2012.01.13
Roanoke: ‘A model of America’s middle class disintegration’ UPDATED
Wow, you never know what kind of garbage will make its way onto the World Wide Web.
Take, for example, the title of this blog post. It’s the actual headline to an article about Roanoke on some outfit called the American Free Press:
The streets of Roanoke, Va. are a model of American economic collapse. Driving through the downtown, one passes abandoned storefronts with “for rent” signs in the windows, some of those signs old and curling from the long vacancies. Leaving the downtown in one direction, one comes to hundred-year-old housing, much of it abandoned, and city street corners crowded with prostitutes, pimps and drug dealers.
Leaving in another direction, one passes the city’s crumbling passenger railway station and blocks of abandoned warehouses. Down the major commercial strip, one can see an abandoned shopping center and the row of abandoned stores that border it. Whatever direction one takes, one sees a city that is white and poor and desperate for a type of change that Barack Obama has been unable to deliver.
On closer examination, it appears the AFP is a conspiracy site that’s trying to give World Net Daily a run for their money.
The Roanoke Times | File
They have articles suggesting Israel was responsible for 9/11, and they dip their toes into birther nonsense, and there’s at least one article in which a nutcase from California claims he was implanted with a microchip during a visit to the dentist.
A perfect place for the Suzies, LCs and terps of this world!
UPDATE: My colleague Laurence Hammack notes that the American Free Press is one of the last remaining media outlets for none other than Roanoke’s own Neo-Nazi ex-con Bill White.
Now it’s all making sense!
Dan, as you know, I never stray far from the subject near and dear to my heart….our beloved OWS protestors. They are the perfect metaphor for all that is wrong with America. They are the opposite of the gritty Americans who weathered the great depression. Self pity, envy and laziness are their trademark.
I completely ignore guns, abortion, “Israel 911″, birther , dental microchips…etc. I stick to taxes, OWS and third graders who write hate songs.
You just love finding far fringe RW’s, repeat their looney ideas, and then paint all conservatives with that broad brush. It is a neat trick and MSNBC has developed a whole network around this theme. It is funny and entertaining so please keep it up….but not everyone is fooled.
Comment by terps — January 13, 2012 @ 5:19 pm
Hmmm, I know I used to see a lot of cross-dressers on Salem Ave, but that’s been forever ago. Where are all the prostitutes at now?
Comment by A Beasley — January 13, 2012 @ 5:24 pm
A Beasley,
You need to hang out more in Bill White’s environs (West End). I’d bet he wrote that Roanoke-attack piece, but he probably couldn’t put his name on it because he’s banned from posting on the internet (or something like that) as a condition of his probation. He almost ran afoul of that ban when they published “How I was tortured.”
Comment by Dan Casey — January 13, 2012 @ 5:32 pm
Try getting a seat in a restaurant on the weekends and then try to sell the “Roanoke is crumbling” line.
Comment by Kristen — January 13, 2012 @ 5:35 pm
#1 terps
“They are the opposite of the gritty Americans who weathered the great depression.”
Do you even know American history? There were lots of reasons for the “Great Depression” some of the more important: Stock Market crash 1929 [By 1929, 1% of Americans controlled 40% of the wealth in this country]; Bank Failures – 11,000 banks failed out of 25,000 American banks; High unemployment (as high as 25%) which led to a reduction in Purchasing Power; and Drought – the dust bowl.
How did those “gritty Americans” ‘weather” this economic and social disaster? They were lucky enough to have the Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the WH.
“The New Deal is largely credited with bringing America out of the Great Depression by providing JOBS AND RELIEF”:
The federal program, The New Deal, put many men back to work and provided their families with a paycheck. “Many of the nation’s parks, highways, and bridges were built during the Great Depression, projects designed and overseen by the WPA as part of Roosevelt’s New Deal to put Americans to work.”
Social Security, a program that continues to this day, was introduced by Franklin D. Roosevelt in the midst of the Great Depression.
Many older people were unemployed. Americans were living longer but retiring earlier; age discrimination made it difficult for elderly Americans to find employment. People who had worked hard all their life to support their families were living in poverty. Americans all over the country argued that they deserved compensation.
http://www.thegreatdepressioncauses.com/
“On the side of relief we have extended material aid to millions of our fellow citizens.
On the side of recovery we have helped to lift agriculture and industry from a condition of utter Prostration.
This security for the individual and for the family concerns itself primarily with three factors. People want decent homes to live in; they want to locate them where they can engage in productive work; and they want some safeguard against misfortunes which cannot be wholly eliminated in this man-made world of ours.”
MESSAGE TO CONGRESS REVIEWING THE BROAD OBJECTIVES AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF THE ADMINISTRATION. (JUNE 8, 1934. Franklin D. Roosevelt)
Today, conservatives call this socialism, communism… etc. My Grandparents were some of those “gritty Americans” – you should go find a few that lived during that time and ask them how life was before paychecks began coming back into households…My Grandmother had 11 children when my Grandfather died – all her sons enrolled in the WPA and sent their paychecks home to support the rest of the family. Don’t speak unless you have FACTS! And especially don’t romanticize the terrible ordeals that families went through during the Great Depression. There is nothing noble about starvation…
Comment by Hillary — January 13, 2012 @ 6:36 pm
Roanoke? Hell…Detroit.
Comment by Other John — January 13, 2012 @ 7:05 pm
As I was reading the excerpt I was thinking to myself that this sound like some sort of neo-nazi crap. Funny to see that confirmed.
Comment by RightWing — January 13, 2012 @ 7:12 pm
OJ, welcome back!
Comment by Dan Casey — January 13, 2012 @ 7:13 pm
Never really went anywhere…just lurked a bit. It’s been an emotionally and physically exhausting week. My wife’s grandmother passed Tuesday after a long battle with several different problems, and the funeral was today.
But seriously, if that was Bill White’s writings, it would make sense. Roanoke is relatively vibrant, compared to a lot of places. A true sign of the economic funk really is around the 313. Huge tracts of former neighborhoods totally bulldozed or littered with burned out shells of homes. Fire stations, schools, libraries, factories, and stores empty and boarded up all over the west side. Talks of major contraction of services because the tax base is gone and can no longer support some basic needs. No national-branded grocery stores within city limits. Rampant crime, especially gang-related. I love that city, but man has it taken a beating.
Comment by Other John — January 13, 2012 @ 9:48 pm
Hillary
What is your point? I concede that the depression was horrible and that social welfare helped families. No argument from me.
OWS is not a movement of impoverished families you outlined above. All of the social welfare from the 1930′s plus much more is in place.
These are young people who refuse to face up to the rigors required for success. They look to government to solve their problems and they abhor the notion of self reliance. The behavior they exhibit brings shame upon young Americans and I am embarrassed for them.
Comment by terps — January 13, 2012 @ 10:31 pm
You just don’t get it terps. No, OWS is not impoverished families or people. Most of them are either employed, are students or are in between with prospects. They care about their nation and what they see as wrong with it and they want to show other people that it is not all about “I got mine, you root little pig or die” as so many Conservatives want it to be. If we stop caring about each other and who owns the government we are abdicating a sacred trust.
OWS is not a bunch of lazy bums looking for a handout, they are almost all young people facing “the rigors required for success” and they see the weighted advantages handed to those with money and privilege. They are not looking “to government to solve their problems” they are warning people that the government has been bought and paid for to work in favor of one class. You cannot be serious that the people who are standing on street corners, writing op-eds, leading protests, holding meetings, getting the word out while holding down jobs and school “abhor the notion of self reliance” that is laughable! The behavior they exhibit brings honor and dignity to a generation I had thought too passive and self-absorbed to notice the world around them. They are the best hope this nation has had in a long time! And no, they will not shut up and sit down because you like the status quo.
Comment by Sandi Saunders — January 13, 2012 @ 11:13 pm
Irony of ironies, terps is now the spokesman for OWS!
Comment by Art Hill — January 13, 2012 @ 11:36 pm
Everyone needs to participate in the political process. OWS is just doing what we should all be doing. Something is wrong with our system of government and we need to work together to fix it.
Comment by Cold n P — January 14, 2012 @ 1:30 am
If being fixated on is the same as being a spokesman….yes he is.
Comment by Kristen — January 14, 2012 @ 8:18 am
sure let all be like ows, lets all go out and ca-ca in public. idiot.
Comment by pammala — January 14, 2012 @ 9:15 am
In addition to Hillary’s comment, the Glass Stegall act was implemented in 1933 to prevent another “Great Depression”. GS created a wall between commercial banking and investment banking. The Glass Stegall Act was repealed in 1999 which led to the current banking meltdown and created financialization, a new form of capitalism in which financial markets dominate over the traditional industrial economy. The repeal provided for non transparent financial manipulations & use of leverages to change the activities of investment banking to amass huge fortunes for investment bankers who designed, marketed & oversaw the use of leveraged investments to generate speculative endevors at hedge funds which were not regulated by the government. The powerful & elite were intertwined in retail banking and the home mortage sector via intertwined board of director memberships at the Federal Reserve, corporations, and government administration extending into the White House via Sec of the Treasury, Hank Paulson, the former executive at Goldman Sacks.
The ones who created the crisis were charged with providing the remedy.
Comment by mj — January 14, 2012 @ 10:03 am
The law that repealed Glass-Stegall was the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999. It was a bill, co-sponosred by Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, and Reps. Jim Leach, R-Iowa, and Thomas J. Bliley, Jr., R-Virginia, that retroactively legalized the merger of Citicorp with Travelers Group. The resulting company, Citigroup., became the biggest financial mess this country has ever seen.
Bill Clinton signed that law over the objections of the Government Accountability Office. I’d wager that in retrospect, he would admit that was a mistake (if he hasn’t already acknowledged it). But the GOP leadership in Congress CAN’T do the same, because they DON’T want to re-enact Glass Stegall, no matter how sensible that law was, and how badly it’s needed again today.
The FSMA provides a smorgasbord of ways for the rich and powerful to steal from the poor and powerless. Repealing it would be like fixing all the holes in the chicken wire at a henhouse. The foxes won’t stand for that!
(Correction: Bill Clinton has said he doesn’t believe FSMA caused the crisis. Some lesser economists agree with him. Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz does not).
Comment by Dan Casey — January 14, 2012 @ 10:21 am
The bankers are the ones who have worked hard to convince Ameria that we are now a service industry and that manufacturing in this Country is dead. They bought and paid for GWB to be elected in order to get the bankruptcy act passed and prevent regulation of the the financial industry, specifically hedge funds, derivatives, and money markets. Check out GWBs major contributors. Check out the GOP Congressional meetings with Wall Street as Obama was taking office. Look at the investment banks takeover of all financial markets as they combined and merged commercial banking with investment banking and bought out brokerage firms and then lobbied to remove regulations thereon. Then look at the investment options offered to the Public and how they perform. Then look at the credit card industry, the removal of short-term personal loans from be offered and the many changes to retail banking over the past 15 years. The financial industry (Wall Street) has taken the US over, sent manufacturing overseas, and controlled Congress.
Comment by Richard J Beason, CPA — January 14, 2012 @ 11:01 am
#10 terps, terps, terps…
Would that we could all live in your imaginary simplistic world:
FACT: The Vital Statistics
US poverty (less than $22,300 for a family of four): 46 million people, 15.1 percent.
Kids in poverty: 16.4 million, 22 percent of all kids.
Deep poverty (less than $11,157 for a family of four): 20.5 million people, 6.7 percent of population.
Impact of public policy, 2010: without government assistance, poverty twice as high—nearly 30 percent.
Impact of public policy, 1964–1973: poverty rate fell by 43 percent.
Number of Americans “deep poor,” “poor” or “near poor”: 100 million, or 1 in 3.
http://www.thenation.com/blog/165629/week-poverty-kids-jobs-and-gop-myths
or if you prefer:
FACT: Of all industrialized nations, America leads the world in the percentage of its citizens living in poverty. Isn’t it great to be number one? According to the U.S. Census Bureau as of 2005, 12.6 percent or 37 million Americans live in poverty. The recent lowest figure of 11.8 percent occurred in 2000.
http://money.cnn.com/2010/09/16/news/economy/Census_poverty_rate/index.htm
Although in a recent past post, you claimed to be a conservative not one of the RW crazies – your lack of facts puts you perilously close to being lumped in their class…I love to “spar” with those who bring facts to the table, no, not faux Fox news facts, but well researched one…come on back when you have some. I do like that you are not name calling, so there is hope!
Comment by Hillary — January 14, 2012 @ 11:16 am
“pammala says:
sure let all be like ows, lets all go out and ca-ca in public. idiot.”
Translation: “Yip! Yip! Look at me! Yip! I’m still here and I’m still stupid! Yip! Yip!”
Screwzie said she’s never owned a dog. I think pammalapdog’s feelings got hurt.
Comment by Contrasuzie — January 14, 2012 @ 11:50 am
Dan, I couldn’t agree more that Glass-Stegall should be re-enacted.
The one that needs to be overturned is the McCarran-Ferguson Act which exempts insurance companies from certain federal anti-trust provisions. The State of Michigan is going after BlueCross BlueShield for anti-trust violations:
http://www.justice.gov/atr/cases/bcbsmfn.html
I will our AG would look into Anthem’s activities in this regard! I could give him some examples of what I believe are anti-trust violations
Comment by Bill Perdue — January 14, 2012 @ 12:37 pm
“pammala says:
sure let all be like ows, lets all go out and ca-ca in public. idiot.”
You ‘ca-ca in public’ every single time you post a comment.
Comment by Contrasuzie — January 14, 2012 @ 12:49 pm
Bill Perdue,
You are in the business so maybe you can tell me what’s going on here:
1. The last week of December, just before my health insurance switched over to a more-costly w/less coverage plan, my 18-year-old daughter had her wisdom teeth out.
2. Over the phone we told the oral surgeon’s insurance guru that our coverage was with Anthem. “They will cover part of it,” she said.
3. At the pre-surgery visit, my wife gave her the insurance card. Lo and behold, it turns out our health coverage was with Anthem of Los Angeles, NOT Anthem of Virginia. “Anthem of Virginia covers wisdom teeth extractions,” the dentist’s billing rep explained. “Anthem of Los Angeles does not.”
4. I had been under the (apparently) mistaken impression that health insurance was state-by-state and not sold across state lines.
What’s going on here?
(Note: our dental insurance covered some of the cost).
Comment by Dan Casey — January 14, 2012 @ 1:12 pm
#23 What????? Living in VA you should be covered under Anthem of Virginia. Anthem is actually owned by Wellpoint, which operates BC plans in several states, but I don’t know why you would be covered under the California plan, when you live here. That just doesn’t seem right.
Have you called Anthem to ask them?
Comment by Debbie — January 14, 2012 @ 1:57 pm
Debbie,
No, I haven’t called. But the card quite clearly says, in fine print on the back, Anthem of Los Angeles. What I’m guessing is that my employer has a business in Calif., and in that way it can contract for coverage that applies to all of us everywhere else. Landmark is much smaller now that they sold the Weather Channel, but we’re still far-flung. It owns publications in Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Kentucky, New Mexico and 9 other states, (129 publications in all) .
Little known fact: NBC Universal was the chief buyer of the Weather Channel, but among the other buyers was Bain Capital.
Where have we heard of that company recently?
Comment by Dan Casey — January 14, 2012 @ 2:57 pm
Okay, that’s interesting, Dan.
Comment by Debbie — January 14, 2012 @ 3:12 pm
So how many jobs were lost in the buyout Dan?
Comment by Cold n P — January 14, 2012 @ 3:58 pm
Cold,
I don’t know if any jobs were lost in the purchase of the Weather Channel. It’s a very profitable company. It sold for $3.5 billion.
Comment by Dan Casey — January 14, 2012 @ 6:26 pm
Romney should go ahead and release his tax returns. It would be very interesting to know if he still has an interest in Bain Capital. I don’t believe that question has come up but I might be wrong.
Comment by Cold n P — January 14, 2012 @ 8:13 pm
My Anthem is from New York; “Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield”. I am assuming it is wherever the “home office” which contracts with them is located not the employee, as many can be employed in different states.
Comment by Sandi Saunders — January 14, 2012 @ 11:05 pm
American Free Press article is likely by Bill White. All the buzzwords fit with his philosophy. Here is an update on him from the SPLC
http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2011/07/27/neo-nazi-bill-white-back-in-the-real-estate-business/
Comment by M. J. — January 15, 2012 @ 6:52 am
contraidiot you are just another ignorant, nasty mouth libbiecom honey, really sad.
Comment by pammala — January 17, 2012 @ 1:54 pm
I think that article made more of a stink then it should have.
The last time I was in Roanoke (10 years ago) it was a dirty place. It was a huge shock from the town that I come from. I made the mistake of going by the mall and it was jam packed full of blacks. That is the 1st place I had ever seen a real homeless guy. I was watching a parade and I noticed a man grabbing soda cans out of the trash can and drinking the remaining contents. I walked over 2 him completely shocked and asked “What r u doing? Why r u going through the trash?”. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I tried 2 give him some money because I could not handle seeing him drink soda out of the trash can. He asked me if I could walk him 2 the soda machine because some1 stole his glasses. I agreed because the machine was only 30 feet or so away. The whole experience ruined my day. I guess up until that time I didn’t really believe people lived like that.
Comment by Jo-Jo — January 23, 2012 @ 3:24 pm
The last time “Jo-Jo” posted here, it was with the nickname americafarm, and the comment linked to a Web site about Bill White’s trial.
just fyi
Comment by Dan Casey — January 23, 2012 @ 3:58 pm
I am falling off my chair laughing at someone who hadn’t seen a homeless person until the 2000s. Perhaps Jo Jo would be happier staying under his rock.
Comment by Kristen — January 23, 2012 @ 4:47 pm
#33 Yeah, right, “Jo-Jo.” Tell you what, we’ll see if we can get those “blacks” out of the mall. They have no right shopping where the whities go.
Comment by gdad — January 23, 2012 @ 4:49 pm
Okay, so I posted that for a fellow with no internet access. (No, it wasn’t Bill White.) The story is true and I think it is a good example of of the mainstream American “white experience” that is unwelcome in the “mainstream” media.
There is a Chris Rock joke, “The black mall is the mall the whites USED to go to”. Chances are good the Roanoke mall is one the whites fondly remember as a good mall “before it got ruined”.
Comment by americafarm — January 24, 2012 @ 6:02 am
WOW, just wow! How sad that so many people believe America is about skin color. This nation was founded on the rule of law, the Constitution and the freedom of a democratic republic. If you believe anything else, you missed a whole hell of a lot of history and chose to be the kind of person this nation is on guard against. The color of skin is not relevant to America. Period. If it is relevant to you, that is YOUR problem.
Comment by Sandi Saunders — January 24, 2012 @ 9:28 am
Oh, yeah, America was founded by a people from a civilization blind to skin color. Right.
Enjoy the urban decay, Sandi!
Comment by americafarm — January 28, 2012 @ 10:22 am