Late last month Joe Bageant died of cancer at 64 years of age.

I did not want to let his death pass without some mention.

If I had to name one author who has had the most profound effect on me over the last couple of years it would have to be Joe Bageant. His humanity, empathy, and heartfelt storytelling were evident not only in the two slim books of his, Deer Hunting for Jesus and Rainbow Pie: A Redneck Memoir, but also in his public appearances.

A modern day Steinbeck with an equal eye for injustice, possibly without the mastery of the written word to win a Pulitzer, but more than made up for by being a participant rather than just an observer. In a limited sense a literary version of a Michael Moore without the ego and flair.

He not only gave me a greater understanding of what faces the white underclass of America but in turn made me more deeply appreciative of Australia and our “sense of commonwealth”.

About as real as they get.

RIP Joe.

csteele,
Joe RIP.
do you actually mean vail or did you mean vale ?

I haven't read Bageant's books but I've heard a few interviews with him on RN: http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2010/09/01/2999519.htm
and am grateful to him for explaining deep southern ideology to me. Ironically, the stereotypically ignorant bible belt in the US is enamoured of the Enlightenment ideology its founding fathers infused in the Constitution. Sadly, this blind adherence is arguably the single biggest factor that maintains conservative liberal hegemony and the dominance of the wealthy over the downtrodden. Guns for the masses in exchange for power for the elites, who also have their guns bristling on high, enforcing their spurious cowboy logic unilaterally. Joe tells us that having no free health care in the US is equated with freedom. And this has doubtless been a factor behind the dominance of this neo-Roman empire; money that might have been squandered on health care, better wages and conditions has been retained to build the mightiest war machine in history, so that the state is the reification of popular ideology, the Shane of Western folklore--the loner who rides off into the sunset after setting the innocents free. For the more civilised city-folk there is the space program with its thrusting symbols of phallic potency: enough to soak the pants of the dourest feminist and reduce tough-minded Republicans to tears, the space program is akin in its profligate obsessiveness and earthly indifference to any of the excesses presided over by Caligula or Nero.

Joe Bageant, bless his heart, tried to break through the machismo crap that the US still ejaculates---like a bock-toothed boy from the bayous---at home and abroad.
Yet even with the willing compliance of its under-paid and neglected masses, the US is nearly broke.
When it finally ends up in the gutter, with nothing to keep it warm but pathetic memories of its glory days, like a drunken fallen-gunslinger it will struggle bathetically to its feet and go out in a blaze of glory, firing off its weapons willy nilly.
Joe Bageant was a voice of reason.

Well said, Squeers.

I read a long article by Joe Bageant and was impressed.
Some see things more clearly than others - his gift was his ability to articulate what he saw.

individual - what a prat-like comment...what are you - OLO's word inquisitor?
Some people have no capacity to detect and respect the spirit of a post and your comment was not in keeping with it.

Oh Squeers, and any others who have not so far not leafed the pages of a Joe book, I do urge you to have a look.

I bought his 'Deer hunting with Jesus' on-spec, never having heard of him, during a brief spell in Sidders in a 'wander around' book shops.

I picked the book up simply because of the title and started reading, then pushed an old woman out of her seat when she stood up to return a book and started reading a few pages. I was sold in no time.

This is not just about his home town and the towering US national 'intelligence'. It can be read to understand what is happening here too.

Coupled with books like 'The Family' and ''For God's sake' the reader soon understands the forces of iggerance that drive our national politics here in Australia and right across the West.

The foolish notions taught in International Relations about Westphalia seeing the end of religion in state affairs, is exposed in no time at all.

The world is done for, and this book is yet another signpost to our fate.

I suggest you beg buy or borrow a copy Squeers.

Adams reran an interview with him from a couple of years ago, last week. I missed it again but it's available on ABC downloads.

That dimwit, or those dimwits, from Counterpoint should read it and give us all one of their oh-so-special 'understandings' of it.

Dear individual, I had always thought vail was to doff one's hat as a mark of respect while vale was a valley. I will check when I get home.

Dear squeers, while you do give a sense of part of Joe's message what was striking about his books was his empathy for these people. Certainly there was frustration with with the way they approached their politics but the anger was reserved for those forces within American politics who took advantage of a deep sense of individual responsibility to neuter a whole class of people. DHFJ was lauded by some as predicting the GFC but rereading it now he was just stating the bleeding obvious.

However it was Rainbow Road that really rattled my chain for reasons I will expand on when I don't have to do it with a single finger. 

I would echo TBC's recommendation that you and Poirot try and get your hands on one of his books. Well worth the effort.