Poirot

Did you mean 'councilling'?

csteele,

Great thread. I haven't had anything to do with Bageant and his work, but will be having a look.

For the record, a 'vale' is a valley. Vale (pronounced 'vah-lay') is Latin for farewell.

Hi all...

I too would like to add my feelings of profound sadness at Joe's passing. He indeed had a unique appreciation of those folk who never had a presence or voice, in a land of apparent 'milk and honey'.

And in my former occupation, I met many who were the living examples of those who Joe tried vainly to assist, by attempting to articulate their specific employment problems. As well as their (invariably difficulty), domiciliary circumstances also.

Indeed - Vale Joe Bageant, you will be sorely missed.

Dear Otokonoko, you are right, Vale is farewell as Individual flagged. Though vail wasn't too far off the mark I am a comforted a little by the thought that one of the last people in the world to have a problem with me mixing my Latin would have been Joe himself.

Vale Joe Bageant it is.

In facing a serious illness before the age when Americans receive universal Medicare Joe has identified with some of the characters in his book Dear Hunting With Jesus. One of its most startling statistics was that the local hospitals often are the largest source of bankruptcies in a community.

“...medical bills are the leading cause of personal bankruptcy in the united States for the uninsured. Half of the uninsured owe money to hospitals, and at any given time one third of them are being chased by collection agencies that will not hesitate to haul them into court for a hundred bucks.”

But get this,

“Sixty percent of those filing for bankruptcy have health insurance.”

My brother has remarked how little there was in the American mainstream media about Joe's passing while most of the Australian outlets carried something. The American Fox News was bereft as far as I can tell.

Some of the letters posted on Joe's website show how many of us responded to he and his message. In the preface to the Australian edition of DHFJ he says “Australian readers display the same rowdy, open spirit, and the often wry understanding of politics...”. Why then so different in our social histories? I liked Joe's conclusion.

“I remember what an Australian once told me: 'I'm glad we got the convicts and you got the puritans.'”

“Be thankful.”

To aptly quote Steinbeck;

“Mack and the boys avoid the trap, walk around the poison, step over the noose while a generation of trapped, poisoned, and trussed-up men scream at them and call them no-goods, come-to-bad-ends, blots-on-the-town, thieves, rascals, bums.”

Though he got there late Joe was one of the “ Beauties, the Virtues, the Graces”.

Many people know of the warning by President Dwight Eisenhower about the dangers of the “military-industrial complex”.

“Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together.”

Most often quoted by those making statements about America's adventures overseas the focus is almost always about the 'military' part of the equation. In Rainbow Pie Bageant talks about the stripping of dignity and skills of over 20 million Americans in less than a generation by the 'industrial' complex and how its rapaciousness continues unabated with every free trade agreement signed.

He says; “When WW II began, 44 percent of American's were rural, and over half of them farmed for a living. By 1970, only 5 per cent were on farms.”

Now “lest the noble, bawdy bumpkins themselves forget their roles in the national drama, they are teleprompted as it were, by tabloid TV; by the Jerry Springer Show's hair-pulling fights between married working-class women and their husband's young blonde piece of sexual side action”

What saves Rainbow Pie from sentimentality is Bageant's deep indignation about what has been done to these people, or rather his people because he identifies so closely with them.

“For the past forty years the tool most often used to denigrate my people has been political correctness”.

Damn, that was one of the many things in this book to hit the mark. I have little sympathy for Pauline Hanson's policies though I can claim to have expressed empathy for those who felt drawn to support her and even the lady herself. I did attend an anti-Hanson rally but also took some delight in the “Please explain” moment. Bageant made me see how low that was.

csteele.

The working class, led by their nose rings, willingly, in return for trinkets, smoke and mirrors, and then grateful for them all while still watching as the smoke vanishes without trace or benefit to them.

You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.

I liked Joe's writing, but I fear he excused his fellow 'mercans from any responsibilities surrounding their situations.

I scoff at the 'freewill' line, the 'pull up your socks' of Gillard and Abbott and millions more besides them,including Hansonites, but at some stage, there needs to be some acceptance that merely blaming bad TV and idiot NewsCorp crap just wears thin, surely?

The health fiasco is a great example. Communism in action, to the Yanks.

Don't they read fables and fairy tales? Too busy reading the Bible I suppose but surely, somewhere in 300m people, one of them has read The Emperors New Clothes?

I'd like to go to the states, to meet these amazing people who'd rather die than ask for help, who believe it is an expression of freedom to live in the gutter, a man's right no less, but I'm not sure I'd live too long if I ever was foolish enough to speak.