Home > Third World America
Un/Employment Poverty-Precariousness USA
I just happened to stumble upon this web site and I now feel compelled to write what I KNOW to be truth.
I am an American. Born in the state of Kentucky and I have lived here all my life. I have been in 49 of the other states and during those travels I did see a similarity to my own beloved home of Kentucky. Those similarities are as follows..
Here in my state poverty is RAMPANT. There are no jobs of any decent calibur, only WalMart, McDonalds and the like. The majority of people can afford to shop only at THE DOLLAR GENERAL STORE or THE FAMILY DOLLAR STORE, living on minimum wage barely pays the bills. The people in my community struggle with worry constantly due to the recent EXTREME increase in the price of natural gas and electricity. I am actually uncomfortably cold as I write this post. Along with the lack of employment comes the lack of health insurance, the people of my community must choose to pay either the heating bills or for medical attention which carries with it insane medicine costs. All with VERY LITTLE assistance from the federal government. Substandard housing is the norm here. Mobile homes or very old homes which you must cover the windows with plastic and stuff rags into cracks to keep out the bitter cold. The jobs that ARE availabe are using imported mexican and romanian labor, working them non-union in our local oil refinery which happens to be the fourth largest refinery in the USA.
The last time I checked, the national poverty guideline was like $25,000 a year and that was some time ago.
I was a union steel painter from the time I graduated high school in 1987 until I was hurt in an off work accident in 2000. I am now disabled and support a family of four on $10,200 a year. Very much below the poverty level.
And what is alarming to me is that the number of people who live in my state under these exact same conditions is tremendous.
Substandard food
Substandard clothing
Substandard medical care
Substandard dental care
Substandard housing
Substandard automobiles
Living week to week
Living month to month
No possible way to get ahead or establish a savings
No jobs
Demands for property tax
Demands for automobile tax & insurance
I see nothing positive in any of this.
I see no way out and no body who cares....
SOMETHING is going to happen.
It has to.
And my points cannot be argued because I live this reality EVERYDAY.
Ike in Kentucky
Forum posts
22 January 2006, 20:42
i know it is hard to make ends meet
but hang on ike...
unfortunately ,for something to happens , the hard condition you live in must be experienced by the majority of the american population .
only then, at the moment hope is lost and rage gains ground , something big will happen...
it will be a hard fight, bloody murders and chaos,
but the people of your country will then be really free, free of the bankers who enslaved them.
i had a chance to visit your beautiful country and spent some times in the state of Kentucky . it is a beautiful state but i must admit that poverty was very visible almost everywhere.
however one thing stayed on my mind after this trip, i found the people of your state very friendly with me and felt welcome everywhere i went.
thats what i remember from the state of Kentucky
G.... from QUEBEC, CANADA
23 January 2006, 20:34
G,
Thank you for the kind words and you are also very correct.
The people here in Kentucky and ALL of Appalachia are very kind folk’s. Hard working , honest and there if you need them.
Word of advice to the beltway.
We can also be very volatile when provoked.
Ike in Kentucky
22 January 2006, 21:01
Thanks for your story, and no you’re not alone.
I think the best case scenario is the satellite & cable tv goes out- forcing people to come out of their houses and talk to their neighbors.
At some point we’ve got to realize, that "WE OUTNUMBER THEM". (We the People outnumber The ruling class)
http://radio.indymedia.org/uploads/ants_riseup.mp3
22 January 2006, 23:57
I feel sorry for you, Ike. May your God help you.
But in all honesty, it is the same as it has always been, White people eat other peoples in order to live. It has come to a point where many more Whites are being eaten by other Whites who are higher up in the ladder.
This is the White American way.
I cannot predict the future as to what will happen; but thinking about what White Americans have done to the peoples of the First Nations (the aboriginal peoples of Turtle Island/now known as North America) and then the constant war and war footing against many other nations on this planet — I see only more war in order to feed those in the ruling and rule-supporting class.
It has been the White American way.
Imagine for a moment, Ike, what it feels like to be non-White in America (with many more barriers from the start of life than you now encounter)?
May your Creator help you.
22 January 2006, 23:59
Did you ever think about running for US goverernment office? As a US representative all you need to do is serve one term in Washington and you can retire with a $15,000 per month pension. How does that sound to you? Now, tell me; How can one of these elected representatives possibly relate to you and your situation? Best of luck to you. I feel very bad about the situation you are in and generally, what is happening to a lot of peole in this country. We are truly living in very difficult times. Tell the young people that you come in contact with to study, go on to school, get out of Dodge, be the very best that they can be and not to forget where they came from.
23 January 2006, 20:40
Actually I HAVE thought about it.
I know Ron Cyrus and Rocky Adkins both.
Representatives for Kentucky.
But I have to be "sombody" before anybody will listen to me....
And right now I’m nobody.
As well as extremist.
Ike in Kentucky
23 January 2006, 00:10
The recent accidents in the coal mines in Virginia show that America has taken a bad turn since 1967. Adaquate protection for workers will decrease profits and therefore they get no protection at all.
There are only a few places in the U.S. where people can make a decent living. The South and the Midwest are places of doom.
Sorry, but you can’t not make a living by looking at a nice landscape.
23 January 2006, 03:08
dear ike and the rest of poverty - stricken america. i have lived in west virginia all my life and our situation is exactly like your’s in kentucky. i wash cars for $25.00 a day and my rent and utilities and living expenses come to $21.50 per day. i eat on $3.00 a day and save the extra 50 cents to buy my daughter a graduation present this june when she graduates from high school. thanks to growing herbs and my own vegetables i stay healthy and have never purchased health insurance in my life. save your money. the vast majority of doctors have no clue how to keep a person healthy, and in case you didn’t know it, medical errors and bad reactions to doctor-prescribed drugs are the third leading cause of death in america. you are probably better off taking a steam bath than seeing a doctor for any flu-like illness. and for any of you government whackos who are promoting the lies of a bird flu pandemic i challenge you to show me any flu that can’t be killed by either colloidal silver or good, quality herbal tonics. and to the poster who talked about the coal mine accidents in virginia - get a map. west virginia - where the tragedies actually happened, is a REAL state, not a part of virginia. good luck ike. you can make it if you don’t play by the government’s rules. sincerely riverboy.
23 January 2006, 20:31
Riverboy,
I hear you.
Maybe soon they’ll be enough of us to make a loud enough noise that they will hear us in the beltway.
It disturbs me too that I have to pinch pennies and try so hard to provide my daugher with the simplest of things.
Hang in there (like me) and fight the good fight.
Ike in Kentucky
23 January 2006, 18:42
America is becomming a 3rd world country partly due to the massive "illegal immigrants", and partly due to our officals in Washington and our own states. I am in California.
I remember when there were few brown faces coming across the border, we "white" people harvested the fruits, vegetables, cotton, etc, school even started right after the cotton crop was in.
Then along came welfare !
A lot of the "white’s" decided they could do better on welfare, and got on it. Now generation after generation later that is the only life they know. They don’t want to work.
If "illegal immagrants" of any race or color were not allowed to work and the welfare checks ONLY went to the handicapped, meaning that ALL able bodied were required to work or go hungry then they would have to work to eat.
Welfare has gone bonkers, we are giving away our life, and the lazy are accepting without a guilty feeling...
I am not a racist, when my family gets together we look like the United Nations, just the blantant facts of what has happened to all of us.
23 January 2006, 20:27
In his last state of the union address the "president" said "we as american’s need the influx of immigrant labor to do the jobs that Americans won’t work.
Bullshit.
I have worked the jobs like many others have and the REASON we WON’T work them is because it is obvious who is getting paid.
The company and NOT the employee.
West Virginia has recently stated the need for 4,500 coal miners.
There you go.
Import the mexicans and put THEIR ass’s in the mines!
Their numbers are very indicative that they are expendable.
And willing to risk their lives for "the American Dream"
Ike in Kentucky
15 February 2006, 21:24
Hello
Unfortunately it is happening as we speak. But we can stop it. CHANGE THE VICTIM MINDPATTERN
www.expansions.com go to forum
GOOD LUCK