Why rural and small town Americans need to put up or shut up

Looking into the poverty and lack of jobs in rural parts of the country, I ran across this video by the Washington Post, published in June of this year.  I won't make fun of The South like I do a bit too much, I'm going back to Ohio, where I was born and lived through 8th grade.  In first and second grade, I lived about 60 miles away from where these interviews took place.

It was a different world back then, the factories were still going strong.  Of course, the Cuyahoga river in Cleveland caught fire once back then.  I'm serious, the freakin' river caught on fire.  I digress.

But the factory jobs have mostly gone, either to a factory somewhere cheaper or to a factory filled with robotics and other technology.  I first remember hearing about factories moving in the late 70's.  Old men were bitching about it.  But the jobs weren't going to Mexico or China then, they were going to the American South, where there was cheaper labor.  People have forgotten that.

So... the higher paying jobs in the Ashtabula area have gone.  They blame Obama for that.  I hate to tell you folks, but thousands of people have been working towards cleaner energy for decades.  They've been doing that because the environment matters.  You can eat the perch and walleye from Lake Erie, in part, because of environmental regulations. Obama just signed his name a few times.

Here's what I don't see in this clip.  I don't see one person even talking about creating new jobs themselves.  It's not Obama's fault that you have mostly low wage jobs.  It's YOUR fault.  Read a fucking book about technology.  Get on the internet.  Learn the computer skills of the century you're actually living in.  Then, either move, or start creating jobs where you live.  In this clip I see a bunch of fucking lazy people blaming everyone else for their problems.

This is one of the worst relics of the Industrial Age that is fading away, the idea that somebody else is responsible for creating your job.  If the companies leave... then either move to where the good work is, or figure out a way to create some new jobs in your area.  What kind?  Any kind.

 I'll give you a great example out of rural Ohio itself.  The Amish Country.  Amish are as rural as rural gets, many drive horse and buggies everywhere they go.  The Ohio Amish country around Millersburg and Silver Creek gets about 4 million tourists a year.  Really, they get more visitors than Cedar Point, the main northern Ohio amusement park.  Why do the Amish get so many tourists?  Because they make all kinds of handmade food, crafts, furniture, and stuff you can't get anywhere else.  They've been doing this for years, and lots of people are willing to travel there to check it out and buy unique stuff.

You don't have to make handmade furniture, but you do have to start using your imagination to come up with something fairy unique to Ashtabula (and every other small town and rural area in the U.S.), and you have to start creating jobs.  CREATING JOBS IN DYING TOWNS IS THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE RESIDENTS THERE.  Stop waiting for Prince Charming to show up and bail your asses out.

There used to be a thing known as "American Ingenuity."  That was the idea that Americans were great a figuring new things out, coming up with new products, and new ideas to get things going.  Americans excelled at finding answers to tough problems.  Let's bring that concept back.   If you're just going to sit around and hope the most incompetent president ever put in office will perform a miracle, then you might as well put heroin in your water, kill everyone off, and let someone with some ideas take over your town.

Three letters people: D.I.Y.  Do It Yourself.

Oh, and I love how Brenda at 6:05, the one on disability, is bitching about illegal immigrants.  Will everyone who lives more than 1,000 miles from the Mexican border stop bitching about immigrants?  I've lived in New Mexico and California.  Most Latino immigrants are better Americans than you are.  They work hard. They go to church. They are very family oriented.  And if that isn't enough, THEY INVENTED GUACAMOLE.  What did you invent?