Joe Bageant, 1946-2011 Exceptional “redneck socialist”

March 28, 2011

Bageant Moves On

We don’t last, and there’s no warranty

Joe Bageant and Fred Reed in Ajijic, Mexico, 2008

By Fred Reed
www.fredoneverything.net

Jocotepec, Mexico — Joe lived awhile down the lake. We would visit him of an afternoon, Vi and I, and find him, a bear of a man, bearded mountain Buddha, writing on the porch of his one-room place in Ajijic. Always he wore his old fishing vest, in which I suspect he was born, and sometimes he carried a small laptop in one of its pockets. Usually we adjourned to the living room, which was also the bedroom, dining room, and salon. He would fetch bottles of local red, or make the jalapeño martinis he invented — there was a bit of mad chemist in him — and we would talk for hours of art, music, the news, politics, and people. Especially people. Sometimes he grabbed one of the guitars from the wall and sang blues, at which he was good. I guess growing up dirt poor in West Virginia puts that kind of music in you.

Joe could fool you. He talked slow and Southern, lacked pretensions, and you could talk to him for weeks without realizing how very damned smart he was.
 One day we dropped in and he said he had just found that he had cancer. It went fast. He died Saturday.

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If “decline and fall” is the subject du jour…

The counterpoint of these two articles which came my way today (synergistically?) will probably keep me speculating for awhile:

Moon Over Gringo Gulch By Joe Bageant

…Even were it possible, resurrecting the government of FDR would make for a crowded political stage. We already have two independent governments operating separately — the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. Unfortunately they operate in opposition. ..

This kind of politics benefits both the politician and the public. The public can avoid thinking about real issues, big picture items they can count on the politicians never to address, but move their lips as if they are: America’s descent from empire, global warming and peak everything

Compensation & The Social Network by CulturalEngineer

…It’s been said that the problem in a democracy is that the rulers (being the people) will rob the public treasury by voting themselves all the money!

This may well be true… But if that’s the case…

And considering what’s become of our once healthy financial balance (you actually have to go back to the ’70′s to find when we were a creditor and not a debtor nation)…

And where all the wealth ended up…

You have to ask… Just who is really in charge around here?

FYI: changed look of blog site

After fussing around with the too-light look of quotes, making them bold to compensate etc, I’ve decided to try a new look for this blog. Who knows, I may switch again…..Any comments on the switch-up are welcome!  I’m going for readability, and function but style tips would probably help alot.

PS: the format of older articles may change for the worse………

Humor in all the wrong places

While many of those trying to be funny only manage to be vulgar or infantile, today’s funny comes from – believe it or not- the banking sector:

Al Lewis: Wells Fargo Bank Sues Itself      FoxBusiness

You can’t expect a bank that is dumb enough to sue itself to know why it is suing itself.

Yet I could not resist asking Wells Fargo Bank NA why it filed a civil complaint against itself in a mortgage foreclosure case in Hillsborough County, Fla.

“Due to state foreclosure laws, lenders are obligated to name and notify subordinate lien holders,” said Wells Fargo spokesman Kevin Waetke.

Being a taxpayer-subsidized, too-big-to-fail institution, it’s possible that one of the few ways for Wells Fargo & Co. (WFC: 24.67, n.a., n.a.%) to know what it is doing is to notify itself with a court filing.

In this particular case, Wells Fargo holds the first and second mortgages on a condominium, according to Sarasota, Fla., attorney Dan McKillop, who represents the condo owner.

As holder of the first, Wells Fargo is suing all other lien holders, including the holder of the second, which is itself.

read complete article

Pirate Party Wins and Enters The European Parliament

     The Piracy Party has won a huge victory   in the Swedish elections and is marching on to Brussels. After months of campaigning against well established parties, the Pirate Party has gathered enough votes to be guaranteed a seat in the European Parliament.

Conspiracy nuts, Carnies and Misfits

 

By Claudia

If you think for yourself, you are probably used to being marginalized and have also become frustrated and grouchy.  Choose this as a way of life and your nearest and dearest will probably think you are something of a head case. 

Traditionally, such people become mystics, scam artists and hermits.  The mystic figures it all doesn’t matter anyway, rises to a point light years above his own head and counts on the Universe to make things right. The scam artist, seeing so many sheeple flocking all over, figures why not shear a few as he passes by.  The hermit, hating the brainwashed hordes cluttering up the place, heads for the margins where she can breathe without recourse to a vomit bag.