Labor Update: Cranky Compassionate Joe Bagean

It
wasn’t until after first the French and Brits heralded Edgar Allan Poe
that we were able to recognize the lyrical genius of our own Native Son.
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/eapoe.htm 
And so it goes with Joe Bageant, the hard-hitting analyst of American
politics known by only a handful of blog-o-philes and in über-lefty
journalist circles.

Bageant’s
is not hyper-degreed and getting op-eds published in the NYT or
Washington Post. He’s a former editor and writer for dozens of
publications, including Military History Magazine. He’s now a blogger
whose brilliant essays on the rift between liberals and the working poor
are too painfully good to be published by the scions of the 4th Estate.
Thankfully, he makes most available on his website,  joebageant.com.

His newest book, Rainbow Pie, A Redneck Memoir
was just published in Australia where he was on a book tour in August.
It will be released in the UK later this year, but as of yet, there is
no US publication pending (it is available for purchase online). scribepublications.com.au/book/rainbowpie

His
earlier book Deer Hunting with Jesus was released in 2007 by Three
Rivers press in 2007, and it did spend seven weeks on the NYT best
seller list. But ask anyone if they’ve heard of him and you are likely
to get a resounding “huh?”

Bageant
is primarily an essayist, and he reminds me of a good old fashioned
pamphleteer –  a hybrid of Thomas Paine and the guys who see on subway
platforms selling their screed for a dollar. On his website, you can
read such dirges as Waltzing at the
Doomsday Ball; The Bastards Never Die; Workers’ Rights: No Balls, No
Gains; Escape from the Zombie Food Court; A Commodity Called Misery;
Redneck Liberation Theology and many others.     http://coldtype.net/joe.html

He
is a frequent contributor to BBC and other international media, and his
subjects are working poor whites of rural Virginia where he was born
and raised. They are poor, obese. Lots live in trailers financed by
shady mortgage deals. They work their whole life and die in horrendous
for-profit nursing homes paid for by Medicaid. They are “meat-hunters”
who believe in America as it’s been sold as a product on TV. They vote
Republican and, occasionally, hunt “towel-heads” when deployed for the
War on Terrorism. The exorcize demons.

Most
agonizingly, they are profoundly misunderstood by liberals who profess
to support their liberation by ending poverty in this country.

He’s
hyper critical and sure to offend everyone –  especially those who take
pleasure in condemning Lynndi England rather than understand what went
on to create her.

Bageant
is a writer about class in this country– that most taboo of all
American subjects. His anti-corporate jeremiads are profound because
they are personal (in case you haven’t realized, politics are done by
and for people). It’s not business, it’s not analyze til you’re red in
the face. It’s people he knows.


http://blogs.abc.net.au/tasmania/2010/09/statewide-evenings-presents-audio-on-demand-joe-bageant.html?site=northtas&program=hobart_evenings

http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/20100831

“The American middle class has never been as big as it’s been advertised…”
http://coldtype.net/Assets.09/pdfs/0709.Joe.Worker.pdf

~Tracy Kurowski has been active in
the labor movement for ten years, first as a member of AFSCME 3506, when
she taught adult education classes at the City Colleges of Chicago. She
moved to the Quad Cities in 2007 where she worked as political
coordinator with the Quad City Federation of Labor, and as a caseworker
for Congressman Bruce Braley from 2007 – 2009.

Tracy Kurowski writes a labor update every Monday on Blog for
Iowa