Joe Bageant

The Fight for Gauley Mountain

An introduction:

Bob Kincaid is a journalist, activist and co-founder of H.O.R.N.: (The Head-On Radio Network www.headonradionetwork.com) broadcasting from the heart of West Virginia's coal fields; from the heart of the whitewater rafting country. Founded specifically on the internet because, "barring a paradigm shift of monumental proportions," Bob says, "progressives will NEVER get a voice in terrestrial radio. HORN uses a a new form of radio format: "Conversation Radio," in which guests and callers get all the time they need to put their ideas forward. The host is not the star and does not ramrod the conversation. HORN has seven professional broadcast hosts, all doing shows every day without pay, with hosts in Chicago, Washington D.C., West Virginia, Florida and Australia, not to mention the only gay conversation program going on the internet. Bob is one of those people who talks straight, is tough as nails and stays broke so he can help sponsor the fight for the dignity of the ordinary working man. As far as I am concerned, Bob Kincaid is the only progressive talker in the medium with a Southern background, talking genuine progressive politics and still living in the South.
-- Joe Bageant

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Coal keeps the lights on and the workers locked in darkness

By Bob Kincaid

I live in Fayette County, West Virginia, the heart and soul of West Virginia's whitewater rafting tourism industry. Thousands and thousands of people come here every year to raft the New and Gauley Rivers. They roar down gorges as old as the earth itself, past the ghost towns that are all that's left of the mine wars of a century ago; towns where Mary Harris "Mother" Jones worked to organize the slaves of the coal industry: Thurmond and Glen Jean and Brooklyn and Cunard and Hawks Nest and Prince and McKendry; places that are little more than wide mossy spots by the riverside, with a few squared stones marking where entire generations played out. These are the Tombstones and Dodge Citys of Appalachia.

Joe Bageant radio interview available

Since Deer Hunting with Jesus was published last June, Joe Bageant has been interviewed by more than 100 radio stations. There is another great interview this week and it is available online in MP3 format.

In his introduction to the interview, Doug Fabrizio of KUER-FM in Salt Lake City, describes Joe as "one of the last remaining gonzo journalists still writing irreverent prose about social justice" for the working class poor, who are "the great beery, NASCAR-loving, church-going, gun-owning America that has never set foot in a Starbucks." Fabrizio says Deer Hunting with Jesus helps explain to Democrats, the progressive left and urban liberals how they lost the 2004 election by ignoring the great unwashed working class. The book "is not a critique of the underclass, but rather an homage."

The interview is 52-minutes long and well worth a listen.

KUER is a service of the University of Utah and is affiliated with three major public radio networks: National Public Radio (NPR), American Public Media, formerly Minnesota Public Radio, and Public Radio International (PRI).

Click here and look for the MP3 link in the upper left of the KUER web page.

-- Ken Smith

In Memoriam: Robert "Bobby" Delay, 1958-2005

Prince of the Wild Palms

For two years I have wondered about the abrupt disappearance of one of the most extraordinary souls I ever encountered on the Internet -- Bob Delay -- who I wrote about in the essays, "The Wild Palms of Etowah," and "The Onion Eater."

Then yesterday I received an email from a reader in his hometown of Etowah, Tennessee:

"Bobby took an overdose of prescription drugs and died in August 2005. When he killed himself he set his computer to notify the police the next morning. He went so far as to tell the police that there were dogs inside the house but they should not worry cause the dogs would not hurt them. Had it all planned out."

Early on Bob decided to devote his whole life's energy to seeking universal spiritual truth and was widely ridiculed by people such as his cousin, disgraced Texas Congressman Tom Delay, for refusing to take a normal workaday job. As a younger man Bob traveled widely to sit at the feet of holy men, studied an astounding range and depth of the world’s religious and philosophical writings. Ultimately, he took the plunge into the deepest sort of exploration and came back up with the prize of universal understanding in his grip and, as saints and prophets have so often warned, the attending horror of that truth. The truth being that all formal religions are a lie, and that man advances spiritually by himself and through great personal pain and labor. He was brilliant to the point of madness, which is the only way to be brilliant.

God rest his soul. He was a brother to me and all who bothered to know the reclusive soul in that brokedown mansion in Etowah, Tennessee.

Joe

Joe Bageant interviewed by Joshua Frank

Joshua Frank, co-editor of Dissident Voice, has posted an interview with Joe Bageant that is well worth reading. Joe talks about writing, book publishing, labor, rednecks, religion, consumerism, serving beer to an under-age horse, and what people in his home town think of his new book, Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War.

In addition to his work at Dissident Voice, Joshua is the author of Left Out! How Liberals Helped Reelect George W. Bush.

Here's the link:

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2007/07/eat-fight-fuck-pray/

-- Ken Smith

Joe talks about his roots and writing

After his talk last Tuesday at the Kelly Writers House in Philadelphia, Joe Bageant continued talking about writing at a nearby bar. He was joined by his host Linh Dinh (left), a poet and lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania, and by Teresa Leo (right), a  contributing editor of CrossConnect and The American Poetry Review.

Text of Joe Bageant's talk at the Kelly Writers House in Philadelphia, Tuesday, April 3:

Thank you for the kind introduction Linh.

I've been writing for nearly 40 years. I've been a news reporter, a magazine writer and editor, and written a thousand puff pieces for celebrities of every imaginable sort. And now, at this late age, I found myself back in my home town writing about the poor and working poor folks I grew up with. Most of what I write is about class issues in America -- mainly because being born in lower class poverty leaves a person with a sense of insecurity and class awareness that remains for a life time, regardless of one's later success.

Panama Red visits Joe Bageant in Belize

Panama Red, who has been traveling the world and making music for more than 40 years, somehow got the idea that his life would be more complete if he visited his friend Joe Bageant in Hopkins Village, Belize. The plan was to spend a week with Joe in Hopkins and learn something about the music of the Garifuna poeple -- and it was a good plan, with some bumps and detours along the way. Panama Red has written several great articles on his visit to Belize, posted on his web site, that are well worth reading.

A Christmas Day Offering

Here are links to two previous posts that are worth reading again this Christmas. The first is a beautiful letter from a woman in England who fondly remembers Christmas when she was a young orphan and the people who became her family in the home where she was placed. The second is an essay by Joe Bageant based on his childhood memories.

Childhood in an English children's home

Prince of a Different Peace

Merry Christmas,

Ken Smith, webmaster for JoeBageant.com

The Cabana in Hopkins Village, Belize

Here are some photos of the cabana I talked about in the essay Under the Blue Mango. Let's be straight here. Obviously, we are not talking Cancun. We are talking about dropping your toilet paper in a paper bag beside the flush toilet (It will later be burned on the beach sand). Belizean "soaker" septic systems are marvelously effective and organic. But toilet paper clogs them up. That should give you some idea.

(Click on thumbnail images for larger photos.)

If you have "planetary eyes," the people and culture of the Garifuna Coast are the main attraction, and they come in as much variety as people anywhere else on the planet. If you want to go diving or fishing or learn drumming, all those certainly available in Hopkins. But some American tourists find parts of the village too shabby for their tastes. I've seen worse places than Hopkins in the US. On the other hand, if you like knowing your money is helping a family educate their kids, there's Luke and Marzy's cabana. The kids playing in the sand under the trees in the yard are: Kirk, Dennis, Ebony, Lyan, Luke Jr.

The False Gospel of Work

Dear Friends:

I can't help but share this article with you from the pages of Christianity Today, sent to me by my friend Chuck Richardson. Out of the blue comes a lucid Christian critique of what's wrong with America. It's time we start considering the reality of the steadily escalating war between politics and morality on the economic battlefield. The root of this struggle -- both politically and morally -- is going to be authoritarian vs. libertarian. McCarraher's article is all about this without ever saying so. This is the best union of Christian thought and social responsibility I have read in years. Maybe ever.

Click here: http://www.christianitytoday.com/bc/2006/004/5.26.html

Sincerely,

Joe Bageant

A great day: Belize cabana nearly done

Dear Friends:

Today was one of the best days I've had in years. I called Luke and Marzlyn in Belize (see online essay: Under the Blue Mango) and the cabana is nearly done! Just the bath to go. I told Luke that he is one helluva construction ramrod.

Joe Bageant as meat puppet?

Over the past year or so a couple of different film production companies have been around Winchester to capture me shooting my mouth off about the sad state of our republic. Now the first one has completed production and is being previewed here and abroad. Yours truly shows up in a couple of sections, holding forth in my living room about the complicity of ordinary Americans in Bush's war crimes.

An update on what I've been doing lately

Greetings earthlings,

How strange it is to realize that six months have passed without writing an essay for the internet. The reason is I have discovered that I do not seem to do more than one thing at a time, in this case, focus to write a book and let my mind roam around in the essay process.

This summer I signed a book deal with Random House Crown, with the manuscript to be delivered May 1, 2006. The book is tentatively titled DRINK, PRAY, FIGHT AND FUCK: Dispatches from the American Class Wars. Whether such a title will make it onto the shelves at Borders next summer without asterisks may be a good indicator of how strong a grip America’s new neocon consciousness still has on freedom of speech.

Organizing for Change in White Trash America

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.

Photos of My Visit to the French Riviera

"So," you might ask, "what's a redneck Marxist doing on the French Riviera?" Well, the same thing that millions of French workers have been doing for the past three-quarter's of a century: not much, other than drinking, eating, breathing clean air, and talking to friendly folks. And, anyway, Karl Marx stayed for a month here in 1882 -- three times longer than my vacation.

Where in the World is Joe Bageant?

Sunil K. Sharma, my good friend and the editor of Dissident Voice, has been a strong supporter since he posted my first online essay almost two years ago. Last May, when I began working on my book to be published next year, I stopped writing the essays for a while -- I'm not a good multi-tasker. Sunil claims many of his readers missed my rants and some even said my absence caused them to worry about me. So, Sunil posted the following note:

Richard Oxman interviews Joe Bageant (Part 2)

Richard Oxman conducted a long interview with Joe Bageant that appeared on several websites. Here is Part 2.

Richard Oxman interviews Joe Bageant (Part 1)

Richard Oxman conducted a long interview with Joe Bageant that appeared on several websites. Here is Part One.

An Interview with Joe Bageant

Interview by Andrew P of EnergyGrid, based in the UK

You have probably read one of Bageant's articles, but who exactly is Joe Bageant? We interview him on his life, his work and his newly found internet cult status.

I was first contacted by Joe Bageant back in April this year, when he sent me, out of the blue, his article "Sleepwalking to Fallujah." That article was written in a way that only a top writer can, and soon afterwards, more pieces followed. From his work and some email exchanges, I realized that Bageant is an extraordinary man as well as a very gifted writer, with a unique take on the American political situation that ensures the huge popularity of his articles and his growing internet cult status.