http://www.thepunch.com.au/author-bios/joe-bageant/ Joe Bageant writes an online column (http://www.joebageant.com) that has made him a cult hero among gonzo-journalism junkies and progressives. He is the author of Deer Hunting with Jesus: dispatches from America’s class war (Scribe) described by Charles Firth as the ‘single most insightful book about America available — written in fluid, hilarious prose by one of the great American writers of his generation’. Joe has been interviewed on Air America and comments on America’s long history of religious fundamentalism in the BBC/Owl documentary The Vision: Americans on America. Until recently he worked as a senior editor for the Primedia History Magazine Group. Bageant and his wife recently downsized their lives in America so that Joe could spend half the year in Belize, where he writes and sponsors a small development project with the Black Carib families of Hopkins Village. en Copyright 2012 The Punch penberthyd@newsltd.com.au penberthyd@newsltd.com.au Sat, 26 May 2012 20:00:40 +0000 Sat, 26 May 2012 20:00:40 +0000 Politics, opinion, world news, sports news, latest news, views, Barack Obama, Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Nathan Rees, Malcolm Turnbull, Peter Garrett, Barnaby Joyce, Australian, federal politics, opinion polls, election, The Punch, thepunch, punch ExpressionEngine 1.6.7 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 15 http://www.thepunch.com.au/images/punch-logo-rss.png http://www.thepunch.com.au/ 144 70 Politics, political opinion, world news, sports news and the latest news and views updated live, daily on The Punch - Australia's best conversation. Search The Punch keywords http://www.thepunch.com.au/search/ http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/an-underclass-war-that-is-more-than-just-linguistic/ “White underclass” is a term I’ve used often in my writing, and most American readers seem to know what I mean. They’ve got eyes and live in the same nation I do. But in a sudden burst of journalistic responsibility, I decided that if I am going to throw around the word underclass, then I should offer some clearer, perhaps more scientific definition. So I started writing this with a pile of published research papers before me. Now they a re in the trash can by my side. Looking down on them, I can see the gobbledygook titles, the stuff of which government policy and political platforms are made. They run together in slurry of the language of our society’s commissars: Concerning-Prevalence-Growth-and-Dynamics-Concentrated Urban Poverty Areas- block-level vs. tract-level segregation-800-tract-tables-urban abstracts-Defining-and-Measuring-the-Underclass-from-The Journal of Policy Analysis and Management-s tatistical-summary-of … What I find is that nobody in social science seems to agree on the term, or, being firmly placed in the true white middle class themselves, even agree if such a thing as a white underclass exists. feedback@thepunch.com.au (Joe Bageant) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/an-underclass-war-that-is-more-than-just-linguistic/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/an-underclass-war-that-is-more-than-just-linguistic/#item718 Fri, 24 Jul 2009 19:50:28 +0000 Joe Bageant | Author bios | The Punch http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/time-for-workers-to-take-back-the-golden-age-for-themselves/ During my childhood, 1957 and 1958 were “the two good years,” the were the only years my working class redneck family ever caught a real break. And that break came because of organized labor. After working as a farm hand, driving a hicktown taxi part time, and a dozen catch as catch can jobs, my father found himself owning a used semi-truck and hauling produce for a Teamster unionized trucking company called Blue Goose. Daddy was making more money than he’d ever made in his life, about $4,000 a year. The median national household income at the time was $5,000, mostly thanks to America’s unions. After years of moving from one rented dump to another, we bought a modest home, ($8,000) and felt like we might at last be getting some traction in achieving the so-called “American Dream.” feedback@thepunch.com.au (Joe Bageant) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/time-for-workers-to-take-back-the-golden-age-for-themselves/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/time-for-workers-to-take-back-the-golden-age-for-themselves/#item470 Fri, 26 Jun 2009 20:50:17 +0000 Joe Bageant | Author bios | The Punch