You must log in or register to comment.
Explanation: In the US Civil War, the Appalachian Mountains were a hotbed of support for the antislavery Union against the pro-slavery Confederate South.
A big part of this is that the Appalachian Mountains were (and still are) rural and poor, whereas the secession of the South was based wholly around the ultra-wealthy plantation owners and their interest in preserving slavery. As Appalachia was not good farmland for such endeavors, its population was almost entirely a bunch of poor farmers, miners, and woodsmen scraping a living off rocks. Slavery did exist in the Appalachian South, mind you (though also alongside significant anti-slavery sentiment), just not with the numbers or influence the institution had elsewhere in the South. Appalachia had little interest in seceding from the Union for the sake of rich slaveowners.
For that reason, not only did the Appalachian South resist Confederate efforts to tax and conscript them, but it also carried on a significant amount of guerilla warfare against the slaver bastards. West Virginia, notably, rebelled and then seceded from Virginia in order to rejoin the Union. The Union accepted their secession from secession, and West Virginia has been a state ever since.
Now it votes pseudo confederate. What do you think that says about the education of the region over time since the 1860’s?
I blame the rise of conservative talk radio in the 1990s. Hell, they voted for Dukakis in '88.
In 20 short years, it went from reliably Dem in presidential elections (exempting only total national blowouts) to impossibly Republican.
Progranda is a hell of a thing.
they never got past COAL.
appalachian here: blame the petrostate for brainwashing my brothers in west virginia that licking boot is the way forward
As someone who grew up and still has family in Appalachia, it is absurd the level of coal-fetishism that goes on even on a casual visit home.
“The coal in West Virginia could power the whole country, I don’t know why we don’t just use that instead of renewables” - an actual statement from a family friend
I bit my tongue hard because it was a holiday and I wasn’t there to start a fight.
Even if I wanted to.
“you know how our region was exploited to the absolute brink of destruction and our grandparents lived in conditions so horrifically bad that the rest of the world considered them slaves? we should get back to that”
It’s so weird to be like super proud of your state specifically because you want the state itself to be shipped off and burned. I don’t tend to want to burn things I like
the great american gaslight is fundamentally that the exploitation we enact against everyone makes us special and immune to exploitation. our country is founded not just on the genocides committed by the american aristocracy, but on the genocides that brought the working masses here. you’ve probably heard it from an immigrant here at some point. “people here don’t know how good they have it.”
this. this right here is the core of how our country has operated all this time as a third world country with a gucci belt. something interesting is happening right now though. the president has sold the gucci belt. those immigrants who have been saying “people here don’t know how good they have it” are seeing what people who have been here longer have been saying: that our police state keeps no one safe.
in many ways, what i want most is to build the America my Ukrainian coworker thought she was moving to in 2014, the one she’s slowly come to see contributes to the horrors of the world at large she wanted to escape from, and has quickly come to see as being a new implementation of the USSR. the America i knew never existed, and the one she’s so sad to have lost.
but ultimately, i think that would be at best a stepping stone. the real thing to reach for is a world with no divisions and no hierarchy. a world where all are cared for out of love rather than economic incentive. we live in a world of horrors. i think often of how vampires control this country. i am surrounded by zombies. the only people running for office to oppose the vampires are werewolves, funded by the exact same ghouls who fund the vampires
Huh. Watching Peter Santenello’s videos led me to believe most West Virginians understood that coal is pretty much over.
Most West Virginians still bootlick for coal.
t. lived a stone’s throw from WV.
Removed by mod
Jesse, what the hell are you talking about?
Removed by mod
What did you think you were replying to?
Removed by mod
you can just… not post if you don’t know what’s going on. no one will think less of you
