I stood on the bridge that crossed from Laredo to Nuevo, Mexico while watching a teenage boy crawl through a bro“Love Thy Neigh or as Thyself.” ~Jesus
I stood on the bridge that crossed from Laredo to Nuevo, Mexico while watching a teenage boy crawl through a broken chain link fence. He walk to the river’s edge and took off most of his clothing. Then he held his clothes over his head and waded through the shallow waters of the river. Once across, he disappeared into the bushes to get dressed, and then he moved on. It looked so easy. I knew he was just going to Laredo, because he had no backpack, nothing that spoke to me of a long trek ahead of him. Perhaps he was going to work or just to shop or visit friends.
Years later I was to learn how dangerous it was to cross the border for I had read “The Devil’s Highway.” Coyotes, the guides who helped the Mexicans cross the border would not tell those crossing illegally that it wasn’t just a day’s walk, but many days were involved. And they only had a small bottle of water to carry them through the long hot days ahead. Being left on their own the water ran out. Often they died in the desert. The few fortunate ones made it across.
I still have images of a pregnant woman, her body lying dead in the desert, almost mummified, and her stomach, once large, lay flat against her body, like the woman I saw in Guanajuato, Mexico in their mummy museum. Some things just never leave a person’s mind.
This was true for this author as well, only he was there. He was a young man, graduated from college with a degree in International Relations and wanted first-hand experience, so he joined the Border Patrol. The things he saw in the desert gave him nightmares. For one thing, he often dreamed that he was spitting his teeth out of his mouth. When he finally went to the dentist, he was told that he was grinding his teeth down.
He was one of the kind-hearted patrol men. He felt for the people crossing, and when he found them, he doctored their injuries, fed them, and gave them advice about crossing the border, such as “do not cross in the summer.” It wasn’t information to help them cross; it was information to keep them from dying.
Most crossing the border were not carrying drugs, they just wanted a better life, often a safe life. Few made it. If they didn’t die in the desert, they were caught and sent back by the Boarder Patrol. With all the surveillance, I wondered how anyone made it, even without it.
Besides feeling bad for the Hispanics who are crossing the border, I felt a lot of things, such as how to solve the border crisis, and how to solve the drug problems in the U.S., Mexico, Central and South America. I have no answers, and I doubt if anyone else does. Right now, the only answer I see is to give amnesty when needed and cause no more harm to these fine people who have endured so much just to escape from getting killed in their own homelands....more
It was the 70s. The young woman sat in my history class listening to the professor talk about slavery. Then she said, “They loved being slaves. That iIt was the 70s. The young woman sat in my history class listening to the professor talk about slavery. Then she said, “They loved being slaves. That is why they were always singing and dancing. We all laughed, but we should have gasped. Our laugh was how we corrected her. There should have been something said and maybe there was, and I have just forgotten. This book has that correction. They sang and they danced because they were forced to do so, and tears would slide down their faces like rain as they watched their loved ones being sold into slavery. Never to see them again. Their enslavers wanted them to look like they were happy to besold into slavery, and the South perpetuated this myth ever since. And the dance and the singing went on and on throughout history.
This book was just too horrifying for me. I thought of how the Jews were treated in Germany and elsewhere, even the Native Americans. People don’t realize, some won’t believe it, that America had its own Nazi Germany, its own Auschwitz, so to speak. And when historians said that Hitler learned from us, he did, more so than we would like to think. When I finished this chapter, I had to put the book down.
I recall how some people who had read The People’s History of the U.S. believed that it was all lies, and that it only taught Americans to hate their country. This book goes deeper, much deeper. You will question the humanity of mankind....more
Fracking is already going on in the Arctic. Need I say more? Not really, but I will. If they haven’t begun already, they are also planningBleak Future
Fracking is already going on in the Arctic. Need I say more? Not really, but I will. If they haven’t begun already, they are also planning to drill for oil.
I often feel that it is a waste of time trying to save our planet and all living things on it, because no matter how hard people try, greed takes over. Furthermore, this is not the kind of book to be reading right now when everything else in America is falling apart.
A Buddhist would just say, “Nothing is permanent, and earths are coming into existence and being destroyed all the time.” In essence, do not think about it. But I do think about it, and I do not wish to bury my head under the sand. Anyway, if I am not thinking about the wildlife in the arctic, I am thinking about the America’s political situation.
So, I just know that you all do not want to hear what is hap...more
The black man slaved in your fields to put food on your table, but he was not allowed in your restaurants.
The black woman raised your children, even held The black man slaved in your fields to put food on your table, but he was not allowed in your restaurants.
The black woman raised your children, even held them on her lap, but once that child was grown, he would not allow her to even sit next to him on a bus.
You taught the black man to love your white God, to worship and to pray to him, but then he was not allowed to step foot in your churches.
And if he breaks any of these rules Your hate for him will cause you to beat and kill him.
Is it that the white man hates who he had enslaved? Or does he truly just hate himself for what he has done, and then takes that hate out on the black man? But maybe it is neither. Maybe he is just filled with hate.
I had never heard about the Freedom Riders. When young college men and women, black and white, even professors, ministers boarded Greyhound buses headed for the southern states to try to get rid of the Jim Crow laws, I was finishing high school. It was 1961. No one talked about it, not even abut the four men, who a year before, had a |sit-in” at Woolworth’s in Greensboro, North Caroling. They had sat there for four hours. I do not even have the full story on that powerful moment. I just know that the photo taken of their backs had become famous.
I missed knowing so much during the apolitical period of my life. So, this book was all new to me. It was rough going. At one point during the beatings that the Freedom Riders were enduring, I put the book down and began listening to Keith Whitley sing his songs. When one of his songs came on, one I had never heard before; “Birmingham Turn Around,” I thought it ironic that he was singing about leaving Birmingham on a plane for New Orleans because he wanted to get away from a woman that he loved. Ironic, because I had just finished reading the part in the book where the Freedom Riders needed to get out of Birmingham before they were killed, and the plan was to take a plan to New Orleans.
I went back to the book, but I have to say this: the book is full of horrors as well as being tedious at times. Although, I am no longer apolitical, I still find it hard to read political books. I just base my politics on what is right, and Civil Rights is what is right, as is all human rights....more
I cannot give this book a rating as it Pulitzer Prize, and because I just don't understand his poetry even though I read this book twice. Yet, I lovedI cannot give this book a rating as it Pulitzer Prize, and because I just don't understand his poetry even though I read this book twice. Yet, I loved his first poem.
A Rebuttal to Hillbilly Elegy While reading Hillbilly Elegy was a fun read, I also saw it as a book that held the same ideals as those of a certain segA Rebuttal to Hillbilly Elegy While reading Hillbilly Elegy was a fun read, I also saw it as a book that held the same ideals as those of a certain segment of our society that believe that you just need to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and get religion, and then all will be okay.
Hillbilly Elegy also stereotyped those living in the Appalachian Mountains. For some reason they were all white Scot-Irish when they are also from other European countries, and are also American Indians, Blacks and Hispanics. And not all those who live there come from dysfunctional families, nor are they all violent and ignorant, and while he may not have meant to imply these things, it felt like he did, and there is enough in novels and other books on Appalachia that imply this as well. People love to think of Hillbillies as all white ignorant inbreeds who are moonshiners.
My best friend was raised in the Cumberland Plateau of the Appalachian Mountains. She is a Native Indian and is intelligent. She isn’t inbred either. I feel that I am always learning something new from her. She is not your stereotypical Appalachian but knows that she was really fortunate to have grown up in the Cumberland, and I wish I had as well.
My friend and I both help out at the homeless shelter, and some of the Christians there, like Vance, think that the people are homeless because they don’t have Christ. I have talked with the homeless and most are Christians. One of them can even sing Christian songs in Cherokee, which sound beautiful in another language. I also think that many Christians believe that the homeless, if they confess Christ, are just not the right kind of Christians because they don’t go to their church, but if they did and they didn’t find jobs, well, then perhaps they really are not Christians after all, because Jesus said that God takes care of his own.
Last year I met my friend’s relatives at a large reunion that was held in our town. They came from all over the country. The people were really nice, although religious, yet that gave them a nice kind of flavor that I would pull away from if I had to be around them daily but only because I have my own beliefs and don’t like people trying to save me from them. But they were the “hillbillies” that Vance never talked about, or if he did, they were the ones he would have loved, and he would have set them up as examples of what wonders Christianity can do, and sometimes it can. So, their kids were really nice and helpful and got up to take away our plates without even being asked. They actually wanted to help. Some would say that it was their religion that made them this way, but then I have been around atheist, Buddhist, and Hindu families that had wonderful families, but it just goes to show that not all hillbillies have dysfunctional families, or to others it just shows God’s wisdom. But who knows, in time, some of these kids at this reunion may grow up to be bootleggers and gun toting mamas. Religion can do that to some people.
Turning to drugs: Do the Appalachians have the worse drug problems in the U.S. No. We in Cherokee County just learned that we do, and here I thought we only had a meth problem. Anyway, I haven’t noticed it. As for the opioid addiction, most people take pain killers because they are in pain, and if those drugs are taken away, you might find just as many deaths as you have now from opioid deaths, only now by suicide. I had a friend back in California, whose husband shot himself due to his pain, but he lived, and the story of his shooting was too horrible, so I won’t go into detail as she had with me, or maybe I should so you will understand. No, I won’t, but I will say that their two year old was there to see it all. Her husband had been on the pain killer morphine, but it didn’t work; pain killers never do completely, and so he couldn’t take any more pain. I feel that society tends to hook onto a problem and then tries to cure it in the wrong manner, because now this is causing doctors to fear prescribing them to anyone. And like my friend’s husband…
If Vance had his way no one would probably take pain killers, welfare would end and people would just have to figure out how to get by on their own. Then like during the Depression, they would be dying on the streets, but it would be their own fault.
Listening to Vance expose this family’s dirty laundry to the world really bothered me, which is why when I did a review of his book I put it into poetry, and put him down in the language of his own people, language I grew up with since I had friends who were from Arkansas. And, no, it doesn’t matter to me that he claims to love his grandmother.
So let’s look at how Vance made it to where he is today: He would have starved to death if his grandmother hadn’t had welfare. Then he went into the military, and with his government GI bill, he went to college. It was okay for him to take government money, but maybe he thought it was okay because he was going to make something of himself, and in the latter case the military owed him something. And now he is a far right Christian/Republican. Okay, I won’t go there. I have said enough here. He also became a lawyer, you know, those people that are hated by those who voted for the man on the hill, Swampman. I guess I just can’t help myself here. But it must be remembered, not every one is born with the same kind of drive or the same kind of ability as Vance—not everyone is a jerk. Many people just desire to work, to provide for their families, and while the coal miners finally began getting good pay, that didn’t last, much of that is history because the coal jobs were almost gone when Vance wrote his book. And if anyone says that they now have factories that no one wishes to work at, well, who were those men at Swampman’s rallies that wanted work so bad? Anyway, when people are out of work they don’t feel good about themselves, and when they don’t feel good about themselves they can turn to alcohol or drugs and this makes it hard for anyone to be able to lift themselves up by getting a job.
Elizabeth Catte sees a different Appalachia where she lives. She sees activists who, by the way, live there and are not outside agitators, are fighting against the coal companies, yes, fighting against the coal companies. They have been fighting for their rights forever. Coal is now mountain top removal; it isn’t in the mines any more and will never be again. Mountain top removal, as most people know, rips off mountain tops, destroys the environment, pollutes, and rips out cemeteries while damaging homes, as if being down in the mines wasn’t bad enough. People are fighting for their land; they want the mountain top coal removal stopped. Coal mining will never come back no matter what Swampman says. He was just using the people to get their votes. I even wonder how many people were planted at his rallies, but even if they were really Appalachians, they are the few. They could just be those who are desperate for work, for any kind of work, and coal is their only hope since jobs have not been brought into the mountains. Of course, as I said, the pay at these mines was always below poverty level, and now mountain top removal uses few workers, mostly outside labor. To think of it, we should all be fighting for clean energy, and I don’t mean Fracking which is also polluting and causes earthquakes as I know very well. Oklahoma has more earthquakes than CA now. I left CA for this?
So obviously, although not to Vance, the people in the Appalachians are poor, I repeat myself again, because they had been given very low wages, and now that there are no coal mining or factory jobs they have no money to spend in stores, so many businesses have moved out, making the entire area poorer still.
Some people say that they should just move, but they should not have to move; it was their land, and the coal companies have no right to destroy it. It is also their culture; they have lived a life they loved until the coal companies came in years ago. Plus, government has caused this mess; they should fix it by bringing in good jobs and helping the people by continuing to give welfare and have programs that help them get back on their feet.
But there are some good jobs there that keep Appalachia alive: These jobs are in education, hospitality, and healthcare. Who keeps it poor? That would be the private businesses and out-of-state land owners who don’t pay taxes, or just don’t pay enough.
There is so much more to this book that I can’t even begin to tell, and of course some of what I have written are my own ideas, and I could be wrong in regards to some of them. I am just glad that one of my new GR friends had liked my review on Hillbilly Elegy which in turn caused me to find this book amongst her own reviews, because our book group is now reading Hillbilly Elegy, so Catte’s book is a great rebuttal if I don’t find myself ranting as I have just done here. Social injustice just causes me to go off the deep end.
“Testifying against coal companies in eastern Kentucky, young women described watching bull-dozers rip through a family cemetery. Alice Sloan, a Kentucky-area educator, described how Bige Richie pleaded with the coal company to spare the grave of her child: ‘The bulldozer pushed over the hlll and she begged them not to go through the graveyard. And she looked out there and there was her baby’s coffin come rolling down the hill
“This is like a Felini movie,” my friend Julie said as we were walking around the city dump looking for a discarded screen door for the house she was “This is like a Felini movie,” my friend Julie said as we were walking around the city dump looking for a discarded screen door for the house she was remodeling. It was just another adventure to us.
The stench rose from the ground; and I found myself not wanting to take another breath. The Berkeley dump was trying its best to start salvaging in order to save the planet. Items had been pulled aside for sale, but not far away enough.
"'Everything around us is roses’ is how Abdul’s younger brother, Mirchi put it. ‘And we’re the shit in-between.'”
Instead of a Felini movie, reading this book was more like a horror film that I didn’t wish to watch.
The poorest of the poor in Mumbai, the ragpickers, live near the dumps, between the beautiful forevers of the airport and the rich hotels, just down the road are their shacks. They have no running water, heat, or electricity. What they have, they salvaged from the dump.
The stench in the air, like incense, reaches the highest God, Brahman. But Brahman holds his nose and looks away. He doesn’t listen; perhaps he never had. He only woke up long enough to create.
The scavengers were stealing from each other; the police were stealing from them all. No one could get ahead and no one could make enough to feed themselves or their family. “A few residents trapped rats and frogs and fried them for dinner. A few ate the scrub grass at the sewage lake’s edge.” This in turn allowed other scavengers to feel that they were at least in a higher position than the rat eaters. Perhaps, it was because they could salvage some of the food from the hotels who dumped their rotten food into this dump.
The shit covered pigs would swallow in this toxic waste; they would drink the toxic water and vomit, and I thought that pigs could eat anything.
“Scrapes from dumpster-diving pocked and became infected. Where skin broke, maggots got in. Lice colonized hair, gangrene inched p fingers, calves swelled into tree trunks, and Abdul and his younger brother kept running a wager about which of the scavengers would be next to die.” And don’t think of hospitals. They are not for the poor, instead
go to the godmen. ask them for help. beg them for money. pray for those who are sick, pray for the dying, pray for a better job, for food that doesn’t come from the dump.
ask the Indian government for help. write a book about it, and hope to shame those who are shameless.
beg to be released from your karma, and if you can’t be released, hope your next life will be better.
There was a little boy who worked in the recycle plant, shredding plastic until his hand got caught in the shredder. He didn’t cry; he stood there with blood pouring out of his stump, and looking up at his boss, he told him that he was sorry. And he knew that he would never work again.
And while you are praying pray for us all, pray for those of us who turn an eye, for those of us that just don’t care for anyone other than ourselves. Pray for people everywhere who have no shelter, food, running water, or heat. Maybe if you hit the right note, God will listen. But don’t ask me to pray to your God, not even to the Christian God, all the same to me. I know about prayers. I know about incense and candles, and waving feathers through the air. If they pay any attention to you at all, it is to give you a swift kick. I know about those kicks too....more
HILLBILLY ELEGIST: YOUR BOOK SMELLS BAD ENOUGH TO KNOCKA BUZZARD OFF A SHIT WAGON
Ma lives in the holler way back yander thar. she plays the fiddle and sHILLBILLY ELEGIST: YOUR BOOK SMELLS BAD ENOUGH TO KNOCKA BUZZARD OFF A SHIT WAGON
Ma lives in the holler way back yander thar. she plays the fiddle and sings just like Emmy Lou.
Mamaw chews tobacco and spits the wad right in her old Styrofoam cup. even in front of company.
my pa was a coal miner and beats us younguns cus he meaner than a polecat and a little touched when he is drunker than Cootey Brown.
We refused welfare don't believe in eating high on the hog, so I picked my poor self up and so can y'all. just go out and git a job cus it is y'alls falt if y'all ain't a workin'
And if you read this far I got your attention so I want to say that this here writer feller plumb needs some more book larnin, and a whole lotta more empathy.
He makes me fit to be tied; I am madder than a wet hornet. cus getting anywhere in life takes luck and opportunity. and that means it has to come up and bite you in the butt.
it isn't always their fault if they are down and out, but now you have written a book for republicans to use against your kinfolk.
I was reading Amazon's best sellers on my kindle, and saw the title of this book and liked it. Then read what it was about, the Number 1 New York TimeI was reading Amazon's best sellers on my kindle, and saw the title of this book and liked it. Then read what it was about, the Number 1 New York Times Bestseller/ Nation Books Award Winner? NAACP Image award winner, Pulitzer Prize Finalist and the list goes on.
So began reading. I was very tired at the time as it was past my bedtime, but I knew that this was not a bedtime story, nor was this a book to read when you were tired, for this book was special; it was important, and I knew this even from reading the first few pages. It should only be read with alert mind, I thought, so I put it down and began reading it anew in the morning.
I remember another book like this, one that was lyrical as well, where a man was writing to his son too. This book was "Gilead," and the father in this book was a minister who had a heart condition that wouldn't allow him to live much longer, and so wanted his son to know about his own life and about his love for him. But he wasn't black like the man in this book. He was white; he had a privileged life. While he knew that his body was weak and dying, the black man in this book, always knew that he could lose his body at any moment. Life was that fragile for him. He knew this from history, even current history. And this is the story that he tells his son, not just out of love, but to try to protect him somehow and that, too, is love.
But what white parent has to give a long lecture to his son or daughter in order to protect him from the world he lives in, this world where his own life is worth nothing? Does the white person have to tell his child to be better than the other races? In the black man's case, his body is worth nothing, and it really doesn't matter what the parent says to his child because if a police officer wants his life, and society does nothing about it, that life is his.
I remember in the news when a black man in Wal-Mart was shot and killed for carrying an unloaded air gun over his shoulder. He wasn't even pointing it. I remember how his girl friend said later that their lives, their black lives, were worth nothing. How does she go on when knowing this? Maybe it is due to hope; I don't know. I do know that hope doesn't change things, as President Obama ran on hope. I also know that human rights are never given to anyone; they have to be fought for, and that is so hard to understand. Why are they not given freely?
No matter how hard I try I can't understand racism; I can't understand cruelty to others. I have even tried to understand evil but so have others, and they have failed. The author Ron Rosenbaum wrote an article: "Does Evil Exist?" He, too, is trying to understand. Some neuroscientists, he wrote, say that evil is only a "malfunction or malformation in the brain." Evil doesn't exist and neither does free will. So is this why man is cruel, why he kills and hates?
But then again, could racism be due to lack of education? Often it is. But I think of how many of those who are racist in our society are also Christians, and that is part of their education. So does Christianity not provide the right education or are its teachings the problem? Christ only taught Love. But now that I think of it, the Old Testament didn't JUST teach love, it also taught revenge and murder of those not of their faith. It also taught slavery and that it was okay to beat a slave to the inch of his/her life, and they believe this too.
This last year or so, like the author of this book, I watched the news on TV and saw for the first time real killings of blacks by the some of the police in our society. I was horrified. I knew it had been happening for hundreds of years, not just by the police but by other white men, but I didn't realize that it was still happening on such a large scale. At first I was grateful that we now had people with cam recorders that took moving pictures of these killings, because now those police would be punished. There was proof! Solid proof! Time after time I was wrong.
As to the killings of blacks, Ta-nehist Coates blame Americans for allowing it, and he is correct. If we didn't like what we see wouldn't we all do something about it? Why are there so few protestors of any race? But then we, as Americans, don't do much about anything. Even those who are making low wages just accept it and get another job to help them out some. I just don't see a large joining of hands in America that would help solve many issues. It is all done by small pockets of people, and I don't see myself as an activist either, but I can complain.
What Coates says could fill pages, and it has, but what I mean by this is: I have highlighted so much in this book on my kindle that I wouldn't know where to begin, but I will post some of it here, because I have to begin:
"The progress of those Americans... was built on looting and violence. Hearing this, I felt an old and indistinct sadness well up in me. The answer to this question is the record of the believers themselves. The answer is American history...Americans deify democracy in a way that allows for a dim awareness that they have, from time to time, stood in defiance of their God."
"Police departments of your country have been endowed to destroy your body. It does not matter if the destruction is the result of an unfortunate overreaction. It does not matter if it originates in a misunderstanding. It does not matter if the destruction springs from a foolish policy. Sell cigarettes without the proper authority and your body can be destroyed. Turn into a dark stairwell and you body can be destroyed. The destroyers will rarely be held accountable. Mosty they will receive pensions."
"The truth is that the police reflect America in all of its will and fear, and whatever we might make of this country's criminal justice policy, it cannot be said that it was imposed by a repressive minority."
"When I was about your age, each day, fully one-third of my brain was concerned with who I was walking to school with, our precise number, the manner of our walk, the number of times I smiled, who or what I smiled at. who offered a pound and who did not--all of which is to say that I practiced the culture of the streets, a culture concerned chiefly with securing the body...I somehow knew that that third of my brain should have been concerned with more beautiful things."...more
When I was in high school one of the teachers showed us a film on hunger in America, and it was shocking to me back then, but it appeared to be just aWhen I was in high school one of the teachers showed us a film on hunger in America, and it was shocking to me back then, but it appeared to be just a section of America that sent hunger. Things are far worse now.
This is another story about people in American not making it. For these people there is never enough food, jobs, or enough money to make ends meet. The food they get doesn't last out the month, and much of it is what I consider junk food--prepackaged foods that cause disease.
When I was fresh out of high school I moved to Davis, CA to be near my high school boy friend, who I later married. I lived with a couple and took care of their child. The woman, Jill, went to college at U.C. Davis. For two weeks out of the month they would feed me well, but the next two weeks money was low. I didn’t make enough to buy my own food. Months later I ended up getting anemia. Luckily, I married shortly after.
But back to prepackaged foods: Do you think that the wealthy people are eating prepackaged foods? I know many aren't. They are eating fresh fruits and vegetables, good meats, dairy and cheeses and drinking good wines. They often have a cook that serves them gourmet meals. Well, some say, “They deserve it; they worked hard for it. These welfare people don't want to work, and so they deserve prepackaged foods.”
Those on food stamps need to work, yes, but the jobs are not always there, and if they do find jobs, they never pay enough to make ends meet. They even have programs that teach them new skills, so that they can find work, but that doesn't mean that they will get the work, because they often don't, as there are too many people looking for the same job. And how do you get a job without a car? How do you find work when you don’t have transportation money? It isn't that easy anymore to get around unless you live in large city like the Bay Area of San Francisco that has great bus service, but then you can't afford to live there either. Many low paid workers are now living out of the city and have to travel far to get to work. Poverty breeds more poverty.
One woman, that the author interviewed, goes as far as to unscrew a light bulb in her refrigerator. That saves nothing, but she doesn't know this. Another unscrews every bulb in the house. Well, Americans lived without electricity in their not so distant past, so why not? Why not? Because people shouldn't have to live like this. They could even turn off their hot water and heat. Many do. It helps even more. I have a pen pal who lives in snow country, and when her husband lost his job he couldn’t get into town to even collect food stamps. They spent the winter without heat, no propane or wood. A year later his boss called him back to work.
Then there are the long food lines at food pantries, and much like the bread lines in the depression era, some who stand in line to get food end up with very little since they were at the back of the line hours ago, and the food ran out. When I worked at a food pantry, I saw this every time I was there. And what do you say to those that end up with nothing, other than, I'm sorry? Or “Here, we do have a bag of cocoa puffs left.” When you volunteer at these places you are not allowed to give them money, you can only give sympathy. This is not an easy volunteer job.
Now we have a day care center and 6 days a week we pass out peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or bologna and cheese on white bread—all processed food. Then there are potato chips, a banana, and sometimes homemade soup. They can get by on this for a while, but in the long run they will end up with illnesses, and most of these people are too sick to work.
The author of this book reports what he sees; he doesn't give solutions. I am not sure if there are solutions since being poor is demonized by others, as well as criminalized. And how do you change people's views? I haven't seen it happen, and I have tried. Not everyone has a heart and many have been too brainwashed to see things as they really are.
I think that the food stamp program really needs to be changed. For one thing I feel that people need more food stamps, not less, but I am also in agreement with ruling out most prepackaged foods. The problem right now is that they have to make their food stamps stretch. Prepackaged foods, while lacking much in nutrition goes farther than real food. Everyone know how expensive fruits, vegetables, meat, eggs, milk, and real cheese are.
Then we need to bring jobs back to America, and not just jobs but good paying ones.
All of that may not happen, and our country is so rigged that people have a very hard time raising themselves out of poverty. But in comes help: Rep. Steve Southerland had a plan to make changes to the welfare system. Let’s make these people volunteer for their food for at least 20 hours a week, he said. Now, that isn't really a bad idea, except I believe that this volunteer work will be free, and if it isn't, it will not be equal to a paying job, not even an $8 an hour lousy job. So now you would have slave labor, as if we ever abolished it in the first place, and price wise, I doubt if these 20 hours will be equal to the food they buy.
Note: Since writing this review I read that teachers in Florida can’t afford to rent a house, so they want to build them apartments on the campuses instead of raising their pay....more
This was like a blast in the face. I have to quit reading these kinds of books. So depressing, but so informative, so I guess I won't stop reading theThis was like a blast in the face. I have to quit reading these kinds of books. So depressing, but so informative, so I guess I won't stop reading them. But at this moment I am reading a fun loving book, which I have to do in-between some books I read.
First, I don’t believe that all the affluent people have these negative beliefs about welfare people, nor do I believe that that are all racists, and neither does the author. I know many wealthy people who are out there helping people to rise above what has been given to them, which is hard to rise above in our society.
One of the things that this book does is quote from those in the media who are on the far right who believe that we have a lot of welfare fraud, and that people should just be able to pick themselves up, etc. Tim Wise's findings are what I call a blast in the face, because I knew only a little of what was being said in the media, because unless you watch Fox news or listen to Rush Limbaugh, Hannity, and others, you will not really get the full impact of all that is being said. And unless you work at a welfare office or have other facts, you won’t know the truth of the matter.
I know a woman who worked at the welfare office and saw her put someone straight who believed that we should send the Hispanics back to Mexico and get everyone off welfare. One of her statements was, "It is hard to get on welfare." Tim Wise puts people straight. He has spent a lot of time researching this subject. As a result, this book is very well documented.
Anyway, this is a book for those like me and for the unmentionable others who didn’t know the full story or who just don't know, period. It should be required reading in high schools.
“After graduation, due to special circumstances and perhaps also to my character, I began to travel throug [image]
A Jack Kerouac but with compassion.
“After graduation, due to special circumstances and perhaps also to my character, I began to travel throughout America, and I became acquainted with all of it. Except for Haiti and Santo Domingo, I have visited, to some extent, all the other Latin American countries. Because of the circumstances in which I traveled, first as a student and later as a doctor, I came into close contact with poverty, hunger and disease; with the inability to treat a child because of lack of money; with the stupefaction provoked by the continual hunger and punishment, to the point that a father can accept the loss of a son as an unimportant accident, as occurs often in the downtrodden classes of our American homeland. And I began to realize at that time that there were things that were almost as important to me as becoming famous for making a significant contribution to medical science: I wanted to help those people.”
“Above all, always be capable of feeling deeply any injustice committed against anyone, anywhere in the world.”
Whether fighting as he did was the right way to make changes in the world or not, I don’t know. I do know that people seldom, if ever, give up their power over others easily, and I know for all that he had done, things have not changed much. Still Che Guevara has been a hero of mine, as he has been to many others around the world. For me, it is because he cared enough.
The quotes I gave above aren't even in this book, but they show you the beginnings of a revolutionist. When you read about his travels in this book between the pages of excitement over all that he experienced, you find comments about the poverty and the lack of medical care that exist in those countries. I felt that being a medical doctor wasn't enough for him.
"The future belongs to the people, and gradually, or in one strike, they will take power, here and in every country. The terrible thing is the people need to be educated, and this they cannot do before taking power, only after. They can only learn at the cost of their own mistakes, which will be very serious and will cost many innocent lives.”
“It is there, in the final moments, for people whose farthest horizon has always been tomorrow, that one comprehends the profound tragedy circumscribing the life of the proletariat the world over.”
“An accordion player who had no fingers on his right hand used little sticks tied to his wrist; the singer was blind; and almost all the others were horribly deformed, due to the nervous form of the disease very common in this area. With light from the lamps and the lanterns reflected in the river, it was like a scene from a horror movie. The place is lovely,”
And here is a quote to ponder on:
“I now know, by an almost fatalistic conformity with the facts, that my destiny is to travel, or perhaps it’s better to say that traveling is our destiny, because Alberto feels the same. Still, there are moments when I think with profound longing of those wonderful areas in our south. Perhaps one day, tired of circling the world, I’ll return to Argentina and settle in the Andean lakes, if not indefinitely then at least for a pause while I shift from one understanding of the world to another.”
His destiny wasn't to travel but to fight for human rights. He was killed by a firing squad on October 9, 1967 in Bolivia. HIs remains were found and removed to Cuba where he was given full military honors on October 17, 1997. His remains are now in the Che Guevara Mausoleum in Santa Clara, Cuba. ...more
Some people really thought that blacks were progressing in our society, after all Obama was elected, and you don't hear much from the black community Some people really thought that blacks were progressing in our society, after all Obama was elected, and you don't hear much from the black community anymore. What a surprise this book was. It should be required reading in every freshman high school class. It should be talked about in the news, but it isn't....more
This was an excellent book. Rosenbaum was trying to explain Hitler and even put in notes that were in other books about HItler, and how they tried to This was an excellent book. Rosenbaum was trying to explain Hitler and even put in notes that were in other books about HItler, and how they tried to explain him. No one ever could, not even Rosenbaum.
At best I would say that like Donald Trump, Hitler was a buffoon. He was not taken seriously, until it was too late, and like Trump, Hitler was a liar, a psychopath, and a narcissist. Those are my own ideas, and I think maybe people would agree with me, unless they are pro Trump and/or Hitler.
I re-read an article by Ron Rosenbaum today. How much I wish my memory was as good as it was in the past. But in this article he is comparing Trump with Hitler:
And when I re-read the article it seems even more prevalent than it did back when I first read it. And now I wonder what Ron Rosenbaum has written since then....more
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