Joe Bageant

Is Gandhi coming, or is it Caligula?

Hi Joe,

Faith. It's the only thing that gets me out of bed in the morning and it has taken quite a beating lately. Seems there are a huge contingent that don't like us to keep it. Faith in God, faith in our fellow man, faith in those strange foreigners that seem to hate us. Faith has been down on the ground getting the shit kicked out of it for quite some time now. But it's still there. Sure, I'm one of those mutt people you describe that will probably never get a leg up. I'll never have to worry about managing a trust fund. Never have that McMansion on the hill. I've lived all of my 42 years working every day knowing that it will only bring enough to get me to the next day of more of the same.

Retired Marine deplores reserve recall

Hey Joe:

This past week the Marine Corps announced the recall of up to 2,500 members of the Individual Ready Reserve. These are men and women who have already served their active duty and most have served multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. The reason given by the Marine Corps is that they have not been able to meet recruiting goals. Of course they are not able to meet recruiting goals; not that many people willing to get themselves killed or maimed in Iraq for a questionable cause.

Growing up fearing her Christian faith

Mr. Bageant,

I recently read your article What the Left Behind Series Really Means and I felt compelled to email you. I grew up as an ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America), the most liberal group of Lutherans in my area. You'd think that I would've grown up loving my Christian faith.

Instead I feared it. I was molested by a peer as a high schooler and sexually harassed by a teacher and was constantly told it was hopeless, I could no longer get into heaven because of these transgressions. Even as a teenager, I would come home to an empty house and think "This is it, they've been raptured, I'm going to have to face this alone."

Men are more radical than women

Dear Joe,

We need more people like you. I think men, in general, are more radical than women. Even though women have been "liberated" and, by law, can do anything that men can do as long as they are physically able, women are still the "caretakers" and, as such, are more loving than men. This is not to put men down, by any means. My husband (and I) were brought up at a time when men made the important decisions and women had the children and took care of the family. He had the intelligence to see that I was better suited to look after the family finances and he was happy just to do his job. I later went to work because we needed the extra income to educate the children. And it was a good thing I did because he passed away 31 years ago at 53 and I was left with being father and mother. My son was only 15 and I had two daughters in college.

By your own logic, Joe, you're an elitist

Joe,

Another lesson for you: "My Name is Earl" was nominated for Emmys. Judging by the ratings, people who watch Earl are the same people who watch "The Office". If that doesn't prove that your so-called "elites" watch it, I don't know what would. Your buddies watch blue collar comedy, not Earl. How many Emmys did "Larry the Cable" guy get nominated for?

Australian view of American fundies

Dear Joe,

I've been reading all your eclectic and electric essays on joebageant.com over the past few months. Let me just say, "Yeeeeeha!" Being plugged into Joe Bageant for the first time is something like sticking your finger in the power socket. You may not be quite sure what it is but you damn well know you've got a hold of something! That much truth just makes my hair stand on end.

Anyway, reading your essays is a great insight into the fundamentalists' beliefs of the working-class, but I thought I'd let you know about my own experiences in the world of middle-class Christian fundamentalism. This is a problem that has transcended class boundaries in the US and in supposedly more rational cultures overseas. Within 50 kilometres of where I'm sitting there are several mega-churches with congregations in the thousands -- and this is in good old agnostic, sinful Sydney, Australia.

Organizing a trade union in Russia

Hello, Joe!

It is so good to hear that you have done it! You have written the book! From Russia, my most sincere congratulations! Although we are virtually worlds apart (both in geographical and geopolitical senses) I very much sympathize with what you are saying in your essays. In a nutshell: working folks are being had, now not only in the third world but in the imperial land too.

Preacher manipulates credulous audience

Dear Joe,

I am sorry to hear of your illness. If it's any help, my great-grandfather was told he had a terminal illness when he was about fifty. He lived to be 93. What I'm saying is, doctors make prognoses, fate disposes. Hope your doctor is wrong.

Now I have a stupid question. This is coming from an eastern liberal, formerly Jewish, now turning Quaker. I like the Quakers since their principles roughly encompass my own. Not to be a total narcissist of course, I should say my own principles approximate theirs. Quakers are good people who believe in communal effort. They pray in Spirit, believe that all life has a spark of the Divine in it, and have been on the right side of the protest movements for 300 years.

Vermont teen happy in agrarian paradise

Hello,

I never know whether to refer to older people by their first names or last -- is it "Joe" or "Mr. Bageant?" I suppose, out of my intense respect for your writing, I should go by the latter. Most of what I read on the Internet is juvenile ranting, but your site is the only one I've run into that I think I can take without a grain of salt. What strikes me, first of all, about your writings is the similarity of your southern rednecks to my Yankee hicks. It just goes to show that in an age when we all watch the same TV, geography no longer has the power to divide us -- class does.

Grandmother, 80, sees no immediate peace

Joe,

Every time I read one of your articles, I think, he's outdone himself this time, but this one (Adam Smith Meets Cousin Ronnie's Boy) is exceptionally exceptional. My son-in-law is a high school teacher, teaching physics and chemistry. About half of your article could have been written by him. To start from the beginning of the article, you say you were born in 1946. I was born in 1925 and had my first child in 1948. The doctor's bill was $75.00. Since we didn't have any medical insurance, I paid the doctor some money every visit, so she was paid for when she arrived. We saved money for the hospital bill so we were able to pay it when the time came. I stayed in the hospital 5 days for the princely sum of $51.50.