Joe Bageant

Anonymous hero makes the world go round

Mr. Bageant,

I have just finished your book Deer Hunting with Jesus and I have to thank you for writing it. I am a teacher of students that have been failed in one form or another by our systems (I don't believe a 16-year-old can fail). And the root of all that I teach is Love and Compassion. I know that sounds like some mumbo jumbo, but being of Tibetan descent I think I have that license.

Children seek meaning, as we all do, but in them it is raw and unadulterated by the "hologram" -- or the hologram only has a slight hold on them. With kindness and gentleness they let down their guard and the gangbangers, criminals, druggies, etc., and become what they are, young people in need of something to believe in, something to work toward, and an adult that sees them as something other than a meal ticket, a burden, or something to screw.

Not being ignorant is painful

Greetings Joe,

Your article "Nine Billion Little Feet" was accurate in every way. We try to throw those rocks at the American Consumerist Shitty Evil Way. Not that the beast will ever feel them, but it's the throwing that matters.

Although I haven't yet gotten to your point of disassociation yet, I'm working on that. I don't buy those shiny bobbles that everyone else has. No cell phone, no TV, a job that pays crap, used clothing stores, community garden shares, the whole bit. For me, it wasn't all that hard to not want these extravagant lifestyles. I avoided college, figuring that since I had been subjected to 12 years of forced dumbing down education, all that had to be unlearned. So why would I waste another few years just trying to get some shiny high paying job, when I never agreed with the sick American culture that I grew up in?

When do people realize that they are slaves?

Joe,

A while back I badgered you to check out some essays on American schooling (none dare call it education) by the likes of the late Richard Mitchell and the still living (I think) John Taylor Gatto. I think you must have scanned some of it since I noticed that you mentioned the derivation of our system from those of Prussia and India.

Having thanklessly toiled in a subordinate capacity in the intellectual cesspool known as "special ed" some decades back, I can attest to the utter lack of interest on the part of the system in imparting the slightest spark of thought in these charges. Since by the time they hit school and for the few years they stay before becoming parents or prisoners they are already damaged (blasted is a more descriptive term) beyond any hope of intellectual development.

Solutions require critical thinking skills

Hi Joe,

You really know how to scare the shit out of a person, don't you? I just finished Deer Hunting with Jesus and I loved it, but the gradual creeping feeling of helplessness and powerlessness that has been descending upon me for some time has suddenly accelerated at a rate to make me feel truly uncomfortable with my place in life. Don't get me wrong, I believe I am a good person, but you make the world sound so broken that the only thing it sounds like we can do is to burn it down to bedrock and start again. I include all of us, 'cause when America sneezes, we all catch a cold here in Australia.

The wealthy cannot barricade themselves

Good morning,

I write from Arctic Norway where I teach psychology in the local university. Thank you for the essay. I have lived in rural Philippines, and what you describe fits the scene there as well.

The world is going to become more and more ugly, I fear. And wealthy nations are planning how to remain wealthy and barricaded, at the same time planning how to import and exploit cheap foreign labour.

It is a paradox that will not work.

Markus
Norway

How to motivate people to have fewer babies

Dear Joe,

You make some obvious points. But they needed to be said out loud, because to some, they are not yet obvious. Here are some of my responses:

If you don't like naughty corporate giants monetizing their mass murders (AKA "cancer clusters," and other ways people are killed by environmental  pollution, etc.) give some thought to pressing criminal charges against the CEO's. Anyone in America can bring a criminal action via our grand jury system.

If you would like to specifically address naughty corporate giants who have tried to control our elections via news black-outs on specific candidates, join the Citizen Class Action. You write that you are seriously considering boycotting the income tax.  Well, join the crowd.

The insanity that encourages overpopulation

Joe,

I loved your rant, "Nine Billion Little Feet", but I have one teeny little point. It is beyond embarrassing to me that our generation did in fact, put one of our own in the White House -- and the bastard turned out to be a reactionary counter-revolutionary driving this country like a bat out of hell toward 1929 and beyond.

What we need is focus. Why are six kids a good idea in Belize? What cultural identity makes it so? Is this factor shared among other peasant peoples? Can we change it? Don't look at me, man. All I can add is the obvious insanity of Viagra, en vitro fertilization, surrogate mothers, the Catholic Church, and the U.S. tax code which encourages procreation in the face of this crisis.

Village elders saddened by globalization

Joe,

I was moved by your essay "Nine Billion Little Feet". I enjoyed the read, but what moved me was your epiphany of self discovery among the third worlders. I've lived among those people here in Taos New Mexico. Joe, I really do applaud your venture, in the same spirit as Thoreau or Gauguin -- my heroes. The great adventure! Where you are now is not what the folks back home would consider real or maybe even sane.

In my travels, I came to a point where the vision of eluding the "real world" came up against this question: "Is what I am doing have any value or should I hoist the white flag and return to a relatively secure and well paid slot in the educated semi-elite back in the real world?" That was 35 years ago and honestly I was scared. For the first and last time, I got some LSD and went into the mountains with my mind set on an finding answer to my dilemma. I got the answer and I'm still here because my heart is here.

Nine Billion Little Feet

On the Highway of the Damned, Are We There Yet, Pa?

"John Raymond Castillo, age 91. Sunrise, January 14, 1917. Sunset, February 1, 2008. He leaves 21 children, 140 grandchildren and 302 great-grandchildren."
-- Obituary announcement on Belize’s LOVE Radio station

"The population of Belize? Officially it's about 300,000. But if you include all the kids, it's probably three million."
-- Greg, longtime expatriate American in Belize

By Joe Bageant

Hopkins Village, Belize

The din of squealing, laughing children is the background white noise of the Third World. In Belize, as in most of the Third World, 45% of all people are under the age of 16. About a dozen of that 45% swarm around me as I cut my toenails under the mango tree. A few are picking on the mangy, quarreling dogs but the majority are drawn in close, giving advice about how to cut gnarly, old man type toenails: "Saw dem off wid a file" seems to be the consensus.

What I see are children I help with homework and feed, and admonish about grades, unanxious and reasonably happy little members of the human race. They do not look much like a global migration or crushing planetary population pressure. Yet they are among the most incredible wave of both ever in human history.