Joe Bageant

How much freedom can one man stand?

Not much more, dear hearts, not much more

By Joe Bageant

Freedom comes in many forms in America, and new forms are constantly being created. The latest has been freedom from basic financial security. The weakened economy has given corporatists an excuse to, as they say, "let workers go." Which sounds as if companies are granting employees some sort of freedom: "Go on George, twenty years on the job is long enough, so git outta here. Have yourself a ball!"

By that measure, there have never been a more free people. Now benevolently relieved of their job responsibilities, millions are free to do almost anything they choose, go fishing -- or take up the banjo. At the moment 14 million Americans have been granted freedom, with another three or four million expected to be pardoned before the economy "levels out," meaning more people will lose their jobs, but at a slower rate. Of those 14 million liberated souls, six million are so free they can even take the family on a year-long round the world trip, if they so choose. They need no longer report in at the (un)employment office because their benefits have expired. One little suggestion for their trip abroad: visit the guy in Asia who now has your job. With a little effort, I'm sure you can get over the barbed wire topped steel mesh fence enclosing the factory's "attached employee housing compound" in Sichuan Province.

The Entertainment Value of Snuffing Grandma

A nation of children roots for the Mafia
 
By Joe Bageant

Every day I get letters asking me to weigh in on the healthcare fracas. As if a redneck writer armed with a keyboard, a pack of smokes and all the misinformation and vitriol available on the Internet could contribute anything to the crap storm already in progress. Besides that, my unreasoned but noisy take on this issue is often about as welcome as a fart in a spacesuit. None of which has ever stopped me from making a fool of myself in the past. So here goes.

There ain't any healthcare debate going on, Bubba. What is going on are mob negotiations about insurance, and which mob gets the biggest chunk of the dough, be it our taxpayer dough or the geet that isn't in ole Jim's impoverished purse. The hoo-ha is about the insurance racket, not the delivery of healthcare to human beings. It's simply another form of extorting the people regarding a fundamental need -- health.

Corporations Are Now After Our Very Beings

Cognitive capitalism -- just when we thought there were no new ways to get screwed

This essay was originally published on AlterNet.

By Joe Bageant


A few years ago, compliments of the George W. Bush administration, I got an education in political reality. The kind of education that makes you get drunk at night and scream and bitch at every shred of national news:

"Do you see how these capitalist bastards have made so much money killing babies in Iraq? And how they are have brainwashed us and gouged us for every human need, from health care to drinking water?" I'd rage to my wife.

"It's just the way things are," she said. "It's only a system."

My good wife often thinks I have slipped my moorings. But she never says right out loud that I'm crazy because, let's face it, honesty in marriage only goes so far. Furthermore, I'd be the first to proclaim that she's right.

A Rambling Reply to Robert

Regarding Belizean beer, FDR's ghost and the Citibank tapeworm (also why we ain't Mayans, no matter what that calendar says!)

Hola amigo,

I think I first read some of your stuff in a short stay in antique Guatemala. On my return to the US, a friend gave me your book Deer Hunting with Jesus and I enjoyed it for the most part.

I try to live outside of the United States, on my Social Security, and for the most part in Costa Rica, but not in the tourist areas, of course. The yuppies from all countries are destroying everything everywhere i go eventually. I read your article on the underclass. From my anecdotal experience, most folks when you ask about class, respond that they are in the middle class. I have been wondering about what happened to the working class. It seems to me the great pundits in our society have convinced the majority of us that even if we are doing the crappiest jobs, we are middle class.

A Yard Sale in Chernobyl

By Joe Bageant

"It's only a system," she said, as we floated through the sprawling supermarket's gleaming commodity lined indoor streets. "THE HELL IT IS! It's a goddamned air conditioned zombie hell of waste and gluttony," I thought to myself, before the usual vertigo completely enveloped me. Just back from Central America's simple, comprehensible mercados, bodegas and street cart vendors, the effect of this most common American shopping venue was, as always, one of vertigo. Head splitting light beats down on pyramids of plastic eggs, as if to incubate their hatching of the ladies stockings within, dozens of kinds of toothpaste, well scrubbed dead chickens, lurid baskets of too-perfect flowers, plastic wraps, tissue for faces, asses and wrapping gifts, row upon row of polished vegetables and fruits standing like soldiers waiting for the annihilation of salads or the ovens of casseroledom.

And all those hushed and not so hushed shopper cell phone conversations, this one consoling someone at the home base pod:

"Oh I am so sorry, baby, but I think they've quit making the Ranch flavored Pringles. Yes I know you don't like the jalapeno Pringles. I am so sorry. Really I am." Both parties seemed genuinely distraught.

The Bastards Never Die

A short history of why we eat oil, can't smoke pot, and why assault weapons are so expensive in our hour of need

By Joe Bageant

(With running commentary by THE SCREAMING MAN)

Well, for starters, the above title is a damned lie, since this little screed is not a history. It's just rumination on the tilting point at which Americans started the slide into the deepest sort of cultivated consumer consciousness -- which is to say our corporate managed engorgement and swinedom at the service of the rich.

Very rich families and corporatists, to whom, as in earlier articles, we shall refer to as "the bastards," have always been with us. Even Tom Jefferson thought periodic revolution against wealth and authority was desirable to keep these bastards in check. Which implies that he figured they would inevitably get us by the throat down on the floor from time to time.

But the bastards scared the hell out of later presidents too. Abe Lincoln feared the large corporations born of business profiteering during the U.S. Civil War -- the military industrial complex of the day -- easily constituted the greatest threat to the American republic. Being president and all, he couldn't call them what they were, and settled for the term "money power," and predicted that, "money power will … work upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed."

Slacker kid nails it: money IS slavery

Joe:

From the beginning of recorded history there have been slaves and other forms of cheap labor. For many centuries, most people were just subsisting. Whether they were serfs, owned a small plot or otherwise got by, they were effectively slaves to their work in order to survive.

When serfdom ended with the industrial revolution, people were able to switch to the cheap labor jobs in factories. Then with workers uniting in unions, things got a little better, but we were still slaves to our job because even those of us who had a middle management job, were still only a paycheck or two from losing everything.

Ideology discussions have been demonized

Joe,

I have never read you describing your ideology. So this could mean that you don't find ideology important, or it could also mean that you never felt the need to talk about this topic. But for me ideology is important.

An example: a few months ago here in Australia, Malcolm Turnbull (opposition leader, head of the Liberal Party, which in Australia is the "conservative" party, go figure) criticized Kevin Rudd (prime minister, Labour Party) for what he considered an unjustified move against a justly deserved middle and upper class entitlement. The specifics of the case are unimportant. His words were something like: "Rudd is acting on ideology". Supposedly left-wing, or, God forbid, socialist.

America's White Underclass

When seeing ain't believing, somebody's blind

By Joe Bageant

"White underclass" is a term I've used often in my writing, and most American readers seem to know what I mean. They've got eyes and live in the same nation I do. But in a sudden burst of journalistic responsibility, I decided that if I am going to throw around the word underclass, then I should offer some clearer, perhaps more scientific definition.

So I started writing this with a pile of published research papers before me. Now they are in the trash can by my side. Looking down on them, I can see the gobbledygook titles, the stuff of which government policy and political platforms are made. They run together in slurry of the language of our society's commissars: Concerning-Prevalence-Growth-and-Dynamics-Concentrated Urban Poverty Areas- block-level vs. tract-level segregation-800-tract-tables-urban abstracts-Defining-and-Measuring-the-Underclass-from-The Journal of Policy Analysis and Management-statistical-summary-of …

Australian shocked by US poverty

Dear Mr Bageant,

I noticed your book Deer Hunting with Jesus at Borders while killing time waiting for my plane, bought it and couldn't stop reading. I just loved it, although you do paint a very sad picture. However, if sad is the truth then there is no point sugar-coating it, and you haven't.

I am 32 and my only overseas trips (I'm Australian) have been to America. I went in 2005 and again last year, with my ex. We could have afforded to go anywhere in the world, but both had our heart set on going to America. What has Europe got that can be more fun than America? Our 2005 trip was non-stop fun, including Vegas, Grand Canyon, Manhattan, New Orleans, Miami and San Francisco. It was a big adventure in a booming economy where everyone had lots to spend. After one month, we had to leave, but promised to come back because we loved it.