Jefferson and Washington would weep
Joe;
Wow, what an article! I have just read your essay "A Feral Dog Howls in Harvard Yard". It's as true as the day is long. Our typical tenured professor has as much guts, smarts and pluck as a gerbil and wouldn't last five minutes in the real world.
Damn it, Joe, I'm not blowing smoke up your ass when I say your articles are simply a desperately needed breath of fresh air. You know I'm right. Of course you're not infallible or wise in all things. So what? You have the guts to stand on your own two feet and boldly speak the truth as you see it. Outside of the internet, that behavior almost doesn't exist here in the US. Land of the "Free & Brave" my ass. Jefferson and Washington would weep for a hundred years if they could see the present state of affairs.
I know I'm boring you to tears with my rant but I simply can't resist typing this.
I too am horrified and mad as hell at this pathetic lifestyle and culture we currently have. My hope, lame as it is, is that the combination fiat currency, national and private debt will bring this supremely corrupt house of cards down sooner or later. All the truly endless government agency parasites and SS Gestapo zombies will be in a world of shit then. And bad karma or not, it's not going to bother me even one little tiny bit. Chairman Mao and the French revolution had their good points.
Major kudos to you for having the courage to bail the, as you say, "unstomachable" whore. A year ago I bailed to a very tiny town in South Dakota which is as far away from the bureaucrats (and ex-wives) as I can get. I too will always be an American (God help me) but I yearn to live long enough to see the machine crumble. Maybe then, by miracle, we can create a better world.
Thanks again, Joe. Keep your chin up!
Dave
South Dakota
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Dave,
Oh, I do not think we are so alone in our thinking. A couple of weeks ago at a speaking engagement I asked the audience to raise their ands of they thought total collapse was the only catalyst that can bring meaningful change to America. Every hand went up
I was struck damned near speechless. Three years ago when that question was asked, a hand seldom went up in the audience.
Something is afoot inside Americans, something no candidate dare talk about nor the media dare mention.
In art and labor,
Joe
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What they're saying about Joe's book
Here are some comments about Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War.
"Joe Bageant is a brilliant writer. He evokes working class America like no one else. The account of his revisit to his Virginia roots is sobering, poignant, and instructive."
-- HOWARD ZINN, author of A People's History of the United States
"This book is righteous, self-righteous, exhilarating, and aggravating. By God, it's a raging, hilarious, and profane love song to the great American redneck. As a blue state man with a red state childhood, I have been waiting for this book for years. We ignore its message at our peril."
-- SHERMAN ALEXIE, author of Reservation Blues
"This fine book sheds a devastating light on Bush & Co.'s notorious 'base,' i.e. America's white working class, whose members have been ravaged by the very party that purports to take their side. Meanwhile, the left has largely turned them out, or even laughed at their predicament. Of their degraded state -- and, therefore, ours -- Joe Bageant writes like an avenging angel."
-- MARK CRISPIN MILLER, author of Fooled Again: The Real Case for Election Reform
"Joe Bageant is the Sartre of Appalachia. His white-hot bourbon-fuelled prose shreds through the lies of our times like a weed-whacker in overdrive. Deer Hunting with Jesus is a deliciously vicious and wickedly funny chronicle of a thinking man's life in God's own backwoods."
-- JEFFREY ST. CLAIR, author of Grand Theft Pentagon and co-editor of CounterPunch
"This recounting of lost lives -- of white have-nots in one of our most have-not states -- has the power of an old-time Scottish Border ballad. It is maddening and provocative that the true believers in 'American exceptionalism' and ersatz machismo side with those stepping all over them. Bagaent's writing is as lyrical as Nelson Algren's, and if there's a semblance of hope, it's that he catches on with new readers thanks to the alternative media."
-- STUDS TERKEL
"Deer Hunting with Jesus is one of those rare books that is colorful, depressing, hilarious, and biting all at the same time. Joe Bageant has given us a glimpse into the vicious class war that is too often ignored or hidden by those happily perpetrating this war."
-- DAVID SIROTA, author of Hostile Takeover
"Dead serious and damn funny ... Bageant writes with the ghosts of Hunter S. Thompson, Will Rogers, and Frank Zappa kibitzing over his shoulder ... Takes Thomas Frank’s What’s the Matter With Kansas, to the next level."
—- MOTHER JONES
Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War is now available at all major bookstores and online at Amazon.com. CLICK HERE.
