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I see this as analogous to the Dust Bowl, where the politicians and coastal elite ignored or dismissed the growing problem until it was too big to ignore. - ht

I see this as analogous to the Dust Bowl, where the politicians and coastal elite ignored or dismissed the growing problem until it was too big to ignore. - https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/1000-mile-long-storm-showed-horror-life-dust-bowl-180962847/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/1000-mile-long-sto... -https://mallhistory.org/items/show/274 https://mallhistory.org/items/show/274 100 years and more information than ever, yet we have’t figured out this out-of-sight, out-of-mind problem.

ethanbond 3y ago
Are people ignoring it? Or do people just not know how to solve it? What would you propose as a solution?
- nobodyandproud 3y ago
  > Are people ignoring it? Every problem has a different solution, but our inability to mobilize and solve the problem before it becomes a crisis seems to share a common theme. Namely that our representatives and government officials have chosen to ignore the problem; I feel journalists have played a large part in exposing the problem and even then it's been an uphill battle. > Or do people just not know how to solve it? What would you propose as a solution? The political will to treat our fentanyl and opioid addicts is sort of there but the funding is not. Right now governments have been battling the Sacklers in court and it seems our collective state and federal government isn't really winning. I'll go back to the Dust Bowl: My fantasy is to bus all of the addicts to the people who need to see this non-stop. No violence. Bring them to the state/Federal officials where they work of course, but I'd love to see them bused to near the Sacklers' home; and to their retreats of choice. Non-stop. Until there's nowhere for them to run except out of the country. And the opioid-wealthy become pariah until they clean-up their own mess. As an immigrant who never learned how to be politically active and am a bit old and crusty now, I wouldn't even know where to start; but it's a fun fantasy at least.
Loughla 3y ago
Bingo. The center of this country (outside of a few major urban/sub-urban areas) is hollow. Between the loss of agriculture as a family job, loss of industrial jobs, and opioid use after decades of methamphetamine use, it's bleak. And no one really cares. As a general rule, we're told, "just move to Chicago (St. Louis, Kansas City, wherever)". That's not a solution, or a possibility for a lot of folks.
- kibwen 3y ago
  > That's not a solution, or a possibility for a lot of folks. Then we need to work to make it a solution and a possibility, because I don't know what the alternative is. I'm from Appalachia, though my former oil-town retains a meager amount of relevance via the nearby industrial dairy farm. The owner of the only grocery store retired and nobody was interested in taking over, so the storefront laid empty until the government gave tax breaks to a hardware chain to set up shop and stock a little corner in the back with groceries so that it wouldn't become a food desert. But the situation isn't sustainable; there's not enough jobs. The population is declining. Most everybody drives to neighboring towns to work. I got out and moved to a big city, and wild horses couldn't drag me back. I love the idea of small towns; not everyone needs to live in a big city (and almost nobody should be living in a remote cabin in the woods either; what an isolating experience). But if they're not economically viable, I'm not going to pay people to live there just so that small towns can continue to exist as a concept. What I will pay people to do is move to a city where they can find opportunity, and fight for more housing so that it's more affordable to do so.
  - mistrial9 3y ago
    > But if they're not economically viable, I'm not going to pay people to live there just so that small towns can continue to exist as a concept. these things are not written in stone, or the laws of physics. Layers of policy and taxation choices have led to this. Nothing says that the current system is stable, either.
  - rayiner 3y ago
    [flagged]
devjab 3y ago
As a Scandinavian I find this an odd take on the situation. To me it seems like the US has a very, very, broken healthcare system that you’ve chosen to have by electing politicians who aren’t going to reform it into something reasonable. My wife and I presently had twins, and we spent 7 days living in the hospital with a lot of help from nurses and so on, and it cost us $130. Which was me paying for 3 days of living there because the 3 days was the max you had to pay. Sure I pay 39% in taxes on the first $120k of my yearly income and then around 55% on anything above this (well except for a bunch of sort of loop holes to invest before taxes), but it’s basically still pretty nice to have that sort of healthcare system. I’m bipolar type 2 and I have ADHS. Now in case you don’t know, this involved a lot of trial and error with a psychiatrist to find the best medication for me. During this I learned that many prescription medications which are “normal” in the US are illegal or at least only used in extremely severe cases here in Denmark, because of how dangerous the side effects are. This is due to heavy government regulation, because we don’t elect politicians the way you do. We don’t have a winners takes all system which tends to lead to conservative governments which are heavily influenced by the private sector. Hell, you can even see it in our own local “opioid crisis” which was caused by deregulation by right leaning government (though to be fair, Danish conservatives would probably be considered communists by US standards). As I understand it, you Americans have the ability to both influence national and stateside policies. So that if your national government fails you, then you can still regulate your local laws. Which probably should have meant voting for politicians who would regulate your healthcare system in your states and ban medicine that is clearly a threat to public health. That you chose to not do this, and then blame your costal elites is just baffling to me. But maybe I just don’t understand your country well enough?
- matwood 3y ago
  Healthcare has to be fixed at the state and national level. There's not much that can be done at a lower level. There are a lot of rules around what states can do to regulate interstate commerce. There's also the situation we're in with pot, where it's legal in many state, but still illegal at the federal level. The other big issue, is like a lot of things in the US, if someone has money healthcare is great. It's probably the best in the world. Those who get elected have money and don't personally feel the healthcare issue. Heck, politicians at the federal level have their own healthcare system making them even further removed. One of the biggest voting blocks is seniors, and they have already have access to what many say could be a step towards universal healthcare if opened to everyone. So they are also not inclined to think about it too much. All in all, it's complicated.
ryan_lane 3y ago
Cities see this as much as rural areas, especially cities like San Francisco. It's absurd to frame this as a "coastal elite" vs rural problem. Politically, it's nearly the opposite, where conservatives use the outcome of the epidemic as evidence that cities are dangerous hellholes, and actively fight solutions to minimize harm (monitored usage sites, needle exchanges, etc). In terms of generally ignoring solutions to the problem, politicians as a whole seem to be the problem, rather than it being a city vs rural thing. Most likely liberals don't care about rural areas because they aren't winning those voters, and conservatives need the epidemic to harm cities so they can use it as fodder, so they won't help the rural areas, especially since they're going to win those areas anyway. Also, it's kind of wild to blame the dust bowl on politicians and the coastal elite when it was primarily farming practices to blame. Why are coastal cities to blame for ignoring a problem that doesn't directly affect them when the affected areas are actively causing the problem, and not solving their problem locally? In the end it was the politicians who solved that problem.

ethanbond 3y ago

Are people ignoring it? Or do people just not know how to solve it? What would you propose as a solution?

nobodyandproud 3y ago
> Are people ignoring it? Every problem has a different solution, but our inability to mobilize and solve the problem before it becomes a crisis seems to share a common theme. Namely that our representatives and government officials have chosen to ignore the problem; I feel journalists have played a large part in exposing the problem and even then it's been an uphill battle. > Or do people just not know how to solve it? What would you propose as a solution? The political will to treat our fentanyl and opioid addicts is sort of there but the funding is not. Right now governments have been battling the Sacklers in court and it seems our collective state and federal government isn't really winning. I'll go back to the Dust Bowl: My fantasy is to bus all of the addicts to the people who need to see this non-stop. No violence. Bring them to the state/Federal officials where they work of course, but I'd love to see them bused to near the Sacklers' home; and to their retreats of choice. Non-stop. Until there's nowhere for them to run except out of the country. And the opioid-wealthy become pariah until they clean-up their own mess. As an immigrant who never learned how to be politically active and am a bit old and crusty now, I wouldn't even know where to start; but it's a fun fantasy at least.

Loughla 3y ago

Bingo. The center of this country (outside of a few major urban/sub-urban areas) is hollow. Between the loss of agriculture as a family job, loss of industrial jobs, and opioid use after decades of methamphetamine use, it's bleak. And no one really cares. As a general rule, we're told, "just move to Chicago (St. Louis, Kansas City, wherever)". That's not a solution, or a possibility for a lot of folks.

kibwen 3y ago
> That's not a solution, or a possibility for a lot of folks. Then we need to work to make it a solution and a possibility, because I don't know what the alternative is. I'm from Appalachia, though my former oil-town retains a meager amount of relevance via the nearby industrial dairy farm. The owner of the only grocery store retired and nobody was interested in taking over, so the storefront laid empty until the government gave tax breaks to a hardware chain to set up shop and stock a little corner in the back with groceries so that it wouldn't become a food desert. But the situation isn't sustainable; there's not enough jobs. The population is declining. Most everybody drives to neighboring towns to work. I got out and moved to a big city, and wild horses couldn't drag me back. I love the idea of small towns; not everyone needs to live in a big city (and almost nobody should be living in a remote cabin in the woods either; what an isolating experience). But if they're not economically viable, I'm not going to pay people to live there just so that small towns can continue to exist as a concept. What I will pay people to do is move to a city where they can find opportunity, and fight for more housing so that it's more affordable to do so.
- mistrial9 3y ago
  > But if they're not economically viable, I'm not going to pay people to live there just so that small towns can continue to exist as a concept. these things are not written in stone, or the laws of physics. Layers of policy and taxation choices have led to this. Nothing says that the current system is stable, either.
- rayiner 3y ago
  [flagged]

devjab 3y ago

As a Scandinavian I find this an odd take on the situation. To me it seems like the US has a very, very, broken healthcare system that you’ve chosen to have by electing politicians who aren’t going to reform it into something reasonable. My wife and I presently had twins, and we spent 7 days living in the hospital with a lot of help from nurses and so on, and it cost us $130. Which was me paying for 3 days of living there because the 3 days was the max you had to pay. Sure I pay 39% in taxes on the first $120k of my yearly income and then around 55% on anything above this (well except for a bunch of sort of loop holes to invest before taxes), but it’s basically still pretty nice to have that sort of healthcare system. I’m bipolar type 2 and I have ADHS. Now in case you don’t know, this involved a lot of trial and error with a psychiatrist to find the best medication for me. During this I learned that many prescription medications which are “normal” in the US are illegal or at least only used in extremely severe cases here in Denmark, because of how dangerous the side effects are. This is due to heavy government regulation, because we don’t elect politicians the way you do. We don’t have a winners takes all system which tends to lead to conservative governments which are heavily influenced by the private sector. Hell, you can even see it in our own local “opioid crisis” which was caused by deregulation by right leaning government (though to be fair, Danish conservatives would probably be considered communists by US standards). As I understand it, you Americans have the ability to both influence national and stateside policies. So that if your national government fails you, then you can still regulate your local laws. Which probably should have meant voting for politicians who would regulate your healthcare system in your states and ban medicine that is clearly a threat to public health. That you chose to not do this, and then blame your costal elites is just baffling to me. But maybe I just don’t understand your country well enough?

matwood 3y ago
Healthcare has to be fixed at the state and national level. There's not much that can be done at a lower level. There are a lot of rules around what states can do to regulate interstate commerce. There's also the situation we're in with pot, where it's legal in many state, but still illegal at the federal level. The other big issue, is like a lot of things in the US, if someone has money healthcare is great. It's probably the best in the world. Those who get elected have money and don't personally feel the healthcare issue. Heck, politicians at the federal level have their own healthcare system making them even further removed. One of the biggest voting blocks is seniors, and they have already have access to what many say could be a step towards universal healthcare if opened to everyone. So they are also not inclined to think about it too much. All in all, it's complicated.

ryan_lane 3y ago

Cities see this as much as rural areas, especially cities like San Francisco. It's absurd to frame this as a "coastal elite" vs rural problem. Politically, it's nearly the opposite, where conservatives use the outcome of the epidemic as evidence that cities are dangerous hellholes, and actively fight solutions to minimize harm (monitored usage sites, needle exchanges, etc). In terms of generally ignoring solutions to the problem, politicians as a whole seem to be the problem, rather than it being a city vs rural thing. Most likely liberals don't care about rural areas because they aren't winning those voters, and conservatives need the epidemic to harm cities so they can use it as fodder, so they won't help the rural areas, especially since they're going to win those areas anyway. Also, it's kind of wild to blame the dust bowl on politicians and the coastal elite when it was primarily farming practices to blame. Why are coastal cities to blame for ignoring a problem that doesn't directly affect them when the affected areas are actively causing the problem, and not solving their problem locally? In the end it was the politicians who solved that problem.