Joe Bageant

Pain of realizing that I have no country

Hello Joe,

I too was one of many in the 60's and 70's who imagined a better culture through self enlightenment. The trouble started with the end of the Vietnam War, we didn't have much of a plan for political action after Vietnam. I also discovered that a lot of activist types were all done protesting because their real cause was the saving of their own bacon and this was accomplished. Everybody was worn out and, sad to say, so was the notion that we as people had some obligation to each other, so much for "brotherhood".

I'm not as critical today of these people who went about their lives into the 70's and the crass, self-indulgent 80's, but I harbor some deep hurt. I hurt because I feel duped and I must say I was more than a bit naive. I probably have some company in that regard -- your site tells me so. I love reading the letters from your readers. It helps to know that others are still holding out for some hope, even when they express their utter disgust with the reality of the new century.

We are all victims of Stockholm Syndrome

Hi Joe,

It has been many years now that I have been in search of my tribe. I come across a member every now and then who sees the world as I see it, but not very often. I am a back-to-the lander. I took seriously, as many of my friends did way back in the 70's, adopting a lifestyle that would enable me to find my place in nature. Living life simply, undistracted by all the phony glitter. I found that piece of land, built my own house, started up a garden and even went so far as to get some small livestock, almost literally living a John Prine tune. I continue to this day, warts and all, a life of personal responsibility. Using it up before throwing it out, driving small vehicles through the years as well as composting and recycling.

Hey, what's with the revolution bullshit?

Note:

Here are four more responses to my invitation in "Coffee, Consciousness and Revolution". More to come.

Joe

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Hi Joe,

There's an idea out there that the natural progression of the universe is towards higher and higher forms of consciousness. From inanimate matter, to amoeba, to lizard, to tool-using apes. According to this idea, there are different levels of consciousness in humans. At one level is pure survival. Then there is an extension of identification to family and tribe, and then further to all humans and the universe itself. Supposedly, around 20% of the population reached a higher level in the 60s which included concern for other people and the planet.

Spiritual quest of a gay, redneck Hindu

Joe,

Buenos dias from New Mexico. I sent you a short email and you answered with grace and humor. As a writer myself, and as a seventh generation Southerner, I appreciate your ability to communicate truth. You're something else, Bud.

This email, however, is about me, me, me. I can't think of anyone else who might even remotely understand my love/hate relationship with the South and things Southern. First off, I'm a 56-year-old gay man in a relationship of 24 years (so far). I left the South in 1984, so I've been gone almost as long as I lived there. This is not an accident. My life has been spent on a conscious spiritual quest, trying to recover from the trauma of being raised in a fundamentalist Baptist culture.

Somehow, I always knew, deep inside, that God had nothing to do with the hateful, mean-spiritedness I was surrounded by. I love the South, and I also despise much about it. I wind up defending the South and Southerners, even when I might agree with their critics. It's sort of like Mom's a drunk, and we all know it, but we still love her and don't want the folks down the street bad mouthing her.

Familiar, warm breath of elite vampires

Note:

Here are three more responses to my invitation in Coffee, Consciousness and Revolution. More to come.

Joe

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Dear Joe,

As always, I read you first thing in the morning so that my day's framework is sane instead of the insanity of corporate America wherein I must toil for the next six months while I plan my escape.

Last night I was at my office Christmas party and at my table piled high with the usual holiday excess of food and booze, there was talk of plans for the future. Some in our group (in their 20's and 30's) were talking about balancing their careers and creating families of three, four children and the kind of money that would be needed to maintain their high-spending lifestyles. Most were eagerly anticipating their perennial bonuses, salary increases, deals, mergers, stock options, $etc., $etc., $etc.

I don't understand your position on guns

Dear Joe,

I just finished reading Deer Hunting with Jesus, which I really enjoyed reading. Many of the things you write about also ring true here in Australia.

One of the things which I found interested me in your book was the importance of health care system. In Australia we have a well entrenched Medicare system, which the conservatives (here called 'the Liberals') weakened but were afraid to destroy.

Another big difference is that fortunately the fundamentalists don't have such a big hold here.

Webb, Edwards and a non-wacky Lou Dobbs

Dear Joe:

I have  been a regular reader on your site for the past few months, and I must say there is far more insight into what is happening in our country on your site than in  all the political language in our electoral system. And trust me, I know what I am talking about. I work as a political consultant.

There are very many reasons why your insights would not be welcome in the context of a traditional campaign setting.

1. The kind of grassroots organizing you advocate involves spending money that would need to be taken away from TV buys and mail. Which (depending on the ethics of the individual) means a loss of commission fees (15% in TV buys) and kick-backs from printers on the mail.

We must cooperate in order to survive

Note:

Here are three more responses to my invitation in Coffee, Consciousness and Revolution. More to come.

Joe

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Hi Joe,

Your latest essay is very thoughtful. I hope you're right, that in every human being, at least the ordinary sort, there is an innate yearning for justice. Just as you said, we have our killer ape gene, which our "betters" try to make dominant, especially in the young men and women cannon fodder they send off to places like Iraq and Afghanistan. But, after all, those killer apes had groups, societies if you will, in which they instinctively cooperated with one another in order to kill the wooly mammoth, the saber-toothed tiger, or whatever.

You may not trample on rights of others

Prelude:

My invitation to respond to "Coffee, Consciousness and Revolution" certainly generated a landslide of email. And certainly serves as a reminded of just how smart I ain't, which is always a good thing, humility being good medicine for the soul. There is no way possible to answer all the responses, but Ken and I can post them for a while in the spirit of shared thought among all the good folks who drop by this little piss stop in cyberspace. Below is the first of several that will be posted in the next week or so.

Joe

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Hi Joe,

I'm afraid I disagree with you on the idea of "fundamental internal justice".

Removing what you have described as "the state conditioned consciousness" I am compelled to equate with a descent into savagery, equivalent to nothing better than a colony of rabid rats each out for only themselves.

The swampy muck of murderous prejudice

Dear Joe,

Greetings my friend. America is about to close out another year of Empire and one of our clarion bards is about to retreat to Belize, leaving the appreciative of us in exile in our own land.

The last time we communicated you were entertaining the idea of giving the Neo-Nazi Bill White a forum for discussion and my reaction, I suspect, was probably harsh as I compared the old bastard to a coral snake. LOL. You were gracious enough to land it with reflective comment. I imagine that if other inquiries were tested, the same violent animus directed toward the Neo-Nazi zeitgeist was evident. The comment you published by Phillip from New York -- "anti-semitic crap" may have been the milder of a more rancid collection. The generations of those who carry the Nazi history of  genocide and the Holocaust do so in the blood, not as intellectual ideology or in forgiveness as 'political correctness -- the First Amendment, and all that. Thus, the coral snake analogy.