“Still, my faith in the Internet’s information democracy wilted with I once suggested to a friend facing eviction that we Google ‘renter’s rights’ to learn his options, and watched him type in ‘rinters kicked out.'”
Joe Bageant in Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America’s Class War
NewMexiKen is three-quarters through Bageant’s book, which I first mentioned here last week. It’s readable, revealing and important, a good compliment to Barbara Ehrenreich’s classic Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America
Bageant returned to his hometown of Winchester, Virginia, after being away for 30 years. There he learned that his family and friends — the people he grew up with, went to school with, hunted with — are fast becoming a permanent American underclass. He writes of these people with honesty and disdain, but mostly with respect, humor and love — and a lot of important insight.
A couple more lines from Deer Hunting with Jesus:
Romney, West Virginia — “It’s the kind of place, where, as one young woman put it,’They’ll call you a snob for being too good to have a boyfriend in jail.'”
“Wealthy people have lawyers for payback. Poor people have them for DUIs.”
It’s really a worthwhile read.
Here’s Joe Bageant’s website.