Deer Hunting With Jesus

Deer Hunting With Jesus

One of the few books I've read on "class" in America. If we want some changes (which the author says we don't) keeping abreast of the reality of class is paramount. We don't attack the  issue because we don't see it. This book is a "shout out" about "class." If we are not careful, we become part of the problem.  

Although the book is several years old,  even more relevant today. It speaks to the "Trump" phenom--easy to discern that the working class would support Trump who plays to their ignorance. The book isn't about politics, rather where we are in America as relates to class and an entire group of citizens who have been left behind. 

The military is a good example of what the book is trying to get at, at least I think so. We do in fact have a "de facto" draft: they are the children of the working poor who have run out of options. For these youngsters who get in the military and excel, inconceivable possibilities happen that they never would have known are reachable. 

Even the military could not rescue Lynddie England, remember her? The book touches on her decent into an existence that merely extends what she has known: bad choices. Because of her "class," she never had a chance--ignorant, uneducated, left behind. She was destined to be one of the Abu Ghraib screw-ups. 

The military provides the opportunity to excel, to rise above what they've known. But, let's not for a moment think the military is representative of our culture, cause it ain't. It is the defacto draft; and, the defacto draft, now called, All Volunteer Force, is a far cry from what Mort Friedman and the Secretary of Defense, at the time, Mel Laird,  envisioned. Major F..k up. 

The great cry and hue, "support the troops" at sports events especially, sounds pretty hollow when we realize that it is in fact the kids of the working poor who are fighting and dying in America's ill conceived wars.