Joe Bageant

Free your mind and your ass will follow

Hey Joe,

A friend forwarded your "Mutt People" essay to me, and it thoroughly kicked my ass. I believe it to be one of the three best things I have ever read about the land and culture of my birth (the two others being David Hackett Fischer's Albion's Seed, at least the "borderlander" sections, and James Webb's Born Fighting; W.J. Cash and V.S. Naipaul, brilliant though they are, are a distant tie for fourth behind the three of y'all. Oh, and Tom Wolfe's Esquire profile of Junior Johnson definitely gets an honorable mention.)

Under the Blue Mango

Belize on 5-K and a pack of smokes

There are superficial people everywhere, but a whole section of the human soul is simply missing in Americans. Most foreigners can never understand it unless they have lived inside America's total dominance of the material slave-state -- Fritz Lang's Metropolis.
-- Gui Rochat

By Joe Bageant

Once one becomes aware of that babies die in the third world as an indirect result of our simplest choices such as buying Ziploc plastic bags or bottled water or driving a car, life changes for any approximately moral American. Restlessness sets in, a nagging guilt that only swells with time until finally night thoughts grow so damned anxious that something has to be done. It's been that way with me for a long time. About a year ago I decided to do something more about it than pat myself on the back for recycling the mountain of bottles and unread magazines our household seems to generate. So last fall I vowed to find a decent third world family and put up the money to do something together to better their lives and my own. The issue was so unbearable by spring this year that, by god, I was determined to get it done.

(Following this essay, there's a link to an album of photos taken by my good friend Arvin Hill.)

Jesus would have found another way

Joe,

Jesus. Reading your essay on "Left Behind" brought back queasy memories of the fucking crazies I knew in high school in Guymon, Oklahoma, in the heart of the Panhandle (otherwise known as the "Heart of the Dustbowl"). I remember that I and my fellow football team members were required by our coaches to participate in a "team-building" exercise. This meant that we'd all put on our ties and slacks and penny loafers and team blazers and, as a group, attend a different team member's church service each Sunday.

I used to smirk at 'Left Behind' books

Mr. Bageant:

A few minutes ago, I finished reading your article entitled "What the 'Left Behind' Series Really Means." I am a 40 year old man who has read thousands of books over the years and viewed a vast number of films. I have never read or seen anything on film that has caused me to react the way that your article did. I am still reeling from the, if you'll pardon the pun, fundamental sense of horror that spread through my body as the implications of the article became clear to me.