dagblog - Comments for "Hope"

Not all rural areas. Upstate

cmaukonen — Mon, 16 May 2011 13:51:53 +0000

In reply to Wow. Can't admit you wrote

Not all rural areas. Upstate NY, PA, and Ohio did not do all that badly. Most farmers there did not loose their farms.

Wow. Can't admit you wrote

bwakfat — Mon, 16 May 2011 13:01:03 +0000

In reply to Some facts about the Dust

Wow. Can't admit you wrote something off the mark, eh? Well, I'm glad you "educated" yourself.

In actuality, THINGS WERE WORSE IN RURAL AREAS DURING THE GREAT DEPRESSION.

You're welcome.

Some facts about the Dust

cmaukonen — Mon, 16 May 2011 03:21:11 +0000

In reply to The Dust Bowl, or the Dirty

Some facts about the Dust Bowl.

The Dust Bowl was caused by several different factors that all seemed to come together at the same time. The reasons for this disaster didn’t just happen overnight, they had been building up for at least a decade. Over planting of crops during World War I, the government said to plant more and the farmers did. After World War I things were great, the prices for crops were good and the rains came. In order to plant more crops, farmers were buying new land and equipment on credit. New technologies were developed that farmers used to tear up land even faster. The farmers didn’t rotate crops nor did they leave areas of native grasses, they just dug up everything and planted crops. Some people started saying this is all wrong. The ground is now upside down. And it was. The native grasses were now underneath and the dirt on top.
.............
In 1931 there was a record wheat harvest, which depressed the price of wheat. In order to make payments on land and machinery on time and to make up for the lower price of wheat, farmers had to plant more and more which meant tearing up the land further. Farmers were warned by Native American Indians and also old time cattle ranchers that had known that land for many years, not to tear up the native grasses. But the farmers had to by now and continued to plow under even more native grasslands and plant crops. Soil conservation practices had to be abandoned so that extra crops could be planted to meet payments as the price fell for wheat and other crops.

By the early 1930s the Great Depression had hit the country. And at this time a severe drought had started in the Great Plains. The rains didn’t come anymore as expected. In the high plains, the 1930s were known as the Dirty 30s.

The Soil Conservation Service described the area of the severe drought as in western Kansas, eastern Colorado, the Oklahoma panhandle and the Texas panhandle.
There were 14 severe dust storms in 1932 and in 1933 there were 38 of them reported. In 1937 there were 134 dust storms. These dust storms were called black blizzards.

I other words, the Dust Bowl years would have been bad even if the economy was great.

The Dust Bowl, or the Dirty

bwakfat — Mon, 16 May 2011 02:52:09 +0000

In reply to Not everybody lived in the

The Dust Bowl, or the Dirty Thirties, was a period of severe dust storms causing major ecological and agricultural damage to American and Canadian prairie lands from 1930 to 1936 (in some areas until 1940).
...
The Dust Bowl exodus was the largest migration in American history within a short period of time. By 1940, 2.5 million people had moved out of the Plains states; of those, 200,000 moved to California.^[14] With their land barren and homes seized in foreclosure, many farm families were forced to leave. Migrants left farms in Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Texas, Colorado and New Mexico

Quick note from the wiki. Check out the FSA photos at the Library of Congress. Things were awful everywhere, but that region didn't recover for decades.

Not everybody lived in the

cmaukonen — Mon, 16 May 2011 02:26:21 +0000

In reply to Um, does the dust bowl ring

Not everybody lived in the Dust Bowl and that was going on way before the Crash and depression that followed.

Um, does the dust bowl ring

bwakfat — Mon, 16 May 2011 02:03:18 +0000

In reply to Speaking of which, where did

Um, does the dust bowl ring any bells?

If anything, life got a hell of a lot worse once one got out of the cities.

Speaking of which, where did

cmaukonen — Mon, 16 May 2011 01:16:05 +0000

In reply to Pot o' tea. Don't like

Speaking of which, where did anyone get the idea that people stuck together during the Great Depression. There was no Medicare back then, no Medicaid, no foodstamps, no homeless shelters. Sure, there were people engaged in charity, but there were plenty of people who said the poor were just lazy. Does no one remember that we used to have a class war in this country?

For one thing America was still fairly agrarian at that time. No big Corporate Farms. Still family farms. Once you got away from the cities, life was not nearly as bad. People still put up food and had gardens, even in the outskirts of the cities.

Oh and we still have class war. Never really went away and I think now it's becoming more of a hot war rather than cold.

Those teacher-student ratios

stillidealistic — Sun, 15 May 2011 23:26:47 +0000

In reply to Stable democracies are

Those teacher-student ratios aren't accurate in the public schools where I live...here they are closer to 32-34 kids per class in elementary school, and most non-academic programs are either gone, or shrinking into oblivion...art, music, field trips, phys ed. Teachers with 8 years seniority are being laid off right and left. There is talk state-wide about reducing the school year by a whole month. Yet a principal in a very small school (under a hundred kids k-8, and ALL enrichment programs gone) was just hired at 100k per year. What's wrong with that picture?

In contrast, the private school my granddaughter attends is hurting for attendance (with all the layoffs in state employment) but so far the church is making up the budget shortfall so all the programs are intact and the kids aren't feeling the pinch. Yet.

There is no doubt in my mind that education is in trouble, at least here in CA.

I wasn't around back then,

stillidealistic — Sun, 15 May 2011 23:12:59 +0000

In reply to Pot o' tea. Don't like

I wasn't around back then, Genghis, but I remember the stories my grandparents used to tell about how everyone helped each other out, pooled resources, and traded services. Maybe that is happening now, and it is just being overshadowed in my mind by the apparent heartlessness of the repubs in not wanting to extend unemployment benefits, giving more and more tax breaks to the rich while decreasing services to those who are hurting...I'm obviously having a hard time dealing with the fact that the party who CLAIMS to have God on their side is doing so much that I believe is making him weep with shame. I think it reflects poorly on us as a nation. And don't even get me started on the preoccupation with celebrities!

Liked it!

EmmaZahn — Sun, 15 May 2011 17:01:40 +0000

In reply to To cheer everyone up, here is

Liked it!