Anyone read "Deer Hunting With Jesus"

[MountainLaurel]

By Joe Bageant? I just finished it and feel the need to discuss it with someone. I think he was so dead-on in much of what he had to say.

[billyoc]

1. I read it, I thought he was right on. Good writer, good book. n/t

[ixion]

2. no, but I did just finish "chase a boar down and kill it with your bare teeth with Jesus"

:+


... sorry, couldn't resist. Haven't read it, although I do really like Joe Bageant. :hi:

[oldtime dfl_er]

3. Haven't read it but now I will

Just read some of the reviews on amazon - it looks great. Thanks!

www.scarebaby.com

[shance]

4. Joe is a brilliant, very gifted writer. Hey start a DU book club/reading group.

That would be cool.

[MountainLaurel]

5. There was one for a long time

I think it didn't get much activity, generally speaking. (At the time I was in grad school as well as working FT and thus had no free time for reading, so I'd read the threads but wasn't able to contribute.)

[Jim__]

6. I read it and I enjoyed it.

I agreed with most of what he said.

I thought he got gun control and the 2nd amendment dead wrong. Most people who favor keeping guns out of the hands of convicted felons and the insane, do not want to confiscate the guns of hunters.

The 2nd amendment was passed to assuage fears that becuase the federal governmenthad certain responsibilities to maintain militias, the federal government had the de facto power to disarm militias. It was a major issue. Bageant goes through all kinds on British history; but ignores the American Constitutional Convention.

It's been a while since I read it; but I think that was my only major disagreement with him.

[benEzra]

7. Hunting is pretty much irrelevant to the gun issue...

I thought he got gun control and the 2nd amendment dead wrong. Most people who favor keeping guns out of the hands of convicted felons and the insane, do not want to confiscate the guns of hunters.

Hunting is pretty much irrelevant to the gun issue; only 1 in 5 U.S. gun owners is a hunter. Nor is the gun issue about "keeping guns out of the hands of convicted felons and the insane," since that has been Federal law for nearly 40 years (Gun Control Act of 1968).

The gun issue in 2007 is mostly about trying to ban the 80% of gun owners who don't hunt from being able to own the most popular target rifles and defensive handguns in America.

No, from what I have read of his work, I believe he understands the gun issue very well indeed. (His book is on my short list to read, but I haven't read it yet.)

Background on the gun issue, for non-gunnies:

Dems and the Gun Issue - Now What? (written in '04, largely vindicated in '06, IMO)

Alienated Rural Democrat (2004)

[DemBones DemBones]

8. No, but I've read most if not all his essays on his website

and I agree that he gets it right about most everything. I'm not sure moving to Belize is the solution but I understand wanting to leave the US, and I live in a lovely valley miles from a city. The political and economic situation is just frightening now, and the disconnect and animosity between groups of people is dangerous.

[yasmina27]

9. I started reading it yesterday

and it is amazing! He is spot on target with so much.

I used to live, for 1 1/2 years, just south of where he's writing about, and I can totally understand what he's talking about.

[MountainLaurel]

11. That was my view as well

My grandmother is from one of the towns he talks about (in the chapter about nursing homes), and my mom was born in another. I still have family in Winchester. So this is all very close to me, though what he is talking about could apply to so many places, particularly in that southern Middle Atlantic, northern South, area of Virginia, West Virginia, southern Pennsylvania (a.k.a., Pennsyltucky), etc. He is right on so many points, I could almost hear the folks, including my father, sitting around bullshitting in the pizza and sub joint in our little town, see the faces of the middle-class folks who run the county, imagine the high school graduates looking forward to a career at the Stop-n-Go and Wal-Mart, hear the incredulity of my family members when they found out I was moving to *gasp* New England.

[TheCentepedeShoes]

10. I got it from the library on Sunday

I read a little last night before I got too sleepy to go on. Enjoying it muchly.