The Politics of Poverty...........At the Mercy of the Corporate State

[stockholmer]

http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/08/26/the-politics-of-poverty/

Believe it or not, just two generations ago, many families in Morgan County, West Virginia were self sufficient. Hunting, fishing, growing vegetables, canning for winter. Subsistence farmers they called them. Some families spent only $100 cash a year. You can scoff. But are we better off now? Or not?

Joe Bageant was born and raised on Shanghai Road in Morgan County, West Virginia. He went on to write two great books about the white working class in America. How they are being screwed by the corporate state. And why they often vote against their own interests. As in — voting for Congresswoman Shelley Moore Capito, our Congresswoman, who puts the interests of the big banks and big insurance corporations ahead of the interests of the poor, white working people of her district. These are truly remarkable books. The first is Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America’s Working Class. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0307339378/counterpunchmaga And the second is Rainbow Pie: A Redneck Memoir. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/192164091X/counterpunchmaga A third book is scheduled out soon — Waltzing at the Doomsday Ball: the Best of Joe Bageant.

For the past two weeks, I’ve been running ten miles in each of the 18 counties of Capito’s district. Calling attention to Capito’s betrayal of her constituents. And urging people to sign the petition at www.capitoresign.org. On Saturday, I ran in Clay and Braxton counties — eleven down, seven to go. And the eye-opener has been the poverty. White working class poverty.

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Now, we are all at the mercy of the corporate state. It’s out of our hands. And it’s brutal. “On any given day in America’s heartland towns and cities and suburbs, I can find innumerable Americans whose class experience has been the same as mine,” Bageant writes. “They are without a doubt an underclass measured by the standards of the developed world: they are ignorant; under-educated; given to unhealthy vices such as smoking and alcohol; underpaid; semi-literate; misinformed; given to crude entertainments, sports, and a love of spectacle (particularly violent spectacle); disposable as a labor force; quick to violent solutions; easily misled; simple-minded in world view; superstitious; and poor in parenting and social skills.”

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[BadGimp]

1. a voice for the voice and clue less