Oddbean

@af82bac8 You're right, there's that. Folks like Manchin always want us to imagine Black faces when we hear the word "drugs," but the addiction problem in the white population in many areas of the country and notably in Appalachia is horrendous.

@f884fa2b It's a long and complicated story, but basically I was trying to help someone get off heroin. The local "Privatised" place says "Oh, OK. Come in next week!", meaning no methadone to try and help for at least 10 days, so they had to go to a street dealer in the meantime. I went with them as backup, and when we arrived the dealer (short, white, runty) looked at me and my jack russell and said "'Oo dis guy? Iz 'ee a pleeceman?" like he's from Brixton or something! @af82bac8

@d9417feb @af82bac8 That's quite a story. I think that drug dealing may be invisible in some neighborhoods precisely because it's a white enterprise. I say that as someone who moved into my house in 1997, only to discover a few years later that there was a methadone house down the block, with dealers coming and going constantly and no one noticing. It all blew up — literally — when an apartment in the house blew up.

@f884fa2b In the UK most incidents are places catching fire because of the hacked electrical wiring in Weed Grow Houses. Here's a small anecdote. a comedian who had recently returned from New Zealand said while there she'd spoken to someone about how Meth isn't as big a problem in the UK as it is elsewhere. The Kiwi response was "Yeah, that's because it involves COOKING!". Is our culinary barbarism THAT bad?! #EnglishProblems @af82bac8

@f884fa2b @d9417feb Like Vermont, Maine is a predominantly white state. 98%+/- Native Americans & POC make up the other 2%+/-. We had the Koch Brothers Tea-Party supplied, "America's Craziest Governor" for 8 years. He was renowned for racially biased pronouncements. https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/01/paul-lepage-maine-governor-crazy-101923/

@af82bac8 @d9417feb Yes, I remember LePage, and how I so often wondered how someone of his ilk got elected in Maine. I recall his wild allegations that nearby states were busing "outsiders" into Maine to vote — and the thinly veiled racism of those allegations and his anti-drug rants. Maine is interesting in that it can produce someone of the caliber of Heather Cox Richardson — then vote hatefully to yank away the right of same-sex marriage.

@f884fa2b @d9417feb Simple answer, "Third Party Spoliers" kiboshed two elections in Pauly LePew's favor. One such Spoiler received GOP funds, coincidentally. Maine fixed that with instituting RCV, Rank Choice Voting. https://www.mainepublic.org/politics/2022-04-01/eliot-cutler-fallout-obscures-his-novel-effect-on-maine-politics

@f884fa2b One of my co-workers, (pre-retirement Maine) used to rail about the 'Welfare folk'. I shared with him the actual statistics, that 98% of those receiving benefits were Elderly, Children, & People with disabilities, & white. Ronny Raygun along with Lee Atwater were successful with their "Southern Strategy" in coded dog whistles, "Welfare Queens" are black. https://youtu.be/X_8E3ENrKrQ?feature=shared

@af82bac8 Yes, from Reagan's ugly racist rhetoric about welfare queens and lazy "bucks" — some of it delivered right in Philadelphia, Mississippi, whose significance he knew well — through Atwater, Gingrich, the whole Southern campaign, there has been a relentless attempt of the Republican party to make people think black and brown when they think welfare. When the facts tell us something entirely different….