National Review takes on Kentucky's "White Ghetto"

[Indy Texas]

This longform piece is an interesting read and it's one of the more circumspect pieces on poor Americans that you'll find in the conservative Interwebs.

Kevin Williamson writes of rural Appalachia for what it is and was, rather than attempt to wax poetic about some sort of Potemkin idyll of American freedom and self-reliance.

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And unlike most conservative writers, he frames Appalachia's problems in economic terms rather than attributing them solely to moral and social decline, as writers like Charles Murray often do.

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And he touches on an issue most people of his persuasion generally prefer to pretend doesn't exist - that of social stratification and immobility.

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He's even willing to overturn the conservative emphasis on marriage as a surefire cure for poverty.

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[Bandit3 the Worker]

I pretty much gave up on this article when it mentioned "food-stamp Pepsi." There is no such thing as "food-stamp Pepsi" in Kentucky. Food stamps can't be spent on snack foods such as Pepsi.

[Link]

I pretty much gave up on this article when it mentioned "food-stamp Pepsi." There is no such thing as "food-stamp Pepsi" in Kentucky. Food stamps can't be spent on snack foods such as Pepsi.

Are you sure?

[Bandit3 the Worker]

Are you sure?

In Kentucky, you cannot buy soda and candy with food stamps.

[DINGO Joe]

Are you sure?

In Kentucky, you cannot buy soda and candy with food stamps.

Maybe you're thinking of WIC? 

[Bandit3 the Worker]

Also, the Nicholas Kristof story he cites was discredited. You can't get SSI just for being illiterate. That was a meme put out as an excuse for attacking people on SSI.

[Link]

Are you sure?

In Kentucky, you cannot buy soda and candy with food stamps.

                         

[Bandit3 the Worker]

Are you sure?

In Kentucky, you cannot buy soda and candy with food stamps.

                         

The Louisville mayor doesn't have to, because it's already limited.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

Are you sure?

In Kentucky, you cannot buy soda and candy with food stamps.

                         

The Louisville mayor doesn't have to, because it's already limited.

Source? I did some googling and everything I found was either silent or contradicted you.

I've seen a sign at Kroger that lists the items you can't buy with food stamps. That's not Kroger policy, that's the law.

[badgate]

Or maybe it's just a sign intended to intimidate people from using SNAP $ on those things. What does the cash register do; reject their card?

[Bandit3 the Worker]

Or maybe it's just a sign intended to intimidate people from using SNAP $ on those things. What does the cash register do; reject their card?

I've never tried it. It also says food stamps can't be used on hot foods that the store sells, even if they're actually real meal items and not junk food.

[Link]

Are you sure?

In Kentucky, you cannot buy soda and candy with food stamps.

Maybe you're thinking of WIC? 

I think he's thinking of WIC.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

I thought WIC was abolished in 1996.

[Link]

I thought WIC was abolished in 1996.

Honestly man, is there are Google outage where you live?

[DINGO Joe]

Also, the Nicholas Kristof story he cites was discredited. You can't get SSI just for being illiterate. That was a meme put out as an excuse for attacking people on SSI.

You are correct about this.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

So what is the answer?

Some combination of education, entrepreneurship/partnering with business, and maybe infrastructure?

[Bandit3 the Worker]

So what is the answer?

Restarting the war on poverty, which we haven't been fighting in 30 years.

[Indy Texas]

So what is the answer?

Restarting the war on poverty, which we haven't been fighting in 30 years.

These people already get food stamps, disability, SSI and a host of other support. I'm not suggesting we should take those away or that those somehow caused these problems. But what do you want to give these people that they aren't already being given? A jobs program? How do you open a factory on the side of a mountain or at the bottom of a valley when geography and logistics tell you that's an absurd idea. Or do we throw a bunch of money at some tech startups, coerce them to move to Eastern Kentucky, and cross our fingers and hope that in a few years these poor hillbillies will be making $12 an hour with benefits at Starbucks mixing the lattes that the educated, non-Kentuckian tech workers demand, and selling the artisanal Appalachian handicrafts that the tech workers will display on the walls of their lofts in some refurbished Main Street building? Or that they'll form into legions of banjo-playing troubadours who make money selling indie folk music on iTunes and playing gigs at the local coffeehouse, encouraged by the cultured outsiders who descended upon their holler?

Williamson pretty succinctly said that those who can do more go elsewhere. Those who can't will stay behind. They weren't doing much a hundred years ago either, save for running moonshine and hunting small varmints. The problem with places like Owsley County is that you can't blame the classic Leftist bogeymen like globalization or deregulation or neoliberalism. It isn't Detroit or Cleveland or Elkhart. These people were never anything but poor to begin with. They never had blue-collar, middle class jobs with pensions to begin with. They never lived an Eisenhower Era idyll of one-story bungalows and Pontiacs and bowling leagues. The entire arc of the broadly-distributed prosperity and historic income gains that the rest of the country experienced from 1945 to the early 1970s never touched them.

[DINGO Joe]

Happened to just go by the Lexington Herald to try to find a very extensive series they did on the coal country and there were three stories from today involving counties all adjacent to Owsley.

Former Kentucky basketball hero and State Agriculture Commissioner/Lt. Governor nominee Ritchie Farmer is going to jail for all sorts of malfeasance.  (From Clay County)

http://www.kentucky.com/2014/01/14/3033479/farmer-sentenced-to-more-than.html

The sheriff of Jackson county arrested the judge-executive and treasurer after they basically stripped him of his police force and budget.

http://www.kentucky.com/2014/01/14/3033380/sheriff-arrests-judge-executive.html

and

43 people were indicted in Leslie county in a federal meth investigation.

http://www.kentucky.com/2014/01/14/3034029/43-people-are-indicted-in-leslie.html

Fun times

[Reaganfan]

No joke about Mayor Long being in since Eisenhower. Elected in '58.

[TNF]

So what is the answer?

Some combination of education, entrepreneurship/partnering with business, and maybe infrastructure?

Translation: low-wage, non-union, no-benefit jobs.

[Link]

Happened to just go by the Lexington Herald to try to find a very extensive series they did on the coal country and there were three stories from today involving counties all adjacent to Owsley.

Former Kentucky basketball hero and State Agriculture Commissioner/Lt. Governor nominee Ritchie Farmer is going to jail for all sorts of malfeasance.  (From Clay County)

http://www.kentucky.com/2014/01/14/3033479/farmer-sentenced-to-more-than.html

The sheriff of Jackson county arrested the judge-executive and treasurer after they basically stripped him of his police force and budget.

http://www.kentucky.com/2014/01/14/3033380/sheriff-arrests-judge-executive.html

and

43 people were indicted in Leslie county in a federal meth investigation.

http://www.kentucky.com/2014/01/14/3034029/43-people-are-indicted-in-leslie.html

Fun times

I wonder why the Fox Noise concern trolls that are always demanding to know what Obama is going to do about issues in Chicago never seem to want to talk about what the Senate minority leader is going to do about the issues of his home state in Appalachia.  Are we to believe that Republicans just instinctually care more about black people than white people?

[pbrower2a]

I thought WIC was abolished in 1996.

It still exists in Michigan, and it is easy to get -- easier than SNAP. The state pushes it so that it can promote good nutrition for pregnant women (and their forming babies) and infants. What one can get on it is severely limited. That said, much stuff is of suspect nutritional value.

Basically -- organic varieties are not available for anything (probably due to cost). It's complicated -- but so is nutrition. Junk food, meat, and processed foods are off the list. Potatoes and rice are not on the list, but beans are.  Milk, some cheese, peanut butter (but not peanut-butter with anything added, eggs, cereals (highly specific), juices (highly specific), fresh fruits and vegetables (but not potatoes), soy beverages, breads, and tortillas are on the list.  

http://michigan.gov/documents/mdch/DCH-0237_MI-WIC_Food_List-English_346780_7.pdf

Policies may vary between states.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

One way to improve the situation in Appalachia would be reinvigorated labor unions.

[pbrower2a]

Happened to just go by the Lexington Herald to try to find a very extensive series they did on the coal country and there were three stories from today involving counties all adjacent to Owsley.

Former Kentucky basketball hero and State Agriculture Commissioner/Lt. Governor nominee Ritchie Farmer is going to jail for all sorts of malfeasance.  (From Clay County)

http://www.kentucky.com/2014/01/14/3033479/farmer-sentenced-to-more-than.html

Republican pol.

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I wonder why a sheriff would be stripped of a police force and a budget. I can't say anything about partisanship, but the usual way for honest pols to deal with a corrupt or ineffective sheriff is firing or impeachment -- or turning the matter to State law enforcement.  

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Meth is non-partisan. Its users aren't likely voters.

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As I recall, some of the counties that voted most resolutely against Barack Obama were

(1) very poor
(2) very white
(3) very rural
(4) very low in educational achievement

Such well describes much of Kentucky.
according to the electoral tool that the New York Times made available.