“Joe Bageant is the Sartre of Appalachia. His white-hot bourbon-fuelled prose shreds through the lies of our times like a weed-whacker in overdrive. Deer Hunting with Jesus is a deliciously vicious and wickedly funny chronicle of a thinking man’s life in God’s own backwoods.” —Jeffrey St. Clair
I picked up a copy of Joe Bageant’s book, Deer Hunting With Jesus, in the Atlanta airport recently. The author attempts to explain how the middle class vanished from American life by looking closely at residents of Winchester, Virginia–his home town.
In the chapter titled, “American Serfs,” Bageant argues that our public education system is a shambles for a reason.
Conservative leaders understand quite well that education has a liberating effect on a society. Presently they are devising methods to smuggle resources to those American madrassas, the Christian fundamentalist schools, a sure way to make the masses even more stupid if there ever was one.
Is it any wonder that Gallup Polls tells us that 48 percent of Americans believe that God spit on his beefy paws and made the universe in seven days? Only 28 percent of Americans believe in evolution. It is no accident that number corresponds roughly to the percentage of Americans with college degrees.
As you can see from the passage above, Bageant isn’t pulling punches. Nor does he have reason to. Once upon a time in this country, we believed anyone could reach for the stars. Maybe it didn’t work out for all, but it worked for many. Today, the deck seems brutally stacked against those without financial resources. This didn’t just happen, and it’s not a conspiracy.
Class is now the ultimate bifurcating factor in America. Obama is proof of that. That he’s black seems to hardly matter. That he’s Ivy League-educated is what people either reject or embrace.
p.s. See this great illustration inspired by the book on Flickr.
Campaign Manager, Rick Davis, defends the McCain camp’s zealous protection of Governor Palin: “She’s not scared to answer questions. But you know what, we run our campaign, not the news media. And we’ll do things on our time table. And honestly, this last week was not an exemplary moment for the news media. So why would we want to throw Sarah Palin into a cycle of piranhas called ‘the news media’ that have nothing better to ask questions about than her personal life and her children?
The Oregonian has an interesting piece on the solar business and how important tax credits are to the burgeoning industry.
According to the story, Portland’s Tanner Creek Energy faces a module shortage and record-high prices as they rush to erect solar systems before the 30 percent federal tax credit for solar-system owners expires at year’s end. Solar advocates say such subsidies are crucial until new technology and mass manufacturing reduce costs.
Faced with the loss of these tax credits, many in the solar industry fear a crippling slowdown right as momentum is rising.
I.O.U.S.A. is a new documentary film premiering this month. The Los Angeles Times calls the film “an 87-minute alarm on the tsunami of debt bearing down on the United States’ future, caused by the rising national debt, the trade imbalance and the pending costs of baby boomers cashing in on entitlements.”
David M. Walker, former head of the Government Accountability Office, appears in the film. In March of this year, Walker resigned from the GAO so he could become even more vocal on the debt crisis.
The nation’s debt now accounts for 66% of the gross national product. But unless things change, the film argues that the cost of aging baby boomers will push that proportion to 244% by 2040, twice what it was at the end of World War II, our highest level of national debt. A debt that high, super-investor Warren E. Buffett says in the film, “could create real political instability.”
The film will open in 400 theaters around the country Aug. 21, followed by a live video town hall meeting from Omaha, featuring Walker, Peter Peterson of the Blackstone Group and Buffett.
By the way, this report from the GAO says most corporations doing business in the U.S. pay NO taxes whatsoever.
There’s an interesting scene in episode seven of HBO’s John Adams, where 90 year-old Adams is shown the above painting by the artist, John Trumbull. Adams is displeased. He says the history of the American Revolution is lost. He chastises Trumbull for making a graphic fiction of the events in Philadelphia. Adams reminds him that the nation was at war, and that the signers filtered in one by one to sign the Declaration and that there was nothing tranquil about it.
It may seem a trivial point, but it’s not. As our nation teeters, faced with economic and political crises, we need to look back and learn from our own history. We need to remember and honor the sacrifices made my great Americans, and use their examples as motivation. There were scoundrels then, as there are now. Those who care about the future of our nation (and the people in it) must work to root them out and restore the ideal of public service and corporate responsibility. It’s a big task but it’s not out of reach.
Today in Philadelphia, at the centennial meeting of the National Governor’s Association, President Clinton gave a rousing speech. He quoted liberally from an earlier speech, given 100 years ago by then President Theodore Roosevelt to the same gathering of governors.
Here’s the essence of what Roosevelt said and Clinton repeated:
Disregarding for the moment the question of moral purpose, it is safe to say that the prosperity of our people depends directly on the energy and intelligence with which our natural resources are used. It is equally clear that these resources are the final basis of national power and perpetuity. Finally, it is ominously evident that these resources are in the course of rapid exhaustion.
We have become great in a material sense because of the lavish use of our resources; and we have just reason to be proud of our growth. But the time has come to inquire seriously what will happen when our forests are gone, when the coal, the iron, the oil, and the gas are exhausted, when the soils shall have been still further impoverished and washed into the streams, polluting the rivers, denuding the fields, and obstructing navigation. These questions do not relate only to the next century or to the next generation. One distinguishing characteristic of really civilized men is foresight; we have to, as a nation, exercise foresight for this nation in the future; and if we do not exercise that foresight, dark will be the future!
We are coming to recognize as never before the right of the Nation to guard it’s own future in the essential matter of natural resources. In the past we have admitted the right of the individual to injure the future of the Republic for his own present profit. In fact there has been a good deal of a demand for unrestricted individualism, for the right of the individual to injure the future of all of us for his own temporary and immediate profit. The time has come for a change.
Can you imagine if this type of conservative existed today? We’d be in much better shape if such persons did exist (in either political party). Since, for the most part, they do not exist, we the people must carry the weight. We the people must refuse to allow unrestricted individualism. Regulation of industry in not bad, it’s necessary for the common good (an American ideal if there ever was one). Reagan and his ilk convinced a lot of people regulation of industry was wrong, but it’s time to move past that false ideal. Unrestricted individualism, perpetrated by a greedy man or a mob of greedy men, is in fact the ruin of this nation. Are you ready to put a stop it? I am.
“People and nations are forged in the fire of adversity.” -John Adams
We don’t subscribe to HBO. That might need to change.
This weekend we caught part two of HBO Films’ seven-part miniseries, John Adams. The work is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning book by David McCullough.
Chris Hicks of Deseret News calls the miniseries “an epic undertaking of the kind we see infrequently on TV these days, filled in equal part with scenes that are stirring, chilling, uplifting, gut-wrenching and enlightening, while demonstrating the great sacrifices that went into the formation of America.”
While this show is entertainment, it is also educational, particularly so in this time of little reading and weakened public schools. I’m a student of American history, and I learned something. Namely that New York abstained from the vote for independence on July 2, 1776. According to my research this morning, the New York delegation did adopt the Declaration a week later, making the vote unanimous.
Rocky Mountain News asked Ralph Nader, an independent candidate for President, if Barack Obama is any different than Democrats he has criticized in the past, considering Obama’s pledge to reject campaign contributions from registered lobbyists.
Nader’s response is on the shocking side, which makes sense as a media strategy. Although I suspect this is how Nader really thinks and really talks, no matter who might be listening.
“There’s only one thing different about Barack Obama when it comes to being a Democratic presidential candidate. He’s half African-American,” Nader said. “Whether that will make any difference, I don’t know. I haven’t heard him have a strong crackdown on economic exploitation in the ghettos. Payday loans, predatory lending, asbestos, lead. What’s keeping him from doing that? Is it because he wants to talk white? He doesn’t want to appear like Jesse Jackson? We’ll see all that play out in the next few months and if he gets elected afterwards.”
“I mean, first of all, the number one thing that a black American politician aspiring to the presidency should be is to candidly describe the plight of the poor, especially in the inner cities and the rural areas, and have a very detailed platform about how the poor is going to be defended by the law, is going to be protected by the law, and is going to be liberated by the law,” Nader said. “Haven’t heard a thing.”
“He wants to show that he is not a threatening . . . another politically threatening African-American politician,” Nader said. “He wants to appeal to white guilt. You appeal to white guilt not by coming on as black is beautiful, black is powerful. Basically he’s coming on as someone who is not going to threaten the white power structure, whether it’s corporate or whether it’s simply oligarchic. And they love it. Whites just eat it up.”
I love that we have someone, anyone, willing to speak truth to power. Doing so is heroic in these times. It might not be welcome, or even all that smart, politically or otherwise, but still I respect that Nader is doing it. He’s a man of action and he would like to see some people in D.C. snap to attention, as improbable as that eventuality seems.
On a totally unrelated note, I wish Nader had some sharper looking creative. Obama really has the graphic designers in his camp.
Speaking at a fundraiser in Jacksonville, Florida yesterday, Barack Obama said, “It is going to be very difficult for Republicans to run on their stewardship of the economy or their outstanding foreign policy. We know what kind of campaign they’re going to run. They’re going to try to make you afraid.”
“They’re going to try to make you afraid of me. He’s young and inexperienced and he’s got a funny name. And did I mention he’s black?”
If we’re lucky, the establishment has a right to be afraid. But not of Obama’s blackness, or his age. His message of change is positive for the people, but it could mean an upset apple cart for arms dealers, oil companies and their ilk. We all know they’re going to fight tooth and nail to protect their interests. It’s the American way, as sure as exposing the bastards is the American way.
[UPDATE 7.19.08] In Ryan Lizza’s feature piece in The New Yorker on Obama, he argues, “Perhaps the greatest misconception about Barack Obama is that he is some sort of anti-establishment revolutionary. Rather, every stage of his political career has been marked by an eagerness to accommodate himself to existing institutions rather than tear them down or replace them.” In other words, it pays to be Bill Clinton-practical. Change can’t come from the sidelines.
Obama is a complicated character in an equally complicated time for this nation. The fact that he’s black and young makes him an outsider. Wisely, he uses this fact of his life to his advantage. But he’s also a politician, a deal maker and an insider. The question for progressives and conservatives alike, is who will he make deals with and what kind of deals.
Ken Brociner, writing in In These Times, claims an Obama presidency would look a little too much like Bill Clinton’s to please progressives.
The Democratic presidential candidate who can most help progressives bring our vision of transformative change into sharper focus is a man who ran for president 36 years ago. By looking back to the unfulfilled promise of George McGovern’s 1972 presidential campaign, we can learn some valuable lessons for the long journey ahead.
For starters, we can see what a genuinely transformative political program looks like. McGovern’s platform was nothing less than visionary. In fact, McGovern was the most progressive major party candidate for president in American history.
In 1972 McGovern ran on a platform that not only called for an immediate end to U.S. involvement in the war in Vietnam (on Inauguration Day!), the senator from South Dakota also proposed an “alternative military budget†that included deep cuts in military spending – with the bulk of the savings going toward efforts to end poverty and fund programs that would guarantee a decent paying job to every American who wanted to work.
Nixon also handed McGovern his backside. Maybe Obama is a more practical candidate. Clinton, as we know now, was too practical. His desire to win at all costs pushed the Dems too far to the right, a move the party is still struggling to come to grips with.
Hillary’s offering keeps the Dems in the middle. Obama moves them to the left and the nation with it. But not far enough left too motivate transformative change. When you look at the world today, could it be any clearer that transformative change is exactly what’s needed, and quick? Perhaps, Obama intends to pull a “W”. Maybe once elected, he will let his more radical self out to play.
