Just more thinning of one of the shallower ends of the US gene pool.
Then there’s this great article on how Trumpian Tariff’s will disproportionately impact areas of the US that voted for him…
Trump’s trade war could affect 11 million jobs
Trump’s rollback would kill an extra 1.4 to 2.4 people a year for every 100,000 people in those hardest-hit areas, compared to under the Obama plan, according to the EPA analysis. For West Virginia’s 1.8 million people, that would be equal to at least a couple dozen additional deaths a year.
About 24 additional deaths sounds like an unacceptable cost (as does the environmental damage) but I don’t know…
I’d like to hear from people who know this area well because I can only speak from, admittedly, little knowledge. But what I see are proud people with a history of doing dangerous work that have been slammed with low employment rates and a devastating lethal opioid crisis.
If someone told me that I could get back what I’ve known, however imperfect it was, to escape a currently intolerable situation or invest in a new unknown future that I can’t easily envision myself in (and have to trust people I’ve always thought looked down on me) I think I’d welcome the return to the past.
What I’m saying is that before one assumes the people here are stupid for not seeing/believing the threat to their health think about how the trade off might look to them. Depression, anxiety, drug addiction also kills or shortens lifespans and I’m sure they realize this.
GOODY!!!
“People here have had it with other people telling us what we need.
We know what we need. We need a job,”
Back in the ’ gold rush ’ days …
People who sold things TO the miners …
were always more successful at survival than the miners themselves —
If you wanted to strike it rich … you opened a mercantile and … ’ mined the miners '… so to speak —
If this guy needs a job … he should look into stone carving …
something along these lines —
It sounds like business could be brisk ! —
A job to die for, literally
Do you ever hear hard rock miners whine and bitch that all the hard rock mines are closed? I never have.
It’s just these people and they whine and bitch no matter what and everything we try to do to alleviate the problems they whine and bitch about are never right and they swear they just want to be left alone except if they are left alone they will either starve or od.
I’m really tired of these people - they are narrow minded and never consider for a second the greater good - the planet we live on that carbon is killing.
Sorry, can’t cough up a single particle of sympathy for these people. Husband was fired from a major IT job at 64 1/2 years of age. We scrambled and cried over our fate, but managed to stay afloat until he got a teaching job. The world moves on whether this community is ready or not. The Indians had a saying: a dead horse will not run no matter how hard you beat it.
The stupid part is believing there is any guaranteed positive part to the “tradeoff”. Cutting costs of operating a coal plant will just result in more money in the pockets of the owners, not more jobs. Any increase in usage of coal will come from the cheapest supplier, not necessarily WVA. The increased bystander deaths are real, the jobs are hypothetical and few. Is a 1 to 1 job to death ratio ok? No? How about 10 to 1?
he he …
The nature of our species …
We must adapt … we must change … we go out of our way to look for it ! —
Why would you buy the exact same car … as the one you had … when it wears out ? ? …
NO … you’d just repair that one … it’s cheaper …for sure —
We WANT that ’ different ’ style … that new do-dad …
The whole reality of our existence is how we change … learn …grow —
But just once … ONCE …
TELL me that I must do it for whatever reason … even pertaining to the greater good …
and I become restless … irritable … and discontented —
Will actually fight back and do something harmful just to make a point ----
jeeze … the human species is so fucked up … thanks doG —
Then what they are gambling on is that the money they make will offset the cost of the healthcare they’ll need for the rest of their lives.
I keep thinking about all the immigrants that came to this country for better opportunities, they left the Old Country because of the lack of opportunity.
Knotts, a coal miner for 35 years, isn’t fazed when he hears that warning, a couple of days after Trump’s West Virginia rally. He says the last thing people in coal country want is the government slapping down more controls on coal — and the air here in the remote West Virginia mountains seems fine to him.
This sounds eerily similar to the GOP base’s acceptance of control of our country’s governance by Russia. As long as they have a job, that’s what’s important. Who needs a functional democracy when you have a job, even if that job kills you?
You do know why there are tall fences around cemeteries … yes ? ? …
(people are just dying to get in …–
I get that. Basically everything we do entails some risk of shortening one’s life, and I think they could make an argument that shaving a couple of years off the end of 24 people’s lives is worth a better quality of life in the prime for 2,000 or whatever. But nobody is actually doing that. What makes me think they’re stupid is things like this:
shop owner Doris Keller figures that if Trump thinks something’s for the best, that’s good enough for her. “I just know this. I like Donald Trump and I think that he’s doing the right thing. I think he has the best interests of the regular common people at the forefront,” Keller says.
I totally get that they themselves have romanticized their traditions out of all reason - I totally understand that they want to stay where they are and have the whole world bring them a living. The rest of the country on the other hand, does what needs must - we get educated and go where the jobs are.
Nobody likes to be told they have to change - I understand that too. But they are asking the rest of the globe to bend to their sentimentality.
It gets old - I’ve seen more than my fair share of old mining towns in Colorado that have survived and gone on to thrive by changing, even though they didn’t want to. Telluride, Crested Butte, Aspen, those places are more successful now than they were as gold mining and silver mining boom towns.
I hate it like hell that they paved the road to 30 Mile Campground out of Creede finally. I spent a lot of my life on that road and i loved the fact that it was still a gravel road until last year.
Every thing changes and if you don’t believe it, look in the damn mirror. 
just a little note on that …
I grew up in Carbondale …which by it’s very name … was directly linked with the Mid-Continent Coal mines — It is on the way to Aspen from Glenwood Springs — The mines are completely shut down now … but were still active when I was a kid —
During that time … It was a heavily Republican town —
But since … seeing as all of the towns in the valley were forced to re-invent themselves … All of the towns have become majority Democratic —
Funny that …
They are considered ’ artsy - fartsy ’ … have morphed into culture hubs with art galleries … music venues … and are trying to attract the tourist trade —
Just outside of any city limit … it turns back into republican territory …
Farms and ranches …
Who cares, they al voted for him and will now reap the whirlwind. No jobs, opium addiction, health issues and potentially no health care.
Right? “He wants to kill us and we want to die.” Maybe we don’t need to interfere in that.
You know better than I then how that works.
There have been many changes up there that have broken my heart, pissed me off, annoyed the hell out of me. Same down here in Taos - the whole south end of town where there used to be almost nothing until Ranchos is now franchise land. But then there are a lot more people living in the Taos Valley than there used to be.
¯\ _ (ツ)_/¯
Making Black Lung Disease great again.