<![CDATA[Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War]]>

false <![CDATA[Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1179016616m/865936.jpg 865936 4 After thirty years spent scratching together a middle-class life out of a “dirt-poor” childhood, Joe Bageant moved back to his hometown of Winchester, Virginia, where he realized that his family and neighbors were the very people who carried George W. Bush to victory. That was ironic, because Winchester, like countless American small towns, is fast becoming the bedrock of a permanent underclass. Two in five of the people in his old neighborhood do not have high school diplomas. Nearly everyone over fifty has serious health problems, and many have no health care. Credit ratings are low or nonexistent, and alcohol, overeating, and Jesus are the preferred avenues of escape. A raucous mix of storytelling and political commentary, Deer Hunting with Jesus is Bageant’s report on what he learned by coming home. He writes of his childhood friends who work at factory jobs that are constantly on the verge of being outsourced; the mortgage and credit card rackets that saddle the working poor with debt, i.e., “white trashonomics”; the ubiquitous gun culture—and why the left doesn’t get it; Scots Irish culture and how it played out in the young life of Lynddie England; and the blinkered “magical thinking” of the Christian right. (Bageant’s brother is a Baptist pastor who casts out demons.) What it adds up to, he asserts, is an unacknowledged class war. By turns brutal, tender, incendiary, and seriously funny, this book is a call to arms for fellow progressives with little real understanding of “the great beery, NASCAR-loving, church-going, gun-owning America that has never set foot in a Starbucks.” Deer Hunting with Jesus is a potent antidote to what Bageant dubs “the American hologram”—the televised, corporatized virtual reality that distracts us from the insidious realities of American life. 2189049 19 6 2007 Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War total:514|5:113|4:227|3:133|2:34|1:7| 514 1947 940 192 4 7 false false Sat Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Sun Dec 16 20:13:36 -0800 2007 Wed Dec 19 13:55:39 -0800 2007 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...more...]]> 5 4 true false Sun Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sat Jun 09 15:49:16 -0700 2007 Fri Jul 06 16:35:47 -0700 2007
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...more...]]> 3 3 false false Sat Nov 15 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sun Nov 16 13:03:01 -0800 2008 Sun Nov 16 14:32:36 -0800 2008
The author goes back home to live among the struggling lower class redne...more...]]> 2 2 false false Fri Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sun Feb 17 10:10:50 -0800 2008 Sun Feb 17 10:10:50 -0800 2008 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 lo...more...]]> 5 3 false false Mon Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Tue Dec 11 09:12:38 -0800 2007 Thu Dec 13 07:37:00 -0800 2007 more...]]> 4 1 false false Mon Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sun Nov 30 12:55:10 -0800 2008 Sun Nov 30 13:07:00 -0800 2008 more...]]> 3 1 false false Tue Feb 03 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Mon Jan 26 15:25:06 -0800 2009 Tue Feb 03 08:58:49 -0800 2009 more...]]> 5 1 false false Wed Dec 24 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sat Dec 06 10:06:39 -0800 2008 Wed Dec 24 10:29:29 -0800 2008 Bageant is from Winchester, VA and this book is about the working class people that he grew up with. It explains t...more...]]> 4 1 false false Tue Aug 19 14:26:26 -0700 2008 Sun Sep 07 09:39:26 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 1 false false Sun Aug 03 17:54:23 -0700 2008 Tue Aug 05 15:11:05 -0700 2008
We stayed cool. Gave the man some space. That's a big part of what this bookstore thing is all ...more...]]> 3 1 false false Thu Apr 03 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Fri Mar 28 18:24:03 -0700 2008 Fri Apr 04 05:30:16 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 1 false false Mon Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Mon Oct 29 04:15:57 -0700 2007 Mon Oct 29 04:20:11 -0700 2007 more...]]> 3 0 false false Sun Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Wed Mar 18 14:40:42 -0700 2009 Thu Mar 19 10:28:10 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Sat Feb 07 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sat Feb 07 08:04:36 -0800 2009 Sat Feb 07 08:28:44 -0800 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Fri Jun 05 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Jun 05 16:33:19 -0700 2009 Fri Jun 05 16:33:29 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Fri May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun Apr 26 19:27:53 -0700 2009 Tue May 05 12:41:40 -0700 2009
The main problem with the book, though, is that B...more...]]> 4 0 false false Wed Nov 11 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Tue Oct 27 18:49:28 -0700 2009 Wed Nov 11 16:13:01 -0800 2009 more...]]> 1 1 false false Sat Feb 21 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sat Feb 21 12:27:41 -0800 2009 Sat Mar 14 19:59:10 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Sun Mar 15 08:51:37 -0700 2009 Sun Mar 15 09:07:00 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Fri Jul 24 19:07:19 -0700 2009 Fri Jul 24 19:07:31 -0700 2009 more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=865936