of most markets in

northern Appalachia, southern Appalachia, the entire South and the mid-West.

We had Lionel on for a short time, but that was axed when people actually started listening to it.

[theHandpuppet]

5. Investment can take many forms

But an investment in education and health care must be a priority. Greater incentives must be offered to those willing to teach or heal in Appalachia.

This post was written by DUer "QC" in 2003 but bears repeating....

Excellent article in the Boston Globe about early death--frequently due to bad health care and the like--in Appalachia.

Some key passages:

The health of residents in parts of Appalachia has deteriorated so much that a boy born in McDowell County has a life expectancy lower than that of babies in 34 of the world's developing nations, among them some of the most impoverished -- Tajikistan, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Mongolia, and Vietnam....

"This is a society that's been used up and thrown away," said Franki Patton Rutherford, director of Big Creek People in Action in the nearby town of Caretta, which provides maternal and infant care to the poor. "The folks who have remained here are beginning to show the stresses and strains of practically a whole generation without an economic future...."

Sharon Denham, an associate professor in the School of Nursing at Ohio University who has studied health care in the Appalachian region, said one of the reasons for early deaths is the high levels of stress endured by people living in poverty.

"What is it like to live with poverty your entire life, and worry day after day about how you are going to feed your children?" she said. "Sometimes we need to look in the dirt or the sky for a germ. But the stresses of a society may also be a factor."

Some real food for thought here. If there was ever a cause the Democratic Party should take up, rural poverty is it. As the article points out, we're not only talking about Appalachia here. This kind of poverty is found all across America, and it is literally killing people by the thousands.