Deer Hunting with Jesus – by Joe Bageant

Amy found this book at the library, read it, loved it, and handed it to me. I read it, loved it, and entirely recommend it.

Bageant discusses working class America with such heartfelt honesty – having grown up there himself he pulls no punches – and his words are real. Real to the point of terrifying me. How do we continue to let the rulers that be be rulers? Who else out there feels that the system ain’t working? Who knows how to fix it?

Read this book – it illuminates those that live in the American Shadow.

“We live in an age of corporate dominion just as we once lived in an age of domination by royal families, kings, and warlords. From inside the hologram there is no history, no memory, no way to equate the tribute rendered to the credit card companies, the insurance companies, the IRS, the power cartels, and the home mortgage banks with the kind of debt bondage they actually represent. Yet we must pay such tribute to be allowed to survive in our society, even if that tribute is a trailer at usury rates or allowing a credit card company access to our medical insurance payment history. We must trade liberty and privacy in increments for comfort and perceived security. That has been the Devil’s bargain from the beginning. If middle-class Americans do not feel threatened by the slow encroachment of the police state or the Patriot Act, it is because they live comfortably enough and exercise their liberties very lightly, never testing the boundaries. You never know you are in prison unless you try the door.” (263)

Finished: 4/26/08
Pages: 273
Running page count: 5,728