Obama

By Lisa R. Pruitt Americans like to think they live in a society unstratified by class, a society of equal opportunity, where the American dream survives.  Joe Bageant, a journalist turned cultural critic, challenged these myths with inimitable intensity, compassion, and wit. Along the way, he reminded us of the links between the nation’s white working class and rural America.  Bageant died earlier this year at the age of 64. I first heard the name Joe Bageant in, of all places, Waarnambool, Australia.  It was November, 2010, and I was there to give a lecture at the Rural and Regional Law and Justice Conference.  After my talk, “Toward a Critical Legal Ruralism,” an Australian law professor approached me and recommended the book Deer Hunting with Jesus:  Dispatches from America's Class Wars by Joe Bageant.  I promptly purchased it.  Who could resist such a provocative title? I found that what the academic literature teaches about class wars, Bageant expressed in sharper, colloquial terms, and I discussed Bageant in my essay, The Geography of the Class Culture Wars. The scholarly literature tells us that progressive elites look down on the white working class and fail to see their struggles, including the struggle within the white working class by which the “settled,” disciplined working class differentiate themselves from the “hard living.” Bageant—consistent with his rural roots—expressed this distinction between the settled and the hard living as that between rednecks and white trash, explaining:

Written by:  Karla McKanders Shortly after health care reform passed, Republicans stated that there will be no cooperation with Democrats for the rest of the year.  Specifically, John McCain stated “There will be no cooperation for the rest of the year. They [Democrats] have poisoned the well in what they’ve done and how they’ve done it.” In addition, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, stated that he was withdrawing support of an outline for joint immigration bill with Democratic Senator Charles Schumer.  The joint bill proposed a pathway citizenship for undocumented immigrants by establishing biometric Social Security cards to ensure that illegal workers cannot get jobs; strengthening border security and interior enforcement; creating a process for admitting temporary workers; holding employers accountable for hiring undocumented workers; and implementing a tough but fair path to legalization for those already here. Graham echoed McCain’s sentiment that the passage of the health care bill “poisoned the well” of bipartisanship diminishing all hopes of cooperation on immigration reform. On the eve of health care reform, on March 21, 2010, many immigrant's rights advocates descended on the mall in Washington, D.C. to advocate for Congress to start discussions on immigration reform. More immigration rallies are being planned across the country to get Obama to place immigration reform on the Administration’s Agenda.