Recently Mark released videos from Appalachia. I hope people viewing the videos will be moved to help people living in this large, geographic area. Clearly their lives are hard and frustrating. As government moves to eliminate coal mining jobs a vacuum of employment opportunities has been created. Reduced fulfillment from work is replaced with self-medication, commonly through use of illegal drugs. The results include increased crime and interpersonal, relationship conflicts. Conflicts often occur between husbands and wives, harming their children. An unemployed husband cannot fulfill the standard role model of what a husband is supposed to be in a family. Sad.

If you want to help do the following: 1. Learn about the culture of Appalachian people through internet reading, watching YouTube videos, and reading the Foxfire series of books written by north Georgia high school students; 2. Do not accept the view that these are somehow inferior people that talk funny. Initially they will be shy about interacting with strangers. They have been ridiculed for generations because of their culture and language. They live the way their ancestors lived and their language is more like Shakespeare’s.

3. Get off the interstate. Go there. Spend your money there. Shop at locally owned businesses. Eat at locally owned restaurants. There will be an economic revival of Appalachia if Americas start spending their money there, creating jobs for the people. As Bettie of Manchester, Kentucky stated in her video – if there was work, people would get off dope. And the people will be able to live better lives. The wellbeing of all Americans is in the hands of what individual Americans do.

Joseph L. Bass
[email protected]

I never understood why these people can't move to find a job. People leave one continent for another for a job. Why can't they?

I'm from Appalachia. my family was from Appalachia. My daddy was from West Virginia and his daddy was too. The only thing these people in these videos are missing is opportunity. many generations have been pounded into the ground up there. they're no different than you or I except for the opportunities that they didn't have.

I don't think the politicians that get voted in by Appalachian voters care what happens to the Appalachian people. Appalachia deserves so much more than it is getting from their government.