The War on Poverty’s logic worked something like this. In Appalachia, it often happened that flooding caused by mining destroyed roads. Community residents would approach coal companies to ask permission to use their private access roads, requests that were universally denied. Community residents would would ask their political leaders for urgent assistance rebuilding their roads, requests that were universally denied. What the War on Poverty did was come to communities to rebuild roads. What the War on Poverty didn’t do was help poor people deal with the fact that they lived in a world where
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