One, they were lied to and misled about what they were signing
Two, (sigh) welcome to North Carolina, where all you need is something official looking and people will obey.
Wait till I tell you about the 'hazardous waste incinerator debacle' that my home area went through. These idiot farmers were poisoning the ground with dangerous chemicals for decades, just tossing the empty containers into trash piles on their farms and such. They were causing creeks to turn colors and killing wildlife. But, when the idea was put out that a HWI was looking to open in our area, thus providing many jobs for those who do not want to spend their lives with only two career choices (owning a farm or working on a farm), as well as a solution to the issues I mentioned, they went off. Why? Simple.
They did not want their iron grip on the entire population to change. They did not want people earning money without it being from the farmers. Mostly, they just did not want a situation to develop where they might have to be held accountable and forced to clean up their messes. Otherwise, there would be a new faction that was not beholden to the farmers for anything. So, they fought it and got their cronies to fight it. The reasons they put forth as to the dangers of this incinerator went from raised eyebrows to 'what are you smoking?'. Now, I am not saying that such a thing does not have dangers, but compared to what those farmers had been doing for the past 80+ years, the plant would have been a real boom and would have removed any reason for those farmers to not clean up their properties and the environment. (One might think they would be all for doing this, but again, welcome to North Carolina.) But, the opposition misled and obfuscated and got enough signatures to stop the idea.
So, what is my hometown like these days? Well, half of the houses on Main Street are empty or in ruins... or just a pile of debris. No one will do anything about them since no one wants to. It looks like the aftermath of a war zone. The people are just empty inside. The last time I was there, I was shocked.
And, it was all because of greed and power tripping My home state has many things that make it amazing. I guess brains is something that seems to be passing into the veil. When a population will not even consider something that can save it and would rather die out slowly and painfully, that population may be beyond help. The only thing that shows a possible solution for this is the fact that the state may well end up without federal aid since they are trying to offend the federal government enough to force them to act. And, since they don't think they need it. Then, we will see how long it takes before the people who are not rich actually do more than talk about it.
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