Joe Bageant

Oaxaca teachers' strike is not Marxist

Joe,

This follows our earlier email exchange ("Young Mexican considers his choices"). I'd just like to give my take on this. I am the only Spanish-speaker here, so hear me out. Oaxaca's destabilization (rebellion is a more constrained category) has been an important topic in your site for some months now. This event has specifically 20th century Mexican characteristics that make it difficult to apply classical Marxism to it. When they are applied reality is greatly misrepresented.

Maybe draft would awaken public

Joe,

Not many weeks ago, people were getting upset about Senator John Kerry "disparaging" the troops, and my guess was that he knew something the rest of us didn't besides the fact that the war would continue. And sunuvugun, here, peeping its head around the corner is a bill to reopen the draft. Dip me in shit and roll me in Post Toasties, did that ever not take me by surprise. The talking heads say that it's "symbolic", "unworkable", a "gesture and statement", and I'm guessing it'll remain so until after the next presidential election. By then the military is going to be depleted, worn out, overextended, and may even have a few more jobs tacked onto it, so there'll be crocodile tears by all concerned, both sides of the aisle will nod gravely and their explainers will talk about time for the younger generation to "pay their dues".

Something rotten in state of Denmark

Joe,

Regarding your reply to Rick in the post Convicts to Australia, Puritans to America, we have the same thing here in Denmark. Our Dear Leaders have long ago decided to fight for our poor livers, and Hell, a gallon of the cheapest booze is more like a hundred US dollars up here. Rick forgot to mention that self-same do-gooders, buy all their booze tax- and VAT-free -- if they've managed to kill all the bottles they get from lobbyists, that is.

I have no mouth and I must scream

Joe,

I'm finding your blog quite interesting, and the more I read it, the more I want to comment about it. I'm an American now living in Australia, which is about as far away from it all as it's possible to get without living in Tasmania.

As for whether there are poor Jews, let me assure you there are. I'm not Jewish, but my only child is. My ex-wife was Jewish, although not religious, and in Judaism, the heritage passes through the mother. (That's because when those crafty old Jews of Talmudic times wrote the laws, they knew there was no guarantee that the husband was REALLY the father, but the mother was definitely known.) So I have a foot in both camps, being an American mongrel myself. I've hung out with Jews in college, spent a summer on a kibbutz (it's MY Holy Land too!) and had lotsa Jewish friends in America and Australia.

Don't let that 'poor' Jew fool you

Joe,

In the post "Avoid stereotype of Old World Jews", you wrote back to, probably a male, graduate, indeed well-heeled Jew. There basically are no poor Jews. I know this sounds stereotyped but wade around in their pool and do some research, read what's written for them by them, investigate what's provided for them by them, and you'll learn this is true. There are no poor Jews. They have special loan pools at 0%, tons of college help and scholarships, extensive networking, let's just say a Kosher last name opens MANY doors.

Avoid stereotype of 'Old World Jews'

Dear Joe,

Loved your article Pissing in the Liberal Punchbowl Again published in the Progressive Calendar in Minnesota. Wished I didn't. Wished I could just believe. Encouraged by some of the kinds of people elected, grassroots, and by the responses across race and class lines. Disgusted by the immediate removal from the table of impeachment. We know. And it's not pretty.

Americans would rather shop than vote

Hello Joe -

I wanted to say how much I agreed with Colin and you concerning the fate of our young and, also, about the nature of stupidity. I had to write because you were sort of quoting my long-time hero Albert Einstein when he said that "There are only two things which are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the universe." I can imagine that Einstein would shake his great head sadly if he could be alive now and see how true his opinion was.

Call them Ulster-Scots, not Scots-Irish

Hey Joe,

This is kind of a mild complaint. I found in your archives a letter from Grace from Washington, who essentially upbraided you for assuming liberals are mostly wealthy. What bugged me, however, was her (and your) constant use of the term "Irish" to describe the murderous Borderers that come up so often in your writing. The people you speak of, your people, came here mostly before the Revolution and were mostly either from Scotland or Ulster; they did not come as a whole but individually, not unlike the English and Pennsylvania Dutch. They just sort of filtered in. Now, surely, these people left their mark on America -- the violent frontier spirit, and surely their spirit lives on among the southern poor.

Convicts to Australia, Puritans to America

Mate!

You think $50 for a GALLON of Old Granddad is expensive? Try $50 for a 700 ml bottle! (Although it is those cheap-arse Aussie dollars.) Not 750 ml -- it's a short bottle. And it's not 80 proof. Down here they dilute the whiskey, even a lot of the foreign stuff, to 37.5% alcohol. Government social policy to keep the ockers and hoons from pickling their livers. Which they still manage to do anyway. That's what happens when your ancestry arrived in chains. They made the Borderers look like law-and-orderers.

Rick
Melbourne, Australia

Pissing in the Liberal Punchbowl Again

The Democratic Conga Line in the American House of Lords

Saw the talking heads today, speaking the priestly tongue. Saw them nodding seriously, using words like 'gravitas' and a few others that originated in the bosom of Americana. Heard one of the newly elected basically state that things would be business as usual, don't expect a lot of changes. Rather scornfully and testily the idea of impeaching W was dismissed. Well, why the hell not? No answer, just the satisfied, mildly contemptuous smile. Oh, yes, and there'll be a lot of 'bipartisan' things going on.
-- Key Bugle, Internet denizen, retired army seargent

By Joe Bageant

Democrats are dancing around the head of Donald Rumsfeld like a scene from Lord of the Flies, heating up the tar buckets and plucking the goose in eager, nay, wild, anticipation. Personally, I love the smell of tar and feathers in the morning and am quite willing to march on the White House as we speak. I like revenge as well as the next guy. But I also consider myself a compassionate man, one perfectly willing to let Bush's cabinet choose whether they wanna play the mommy or the daddy in the Big House, then move on to the real problems, such as the fact that a gallon of Old Grandad is nearly 50 bucks here in Virginia, or the fact that we are still a nation of people, half of whom were happy to elect a bunch of war criminals -- TWICE! -- and still are.