I lost a friend today, even though he was a friend I had never met.

It was 2007 when I bought Joe Bageant's book "Deer Hunting With Jesus," which he subtitled "Dispatches from America's Class War" and which explained quite well why it is liberals have lost all touch with working-class Americans.

It was a wonderful book, and from that day forward I found myself visiting Bageant's <a title="Joe Bageant" href="http://www.joebageant.com/" target="_self">Website</a> to read everything else he wrote about what is happening to our country. He came out with a second book in 2010 -- "Rainbow Pie" -- that until just recently wasn't even for sale in this country. I had to order it through Amazon's UK store to be able to read it.

[caption id="attachment_973" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Joe Bageant, 1946-2011"]<a href="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/bageant2_4.8.09.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-973" title="bageant2_4.8.09" src="http://mikerappaport.net/onevoice/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/bageant2_4.8.09-300x215.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="215" /></a>[/caption]

I found myself listening to interviews he did -- mostly in other countries -- on the Internet and watching videos on YouTube. Bageant was saying things that either weren't being said by other writers or at least weren't being said anywhere near as well as he was saying them.

But late in 2010, he wasn't posting as often on his site, and on January 4th of this year, he put a short note on the site that said he was undergoing chemotherapy for an extremely serious form of cancer.