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=                            Joe_Bageant                             =
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                            Introduction
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Joe Bageant (1946-2011) (pronounced "bay-gent") was an American author
and columnist. He was best known for his 2007 book 'Deer Hunting With
Jesus: Dispatches From America's Class War'.


                             Early life
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As a child, Bageant lived in the insular, hardscrabble farming
community of Unger, West Virginia and, later, just over the state line
in the town of Winchester, Virginia. He attended John Handley High
School there, but his teachers told him that he was not cut out for
college, and his parents pressured him to work from an early age.
Bageant quit school, joined the navy, and got married. He was
discharged in the 1960s.

Bageant bought an old school bus and headed for San Francisco. En
route, the bus broke down in Boulder, Colorado. He and his young
family lived there for several years, sometimes on the bus, before
moving to an Indian reservation in Idaho. During that time, Bageant
worked at blue collar jobs until, in the mid-1970s, he broke his back
and had to lie flat for months while he recovered. It was then that he
started honing his writing skills, using his convalescence to perfect
a prose style that would, over the years, acquire a cult following.

In 2001, Bageant moved back to Winchester.


                         Progressive author
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In 'Deer Hunting With Jesus', Bageant discusses how the Democratic
Party lost the political support of poor rural whites and how the
Republican Party has convinced them to "vote against their own
economic self-interest". The book is mainly centered on his hometown
of Winchester.

In 2010, Bageant published a similarly themed book, 'Rainbow Pie: A
Redneck Memoir'. He used his extended family's experience after World
War II to describe the social hierarchy in the United States. The book
examines the postwar journey of 22 million rural Americans into the
cities, where they became, the author argues, the foundation of a
permanent white underclass, and comprise much of today's heartland red
state voters.

Bageant frequently appeared as a commentator on radio and television
internationally and wrote a progressive online column which was
distributed to hundreds of blogs and websites. He maintained his own
blog 'joebageant.net', assisted by Ken Smith, who continued editing
the blog after Bageant's death. Bageant also served as a senior
(roving) editor for 'Cyrano's Journal Today' and 'The Greanville
Post', two sites devoted to progressive political and media analyses.


                             Later life
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During the last years of his life, Bageant lived in Ajijic, a small
town on Lake Chapala in central Mexico. While living there, he wrote
'Rainbow Pie'. On January 4, 2011, Bageant announced on his web site
that he had been "struck down by an extremely serious form of cancer"
that was inoperable. As a consequence, he was unable to engage in
correspondence or his usual work, but he hoped to be able to resume
them in the future.

On March 27, 2011, it was announced on his website that Bageant had
died on March 26, following "a vibrant life" and a four-month struggle
with cancer.


                               Legacy
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After Bageant's death, his Australian publisher asked Bageant's
literary executor, Ken Smith, to select and edit about 80,000 words of
his essays. The book was published in November 2011 as 'Waltzing at
the Doomsday Ball: The Best of Joe Bageant'. That posthumous
collection was available only in Australia, New Zealand, and South
Africa where, according to Smith, it sold reasonably well. According
to Smith, "no American publisher is yet interested in a book by a
redneck socialist--and that says a lot about American culture and the
US book business."

Bageant's friends at 'The Greanville Post' voted him as editor
emeritus of the publication.


                           External links
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* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_7600000/7600592.stm
"Why rednecks may rule the world" by Joe Bageant, 'BBC Today', 6
September 2008]
* [http://www.greanvillepost.com/?p=6761 Waltzing at the Doomsday
Ball: Capitalism is dead, but we still dance with the corpse" by Joe
Bageant, 'The Greanville Post', July 9, 2010]
* [http://www.greanvillepost.com/?p=6124 The Fearless Plain by Joe
Bageant, 'The Greanville Post', May 21, 2010]
*
[https://c-realm.com/podcasts/crealm/c-realm-podcast-149-the-stockholm-syndrome-of-the-soul/
Joe Bageant Podcast: Interview from September 2009]


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Original Article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Bageant