Joe Bageant

Running from a poverty stricken past

Joe,

I only discovered you this past week, thanks to my friend, and yours, Arvin Hill. I really love your thinking, and writing, but I need to add my two cents. I am one of those po' folks who attend college, and I am also appalled at the ignorance that so many so-called elitists spew. They even think they are so much smarter because of their money. They are too stupid to realize that money is completely different from brains, poor suckers. To make it worse, sometimes it is just imagined money since many are financially stretched so thin in their attempts to look moneyed that they only have macaroni and cheese to eat at home. And it's not even real cheese.

After I kick your ass, we'll have a beer

Hi Joe,

I read your rant about the Scots-Irish mutt people. I competely agree with one premise of your article -- that white people can be cruel savages. It's true. Historically, white people have comitted terrible atrocities against mankind. There is evidence that Japanese sailors that were lost at sea found their way to the shores of Oregon, California, and Washington. Since there was little hope of going back to Japan, they peacefully intermingled with the Indians. On the other hand, there is evidence that the Vikings made their way to Newfoundland. They tried to kill the local population.

I never tell them that I live in a trailer

Joe:

I read with interest your commentary about the "haves" and "have nots" in our society -- white version. I agree with your summarization -- totally accurate and on target. I am currently attending a college (public university) and am completing a master's now at age 53. I experience daily the invisible dividing line and always feel like an "imposter" sitting next to the mostly middle class white student population. The particular field that I am in, Family Life Education (similar to social work, with a certificate in holistic health) all but mandates that there exists a "them" and "us". Otherwise, who would be the "client"?

I'm not poor, but I hate rich people

Hi Joe,

First of all, I would like to commend you for your writing. I love it. I am a fellow product of what I call white trash resentment and I come from generations of deep East Texas mean. Your articles remind me so much of my family. They are the same pissed off, ignorant white trash that fought their way from Virginia, through the Appalachians, to East Texas. Like you, I am torn between love and disgust with my people.

60s Black Panther says we've got to change

Hello,

I'm black and I agree with many things in your article, "Revenge of the Mutt People." I grew up with "apple heads" (i.e., cracklets) as a kid and they weren't any different from the "dumb niggers" I had to deal with on a daily basis. We were friends caught up in the same oppressive system with as much chance as a cat of getting out. I did. But only by moving out at 12 and faking my age to get ahead. Our education system sucks. I learned because it was interesting and I liked it. That's how I became a physicist. IT WAS FUN. And I lucked out by finding people who were into learning for the hell of it and actually showing me how it applied to real life. You don't get that anymore. Yeah, I did my time as a coked-up middle manager and Le**-Ne*** with the corner office, 14 cups of caffeine, two pack a day, backstabbing grind.

Last stage of civilization is imperialism

Greetings Mr. Bageant -

Man, do I admire you. You had the honesty to move back to your old home town and make a life there, despite the deep differences that many of the locals have with you. And you turn out one great column after another that helps me see through this blizzard of bullshit that is being flung by the neocon gangsters in D.C. Your latest column about NPR and PBS was spot on. I more or less gave up on PBS many years ago (how many times can you stand Dr. Wayne Dyer during pledge drives!!) and finally stopped watching when they got rid of Bill Moyers for being "biased". I have also said "adios" to NPR.

Jumpin' Jeebus, man, you can fuckin' write

Joe-

All I can say is, "wow." Well, I can say a bit more than that, but that was my first reaction to "Revenge of the Mutt People." First, swede jumpin' Jeebus, man, you can fuckin' write.

I'm black.  I've believed for some time that all white guys benefitted from "white privilege," but never quite grasped that for a whole lot of them -- a WHOLE LOT -- it don't help very much.

Semi-poor dude happy in the remote woods

Joe, as an aspiring writer, you are my new hero. The "Revenge of the Mutt People" was so brutally honest and familiar to me, I read it several times. I spent my high school years in Portland, Oregon, not Winchester, Virginia, but we have shared many of the same experiences. Cars, fighting and fucking.

Goodbye Terry Gross, We Niver Knew Ye

On liberal media denial

By Joe Bageant

Having come to understand that mainstream media are in the business of selling fried chicken and cars, giving Wall Street head, and stealing bandwidth from the public's airwaves, none of us expect them to question anything afoot in the empire. We quite understand they cannot be wasting profitable air time on a nation whose collective memory is 30 seconds long. So we watch them pull their punches and wait for the commercials, which are their whole point anyway. If, god forbid, you are the pointy headed type interested in details, turn on NPR. And if you consider yourself hipper than the couch taters out here in Budland, go onto the net and visit Salon. Or if you are so worldly and hip you are a downright commie, then subscribe to Mother Jones. That's the way it used to be.

A social catastrophe of immense proportions

Dear Joe,

My jaw dropped. Thanks for your brutally honest and keen-eyed statement in your essay "Revenge of the Mutt People".  I'm a New York Jew with post-doctoral degrees in psychoanalysis, and I take my hat off to you. I'm not sure where we go from here but you've outlined a social catastrophe of immense proportions and I hope I can be part of the solution rather than the problem.

Mark
New York City