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What are the lowest starting and median wages of her employees at Dollywood?
Glassdoor says average pay is $14.90/hr. I don’t know if it is trustworthy or not.
Yeah, at least halfish of her employees are struggling to live. As cheap as the midwest is generally, Pigeon Forge has high property values and high taxes. I know a couple of her employees, they have five people in a shitty two bedroom apartment.
I think it might be relevant to add:
Dolly Parton worked her ass off, GOT LUCKY AND ACKNOWLEDGES IT, to get where she is.
In her entire life, I have seen no evidence that she has EVER said anything as disgusting as Vance does every single time he speaks. In fact, you are hard pressed to criticize her at all. The only thing I have is that she has said she never wants to comment on politics and I just hope that is not because she secretly has bad views but just wants to keep her image despite that. Who knows.
Even if her views didn’t align to mine, the fact that she does not go around espousing it at every turn (just like her faith), is still reason enough to respect the hell out of her. So she could be secretly batshit crazier than Vance, and I’d still respect her.
I mean, if she is secretly a trump supporter I’m pretty sure her reason to keep it a secret would be entirely selfish so I couldn’t agree there. Better than if she shared that view sure but I don’t see it being altruistic. I refuse to think she is a trumper though because if she is, then nothing can be pure in this world.
If she’s actively trying to help educate people, she’s no secret Trump supporter.
I don’t know why I’m getting pushback to a hypothetical that I’ve clearly stated I don’t want to be true and I don’t believe is true. The only reason I even have this as a possible idea is that she keeps her views secret, so it’s not on me either way. It is natural to sometimes be curious about people’s motives even if you think they’re probably a great person.
My theory as someone from Appalachia is that she’s a left leaning centrist trying to bring class consciousness back to the coal mining areas (y’know, where they shot their bosses in literal battles to establish worker unions previously), but she also depends on those local economies to get resources to do this and has to play both sides.
She’s made it her life’s mission to improve the education and literacy rate of the region and has to appear homey and down to earth to the folks living in the south as she doesn’t want to compromise her image. She says things in a vague enough way to not be accused of being a dirty lefty commie (their words, not mine).
I don’t think you deserve pushback, just offering an alternative explanation.
Yup. She wants to help her people and the most effective way of doing it is by educating the kids.
Giving books to children is a super effective way to spend the money. They can educate themselves out of the hole.
It’s actually really subversive. Smart lady. She plays the game quite well. She can’t take an open liberal stance as she would be marginalized, but educating children is difficult to attack.
I have no doubt that she’s a closeted liberal in the south. It’s often how you have to be to survive.
I could easily imagine her as either conservative or liberal or somewhere in between or somewhere outside of that whole spectrum. I can’t imagine that she is a Trumper.
I expect that her reason for not sharing her political beliefs is at least somewhat selfish. She has fans across the political spectrum, different segments of whom would certainly be upset by any political position she espoused. It could even be that she’s concerned about fans being angry and violent depending on what her views actually are.
Regardless, the fact that she doesn’t use her popularity to influence politics makes me respect her all the more. I my opinion, it’s both a smart decision for her, personally, and shows moral character.
Honestly charity stuff is great and horrible at the same time and you can criticize a lot of it.
But Dolly is not to blame for the system and within that system, dolly seems to be a fucking Staint. Thanks Dolly!
They say money unmasks people. She’s a saint.
So she’s like many of the other childless cat ladies I know.
We get the dolly parton books in the mail and they’re great. I read at least one of them every day.
Favorites are “grandpa and Jake” “the rabbit listened” and the most recent one “a book for bear.” The from last month is about sending you octopus to school, but it’s not as popular in our house. It has a lot of factoids about octopi, it’s really for an older audience like 6-8
octopodes or octopuses
My younger sister got books from Dolly’s programme. We lived in a shitty little council estate in the North of England, and my little sister got to grow up with more books than I did because of a US country music star. It always blew my mind.
I didn’t know they did it outside the US! That’s awesome!
Impressive, let’s see Jolene’s Appalachia.
My god, it even has an auburn watermark.
It’s gotta be beyond compare.
Don’t take my country just because you can.
With her no one could compete.
As a skeptic, I went looking to see if if I could find some fault in her fortune. I found that she genuinely is a good person.
Dolly Parton likes Taylor Swift while the orange felon hates Taylor Swift.
Leftists talking about bootstraps? Never thought I’d see the day!
“Dolly Parton achieved her success through labor and used that to help other Americans. I prefer that to a guy with social connections using his power to spread racist and sexist tripe in an attempt to usher in fascism.”
“BOOTSTRAPS”
???
No, it’s just that I thought people who grew up poor and ended up rich were a myth made up by the borgeoise to tell poor people it was their own fault
The closest thing Ms. Parton ever did to sin was Rhinestone, and that is still one of my favorite movies of all time.
Is this about Hillbilly Elegy?
JD “Appalachians are just lazy welfare leeches” Vance
I fucking hate Appalachia as only someone who grew up there can hate it, but God, what a dogshit fucking take from someone else who grew up in that shithole and should know better. Of all the many sins that can be laid at Appalachian regional culture’s feet, ‘lazy’ and ‘welfare leech’ do not feature.
But it was condescendingly paternalistic enough to please liberals and victim-blaming enough to please conservatives, so it was so highly fucking praised when it came out.
Goddammit.
I fucking hate Appalachia as only someone who grew up there can hate it
As someone who grew up in Florida, this resonates with me so fucking much, lol.
My family traveled quite a bit when I was a kid, and I often found myself riding through Appalachia, and honestly I loved the area around Chattanooga, I genuinely think it’s the most beautiful part of the country, in spite of the kudzu. But it’s probably the only place I could have moved to in the US that would be definitively worse than the place I left a decade ago.
I’m a proud Appalachian. We have some solid history. It’s a shame what’s become of the place. I still live here in West Virginia. Didn’t that lying sack of shit grow up in a suburb of Cincinnati though?
I love and am proud of the history in the place. But as for living there? Man, I was born after right-wing talk radio started inundating the airwaves. Unfortunately, it was never been a pleasant social environment for me to exist in.
Rare case of the past actually being better in some small detail. Bring back labor radicalism in the mountainfolk, please
I thought it was about that. I listened to the episode of “If Books Could Kill” on it. And holy shit, JD’s full of shit lol
Michael Hobbs reading the bit where JD questions his sexuality cracks me up.
Thanks for the new podcast recommendation.
You’re welcome lol. I first heard about it here on Lemmy too
Yeah, both I and my father grew up in Appalachia before finally moving away, and I’m not saying it’s a bastion of intellectualism, but that grifting piece of shit doesn’t represent us.
Can you even imagine if someone named her as their VP pick?
Maybe Tim Walz will when he runs for president. What a ticket that would be.
Yeah, we love Dolly, but kind of a Moot Point when Dolly is intentionally Apolitical and not running for any form of office…?
Because… Vance literally attacked her and people she grew up with?
Vance appears to take a stance against everything good and holy on this earth, so pretty inconsequential that he dislikes Dolly Parton.
I just meant it would be fair for Parton to defend herself and family/friends, yet still remain neutral/apolitical. Like Taylor Swift, she didn’t start attacking and had every right to shut down anyone who does…
And yeah, the opposite of what Vance supports is a pretty good moral barometer. Kind of like the “Inverse Jim Kramer” investment strategy that beat out all his recommendations (I think?)…
