Economic Warfare - The Side Of America No One Ever Sees 

Warfare has many faces. To some people the images of war contain fire, bloodshed, and tears. Sometimes these images of "war" overshadow the dark side of warfare. Yes warfare can be inherently dark, but when I speak of the dark side I speak of the warfare not seen because it hides in the shadows.

The War on Poverty.
The War on Drugs.
The War on Illiteracy.
The War on Coal.

Just some fancy terms to explain the states agenda to cover up the blight of warfare the state leaves in its path.

These things are often praised as great missions. Who wants poor illiterate drug addicts breathing smog?

"It's for the children", I have heard it all.

Today, I welcome you to the town which I live. The side of America never seen by the rest of the world. The true "Little Detroit" of Pennsylvania. Where the per capita income is not greater than $12,562. The economic, environmental, immigration, poverty and drug war-zone of America.

Ground zero.

Shenandoah.

The history of "Shendo" is an interesting history. First settled by a farmer named Peter Kehley, he built a log cabin in the mountain valley. There he lived for two decades isolated from society.

Peter Sold his land to the Philadelphia Land Company. A year after the civil war began, they laid out the town with plans to mine the area for anthracite coal.

The need for coal for the new railways being built across America and Lincoln's war effort exploded the population of the town. Within months it went from a few hundred to thousands of people pouring into the newly incorporated borough.

Shenandoah is boasted as having the best anthracite coal veins in the world. This obviously caught the eyes of if big money which to this day has its eyes on the black rock below its streets. 

Shenandoah was a hotbed for the Molly Maguires. They were a secret society of Irish who were prominent in both Ireland and north eastern USA. Often written off as extremists, locals claim they were wrongfully blamed for terrorist acts against the coal company in an effort to squash organized worker rights. That can be argued but it is a fact that many Maguires met their fate at the gallows at the still operational "Skook County Prison".

Shenandoah has to be the most diverse square mile in the whole of the nation. Immigrants poured into the area from Poland, Russia, Germany, Ireland, Lithuania(said to be the largest Lithuanian immigration area in nation), Welsh, English, Ukrainian, Italian and many other European countries. Most of these immigrants and their families still live in Shenandoah today.

The population of this 1.6 square miles of valley blew up to 30,000 people and represented more bars and brothels per person than anywhere else in the world. 

It was the Wild West of the east. Children, known as "the breaker boys" would work the mines and coal breakers in and around the town. 

Three railways serviced the borough making it possible to hop on a train and go anywhere in the country. Uprisings occurred and in 1902 the National Guard was sent it to squash worker rebellions. Eventually Teddy Roosevelt was the final arbitrator who helped the miners and coal companies come to an agreement.

The coal industry continued to decline and as the roaring twenties ended and the onset of the Great Depression, Shenandoah began to decline. 

Shenandoah was once a population center of 30,000 boasting 3 railways, thousands of bars, hundreds of businesses, large textile companies, fueling the growth of America's largest cities and industries. 

Today the population has dwindled to 4800 people. Most of the businesses have left. The streets lay in disrepair. The local government is broke. The people are broke. Homes sell for less than a few thousand dollars. 

New immigrants from Mexico and South America come for the inexpensive cost of living. Unfortunately, racism flourishes(with once immigrants against the new immigrants), which was excellently documented in the Netflix Documentary: Shenandoah, Pennsylvania. 

Shenandoah has not escaped the 2008 financial crisis. Many homes in town were bought with cheap and easy money from banks. Those homes sit by abandoned, owned by those banks. If it is not the banks owning property, they are abandoned or practically abandoned by slum lords living in New York City and Philadelphia.

The buildings in town continue to fall In disrepair which like a chain reaction continues to drive down the value of existing real-estate. It is said that just a few years ago the town was a beautiful town. People still had hope. Crime and drugs were not an issue.

Now, out of a population of 4800, drug dealer sweeps by the Feds, State and local police yield hundreds of arrests. It got so bad with heroin, needles littered the playgrounds and gutters like spent cigarette butts.

Whilst at a high school graduation ceremony, the speakers spoke of the same message to the graduation class.

"Go off to school, get an education, make a good life for yourself elsewhere... Then come back and help if you do well"

It was kind of a melancholy moment. I am not from this town. But I felt sad. Often I am told that "nothing will ever change" and conspiracy theories from "the state wants the coal" to "coal companies are running people out of town for the coal underneath" permeate local circles of friends. 

I don't see it like that. I don't even see it as the local corruption or mismanagement of resources. I don't see it as the coal companies fault. I see it as centralized outside forces which locally are outside of our control.

Be it the Feds, central banks, sub prime mortgage lenders or predatory slum lords, everyone has used and abused this community to the core. Now drug dealers loot it for what's left as they leave the scourge of heroin and meth across the veins and blood of local youth.

Sometimes it seems like the community has given up. There is only one main business left in town. Once a bustling textile manufacturing hub, Shendo is now best known for its kielbasa and Mrs T's Perogies.

"People move away to better places."

"People stopped caring. "

That is not true of course. I still see hope. I still see a community.

There still are a few businesses and volunteers in town which do more for the community than all the government agencies combined.

There are still locals which remember better days who have taken action and cleaned up streets and playgrounds. There still are valedictorian students and the local high school football games are more popular than the NFL.

The town, plagued by fires, celebrates its firemen constantly and just last weekend the town celebrated its 150th anniversary with a bang. The largest fireworks display I have ever seen in a small town. (Paid for by Mrs T's)

There is a lot of pride here. There is still a lot of hope. The Boy Scouts have returned. The community is organizing to make for a better future. So I have hope for them. I have hope for this town. 

Shenandoah is a warzone. It's a war zone between the drugs and the state. Coal and the EPA. The war on poverty and the constant poverty that grows. The banks. The war on race relations. The microcosm of all that will come to the rest of America in due time.

I believe Shendo, though an economic and drug warzone now, will be better than many other communities in the future.

Why?

Cause when you hit rock bottom the only place you can go is up. 

There are some really good people in this town. The people here deserve a better future. Just one or two businesses moving into town can drastically change the living standard of all the people here. I hope that day comes soon. 

For now, welcome to the side of America no one ever sees.

 I wrote this to share my experiences. I know I will (locally) be criticized for writing this article and may have to deal with those ramifications.