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| 1451697384
| 9781451697384
| 1451697384
| 4.16
| 26,262
| Sep 16, 2014
| Sep 16, 2014
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it was amazing
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Quite simply: A very important book. Yes, it does cover a lot of the same ground we're being smothered with -- the ongoing ecological disaster, the ent Quite simply: A very important book. Yes, it does cover a lot of the same ground we're being smothered with -- the ongoing ecological disaster, the entrenchment of heartless capitalism, the seemingly insurmountable problem of mobilization when we're fighting with our own zeitgeist and fatalism -- but this nonfiction work has a one fantastic thing going for it. It's extremely well-written and engaging. Deeply researched, polarizing, and fact-based. And when I say polarizing, I mean polarizing in the way we can choose either life... or death. This book is years old by now and new facts have only made our current situation even more damning, but the core is still as valid as ever. There are still a lot of people hell-bent on trying to raid the treasure of the earth at the expense of destroying everything in their path. The profit motive is absolutely to blame. Regular people are stuck with no good choices, no valid alternatives, and everyone else is getting poisoned by fracking. And when I mean everyone, I mean all life. We can't simplify this problem without ignoring the system that every part relies upon, and the system itself is failing at a faster rate than ever. It's not enough to see a tweet here or there or discover yet another massive abuse of power, trust, or might-makes-right, be it oil companies, globalization, dwindling resources, or capital itself. This book does a fine job walking us down a great, wide path of our very much worsened problem. There is hope, too, but most of it boils down to ALL of us getting our act together, mobilizing the rest of humanity to just say NO to the looters, before we can make real change. Mass movements DO make a big difference. Organization makes BETTER difference. We all need to work together. Post haste. Or do we want to discover a dead ocean next? How about the rest of our power failing with temperatures up to 56 C everywhere? Or how about the plain simple fact of poisoned water... everywhere. We're looking at mass death. Either we get off the pot or we're gonna get flushed with the rest of the shit. So. Yeah. It's a polarizing book. Do we want to live or die? ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jul 24, 2023
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Jul 26, 2023
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Jul 24, 2023
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Hardcover
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| 4.20
| 3,470
| Mar 28, 2017
| Mar 28, 2017
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it was amazing
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When it comes to sussing out the state of our world and all the factors that contribute to where we've wound up, I'm not a slouch. I've read hundreds
When it comes to sussing out the state of our world and all the factors that contribute to where we've wound up, I'm not a slouch. I've read hundreds of books and have followed so much news and have discovered, again and again, that Noam Chomsky *Knows His Shit*. Just from the standpoint that he has also been one of those intellectuals with a fantastic memory, unimpeachable logic, and a burning heart, I should mention that he should be read just because he cares. The title of this book is pretty inflammatory, no? But my advice is this: read it for the information within. I've read a lot of books that back up each of these concise points in vast detail. So why should anyone read THIS particular book, though? Because it's diamond-sharp, doesn't waste a single second of time getting to the point, and it IS based on facts. It should come as no surprise that almost everyone is getting disenfranchised while the rich and powerful are getting more rich and powerful by the second. If you want to get that breakdown in a very short period of time, you would do much worse than to consider this a brilliant primer. Get your foot in the door. It's not like the world is getting better. Don't fall for PR or pyrrhic victories. The causes of our problems are still here. We need to understand the problems before we can cure them, and no amount of palliative care is worth the time. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Nov 23, 2020
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Nov 23, 2020
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Nov 19, 2020
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Kindle Edition
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| 1510712739
| 9781510712737
| 1510712739
| 4.23
| 728
| 2016
| Oct 11, 2016
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it was amazing
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This book is somewhat unique in claiming, sometimes rightly so, that it talks about the topics that modern political discourse completely disregards. I This book is somewhat unique in claiming, sometimes rightly so, that it talks about the topics that modern political discourse completely disregards. It's not that the subject material (the growing disparity between the rich and the disenfranchised, the total consumption of wealth by military spending, the complete lack of regard for those who don't already have power) isn't real. It's freaking obvious. So obvious it's pervasive and stifling. No. The point of this book is to say the quiet part loud. Chris Hedges was a war correspondent -- and not just a normal one that sat in safe hotels waiting for safe tidbits to drop into his lap. He was out in the field and broke news about war atrocities. In other words, he made enemies by following his standard of morals and his sense of right. Throughout his career, and making mistakes that sometimes might not be considered mistakes, but simply the revolutionary idea of standing up for the ideal of truth, he soldiered on. Whether it was speaking the truth about Iraq's involvement in 9/11, atrocities in Kosovo, prison riots in the States that were more about heating elements to keep the inmates fed, rather than the idea of anarchy, or whether it was about the real tragedy of the Occupy Movement or even Nelson Mandella, the tragedy of the anti-war movement of the '70s or the wry legitimization of war in the '80s under a guise, truth always seemed to die. Hedges, like Chomsky, has a razor-sharp focus. He refuses to let the standard line get in the way of good reporting. You know, the reporting that we have now. The kind that comes out of money, that relies on big money, that bows before war efforts, corporations, banks, and the blindness of ideals. He doesn't care what side of a line anyone is on. He has plenty to say about the Right and the Left, and much more to say about the underlying problems of the class divide, institutional racism, and the rise of the current fascism. Make no mistake. It may seem like old hat now, but he was writing about this long before it became a common household theme. For this, I can thank him for bringing up all this long before it became a thing on a lot of people's radars. Suffice to say, we need more of this unflinching honesty and devotion to truth. Everywhere. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Nov 23, 2020
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Nov 24, 2020
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Nov 19, 2020
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Hardcover
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| 178873985X
| 9781788739856
| 178873985X
| 3.88
| 1,408
| 2020
| Sep 22, 2020
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it was amazing
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For someone who has mainly devoted his ecological reading to old carbon-tax discussions and the grandiosity of a total ecological disaster (in many bo
For someone who has mainly devoted his ecological reading to old carbon-tax discussions and the grandiosity of a total ecological disaster (in many books), I feel as if I'm coming into the Global Green New Deal topic rather late. You know, because so many other things have been going on. Like social inequality, the rise of fascism, possible nuclear winter, global pandemics... the list is huge. And pressing. And because of all that, when we hear about the need to put our collective political will in gear to fix a problem that is going to affect our children and our children's children HARD, and much harder than we're feeling it now with the rising heat and massive fires, we all tend think... hey... well... yeah, it's bad (when we're not being climate change deniers) but it's FAR AWAY and HARD. Ahem. Yeah. Well. It's going to be even harder when none of us can afford the electric bill for our air conditioner when what we really need is 14 air conditioners for a single apartment. And that's not even bringing up the subject of mass deaths across the world because it's just too hot. Period. So what, exactly, is THIS book about? It's a straightforward interview including both Naom Chomsky and Robert Pollin. Pollin is the expert on the topic of getting ourselves into a good position to achieve the ecological goals. Naom Chomsky is just a brilliant man who happens to remember everything he's read and has been at the forefront of two fields: Linguistics and, later in life, politics and current events and how they apply to wonderfully analyzed trends. Having read and watched many documentaries with Naom Chomsky, I'm something of a huge fan and believe that everyone should pay close attention to all that he says. He breaks things down in ways that are stunningly clear. And he also refuses to shy away from voicing his own opinions while being very clear that they are just opinions. He doesn't conflate analysis with subjectivity. As for Pollin, I learned a lot of interesting facts about the Global Green New Deal. First of all, it takes its name from FDR's New Deal stance. Mobilizing a HUGE portion of society toward one end. It's possible. It may even be likely at the eleventh hour, when all hope has been lost, that we might even GO THERE. But then, the book does give equal time to the HOPEFULLNESS and logical steps that governments and political movements to pressure those governments would have to take in order to move toward a task that would still take 10 to 30 years to even accomplish, and it also gives time to the absolute absurdity of what we CURRENTLY HAVE. Some high points: Dropping oil and logging is not an apocalypse. There is a LOT of financial opportunities in alternative energy. And I'm not just talking about the existing economic giants getting on board, but for all the existing workers who make a living in the old industry. Making money and selling alternative energy is CURRENTLY on par with oil. Careers AND the price in the end-products. Things have changed from 15 years ago. Being knowledgeable about the current field is NOT a luxury we can forgo. Living with the fear that everything is going to hell kinda begs the question: WHY are we living with a fear of change when the change is all for our benefit? We all need to drop the old assumptions and look toward re-tooling ourselves en-masse. It really is a global concern. It affects everyone of every political motive. And yet, like the pandemic, people are turning it into a selling point. It should never have been a bone of contention. It is POSSIBLE to pull it off. Unfortunately, we need EVERYONE on board. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Nov 2020
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Nov 02, 2020
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Oct 30, 2020
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Paperback
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| 1594206015
| 9781594206016
| 1594206015
| 4.06
| 1,077
| May 19, 2020
| May 19, 2020
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it was amazing
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Barton Gellman, formerly of The Washington Post, was one of three journalists — including filmmaker Laura Poitras and Glenn Greenwald, who Snowden con
Barton Gellman, formerly of The Washington Post, was one of three journalists — including filmmaker Laura Poitras and Glenn Greenwald, who Snowden contacted after a fairly lengthy vetting process. He wanted and needed journalists of the highest integrity. Gellman himself was rather an interesting choice. From his own book, he was rather lukewarm to Snowden and made some serious errors of judgment when it came to leaking Snowden's online identity, burning him in the process, but it became water under the bridge, later. Having watched documentaries and having read Snowden's autobiography, I'm pretty on top of the whole subject, so while there wasn't a lot of new material here: Snowden's early life, how he was trusted by the NSA and how he could, scarily, research almost anything on anyone and tell you how it was accomplished, and to his ethical decision to reveal to the public just how EVERYONE was spied on. This isn't new. We all know by now that the agencies grab ALL the information, whether you're a US citizen or not. It's basically the end of privacy and it's only the fact that the people in those positions of power SAY they're not using it for nefarious reasons that we have any desire to TAKE THEM AT THEIR WORD. There's no transparency, and that's the meaning behind the title in this book. They can see anything anyone else does, but THEY are shrouded in secrecy. This book takes a very middle-of-the-road approach. It insists on nothing other than objectivity and proof -- but that was never really in doubt. Compared to any day in public political discourse, the revelations from Snowden shines like a happy beacon of truth rising high above the poisoned apples littering the ditch of Facebook. It's not hyperbole. Snowden was a whistleblower who took, and then judiciously released, after much deliberation, damning information. Gellman gives voice to the OTHER side of the coin, the coin that says that rulebreakers should all be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. But he does it while also making sure that Snowden's ethical concerns were given full credence. It's the universal question: We need watchdogs, yes, but who watches the watchdogs? What happens when the NSA can pull up -- everything -- on the Supreme Court? The protections against that are almost nonexistent. You have to trust in the inherent goodness of everyone in the NSA. If a certain administration with a massive disregard for rules manages to find someone with hawk-tendencies in the NSA, what is to say that they can't use the full might of the NSA to quash all his political enemies? Who is to say it hasn't already happened? This is why we need transparency. And this is why Snowden is important. We need a light shone on these things. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Nov 02, 2020
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Nov 03, 2020
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Oct 30, 2020
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Hardcover
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| 1400040485
| 9781400040483
| 1400040485
| 4.21
| 2,910
| Oct 16, 2018
| Oct 16, 2018
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it was amazing
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I generally avoid speaking directly about political issues in my public life, but recent events have made me reconsider my stance. I always considered I generally avoid speaking directly about political issues in my public life, but recent events have made me reconsider my stance. I always considered myself a rather balanced person and I am STILL always willing to consider dissenting opinions on any subject so long as they are well-formed, respectful, and not explicitly designed to incite violent reactions. I am American by birth, ideology, and natural gravity even if I no longer live within its borders. That doesn't mean I remain unmoved or less deeply invested in the amazing devolution of my home country. I am an avid reader of news articles, social media, and I pay close attention to political trends, big decisions, and all the implications. I've been doing it since the late '80s. I never wanted to side with any particular party because none were all that admirable. So I kept my eyes open, tried to remain objective, and made up my mind on individual issues throughout current events and events from history that NEVER SEEM TO HAVE AN END. One thing I can say, however, is that I've always respected Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Everything she stood for, fought for, and cleverly defended, I can easily say, "She speaks for me." This book tells me, in particular, nothing new about the big judgments, from women's rights to modern-version desegregation. Nor does it lessen the horror that I feel, as RBG felt, to the devaluation of human life, the loss of reproductive rights, or the loss of the separation of church and state. It does, however, re-instill an urgency, an immediacy, and the necessity to FIGHT FOR WHAT WE BELIEVE IN. Me, I believe in cooperation, honesty, real justice, equality, and inclusiveness. I never thought I'd have to even SAY it. I thought, as an American, that all of that was a GIVEN. It isn't. Not by a long shot. And if you know and respect RBG, you know how close to the edge we all stand before we lose it all. Work together. Think together. Do everything we can to protect our liberties. We're all in this together. Don't let the few dictate the reality of our good majority. Losing RBG was hard enough. We must all step up and be rational. Think strategically. Look toward the long-term goal. Don't let the Machiavellians drag the rest of us through the mud. Peace. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Sep 23, 2020
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Sep 24, 2020
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Sep 22, 2020
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Hardcover
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| 0316300136
| 9780316300131
| 0316300136
| 3.88
| 34,324
| Oct 06, 2020
| Oct 06, 2020
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it was amazing
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You know, the first time I saw the title and the cover, I thought this would be a far-future SF, not a near-future prediction. I'm happy to be wrong. I You know, the first time I saw the title and the cover, I thought this would be a far-future SF, not a near-future prediction. I'm happy to be wrong. I'm even happier to have loved this novel from the first page to the last. Indeed, over the last 8 years of new novels, I've loved everything that KSR has written, being duly impressed about his improvement with characters and his truly fantastic grasp of science, politics, history, economics, and future speculation. Indeed, my only complaints have ever been about his characters who usually feel a bit more like vehicles for stories and especially IDEAS more than people, but for this book, it wasn't the case. I was brought to tears several times. However, I need to be very clear on this: KSR's strength is absolutely and utterly in ideas. I feel like I just read an accessible novel that outlines all of the biggest real-thought on climate change and possible solutions while having it all put through the meat-grinder of real-politics, real-people, and enormous ongoing tragedies. The book starts out with millions dying of heat in India. It picks up with angry people worldwide demanding change and butting heads, devolving into assassinations, new politics, massive setbacks, economic upheavals, MORE climate disasters hitting the affluent people, more chaos, new legislation, MORE political upheaval, more dead, and economic systems that are both familiar and much more complicated than most of us have ever really researched TODAY. I mean, some of us have. Bitchains, UBIs, carbon monetary systems (not as in burning it, but drawing it out of the atmosphere), and the eventual re-greening of the Earth. And it's a lot more complicated and gloriously explored than anything I can get into with a simple review, but the BOOK does a fantastic job of outlining a gloriously chaotic near-future that would, in other times, be considered a bonafide classic. The book, frankly, is rich, deserves immense respect, lots of thought, and public discourse. Maybe most of us are burned out by the seeming impossibility of getting a New Green Deal, one where the new jobs come directly from creating a sustainable future. But maybe what we really need are the ideas firmly planted in our heads, complete with plans, backup plans, backup-backup plans, and awareness of all the ways it could all go wrong (and will) so we're not blindsided when we lose four billion people (minimum) in the next 30 years. This novel should be THAT talking point. For how tragic it is, it's FULL of great thought and, dare I say it, HOPE. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jan 21, 2021
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Jan 25, 2021
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Sep 01, 2020
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Hardcover
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| 071780397X
| 9780717803972
| 071780397X
| 4.20
| 5,084
| 1947
| Nov 24, 1971
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it was amazing
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Without writing a book on this book (and believe me, I'm tempted) I'm going to try to keep this simple. However, this classic working-Marxist text is Without writing a book on this book (and believe me, I'm tempted) I'm going to try to keep this simple. However, this classic working-Marxist text is anything but simple. The first more-than-half of it has enough variations on political principles to make an Ism out of Isms, going into vast detail about enough 1910-1930 Italian politics INCLUDING the rise of Mussolini, post-revolution Russia political movements, and even some French. As for me, I know enough history to be slightly dangerous, but trying to follow THIS Trotskian/Italian Fascism/polemical nightmare without having BEEN there and STEEPED in the times makes me realize that I am out of my depth. Slightly. BUT these Selections from the Prison Notebooks come with a pretty awesome bonus. It has commentary. Whew!!! Getting something out of the almost Naturalist descriptions, all the play-by-play political dealings of all these countries as they undergo a Marxist transformation, is more of a matter of letting the IDEAS sink in rather than hearing a formal statement. Indeed, the text is full of short maxims that felt more like reading Nietzsche than anything resembling a Social Science. However, for me at least, none of THAT was as impressive or thought-provoking as what came in the second half of his writings. The rest is philosophy. Fine philosophy that tries to drag the study of massive social movements out of the realm of art and into the realm of science. I swear, he was probably trying to pull a Wittgenstein on his logic, but really, I know he was just pulling a Hegelian argument. Here's the weird thing about Gramsci: most of the later Marxist thinkers love the hell out of him, but first they had to pour over his overly complicated text to root out those rare nuggets of wisdom like pigs hunting for truffles. There is nothing overly clear about anything he has written. Almost ALL of my understanding of Gramsci comes from the (much) later commentaries. Some exceptions exist, however. I got the clear impression that Common Sense, in the parlance that he uses it, is the core of any nascent or growing political theory. But Common Sense, as he uses it, is often very uncommon and is almost ALWAYS used to drive the unthinking masses into positions that may not (or likely probably not) be in their best interests. It's the idea that if you want to drive the people to do what you want, then first you must convince them that YOUR ideas are simple Common Sense whether or not it has anything to do with whether it BENEFITS them or not. A common modern example is using any or all of the moral foundations See Here to whip a people into a frenzy (Pro-Life, for example,) and use this as a COMPLETE platform to push through a wide set of policies that will probably drain the constituents of all their self-respect, drive them to perform horrendous acts of racism, or even steal their money -- but it's perfectly valid because at least the prime tenet of (Pro-Life) is kept sacrosanct. As Gramsci would put it, you must never get so intellectual that you lose the heart of the argument, and never be so emotionally riled up that you lose the core intellectual awesomeness. In other words, you always need to find that sweet spot and change tactics for your audience. (Gramsci was never so straightforward, however. We get our modern concepts of this from him, distilled over time and use.) Another great (or disturbing) feature of Gramsci is the full, detailed descriptions of how Fascism came to its rise in Italy. How it could convince so many people to dehumanize and create enemies out of the other side. It is a slow, painstaking process, but please refer to the Moral Foundations Theory I linked to above and couple it with massive, massive repetitions. This is the core of changing the basic Common Sense of a people. If you change the dialogue, if you change the fundamental NARRATIVE, then you can drive people to believe and do ANYTHING. As people in Italy used to say, "Eh, I hate fascism, but at least they got the trains to run on time." LET'S NOT TAKE THIS AS A GREAT EXAMPLE, EH? After all, a little intelligence can get any train to run on time. It doesn't take fascism to do anything except have a whole people eat itself. All in all, this is some pretty interesting food for thought. And trust me, I barely scratched the surface. I hope I piqued your interest, however. If we don't know our history, we will always be doomed to repeat it. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Sep 04, 2020
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Sep 08, 2020
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Aug 23, 2020
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Paperback
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| 1439914850
| 9781439914854
| 1439914850
| 4.62
| 184
| 2017
| Jul 01, 2017
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it was amazing
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I think this will be a hard book for people in academia to accept. Not because there isn't a mountain of evidence displaying not only the misandry of b I think this will be a hard book for people in academia to accept. Not because there isn't a mountain of evidence displaying not only the misandry of black men, because there is a big movement to maintain and further their entire erasure from the discussion. What? Men are included, aren't they? We have reportings of their deaths almost every single day. I mean, just look at the news. This one was shot, this one was brutalized, this one... oh. Wait. These are just bodies. Did you want to talk about the actual MEN? Well, no. We only assume they are about to become a statistic. Black MEN are not worthy of study despite a mountain of evidence proving that they are raped as often as women. Their suicide rates, depending on age, is 4-6 times higher than women. Job opportunities are much less available compared to black women, and it gets much, much worse after having the stigma of having been incarcerated. And they are arrested, searched, and brutalized at a much, much higher rate than any other sex or race, and often for only trumped-up reasons. And yet, they are only studied as their dead bodies. There is a major disconnect here. When men's balls are literally being crushed so as to need hospitalization, when plunger handles are used to penetrate men, is this not the definition of rape? When the numbers prove they aren't isolated examples, but pervasive and sickening, is this not WORTHY of study? Let's face it. Academia has its own misandry and racism to acknowledge. When papers and books, even when they are monumentally well-researched, are not published because they don't set the right "narrative" about the plight of women, or about LGBTQ, they are, in effect, ERASING a whole CLASS of men (MEN, mind you, as defined by feminists). When we talk of toxic masculinity, of patriarchy, of anything like this, it is NOT based on actual evidence. Do not look at a class struggle in the same light as a sexual struggle, because the theories will come crashing down. Men, not just black men, are victims of class struggles too. Poverty doesn't give men a patriarchal advantage. It's completely absurd, with all the additional factors aligned against black men, that they are automatically the beneficiaries of male privilege. Look at the actual evidence instead of pushing an ideological theory. Neither men nor women are saints. One should not use intersectionality to dehumanize ANYONE. As for this book, please read it as the academic eye-opener that it is. This work is about the erasure of men. So much talk goes on about "how they bring it on themselves," or "how to strip them from their actual gender identity," or to dismiss them on the basis of a perceived but unfactual arguments that have become fashionable in the rise of feminism. And by the way, dehumanizing men just because they are men is called misandry. Both men and women are guilty of it. The NEWS is guilty of it. Academia is guilty of it. Politics is guilty of it. None of us are perfect, but disenfranchising a whole class of people is, in actual fact, the definition of prejudice. Be aware. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Sep 2020
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Sep 02, 2020
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Aug 11, 2020
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Hardcover
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| 4.52
| 110,357
| Jan 05, 2010
| Jan 05, 2010
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it was amazing
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A little bit of honesty here: This is an extremely important book that too few people will read. "Why?" Because it tackles the systemic institutional r A little bit of honesty here: This is an extremely important book that too few people will read. "Why?" Because it tackles the systemic institutional racism issue and breaks down all the many aspects that turn it into a full-blown machine. "Wait. Huh? Why wouldn't people want to have that?" Because it's understandably complicated and people are afraid of complicated. "Oh. Right." But this does not mean it shouldn't be read. Indeed, I think everyone should read it and understand it. I've personally been reading about things like this for ages. Bits and pieces. Never the whole picture. And this one ISN'T the whole picture because no short-ish book can tackle it all. But this one DOES tackle a rather large portion of it. I won't be able to mention them all here, but I'll do some: Alexander brings up the historical aspect in brief and specifically how, during the race riots 50-60 years ago the whole idea of even mentioning race became a taboo subject. I think this is very important. If racism is at all to have a future, it must be couched in innocuous terms, and deniable policies or the "obviousness" of it would get all kinds of human rights violations thrown at them. The whole point was to create a new system where they could create a permanent underclass while avoiding racial terms while ALSO making it mostly about race. Solution? Make a drug war. Ignore the fact that drug-related offenses were going down. Find something everyone can unilaterally agree upon during the '80s, hype it up WAY out of proportion to the actual problem, and turn it into a class/race specific issue without directly calling it a race thing. The author backs up everything with all kinds of proof, easily verified with 20/20 hindsight, but the vast majority of drug users were white. Crack cocaine was only as addictive as regular cocaine. Alcohol abuse is MUCH worse than cocaine, crack, or especially marijuana, but since crack was actually unloaded upon black communities SPECIFICALLY, shortly after America's involvement in the drug cartels in the '80s, it was fair game to focus almost ALL attention on crack, and specifically, the horrendously pervasive narratives about its danger. Anyone alive during the time will remember a deluge of ads, focus groups, MILITARY HARDWARE being gifted to police departments everywhere, and new laws that specifically allowed the seizure of property, homes, and vehicles on only SUSPECTED drug use. Think about it. If someone calls a tip line saying you're up to no good, and you're black, this is all they need to blast down your door, freeze your bank accounts and take all your property. This is not PROOF of wrongdoing. And guess who gets the property? The cops are allowed to keep it all to fund the war on drugs directly. Add to this that racial profiling is VERY much a proven thing and that it is pervasive, with sometimes more than 4 times as many blacks getting subjected to this and most of them too poor to buy off the racket, it means widespread poverty with no recourse. And then we get to the good stuff. The prison system. Since the '80s, the prison system grew to an unimaginable size with MOST of the people in jail being black men. Why? Because most of them are there because of draconian laws on drug possession. Even though alcohol is objectively worse across the board, it is relatively light and is almost always focused on treating the problem. In other countries, sentences are described in terms of months, not a minimum of 5 years for possession. And yet, the whole IDEA of being TOUGH ON CRIME seems too GOOD to be TRUE, right? Well, yeah. It IS too good to be true. The collateral damage is pervasive. Already poor people who have suffered "soft" segregation and housing issues are villainized further with all the same arguments made by plantation owners against their slaves. The forward-looking politicians of either side embraced these narratives equally. On the surface, it FEELS right. And that's the point. Let's not look at the conditions that keep an entire people in fear of losing everything, let's blame the ones who already have practically nothing for being angry that they have practically nothing. And then wonder why they're upset. Oh! Let's send in more cops to clean up the streets! (Meanwhile more folk lose their houses whether or not they're actually guilty of anything. Take the case of the grandparents who lose their house because a grandchild was caught smoking crack two blocks away. Multiply truly egregious cases like that by thousands, and you might get a better idea.) And then we come to one of the worst aspects of all this. Post-incarceration. We all know that felons are massively discriminated against. It's almost like it's a law. Denied jobs, denied schooling, denied housing, denied hope. It's a perpetual system of punishment going on far, far longer than a prison sentence. Basically, the feeling goes, if you do the time, it'll be permanent. Permanent underclass. So let's look at the judicial system a bit. Most cop dramas are pure narrative. And what I mean by that is that they are NOT accurately portraying the system we have. If a poor person gets a lawyer (and predominately, those arrested are black) they are generally always pressured to plea bargain. This means that whether they actually INNOCENT or not, they're pressured to do the time because the free lawyers are extremely overworked and don't have the time to do anything else with an overburdened system designed to target blacks. Again, the author does her homework and because there are so many obvious cases like this, it's become something of a dark joke. What isn't clear to most people put into this position is this: once you're branded a felon, you stay one for the rest of your living life. Most get their driver's licenses revoked. Their right to vote is revoked. Many of these aspects are done in such a way as to be a "soft" prevention, such as needing to pay, in perpetuity, legal fees, probation fees, even whopping $750 fines to just be allowed the right to vote again. When 100% of your paycheck can be garnished to pay for the legal costs (and many, many incidentals) after your getting out of prison, you are permanently locked into a no-win situation with no way out. Now, combine this with tough on crime laws that target blacks WAY more than anyone else, who pull you over for minor traffic violations and then rifle through your vehicles, maybe finding a dime bag of marijuana, getting arrested, put through the plea-bargain machine, do several years, and then been way below the fact of poverty and be turned away ANYWHERE you go afterward... because you smoked marijuana while being black. All of this is compounded as a huge social issue happening to millions and millions of people all the time. At one point, the prisons were 40% filled on drug possession charges. And afterward, after the meat-grinder of the justice system is done with you, all your prospects for a decent life dry up. No, of course not, we don't call this racism now. It's NOT about race. It's about being tough on crime. In a perpetual punitive system that just HAPPENS to focus on mostly black people. The whites who tend to USE the drugs more is just a weird fact. For all those whites that go to jail under the same rules, it's considered collateral damage. But since the ones that are hurt the most are the ones who are already poor, too, it doesn't really matter. Right? Because, if they could have afforded a good lawyer in the first place, they would have FOUGHT this travesty from the first arrest. Note that rich drug kingpins and rich people, in general, tend to get out of the penal system. The war on crime doesn't care about getting the drugs off the street. They're too busy making sure that informants keep the seizure machine well oiled, fully funded, and that means making sure that the targets of these attacks are never organized, always politically in-fighting, and physically hurting themselves. It's also classic psychological warfare. So yes, I don't go into everything that's in this book, but the primary points are here in this review. I absolutely recommend reading the actual book for a much more detailed analysis. It's not really enough just to know about individual aspects of these problems. We must see the whole forest, too, and not just the trees. I *especially* recommend this book if you want to know the fundamental reason why "Defund the Police" is trending. Bazookas? REALLY? IS THIS WHAT WE REALLY NEED? ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Aug 21, 2020
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Aug 22, 2020
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Jul 29, 2020
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Hardcover
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| 1580056776
| 9781580056779
| 1580056776
| 4.49
| 106,116
| Jan 16, 2018
| Jan 16, 2018
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it was amazing
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I stayed up late into the night reading this. I was engaged. I loved the writing, the well-formulated arguments, and especially the focus on everyday I stayed up late into the night reading this. I was engaged. I loved the writing, the well-formulated arguments, and especially the focus on everyday micro-aggression. Intersectionality is pretty obvious. So is the institutional racism. It's not a trigger word. It's a fact. Add this to soooo0 many small things in our everyday lives whether in conversation or news or even in our own assumptions DESPITE our best intentions, and we will be forced to realize that the institution is within us all. Stereotyping. Of all kinds. Then add that to the fact that people of color are quite literally abused with all kinds of microaggressions every day and then compound it with actual abuse, loss of opportunities, and being stuck in a system that insists that you must fail, and it's not hard to realize that, as a whole, the people are SKITTISH. I mean, I was trained in psychology. All the things that Ijeoma Oluo warns about and asks of her readers are the same things that any professional psychologist would do when they want to heal someone who has been in a long-term abusive relationship complete with many fractured bones and a severe distrust for anyone in authority. Because the authority failed them. So here I am, a white male who always espoused an open mind and who is pretty dedicated to using critical thinking. I don't WANT to be a ***ing racist. I hate everything it stands for. I believe in the concept that what we do to the least of us defines us as a people. The whole damn thing is wrong. Seeing the riots, seeing all the horrible disinformation flying about, feeling the frustration, the anger, the senseless hate, the fear, the aggression... it's really polarizing. So I turn to books to give me objectivity in a storm of media chaos and opportunism. Those who know, know to look at tactics and who benefits from such tactics. Fact-checking is also absolutely essential. So what did I get out of this book? Tears, mostly. It's true. For such a bright, strong voice, Ijeoma Oluo held me throughout the book and even told me this was for my own good... to tell me that I am a racist. Of course, I'm supposed to suppress my natural reaction to being called a racist and accept it because it's institutional racism that NONE of us can escape. I even agree with it. But you know what? I walk away from this book feeling a bit hopeless. I'm not going to give up the fight. I'm going to remain aware of my own s**t. But f**k. I'm just going to put this out there: If there's anyone who wants to talk to me about race, just do it. I promise I'll keep my ears and eyes open. And my mind. I'm willing to do the best I can. It's not much, or perhaps it's everything, but more importantly, I'm PUTTING MYSELF OUT THERE. I'm not remaining silent. I care. That's it. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jun 04, 2020
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Jun 05, 2020
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Jun 03, 2020
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Hardcover
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| 1616460555
| 9781616460556
| 1616460555
| 4.03
| 90
| 1948
| Oct 15, 2010
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really liked it
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Let's set the stage for this one. This 1948 publication was first and foremost designed to be a manual. It was not a rigorous academic study. It was de Let's set the stage for this one. This 1948 publication was first and foremost designed to be a manual. It was not a rigorous academic study. It was designed to teach intelligence operatives the basics and intermediates of psychological warfare. He even makes no bones about intersecting and sometimes outright conflating Public Relations with the field of Psychological Warfare. Indeed, their purposes are often the same, in many cases written by the same people. Similar things have been going on since there were people gathering to make cities. The examples in this particular book draw from many WWI and WWII real examples from America, Russia, and China. Now, I'm pretty certain everyone has seen something of this in our modern life. You may even make a huge hobby of pointing out gaslighting in politics, obvious falsehoods told by ideological enemies internationally or right in your own country. If you do, then you know that this book is old news. There is no difference between Psychological Warfare and Public Relations. We lie to our own side to maintain morale and we lie to the other side to reduce theirs. We tell the truth mixed with little lies to get the other side to READ our propaganda, but subtly twist it to know when and where enemy combatants are using your information. Like a footprint. We promise the world. Peace, happiness, prosperity -- to our own AND to our enemies... if they only come over to our side. What we don't do is make things unspecific. Generalities are laughable. Details and compelling. We don't tell our enemies that we will crush them. Such tactics only entrench the other side. Rather, the point is to soften their resolve. Show them how well you're doing. How strong you are. How capable. The point is to be effective. Most of the time it's a hit-or-miss game, but when information is EVERYTHING (whether in peace or in war) every gambit counts. Now, for anyone who ISN'T already aware that we are utterly surrounded by psychological warfare RIGHT THIS VERY INSTANT, you might want to check your assumptions. It never stopped. The whole Cold War should be proof of that. The whole American lifestyle, all of Western Thought, any political faction in any country, all corporations, and all media brands down to YouTubers and your local church gathering is an example of it. Whether you are consciously aware of what you're doing or not is another matter. You position yourself and your group to be seen in the best light, do you not? First, make yourself appear like them, either literally or ideologically. Make them trust you by being a part of their in-group. Then make them trust you by being a reliable source of news. Then, start poisoning the well. It's pretty simple, after all. Anyone can do it, right, Twitter? And best of all, ANYONE can do it! There's a great book called Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media that spells out many of the best time-tested methods. Repeat your message over and over. It won't matter whether it is true or not. As long as you have total saturation, enough people will pick up on it and repeat it. It worked back in WWII. It works WONDERFULLY in America. Give people a horrible setup, then offer them a way out. If the media won't play along with you, then call them all liars and set up your own media outlets. If the other side calls you on your bluff, make a smokescreen. At all times, muddy the water. A tried and true method is to accuse all your enemies of what you've been doing yourself. Usually, because you've been doing it first. (Some people are MASTERS of this kind of deflection. It's not a psychological pathology. It's an outright wartime tactic. Tried and true.) But above all, be sure to use the six Moral Foundations if you want to get the most bang for your buck: Care: cherishing and protecting others; opposite of harm Fairness or proportionality: rendering justice according to shared rules; opposite of cheating Loyalty or ingroup: standing with your group, family, nation; opposite of betrayal Authority or respect: submitting to tradition and legitimate authority; opposite of subversion Sanctity or purity: abhorrence for disgusting things, foods, actions; opposite of degradation Liberty: opposite of oppression. If you see your in-group pumping up all six of the positives while attributing all the negatives to the other side, you know they're doing a FANTASTIC job with their propaganda. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Aug 07, 2020
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Aug 09, 2020
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May 12, 2020
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Paperback
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| 0316409138
| 3.90
| 10,493
| May 07, 2019
| May 07, 2019
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it was amazing
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Oddly enough, after the introduction, I had a strange, trepidatious feeling that I was going to be reading a psychologically-based analysis of a handf
Oddly enough, after the introduction, I had a strange, trepidatious feeling that I was going to be reading a psychologically-based analysis of a handful of different countries and how they handled multiple historical crises. In one way, this might be fine if all we just wanted lite anecdotes, but this particular book is simultaneously more and less than that. Less psychological, more analogical. And more in that it is surprisingly broad-based, detailed, and historically accurate. Diamond chose seven countries to highlight mostly because he lived in each and spoke most of their languages, which I can't fault him for, because it gives some great immediacy. I loved the one about Finland nearly as much as I loved the one about Chile. Finland's struggle and clear-eyed resolution with both Russias's invasion and the full involvement were all kinds of heroic, scary, and tragic. Chile's challenges (tragedies) with Allende and Pinochet's history is fairly better known in some circles. Diamond focused on both the good and the obviously evil. Less emphasis is put on the Chicago Boys' influence. More on the torture and the willingness to keep Pinochet around despite his more nasty habits, while taking into account some of the obviously positive accounts of the country's growth during that time. I also loved the one about Indonesia even if I was horrified to learn so much about the mass-killings. On both occasions. The corruption was not as bad as the .5 million to 2 million dead, of course, but hell, both are bad in their ways. The others about Germany post-war and Austrailia post-British Empire were good and interesting as well, but I think I was a bit more interested in the early Japanese post-Shogunate and post-WWII historical periods. The final analysis? Diamond goes into some pretty realistic breakdowns of how each country faced its challenges, how resilient each is in the face of tragedy or danger, and how it responds when it is in the wrong. In other words, like spoiled children, embarrassed, or whether they take full responsibility for their actions. This book is not a full-service political discussion and it ignores quite a few factors but far less than I would have assumed. All in all, I was very happy with the results... even after having read a ton of other history books. :) ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Mar 20, 2020
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Mar 25, 2020
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Mar 20, 2020
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Hardcover
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| 1982103574
| 9781982103576
| 1982103574
| 3.90
| 1,101
| 2019
| Oct 08, 2019
|
really liked it
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Upon reading this, I must balance two reactions very carefully. I agree with the basic premise that ON THE WHOLE, dire poverty across the world has re Upon reading this, I must balance two reactions very carefully. I agree with the basic premise that ON THE WHOLE, dire poverty across the world has reduced and a lot of this has to do with the free exchange of goods MINUS the looters who exploit the system OR external negatives such as unrestrained pollution. We DO have a lot of reasons to remain optimistic. Technology, awareness, the willingness of governments to combat looting, and general innovation HAS forestalled some of the very worst predictions of history. The fact that we're still around and still driving cars and have cleaner air and waterways is proof of this. I LIKE reading books that lay out all the points where we have not fulfilled all our most dire predictions. That we haven't achieved our worst dystopias. However, despite this book devoting the last third of its pages to notes and bibliography, it does appear to suffer from a lot of rather telling biases and cherrypicking. Yes, when the forces of good are doing good, we accomplish a lot. But when the forces of evil are bent on maintaining the harmful status quo and governments are consistently rolling back the kinds of protections that kept us safe from monopolies, polluters, economic slavery, and disaster economics, there's no way we can say that we can sit back and relax. Indeed, the author does not say we shouldn't worry. But he DOES give us a lot of good, real data mixed in with some perhaps wildly misinterpreted data, all of which paints a very positive picture. For one, we are on a trend to use fewer resources as a whole. We're not perfect, but we are innovating and consistently finding alternatives. The same is true for energy consumption. We are finding ways to do the same thing as before but more efficiently. Free market DOES help this trend nicely, assuming that other forces aren't interfering with it... like coalitions and monopolies that use strong-arm techniques to keep innovation down. But that's the purpose of regulation and politics, the same area that seems to be always under siege. Even with my fairly large quibbles, I AM quite pleased to be reading books that illustrate the positive aspects of our world. It isn't all complete s**t. ...more |
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1
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Jan 11, 2020
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Jan 12, 2020
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Jan 11, 2020
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Hardcover
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| unknown
| 4.18
| 1,208
| 2019
| 2019
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it was amazing
|
It's gonna be rough rating my favorites out of nearly 600 books this year, but I'm in luck: I have my amorphous and totally unreliable intuition to gu
It's gonna be rough rating my favorites out of nearly 600 books this year, but I'm in luck: I have my amorphous and totally unreliable intuition to guide me! Yay! BEST OF: January [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] February [image] [image] [image] [image] March [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] April [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] May [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] June [image] [image] [image] July [image] [image] August [image] [image] September [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] October [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] November [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] December [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] [image] - [image] Got enough to chew on? Yeah, these are ALL fantastic books. The best of the best for the year. Nice, no? ...more |
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not set
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not set
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Dec 19, 2019
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| 1627790101
| 9781627790109
| 1627790101
| 4.21
| 4,277
| Nov 11, 2014
| Feb 03, 2015
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it was amazing
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I was not surprised as I read this book. I've been through my own intellectual crisis, reading many political books, watching the news, freaking out a I was not surprised as I read this book. I've been through my own intellectual crisis, reading many political books, watching the news, freaking out about the Tiananmen Square Massacre, and generally trying to get a general drift of China in global politics. Bits and pieces came to light from the time of Mao, the Cultural Revolution, the closing and opening of borders, Nixion, and then the great strategy boiled down to: "When capable, feign incapacity." This book spells it all out, but let me make an analogy. You know that A-Type next-door neighbor of yours that is totally driven, at all costs, to succeed? The one who was really rude to you until you got your own really excellent job? The one who didn't give you the time of day until you brought home your Mercedes? Yeah, that one. The one who suddenly became all smiles and showed appreciation for all your wonderful accomplishments, but you later, (much later,) discovered that he was talking massive amounts of shit about you to his family, his extended family, and harshly shut down any lines of communication between his children and yours? Or the fact that for the last 20 (or is it 30, now?) years, he's been borrowing all your tools in your garage and never giving them back, has been using your accountant, has been making copies of all your entire movie collection, and during that entire time, he has always made that class of major justifications: "I'm not lucky, I just never got the breaks I needed, I'm physically unable to do the work, my boss hates me..." and you, like the chump you are, loaned him money, taught him everything you knew about how to make it big, and your wife and children STILL give the family charitable donations. Take that analogy and apply it to China and USA. Not only is the censorship rampant over there, but all their schools teach total BS about how America has been pushing down China for the last 150 years. Anyone sent over in official capacities will look shamefaced about this and so many other facts, say it's just a small minority in their government and smile. Officials have been doing nothing but reassure and make all the right noises to the West, making promises and yet always breaking them. This isn't about rogue elements in China, you know. They are autocratic. The Hawks established a plan to pretend weakness, get others to do all the heavy lifting for them, and get so strong, economically, that they will replace the West as the most dominant power in the world. They're actions speak powerfully and clearly. They have a long-term plan. Say whatever they need in order to get to the top, make sure they indoctrinate each generation to massively distrust other systems (first Russia, then America) and take the slow path to total dominance. Again, this shouldn't come as any surprise. Any country with designs on power will go about things in a similar way. But here's the thing: this book is written by someone who has been deep in the policy-and-analysis end of things in America. He had his own disillusionment, first believing that the best road was through peace and mutual aid. When the weight of such proof of duplicity in united fronts became too obvious, he spoke out. More and more proof is everywhere. 70% of all electronic intrusions come from China. There is near-total disdain for ecological problems including the cancer rates in their own population caused by industrial pollution. Free speech is nearly nonexistent. There has been a near-total eradication of the very IDEA of the Tiananmen Square Massacre in China. Those dissidents who DID want to have an honest partnership with the world were subsequently murdered or imprisoned. And all the while, official faces try to disarm and downplay all this and say all the right things to get more money, aid, and technology. (Although, I'm sure by now, technology isn't all that required. They send tons of students abroad every year to get as much as they want.) And the poor-me scenario? Their GNP tripled between 1997 and 2007. And yet, they're still playing the same card. Coal power is blanketing the skies in neighboring countries. I'm not being alarmist. Anyone who keeps up with the news can piece together a much larger picture than I can in a short review. I find it very telling that both Russia and China are united in painting America as devils, however, and not in some piecemeal way. I'm talking systematic, state-sponsored propaganda. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Mar 20, 2020
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Mar 22, 2020
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Dec 18, 2019
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Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 0525574468
| 9780525574460
| 0525574468
| 4.36
| 9,114
| Apr 03, 2018
| Apr 03, 2018
|
it was amazing
|
This is a very focused investigation centered solely on Russia's more recent history since the fall of the Berlin Wall, it's becoming a pure Oligarchy
This is a very focused investigation centered solely on Russia's more recent history since the fall of the Berlin Wall, it's becoming a pure Oligarchy, or rather: a Kleptocracy. What's more, we get some rather startling and almost unbelievable details into the nature of Putin's aim. Let me be more clear: end aim is very clear. He's stated it about a million times. He's so confident in his power and methods that I can't see any truly viable method to stop him. And so he is open and honest about just how many lies he can get away with. What's unbelievable is how he's been able to revise history on such a massive scale as to make Stalin a hero, rewrite his involvement in WW2 drastically, or taking a relatively obscure philosopher who was a contemporary of Lenin and elegize him to the point of near godhood, projecting his text as the grand narrative of Putin's Russia. Literally. He's had the book printed everywhere, talked about everywhere, and it all boils down to some CRAZY S**t. Like the unfettered belief that the leader is the soul of the nation, and that nations are always innocent. Harm can be done to Russia, but it will always remain innocent. There can be no double standards if there are no standards. Facts are for other people. Use facts as weapons against those who rely on them, but never be fettered by them. Trust the leader who will always steer you right. People in Russia may not believe this s**t, but remember, every media source will be spouting it. Anyone who has ties to America or Europe are immediately branded enemy collaborators. All the western countries are ruled by the Homosexual Agenda and Russia must never fall before them. This is just a taste of the reality under Putin. He is a master at reality control. After the devastation of the 90's when practically all otherwise well off USSR populace was cashed in and the full reserves of the government power and wealth was transferred to a handful of men, it was absurdly easy to lock down everything. Putin has an amazing amount of combatant hackers at his disposal. Full media control. Banking. And of course the military. Remember when the Ukraine was urged to give up over a thousand nuclear missiles in 2010? And then Putin invaded them, annexed them, and completely rewrote history about 5 times in order to justify everything about it in 2012? You know, like things saying there is no such thing as Ukraine. Or there is no Ukraine language. It has always been Russia. This book has an amazing wealth of information in it. Don't take my word for it. It'll shock you. Let me steal this from another review of this book (and btw, thank you!): Methods of control: {--Constant reference to a past era of greatness --Hyperfocus on enemies who are enemies because of who they are and not what they do --A profound belief in a zero-sum (or a negative-sum) world --Willingness to hurt oneself if, in doing so, you can hurt someone else more --The manufacture of crises and conflicts where none exist in order to control the news cycle --Constant labeling of information sources as “fake” in an effort to delegitimize any source of truth --Repetition of blatant, easily verifiable lies with no evidence to back them up other than the fact of the assertion} His stated goal is to always keep Europe and America as eternal enemies, a-la Eurasia in Orwell's 1984. That means always being on an antagonistic footing, flooding his population with propaganda, and just plain telling any kind of lies he likes, so long as he gets the results he wants. There is no need for any kind of verifiability. He is an Eternal Leader who is Always Innocent and he does NOT need Facts. He just needs to control every narrative. And he does. The next part of this book is just plain scary. We've heard all about Russia's supposed involvement with Trump. We've heard both sides make a lot of noise and get nowhere because the signal-to-noise ratio is absolutely atrocious here. When investigative journalism ACTUALLY does its job, however, a lot of truly damming facts come to light. You know, those pesky little things that Putin cares crap over? Russian hackers, fully bankrolled by Putin's media empire, is attacking America. This statement isn't just some silly conflation. He's on record of saying it and there are MANY records proving it. Millions of fake facebook accounts with targeted marketing to tight demographics, pandering to prejudices and conspiracy theories, fake movements all across the internet, including millions of tweets by bots trying to influence the political debates. (Successfully, I might add.) Many attempts were also made on the voting machines. Note the direction almost every convenient "leak" came from during the election cycles. The republican party knew about Trump's many economic connections to Putin, including a Trump Tower with MANY rooms bought by placeholder corporations whose paperwork all led back to Russia, many new real estate deals. The official line was to hush it up. Fire officials that tried to investigate it. And all the while, overwhelming hacker support flowed toward Trump. Let's not forget Trump and Putin's long-standing friendship. They're both fictional characters, after all, telling many interesting narratives, (read lies) that don't need any factual basis. They just need to be plausible for the moment until the power base can be firmed up. Please refer to the list of power-grabbing methods. Does anyone else see a similarity between Russia and America? It's almost like all the super-rich looters are playing by the exact same handbook. The goal is to get rich at everyone else's expense. If you don't make the 1% bracket, you're nothing. Just watch for the new grabs. Look. I said it was nearly unbelievable. But I, unlike radical revisionist leaders, actually LIKE facts. If this book tells me anything at all, it's to look beyond the noise. We can all be so involved in our little crazy lives so much that we fail to see the big picture. That goes for politics, too. What happens when we realize that a MASSIVE concerted effort to game America's political system actually SUCCEEDS? Oh, nothing. We're still bickering between blues and reds. Of course, since we do most of that online, it's actually absurdly easy to focus all of one's resources on this choke point. Russia has a veritable army of hackers fanning the flames of all lefts and all rights, stirring up racial prejudices, sexist prejudices, and any other conflict they can dream up. And we buy it. Hell, most of all these "events" might be pure fabrication, but none of us seem to be doing ANYTHING to confirm or deny them. Certainly not our media. They're too busy running ideological platforms, themselves. See how easy it is to sow SO MUCH confusion and chaos on your enemy...? And the best thing is, WE LAP IT UP, use it all as proof we are right, yet again. Where are our antibodies? Where is the strong Press that digs up all this crap and shows it for what it is? Oh, wait... that's what this book is trying to be! ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Dec 16, 2019
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Dec 16, 2019
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Nov 27, 2019
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Hardcover
| ||||||||||||||
| 4.40
| 339,280
| Jul 14, 2015
| Jul 14, 2015
|
it was amazing
|
This might just be one of the most important pieces of literature I've ever read. That's saying a lot because I've read a lot. But not only is it writ This might just be one of the most important pieces of literature I've ever read. That's saying a lot because I've read a lot. But not only is it written brilliantly, beautifully, and full of passion and thought, it is also a question. A massive question that has no easy answer, but demands that everyone ought to open their eyes. Oh, sure, we've all heard this argument before, you say, that problems of safety should always outweigh justice... but there is nothing in this life that says we must forego one in order to have the other. Look. I'm a fan of dreamers and idealism, but after reading this absolutely fantastic socratic dialogue/personal awakening/heartfelt desire, I have to admit it might be time to put away the Dream. What does this mean? It means there are Dreams, such as the American Dream, that are built on the backs of slaves, of plundered indians, of a dance on the back of any poor of any stripe, that brought the American Dream its prosperity. We can't ignore that. We can't continue this Great Forgetting. Nor can we keep on sweeping it under the rug when predatory lenders, new prisons, racial profiling, and misunderstanding keeps sweeping through our house. Your American Dream is not untarnished. If you insist on believing in it, then you must also insist on taking responsibility for the injustice perpetrated in its name. This doesn't mean you ought to join white supremacists to justify your own guilt in the system that still bruises black bodies, giving yourself up to the hate that had submerged into the very fabric of your society. It means we must wake up and see reality as it really is. That we have frank and open discussions and see how a whole class of people are not safe in their own persons. That everything and anything can be taken from them at any time. That they are an institutional underclass. This isn't right. I recommend this essay/epistle to everyone. Anyone. Its writing is beyond gorgeous and eloquent. It can do what this lousy review can never do: Inspire, even as it makes me cry. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Dec 03, 2019
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Dec 04, 2019
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Nov 27, 2019
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Hardcover
| |||||||||||||||||
| 0399590560
| 9780399590566
| 0399590560
| 4.38
| 29,830
| Oct 03, 2017
| Oct 03, 2017
|
it was amazing
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Off and on throughout the years, I've gone through major stints into the world of political thought, diving in head-first to swim through the sometime
Off and on throughout the years, I've gone through major stints into the world of political thought, diving in head-first to swim through the sometimes murky and oftentimes polemical and myopic drive for change. This is not one of those books. Each essay in here is very well researched and backed up with a plethora of references I've either already read before or have been featured in grand scale elsewhere. The big question being raised must also be willing to be extremely courageous. We might assume this could be a last hurrah for equal rights for blacks right before the great backsliding, or we might assume that the issues are not as dire as they are portrayed, but I think both of these assumptions are false. What am I trying to say? Three hundred years of injustice just changes its face but never its core tenant. This is a systemic racial problem masquerading as a poverty problem. Of course, if you set up the housing issue so that blacks pay for worse housing at a much higher rate, we don't call it racism, we call it redlining. Never mind that it causes systemic poverty. Or how about the fact that in five decades America now has 25% of the world's total inmates while only containing 5% of the world's total population? Or that reports were made right before this shift in policy that outlined the need to break away from the segregation of the 60's, the need to educate, equalize the possibilities for housing, and reversing the course of the breakdown of families due to opportunity and poverty in general... but yet, right after that time, all choices went another direction: prisons. Trump up drug charges and use draconian punitive measures for every inmate. No rehabilitation, just punishment. Make the prisons a moneymaking business, stack the deck against anyone getting out to lead a decent life, and then realize that 7 times as many men in the system are black. Instead of giving them jobs and education and the ability to move away from a system that now has tons of single-mothers raising their children in poverty, we are just putting a heel on an entire subset of humanity. If that isn't racism, I don't know what is. It doesn't even have anything to do with individual voices or desires. It doesn't have anything to do with single mothers working harder to break through the circular hell that is this system. It has to do with the system itself. You know that housing bubble? The predatory lenders that sold hope to millions of people and downplayed the bottom line that their mortgages would increase in time, or drastically increase with a single missed payment? When you look at who they targeted the most, you should see things clearly. Black men and women aren't a race of super predators no matter what the crime rates say. And the crime rates say a lot of things. Very interesting things... such as the increases in crime and decreases in crime remain pretty stable across all countries. Almost as if they are a function of population pressure, and not inherent badness. The measures taken, such as harsher sentences and the three-strike rule and more and more prisons DO NOT MAKE A DIFFERENCE. All we're doing is making a new class of slaves locked into poverty and despair. This hasn't changed. Eight years of Obama as president has not changed anything except give a tiny glimmer of hope, properly squashed with the next big backlash. This book spells out the tragedy. Hell, most of the stats aren't new. What is really awesome about this book is it's writing. One needs to have this presented well for it to make any difference at all. Coates is a good writer and his objectivity is peerless. Of course he spells out where he is less than objective, but let's get real here: most whites don't scratch the surface to SEE what's going on. Systemic oppression on multiple axis, approved of at every level, and reinforced by narratives that seem valid only because the actual causes are ignored. So many things in our world follows the same suit. Naysayers get screamed down by louder blustery demagogues. Propaganda works because all you need is more voices saying the same lies repeatedly before the general populace starts believing it. Is racism alive and well? Obviously. It might even get worse. So what kind of world do we really want to live in? All this money and effort that the system has put into segregating blacks (unofficially) could have gone into education and real opportunity. The old horrors of slavery have only taken new forms. Who are we to let this continue? Yes, I'm a freaking white man. I don't approve of this s**t. The injustice is real and pervasive and overwhelming. And I don't know what to do except talk about it. Honestly. And from the heart. And it makes me so damn angry. This should never have happened. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Dec 2019
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Dec 03, 2019
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Nov 27, 2019
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Hardcover
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| 0805079831
| 9780805079838
| 0805079831
| 4.27
| 48,868
| Sep 18, 2007
| Sep 18, 2007
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it was amazing
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It's 2007 and Naomi Klein builds a rather convincing argument about modern governmental/corporational trends. I've personally never seen it laid out so It's 2007 and Naomi Klein builds a rather convincing argument about modern governmental/corporational trends. I've personally never seen it laid out so baldly, but after having read several dozen of political books, perhaps an equivalent number of documentaries, and a lot of otherwise independent research into the topics herein, I'm willing to concede that she has a very valid point. What is the point? Modern economics theories are used to lay out a rather obvious plan of mass looting. They're constructed as laissez-faire Chicago School of Economics, which looks great on paper, letting the invisible hand of Adam Smith regulate all markets. In practice, putting it into effect, under the heading of Democracy or Liberation or whatever they want, the big heads of the Chicago school are backed with the CIA, big corporation interests, and a single additional theory that makes the whole thing gel together. What's this extra theory? It's simple. They believe, as they have learned from their lessons in briefly earlier psychology research, that the best way to heal a patient is to first break their minds and bodies, starting them out on a tabula rasa, and then rebuilding from the rubble. So many have quoted the belief that the only way to get real change is after a disaster. Never mind that the original torture victims in McGill college that underwent sensory deprivation, LSD, PCP, punctuated with ECT and blaring noise did not come out of the experience quite sane. Most of them never recovered. But THIS was the original study that they based their first great experiment on. Export the school of thought to Chile, and when it didn't quite take, destabilize the government, assassinate Allende, and install Pinochet. On Sept. 11, 1973. They used shock and awe, destroyed infrastructure, and people went hungry and were terrorized. Guess who got a Nobel Prize in economics? It's worse. The dictatorship was atrocious, but the big corporations were given leave to move in and rape the economy, loot anything of value, while allowing Pinochet to take the lion's share, turning him into an Oligarch, overnight. A decade later, Chile, once sporting one of the most impressive resumes of a growing and happy populace, could barely stand on its own. But the corporations got RICH. Jump ahead to Russia right as Communism is going defunct. The same Chicago school economics of Free-Market offers them a deal. Businesses will loan expertise and open market doctrines and massive loans, but be sure to destabilize everything first. When enough blood is on the ground and people are terrified, starving, and giving up everything they ever owned, then offer them a deal they can't refuse. Capitalism on a plate that promises everything that the European nations and America has to offer since Communism is dead. When democracy is offered but capitalism is competing, capitalism beats anything. Enter a capitalism-backed coup, corporate sponsorships everywhere, and a promise that our new leader will be able to make himself and a handful others into some of the top 30 ranked richest people in the world, opening up Russia to free trade on a scale never seen before, the only way to keep it going is by looting the population. And it did. What was the number? 14 million homeless children? Think about that. At least under communism there WAS something like a middle class. Now it's only the super rich and the survivors. CLEARLY, this is an AMAZING outcome for the Chicago School! Companies got rich. The stock market had a field day supporting the victors. Everyone was shaking everyone else's hands. Except for the rest of the 99%, of course. They went hungry. A reported 50,000 AIDS victims exploded into 1.5 million over the space of a couple of years. Clearly, everyone was having a party. But the rich got richer. Remember what happened during the Iraq War, part 2? Privatized war, with every single aspect of the war delegated to private companies except for the troops, themselves. 90% of every contract went into overhead, contractors subcontracting up to four times until there was no longer any money left for doing the work. And easily, if you look back on the actual work for the reconstruction, either it was not completed in 85% of the cases, or what did get finished was at half capacity after a year. ALL work and workers were brought in from the outside. Corporations tried to set up McD and Walmart, unloaded big screen TVs on the streets that were lined with rubble. Shock and Awe. Come on. The purpose is to drive them all into a permanent state of helplessness or create an environment of terrorism. Against them. But heck, as long as we can brew terrorists this way, each one wanting to get revenge or at the very least, JUSTICE for this travesty. 650,000 dead. For Oil. For the free market. For the freedom of a hoard of corporations to come swooping in and install a Free Trade Zone, where profits just kept coming. Let's ignore for a moment that every cabinet member in the presidency at that time had vested and current interests in the very same corporations that made the most money on Iraq. Or that America inflated its debt many times over to pay for the graft, looting, and amazing incompetence, while leaving the door open to keep ALL of the contractors out of the legal crosshairs of ANY country, while walking away with astounding paychecks. Ignore the fact that most invasions, if they're NOT there to loot, will actually set aside troops to protect national heritage. There is a lot of proof that the national museum holding artifacts thousands of years old was specifically excluded from that protection list, which is why troops sat by and watched as so many truckloads of priceless artifacts were spirited away. Later, even now, only 20% have ever been recovered. We can add Hurricane Katrina to the list. The same contractors for Iraq came in to help out, taking more government money, pulling the same exact crap, and then leaving the job almost completely undone. We're talking BIG money, too. But look on the bright side! All that land can now be cleared out to build new condos! Tons of companies swooped in to reclaim the land. And they did. And a lot of them were linked, intricately, to the SAME people who were supposed to REBUILD for the original inhabitants. Sorry, folks, couldn't do the job. You're gonna have to find a new place to live. My brother here wants the land for his new McD! Yep, first you need to have a disaster. If you don't have a disaster, make one. If you can, build compounds and Green zones and make sure you give enough fodder to create a simmering cauldron of hate that you can regularly call on to rise up and smash down with your brand new war machine. And make sure it keeps on simmering, too, right, ISIS? We need a reason to keep getting the latest equipment to protect our super-rich bunkers. It's great economics as long as your real intention is to get extremely rich. It's not good economics if you want long-lasting, sustained prosperity. It's the looter's creed. Make situations you can profit from. Make sure you always negotiate from the ultimate position. If that means making sure the rest of the world has a foot on its neck, then that's all for the best. That's GOOD NEGOTIATION TACTICS. Laissez-faire, to these guys, means taking away all the safety nets. They're the same ones gutting social security, social protections, and basic food and health for the poorest people in our first-world nations. They want no government, or to turn all governments into shells with no power to do anything. They've stated this creed a million times. They want social darwinism at its worst. Keep everyone so shock and awed that they can take everything. Absolutely everything. Let's judge an idea not on its stated ideal. Let's judge an idea based on its actual practice. If this wonderful ideal says it works best after a disaster, flawlessly re-establishing the free hand of the market, then by their own writings, we should have seen a flowering of cooperation, self-interest coinciding with everyone else's self-interest, and a natural growth of blanket prosperity that effects everyone involved. It's pretty. I've read many great books on the Chicago Style of Economics and loved them. But let's look at the ACTUAL FACTS of its implementation. There has never been a free hand of the market. The big banana corporation pressured America to secure its economic freedom. America got it's most famous laissez-faire economists to embark on a campaign, assisted with a ton of money, integral CIA support, and a bunch of extra vultures hanging in the wings, smelling blood in the water. When the blood splashed and buildings with the elected government were murdered, all the looters moved in. Of course, back in the day, it was all ideological garbage. Sticking it to the communists, bringing in democracy. Ignore the fact that they just bombed a democracy and Pinochet the dictator came in, got rich, and entered a very profitable loot cycle with the outside vultures. It begs the question. If, each and every time, they bring in the Chicago School of Economics, they always bring the same result, then maybe we ought to question their motives. Maybe. I'm just waiting for other enemies of this paradigm to get their own shock and awe. Left-leaning college campuses? Gay bars? All they need is a disaster. They can wait for it and exploit it like with Katrina, but they're perfectly willing to orchestrate them, too. And give you wonderfully idealistic reasons why you should let them murder you, too. Dark, right? But real. You've seen these looters in the housing bubble. The banking crisis. It's big. Very, very big. You can complain about transgenders in bathrooms all you like, but the really scary bits are right here. And they can take us all down. Equally. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Dec 15, 2019
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Dec 15, 2019
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Nov 27, 2019
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Hardcover
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my rating |
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|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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| 4.16
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it was amazing
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Jul 26, 2023
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Jul 24, 2023
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| 4.20
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it was amazing
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Nov 23, 2020
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Nov 19, 2020
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| 4.23
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it was amazing
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Nov 24, 2020
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Nov 19, 2020
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| 3.88
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it was amazing
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Nov 02, 2020
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Oct 30, 2020
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| 4.06
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it was amazing
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Nov 03, 2020
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Oct 30, 2020
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|||||
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| 4.21
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it was amazing
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Sep 24, 2020
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Sep 22, 2020
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| 3.88
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it was amazing
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Jan 25, 2021
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Sep 01, 2020
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| 4.20
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it was amazing
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Sep 08, 2020
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Aug 23, 2020
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| 4.62
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it was amazing
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Sep 02, 2020
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Aug 11, 2020
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| 4.52
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it was amazing
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Aug 22, 2020
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Jul 29, 2020
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| 4.49
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it was amazing
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Jun 05, 2020
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Jun 03, 2020
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| 4.03
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really liked it
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Aug 09, 2020
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May 12, 2020
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| 3.90
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it was amazing
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Mar 25, 2020
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Mar 20, 2020
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| 3.90
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really liked it
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Jan 12, 2020
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Jan 11, 2020
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| 4.18
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it was amazing
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not set
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Dec 19, 2019
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| 4.21
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it was amazing
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Mar 22, 2020
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Dec 18, 2019
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| 4.36
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it was amazing
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Dec 16, 2019
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Nov 27, 2019
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| 4.40
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it was amazing
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Dec 04, 2019
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Nov 27, 2019
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| 4.38
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it was amazing
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Dec 03, 2019
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Nov 27, 2019
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|||||
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| 4.27
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it was amazing
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Dec 15, 2019
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Nov 27, 2019
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