U.N. Official Shocked at Poverty In Rural Alabama

[TomSea]

U.N. Official Shocked at Poverty In Rural Alabama
Newsweek Carlos Ballesteros 15 hrs ago

A United Nations official investigating poverty in the United States was shocked at the level of environmental degradation in some areas of rural Alabama, saying he had never seen anything like it in the developed world.

"I think it's very uncommon in the First World. This is not a sight that one normally sees. I'd have to say that I haven't seen this," Philip Alston, the U.N.'s Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, told Connor Sheets of AL.com earlier this week as they toured a community in Butler County where raw sewage flows from homes through exposed PVC pipes and into open trenches and pits.

The tour through Alabama's rural communities is part of a two-week investigation by the U.N. on poverty and human rights abuses in the United States. So far, U.N. investigators have visited cities and towns in California and Alabama, and will soon travel to Puerto Rico, Washington, D.C., and West Virginia.

Read more at: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/un-official-shocked-at-poverty-in-rural-alabama/ar-BBGuVCy?OCID=ansmsnnews11

[Applewood]

If the UN wants to see poverty, I'm sure there are dozens of other countries where it's a helluva lot worse.

While many people end up in dire straits through no fault of their own, I believe the vast majority of those living in hell holes in this country do so because they want to. Our federal, states and local governments have spent billions on numerous programs, presumably intended to lift people out of poverty.  Yet, we have multiple generations of family who still have nothing. I believe most of them end up that way because they refuse to get the education needed to have a career that provides for them.  They would rather drink, do drugs, make babies and collect food stamps and other government benefits.

At the very least, this country has safety nets for the impoverished.  Many other nations don't.  Why isn't the UN going to those countries to do their meddling?

[240B]

If the UN wants to see poverty, I'm sure there are dozens of other countries where it's a helluva lot worse.

While many people end up in dire straits through no fault of their own, I believe the vast majority of those living in hell holes in this country do so because they want to. Our federal, states and local governments have spent billions on numerous programs, presumably intended to lift people out of poverty.  Yet, we have multiple generations of family who still have nothing. I believe most of them end up that way because they refuse to get the education needed to have a career that provides for them.  They would rather drink, do drugs, make babies and collect food stamps and other government benefits.

At the very least, this country has safety nets for the impoverished.  Many other nations don't.  Why isn't the UN going to those countries to do their meddling?

America is the only country on Earth where people designated as being in poverty, have electricity, a refrigerator, central air conditioning, clean running water, cable tv, a cellphone, and a car. Poverty in America is upper middle class in the rest of the world.

[WingNot]

Why we let any of those UN asshats to travel more than 5 miles sq miles from that Section 8 housing complex they occupy in NY is beyond me.

[thackney]

America is the only country on Earth where people designated as being in poverty, have electricity, a refrigerator, central air conditioning, clean running water, cable tv, a cellphone, and a car. Poverty in America is upper middle class in the rest of the world.

Absolutely.  So many have no understanding of how much of the world's poor live.

[jmyrlefuller]

From the horse's mouth:

“The idea of human rights is that people have basic dignity and that it’s the role of the government — yes, the government! — to ensure that no one falls below the decent level. Civilized society doesn’t say for people to go and make it on your own and if you can’t, bad luck. Politicians who say, ‘there’s nothing I can do about that’ are simply wrong.”

We already know where this is headed.

[driftdiver]

America is the only country on Earth where people designated as being in poverty, have electricity, a refrigerator, central air conditioning, clean running water, cable tv, a cellphone, and a car. Poverty in America is upper middle class in the rest of the world.

While there is an element of truth to what you say there is plenty of poverty in America.  Plenty of people starving, homeless, unable to find a job.    America is becoming a third world country with all of our wealth and knowledge being shipped out of the country.

[IsailedawayfromFR]

We got a UN guy who graduated from Tufts and Harvard roaming the world looking for hunger?

The UN would serve us all better to stop the carbon-spewing trips.

[thackney]

While there is an element of truth to what you say there is plenty of poverty in America.  Plenty of people starving, homeless, unable to find a job.    America is becoming a third world country with all of our wealth and knowledge being shipped out of the country.

I would believe the only people starving in America are the people refusing the help offered.

[Restored]

They could go on the Appalachian Trail in the summer and see people living in such poverty that they were sleeping in tents on the ground.

[driftdiver]

I would believe the only people starving in America are the people refusing the help offered.

Thats largely true in cities.  Go to rural America and its hard to miss.  Not everywhere of course.

People think America is so much better off then other countries, we're not.  Our middle class has been devastated and much of the wealth in concentrated.   Many other countries have high standards of living and higher costs of living.

Meanwhile we continue to ship jobs, companies and knowledge overseas to help our competitors.

[roamer_1]

I would believe the only people starving in America are the people refusing the help offered.

There's something in that - I can show you plenty of hillbillies who are dirt poor, proud and free. And outside of elders and gimped up, they won't take gubmint cheese.

[Restored]

There's something in that - I can show you plenty of hillbillies who are dirt poor, proud and free. And outside of elders and gimped up, they won't take gubmint cheese.

Maybe not but they will sure take The Disability in these Appalachia hills.

[Bigun]

I would believe the only people starving in America are the people refusing the help offered.

Believe it or not, there are still many in the rural South too prideful to accept handouts.  There were a great many more 50 years ago.

[Suppressed]

Maybe not but they will sure take The Disability in these Appalachia hills.

In some areas of Alabama, a full quarter of the working-age adults are on disability.

[mountaineer]

Meanwhile we continue to ship jobs, companies and knowledge overseas to help our competitors.

As I live on the edge of Appalachia in a state decimated by the so-called opioid crisis, I'm going to have to agree with Applewood's comment, "(M)ost of them end up that way because they refuse to get the education needed to have a career that provides for them.  They would rather drink, do drugs, make babies and collect food stamps and other government benefits."

I see it in my county. They can't do many of the jobs that allegedly are shipped overseas because they're uneducated (by choice) and can't pass drug tests. It's a lot easier to collect welfare and SNAP - and I see that every time I'm in Kroger - than work.

[driftdiver]

As I live on the edge of Appalachia in a state decimated by the so-called opioid crisis, I'm going to have to agree with Applewood's comment, "(M)ost of them end up that way because they refuse to get the education needed to have a career that provides for them.  They would rather drink, do drugs, make babies and collect food stamps and other government benefits."

I see it in my county. They can't do many of the jobs that allegedly are shipped overseas because they're uneducated (by choice) and can't pass drug tests. It's a lot easier to collect welfare and SNAP - and I see that every time I'm in Kroger - than work.

Just friday people were saying the opioid crisis was hysteria.

Yes drugs are a problem.  Yes the welfare class is a problem.  People have seen their parents struggle only to have the company move out and the jobs gone.  Companies aren't going overseas because workers in rural Alabama have a drug problem.  They are going overseas because of the financial incentives. 

[roamer_1]

Believe it or not, there are still many in the rural South too prideful to accept handouts.  There were a great many more 50 years ago.

It's more than that - Subsistence living is damn tough these days, especially with such a short season for hunting.

It is pride in the first place, but the same drive that causes them to turn it down is very necessary to survival without. Ain't many in this day that lives a life where your belly occasionally meets your backbone as a matter of course. And the stuff that makes surviving like that possible drains right down your leg with a government check.

[driftdiver]

It's more than that - Subsistence living is damn tough these days, especially with such a short season for hunting.

It is pride in the first place, but the same drive that causes them to turn it down is very necessary to survival without. Ain't many in this day that lives a life where your belly occasionally meets your backbone as a matter of course. And the stuff that makes surviving like that possible drains right down your leg with a government check.

Hard to imagine how far we've fallen.  Now conservatives are knocking people who won't take public assistance.

[240B]

It is true that many homeless are homeless by choice. They don't want to work. They consider being homeless to be the ultimate freedom and they have no intention to change that. If you were to drag some of these guys to a job and put them to work, they would be gone in less than half an hour. They have no interest in it.


I know case-workers who work for the city or with the V.A. They told me that even when they take these guys off the street and set them up with an apartment, they still live like a homeless person. They take all their homeless 'gear' and set up camp in the living room. They never go into the kitchen or bedroom because these are foreign to them. They set up their bedroll in the living room and camp out there, still spending every dollar they get on cigarettes, drugs, and alcohol. Just like they did before.


That's just their mentality. It is their way of life. It is a mystery what it would take to bring them back to normal society. But giving them housing and a job doesn't work. They are not interested in living like that.

[mountaineer]

  Companies aren't going overseas because workers in rural Alabama have a drug problem.  They are going overseas because of the financial incentives.

Obviously. Companies find workers wherever it makes the best business sense to do so, and for some companies, that's overseas. Some employers also don't expand their businesses to rural Alabama or West Virginia because of a lack of properly educated, non-drug-using workers, however.

[mirraflake]

Believe it or not, there are still many in the rural South too prideful to accept handouts.  There were a great many more 50 years ago.

Those very poor Southern areas have some of the highest welfare/food stamps rates etc per capita than anywhere. These very poor areas are mostly all black.

@Bigun

[thackney]

Believe it or not, there are still many in the rural South too prideful to accept handouts.  There were a great many more 50 years ago.

Oh I believe it and understand it.  I know some.

[mirraflake]

Obviously. Companies find workers wherever it makes the best business sense to do so, and for some companies, that's overseas. Some employers also don't expand their businesses to rural Alabama or West Virginia because of a lack of properly educated, non-drug-using workers, however.

We took a road trip last year..all the back roads. Drove through southern W.va  w..wow

Place like this were everywhere.   Many were worse than this.  Not my photo.



@mountaineer

[Suppressed]

As I live on the edge of Appalachia in a state decimated by the so-called opioid crisis, I'm going to have to agree with Applewood's comment, "(M)ost of them end up that way because they refuse to get the education needed to have a career that provides for them.  They would rather drink, do drugs, make babies and collect food stamps and other government benefits."

I see it in my county. They can't do many of the jobs that allegedly are shipped overseas because they're uneducated (by choice) and can't pass drug tests. It's a lot easier to collect welfare and SNAP - and I see that every time I'm in Kroger - than work.

Yup.  It's that way in many places now...in what were once hard-working areas.

Back to the Dougherty-Williamson debates.