Joe Bageant

The full US/UK spin on events in Iran

Hi Joe,

Am I the only one not celebrating the violent turmoil and chaos in Iran? To me it has the same feel as the phony "color revolutions" that were engineered by the "National Endowment for Democracy", a benign sounding organization that in fact masks a cadre of spooks working to enrich corporate interests by destabilizing governments that don't toe the neo-liberal corporate globalist line.

It appears very much like the neo-cons on the march again, only this time the well meaning naïve "liberals" aren't going to say anything about U.S. imperialism because they are entranced by the super slick public relations machine Obama has. This worries me because at least Bush was awkward enough that many people could see through his malicious schemes, it seems this time around that 90% of the population is going to swallow the endless imperialist interventionist Kool-Aid.

My union brothers are lazy, complacent

Mr. Bageant,

I very much appreciated your new article on unions, and agree whole-heartedly about how the rotten "system" has wrecked our country and it's working families. I'm a union man all the way, in fact, a shop steward for the National Letter Carriers Union (an honest, democratic union, one of the few). So, I know all about the evils of management, working for the biggest bastard of all, our own government. But I would like to add to the argument if I may, and submit that it isn't only the system that has ruined labor unions, the workers themselves, especially union members, are also to blame for our downfall.

As a union officer, I'm duty-bound to represent the members of my union, within the local branch, and it's like pushing a boulder uphill. These people (some are very good hard-working folks ) don't know or care what happens to their jobs and lives. If they pay dues, they feel like that's all they need to do to get everything they want, and they think it gives them the right to bitch about everything without ever doing anything outside of their jobs. They don't believe that unionizing is part of their job, in fact they don't believe (or know) that the union is the reason they have decent jobs.

I now realize my father was a hero

Hey Joe,

Your essay "No Balls, No Gains" had me crying. Our fathers were very different kinds of men, but I remember that world just a little bit. My dad was a schoolteacher. In the mid-60s, when I was really, really little, he taught in the coal camps in the north end of our county.

At that school, he taught fifth through eigth grades in one of the two rooms. They've told me the woman who taught first through fourth cooked the free lunches and Dad's second chore in the school was to be the janitor. His third chore was being the principal.

I have vivid memories of a chili supper they had one night when I was three or four. I remember our car climbing up into the mountainous part of our county and being so scared of the curves and the bluffs. I remember running around screaming with a crowd of miners' kids and feeling that joy that never comes again in adulthood. (When grown-ups run around in circles screaming, it is never good. Part of me just doesn't understand why that is.)

Worker rights: No balls, no gains

By Joe Bageant

In looking back on growing up, I always remember 1957 and 1958 at "the two good years," They were the only years my working class redneck family ever caught a real break in their working lives, and that break came because of organized labor. After working as a farm hand, driving a hicktown taxi part ti me, and a dozen catch as catch can jobs, my father found himself owning a used semi-truck and hauling produce for a Teamster unionized trucking company called Blue Goose.

Daddy was making more money than he'd ever made in his life, about $4,000 a year. The median national household income at the time was $5,000, mostly thanks to America's unions. After years of moving from one rented dump to another, we bought a modest home, ($8,000) and felt like we might at last be getting some traction in achieving the so-called “American Dream.” Yup, Daddy was doing pretty good for a backwoods boy who'd quit school in the sixth or seventh grade -- he was never sure, which gives some idea how seriously the farm boy took his attendance at the one-room school we both attended in our lifetimes.

Oligarchy, corporations and unions

Hello, Joe,

I am a union man. Like my Dad, I've always believed in unions. My Dad worked for the Post Office for 46 years. He was a member of the Railway Mail Employees Union, and he helped smooth the way for the first African-American member of that union, Brother Scott.

I was a member of the Teamsters & Hotel Workers, Local 5, in Honolulu, as a dishwasher for a hotel. Later, as an air courier, I organized my brothers into the Teamsters Union twice, and the courier service bosses fired me twice.

For the last 20 years, I've worked for a city government and been an active member of SEIU. I was very involved for years in contract campaigns and organizing; in helping my fellow members with problems with their bosses. Then the Local stopped being interested in empowering the members. I got discouraged and I dropped out of active participation.

Joe's book published in 11 countries

In the two years since Deer Hunting with Jesus was published, Joe Bageant has been pleasantly surprised by the reaction to the book outside the United States, in addition to thousands of positive comments from his American readers. The book has gone into several printings in the US, and new editions have been published and distributed in eleven countries on four continents.

"When I was writing the book, I never considered that the rest of the world would be so interested in America's social class system," Joe said. "That's the class system that we Americans insist doesn't exist."