You LEFTY DU'ers Have Just Gotta SEE THIS! Bageant is the Chris Hedges from the RIGHT!

[KoKo]

http://www.joebageant.com/

September 23, 2010
Tea Party is just a media spectacle

"The Tea Party is a media spectacle to make working people believe they have power," Joe Bageant said during an interview on RT, a global television network based in Moscow, Russia.

On The Alyona Show, host Alyona Minkovski starts the interview by pointing out that 43 million Americans live below the poverty line. "For some reason," she says, "in this country, there's always been an assumption that the poor, or the underclass, are the non-white people that live in this country, and the fact that there has always been a white underclass has become taboo."


On his recent tour of Australia, Joe Bageant was interviewed the Australian Broadcasting Company's Steve Austin at the Brisbane Writers Festival. Austin is a great interviewer and quickly got to the heart of Joe's second book, Rainbow Pie: A Redneck Memoir, which has been published in Australia and will soon be available in North America and the UK.

The interview is an hour long and is available in MP4 and WMV video formats. Also available are a short video of highlights of the interview and an MP3 audio format. Click here and look in the left column to choose a format.

in News about my book | Permalink


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Down Under radio interviews with Joe

Joeaus1 Joe Bageant is on a two-week tour of Australia and New Zealand where he is talking about his new book, Rainbow Pie: A Redneck Memoir, published by Scribe Publications. The book is a collection of stories from his own background growing up among the gun-owning, uninsured, underemployed white tribes of West Virginia -- the people who according to President Obama "cling to their guns and their religion".

Rainbow Pie will be published by Granta/Portobello in the UK later this year. A date has not yet been set for the US release.

In addition to speaking at book fairs and writers' festivals, Joe has been interviewed by a number of print and broadcast journalists. Below are three radio interviews. For each, follow the link and look for a button to download an MP3 file.

Richard Fidler of ABC Brisbane welcomes Joe back to a second visit to discuss Rainbow Pie. Joe was a guest on this popular radio program two years ago when Deer Hunting with Jesus was published in Australia. Click here.

Joe is interviewed by Kathryn Ryan of Radio New Zealand. Click here.

Annie Warburton of ABC Northern Tasmania interviews Joe. Click here.

-- Ken Smith


http://www.joebageant.com /

[KoKo]

1. What was amazing about my viewing Bageant from Aussie Land was his Similarity to Chris Hedges!

It was amazing to watch and listen to this from Joe.....and to see how the COMPLAINTS from the LEFT might have in common from the "COMPLAINTS from the RIGHT!"

Joe does a credible job of describing what those of us grew up with in the RURAL HINTERLANDS in the 50's and 60's in AMERICA...

He talks about what it was like with his "truck driving father" and the HOPE and DREAMS of those of us who found the Local LIBRARY...etc.

It's a truly lovely watch for many of us... (certainly not all...but for us who GREW UP RURAL) and how America Failed Us..

Hedges of the Left..and a Great Listen or Watch...depending on how you can get the video or audio. I figure you all will deal with it one way or the other.

Edited for "Hedges of the Left" replacing my enthusiasm of TYPO!

[sabrina 1]

2. But how did he end up on the right then? If he sees how

'America has failed' the people he grew up with, what makes him think that the political right will change that?

[KoKo]

4. What's interesting is that he was BORN on the RIGHT...in Winchester, Virginia

and he KNOWS how the RW THINKS because his Ancestors go back to the Founding of America..Scotch-Irish..and why they always GO TO WAR...and why they Support BUSHITES. The RURAL FOLKS LOVE OF THE LAND..CHANGING SEASONS...SPIRITUAL TIES TO THE LAND FROM GENERATIONS...and INDEPENDENCE that allows LIBERTARIANS TO EXPLOIT THEM!

It's fascinating. And, since I grew up in that Culture it was Fascinating to see a Lefty like Joe describe the culture of the SouthEast and even "CHIMP" who rejected his parents who took up the values of that culture and bastardized it!

I'm telling you..he's the Chris Hedges (who had a pretty elitist upbringing) compared to Joe Bageant who is the heritage of the SOUTH EAST and those FOLKS JUST TOOK OVER THE US HOUSE!

WHAT ARE THEIR COMPLAINTS...what's THEIR HERITAGE. With CONGRESS IT's their MONEY ...but their CONSTITUENTS THEY BETRAY are what is being talked about here.

And...why "others" are viewed differently...from "THEIR PERPSPECTIVE and VIEWS" and how Media/Corporatocracy and the REST feed off of it!"

[sabrina 1]

5. Thank you, I was not familiar with his work

But I will look out for his writings from now on.

How is viewed in his home state? Could someone like him get through to the people who still cling to the Republican Party?

[KoKo]

7. As someone who grew up in the South...(looked to the land...loved what the land taught us)

who ended up in the Northeast..... I can share his history. It's a history of the Land..and the People that we often forget about in the History of America and what we deal with in the SOUTH and those folks we can't stand...that we work against but Joe B. knows who the politicians are and how they can manipulate.

He's sort of the Cross Between "What's the Matter With Kansas" by Thomas Franks, and Chris Hedges who comes out of the Protestant Presbyterian America ...Northeast and the SOUTH...who ALWAYS CAUSES US TROUBLE...and SERVES IN WARS..BUT STARTS THEM... Bageant fills out the AMERICAN Panopoly!

Please watch the link with Australian TV! Joe has other media at his website.

[sabrina 1]

9. I will watch it. I had to run today and just got back.

Thanks for the link ~ I have read a lot about how little people from the rest of the country understand the South and that this is why Democrats don't do very well there. Would you agree with that? And is there something that can be done to change it?

[Hannah Bell]

10. he's not on the right. he's populist left.

[sabrina 1]

12. Yes, I realize that now ...n/t

[Hardrada]

3. I've read Rainbow Pie. Great book. Got it on Amazon UK branch.

[KoKo]

16. I wanted to buy it from the USA Amazon...but not available...

Do you live outside US?

[MrScorpio]

6. Without a conversation about the effect of white privilege...

And the illusions that it creates the revelation is incomplete.

[eppur_se_muova]

8. This is the same Joe Bageant who wrote "Deer Hunting with Jesus" ...

whose title makes it more obvious he has some criticisms to offer of the Republican base -- the ones who vote against their own best interests.

[Hannah Bell]

11. bageant isn't a man of the right. he's a man of the left, rural populist version.

he's critical of liberal elites from a rural/working class/populist perspective, but he's no rightie.


Representing the 'hillbilly' class as a minority, Bageant laments 'the piece of the rainbow pie' promised to his working class forefathers, which never materialised.

He praises the 'white trash' trucker heroes, who stood up to corporate oppressors by unionising, helping to form a middle class, and finally affording an education for their children.

In this way, Bageant upholds Malcolm X's teaching of 'embracing the slander', stating "I'm so damn average that what I write resonates with people".

However, he reasons that with the 'corporatisation' of the United States, Middle-America has become so politically disillusioned that it is now voting against its own economic self-interest.

[TBF]

13. Hannah is correct - I was about to write a paragraph on Joe but she has

already done it here. He actually reminds me a bit of Michael Moore, only more down-home. He's definitely no right-winger. He's a populist for sure and he's very pro-labor. Having grown up in a rural poor area, his pieces resonate with me.

[blindpig]

14. What is funny about this thread

is that Joe is slandered because he rightly takes liberals to task, as though liberalism were the 'left'. Too rich, that.

[Catherina]

15. +1 n/t