Joe Bageant

The Annotated Obama

By Joe Bageant
Jocotepec, Mexico

I've managed to sit still through a few state of the union speeches, through the remarks of Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, one Bush (the pappy, I never could gut out one of The Dub's ) and a Clinton. Brother Clinton finished me off, made me give up on state of the union speeches altogether.

Still, there was the off chance (OK, vain hope) that Obama might come out swinging in the wake of the Massachusetts massacre and the Supreme's recent sale of Congress to corporations. As in: The senator from Wal-Mart now has the floor. So I poured myself a stiff one and fell into a deep cush recliner in front of a mongo brain-wrapping TV screen. Not that I would ever own one, mind you. I watch it at my friend and fellow writer Fred Reed's house. That way he gets the rap for being a torpid brainwashed American pig.

Tea Baggers are our canary in the coal mine

Joe recently asked our "masked political consultant," a well known West Coast political adviser for his quick take on the Tea Party movement. He is now writing under the pseudonym John Brown (Email: [email protected]. His previous contributions to this site are:"Not New Ideas, but Identifying New Enemies", "Moving to the Center of Elite Consensus", and "Life in the Post Political Age".  As usual, the masked consultant cuts through the bullshit like a laser. Here is their exchange:

Dear John,

I don't get it about the Tea Party movement. After eight years of of a super right wing administration destroying jobs and what social safety net there was ... "the people"  have suddenly decided: "Now that I'm unemployed, I think I'll form a grassroots movement to destroy my health care too. It seems that no one in the mainstream media finds it a bit suspicious that this so-called grassroots popular movement sounds an awful lot like the neocons we just dumped. Hell, in my home town the Tea Bagger leadership pretty much comes from the ranks of the movers and shakers in the local Republican Party. This is a populist movement?

Joe interviewed by Ian Masters, KPFK

On Sunday, Jan 24, I was a guest on Ian Masters' Background Briefing radio show, KPFK, Los Angeles. Ian's show is noted for its hard authoritative analysis by America's leading political pundits and experts. Being neither, naturally I shotgunned my way through the interview as best I could. Listeners did not seem to mind. It's downloadable as an MP3 -- CLICK HERE.

The segment runs from 18:30 to 38:30 on the little slider do-jiggy on the media player.

-- Joe Bageant

Cars fed on corn, people fed on horseshit

Dave and Joe ponder socialism and the Tea Party

Dear Joe,

The Tea Parties started out as Ron Paul supporters in protest of both the neocons and the faux bleeding heart liberals and have been co-opted and corrupted by others so unfortunately are not what they started out to be.

I agree both Dems and Reps have been and are horribly corrupt and just two sides of the same worthless coin flipped for our confusion and division and "their" amusement and profit. My view of Dems and Reps has always been the Dems take your money and give it to people that don't deserve it to get votes and the Reps take you money and keep it for themselves. They are learning much from each other and the main difference now are the sound bites. One of the reasons I have not watched TV for the last 15 years. Few ever wonder why there is almost always a 50/50 split and we just flip back and forth thinking we finally got rid of the last bastards.

When did America become a goddamn homeland?

Mr. Bageant,

Your Bass Boats and Queer Marriage is a great article about the American "middle class", whatever the hell that is.

I am an old working class person, a human being. I had working class parents and grandparents. It is all I ever was or wanted to be. I remember an old definition of the "middle class", way back in the mid 60's, my high school days. It all had to do with income, of course. Not sure what the numbers were back then, but it was above working class pay, for sure.

I had four years in the Marines and a tour in Vietnam. Then, I went back to being a working class guy. Got married, bought a house, had and lost a child, then lost the wife to brain cancer.

Bass Boats and Queer Marriage

The battle for the American soul is over and Jay Leno won
 
By Joe Bageant
Ajijic, Jalisco, Mexico

Holy smoking Jesus, America is losing its middle class! "We're taxing the middle class out of existence," charge the conservatives. "The middle class is being hollowed out," wail the liberals, pouring forth great mock turtle tears (although one wonders how such a vacuum, as middle class life in America could be further hollowed).

For both political camps, high dudgeon over "the vanishing middle class" is supposed to represent some sort of "new populism." Not that the populace disagrees with them, mainly because the populace, if we are referring to the genuine America populace, hasn't the slightest notion of the definition of populism. But the word sounds like it has to do with popularity, the highest virtue in the American mind, and can even lead to the celestial heights called celebrity. So what the hell, they're willing to run with it.

Taking Tea with the Lizards

By Joe Bageant
Ajijic, Jalisco, Mexico

The Republican Party will beat the living piss out of anybody for a buck. The Democrats will fly the flag of FDR, even as they pirate the public coffers on behalf of Wall Street. Don't think the American people have not noticed these things. After thirty years of pistol whipping and emptying of their wallets, they've started to figure out there just may be a public robbery underway, with both parties as accomplices.

And so Americans at both ends of the political spectrum are finally wising up to the need for a third party. Even if it is a third party within their own party, which is no third party at all, of course. However, for Americans it's all about branding, what you call a thing, that's important. Call a six-ounce block of corn sugar with sunflower seeds and raisins stuck on the outside an "Organic Energy Bar" and by god, you have natural food right there on the 7-Eleven shelf. What a thing is called is how a nation a people carefully bred for consumption will see it, thanks to that advertising arm of American capitalism called the news media