Joe Bageant

I'm certain of coming economic collapse

Joe,

I picked up your book at Barnes & Noble on Sunday. Read Deer Hunting with Jesus front to back. I spend a lot of time in the I81S corridor from Chambersburg, Pennsylvania to Herndon, Virginia. We are in Winchester frequently. I hail from a similar background, having grown up on Main Street in a similar town in Pennsylvania, not far from Winchester, so I certainly understand the culture.

We have been sold out by Corporate America and I am horrified by what has happened inside the Republican Party. Your description of average Americans as debt servants is exact. And overall, the country is in one hell of a mess.

However, all I read in your book was a blistering, contemptuous, critique and saw no suggestions, so I am not sure what you prescribe as an alternative? I have spent considerable time in Europe and I saw little work, mostly eating and drinking. The people were healthier but did not seem happier. 85% of the people on the planet would immigrate to the U.S. if they could get a visa. Those poll numbers are only slightly diminished since the war in Iraq. What do you suggest as an alternative? Stronger labor unions and restrictions of overseas manufacturing? That won't work either, much too late for that.

Left is far too quick to blame religion

Hey Joe,

Reading the letter "The shadows of a religious childhood" from John in Norway, I sympathize, but I think there's something worse than religion out there. The generations in my family preceding me were all Catholics, but it's much less so now. My father, an altar boy back in the day, calls himself a "recovering Catholic." At any gathering, nun horror stories and jokes are bandied about. One of my uncles in particular is venomously atheistic, and this is a problem for secular humanism.

I know a lot of atheists up here in the obnoxious, narcissistic, self-righteous, boomer-land called Vermont, and whenever one of them proclaims their atheism or ridicules someone of faith, I just want to laugh in their faces. "Don't you get it?" I want to say, "90% of Americans believe in God! You're the most minor of minorities! Nobody gives a crap what you think!"

Born into a world of struggle and debt

Joe,

I bought your book Deer Hunting with Jesus yesterday and finished it today. I bought it because I heard you a couple of weeks ago on the radio here in Australia and checked out your website. I enjoyed your essays so much, it seemed churlish not to buy the book as, otherwise, I was freeloading on your artistic efforts.

I was born in Scotland in 1944, but I have lived in Australia for thirty odd years. I was raised in a working class family in Glasgow and, like every body else, did not know I was poor. At primary school (5-years-old to 11-years-old) I showed an aptitude for reading and early mathematics. My teachers persuaded my parents that I should go to a school which specialised in mathematics and science. It was expensive, but the local council had a fund which paid the fees of those who could not afford to go otherwise. Six years later, University beckoned. this was now 1962 and the government not only provided free education plus book allowance to all university students, but granted a living allowance of half the average wage to students who passed the means test.

Foreclosure? Repent and take another loan

Hey Joe,

Good news. Here in Minne-snowta our illustrious Repugnican Governor Pawlenty has just proposed advancing millions of dollars to counsel about 80,000 "homeowners" who are behind on their house payments. He is worried because through 2009 thousands more adjustable rate loan payments are scheduled to rise. Minnesota foreclosures (20,500 through September) are expected to quadruple this year over 2005. Minneapolis, St. Paul, and suburbs reported 3,699 foreclosure filings during the second quarter of this year, up 13.2 percent over the previous year. The Twin Cities alone could lose 1.6 billion in property value by the end of 2009 (sources: U.S. Congress Housing Link. RealtyTrac).

We were freer men then, however poor

Joe,

In your reply to the letter from Lawrence in Seattle, Swept up in Jesus fever at age 12, you wrote:

The interesting thing is that they actually think they are the majority in this country. I suppose it is the result of never socializing with people of a different class, which can make you blind to even a majority. I find this majority everywhere I go, Oregon, New York State, Missouri, Michigan ... The fact that we never see it in the media, to me at least, is proof of this country's deep denial and brainwashing about America being a nation of "middle class" people.

Swept up in Jesus fever at age 12

Dear Brother Joe:

I just finished your book Deer Hunting with Jesus, and Praise Gawddd! I believe, as in that great title of an album by Weissberg and Fogelberg, that we are "Twin Sons of Different Mothers". Mama was from way Western Kentucky, around Eddyville, home of the State Pen. It was called "'Tween the Rivers" (Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers ran parallel) in those days before the TVA.

There were feuds. Mom's brother, Adolph (I'm not making this up) blew a guy's head off with a shotgun. Some time later, the dead guy's brothers whomped Uncle A real bad with clubs. He expired a few weeks later. There is a wonderful old cemetery back in those woods, now faithfully maintained by my cousin Ben. The stone of the guy done in by Uncle A actually says "MURDERED" on it. His people are all buried around him, and "our people" are a hundred yards away.

Bush kept Alabama safe from communists

Joe:

Just finished reading Deer Hunting with Jesus. Great book, I have often wondered about some of the same things you touch on. My roots are rural Pennsylvania and south side Chicago. Between the two, I developed a pretty good bullshit detector, but yours is the finest I have seen in a long while. Mine only goes to ten, so often it gets pegged. Yours must go to eleven.

It's all a matter of image. Sincerity, if you can fake that, you've got it made. I remember reading an interview with a rural woman about Bush wearing blue jeans and clearing brush on his ranch. "You can't get more real than that" she claimed. Yep, George Bush was born in a log cabin and drinks hard cider.

The whole damn mess and your book

Joe,

I just want to thank you for speaking for the rest of us who are cowering in fear of losing everything (which isn't much) and are wondering where we're all going to end up. I'm 62 so I figure it doesn't matter so much about me, but what about my kids and all the other kids and their kids?

I'm  looking to buy into a small piece of land with a cave where I can hide -- it's a pipe dream. I work for Wal-Mart and the price of real estate, even in downstate Ohio, keeps leapfrogging ahead of me.

The shadows of a religious childhood

Joe!

They didn't call it The Rapture when I was growing up, but the concept still scared the crap out of me. I remember when I was in fourth grade dreaming about the roof of my school building disappearing in a pink light and everyone yelling "Glory! Glory!" as they lifted their arms to the sky. I told my sister about the dream and she thought it was wonderful, a gift from God -- but it terrified me. And that fear is what stayed with me the longest, the most tenacious residue of the faith of my fathers, what finally led to stray from the path of righteousness. How could a message based on love produce only fear?

My parents were born Seventh Day Adventists, all my grandparents in Norway converted to Adventism around 1900. Adventism is all about The Last Days. You're brought up to read the signs that Christ is coming again: Earthquakes, wars, famine and flood, the price of gas, all signs that we are entering the Last Days. Even though we've been doing so for all of the 150 odd years that Adventism has existed, born as it was from the flotsam and jetsam of the Great Disappointment of 1844, we're still living in the Last Days. Once The Last Days start in earnest, that's your goose cooked, jack, it's too late to repent. That's the hook that gets you shaking in your boots: Is it too late? Is there still time? You know that passage in the Bible about a cloud the size of a man's hand being a sign of Christ's imminent return. There were times when I was a kid that I was scared to look at the sky!

I am one of Australia's working poor

Hi Joe,

My name is Kerri I live in Canberra and I am a public servant (federal government worker). I just wanted to pass on that I saw you on Australian morning TV last week and I am intrigued by you, I don't know why, not many people leave me thinking and intrigued any more. I will be reading your book and your articles from your website.

I am concerned Australia is headed down the same track politically as the US. I am NOT really up to date with politics in Australia even though I am Australian and I can't seem to find someone worth voting for even though there is an election looming and I think many people like me vote because we have to and that is a problem.

The liberal vision is not egalitarian

Joe:

I'm not exactly you're target audience, but I'm close to it. While I'm a card carrying member of the Boomer Meritocracy (Johns Hopkins '69, U of Chicago Law '74, partner in a 170 lawyer firm in New Jersey) and Jewish to boot, I grew up in Baltimore and I did my two years as an enlisted GI in 69-71. Before I went into the Army, my father told me, "Learn to like country music." What he meant, of course, was that the default white guy culture in the ranks was uneducated Southern. I took his advice and got along well with my squad mates and my NCOs (except for the one guy who thought, correctly, that I was paying a bit too much attention to his wife and cold cocked me one night in the beer bar). They were as good and friendly people as you'd ever want to know -- as long as you didn't spook them by questioning their basic assumptions about things.

USA looms large, affecting the world

Dear Mr Bageant,

I came across your book when looking for "Richistan" on Amazon.com. The book looked interesting so I ordered your Deer Hunting with Jesus. I found it a good, though sobering and depressing read. I have passed it on to my son, a lefty and an artist, I am happy to say. I now understand, a little more, the American attachment to guns. Personally, I haven't fired a weapon since 1973 and have no desire to do so.

I have a nasty feeling that your description of the plight of the American worker is a vision of the future of Australia. I live in Australia and heard your interview with Phillip Adams last week, my wife heard you talking to Jon Faine in Melbourne. At 59, I am about your vintage. My wife and I met and married in Rhodesia and, given the intractable problems of that benighted country, left to settle in Australia in 1973.

Education is no guarantee of security

Dear Mr. Bageant,

My family finally makes sense to me after reading your book, Deer Hunting with Jesus. We don't live in a society that values critical thought. Examining our lives will force us to come to terms with the decisions that we've made, so it is viewed as dangerous and unsettling. The torment of hope is more than most can bear. Most people look at the cost of change, but not the opportunity cost of staying where they are. Staying where they are is viewed as a no-cost option, but change will take real work and is perceived as a higher risk than many will be willing to take.

Joe Bageant on Australian radio

Hi from Queensland Australia to Joe and all our (thinking) American friends,

With reference to Deer Hunting with Jesus -- currently being promoted by Joe in Australia -- Joe's interview with Phillip Adams on Late Night Live on Australia's Radio National was excellent. Mr Adams is one of Australia's leading social commentators and often derided by our conservative minders as being of the left.

Our current ultra-right wing government in Australia is using trash-talk in an all out and desperate attempt to be re-elected in an election scare-campaign that equates union membership with being in league with the devil. The devil, however, being in the detail of their bigoted scare mongering and lap-dog antics with reference to U.S. foreign policy (invade now, explain later).

I invite U.S. residents and readers of Joe Bageant's blog to listen in on the web. Click here and you will be taken to a page where you can choose "Listen now" for RealAudio and Windows Media formats, or "Download audio" for an MP3 file.

Paul
Proud Union Member & Teacher
Bundaberg, Australia (51st state of the good old US of A)

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Note: The interview with Joe begins at 32:03. The first two segments of the program are discussions of the current political campaign in Australia, then a discussion of the history of deportations from Australia. Well worth a listen. -- Ken Smith.

Joe appears on Australian national TV

Joe Bageant is on a two-week tour of Australia, promoting his book Deer Hunting with Jesus, at the invitation of his Australian publisher, Scribe Publications. One of his many stops was at the Network Ten studios for a great interview on the show 9am with David and Kim.

Network Ten is one of Australia's three major commercial television networks, and owns stations in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth. Network affiliates cover most of the rest of country.

Click here to watch the video of Joe's interview by David Reyne and Kim Watkins.

Americans seem fed-up, bitter and angry

Hello Joe,

I just watched your interview on a morning talk show on Australian television. I was fascinated by what you were talking about in the U.S. I am an American "ex-pat" and have been living in Australia for the past three years with my Aussie husband. Just so you know, you are absolutely right on the money about how Australia is at the back of the bus and the U.S. is seeing the crash first at the front. I try to tell people the road that they (we) are going down but nobody seems to see it or want to see that this is the boom before the bust.

Dog eat dog is replacing egalitarianism

Note: Joe Bageant is a on a two-week tour of Australia at the invitation of his Australian publisher, Scribe Publications.

Hi Joe,

I happened upon your interview with Jon Faine this morning on Australian radio. I will admit here and now that until that moment I had never heard of you and I thank the good folk of Auntie ABC for bringing you to my attention.

I will be ordering and devouring your book, Deer Hunting with Jesus, with the hope that it will shed a little further light to me on the mystery that is the United States body politic. I communicate quite regularly with your countrymen via the miracle of the internet, (though I suspect not many of my co-respondents are people of the working poor class) and I am often puzzled as an observer from afar why they are so adamant in their belief that there is only ONE way, the American way, only ONE truth, only ONE answer. I had realised this was a result of brain washing, a lifetime dose of corporate news and views, the antics of those abominable 'shock jocks' and an education system which leads to associating 'Homer' with a yellow skinned cartoon character rather than tales of epic voyages, but I had not quite put the pieces together in the way you expressed this morning.