Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War

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Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War

3.81 of 5 stars 3.81 · rating details · 1,530 ratings · 397 reviews

A raucous, truth-telling look at the white working poor-and why they hate liberalism.

Deer Hunting with Jesus is web columnist Joe Bageant’s report on what he learned when he moved back to his hometown of Winchester, Virginia, which-like countless American small towns-is fast becoming the bedrock of a permanent underclass. By turns brutal, tender, incendiary, and seriously...more

Paperback, 288 pages

Published June 24th 2008 by Broadway (first published June 19th 2007)

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Jan 11, 2012 Chris rated it 3 of 5 stars

This Slim Jim is blisteringly funny, humorously vitriolic, blue jean bluesy, and eye-opening to say the least. I thought some of the hillbillies I knew who got drunk and fought at the tavern with their sallow cousins from the tented corners of Lanark County had some issues, but they were as nothing compared to this gun-loving, Jesus-loving, hard-working, hard-drinking, scale-bending, low-paid and low-expectation breed of checkered boys 'n gurls as revealed through the talented pen of Bageant, a...more This Slim Jim is blisteringly funny, humorously vitriolic, blue jean bluesy, and eye-opening to say the least. I thought some of the hillbillies I knew who got drunk and fought at the tavern with their sallow cousins from the tented corners of Lanark County had some issues, but they were as nothing compared to this gun-loving, Jesus-loving, hard-working, hard-drinking, scale-bending, low-paid and low-expectation breed of checkered boys 'n gurls as revealed through the talented pen of Bageant, a good old boy hisself come on home after decades abroad slurping coffee with the eggheads and elites. Cruelly dealt with by Republican policies and hypocrisy—and not much better served by the Donkey throngs—they'll be damned if they'll take a hand-up from the effeminate and condescending fancy boys living it up back east—or scheming endlessly at the library (where the latter is still available)—who'd faint at the sight of a buck's blood, crumble to pieces changing a flat tire, and would never break a sweat ripping the pull cord of a chainsaw or dealing death to an enemy of America. Thus, bound ever more straightly by their pride in their past, their country, their perceived hard-working independence—which is pandered to by politicians and taken advantage of by savvy money men—and their love for Jesus Christ their personal savior, they find themselves grinding—and wasting—away at two and three jobs just to pay the rent and put food on the table and pay off the usurious interest rates on their maxed-out credit cards. Unions are withering and infrastructure crumbling while wages remain stagnant and ever more industries and employers leave the hinterland for good; and of those that stay, their workforce punches out ten-hour shifts in mortal fear of illegal immigrants coming in and taking away their livelihood, their chance for a few snatches of privilege for all of the grim days put in sweating it for peanuts. It's a bleak and heart-wrenching picture that Bageant paints, and one he had foreseen back when he originally escaped this red-necked world by pursuing higher education—for those who lack the latter seem condemned to a life in which their physical, mental, spiritual and financial arteries harden and clog under a relentless regimen of junk food served up by the very system ingrained into them before they learn to drive.

Poor old Bageant succumbed to that supreme-slayer cancer recently, and was given a nice sending off by close friend and fellow iconoclast journalist Fred Reed. The fact is that Bageant pries deeply—and with the keen insight of the native-born—into the conundrum of the Republican-voting rural white working poor in a similar vein to recent work by Thomas Frank; though Joe's outrage boils through the pages, and his anger at the scamming system that deals so cruelly with these people is more palpable, his anecdotes more punchy, than those of the Kenosha Kid. While Bageant is likely playing for effect at times, this polemic does carry the ring of truth, at least as discernible from my own Canadian perspective. The problem, as with all such broadsides that I've encountered, is that there are no realistic or workable—or even hopeful—solutions put on the table. Indignation is fine, and being aware of what is going on is always the vital first step, but it's not like this state of affairs came about overnight—and capitalism by its very nature will always create losers, cast people aside; and in a globalized market, corporations will seek out low taxes, cheap labor, and minimal regulations. There needs to be a systemic change if Bageant's outrage is ever to be addressed in a manner that he'd have approved of, and where is the political willpower these days to even start taking the first steps? Indeed, it seems more likely to actually head in the other direction. There's a certain element of the American Identity that perceives in such lean and unentitled existence all that is good and noble and hale about the United States, all that made her strong and vibrant to begin with; it's classified as a cherished Freedom—ofttimes from within the same depressed environs in which these tautened figures pass their lengthy and laborious days—though, as Bageant chronicled in these pages, it's a peculiar looking freedom when viewed through glasses lacking that particular rosy tint.(less)

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Dec 19, 2007 Christy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: social-class, cultural-studies

Joe Bageant's Deer Hunting with Jesus belongs to the tradition of books that has given us Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed, Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, and Jim Goad's The Redneck Manifesto. These books all aim to clarify the position of an all-too-often-overlooked cultural group and, in doing so, they ultimately aim to help this group.

This book is by turns funny and heartbreaking in its description of people who make little money, vote Republican en masse (whether this is in their economi...more Joe Bageant's Deer Hunting with Jesus belongs to the tradition of books that has given us Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed, Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, and Jim Goad's The Redneck Manifesto. These books all aim to clarify the position of an all-too-often-overlooked cultural group and, in doing so, they ultimately aim to help this group.

This book is by turns funny and heartbreaking in its description of people who make little money, vote Republican en masse (whether this is in their economic interests or not), see buying a doublewide trailer as a good investment, value their guns and the traditions that they accompany, are overwhelmingly Christian and fundamentalist at that, fight amongst themselves, and cannot afford healthcare, too often dying alone in substandard nursing homes because neither they nor their families can afford better. Bageant walks the fine line between mocking people who don't see the ridiculousness of some of their actions, pitying them for the poverty and suffering they endure and the hopelessness of the life they are raised to lead, and evoking righteous outrage on the behalf of those who are taken advantage of by other humans with more money and a better education.

If you or your family belong to the social class or cultural group described by Bageant, you will recognize the experiences and values he describes and will benefit from his explanation of the sources of said values and his defense of the people who live these lives. He is able to put this way of life in a larger context that shows how limited and tragic this life can be while refusing to trivialize or demonize it. While he himself has moved away from most of the hallmarks of this lifestyle, he has lived and he still loves parts of it and the people who live it.

If you do not belong to the group Bageant describes, you need to read this book and learn about the people you likely never think about and know little to nothing about. Bageant deals with the stereotypes (and their basis in reality) but he goes beyond that to explain why people behave in this way, what in their history and present experiences leads them to these beliefs and behaviors, and what they gain from continuing in these habits. There are too many Americans who belong to the culture described by Bageant for them to be easily ignored--and yet they are ignored. This is dangerous for them and for everyone else.(less)

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Jul 06, 2007 Dave rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Americans, red staters or not

Shelves: politics

Really a great read, well-written, concise, and spot-on.

Bageant grew up in the rural south (Winchester, Virginia) and knows from rednecks. He's not disingenuous at all, not a snobbish elite looking outside-in. He wants to love these people, like his brother, who's a pastor still living in the town he grew up in, or the mooks in the dive bar where he shoots the bull.

In the book, he goes back to find that what the world knows as squabbling Scots-Irish white trash has gotten dumber, fatter, and dee...more

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Nov 16, 2008 Todd rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: kindle

Right before the election The Onion featured a story with the headline "Struggling Lower-Class Still Unsure How Best To Fuck Selves With Vote." That pretty much sums up the main topic and tone of this book.

The author goes back home to live among the struggling lower class rednecks of Winchester, VA and writes about what he sees. (Rednecks, not white trash, he is careful to note. You will understand the taxonomy of poor white people a little better after reading this book.)

This isn't one of those...more Right before the election The Onion featured a story with the headline "Struggling Lower-Class Still Unsure How Best To Fuck Selves With Vote." That pretty much sums up the main topic and tone of this book.

The author goes back home to live among the struggling lower class rednecks of Winchester, VA and writes about what he sees. (Rednecks, not white trash, he is careful to note. You will understand the taxonomy of poor white people a little better after reading this book.)

This isn't one of those stunt-y books where a white liberal fills out his or her book by working at Wal-Mart, going to 100 churches, etc. This is a guy going back home to find that his younger brother is casting demons out of people and that his old pot smoking musician buddy is now a dittohead. No cultural tourism here.

For me the most interesting part is where he lays out Scot-Irish/Borderer culture as the basis for poor white culture in America. No matter how specious the argument, anyone who can draw a line from King James I to Sean Hannity is my kind of guy.

He makes the hilarious point that most of them came to Virginia as ballast, self-unloading cargo that kept the empty ships returning to the New World from being too buoyant. That they were smuggling Calvin's ghost on the voyage is something that still roils our culture today.

Related to this and far less amusing is the hold that well organized Protestant religion has on these people. Several generations since desegregation have been home schooled or sent to religious schools, after which they wait like a mass of Manchurian candidates for instructions on how to vote and where to send their meager savings.

Mr. Bageant's book sometimes suffers when he forces anecdotes to make the point he wants to make, like when a student gets in trouble for keeping a replica gun in his truck before a battle reenactment. After a few pages of hand wringing, we learn anti-climatically that a judge threw out the case.

That said, the chapter about guns was the most convincing one in the book. And it's good to know that these poor people that we elites are sneering at through the media not only outnumber us but are pretty handy with guns to boot.

I noticed that some reviewers were put off by the pessimistic outlook of the book and the black humor of its jokes. I didn't find this a problem at all, though I'm not sure if this was because of the underlying compassion of Mr. Bageant's writing or just the fact that I enjoy cynicism similar to the way Superman draws power from our yellow Sun.

So many institutions line up to fuck over the lower classes that there are a few surprises (Social Security, non-profit hospitals) along with the usual suspects (predatory lenders, large corporations, the media, the educational system).

The only solution Mr. Bageant offers to get out of this mess is better education, which is probably the most bitter and cynical statement in the book until you realize he isn't kidding.(less)

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Feb 17, 2008 Billrogers rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Deer Hunting with Jesus is well-written; Joe Bageant has a way with words and with wry humor. I love the title! But ultimately the book disappointed me, and reading it was a waste of time.

As I read the first few chapters, I found myself agreeing with the author, and often laughing out loud. Ultimately, though, Bageant's pessimism dragged me down, and by the time I finished the book, I was more than a little pissed off at him.

Bageant appears to believe there is a master plot to anesthetize worki...more Deer Hunting with Jesus is well-written; Joe Bageant has a way with words and with wry humor. I love the title! But ultimately the book disappointed me, and reading it was a waste of time.

As I read the first few chapters, I found myself agreeing with the author, and often laughing out loud. Ultimately, though, Bageant's pessimism dragged me down, and by the time I finished the book, I was more than a little pissed off at him.

Bageant appears to believe there is a master plot to anesthetize working-class Americans by feeding them "operating instructions" and "a media-generated belief system" via television, by giving them a poor quality public education, and by providing affordable consumer products. He has it backwards. Corporations maximize their profit by providing what people want, even if it's not what's best for them. That's the imperfect reality of freedom and democracy.

Bageant is an admitted socialist. Apparently he wants government to remove shows like "Law and Order" from TV, and replace them with, what? Programs that Bageant approves as educationl and good for the mental health of the working class? Sure, let's shove "Masterpiece Theater" down Joe Sixpack's throat. That'll work. Not.

One of the reasons that public education has become worse is that people vote for local candidates who promise to reduce their taxes. And people buy made-in-China big screen TVs at Walmart because they want to, not because someone is forcing them to.

I am 60 years old, and I have read many books about doomsday scenarios that never came to pass. "American Hologram," the last chapter of Deer Hunting, is in that category, I believe.

The worst part of this book is that Bageant fails to provide even one practical suggestion for improving the lives of working men and women. "Turn off the hologram" is meaningless nonsense.

"We have met the enemy and he is us," as Al Capp observed. Democracy is a messy process that offends socialists, who think they can do a better job. Thanks, Joe, but no way, pal.(less)

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Dec 13, 2007 Malcolm David Logan rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: white working class people

Oh boy, are the ditto heads and Bill O'Reilly fans gonna hate this one (rubbing hands together with glee). Imagine, a former small town redneck rejects the assertion that higher education is a form of snobbery, goes to California, gets a degree and embraces "the humanities" (gasp!) and then returns to his origins with compassion and outrage over how his people are being dumbed down and economically raped by the very forces that claim to be their standard bearers, the good ol' GOP, everybody's ch...more Oh boy, are the ditto heads and Bill O'Reilly fans gonna hate this one (rubbing hands together with glee). Imagine, a former small town redneck rejects the assertion that higher education is a form of snobbery, goes to California, gets a degree and embraces "the humanities" (gasp!) and then returns to his origins with compassion and outrage over how his people are being dumbed down and economically raped by the very forces that claim to be their standard bearers, the good ol' GOP, everybody's champion of the working class! But Joe Bageant doesn't stop there. He points out, quite rightly in my view, that the Dems insulting hypocricy, shedding crocodile tears over the plight of the white working poor while climbing in bed with the same predators who bid down working people's wages and refuse to provide Americans retraining after shipping their jobs overseas, is just as bad - maybe worse - since the Dems don't have a BS economic theory like trickle-down economics to justify stealing from the poor to give to the rich. It's no wonder that rural America is shell-shocked and woozy, stuggling valiantly to keep their heads above water, even as the sharks circle. And don't think you're getting off easy, you smug urban liberals with your I-told-you-so attitude that lets you turn your back on your flim-flammed cousins from the hinterland and write them off as a bunch of nitwit yokels. They may be backing the wrong pony, but they're not so dumb as you think. They're still linked in to a quaint but fundamental notion of what it means to be an American, independence, fortitude, perseverance and dignity, which makes it all the more pathetic that they're being hoodwinked by rightwing demagogues but doesn't absolve you of respecting them or their ideals. When these people are ultimately ruined and dispersed, and their way of thinking denigrated to insignificance, we will have lost something essential to the American character, and as a nation we will suffer for it, even if Cargill and Halliburton and Walmart and Exxon, and all their sainted stockholders still prosper. (less)

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Nov 30, 2008 Crawfords444 rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Young adults with time to make a change.

This current 2007 book accurately describes many of the poorest in Winchester, Virginia. It applies to others in Applachia.Chapter seven, about our health care system and description of what happens to persons in government supported nursing homes is especially scarry. Chapter three, "the mortgage racket will.." changed in November 2008, but explains what caused one aspect of the present economic situation. Depressing in its descriptions, it may motivate young people to pursue another path. Youn...more

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Jan 16, 2012 Jason King rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Bageant's quest to understand why "his people" - a term he tintinnabulates to refer to Virginia "rednecks" (his words, not mine) - so often vote against their interests. He comes to interesting conclusions but the ones that seem the most apt are often flippantly disregarded - that the source of wealth in Appalachian Virginia is in land, for example - would provide an interesting anthropological connection since societies built on wealth derived from land, everywhere and anywhere, tend to have hi...more

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Feb 03, 2009 Lauren rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I obviously only picked up this book because I thought it would be about deer hunting and Jesus, two of my favorite subjects. (I was in an enormous rush at the bookstore -- it was closing and the lady was practically dragging me out by my arm and I had to choose something, or else I would be book-less, which would send me into panic.)

Had I spent two more seconds reading the large text immediately below the title, I would have seen in rather large letters "Dispatches from America's Class War." O...more I obviously only picked up this book because I thought it would be about deer hunting and Jesus, two of my favorite subjects. (I was in an enormous rush at the bookstore -- it was closing and the lady was practically dragging me out by my arm and I had to choose something, or else I would be book-less, which would send me into panic.)

Had I spent two more seconds reading the large text immediately below the title, I would have seen in rather large letters "Dispatches from America's Class War." Okay, so it's not really about Jesus. Fool me once, shame on me. I though it sounded interesting, anyway, and it was. I felt that Bageant brought us to the world of the white working class (which, by the way, I was surprised to find out I didn't really technically understand what "working class" actually means) with a unique perspective -- although it seemed sometimes he was talking down about them, he really wasn't. This is his hometown, the people are not un-relatable specimen in a science experiment, they are his family and friends and in some ways himself, and he is honest in dealing about what they care about, what they do, what they fear, and what their lives are like.

My family is from a poor, steel town in Western Pennsylvania, and I am glad that I got to spend a lot of time there as a kid, because after growing up in a pretty snooty town in Ohio and then moving to New York City, I think it's important to see that this is not how most people live. That if you are educated, actually have enough money for food, medicine, gas, etc., insured, working for more than $9 / hour (I could go on), you are lucky, and not like the people in Winchester, VA. A lot of my friends haven't the slightest clue about what it's like to live in a place like Winchester or Sharon. Like me, and the "liberal elite," they are, as Bageant describes:

"living the American Dream in relative economic safety. Yet they don't think of themselves as elitists. Overwhelmingly white and college educated, they live among clones of themselves. As far as they know, American life is about money, education, homeownership, and professionally useful friends. How can one blame them? Conditioning is everything and how could they fail to believe their own experience or what they see every day, all of which suggests that their privileges are natural and deserved? "

I am guilty of this as well. And that's why it's good that I read this book. When I read the above paragraph, which appears toward the beginning, I still wasn't sure I was going to stick with the book. (I mean where was Jesus?! Where was the deer hunting?!) But I read that paragraph and thought, wow that would be pretty ironic if I got to the part about how the liberal elite have no idea wtf is going on and I am being handed an opportunity to see wtf is going on and instead I put down the book and go, 'eh, I care, but not THAT MUCH.'

Know what I mean?
(less)

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Dec 24, 2008 Rachel rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

This book should be required reading for anyone who listens to NPR, lives in a "liberal ghetto" and wonders why people vote Republican against their own self-interest.
Bageant is from Winchester, VA and this book is about the working class people that he grew up with. It explains their plight as working class people in America, and how lack of education combined with religious fundamentalism keeps them brainwashed into believing in a system that absolutely does not benefit them. Bageant is a gre...more

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Sep 07, 2008 Tam rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: brought-to-you-by-powell-s

You know those conversations you get into with that guy, who's more than a casual acquaintance but not quite a friend, sitting at that bar, where the conversation is better than the well drinks? This is kind of one of those. The conversation turns into a rather one-sided rant that you can occasionally get a comment in edgewise, but most of the time you're fine just letting it flow around you, absorbing the piece of wisdom here and there and arguing with a small point every once in a while and wo...more

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Aug 05, 2008 Regulator rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: tom

It was a slow afternoon, the store was empty. He walked in alone. There were just the two sunglass dudes standing around outside the front door. It was Barack Obama, browsing at The Regulator.

We stayed cool. Gave the man some space. That's a big part of what this bookstore thing is all about--giving folks space to breathe, space to think, space to find something new. So we gave him his space, but I guess he didn't have much time. After a few minutes he came up to the counter and asked if there...more

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Apr 04, 2008 Jesse rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Anthropologists

Living in Virginia I can identify with his view of the garden variety Virginia Red Neck. Freedom, torque wrench, Dodge Hemi, old glory, and AR-15 are all words that flow of their tongue as frequently as John 3:16 is quoted in their hive like Mega Churches. And like the drones of a hive, they follow the dictates of their presidential hive leader with little thought of their own interests.

Joe presents a scary and depressing side of America. One that offers not a glimmer of hope for our country. A...more Living in Virginia I can identify with his view of the garden variety Virginia Red Neck. Freedom, torque wrench, Dodge Hemi, old glory, and AR-15 are all words that flow of their tongue as frequently as John 3:16 is quoted in their hive like Mega Churches. And like the drones of a hive, they follow the dictates of their presidential hive leader with little thought of their own interests.

Joe presents a scary and depressing side of America. One that offers not a glimmer of hope for our country. A brain-washed religious ideologue is not taught to think for themselves but to only regurgitate the thoughts of the Republican collective as gospel. If you don’t walk the line then you are just another commie, UN loving, traitor who wants to take away their freedom.

He also pokes fun at the coffee shop "liberal" who likes to identify with the working class man yet whose circle of friends are usually found in Ethan Allen buying matching leather sofa's. Joe points out that despite Liberal's claim to also represent their interests we want to have nothing to do with them. This can be seen in Bill Clinton's disdain for them when he labels them "Joe Six Pack". How many Clinton staffers do you think deer hunt or know what a CV joint is? At least the Republican, undercutting their interests, walks the talk. They shoot guns on the weekend, attend fundamentalist churches, wave flags at parades, and get drunk on cheap beer while farting out bawdy jokes. The Republican red neck can more identify with someone who walks and talks like him rather than the guy who would rather go wind surfing at the "Vineyard".

His commentary on Virginius Rosa Neckus is like watching a nature show. He follows them into their natural habitat. Whether it is a civil war reenactment, karaoke night at the local dive, or the demon-casting mega church down the road. Each vignette is filled with humorous characters that are unfortunately real.

A good laugh. Like watching howler monkeys at the zoo without poo being thrown at you. God help us if this is the new vox populi.

(less)

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Oct 29, 2007 Rod White rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: people who want to think long enough to escape their slavery

Having lived just up the road from Joe Bageant's Winchester VA, I was interested to read about people I learned to love. One of my friends insisted I read this book immediately and talk it over, since so much of what I rant about was more artfully written than I rant. It is not a Christian book, but I think Jesus would aprove of someone telling the truth about what oppresses us. I haven't been so entertained by a collection of essays in I-don't-know-how-long -- but I was also inspired to keep th...more

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Apr 08, 2012 James rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

From reading this book, I feel more compassion for economically poor, Christian, white America. I have always been somewhat dumbfounded that this segment of our society would vote conservative. Why would they support the very politicians that are stepping on their necks - keeping them uneducated, medically uninsured and underpaid? This book, with wit and empathy, explains why these people feel as they do.

Some of the statistics Bageant presents are skewed or incorrect. And I can't always agree wi...more

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Mar 19, 2009 Tyler Anderson rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I wanted to like this book a lot more than I did. Maybe I DID like this book more than I did. Hmmm. First off, it is a collection of essays, not a single stream. They all center on the lives of the people of this man's hometown of Winchester, VA, which he offers as a microcosm of the American white working class experience. That may be debatable, but I can accept his premise in a broad sense.

What feels strong about this book is that it is not simply OpEd dithering and blathering by some liberal...more I wanted to like this book a lot more than I did. Maybe I DID like this book more than I did. Hmmm. First off, it is a collection of essays, not a single stream. They all center on the lives of the people of this man's hometown of Winchester, VA, which he offers as a microcosm of the American white working class experience. That may be debatable, but I can accept his premise in a broad sense.

What feels strong about this book is that it is not simply OpEd dithering and blathering by some liberal guy. These essays are built over a framework of verifiable research, whether into the realities of guns in America, or of trailer home society, or factory work, or health care. That I can genuinely appreciate. This isn't the vapid fluff and catchphrase anti-Republicanism that made me chase Obama pollsters in ironic shoes off my lawn. This guy, in many but not all places through this book, is less on the preaching and more on the numbers. And it's in those chapters where Bageant is at his best. Are mobile homes cheap? Are we all going to be shot by evil gun owners? Does hard work bring "success?"

Occasionally, the author does slip into everything-is-awful soliloquy. Nowhere does he doe so more ponderously than the last chapter, a ho-hum finale to his book where he stumbles about trying to give shape to the idea of a society dominated by spectacle and media, obsessed more with abstraction and branding than personal experience and education. Hey, point taken, but it devolves into a grinding miasma without offering a window to see beyond it; and it feels like an afterthought trying to provide an explanation for why the rest of the topics in the book could be so. A sour ending on an otherwise enjoyable book.

People who are unimpressed with the American 1.5 party system and its war on the poor, but who don't think that the answer is for us all to eat out of the garbage and drum for peace—you know, people who like Kucinich AND own a gun—will get something out of this book. (less)

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Feb 07, 2009 Matt Howard rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Joe Bageant is a very interesting person. We have become so used to the stereotype that left/liberal writers and politicos will be anti-gun, that finding an exception actually feels strange and discordant. Mr. Bageant's book is a polemic. The chapter relying most heavily on research for support is the chapter on gun ownership, He includes some interviews and some citations to events on the public record in other chapters, but basically his book is an ad hominem attack on neo-conservatives and Re...more Joe Bageant is a very interesting person. We have become so used to the stereotype that left/liberal writers and politicos will be anti-gun, that finding an exception actually feels strange and discordant. Mr. Bageant's book is a polemic. The chapter relying most heavily on research for support is the chapter on gun ownership, He includes some interviews and some citations to events on the public record in other chapters, but basically his book is an ad hominem attack on neo-conservatives and Republicans for their failures to institute national health insurance, for their support of NAFTA and their support of market capitalism. He buys into the nonsense that lack of regulation explains the current financial crisis. He is not a party-line Democrat though. He describes himself as a socialist, and he includes the Democratic party establishment in his roster of evil-doers. He saves his greatest vitriol for the minority who wish to establish a Christian theocracy in the U.S. We know these people exist. We agree with Mr. Bageant that their goals are inimical to democracy and freedom of thought. But they are no more a threat to the body politic than the Klu Klux Klan.

When I was 16 years old, I wrote an essay in high school about the efforts to establish industry in third-world countries. The question we were to write about was whether the Marshall Plan should be expanded to other countries outside Europe. My thesis was that the reason factories create wealth is that they produce a surplus of goods. A factory is not useful unless it produces more shoes than can be sold locally, because it is the sale of those shoes elsewhere that brings in wealth. Therefore I argued, we should not encourage and assist these countries to industrialize. The end result, I predicted, would be that the lower wages paid to workers overseas would mean that all the factories would move overseas. All those surplus shoes and other goods would be sold to us at lower prices that would drive American shoe producers and other manufacturers out of business. American workers would be unable to compete unless they accepted markedly reduced living conditions consequent to the lower wages that would prevail. Although I got an A on my paper, my teacher ridiculed my essay for failing to understand that it was our duty as Christians and Americans to help others achieve what we had achieved.

Mr. Bageant buys into the idea that protectionism is needed to protect American workers. As Smoot-Hawley proved in the 30s, tariffs are counterproductive. As for me, instead of an A, I should have received the Nobel prize in economics, because I was right.

Addendum: I note that some of the reviewers credit Mr. Bageant with bringing to light a class war that most Americans won't talk about. I think that class war has been a central theme of American politics since Teddy Roosevelt thundered about the "malefactors of great wealth," and has only become more explicit with constant Democratic party promises to tax the rich and give the money to the poor.(less)

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Mar 26, 2013 D.a.calf rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: american, modern-history, reportage

Bageant's strong suit is the charting of the historical origins of the current plight of many Americans. There is however a distastefully pessimistic and woe-is-us-ness strain to this book. At no point does Bageant suggest that individual agency could hold a key for many of the less fortunate characters he profiles.

Sure, many of the US's social problems lie in the illusion that it is a meritocracy, that anyone can be president you just gotta try etc. but by the end of this book I had developed...more

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Mar 20, 2013 Gwen rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Gwen by: comment section in an article on The Billfold, 3.2013?

Shelves: this-american-life

This book is like an overly long and disjointed AlterNet article with very occasional forays into Mother Jones quality writing. (These, however, are few and far between, with the bulk of the better writing in the first few chapters. Bageant desperately needed a better editor and copyeditor, as well--inconsistent capitalization/usage, overuse of the same words, and a lack of cohesion were some of my biggest problems with the writing.) Otherwise, Bageant writes an extremely polemical and vitriolic...more

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Feb 16, 2013 Dale rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Just to get it out of the way, Joe Bageant (1946-2011) and I differ politically despite sharing similar roots. We both grew up in rural America near a working class town. We both were educated in the local public schools and left to go to college and never really went back except to visit (although do I live in a working class neighborhood in the city). Admittedly, his town (Winchester, Virginia) is a little more poor and run down than mine but I may be remembering my home with rose-colored glas...more

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Jan 06, 2013 Anna Murray rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I picked up this book because of the title, a desire to inform myself concerning how the other side thinks, and because it is written by a socialist from Winchester, Virginia, the next town over from where I live. I didn't know we had socialists living in Winchester, Virginia!! In fact, I think we don't, as Mr. Bageant passed away.

"The intellectual lives of most working-class Americans consist of things that sound as if they might be true." This statement sums up most of the content of this book...more I picked up this book because of the title, a desire to inform myself concerning how the other side thinks, and because it is written by a socialist from Winchester, Virginia, the next town over from where I live. I didn't know we had socialists living in Winchester, Virginia!! In fact, I think we don't, as Mr. Bageant passed away.

"The intellectual lives of most working-class Americans consist of things that sound as if they might be true." This statement sums up most of the content of this book and makes me wonder if it shouldn't rather read, "The intellectual lives of most socialist Americans consist of things that sound as if they might be true." As many other reviewers have pointed out, the only marginally factual chapter of the book is that concerning guns. (Bageant happens to be pro-gun ownership.) Beyond that, the book is filled with anecdotes concerning the "working class," as defined by Mr. Bageant. Basically the book is a series of anecdotes in which the author parlays terrible things about the people of Winchester and the South as a whole. ("In the South when individuals .. are down, we stomp them." Nice.)

Though he claims to be in favor of the working class folks, he repeated disparages them for their ignorance and their choices, even those who have amassed great wealth for themselves. One can only wonder how it is that the author himself, who came from these people, rose to such high levels as he did. While he believes that the socioeconomic classes of America are static, he himself has disproved this theory.

Essentially, this book is mere entertainment and should not be taken for serious discourse. Although Bageant once or twice makes a good point, particularly in the last chapter of the book, ("We must trade liberty and privacy in increments for comfort and perceived security"), he doesn't seem to recognize that his desire to force feed "working-class" folks his notions of freedom of choice, right and wrong, good from bad, encroaches on the individual freedoms, the liberty and the privacy of all members of society.

Mr. Bageant does a disservice to the cause of socialists everywhere by writing a book filled with drivel. I gave it two stars only because he tells good stories. (less)

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Nov 05, 2012 Mike rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

These "Dispatches from America's class war" ring as true as America's Liberty Bell. Of course like the "Liberty Bell", the American Revolution's promise of "liberty and justice for all" cracked on first use. As with other bourgeois democracies, the ideals of the the American capitalist revolution were undermined by class rule. Liberty, equality and fraternity tended to break down under the rule of Capital, where, as the old wag's saying about the golden rule goes, those with the most gold, have...more
These "Dispatches from America's class war" ring as true as America's Liberty Bell. Of course like the "Liberty Bell", the American Revolution's promise of "liberty and justice for all" cracked on first use. As with other bourgeois democracies, the ideals of the the American capitalist revolution were undermined by class rule. Liberty, equality and fraternity tended to break down under the rule of Capital, where, as the old wag's saying about the golden rule goes, those with the most gold, have made the rules. What Joe Bageant has done in DEER HUNTING WITH JESUS is to give his readers an up-to-date snapshot concerning the preemptions of America's revolutionary ideals as he focuses on the lower strata of the rural based working class. His microcosmic example is focused on the majority of the people who now live and work in his old home town of Winchester, Virginia. To be sure, he also shines in a light on his fellow workers' rulers: the lawyers, real estate agents, landlords and small business people (aka `cockroach capitalists', in Old Wob tongue).

Bageant describes Winchester's cockroach capitalists this way:

"Members of the business class, that legion of little Rotary Club spark plugs, are vital to the American corporate and political machine. They are where the institutionalized rip-off of working class people by the rich corporations finds its footing at the grassroots level, where they can stymie any increase in the minimum wage or snuff out anything remotely resembling a fair tax structure. Serving on every local governmental body, this mob of Kiwanis and Rotarians has connections. It can get that hundred acres rezoned for Wal-Mart or a sewer line to that two-thousand-unit housing development at taxpayer expense. When it comes to getting things done locally for big business, these folks, with the help of their lawyers, can raise the dead and give eyesight to the blind. They are God's gift to the big nonunion companies and the chip plants looking for a fresh river to piss cadmium into--the right wing's can-do boys. They are so far right they will not even eat the left wing of a chicken." p.45

Mr. Bageant peppers his aphoristic style with enough humour to keep all the but the most dour social stoic smiling. In his chapter titled, "Valley of the Guns" (a piece of writing sure to upset liberal gun control advocates like Michael Moore), Bageant explains his book's title.

"To nonhunters, the image conjured by the title of this book might seem absurd, rather like a NUKE THE WHALES bumper sticker. But the title also captures something that moves me about the people I grew up with, the intersection between hunting and religion in their lives. The link between protestant fundamentalism and deer hunting goes back to colonial times, when the restless Presbyterian Scots, along with English and German Protestant reformers, pushed across America, developing the unique hunting and farming-based frontier cultures that sustained them over most of America's history. Two hundred years later, they have settled down, but they have not quit hunting and they have not quit praying. Consequently, today we find organizations such as the Christian Deer Hunters Association (christiandeerhunters.org), which offers convenient pocket-size books of meditations, such as "Devotions for Deer Hunters", to help occupy the time during those long waits for game. Like their ancestors, deer hunters today understand how standing quietly and alone in the natural world leads to contemplation of God's gifts to man. And so, when a book like "Meditations for the Deer Stand" is seen in historical context, it is no joke. For those fortunate enough to spend whole days quietly standing in the November woods just watching the Creator's world, there is no irony at all in the notion that his son might be watching too, and maybe even willing to summon a couple of nice fat does within shooting range." p. 124-125

The ideological crack between the more liberal, more urban, coastal based U.S. workers and their small town, conservative rivals, living in the interior of the country, is one of the main political thrusts of DEER HUNTING WITH JESUS. The gun control issue is but one of many sore points dividing the U.S. working class thus, making its members easier to rule. The elephant standing in the room is the issue of work-time. Too many hours sold to the bosses makes it difficult for small town wage-slaves to do much in the way of educating themselves, reading or expanding their views of the world beyond the easily accessed, instant, canned gratification available from conservative Republican corporate AM radio pundits and their brethren on the bully pulpits of the nation's fundamentalist Christian churches. The toilers of Bageant's home town are literally being worked to death at jobs which market for low wages, kept even lower by the anti-union ideology which is so common in their everyday parlance as to be taken for `commonsense'. The same can be said for their socially conservative cultural traditions concerning: race relations, the possession of firearms, Big Gov'mint, namby-pamby intellectuals and warlike nationalism. Across that great bellwether, the great crack in the working class remains unrepaired as left liberal workers sit and sit and sit, disdaining contact with their `benighted' fellow citizens thus, leaving both sides ignorant of what the other is saying or doing and by extension the potential of their power as a class united. According to Bageant, this is a recipe for continued impotent expressions of working class power, while serving to maintain a ruling class status-quo which is on track to continue cutting U.S. workers' living standards and furthering the commodification of human values and humane relations.

Joe Bageant has written a book which should be on every IWW organiser's shelf. DEER HUNTING WITH JESUS answers many of the questions concerning how and why the workers in the USA are largely blind to their own class interests.

The Australian edition of DEER HUNTING WITH JESUS comes complete with an Australian oriented preface.(less)

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Sep 08, 2012 Paul Hebron rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: america, religion

Deer Hunting With Jesus is Joe Bageant's savage but sad indictment of life as lived by the average American, as seen through the lens of small town life in Winchester, Virginia. This could, in the wrong hands, have been poor-hating spew as seen in 'Crap Towns', but Bageant is a sensible, sensitive and knowledgeable writer. Bageant writes clearly about the redneck community he came from in the southern USA, and writes authoritatively from experience and from statistical and historical research ab...more Deer Hunting With Jesus is Joe Bageant's savage but sad indictment of life as lived by the average American, as seen through the lens of small town life in Winchester, Virginia. This could, in the wrong hands, have been poor-hating spew as seen in 'Crap Towns', but Bageant is a sensible, sensitive and knowledgeable writer. Bageant writes clearly about the redneck community he came from in the southern USA, and writes authoritatively from experience and from statistical and historical research about the grimness of working class living in 21st century USA.

Patriotism, religion, and ignorance are what has blossomed in the heartland: the Bush years reflected back the world that had been put into place by economic and political forces earlier. Bageant however goes further than this and convincingly places the issue with the "American Dream" itself and the "Borderer mentality" ('grab everything and die defending it' = 'they're taking our freedoms!') that served colonial settlers well hundreds of years ago but today is a roadblock for many to thinking more broadly and critically.

The book provides a lot to think about, such as the chapter about gun control, and how much guns can mean to the people who own them, which forced reconsideration of points I took to be self-evident in the gun control debate. Having never owned guns or hunted myself it helped a lot to understand why people are reluctant to part with them (Bageant also has a extremely good point, which is that 'what's more persuasive than an armed working class?'). Bageant puts blame also on the 20% or so who constitute the American liberal middle class and their unwillingness to begin to empathize or care about the majority of Americans. There aren't many options Bageant puts forward: too many Americans are trapped in the 'hologram' of beer and sport for the working, and sushi and brie for the middle (interestingly a thought that screams through my head whenever I watch American sitcoms in the insipidly bland New Girl sort of vein). Education (not necessarily in the degree-churning out sense of UK universities) and community activism are depicted as good ways to make the best use of available time and resources.

As one blogger I was reading put it, where are the British authors who can write so convincingly and accurately about what it's like to be alive in Britain; where are Britain's equivalents to Bageant, Barbara Ehrenreich, or Thomas Frank?(less)

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Aug 12, 2012 Anna rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: anthropology, eye-popping, reviewed, the-personal-is-political, nonfiction

Thinking of the Border reivers reminded me of this book about their American descendents and caused me to spend a day re-reading it. I'm so glad I did, so thanks Sherwood, for mentioning George MacDonald Fraser! It's a great book to re-read in an election year because these are the years that we clump more firmly than ever into our tribes and the divisions in American society are stark and painful. This book is an attempt to bridge divisions between tribes, looking at how things are and how they...more Thinking of the Border reivers reminded me of this book about their American descendents and caused me to spend a day re-reading it. I'm so glad I did, so thanks Sherwood, for mentioning George MacDonald Fraser! It's a great book to re-read in an election year because these are the years that we clump more firmly than ever into our tribes and the divisions in American society are stark and painful. This book is an attempt to bridge divisions between tribes, looking at how things are and how they got that way. As any book about the Borderers should be it is both lively and dour, white-hot with fury & tender with rueful love. It's also extremely funny. Joe Bageant had a wonderful way with a sentence and he really let himself rip here. What he set out to do is to explain his blood kin, the American redneck, to his adopted family, the American liberal. As he says in his introduction:

This book is written from a changing town in Virginia, but this class of mine, these people - the ones who smell like ashtrays in the checkout line, devour a carton of Little Debbies at a sitting, and praise Jesus for a truck with no spare tire - exist in every state in our nation. Maybe the next time we on the left encounter such seemingly self-screwing, stubborn, God-obsessed folks, we can be open to their trials, understand the complexity of their situation, even have enough solidarity to pop for a cheap retread tire out of our own pockets, simply because that would be a kind thing to do and surely would make the ghosts of Joe Hill, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Mohondas Ghandi smile.

Bageant introduces us to his family, friends and drinking companions in his small West Virginia town, and by going down into the details we can see how unfairly rigged and valiantly lived their lives are, with jobs that will never pay a fair wage, mobile & modular homes that are money drains with no resale value, and a medical system that will take and take and take without providing the care people need to survive. Bageant also gives us an insider's view of their tribal identification with the GOP, fundamental Christianity and guns. For me the most powerful chapter is "The Ballad of Lynddie England, one foot in Ulster, the other in Iraq" where Bageant draws on hundreds of years of history from the cattle thieves living and brawling on the border between Scotland & England, through James the First transplanting these Borderers to Ulster in a bit of socio-political-theocratic engineering, and then to the Borderers taking themselves to America where once again they found themselves fighting for what they could hold on borderlands and on to today - all to get us to understand how such an atrocity like Abu Ghraib could happen. It's an astonishing chapter, an illustration of compassion in an environment hard as stone.

(less)

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Aug 05, 2012 Cate rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

In concept, the book is great. In reality, it deserves the three stars I gave it.

However, if you are really Liberal, you will love this book. It's basically written with the idea that Liberals are inherently better people than Conservatives (a false dichotomy that is drawn out at great length at times) and that the only way poor, rural, folks, ESPECIALLY if they are Southern or Southern leaning, can make anything of themselves is to leave their home town and go on to newer and better things. Th...more

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Jul 09, 2012 Pat rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

After reading this book I was disappointed to learn that the author died a couple of years ago because his work was so enlightening to me.

In the past few decades I wanted to understand why so may people voted against their own self interest. This book raised my awareness and I felt humbled. As a progressive, liberal thinker I felt these people were just not informed, yet I realize that they are informed through their local neighborhoods and civic organizations. They are informed that the GOP wi...more

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Nov 05, 2011 Connie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Bageant was born and raised in the hill country of Virginia, the 7th generation of Scots-Irish immigrants who came to America in the 1700s.

As a member of the low class, redneck, working-man/subsistence farmer group, quite religious (pentacostal, evangelical Christian), he knows and understands his people as no other. He also is acutely aware of the other class structure of the area, both past and present.

As one of the very few residents who ever made it OUT Of that area and lifestyle, he has a u...more Bageant was born and raised in the hill country of Virginia, the 7th generation of Scots-Irish immigrants who came to America in the 1700s.

As a member of the low class, redneck, working-man/subsistence farmer group, quite religious (pentacostal, evangelical Christian), he knows and understands his people as no other. He also is acutely aware of the other class structure of the area, both past and present.

As one of the very few residents who ever made it OUT Of that area and lifestyle, he has a unique perspective. He is educated, as opposed to the barely literate members of his family and neighbor clans; he has traveled to many different parts of the nation and the world, as opposed to the ones who have no outside experience whatsoever.

When he chose to move back to his small hometown of Winchester VA after many years away, he did so in order to try to understand a few things............

In his observations, analysis, and conclusions, he cogently explains why millions of America's underclass continues to vote for the very people that are tromping them further into the dirt, among other things.

Their dependence on the faith is part of this. Their constant parroting of FOX lies and rumors is also. Even though they are sinking, they are loudly 'patiotic' (we're # 1, kick the shit outta them Ay-rabs, etc), and increasingly bigoted and judgmental toward the 'other'.

I have a difficult time summarizing his observations and conclusions, but he has verbalized everything I have personally been observing for years.

He is an excellent writer........it is as if you are sitting in his living room listening to him talk.

This book should be read by everyone all along the political spectrum. Those on the right end are not going to like it, as truth hurts. Those on the left will shake their heads sadly and wonder just how in the devil this nation will ever repair itself.

I just look around at the people that live in our 4 county area and I know that a whole lot of them are no different than the denizens of the south. And I worry. The divide is too wide, the lack of education is too widespread, and the sheep-like behavior is too ingrained.

He (less)

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Jul 31, 2011 Agreenhouse rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Why do people do things that are not in their best interest is the biggest question this book raises and tries to answer. More specifically, why do poor people in the southeast vote Republican.
Joe Bageant, who is from the rural South, returns to his hometown and gives multiple reasons, many surprising.

1. There is a small town elite who have made it big in real estate and business. They control the towns like little fiefdoms. They are admired for their success and others strive to be like them,...more

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Jun 16, 2011 Rev. Mysterium rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: americana, break-the-cycle, blood-on-our-hands, controversial, cultural-studies, current-affairs, favourites, hard-to-put-down, history-factual, inspirational, non-fiction, personable-author, philosophy, political, right-wing-evangelical, sociology, subject-for-debate, well-with-my-soul

This is a sad, but very true view of a segment of our nature. It is ripe with humour and will leave you laughing long after you read it. The author, Joe Bageant who we just lost to cancer this year has a unique way of looking at life and making one relate. Many of the folks profiled in this book will tug at your heart strings. Others will just perturb you to know end, and make you say aloud, "how can people think that way!!??". This is a great telling of the dance between the "have's" and "have...more

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Jun 05, 2009 Tim rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I would have liked this more if it was more grounded. There was way too much that amounted to "the way I see it...". I thought the book was funny and occassionally insightful. The chapter on rural housing was especially interesting. The gun-control chapter came off as too one-sided and easy to figure out (the author is right and you are wrong in such a fundamental way that he isn't even going to bother really engaging with the issue). The bill of rights is remarkably vague and difficult to apply...more

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About Joe Bageant

Joe Bageant: Born in rural Virginia. After stint in Navy became anti-war hippie, ran off to the West Coast ... lived in communes, hippie school buses... started writing about holy men, countercultural figures, rock stars and the American scene in 1971 ... lived in Boulder, Colorado until mid 1980s ... 14 years in all ... became a Marxist and a half-assed Buddhist ... Traveled to Central America to...more

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“Republican or Democrat, this nation's affluent urban and suburban classes understand their bread is buttered on the corporate side. The primary difference between the two parties is that the Republicans pretty much admit that they grasp and even endorse some of the nastiest facts of life in America. Republicans honestly tell the world: "Listen in on my phone calls, piss-test me until I'm blind, kill and eat all of my neighbors right in front of my eyes, but show me the money! Let me escape with every cent I can kick out of the suckers, the taxpayers, and anybody else I can get a headlock on, legally or otherwise." Democrats, in contrast, seem content to catalog the GOP's outrages against the Republic, showing proper indignation while laughing at episodes of The Daily Show. But they stand behind the American brand: imperialism. They "support our troops," though you will be hard put to find any of them who have served alongside them or who would send one of their own kids off to lose an eye or an arm in Iraq. They play the imperial game, maintain their credit ratings, and plan to keep the beach house and the retirement investments if it means sacrificing every damned Lynndie England in West Virginia.” — 13 people liked it

“The four cornerstones of the American political psyche are 1) emotion substituted for thought, 2) fear, 3) ignorance and 4) propaganda” — 11 people liked it

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