Know justice, know peace.
No justice, no peace.

The working man built this nation. The people are the ones that dug the ditches, built the roads and ships and machines that were used to create the parts that were needed to build those things. The working man is the foundation of the Country, not the corporations. Untill 1886, Corporations were not allowed the protections under the US Constitution. This was written into the Constitution and into the laws that followed its ratification. Santa Clara County vs Southern pacific Railroad company gave Corporations "Personhood" status, giving them the same protections as individual citizens. Ever since, the Corporations have been able to exclude working citizens from the legislative process nearly completely.

This must be reversed. Corporations should have no civil protections beyond what they were originally granted under the Constitution, nor should they be allowed to manipulate money markets or stock markets to their benefit. There should be a mandatory death penalty for any incorporated organization, ANY, that violates the law. Revocation of Charter, forced reduction of stock value to zero, something. When any entity or organization threatens the laws of the US Constitution, it must be totally destroyed.

The United States Constitution comes first. It was a liberal document, it was written by liberally educated thinkers and statesmen, and was intended to protect and benefit individual citizens, not Corporations. Corporations are not people. They should not be allowed to conduct themselves as such.

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Fairness and justice--hard to disagree with this Joe.

Can we get rid of Joe the Plumber and call on Joe Bageant instead?

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us on these stupid culture war issues. And by the way, Hampton Roads and Northern VA are getting a lot of play but Obama and Biden aren't writing off rural VA either. The same thing I believe is happening in North Carolina. So even if Missouri votes Mccain, it will lose its bellwhether status. Hey, maybe the 50 state strategy isn't so bad an idea after all. Maybe next time, Independent candidates will learn to try that strategy for a change. The GOP did it in the 1970s and 1980s and the Democrats are getting around to doing it so why not the Indies?

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WHY DO YOU THINK ROVE AND THE REPUBLICANS ARE HOPING TO STEAL THIS ELECTION? BECAUSE THEY KNOW MCCAIN WILL GIVE THEM WHAT THEY WANT.

THERE HAS BEEN THE BIGGEST TRANSFER OF WEALTH FROM THE MAJORITY OF AMERICAN PEOPLE IN HISTORY. 99 PERCENT OF THE WEALTH IS NOW IN THE HANDS OF 1 PER CENT OF THE POPULATION! THE AMERICAN PEOPLE CANNOT PROSPER UNDER THESE CONDITONS. WE HAVE LOST MILLIONS OF JOBS AND ARE LOSING MORE EVERYDAY, MILLIONS CAN'T AFFORD MEDICATIONS OR HEALTHCARRE, MORE THEN HALF OF OUR TAX DOLLARS GO TO THE MILITARY, WAGES ARE LOW AND FOOD AND GAS ARE HIGH. EXXON MOBIL JUST MADE THE BIGGEST PROFITS IN HISTORY. PEOPLE CAN BARELY AFFORD TO DRIVE TO THEIR SHITTY PAYING JOBS. THIS IS JUST THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG. SOME CITIES ACROSS THIS NATION ARE IN A DEPRESSION NOW. 72 THOUSAND HOUSEHOLDS IN DENVER ALONE ARE HAVING THEIR UTILITIES SHUT OFF AND THIS IS A NATIONAL TREND. WATCH THE DENVER REALITY ON BILL MOYERS THE JOURNAL ON THE NET AND EDUCATE YOURSELF. ALSO THERE WAS AN INTERVIEW WITH MATT WELCH AND MICKEY EDWARDS TWO REPUBLICANS WHO DISCUSSED MCCAIN. IN 1999 - 2000 HE VOTED AS A NEOCON AGAINST BUSH AND WAS A BIG FAN OF PREEMPTIVE STRIKES SO IF YOU LIKE BUSH YOU WILL LOVE MCCAIN! WAKE UP AMERICAN THIS ELECTION IS ABOUT UP OR DOWN. I AM BETTING ON OBAMA. IF HE'S GOOD ENOUGH FOR COLIN POWELL HE'S GOOD ENOUGH FOR ME. AND IF WE DONT SPREAD THE WEALTH WE WILL BECOME A NATION OF POOR PEOPLE WITH TAX CUTS FOR PEOPLE LIKE ME, A MIDDLE CLASS MOM WHO HAS 2 KIDS WHO WANT TO GO TO COLLEGE, WHO HAS TO SPEN $3000 PER YEAR ON MEDICATIONS THAT COST PENNIES TO MAKE. COME ON THIS DOESN'T MAKE SENSE TO YOU?

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Stop putting all that is "liberal" in the sole control of coastal, urban elites who have no idea how to respect people whose tastes differ from theirs.

This whole idea that, somehow, the value system of liberal Manhattanites is preferable to that of your average hillbilly is part of the problem. Cosmopolitan elites do not understand the very Revolutionary War-based sentiments of mountain progressives. Although there are progressives in the rural South who dodge hired gunfire every day to do what is right, the mouthpieces of the liberal movement continue to try to lump all rural people together and villify them as ignorant, uneducated rubes with no soul.

Is this not prejudice?

I would like to point out exactly WHO is hiring those guns that are pointed at our poor mountain folk as they try to save what's left of their homes and communities from Big Energy: the big money coastal elites.

People in West Virginia are not blowing up their own mountains. People in West Virginia are no de-funding their own schools and public institutions. People in West Virginia are not making deals with Washington politicians and Manhattan corporations to destroy the Appalachians and leave behind thousands of square miles of sludge-covered destruction.

People from West Virginia ARE, however, resentful of being lumped in with bible-thumping rabble from all over the country and accused of "voting against their own interests" by people who actually don't even understand that there's a difference between, say, living in the mountains because your family has been there for 400 years and living in a suburb. I've heard people on this very site accuse rural people of being suburbanites on the run because of prejudice. Idiots.

There were hillbillies in America before your precious cities were more than a wart on the land. And those hillbillies have been fighting coastal corruption with no help from a lot of those people who consider themselves "environmentalists."

Next time you lump all rural people together so that you can complain about them, keep in mind who is financing the destruction of everything that those rural people hold dear.

Then, ask yourself, "If I were one of those people, would I assume that the big money corporate powers who promise me that the pain and degradation will be worth it, or the liberal elites who call me scum have my best interests at heart?"

The answer fo many mountain people is to not trust anybody who's not from home. They've seen the results otheswise.

Check out ILoveMountains.org if you have a shred of compassion for those who would be on your side but don't care for Ferragamo shoes.

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A generalization which can be deceptive. There are those who are abysmally ignorant, religion-besotted brutes, who couldn't think their way out of a broom closet, and those who are well educated, either at schools or self-educated, refined, and tolerant of others, then there are those who simply don't participate in our society, but prefer to stay anonymous without voicing any opinions or even voting. We tend to compartmentalize ourselves here and require a measure of space that we consider inviolable. This has been expertly exploited by those with no moral scruples, compassion, or concern for the good of our people. Barack Obama sees this with crystal clarity, and is trying to do something about it. Let's give him a chance. What have we got to lose, another bush?

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thanks for doing this interview...i read "deer hunting" a few years ago thanks to my taxpayer funded local library and i've been recommending it to any "liberal" and/or "democrat" ever since......

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"We accept that the health of Wall Street is the health of our family."

That's as fundamentally "the problem" as anything else. The average person has been convinced that the loss of the wealthy minority (those that have the least to lose and like losing it the least) is their loss.

That sense of rural independence he describes has been subconsciously entwined with the marketing strategy of shareholders. If you don't have a couple of million in the bank with no worries, you would only be choosing a choosing a higher standard of living.

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The ruling wealthy elites, who are obviously always in the minority, gain and keep power by DIVIDING the majority class, by getting them to fight one another and NOT the elite.

One robber-baron once said "I can hire half the workers to kill the other half"--his response to the union threat.

In Poland and Russia, the Czars and Kings hired Jews to collect the taxes. Thus the poor people took their wrath out on the poor Jews, not the rich rulers.

In American South the rulers used race-fears to keep poor whites in line and fleeced of all power and money..

It is an age old tactic. Getting one group of poor people to hate and fear another group of poor people is the ruling elites ticket to wealth and power. A great example is homophobia. The mega-chruches are raking in megabucks scaring poor people about gay-marriage, when in fact gay people marrying means abosultely nothing to the welfare of poor American.

When somebody is telling you to hate somebody and give money to fight them, it is a sure bet they are robbing you blind.

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Joe and I grew up in the same town and come from the same Scots Irish roots. The Repiglicans have sold our folks a bunch of bullshit and it is past time to make them realize they're being ripped off. We don't need "Joe the Plumber", we need my man Joe!

Please buy his book and read it.

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I understand class... I'm a straddler and I live in the working class world despite my middling grad-school education. I LOVED Bageant's book. But there's still a difficult thing even he doesn't offer a workaround for... and he said it in this piece (nice work, total shit video-player, I have to say): the thing about fairness... that it's a fundamental common denominator between Dims, liberals and rednecks.

Um, I been struggling with that for 42 years... my sense and definition of what's "fair" as a progressive is almost NEVER shared in common with other white working class people. I'm sorry, Joe, and everyone else... we have PROBLEMS on this element because it is NOT COMMON.

E.g., I don't think it's "fair" or "just" to treat people different based on money, status or body morphology, and frankly, sometimes "fair" is a "giveaway" and a "handout" and it's required, needed and fully deserved. But lots of my WWC brothers and sisters don't see things that way. they think it's fine and "Natural" even "God ordained" that differences in morphology, status, money, etc. result in different kinds of treatment in society.

It's a HUGE problem. Despite our common "humanity" some assholes still think "humanity" means fascism and all manner of stoopid unjust, unfair bullshit. That's a FACT, jack.

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