The Mexican Heartland: How Communities Shaped Capitalism, a Nation, and World History, 1500–2000 by John Tutino - BOOK REVIEW

 

BOOK REVIEW – FIVE STARS

The Mexican Heartland: How Communities Shaped Capitalism, a Nation, and World History, 1500–2000 by John Tutino

This book is a history of capitalism from the perspective of the indigenous peoples of Mexico.

It covers the Spanish Inquisition’s 700 year war to drive the Moors out of the Iberian Peninsula, to conquests and imperialistic lust for gold and silver in the Americas using enslaved indigenous labor to dig it, build the fleets to transport it, and retire from toil to manage their seemingly infinite bonanza.

Spain eventually became complacent in their lucrative victorious financial position and suffered a rude awakening when infinite wealth was discovered to be finite.

EXCERPTS:

The commercial capitalism of early modern times linked diverse centers of production across the globe—China and South Asia leading in manufacturing (in the literal sense of making by hand), European empires fighting to profit, and New World mines and plantations driving trade across oceans. Spanish-American silver capitalism and Atlantic war capitalism mixed to make the Americas essential to a polycentric global commercial capitalism from 1550 to 1800.

1810, working men facing new predictions took arms to destroy New Spain’s silver economy. The silver capitalism that made Spain’s Americas an engine of trade collapsed.

A century of decline in Spain and depression in Europe saw the center of the Spanish imperial economy shift to New Spain.

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Praying for Sheetrock: A Work of Nonfiction by Melissa Greene Fey BOOK REVIEW FIVE STARS

 

BOOK REVIEW: FIVE STARS

Praying for Sheetrock: A Work of Nonfiction by Melissa Greene Fey

“From award-winning author and journalist Melissa Fay Greene, Praying for Sheetrock is the story of McIntosh County, a small, isolated, and lovely place on the flowery coast of Georgia—and a county where, in the 1970s, the white sheriff—Tom Poppell—still wielded all the power, controlling everything and everybody. Somehow the sweeping changes of the civil rights movement managed to bypass McIntosh entirely.
It took one uneducated, unemployed black man, Thurnell Alston, to challenge the sheriff and his courthouse gang—and to change the way of life in this community forever.” quote from Amazon.com

My wife Jane and I actually tried to buy waterfront property in the area of McIntosh County back in the day. We loved the place but after exhaustive exploration and investigation found out that outsiders were not welcome.

We wrote about McIntosh County, Georgia, in Sailing The Sea Islands set in the era of Pat Conroy and his monumental book, The Water is Wide, that was about Daufuskie Island and had the names changed to protect the guilty.

We were there too and amazingly watched history evolve.

EXCERPTS:

The civil rights movement is told like a litany at times, as if well-anticipated goals were achieved in a series of distinct and strategic skirmishes: Montgomery, Little Rock, Greensboro, Albany. But it happened in McIntosh County, too.

Whether you see the place as a footnote or as the front lines, it happened here, too.

According to their inner moral compasses—one must drop down to the level of the sidewalks, kitchens, and backyards. What were people saying? Who was saying what? How did their own histories, biases, and perceptions inspire them? And why did an epoch of social change play differently here than in New York or Detroit, Atlanta or Memphis, or in the small county up the road?

Large and important things happening in a very little place. It is about the end of the good old boy era and the rise of civil rights, and what that famous epoch looked like, sounded like, smelled like, and felt like in a Georgia backwater in the 1970s.

For fifty years before the construction of modern Interstate 95, on the east coast, old U.S. 17 through McIntosh County was the northerners’ main route to Florida. Traffic, even in the middle of the night, was fast and constant.

“It was the spirit of fleecing the Yankees that was tolerated by even the law-abiding citizens, I suppose,” said Woody Hunter, dean of the Emory University Law School and a former resident of McIntosh. “Tom Poppell was Billy the Kid. He was Robin Hood.”

“We had the postwar South, the poorest-of-the-poor South right here in McIntosh County. It was the dirt-poor type of people swarmed the place like ants, and Tom wasn’t about to stop anybody from getting a pair of shoes.”

The court system is full of all sorts of little junk, but back then the sheriff was judge, jury, and monarch. He’d help a young man out of trouble the first time. But then a lot of people he flat run out of the county because they wouldn’t abide by his law.

In 1971, Tom Poppell was a dinosaur, the last of his kind. Statewide observers called him “the last of the old-time political bosses in Georgia.”

Georgia State Troopers, Georgia Bureau of Investigation agents, FBI agents, DEA agents, and U.S. Customs agents up and down the southern coast all agreed with the words of a Brunswick police detective: “The only crime that existed in McIntosh County was Tom Poppell’s. He was the last of the great old-time High Sheriffs.”

The people here were just happy with nothing. It was a plantation mentality. The sheriff was running this county just like an old plantation.”

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Link to Sailing the Sea Islands:

https://www.amazon.com/Sailing-Sea-Islands-Travels-Dursmirg-ebook/dp/B009438L96?ref_=ast_author_dp_rw&th=1&psc=1&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.0BOlEhsBG_fvQ48GrUY8SBKqrmR_q60hk665lya9x_PRYGwkLFzh1qD_cjBwnnuuXQZ_UgLzThWQoo9hwY1nufcYIyzYrYe5u7pWy9QbxFQ9FhhLnVW5hLDyOZv9Uos2pQ8JRw0rEuDkcM2a3KnllfsU47XirezwKoOAZV9QE7Y.SbZv87BnmllnHA2Bnp8zSQyxTzSGZryZvUUsOpkqxtY&dib_tag=AUTHOR

Leeward (Nightingale & Courtney Book One) by Katie Daysh Book Review, Five Stars

 

BOOK REVIEW: FIVE STARS

Leeward (Nightingale & Courtney Book One) Katie Daysh

1850 and the sailing days of British Imperialism.

This well-written fast moving five star book looks into the life and personalities of a family struggling for self-preservation while dealing with psychopathy and survival where no positive outcome can ever be expected.

EXCERPTS:

A sword-hilt cracked down on his shoulder. He turned, slashed, and felt blood splatter his sleeve. Another body dropped against him. He kicked it to the side. Musket shots rained from the Scylla’s maintop in a hail of invisible darts that dropped men all around Nightingale. He heard the whistle and puncture of the bullets, the crack of wood as they missed their mark, and everywhere, the cries of men. The chaos, the slaughter, the loss – the same as on the Lion – swamped him.

Insensible emotion raged in Nightingale. He stabbed his sword at a charging man and twisted it out of his stomach.

As he fell, Nightingale caught sight of the helm. The finely dressed captain stood there, his uniform blackened with smoke.

‘Why obey your father?’ he asked. ‘Loyalty. Obedience. Because of what he held over me. Love. Fear.’ Hargreaves sighed. ‘Then there is your answer.’ ‘I also disobeyed him for the same reasons. Loyalty to those who have lost their lives. Acknowledging what I have long held over myself. The fear of choosing the wrong path. The love for… many people, many ideas. If I had not done it, I would have regretted it even more intensely.’ ‘It was not your place,’ Hargreaves repeated. ‘Your regret will mean nothing to those who shall question you. You were ordered to retrieve the gold – I was ordered to retrieve the gold…’ ‘Well. There, you have my explanation. I believe that you have an explanation too. You say that they shall not care about my reasons, but I will listen to yours, Michael. I want to know.’

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2025 Cancun, Playa del Carmen – Visitors from Norway

 

2025 Cancun, Playa del Carmen – Visitors from Norway

My two Norwegian cousins Wenche Svendsen and her sister Bjørg Bowman came to visit me, it was their second time to Mexico.

Twenty years ago they visited in Mérida. On this visit I agreed to meet them in Cancun.

An all-inclusive beach front resort in Cancun was enticing to them, especially after leaving the cold land of the midnight sun.

We were very happy to have them visit, and we began researching our accommodations and bus connections.

Our daughter Grisel lives and works in nearby Playa del Carmen, so we decided to extend our visit to be with her. Jane undertook the logistics and looked at over 200 options.

We decided to make the get-together as effortless as possible. We booked at the Hotel Plaza Caribe directly across from the ADO bus terminal in downtown Cancun where we stayed previously. Jane only had to book our bus tickets and used the company's App which she had used before.

Using the ADO App Jane filled in all of the pertinent details, paid by credit card, and surprise! Some company numskull automatically fixed it so our tickets that reserved our departure date for two weeks ahead were automatically changed for a departure in less than half an hour. Another surprise! No where on the App was there a cancellation button to click. They now had our money, and tickets that would be worthless to us.

Quick thinking Jane instantly ordered a taxi to the ADO bus terminal...we had minutes to get to the terminal before the bus departure. Jane does not need another heart attack!

OMG we made it. The man at the ticket booth canceled our tickets and issued new ones for November 14. Whew! Thank you again Jane.

Ready to Roll!

Back to our Cancun adventure at the Hotel Plaza Caribe.

Even though the hotel room had no hammock hooks, it had easy access, a great location, and a restaurant that featured a Motuleños ala Yucatecan breakfast specialty that is very sustaining, plus a lovely garden shaded by tropical trees, and a tranquil pool area.

Wenche and Bjørg wanted to buy us day passes for their all-inclusive hotel, but we being octogenarians and not able to gluttonously indulge at our age plus being under therapy for skin cancer and needing to avoid the sun, found it better for them to visit us.

Downtown Cancun is NOT wheelchair friendly and crossing the street from the bus terminal to our hotel had a raised pedestrian walkway speed bump that had a gaping hole. Several people came to my aid to help me to cross. We were amazed when the hardy Viking sisters, Bjørg and Wenche, in her wheelchair, came to that gaping hole. Unaided Wenche merely did a wheelie in her wheelchair and then powered across like this was an every day event. These were surely powerful people as we also witnessed when Bjørg pushed me in my wheelchair up an inclined ramp at a speed like a rocket ship being blasted off.

Bjørg, John, Wenche

Back to our terrific family reunion:

Wenche and Bjørg asked more questions than a thousand wise men could answer.

We were amazed at their exuberance and enthusiasm. I had compiled and written many family stories and accumulated numerous photos going back in time over two hundred years. Jane and I had built up an impressive online presentation, and it was time to pass this enormous collection on to the next generation so I sent out inquiries to all of my family members to pick up the ball and carry on what I had begun.

Here we finally found two family members, Wenche and Bjørg to take up this very important project. Jane and I will be doing whatever is necessary to assure their success.

We had a wonderful time with Wenche and Bjørg. We talked and talked and laughed a lot and even shed a few tears.

We are now awaiting their next visit. This time we expect them to come to nearby Playa del Carmen. The ADO bus service from the Cancun airport departs to Playa del Carmen every fifteen minutes, and from the bus station it is then a short walk to a nice hotel with roof top swimming pool, a terrific Caribbean Sea view, plus fresh briny breezes and a convenient location.

Next our visit at Playa del Carmen with our loving Grisel:

Departing Cancun for Playa del Carmen by bus was almost too simple because of our great location across from the ADO bus terminal. There are continuous mini bus departures costing $120.00 pesos or less than seven US dollars for the both of us. In about an hour we were let off six blocks from our hotel Sofia.

We arrived early for our hotel reservation. The desk clerk was very accommodating and gave us a pass card to enter the roof top swimming pool and lounge area. What a terrific place to relax and escape the rushing commotion of the outside world with fresh clean briny Caribbean Sea breezes topped off with an extraordinary view... easy going and relaxing.

At three that afternoon our accommodations were ready. Less than a year earlier we were booked in the same studio, and we liked it a lot. Comfortable, quiet, and with one wall of plate glass overlooking a jungle garden with towering tropical trees where we could enjoy the moon and stars by night and filtered sun shine by day. Close to the Caribbean Sea, we had no use for air-conditioning.

Our favorite pizza place and liquor store were nearly next door and a super restaurant, plus grocery and sundry shops a block away. The bus terminal was only a fifteen minute walk.

Our daughter Grisel, 42 years old, with three grown children, Diego a university graduate, made Grisel a grandmother this year with a daughter Olivia, Julian, the next youngest is a university senior, also an honor student, and her youngest a daughter, Ambar at 18 years entered a university as a medical student. They all love their Mom, and she loves them.

Grisel is now happily married to a man of her own age, but had a very hard life. She has a big heart, is a gifted artist, and became the head of the artists of Tulum when she lived there. Now she works 6 days a week at a beautiful beachfront resort in Playacar.

We had many wonderful evenings with Grisel, plus beer and pizza as is our tradition.

Another amazing Caribbean Seashore trip November 14 to 26.

Our bus trip home was uneventful, and we arrived after dark in Mérida. The overwhelming traffic was astonishing. We were extremely happy to have our ecological sanctuary jungle garden to escape to.

Thirty four years ago we purchased our home and spent two years building it into our ecological refuge. At that time there were deer and rabbits hopping around and it was peaceful. Now we have cars, and more cars, all racing somewhere. The explosive expansion of Mérida has no signs of slacking.

More photos:

Jane enjoying the balcony at our hotel.

John enjoying time among the trees in Playa del Carmen.

More information: 

For the best information on Playa del Carmen, follow TheRopeMonster on YouTube.

Playa del Carmen

For the best information on Cancun, follow William on You Tube.

Overboard!: A True Blue-water Odyssey of Disaster and Survival - Five stars book review

 

BOOK REVIEW-FIVE STARS

Overboard!: A True Blue-water Odyssey of Disaster and Survival by Michael Tougias

Gripping, exciting, and fast moving!

I don’t remember ever reading anything the equal of this well-written and exquisitely edited one-of-a-kind true life thriller.

My wife Jane and I both spent many years of our lives out to sea as captains and navigators, and we can’t believe our good fortune surviving our learning experience that generated four Travels of Dursmirg sailing books.

EXCERPTS

He glances down and notices a bottle of Yuengling beer floating in the water. God damn it, I’m going to have a beer. He snatches the bottle out of the sloshing seawater, and returns to his perch. Bloody hell, this may be my last beer, might as well enjoy it. He taps a cigarette from his pack, lights it, and enjoys a long leisurely smoke with his beer.

The Gulf Stream’s current may have been partially responsible for the two unusually large waves that hit the Almeisan, as well as the two that clobbered the At Ease two days earlier. Some experts now think rogue waves technically defined as any waves more than twice the height for the average current sea state are to be expected in the Gulf Stream in stormy weather because of the explosive combination of wind and sea current.

The kind Loch is most worried about is the mako, both the short-fin and long-fin mako; the latter can grow to thirteen feet in length and weigh 1,400 pounds. Both makos are fast, and the short-fin is said to be able to reach bursts of speed topping thirty-five miles per hour and jump close to twenty feet out of the water. Neither is the shy, retiring type, and more than one mako, having been hooked by an angler, has jumped out of the water and into the boat, fighting its tormentors in the cockpit. And in rare instances, a mako has freed itself from the hook, only to come back and ram the boat.

The International Game Fish Association says the short-fin mako is the undisputed leader in attacks on boats.

The actions of a sleep-deprived person are often similar to those of someone who is drunk, and the ramifications can be just as disastrous. Loch has had no sleep since Friday night because of seasickness on Saturday and being pitched into the sea early Sunday morning. No sleep in more than forty hours combined with expending incredible reasoning skills will slowly decrease the longer he stays awake, but he’s facing another issue due to sleep deprivation, hallucinations, which might have graver consequences.

Although a person may see most of his surroundings correctly, imaginary images may be interjected or a real image altered.

The person is conscious, but loses the ability to tell the difference between self-generated and real external stimuli

Initial hallucination begins not with his immediate desires, such as the vision of a ship, a life raft, a bed, or drinking water, but with a Nautilus weight-training

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Info. on Sailing Beyond Lake Superior, Travels of Dursmirg

Ho Chi Minh: A Life by William J Duiker - Book Review Five Stars

 

BOOK REVIEW: FIVE STARS

Ho Chi Minh: A Life by William J Duiker

The extraordinary life of Ho Chi Minh not only had an immense impact on Vietnamese and US history but world history as well.

 America hasn’t won a war since 1945.

Now the struggle is for global economic supremacy, and that is changing at lightning speed.

This book is a great eye-opening look at that ever changing power struggle.

EXCERPTS

To many who met him, Vietnamese and foreigners alike, he was a sweet guy who, despite his prominence as a major world leader, was actually a selfless patriot with a common touch and a lifelong commitment to the cause of bettering the lives of his fellow Vietnamese. Critics, however, pointed to the revolutionary excesses committed in his name and accused him of being a chameleon personality, a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Since the end of the Vietnam War, Ho Chi Minh’s colleagues, some of whom are still in power in Hanoi today, have tirelessly drawn on his memory to sanctify the Communist model of national development. Ho’s goal throughout his long career, they allege, was to bring an end to the global system of capitalist exploitation and create a new revolutionary world characterized by the Utopian vision of Karl Marx. A few dissenting voices, however, have argued that the central message of his career was the determination to soften the iron law of Marxist class struggle by melding it with Confucian ethics and the French revolutionary trinity of liberty, equality, and fraternity. In justification, they point to one of Ho’s slogans, which is seen everywhere on billboards in Vietnam today:

“Nothing is more precious than independence and freedom.”

The country that French warships had attacked was no stranger to war or foreign invasion. Indeed, few peoples in Asia had been compelled to fight longer and harder to retain their identity as a separate and independent state than had the Vietnamese.

In August 1939, Party cadres had frequently encountered problems in explaining why Stalin had chosen to ally his country with Hitler’s Germany, widely viewed as the archenemy of the world revolution. By late June 1941, however, word of the German attack on the USSR reached the border area and undoubtedly facilitated Nguyen Ai Quoc’s effort to coordinate the activities of the ICP with the global struggle against world fascism. As he explained it on one occasion: The fascists have attacked the Soviet Union, the fatherland of the world revolution, but the Soviet peoples will definitely be against the fascists.

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Old Glory (Vintage Departures) by Jonathan Raban BOOK REVIEW - FIVE STARS

 BOOK REVIEW- Five Stars

Old Glory: A Voyage Down the Mississippi (Vintage Departures) by Jonathan Raban

“Riding the river, I had seen myself as a sincere traveler, thinking of my voyage not as a holiday but as a scale model of a life. It was different from life in one essential: I would survive it to give an account of its end. The journey would turn into a complete narrative, where life—my own life—could be only an unfinished story with an inconclusive plot.” The author, Jonathan Raban

Jonathan Raban’s account of floating down river across America on the mighty Mississippi and being submersed in every type of political, religious, and regional controversy that cursed a country that is often diverse and extreme paints a vivid picture and weaves an adventure.

Interesting and educational, this story is an on going escapade.

EXCERPTS

“I think God made the Mississippi as a sort of warning, to prove that things really can be worse than you think.”

I ran into the man again. “You’re not still thinking of going down that river, are you?” “I’ve written off about getting a motor.” “It’d cost you a hell of a lot less if you just swallowed a packet of razor blades.

The state fair sprawled across a hillside and a valley, and at first glance it did indeed look like a city under occupation by an army of rampaging Goths. I’d never seen so many enormous people assembled in one place. These farming families from Minnesota and Wisconsin were the descendants of hungry immigrants from Germany and Scandinavia. Their ancestors must have been lean and anxious men with the famines of Europe bitten into their faces. Generation by generation, their families had eaten themselves into Americans. Now they all had the same figure: same broad bottom, same Buddha belly, same neck less join between turkey-wattle chin and

sperm-whale torso. The women had poured themselves into pink stretch-knit pant suits; the men swelled against every seam and button of their plaid shirts and Dacron slacks. Under the brims of their caps, their food projected from their mouths. Foot-long hot dogs. Bratwurst sausages, dripping with hot grease. Hamburgers. Pizzas. Scoops of psychedelic ice cream. Wieners-dun-in-buns. Stumbling, half-suffocated, through this abundance of food and flesh, I felt like a brittle matchstick man.

The sound of dice being shaken in a wooden cup. “That’s a rattler. He’s in there somewhere.” Tickety-tickety-tickety. “He’s moving away from us now. He was right close up when I first heard him.” The noise of the snake was lost in the rustle of the leaves. “A while back, this was a real good place for rattlers.

When I was a kid, we used to come out and hunt them. You got twenty-five cents for every rattle then. They was trying to exterminate them. Then a whole lot got drowned in the summer floods.

There was rattlers all over, trying to climb aboard. They was just desperate to get on anything that was floating, logs, boats, I guess they weren’t discriminating too much. It wasn’t me they was after, it was just a ride on my boat.

Whenever anyone’s been in trouble in the world, we’ve gone in there to help them. Hell, we helped you out when you was in trouble in World War Two. Now America’s in trouble, and everyone’s looking the other way. No one wants to help us. Even your country, you ain’t going to come in with us and lend a hand. Even you.” His jowl was set in a melancholy line of deep personal grievance. “I reckon in America now, we ain’t got but one friend left in the world. Know who that is?” “I’m sorry it’s not England.”

“South Korea.” He gave an irritable snort of laughter. “Fuckin’ South Korea!”

I wasn’t a traveler at all; I was just another rubberneck in a city that made its living out of credulous rubbernecks. Go buy a guidebook! Take a buggy ride! Get your picture painted! Eat beignets! Listen to the sounds of Old Dixie! Have yourself a relief massage; then go home, shmuck!

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The Berlin Wife by Marion Kummerow - Book Review - Five Stars

 

BOOK REVIEW FIVE STARS

The Berlin Wife: A totally gripping WW2 historical novel about bravery against the odds by Marion Kummerow

An eye-opening novel that is timely and based on true history. 

In this age of enlightenment it is unfathomable that an entire adult population could be duped into voting for and backing a Fascist with a criminal record.

As an introduction to this era and the political climate that precipitated a Fascist government which quickly spread over Europe and beyond resulting in 13 over run countries and millions of victims, I recommend listening to the audio book; The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer.

Pay special attention to 1943.

It has been said that Americans can be sold anything, even a war. The last war they won was in 1945.

EXCERPTS:

Did you know that he recently founded his own party, the National Socialist German Workers’ Party? It already has fifty thousand members.” Joseph puffed out his breast, leaving no doubt that he was one of the fifty thousand.

“This is the problem of all democracies. The commoners are simply not educated enough to know what is good for the country, they tend to put their personal benefit over everything else. We need a strong ruler in Germany to reunite the states.”

I have experienced more crises in my life than I care to remember. All have passed sooner or later. Those who are prepared will profit, the rest goes under.

You just sit back and let the inflation do its work. I’m quite certain a currency reform is the only way out of this depression, then you have got it made.

“Hitler is our man,” Joseph said as he took the offered cigar. Julius shook his head. “I don’t see how. He’s too hotheaded, has no political experience, no allies, and, most importantly, no backing in the population.”

Hitler has to stifle his rhetoric if he wants to be successful.”

The task was done. Germany was on its way to a bright future! And he would be an important part of it.

Joseph offered a toast. “Our leader Adolf Hitler can always rely on his SS. We will do our duty. Heil Hitler!”

A vicious coup had been prevented and everyone in the unit would receive a promotion.

Over the course of a week, not only had fifty SA leaders in the hotel been eliminated, but also Ernst Röhm had been arrested and shot on Hitler’s order.

Hitler told his senior SS men, in the same words he later repeated in front of the German Parliament, consisting solely of trusted NSDAP members. About two hundred men had been killed: Only Vice-Chancellor von Papen evaded death and was placed under house arrest.

Hitler had won on every count, and at the same time had shown his people that he was their sole leader, who would ruthlessly oppress any and all critics, no matter who they were or how much power they held.

The Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor supposedly protected the racial purity of the Master Race and forbade “miscegenation”, or inter-breeding, between Aryans and Jews.

Reich Citizenship Law additionally stipulated that a Jew, and to a lesser extent a half-Jew, did not belong to the German race and nation, thus was not allowed to have the Reich citizenship.

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373 Mind-Boggling Facts and Questions from the Puzzle Vault by Nayden Kostov - book review

 

BOOK REVIEW

373 Mind-Boggling Facts and Questions from the Puzzle Vault by Trivia and Quizzes by Nayden Kostov

Entertaining, thought provoking and informative. A collection of often overlooked truisms that are sure to expand your knowledge base.

EXCERPTS;

President Johnson admitted as much in 1965, telling Congress that the actions of Black Americans who had joined the civil rights movement “called upon us to make good the promise of America. And who among us can say that we would have made the same progress were it not for [their] persistent bravery, and [their] faith in American democracy?”

When Johnson uttered these words, Congress was polarized; the Democratic Party was coming apart at the seams; and the country, by denying Black citizens access to the ballot box, was undemocratic in fact.

In other words, the Washington that passed transformational legislation outlawing racial discrimination, expanding access to healthcare, food, and education, and slashing the poverty rate was just as broken as the Washington of today. Ordinary Americans still found a way to win, as we now must. Poverty will be abolished in America only when a mass movement demands it so. And today, such a movement

American labor is once again on the move, growing more boisterous and feistier by the day, organizing workplaces once thought untouchable. A renewed movement for housing justice is gaining steam. In a resurgence of tenant power, renters have formed eviction blockades and chained themselves to the entrances of housing court, meeting the violence of displacement with a force of their own. The Poor People’s Campaign has elevated the voices of low-income Americans around the country, voices challenging “the lie of scarcity in the midst of abundance” and mobilizing for things like educational equity and a reinvestment in public housing.[

They march under different banners—workers’ unions and tenants’ unions; movements for racial justice and economic justice—but they share a commitment to ending poverty in America.

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Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond - Book Review

 

BOOK REVIEW: FIVE STARS

Poverty, by America by Matthew Desmond

It is past time to wake up America!

The Europeans refer to America as the land of the working poor where there are over 800,000 homeless.

This book is a reality check. It has been said that the Americans can be sold anything, even a war.

EXCERPTS:

I have met poor Americans around the country striving for dignity and justice—or just plain survival, which can be hard enough: home health aides in New Jersey who belonged to the full-time working homeless, fast food workers in California fighting for a living wage, and undocumented immigrants in Minneapolis organizing for affordable housing, communicating with their neighbors through the Google Translate app. This is who we are: the richest country on earth, with more poverty than any other advanced democracy. If America’s poor founded a country, that country would have a bigger population than Australia or Venezuela.

Almost one in nine Americans—including one in eight children—live in poverty. There are more than 38 million.

Instead, we let the rich slide and give the most to those who have plenty already, creating a welfare state that heavily favors the upper class. And then our elected officials have the audacity—the shamelessness, really—to fabricate stories about poor people’s dependency on government aid and shoot down proposals to reduce poverty because they would cost too much. Glancing at the price tag of some program that would cut child poverty in half or give all Americans access to a doctor, they suck their teeth and ask, “But how can we afford it?” How can we afford it? What a sinful question. What a selfish, dishonest question, one asked as if the answer wasn’t staring us straight in the face. We could afford it if we allowed the IRS to do its job. We could afford it if the well-off among us took less from the government. We could afford it if we designed our welfare state to expand opportunity and not guard fortunes.

Americans throw away more than that amount in food every year.

What could $177 billion buy? Quite a lot. We could ensure that every person in America had a safer and more affordable place to live. Every single one of us. We could put a real dent in ending homelessness in America, and we could end hunger.

Companies are doing all they can to avoid paying what they owe. Wealthy families, too, have found new ways to weasel out of paying taxes. Studies have shown that most Americans pay 90 percent of the taxes they owe, but the ultra-rich pay only 75 percent. This is possible because affluent have increasingly come to rely on a burgeoning industry of tax professionals who have devised ingenious ways to get around investing in the common welfare.

When corporations hide profits in tax havens, and when rich families stash valuable assets in offshore accounts, they defraud the American public, forcing everyone else to pay for their greed.

“It seems to me that people who earn nothing and contribute nothing get everything for free. And the people who work hard and struggle for every penny barely end up surviving.” Universal programs, like a universal basic income (UBI), get rid of this baggage. Designed to benefit a large number of people, sometimes irrespective of their standing, universal programs are less polarizing and so are considered more politically durable.

I’m not calling for “redistribution.” I’m calling for the rich to pay their taxes. I’m calling for a re-balancing of our social safety net. I’m calling for a return to a time when America made bigger investments in the general welfare. I’m calling for more poor aid and less rich aid.

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