Joe Bageant

One good teacher can make a big difference

Dear Joe:

The experiences Bob relates in "Schools are the root of classist society" -- and your comments on them -- echo some of my own memories of learning how things really work and who is served in the school systems. In my case it was parochial schools. In the spring semester of my fifth grade year – maybe late February, early March, 1957 – I moved from one Catholic school in Portland, Maine to another parochial school in Baltimore, Maryland. Both were run by the Sisters of Mercy.

Schools are the root of classist society

My father and I didn't see eye to eye on most things, and in my scholastic endeavors we really hit hard snags. After he retired from the army he taught middle school in the Washington, DC area (Silver Spring, Maryland) and my mother became a school secretary near our home in Annandale, Virginia. They both loved school in their younger days, regarded teachers as demigods, principals as awesome creatures of near legend, almost too powerful and awful to be gazed directly upon. That changed some when they actually got into the system. More than some, actually. They were willing to concede that I may have had a scintilla, a micron, just a glimmer of a reason for my hatred of school.

Why Belize instead of Katrina victims?

Dear Joe:

Regarding Amazon's reprehensibility regarding labor unions, I can't help but ask: Even though I admire your helping your pals in Belize, why you did not choose to direct the book monies toward something closer to home? Like, f'rinstance, the chronically messed up Katrina survivors -- I mean the old and sick ones that cannot seem to find jobs, the kind that send good ole white boys not like yourself into a lather of fear and loathing.

Birmingham, Alabama: Small-minded and mean

Joe,

I'm reading through your posted columns, and had to pause to express my appreciation. If you think small town Virginia is small-minded and mean, try Birmingham, Alabama, where I grew up. Thanks for putting into words what has been lurking in the back of my mind for decades now. I like to recommend books, and I have a few you might enjoy. 

Health care system is evidence of class war

Joe,

First of all I want to tell you that I think you are the best, most informative and entertaining writer on the net at this time. (I know this sounds like sucking up, but it is true.) The first article I read by you was "The Covert Kingdom". Unfortunately, it was after the 2004 election and I could not forward it to anyone to try to change their vote. Anyway, the article "Madmen and Sedatives: Inside the Iron Theater" was just incredible. The first few paragraphs said what I have been feeling with such clarity that I think you were in my mind and were able to articulate it. My wife has told me that I am not much fun to live with anymore because I am such a "gloomy Gus" of late. I sent her the first five paragraphs and said "this is why I am the way I am". She now understands.

Stockholm Syndrome and trusting government

Hello Joe,

I've just read "Inside the Iron Theater" and I think I will translate it into German. It is a great way in which you deal with your inner screaming self. The iron theater is everywhere, although I tend to believe that in the US it is showing its most perfected face. But the people addicted to commodity are about everywhere. (I am a German living in Spain.) They are also in the third world and the most oppressed parts of this planet. They were and are in the concentration camps. In Auschwitz and Dachau they were called kalfactors. They traded privileges for being a tool for the system. Sometimes they even did good and helped others to survive. But evidently they chose the wrong side. Well, some of them didn't exactly choose, did they?

Problems in Europe, but life is sweet

Hello Joe,

I'm writing from Geneva, Switzerland and I want to say how much I sympathize with your impressions of the disaster called life in America.  I've been living outside the states since the early 70's because I just couldn't stand what I saw in Vietnam (I was with the American Red Cross on a kind of "social worker" do-gooder for the morale of "our troops" program).

US competing with Thai slave girls

Dear readers:

Below is the latest email from my friend, Rambling Rick, who by day is an expert on mortgaqes and finance. By night he rightly obsesses on the meaning and ramifications of Peak Oil, later delivering his much needed insights and big picture views to the rest of us by occasional email. Thanks for the letter Rick. Whether you want it or not, you now hold the JoeBageant.com School of Hard Knocks Peak Oil Studies Chair. Payment is in beer, and later, after the oil crash, cow dung for your cooking fire.

We need an alternative education system

Joe,

I recently discovered your site and have enjoyed many of your essays. Regarding education, have you read anything by John Taylor Gatto? He was a teacher for 30 years in NYC, then quit, and began speaking and writing about the problems of American public education. I am midway through his book "The Underground History of American Education" (available online).

Free air and water, how about free food?

Joe,

I just read "Poor, White, and Pissed." I'm the guy you are trying to reach. Went to Stanford, quit a software career to do good (in my own unusual way), now live in Ridgeland, South Caroliina next door to people who work at auto parts stores. And I've got some questions. You want a living wage? Can't have that. Automation and globalization have made it impossible, at least without a massive revolution of some kind. So what kind of revolution should we have?