Mensh und Kinder

I have done NOTHING with r/aberdeenwa for like a year and the description is openly hostile, yet it's gained close to 200 more members for a town of 16-17k people.

That makes absolutely no fucking sense.

Unless locals on the ground are Christian nutters who see me as their personal savior who will continue to do good things for them no matter how abusive they are to me. That's the ONLY explanation I can think of that makes ANY fucking sense of those numbers.

Thus, I think locals who knew me in person continue to promote it by word of mouth, which leaves no record or paper trail I can point to. 

I was a naive fool to think I could walk away from ridiculous small town politics by taking over r/aberdeenwa and talking to other locals, not them.

If you are doing community development work, old buildings, landscape issues and so forth are relatively easy to fix, assuming you can get everyone on the same page. It will be getting everyone on the same page that is the big headache.

People problems can be very intractable at times and people problems can ruin any plans you make, no matter how much research you do or how obectively good they are, sometimes for really "stupid" reasons -- like someone secretly has a crush on you and is married, so would NEVER admit it.

Yes, there are 16-17k people there. But the ones doing so-called community development work are a very short list. You see the same names show up over and over on various local boards and the like and if it's not them, it's their spouse.

Most of the people there are not doing anything to develop the community and in a small town the local movers and shakers will have everyone's ear. Almost no one will think for themselves or have an independent opinion about some new person in town posting stuff on the Internet.

Money is not power. If money were power, anyone who won the lottery would immediately be powerful.

They aren't. What they are in most cases is a previously poor person dreaming of getting rich overnight because money was the biggest problem they felt they had and now they are a rich person with rich people problems and no rich people coping skills.

They have poor people coping skills and that's probably not going to help them ever again. Knowing which buddy would buy you lunch the last day of the month so you could eat that day does nothing for you if you suddenly have money.

People who win the lottery not only don't have power, they tend to get horrifically mistreated because they suddenly have money and no rich people coping skills or support systems in place.

So what is power?

A very large part of power is that when you speak, people listen. I didn't have that and anyone in town who did was determined to make sure I NEVER would have that in Aberdeen, Washington.

So they stalked me and actively sabotaged my efforts to connect with locals via Internet who weren't them. They weren't going to allow me to do an end run around the existing local power structures.

I believe that they sabotaged Chipotle and Panda Express because nothing is allowed to happen in that town without them making it happen. I refused to be their bitch, so nothing I did would ever be allowed to happen unless it happened quietly without crediting ME and instead got them credit locally on the ground even though it was my idea.

They are not remotely interested in the best interests of the town. That's not why they do what they do.

This pattern is probably generally true for all small towns. This is one reason I don't know if small town America is fixable.

Because IF I'm correct and Panda Express and Chipotle both tried to open a location there and it was sabotaged:

1. They got burned financially and had their time wasted.

2. They won't EVER try again to open a location in Aberdeen, Washington no matter how good the market looks or who asks them, etc.

3. They will probably be leery of other small towns because they are in business to make money and this cost them money.

If other small towns work this way, they have excellent reason to be leery. That's absolutely not them being "prejudiced" and hurting other people who don't deserve it.

It's a lesson learned and once bitten, twice shy.

Why did I list Panda Express and Chipotle? Primarily because I like eating there and I wanted those establishments to come there.

But partly because they don't do franchises. The company owns all locations.

So in theory IF you convince Panda Express and Chipotle that your town will make them money, they can just open up a location. Whereas for a franchise restaurant, you need to not only do market analysis showing the numbers make sense but you need a person willing to open there who can get the financing, etc.

That's much harder to arrange.

If Aberdeen did what I believe they did, they have poisoned the well for ALL small towns everywhere across America and you will have an uphill battle to convince either one of these companies to take a chance on your town. It will not be good enough to show traffic figures and similar market analysis.

The human mind can handle the complex social interactions of roughly 150 members of a community. Groups that size or smaller are capable of having all members genuinely care about each other.

That doesn't work in big cities but in big cities no one expects everyone else to know them and care about them. It's small towns where you can have an illusion that "We are a real community and we all know each other and care about each other." when it's not true.

For urban planning and economic development purposes, the 16-17k people in Aberdeen, Washington is a small town. For purposes of human connection, it's a huge group and that process of human connection breaks down without it being big enough for other processes to exist which help mitigate it, such as the formality of big bureaucracies.

In a word, my experience with Aberdeen, Washington suggests to me that the real reason small town America is hurting is due to corruption.

You can lead a horse to water. You cannot make it drink. If that's the actual explanation, then better ideas published on the Internet won't improve anything.

While imagining I would get the job they dangled in front of me, one potential solution to local problems that I dreamed up was making contact with canneries in Alaska and getting able-bodied homeless well-paid seasonal jobs with low barriers to entry.

I no longer believe that ever had a snowball's chance in hell of working because I believe people in Aberdeen, Washington have ZERO interest in helping homeless people get jobs, get housing and get their lives back. They LIKE giving out free meals and telling themselves they are Good Christians TM.

The homeless people are lured to Aberdeen by all the homeless services and then nothing is done to actually empower them to get their lives back. They WANT you to remain wretches so they can play the role of good guy who deserves to go to heaven when they die.

They will have no actual respect for you. You aren't a real person in their eyes. You will never be a real person in their eyes. 

I was a very competent poor person going to economic development organizations and trying to establish an earned income based on skill and hard work. They actively shafted me and have continued to stalk me well after I left town and continue to deny me any means to turn a profit and probably tell themselves that's okay because in their warped minds I'm not a flesh and blood person with bills to pay.

I'm a Christian icon, a spiritual symbol. It's fine to crucify me and call it a religious experience.

I was no longer homeless and had gotten myself off the street on my own efforts without going through a program and they actively strangled my ability to earn a living. I'm guessing they won't treat you any better if you are homeless in Aberdeen and trying to make your life work.

Actual economic development is not their goal.

Actually helping homeless people get their lives back is not their goal.

Their goal is earning a slot in heaven in the afterlife and you do that by helping unfortunate souls, not by solving systemic problems so there are fewer wretches in need of free meals while sleeping out in the rain every day because it rains up to eighty inches a year there.

Anyway, I thought if I got the job, I could simply CALL canneries in Alaska and say something like "I'm the Executive Director of the local economic development organization here in Aberdeen, Washington. I was previously homeless and got my life to work by getting a job. I'm hoping to help other homeless people do the same. Can you tell me what you need in employees so I can prescreen people and refer qualified applicants to you?"

In May 2020, I quit all my volunteer work in Aberdeen and stopped going to public meetings and took over r/aberdeenwa. That fall, maybe September, I either took over or created several Alaska subreddits.

If I wasn't going to get the job, I didn't think it likely that canneries in Alaska would bother to waste their time answering my questions. I was wondering if I could turn this idea into a stand alone business and solve problems that way while improving my bottom line, but I no longer felt I had a leg to stand on with regards to hoping canneries would talk to me.

I no longer had anything to offer them. I had no reason to believe I had an in with the local homeless population merely because I lived there.

And I felt that without that, I needed even more industry insider information to try to make something happen and even less reason for anyone to share such with me.

At one time, I was a talented moderator. Moderating on Reddit is unpaid work. Sometimes people on discussion forums appreciate the unpaid labor of the moderators and treat the moderators with respect etc.

So I took over or established subs for three small towns in Alaska with significant fishing ports hoping to both learn more about those places and make contacts in Alaska who might someday be willing to talk to me because they knew me and liked me or give someone my contact info and encourage them to talk to me.

Instead I got all kinds of open hatred which I didn't expect. I eventually dumped most or all of the subs in question.

It's not a big deal. I don't even eat fish. But I was running those subs in hopes of pursuing a business idea and it never got ANY traction in the slightest, though I accomplished everything else I wanted, such as learning more about the communities in question.

If you want to do community development work or business, people are a critical part of that. No matter how nice you are, no matter how good your ideas, etc etc etc, if you can't get other people to cooperate with your plans, you are dead in the water.

Even if it's in no way your fault and is because you are not from around here or the wrong skin color and they have baggage or are racist or whatever.

In anything involving other people, you may fail even though you did everything right because the outcome is dependent in part on their choices and you don't control their choices. Whining and crying about how they are crazy and their choices aren't rational etc etc etc etc etc won't change that fact in the slightest.

Footnote 

My late mother was German. The title of this piece -- Mensh und Kinder -- is a German exclamation of exasperation that translates to "People and children."

It's a little bit like the old fashioned practice of saying "Women!" when you are exasperated with them.