Reddit reviews Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War

Joe Bageant's Deer Hunting With Jesus makes a pretty good case for why the poor rural people still vote Republican, against their own interests.

It's a good read, too.

eta: this post brought to you by the ponderings on the "base that is going down with the ship" in this thread.

I used to have shitty internet arguments with a liberal democrat on a local forum board back around 2000-2005. We met for drinks a few times. Couldn't tolerate his politics but he was a decent human being. It wasn't until he died a few years ago that I found out he was a published author, among other things. One of his books dealt specifically with how democrats had abandoned the white working class and didn't understand them. Sadly, guys like Joe Bageant are few and far between, and the only reason Joe saw the problems that have led to the democrats current woes in middle America was because of the time and place he was born and lived. So you're probably right in general when you say "liberal democrats" (even though I'm sure you're joking), but I'd hope there's still a few people like Joe around who are traditionally liberal and don't just use their politics to virtue signal their superiority over "those people" in the backwater parts of the country.

Deer Hunting With Jesus did a great job explaining this phenomena.

> Premise 1: Americans don't want gun control, because they are afraid to lose their right to protect themselves.

For obvious reasons, nobody knows exactly how many illegal/unregistered guns are in circulation in the US, but for sake of argument let's say it's a number equivalent to 1% of the c. 280 million legal and registered guns in the country - that would make 2.8 million firearms unaccounted for and that are presumably in possession of people who want to use them for criminal purposes (e.g. a robbery) or to defend themselves from competitors in illicit activities (e.g. the narcotics trade).

With that in mind, is it really just a case of selfish interest that makes some Americans want to keep hold of the right to buy and own legal firearms?

Gun death rates tend to be at their highest in urban areas and (apparently) illegal firearms are far more often used in these cases than legally bought ones.

And there's another point - have you ever read Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War? In that book, Bageant (the author) points out that in rural areas - often places where the recession has hit hardest - guns are used for hunting and when economic times are hard, hunting can literally put food on the table. You shoot the deer, take the deer to a place where you can get it sliced up, take it home and pack it in the deep freeze until you need it.

So here you have a situation where the people who are most likely to own a gun legally for a legitimate (and even necessary) purpose live in rural areas with few job opportunities, whereas the people who are most likely to own an illegal or unregistered gun for a criminal purpose are far more likely to be in an urban area.

If you were to try to introduce gun control across the whole country, it appears that that would leave people in urban areas more vulnerable to robbery and assault by armed criminals and people in rural areas would have to resort to alternative weapons for hunting such as crossbows. So in one fell stroke, you have made life even harder for the rural poor for whom it will now be much harder to hunt deer (they need to be at closer range, a single hit may only wound an animal but not stop it bleed it out) while giving a significant advantage to criminals over unarmed citizens in urban areas.

Is it really justified to describe wanting to keep hold of guns as selfish?

> Premise 2: People of pro-gun control countries want gun control, because they value (the fact) that gun control dramatically reduces the number of murders, mass shootings, suicides etc.

I think you're right that strict gun control laws such as they have in the UK or Australia would severely reduce the annual number of gun deaths as well as mass shootings such as happened in Sandy Hook or Virginia Tech and that is a very strong - probably the strongest argument - for tighter gun control laws.

However, as I've mentioned in the foregoing I think to do this you would need to accept that urban areas with high crime rates would be extremely adversely affected by such a change - what stores are going to be willing to remain open that cannot legally arm themselves? Or if they can legally hire armed security guards, how much does that cost and how much of that cost will be passed onto the customers (who are likely to be financially very hard up already)? And what impact would it have on such an area if the majority of stores, restaurants and other businesses simply closed down and moved out of those zones altogether?

Answer: read "Deer Hunting With Jesus."

http://www.amazon.com/Deer-Hunting-Jesus-Dispatches-Americas/dp/0307339378/ref=sr_1_1

I don't know - I do talk to more conservatives because of my hobby (guns) than most Seattle people - and this is not a vibe I sense.

What I do see is this.

Most "rednecks" - rural conservatives - are actually rather poor. Not that much better off than your typical urban poor in your typical inner city (https://www.amazon.com/Run-Fugitive-Life-American-City/dp/1250065666 - we don't really have this around here but I did live in Phila once).

But they have to work to keep above water, and these are often not very pleasant jobs - like, you know, picking up trash, maintenance works, etc. Occasionally these maintenance jobs are in government projects.

So they do resent the fact that THEY get almost no help from the government - but the inner city poor do.

And I can see some truth to that - I was on welfare once and moving from welfare to min wage employment made no financial sense - I would get the same amount of money, but no healthcare, for example.

But I have never seen this resentment extending to children.

EDIT: this is another good book on this phenomenon: https://www.amazon.com/Deer-Hunting-Jesus-Dispatches-Americas/dp/0307339378

This one helped me a lot to understand it.

Duh...

Deer Hunting With Jesus and What’s The Matter With Kansas are good reads. They explore the reasons people give for voting against their best interests.

What is eating Appalachia?

Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War

>The reality is that two of five residents do not have high-school diplomas and virtually everyone over 50 has serious health problems in a town—and nation—with poor and failing schools and health systems. Still clinging to illusions of personal responsibility and the vain hope of someday achieving wealth, Winchester's residents fall deeper into debt, farther behind in ambitions beyond working in the local factory—if they're lucky—and, along with their children, subject to the de facto draft of economic conscription.

They are falling victim to their political prejudice, which is encouraged by the GOP's machinery.

Hello! I'm a southerner with active ties to Mississippi, I've lived there on and off over the years, but I've also lived lots of other places, including the PNW. Not BC, but Portland, as well as abroad. Currently in Vermont. When in MS, I've mostly lived in the northwestern corner -- basically Memphis, but I've spent some time in the delta as well.

Does Mississippi suck? Well... to some degree, obviously, that's going to depend on your definition of "suck." I'll give you some (of what I consider) positive points first, and then some negatives.

Positives: the culture is thick on the ground in the delta; less so to the eastern side of the state. The stretch running along the Mississippi river, you have to remember, was once effectively the west coast of the US, and the Miss. R. was the single most important transportation thoroughfare in the country. What does that have to do with anything now? Well... not that much. But historically, the Mississippi delta was once quite cosmopolitan, and you can still find vestiges of that in the culture. William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, Walker Percy, Willie Morris, Mark Twain; Muddy Waters, Sam Cooke, Jim Dickinson, W.C. Handy, some guy named Elvis... Miss. has turned out, per capita, a crazy number of writers and musicians. The food is good, in a heavy, southern kind of way. In spite of the state's reputation (which I wouldn't call undeserved, but perhaps a little simplistic), people are generally very nice and very friendly. If you're into a sort of uncomplicated, laid-back way of living, then I'd think Mississippi could be comfortable.

Having said that -- yeah, it's going to be completely different. Mississippi, in general, is poor, black, and rural. Even Jackson has a sort of rural feel, even while having a lot of issues with urban blight. It's small, it's insular, and it's not that interested in the outside world. And it's fucking hot and muggy -- in the summer it feels like being smothered in a hot, wet wool blanket. And I hope you're okay with ticks and mosquitos. And if you're near the coast, occasionally gators.

Obviously the norm is conservative christianity -- to the point that it doesn't even occur to people that anyone might be any different. The black population is nominally more liberal, but are still deeply religious and just as conservative in many respects. Race is visible in ways that it just isn't in other places -- I wouldn't say that people are in conflict over it any more than they are elsewhere, but it's a much more active social factor than elsewhere. This doesn't mean that (to use the regional parlance) white folks and black folks don't work together and socialize, but in most places in MS there is very much a "white folks part of town" and a "black folks part of town." There are white churches and black churches, white schools and black schools (holy shit, I could tell you a few things about that), there's an upper class and a lower class that run very much along racial lines. I don't know if society is really more segregated down there than it is elsewhere -- up north we talk about race like it doesn't matter or like everything is fine and everyone is happy, even while the divide is still obviously there -- but where it is segregated, everyone is much more open and even accepting of that fact.

In terms of day to day life, there are really only two models: Wal-Mart, and no Wal-Mart. In places where there's no Wal-Mart, you're in a tiny little town that hasn't visibly changed since the 60s, frozen in time. Where there is Wal-Mart, there is only Wal-Mart. It's Big Box stores, or nothing. There's no public sphere (except for Wal-Mart), there's no place to walk around really (except inside the Wal-Mart), when teenagers are bored they go hang out at the Wal-Mart... Wal-Mart is the hub of public life. If you're the fancy type you might do your shopping at Target instead, but even so, you'll feel the influence of Wal-Mart in everything you do.

Your money will go a long way; you'll be expected to keep your lawn in decent shape; people will invite you over for meals and gatherings, but half the time they'll also try to convert you to some form of evangelical, fundamentalist christianity (if you haven't been already.) They will not easily take "no" for an answer. Some of them will be defensive about your attitudes toward the south (even if you haven't actually displayed any), but others will be really interested in your background. If you look, you'll be able to find other people who understand where you're coming from. But you might have to look hard, and be patient.

Personally, I love Mississippi... but I love it most from a safe distance. I sometimes think that I really should move back, to the south if not to Mississippi specifically, because how can we expect things to change there if everyone who thinks outside the southern norm flees for more progressive places? But then I think about everything I'd have to deal with down there -- the religion, the politics, the grinding generational poverty all around me, the resistance to change, the cultural defensiveness, the self-destructive urge for southerners to fuck themselves over in the name of Jesus or Reagan or whatever, and I'm like, "fuck that bullshit."

Feel free to ask if you have specific questions. Also, I think the Bitter Southerner is a really good source for an intelligent, progressive, sometimes conflicted but generally affectionate take on modern southern culture. Other things to check out are Searching for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus and Deer Hunting with Jesus

Read "Deer Hunting with Jesus."

This book is terrifyingly relevant considering the times. It was written in 2007 and the author, Joe Bageant, essentially laid out how the financial catastrophe of the past several years was going to go down and its root causes, far before they took place. It also gives major insight into the actual reasons religion and politics seem to work together and people seem to vote the way they do for things!

http://www.amazon.com/Deer-Hunting-Jesus-Dispatches-Americas/dp/0307339378/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1318775623&sr=8-1