Interesting Article about Rural Rage in America

Started by Valmy, October 13, 2016, 08:59:47 AM

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Josquius

Quote from: Syt on October 13, 2016, 11:30:43 AM
Quote from: Tamas on October 13, 2016, 11:22:19 AMChaos benefits those with the means to capitalise on it. Brute force, agression, ambition, wealth, power. Everyone else gets fucked.

Any crisis benefits some more than others. Look at this forum; how many people here have been directly affected by the 2008 economic crisis? I don't mean that their assets lost in value, I mean their daily life being severely affected.
Hey.
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Tamas

Quote from: Tyr on October 13, 2016, 11:32:33 AM
Quote from: Syt on October 13, 2016, 11:30:43 AM
Quote from: Tamas on October 13, 2016, 11:22:19 AMChaos benefits those with the means to capitalise on it. Brute force, agression, ambition, wealth, power. Everyone else gets fucked.

Any crisis benefits some more than others. Look at this forum; how many people here have been directly affected by the 2008 economic crisis? I don't mean that their assets lost in value, I mean their daily life being severely affected.
Hey.

Oh cry me a river.

grumbler

The article missed, I think, the point.  There has always been the city-country divide since cities first rose.  Cities are always a half-century or more ahead of the countryside (in good ways as well as bad ways).  There have always been Trumpian elements in the politics of the countryside (and the poor parts of the city) but there have not been enough magical thinkers in the US to seriously challenge logic and reason as the basis for politics since Andrew Jackson.

So, the question isn't "why are the disenfranchised/left behind so disenchanted with the system?" as it is "why are so many people who have it so good so disenchanted with the system?" I don't think a long series of anecdotal and strawman arguments like Wong gives us (seriously, he paid no attention whatsoever to all the news stories about the devastation of rural Mississippi and Louisiana and blames city dwellers for his willful ignorance?) get us any closer to the answer.  Wong doesn't even know the question.
The future is all around us, waiting, in moments of transition, to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born in pain.   -G'Kar

Bayraktar!

Syt

Quote from: grumbler on October 13, 2016, 11:53:35 AM"why are so many people who have it so good so disenchanted with the system?"

That's also a good question. E.g. a significant amount voters for right-wing AfD in Germany, for example, are by all means middle class - secure job, own house, two or more cars, family, multiple vacations a year, living in suburbia, but of very conservative attitudes and keen on maintaining their own position in society. In many ways what in Germany could be called "Spießbürger."
I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.
—Stephen Jay Gould

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CountDeMoney

Quote from: Syt on October 13, 2016, 11:30:43 AM
Quote from: Tamas on October 13, 2016, 11:22:19 AMChaos benefits those with the means to capitalise on it. Brute force, agression, ambition, wealth, power. Everyone else gets fucked.

Any crisis benefits some more than others. Look at this forum; how many people here have been directly affected by the 2008 economic crisis? I don't mean that their assets lost in value, I mean their daily life being severely affected.

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The Minsky Moment

Quote from: grumbler on October 13, 2016, 11:53:35 AM
So, the question isn't "why are the disenfranchised/left behind so disenchanted with the system?" as it is "why are so many people who have it so good so disenchanted with the system?" I don't think a long series of anecdotal and strawman arguments like Wong gives us (seriously, he paid no attention whatsoever to all the news stories about the devastation of rural Mississippi and Louisiana and blames city dwellers for his willful ignorance?) get us any closer to the answer.  Wong doesn't even know the question.

The corollary being - why are rural voters responding so strongly to an anti-immigrant message when for the most part they are being badly impacted by immigration?  Or for that matter anti-trade when agriculture and energy (over-represented in rural areas) benefit from trade, and even manufacturing has held up better than in urban areas? 
The purpose of studying economics is not to acquire a set of ready-made answers to economic questions, but to learn how to avoid being deceived by economists.
--Joan Robinson

Valmy

Quote"This is a Russian warship. I propose you lay down arms and surrender to avoid bloodshed & unnecessary victims. Otherwise, you'll be bombed."

Zmiinyi defenders: "Russian warship, go fuck yourself."

garbon

QuoteHoly cockslaps, that makes it look like Obama's blue party is some kind of fringe political faction that struggles to get 20 percent of the vote. The blue parts, however, are more densely populated -- they're the cities. In the upper left, you see the blue Seattle/Tacoma area, lower down is San Francisco and then L.A. The blue around the dick-shaped Lake Michigan is made of cities like Minneapolis, Milwaukee, and Chicago. In the northeast is, of course, New York and Boston, leading down into Philadelphia, which leads into a blue band which connects a bunch of southern cities like Charlotte and Atlanta.

:huh:

Pretty decent chunks of blue (say like in New England) are not urban or even really suburban.
"I've never been quite sure what the point of a eunuch is, if truth be told. It seems to me they're only men with the useful bits cut off."
I drank because I wanted to drown my sorrows, but now the damned things have learned to swim.

Valmy

Quote from: garbon on October 13, 2016, 02:17:21 PM
QuoteHoly cockslaps, that makes it look like Obama's blue party is some kind of fringe political faction that struggles to get 20 percent of the vote. The blue parts, however, are more densely populated -- they're the cities. In the upper left, you see the blue Seattle/Tacoma area, lower down is San Francisco and then L.A. The blue around the dick-shaped Lake Michigan is made of cities like Minneapolis, Milwaukee, and Chicago. In the northeast is, of course, New York and Boston, leading down into Philadelphia, which leads into a blue band which connects a bunch of southern cities like Charlotte and Atlanta.

:huh:

Pretty decent chunks of blue (say like in New England) are not urban or even really suburban.

Yeah and some cities are red. The Mississippi and Rio Grande valleys are not exactly urban either. It is not an exact science.
Quote"This is a Russian warship. I propose you lay down arms and surrender to avoid bloodshed & unnecessary victims. Otherwise, you'll be bombed."

Zmiinyi defenders: "Russian warship, go fuck yourself."

garbon

Quote from: Valmy on October 13, 2016, 02:18:28 PM
Quote from: garbon on October 13, 2016, 02:17:21 PM
QuoteHoly cockslaps, that makes it look like Obama's blue party is some kind of fringe political faction that struggles to get 20 percent of the vote. The blue parts, however, are more densely populated -- they're the cities. In the upper left, you see the blue Seattle/Tacoma area, lower down is San Francisco and then L.A. The blue around the dick-shaped Lake Michigan is made of cities like Minneapolis, Milwaukee, and Chicago. In the northeast is, of course, New York and Boston, leading down into Philadelphia, which leads into a blue band which connects a bunch of southern cities like Charlotte and Atlanta.

:huh:

Pretty decent chunks of blue (say like in New England) are not urban or even really suburban.

Yeah and some cities are red. The Mississippi and Rio Grande valleys are not exactly urban either. It is not an exact science.

Well when a pretty image fails across large swathes of 6 states (no matter how small they might be), one should wonder if one picked the right image.
"I've never been quite sure what the point of a eunuch is, if truth be told. It seems to me they're only men with the useful bits cut off."
I drank because I wanted to drown my sorrows, but now the damned things have learned to swim.

katmai

Quote from: grumbler on October 13, 2016, 11:53:35 AM
The article missed, I think, the point.  There has always been the city-country divide since cities first rose. 


Not all of us are old enough to remember that far Grumbles!
Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son

grumbler

Quote from: katmai on October 13, 2016, 02:35:58 PM
Quote from: grumbler on October 13, 2016, 11:53:35 AM
The article missed, I think, the point.  There has always been the city-country divide since cities first rose. 


Not all of us are old enough to remember that far Grumbles!

Then you should read my book.  Or play Civ VI.
The future is all around us, waiting, in moments of transition, to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born in pain.   -G'Kar

Bayraktar!

dps

Quote from: Tyr on October 13, 2016, 09:31:13 AM

In the US your small town goes to shit and that's it. No hope anywhere for miles around. In the UK meanwhile there's probably a decent city just 20 miles away. 

I rather question whether there's a decent city anywhere in the UK outside London.

Beyond that, though, it's not really that there's no hope in rural areas in the US.  In rural and even suburban areas of the US, almost everybody has a car, no matter how poor.  Pretty much the only people who don't are elderly people who have given up driving because they aren't really physically capable of do so anymore.  So a new start is just a tank full of gasoline away.

Urban poverty is much worse.  Only in the big cities do you get significant numbers of working age people without cars, so they have no way out.  And even if they did have cars, where are they gonna go?  There's already in the city.

mongers

Quote from: dps on October 13, 2016, 03:42:15 PM
Quote from: Tyr on October 13, 2016, 09:31:13 AM

In the US your small town goes to shit and that's it. No hope anywhere for miles around. In the UK meanwhile there's probably a decent city just 20 miles away. 

I rather question whether there's a decent city anywhere in the UK outside London.

Beyond that, though, it's not really that there's no hope in rural areas in the US.  In rural and even suburban areas of the US, almost everybody has a car, no matter how poor.  Pretty much the only people who don't are elderly people who have given up driving because they aren't really physically capable of do so anymore.  So a new start is just a tank full of gasoline away.

Urban poverty is much worse.  Only in the big cities do you get significant numbers of working age people without cars, so they have no way out.  And even if they did have cars, where are they gonna go?  There's already in the city.

:wacko:
"We have it in our power to begin the world over again"

Duque de Bragança

Quote from: mongers on October 13, 2016, 03:44:28 PM
Quote from: dps on October 13, 2016, 03:42:15 PM
Quote from: Tyr on October 13, 2016, 09:31:13 AM

In the US your small town goes to shit and that's it. No hope anywhere for miles around. In the UK meanwhile there's probably a decent city just 20 miles away. 

I rather question whether there's a decent city anywhere in the UK outside London.

Beyond that, though, it's not really that there's no hope in rural areas in the US.  In rural and even suburban areas of the US, almost everybody has a car, no matter how poor.  Pretty much the only people who don't are elderly people who have given up driving because they aren't really physically capable of do so anymore.  So a new start is just a tank full of gasoline away.

Urban poverty is much worse.  Only in the big cities do you get significant numbers of working age people without cars, so they have no way out.  And even if they did have cars, where are they gonna go?  There's already in the city.

:wacko:

Bournemouth for mongers, at the very least.  :P