Culture Southerners. Appalachia, Moonshine and NASCAR, a Carl Manvers Diversionary Special

[CarlManvers2019]

@CarlManvers2019 I'm a southerner, not an Appalachian.

Like my paternal ancestors crossed North Carolina in the late 18th century, they fought for the confederacy, and IIRC were slave owners(well I know one was). One of my ancestors was with Lee at Appomattox. I live relatively close to Appalachia, so while I can say the cultures are related, they are definitely not the same.

Appalachians were poor, the south could be poor or rich. Appalachians followed certain strands of Christianity, Southern Christianity in general was less...exuberant.

So please don't talk about what you know absolutely nothing about.

I was born in Appalachia/midwest, but raised in the south.
There is only one state that takes that an it is Ohio where I was born.

My family is from all over mainly Kentucky west virginia and Michigan.
We are all northers/midwest since we were born.

Okay, that said, good luck to both of you guys in the future

 

[Lanmandragon]

Can't really stop, but I gotta admit something else, these sorts of dudes doing stuff like breaking into farms and causing trouble are NOT really reproducing

Or probably even actually making money, they're just sort of wallowing in some sort of idea that they're revolutionaries whilst the people they hate are being "selfish" but actually doing better than them, ironically helping more and being happy

These guys aren't gonna survive for long and will grow tired....and Trump will probably win 2020 if he's NOT assassinated

Is America too libertarian to deal with the coronavirus?

Why widespread testing in the country may not work.

www.vox.com

Americans have an "instinctive aversion towards government" weird

That said to a degree, these guys make some sense....not that simply giving up your freedoms will really fix everything

Personally I'd say trusting he government is weird different strokes and all that jazz.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

Personally I'd say trusting he government is weird different strokes and all that jazz.

I see the government as some sort of "representative" of the people's desires, something through which they hope to use as a force of change or to get things done.

It's the ultimate force of violence, just as voting is a form of violence

 

[Lanmandragon]

I see the government as some sort of "representative" of the people's desires, something through which they hope to use as a force of change or to get things done.

It's the ultimate force of violence, just as voting is a form of violence

I see the state as a necessary evil because we'retribal apes. Still i run undwr the assumption they're lying even Trump.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

I see the state as a necessary evil because we'retribal apes. Still i run undwr the assumption they're lying even Trump.

Good, that shows you’re NOT simply drinking a possible antidote that maybe a poison for pre-existing poison

The ability to doubt is ALWAYS a good thinh

 

[Cherico]

They are not, no more than any region with a mildly insular culture is. In fact, the Applachian stereotype is one of the few highly negative stereotypes still allowed in American media because it's about a predominately white population. If it was about any other ethnic group it long ago would have been seen as what it is.

Bear in mind, the stereotype is founded on long conflicts between ethnic groups dating back to before the foundation of the United States. You see, the heartland of the Appalachian mountains, the Shenandoah Valley and the Applachian mountains of Virginia and West Virginia., were predominated settled by the Presbyterian Scots-Irish. Meanwhile they the Piedmont and Tidewater of Virginia was settled by the Anglican English.

So, there was a pre-existing serious divide there culturally dating back to colonial times. Take all the English negative stereotypes about the Irish (Scots-Irish means "Protestant Irish" effectively, but it's more complicated than that) and transplant them to how the English colonists of the region felt towards the Appalachians. Then add in the Slavery issue. You see, the Appalachian Scots-Irish were not really that big on the entire "slavery" system and you frequently saw routes of the underground railroad moving through their territory. Further, economically speaking the slave plantation system that dominated the South in the 18th and 19th centuries was not economical for the Appalachians, leading to those regions being economically disadvantaged (and thus politically disadvantaged) compared to the wealthy elite regions of the South... furthering division. And, of course, with such hostile divisions between them on major political, religious, and ethnic issues, the wealthy English descended elites, who controlled the media and academia of the South, tended to portray them as backwards subhumans.

Then came the Civil War. Remember: Virginia used to hold all the territory of what is now Virginia and W. Virginia, what West Virginia is was the counties of Virginia that refused to secede from the Union in the Civil War and while you also had many folks from the Appalachians fighting for the Confederacy, it was much more Unionist than anywhere else in the South.

But we're not done yet. In the post Civil War era you'd expect the Appalachian parts of the South to have been favored by the Federal government since they were a hotbed of Unionists through the war. But you'd be wrong. You see the Appalachian mountains are some of the oldest mountains in the world and at one time in deep ancient history they were on the sea bed right before a major die off. Which means that the Applachian mountains have some of the most significant and high quality coal deposits in the world. Northern industrialists and the railroads absolutely, positively NEEDED that coal, and they would stop at nothing to get it as cheaply as possible. So they weaponized County, State, and even the Federal government against the folks of Appalachia to steal land, force them into employment in the mines in the worst kind of situation, and did everything they could to prevent them from unionizing (up to and including deploying the Pinkertons and US Army against them). In order to justify such oppressive measures the industrial elites and media of the time continued to subject the Applachian folks to highly negative portrayals in media.

This continues to this day, as the Appalachian culture is highly religious in protestant Christianity. It was highly influential in the Charismatic movement, the Fundamentalist, and to this day it is Appalachia that is the home of many of the Conservative Christian strongholds, for instance, Falwell's Liberty University is situated in an Appalachian city. They also are one of the strongest proponents of expansive gun rights in the US and, due to the aforementioned long history of negative involvement of State and Federal government, tend to be highly skeptical of government intervention into things (and I haven't even touched on things like Prohibition and how that negatively impacted Appalachia).

This means that almost all Appalachian values are at odds with the values of the urban elites, and as such, they are consistently demonized in media.

I actually want to hear about how prohibition affected Apalicia now.

 

[Lanmandragon]

I actually want to hear about how prohibition affected Apalicia now.

Well it created Nascar at the very least

 

[CarlManvers2019]

Women are told more lies than men in workplace reviews, new research suggests. And that can prevent gender equality. | CNN

Turns out, gender bias in the workplace is just as detrimental as you may think.

edition.cnn.com

I'm surprised anybody would say this on CNN

 

[Bear Ribs]

I actually want to hear about how prohibition affected Apalicia now.

One thing about Appalachia is that every last thing they try, they get stepped on by the government. They hated slavery and got abused by the south for it, then got called slavers anyway by the Union and attacked by them! Their tourism industry is horrible because Hollywood considers "Hillbilly horror" that plays their people up as murderers of trourists a valid genre. Their unions got bombed by the actual US military, and their economy has been in a continuous state of attack as every product they make gets villified one after the other.

Appalachia grows a decent amount of food, but the mountainous terrain made it too expensive to transport bulk goods like grain out of the Smokies. The residents came up with an appropriate solution, to ship out the grain in a more compact, shall we say liquid, form. Starting in the very early 1800s Appalachia exported massive amounts of moonshine that would be turned into "whisky" in saloons all across the old west. See, again, due to expense it wasn't profitable to ship actual whisky to all those dusty towns but demand was high, so they imported only the alcohol as moonshine and then thinned it down with copious amounts of water and added a browning agent (usually a plug of tobacco, a handful of molasses was used for the better stuff) to make "whisky."

Just check out this horrifying recipe:
Upper Platte recipe:
1 gal. alcohol
1 lb. plug or black twist tobacco
1 lb. black sugar or molasses
1 handful red Spanish peppers
10 gal. river water (in flood)
2 rattlesnake heads per barrel

I've seen quite a few recipes and they all tend to be similar (the rattlesnake heads were a surprise and most recipes specified rainwater instead of filthy river water) with it basically being a gallon of moonshine, a pound of tobacco (also from Appalachia) and anywhere from 10 to an entire barrel of water because Appalachians would distill moonshine until it was 198 proof and you could dilute the heck out of it and still get drunk.

Needless to say with this being their cash crop, the sudden banning of alcohol hurt their economy something fierce. The "Revenuer" (Government man out to collect taxes, and also normally tasked to check if a farm was producing 'shine) became a regular villain and NASCAR was born of the bootleggers hauling illegal shine and driving like maniacs on the twisted roads of the mountains to get away from them. If you watch the old Dukes of Hazzard the Dukes are actually ex-bootleggers and it's specified a couple of times that they made a deal with the Revenuers that the Dukes would quit running 'shine in exchange for full pardons for the family.

So they switched to tobacco followed suddenly by campaigns against tobacco by the east... frankly given how many times the government has turned around and stomped on Appalachia it's amazing they haven't decided to secede on their own. And then when they tell their story they're informed they're "privileged..."

 

[Curved_Sw0rd]

Just check out this horrifying recipe:
Upper Platte recipe:
1 gal. alcohol
1 lb. plug or black twist tobacco
1 lb. black sugar or molasses
1 handful red Spanish peppers
10 gal. river water (in flood)
2 rattlesnake heads per barrel

That'll put hair on your chest for damn sure...

 

[Urabrask Revealed]

That'll put hair on your chest for damn sure...

Will it kill you or just make you wish it did?

 

[Curved_Sw0rd]

Will it kill you or just make you wish it did?

You don't have to worry about the latter if you drink enough.

 

[S'task]

Just check out this horrifying recipe:
Upper Platte recipe:
1 gal. alcohol
1 lb. plug or black twist tobacco
1 lb. black sugar or molasses
1 handful red Spanish peppers
10 gal. river water (in flood)
2 rattlesnake heads per barrel

Really, the worst thing in that is the River Water and, maybe, the rattlesnake head (though both those are mitigated by the fact that you're mixing it with nearly pure grain alcohol which likely kills any lingering bacteria and parasites). People forget, because they're used to tobacco in the form of cigarettes (which is low quality, very dry tobacco) that tobacco itself is actually an aromatic herb in and of itself, and properly aged actually has a sweet, fairly pleasant flavor. There's a reason that all other forms of tobacco consumption besides cigarettes are focused on the mouth and tongue. Pipe and Cigar smoke is not breathed in, but rather held in the mouth and tasted. Chewing tobacco too is again held in the mouth and tasted, not ingested (that's why you spit with it). While they certainly are the most popular form of tobacco product, among tobacco products cigarettes are an outlier in that they are actively inhaled rather than tasted.

Everything else we see in drinks all the time even now. "Black sugar" isn't common now, but all that is is sugar with a high amount of molasses still in it (compare to modern brown sugar, which is similar but with less molassas). "Red Spanish Peppers" are just a hot pepper.