Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2017/11/02/but-you-cant-make-em-think.html
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Delusion and denial are mighty forces. Too bad for these people and their families and communities, but they are choosing to be left behind now.
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120 people have signed up for jobs retraining outside the mines, far short of the target of 700,
So all of these non-retiring age coal miners who are extremely likely to lose their job over the next 5 years who complain that these retraining programs is ‘socialism’ are probably going to end up on welfare.
Well, it would be interesting that the one to four guys who used to work at these mines who took the retraining programs walked into one of those small town bars one night and bought all the other former miners there who didn’t take this deal a bunch of free beers on the house. That way they could afford to drink about how ironic that situation is.
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Coal is the miner’s nicotine of ignorance. Out of work miners spitting RedMan into a coal stove on a cold frosty morning with FoxNews on the TV are what we are up against here. These folks are believers. Faith in church. Faith in coal. Problem is, as we all know, is what FoxNews is preaching and their false promises and expectations go unquestioned.
It’s going to be a huge disappointment when they finally realize they have been lied to by the government and the coal companies. Welfare programs and social security payouts will be the future for these people. Until trump does away with them.
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More likely they’ll all be complaining about how the government failed them since the retrained folks won’t have jobs because there weren’t enough candidates to bother opening a new facility there.
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I hardly have any sympathy for these guys, the writing has been on the wall for the last… what… 10 years? That coal will become less and less relevant. Even if they did open up new coal mines it’s still a doomed and declining industry, failing to act on the warning signs is their prerogative. No one is putting them out of a job other than themselves.
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That’s a likely scenario too. Of course, there’s also the possibility in that bar scenario that the retrained workers could have moved away from that town and just took that drive out to that dive bar shrugs
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Then maybe they should be ineligible for welfare? If we refuse to pay welfare for people who ‘won’t work’, then if they refuse federal retraining, the result should be the same- no aid whatsoever.
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When you go tRump, you never go back, apparently.
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I know the area well, and it sounds about right.
The people, when you talk to them face to face, are always nice. However, the attitudes you find in these rural areas are downright absurd.
I have known people in latrobe pa (population 8k) who never have been to Greensburg (10 miles down the road, population 14k ) because that’s the “big city”. Don’t even get them started about going to Pittsburgh because “they have all those blacks”.
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Yeah, more than ten years actually. Coal peaked in the early 80’s and has been on a steady decline ever since. Thanks to fracking, natural gas is out-competing coal in the fossil fuels market, and Trump also promised to boost fracking (he basically campaigned on “I promise, you will have your cake and eat it too!”) Unless Trump directs the government to start buying coal for no good reason it’s unlikely they are going to get their coal jobs back.
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If Trump had been running for President in the 80s, he probably would have promised to save the struggling typewriter-repair and cassette-tape manufacturing industries.
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I could drum up a list of anecdotes a mile long about former industrial/manufacturing workers I have met that have a “i wish I would have done x sooner” story. So many blew off the chance to move on and instead decided to “stick it out” not just by not moving away but also by staying stuck in the same frame of mind.
When western pa collapsed (steel) it lost so many good people. Most everybody I know that moved away 70s/80s/90s is doing way better than if they stayed. Lots of folks that remained behind are either bitter or in some sense hopeless dreamers about their future.
Edit: I’m talking about the working class folks I know. No college, trade jobs, ect.
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Thanks Trump.
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I don’t get it. Coal jobs pay good money, sure, but as far as safety/ worker exploitation they’d make better money in prostitution or the drug trade.
poof - that was my sympathy evaporating …
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Used to pay good money - according to the linked article, the coal jobs available are temporary, non-union jobs paying $13/hour. Horrible safety record and horrible pay now.
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If they want more coal jobs they will need to throw their bodies into the machines which replaced them. Most of the job loss is from machines doing most of the work, as well as revised mining techniques.
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They can get coal jobs by working for Home Depot and selling me some charcoal bags. Close enough i’d say.
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