That was essentially the idea behind the 90’s welfare reform and “workfare”. And the assumption that people on welfare or in need of governmental help are neither willing to work or actually working was a chief component of the “welfare queen” dog whistle that lead to it. And that is still used to demonize minorities.
Suffice to say it didn’t work (or worked exactly as the right wanted it to) . It’s considered one of the biggest steps in the erosion of the social safety net.
It’s not that people who need public assistance don’t won’t to work. It’s that they often do, but can’t make ends meet. Or they can’t. Due to lack of jobs. Or access. Medical issues. etc.
Clickbait title. The article never makes the claim the title does, and provides many reasons - outside of trumpiasm - why people are not choosing retraining.
On top of that, job retraining programs are never very successful - even once the workers are out of work:
https://www.google.com/search?q=unemployed+don't+want+to+be+retrained
There’s a lot of things that prevent people from attempting or attending retraining, as it’s currently provided.
Just as happened in other industries - steel, automotive, linen, etc - people will be forced out of their jobs (slowly, mostly, but occasionally with a few big layoffs) and they’ll then do what they need to in order to maintain their standard of living. That often means taking whatever job they can, and a second job, leaving no time for retraining or education. They don’t have a years worth of savings, and the mortgage or rent is due every month.
So while it’s fun to blame Trump for this situation, the reality is more likely that it would be the same regardless of who held the executive branch this year.
I’m not trying to refute your point, because I agree with it. I only point out that it wasn’t actually in the Bible.
I’ve heard they all said phuckett.
At Boing Boing? The Horrors
The president did not create the economic conditions in appalachia, but the economic conditions in appalachia are a thing he has lied about changing.
I don’t know of any of the other viable candidate who would have told them coal was coming back, and that is the crux of the story here.
Oh, I quit “blaming Trump” long ago. I agree with you that it’s the fault of the people who believed him-the ones who could watch him shoot someone in broad daylight and still support him.
Or, as I suggested, the people who slept through History class and don’t understand that when conditions deteriorate, humans often move.
I hear ‘Richard’ has been very big about it, and flexible! But just look at what they tell him he can go and do!
Worse than when it doesn’t pan out, they’ll still blame someone else.
Or, even worse, it will pan out and they’ll kill themselves (coal mining is nasty), their towns (not only does the mining cause environmental problems, but it’s non-renewable so the town will die eventually anyway), and the rest of us (nasty air, global warming).
Fuck Trumpists, fuck these people, fuck the mainstream left for being a bunch of infighting incompetents that can’t stand up to any of this, and most of all, fuck all of us for not finding a better system already!
Like I need another reminder why I moved the fuck out of Schuylkill County!
The USA may be a young(-ish) country, but roots run deep in the mountains. The people who are the hard-line hold outs are mainly descendants of the immigrants who moved there for a better life. They probably live on a fraction of their ancestor’s land, and since it’s been in the family since the 1700s or the 1800s or the 1900s, it’s theirs and they’re not moving. Whether that’s pride in heredity, stupidity, or willful ignorance I’ve leave it to others to judge. The problem is coal has been their life for generations. No matter what it did to them, they survived. (Or didn’t, but that doesn’t fit the narrative.)
It’s their land, their mountain, their heritage. If they were promised guaranteed jobs in commuting distance, they’d be more cooperative.
Like a number of people have pointed out, there’s already a brain drain; like the steel cities before them, the coal country had their best and brightest up and leave. Even if coal makes a comeback, it’ll be high tech and automated and owned by foreign companies. (Or maybe that’s just my viewpoint, living near a foreign owned steel mill.)
These people are the ones that stayed, after the brain drain, after the money was gone. They want to believe promises that say things will be better, so they vote for anyone with at least as much charisma as their local minister. When the campaign is over and the jobs or tax cuts or infrastructure improvement doesn’t materialize, they don’t stop believing in their politicians, any more than they would stop believing their pastor just because God did not answer their prayers. They just believe harder.
Maybe they think it’s a grown-up form of clapping for Tinkerbell and Peter Pan.
Not just your viewpoint. As usual, David Simon called it years ago in “The Wire”:
Not from Nantucket. But I am from a similar used to be a fishing town history of whaling place. (though my particular town\hamlet specialised in bunker oil, for the poors)
People are pretty nostalgic for the whaling age. Though those are mostly yuppies, historians, And that one uncle.
The fisherman have a bit of similar denial. These are guys are are intimately familiar with, And reliant on the environment. Sometimes to a crazy extent. I know one guy who never finished highschool but he can take a glance at an inlet and tell you it’s entire natural history and geological make up.
So these guys are often environmentalists to one extent or another. They’re all about wetland renewal. Restrictions on building near the shore, dune maintenance. Quotas and fishery controls. Most of them were anti-aquaculture at first. But most have come around and a lot of them make most of their money that way these days.
Except that one thing. Whatever fishery is their main on. Tuna, striper, Porgy, oysters. Whatever it is. Is the only fishery that doesn’t “really” have a problem. Whatever pays their bills the issue is 100% the quota system making them broke. There have never been so many of their particular prey before and if it weren’t for quotas…
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” –Upton Sinclair
Consider for a moment the likely standard of education in the schools available to working class kids in an impoverished mining town.
The coal miners are not the villains here. They don’t own the mines or the media.
Look up.
They are not villains, but victims. Alas, some people overcome, some don’t. If I knew the only rational way to get out of a town with no prospects of an improved life was education (as it always has been, those History courses would have been handy here) I’d pay attention in school, spend time at the library, scour the internet, etc. I understand that president Lincoln, for example, didn’t attend Ivy League schools, but he did ok, even before becoming president. One doesn’t have to be a kid to seek an education.
I do hope nobody is going to claim I said everyone can be president.
Because being a collier is well known for being a totally awesome job, and definitely not worse than 99% of the other jobs you could think of.
They were, by the president. That’s the point I think?
They are victims of economic change. Totally. Not even sure there is a villain. Maybe Al Gore, and us environmentalists? The Market, basically, is the villian. The invisible hand has given appalachia the invisible middle finger. For a while now.
So, what is the new use for coal that allows their old jobs and lifestyles to exist? Or what other local resource can they use to generate life-sustaining income at that scale?
And if they want to stay, what obligation are we under to support their decision to live in a work-desert? Why would we support that there, or anywhere else? So they can stay where their families are from?
They’re free to stay, nobody is going to force them out at gunpoint - but the coal industry is dying. It’s a tragedy, but a lack of humility on the individual level by people who are affected by these job losses - is only going to compound that thagedy.
Maybe we can retrain some of them to be some sort of life coaches? Sounds like a locally needed skill.
Oh, well lots of books about God. I wasn’t referencing the Bible. I was saying how lucky I am to not be in their shoes in the first place, to be forced to make such a decision. That must suck, right? Regardless of the choice they make, what a tough spot. That’s the empathy part I was referring to.
That is a transubstantially forward thing to say to someone asking you a question, loafer. 
(see, with the loaves and the fishes from in that book you brought up? Friendly joke)
