Here is the biography of Joe Bageant for the October 14-16, 2005 Peace-In at the University of Texas at Denton, where he was a speaker.
Presentation: Organizing for Change in White Trash America
Redneck Marxist writer (leftneck) Joe Bageant on "organizing the South's ornery, belligerent, poorly educated, completely brainwashed, wonderful, salt-of-the-earth working class hometown folks" for change. Description of the tactics that forced a stubborn Southern city to enact new housing laws and clean up slum properties. They said it couldn’t be done and they were damned near right. What it took to galvanize 300 rednecks to protest and social action. Given that Texas is home to the possibly the reddest necks in America, half of the allotted time will be used to discuss and seek practical solutions to local problems in Texas. Joe Bageant is a popular internet essayist and has a forthcoming book from Random House titled: Drink, Pray, Fight and Fuck: Dispatches From the Class Wars in America. His grizzled visage and obstreperous observations on the empire can be seen in the award winning British documentary, Breakdown, an examination of the Bush administration's PR orchestrated march to war in Iraq.
Joe Bageant was born in poverty in the Blue Ridge Mountains in 1946 and has focused on activism for the working poor for the past few years. He is a 30-year veteran of journalism and general reprobate who has variously: lived in a hippie schoolbus caravan, hung out with the likes of Timothy Leary, William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg during the 1970s; created propaganda for life destroying global agricultural chemical companies in the 1980s (he did it for the money and has regretted it ever since); and organized tenants unions and housing advocacy groups for the working poor in Southern states. Feel free to contact him at bageantjb@netscape.net, or visit him at his home in Winchester, Virginia where obstreperous people are always welcome. Bring beer.
