Rating: 
Summary: The people of St. Johns would be surprised...
Review: The people who live in the St. Johns district of Portland,Oregon, (about 50 miles from here) would be surprised to know thatthey live in a place described as "redneck, blue-collar, white trash. Low rent. Low class. Lowlife. Truckers, welders, meth dealers, pit bulls, rotted picket fences. An old, faded-pea-soup-colored suspension bridge spans the Willamette River over to Forest Park's sinsemilla-green hills." A little harsh... All of this is in the chapter titled "White niggers have feelings, too", which is fairly typical of the book. The author is a self-proclaimed "redneck"; a veritable champion of rednecks. A hater of those who attack the working class with slurs like, "gap-toothed, inbred, uncivilized, violent, and hopelessly DUMB." Now, who does that? ...I am a self-proclaimed redneck--and yet, for humor, I run "redneck jokes" fairly regularly. Jeff Foxworthy is notorious for the same thing, and apparently he has an intimate acquaintance with the people from whom he gets his material. I don't hate the working class. I love them. Apparently Mr. Good sees a vast injustice being done to the people with whom he identifies, while Foxworthy and I see humor. The dust jacket proclaims that he has an "unmatched ability for rubbing salt in cultural wounds." If you are angry, and feel victimized, and want to read a book that fans your anger and provides justification for your feelings, this may be your book. It is well-written, and Jim Goad certainly has a viewpoint. If, on the other hand, you have learned to laugh at the incongruous frustrations that we all encounter while we make the best of the hand we have been dealt in life, maybe you'll be better off to take a pass on this one. It is the complaint of a very angry young man. Joseph Pierre
Rating: 
Summary: Enlightening
Review: Buy this book and you're guaranteed to learn something about our past that you didn't know. However, I do think the author rants a little too much from time to time, straying from the subject of the book. For example, chapter 7 is "why I don't believe in God". I don't mind reading his points of view, but he probably should have wrote additional books to talk about these other subjects.
Rating: 
Summary: Like a thunderbolt, by fermed
Review: It requires having at least two senses sharply honed to appreciate (or even perceive) what this book is about: a sense of humor and a sense of justice. This is a hilarious, rambunctious, turbulent march through the carefully tended gardens of left-wing righteousness. It is a joy to see Goad gore every sacred cow in sight, and lots of bulls, too. He forces his readers to question the correctness of their concepts of American class, race, and privilege. I lived for many years in the US South, and learned through experience never to take at face value those who pretend to be semi-literate hicks of one sort or another. Goad attempts precisely that shtick, but behind it is a highly informed, analytical, and sharp mind. A book that should be taken seriously despite itself.
Rating: 
Summary: A Squandered Opportunity
Review: Goad makes some good points, but takes them too far. He points out that there were white slaves for example. Fine, we needed to be reminded, but to imply that poor whites have therefore suffered as much as blacks...I don't think so. The book starts out at top volume and screams with anger throughout. Like all good screeds, it starts out electrifying and ends up being merely annoying. Goad's real beef is with hypocrites, not with liberals. Aside from Patrick Buchanan, I can't think of too many on the right who understand that race is an artificial concept used to divide the working class. Because of its repetitive rants and hysterical tone, this book will change no one's mind. But in any case It's doubtful that Goad's purpose was to convince anyone, which is a shame. Reading time on white poverty is better spent on All Souls, or Angela's Ashes, for that matter. Those books might show limousine liberals that poor whites have a soul. This book only confirms their worst suspicions.
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Summary: The Redneck Manifesto: Outrageous Truths?
Review: This book is a scathing critique of political correctness and a spirited defense of the white working class. I believe the main points of the book are: 1. Lower class white people, especially from the south and Appalachia, are being scapegoated and made to take the blame for all of America's sins. 2. America's "dirtiest little secret" is not racism but classism, and 3. Multiculturalism and political correctness are upper class philosophies which serve the interests of the upper classes by keeping the lower clases divided. Despite the biting, caustic nature of the book, I believe Mr. Goad presents an effective argument. He has done a thorough job of research and marshalled much evidence in support of his position. The book will be considered outrageous and offensive by some, but the truth sometimes is offensive. The book is uneven in some ways - I believe his argument defending hate groups will be considered unacceptable to many. However, I believe the book contains enough truth to make it necesary reading for anyone truly concerned about the problems facing America today
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Summary: Now . . . Have I got your attention!
Review: Author Jim Goad fills his book with words rarely used in daily conversations. In fact, if all of them were removed, we would get a very thin volume . . . one that would bore us to tears. He wants to get our attention. He wants to get in our face. And, he succeeds brilliantly. To think of Goad as a country hick barely able to string two words together would be a grievous mistake. His thirteen pages of notes at the back of the book and his six pages of bibliography should be adequate warning to anyone but the most obtuse that we are dealing with a first rate intellect. He has a message to deliver - using the redneck image and gutter language is his way of doing it. If you want to negate the message by getting rid of the messenger, come prepared . . . but first, put your professional affairs in order. Where is Jim Goad coming from? Turn to the last chapter and read, "Some people probably assume I was born a shit-kicker . . . presume I've never pondered the liberal platform's glorious wisdom . . . Funny thing, I used to identify myself as a liberal. I used to be one of THEM. I'm a recovering liberal. That's what makes me such a slippery eel. If I seem unnecessarily angry with American liberalism, it's because I feel betrayed by it. I'm mad at white liberalism like I'm mad at Christianity - because it's a lie that I once believed in." A person may wander, seemingly aimlessly, if they get their religion and politics knocked out from under them. Jim is all over the landscape, lashing out at this and that and everything else. He seems to be an equal opportunity hater and basher. But, again, appearances can be deceiving. My view is that, inadvertently or not, he has taken a necessary first step to get us out of the messes he relates in such detail. I recently wrote, "Taking the masks off is the first step to finding out what causes our social ills and what might cure them." Jim Goad has taken our masks off and it's not a pretty sight, just I suspected. I contended, "Wearing masks is essential for civilized societies," but removing them from time to time is essential for political progress. Medical progress depended on someone doing the dirty work of dissecting human bodies and finding out what was really there. Likewise, someone has to dissect our political bodies and find out what is really there. The first human dissections were pretty crude and didn't yield that much information, but they progressed over the centuries to where Andreas Vesalius (1514-1564) could publish beautifully illustrated drawings of the human body based on meticulous dissections. Someday, a new 'Vesalius' will give us the beautifully illustrated drawings of political bodies needed for political progress. But first, we need the crude drawings, and that is what Jim Goad has provided in "The Redneck Manifesto."
Rating:
Summary: An Important and Very, Very Funny Book
Review: Jim Goad comes out of the wilderness and delivers a polemic against the mainstream media and academia that one can only wonder how he got a publisher. Don't be fooled by the title: this book is not about white power; it's about big money. Goad points out, with conviction, that it's the liberals, not the rightwing Republican, that have divided the country. Read it!
Rating:
Summary: Mediocre
Review: This book started out interesting as a diatribe against the while ruling liberal and conservative class. I agree that working class whites and blacks should bind with each other. The book lost me when it evolved into a self-help book. That last chapter "How to Make Love to A Redneck" was not something at all called for. I'm a Redneck woman, and I sure can't be gotten in the sack just because you promise me a ride on a Harley afterwards. Now maybe if you were to offer me a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon...
Rating:
Summary: Er...well...um...y'see...
Review: ...basically, I think Goad's put his finger on something very real and important; being a working-class white male myself, I must confess to turning one or another shade of crimson (and not just on my neck) whenever I hear some rich, Harvard-educated, brownstone-dwelling, cigar bar-frequenting, cappucino-sipping (and usually lily-white) "limo-lib" lovingly preserving his (or her) most cherished Archie Bunkerian stereotypes about us blue-collar slobbereenies. But I think there's a huge difference between pointing out the hypocrisies and rhetorical excesses of overclass pseudoradicalism and making a sweeping dismissal of the entire liberal enterprise. Goad has hit upon one of the most neglected truths in American society: racism, sexism, homophobia, and other leftist bugaboos notwithstanding, class is by far the biggest and most entrenched of social dividers. But rather than use this insight as a springboard for a more class-conscious approach to positive social change, Goad chooses (and seemingly encourages his readership to choose) to retreat into a world of political apathy, unrelenting self-pity, and perverse "pride" in some of the more tragic manifestations of trailer-park poverty. He sees his earlier attempts to improve his socialeconomic footing as not only futile (which may or may not be true) but also as somehow a betrayal of his heritage (which, I'm sorry, is just plain pathetic; it's like the ghetto-dweller who attacks his "overachieving" neighbors as "acting white.") The last thing the poor of any race need, however, is to embrace their poverty as a badge of honor. For a more thoughtful (and far less vitriolic) consideration of many of the same issues, I would suggest "The Revolt Of The Elites" by Christopher Lasch.
Rating:
Summary: He's angry and he has good reason.
Review: Under the vitriole and inflamatory rhetoric, the author gets his point across: that it is "politically correct" to disparage the people collectively known as "white trash". Goad appears to have reached his limit with this point of view. He points to the realities of white poverty and uproots the absurdity of comparisons between rich white executive and poor "minorities"
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