Please watch this --- what we have done to coal miners and these communities is inexcusable. A combination of environmentalist zealotry, expanding the welfare state, and the rapid increase in fentanyl abuse is gutting Appalachia...... yet there are some glimmers of hope still.

Peter Santanello puts out great content/

jja79 said:

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Peter Santanello puts out great content/

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Yes he does.

I think that he was pretty left/liberal years ago.... but has kinda been red-pilled over the last 4-5 years. Particularly in regards to San Francisco --- which he has produced some his best content about.

Pete has also done some great stuff about the Amish and Mennonites both in Pennsylvania and in Florida. Loved these as well.

Incredibly beautiful area with incredible people.

You can spend an hour every day watching one of his videos and really learn something. One of my favorites is about the 06 ranch in west Texas since it was significant in the area where I grew up and Chris Lacy who runs it now is son of the Waco banking Lacy family.

jja79 said:

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You can spend an hour every day watching one of his videos and really learn something. One of my favorites is about the 06 ranch in west Texas since it was significant in the area where I grew up and Chris Lacy who runs it now is son of the Waco banking Lacy family.

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I have queued this up and will watch/listen while working today. Thanks for the tip!

Glad to see other fans of Pete on TA/F16!

I grew up out west and knew the Kokernot family and then the Lacy family when I got into banking. Chris made a wise decision.

Thanks, sand for watching this evening

Wild and Wonderful Whites of West VA or GTFO

I had to go out to Martinsburg WV for work in 2021 for 6 weeks. They put me up in Home2Suites that sits behind a super walmart. I'd go over there for groceries. Seemed like everyone shopping in there looked like they had an opioid or meth problem. Young girls all looking old and haggard already. So many with sunken in faces like they were missing all their teeth. That said, I enjoyed my time out there and saw a lot of beautiful country. My days off I was always exploring and putting miles on my rental car.

Hillbilly Elegy.

About 20 years ago there was a really good documentary on Appalachian kids called "children of the Mountains." It was a pretty rough look at how trapped folks can be because of the state of the communities the coal mines left behind.

The truth is that the left HATES poor white people. They want things to be exactly they way they are in the poor and rural south.

Hope those folks are able to get any help they need.

Emotional Support Cobra said:

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About 20 years ago there was a really good documentary on Appalachian kids called "children of the Mountains." It was a pretty rough look at how trapped folks can be because of the state of the communities the coal mines left behind.

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If I had the funding and equipment -- would be interesting to compare and contrast life along the "black belt" that goes from western Mississippi all the way to Georgia --- towns Jackson, Tuskegee, etc..... and that of the Appalachian coal areas. I would venture to guess a lot of the pressure points and root causes are similar.

I was born in WV and my whole family is from there. Lots of sad stories of coal miners including my uncle, who died from black lung.

OP I was not familiar with Peter Santanello until you posted this. I watched a few of his videos today and enjoyed them. Plan to watch more. Thanks!

There's a great documentary from the 1970s called "Harlan County, USA" about Kentucky coal mining. It is mostly about a coalminers strike from the time, but it also goes into great detail about the corruption of both the mining companies and the unions.

The opening credits shows the guys going to and from their shift by riding the conveyor belts down into the mine. The mine shifts looked to be about three feet tall.

Oh, and the new "Justified" series starts tomorrow night. But it is set in Detroit.

What I took away from this. The govt shut down the region's economy and allowed it to be flooded with fentanyl. What could go wrong? Almost like it's orchestrated against rural America.

TresPuertas said:

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Wild and Wonderful Whites of West VA or GTFO

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Soft white Underbelly The Whitakers.

Thanks guys. Y'all got me watching this guy's videos. On this one now. If I didn't have a family I'd be all about this.

I had just seen that last night. The most telling thing to me was the people in their twenties - they all were saying that over half graduating class from their high school years were either on drugs or living with their parents and getting "checks". Combine that behavior with the national debt - it's that generation that will be hit first when the entitlement world comes crashing to the earth.

I have a friend that lives in I think Delaware and several times a year they post about one of their friends dying. I finally contacted them one day to understand what is going on, most died of meth or heroin. She said they estimate something like 30% of the people there have been an addict at some time. Crazy

Same issues with logging towns in the Northwest.

My wife is from Boone County, WV. Her family was among the poorest of the poor there, but several of the ones from her generation have really turned out great. A few, though, are absolutely mired in the drugs and government grift that is rampant throughout.

I'm surprised there hasn't been a resurgence of population to some of these small towns. You can work from home making 60k a year and live a very comfortable life there. Nice house for 30k. Crime is probably no different than big cities and it's beautiful.

The chunky 'historian' at the end made me chuckle. I think he basically just repeated the plot from the Netflix show "Barbarians'

clobby said:

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I'm surprised there hasn't been a resurgence of population to some of these small towns. You can work from home making 60k a year and live a very comfortable life there. Nice house for 30k. Crime is probably no different than big cities and it's beautiful.

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you must not have spent much time in west virginia. the beauty dies quickly with every visit to a gas station flooded with cracked-out folks.


i love going to WV, but damn does it open your eyes to real drug issues and people that can't afford to leave the valley they were born in.


The entire place reminds me of a Mountainous version of the movie Gummo.

Only been there twice and the areas I went to were nice.