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4.26 AVERAGE
4.26 AVERAGE
This is a book I sold many times to customers when I worked in the bookstore and now have finally read it. This is a thorough history book of US History from a perspective of different groups of people who make up the USA. I was expecting another general history but found the scope of this to be quite different. It does not cover the stories from a one melting pot narrative but gets into the dynamics of groups of people from small minority culture to also larger more dominate culture.
challenging
informative
slow-paced
challenging
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
Rage and hope are a dangerous combination.
challenging
informative
medium-paced
This is a pessimistic, troubling, enlightening, important book. I learned a lot - I honestly had no idea that the US had killed nearly a million Filipinos by the turn of the 20th century. Most of the book discusses the class struggle between the rich, who from the beginning engineered the US political system to favor their own agenda, and the poor, who are always with us.
In short,
"The American system is the most ingenious system of control in world history. With a country so rich in natural resources, talent, and labor power the system can afford to distribute just enough wealth to just enough people to limit discontent to a troublesome minority. It is a country so powerful, so big, so pleasing to so many of its citizens that it can afford to give freedom of dissent to the small number who are not pleased...How skillful to tax the middle class to pay for the relief of the poor, building resentment on top of humiliation! How adroit to bus poor black youngsters into poor white neighborhoods, in a violent exchange of impoverished schools, while the schools of the rich remain untouched and the wealth of the nation, doled out carefully where children need free milk, is drained for billion dollar aircraft carriers. How ingenious to meet the demands of blacks and women for equality by giving them small special benefits, and setting them in competition with everyone else for jobs made scarce by an irrational, wasteful system. How wise to turn the fear and anger of the majority toward a class of criminal, bred - by economic inequity - faster than they can be put away, deflecting attention from the huge thefts of national resources carried out within the law by men in executive offices."
Zinn's solution is a peaceful revolution that bypasses voting (which is the government's trick of channeling energy from protests into the Establishment's ballot box, where the status quo can be maintained). This revolution should result in the redistribution of wealth to guarantee food, health care, housing, jobs, etc. to everyone. White, colored, minors, the disabled, and the eldery are all included in this utopia.
Republican politicians love snappy soundbytes like "class warfare" and "redistribution of wealth", but I tell you this, O voters, that ALL policy is a redistribution of wealth (and some of it is yours), like it or not. Furthermore, beware of the Democratic candidate beloved by the 1% (aka all of them). If Anna Wintour loves a politician, I can promise you that he's not going to prioritize people like me.
A rationale for regulating wealth:
"During elections for the 1776 convention to frame a constitution for Pennsylvania, a Privates Committee urged voters to oppose 'Great and overgrown rich men...they will be too apt to be framing distinctions in society.' The Privates Committee drew up a bill of rights for the convention, including the statement that 'an enormous proportion of property vested in a few individuals is dangerous to the rights, and destructive of the common happiness, of mankind; and therefore every free state hath a right by its laws to discourage the possession of such property.'"
I almost gave this book 5 stars, but though Zinn appears to be mostly right and factual, there's a statement early on that George Washington was the richest man in 18th century America. That's really the only sliver of history that I do have some prior knowledge about and Zinn's statement is false (I suppose it doesn't matter enough to anyone to correct it). That one error made me wonder if there were others that I was too ignorant to catch.
In short,
"The American system is the most ingenious system of control in world history. With a country so rich in natural resources, talent, and labor power the system can afford to distribute just enough wealth to just enough people to limit discontent to a troublesome minority. It is a country so powerful, so big, so pleasing to so many of its citizens that it can afford to give freedom of dissent to the small number who are not pleased...How skillful to tax the middle class to pay for the relief of the poor, building resentment on top of humiliation! How adroit to bus poor black youngsters into poor white neighborhoods, in a violent exchange of impoverished schools, while the schools of the rich remain untouched and the wealth of the nation, doled out carefully where children need free milk, is drained for billion dollar aircraft carriers. How ingenious to meet the demands of blacks and women for equality by giving them small special benefits, and setting them in competition with everyone else for jobs made scarce by an irrational, wasteful system. How wise to turn the fear and anger of the majority toward a class of criminal, bred - by economic inequity - faster than they can be put away, deflecting attention from the huge thefts of national resources carried out within the law by men in executive offices."
Zinn's solution is a peaceful revolution that bypasses voting (which is the government's trick of channeling energy from protests into the Establishment's ballot box, where the status quo can be maintained). This revolution should result in the redistribution of wealth to guarantee food, health care, housing, jobs, etc. to everyone. White, colored, minors, the disabled, and the eldery are all included in this utopia.
Republican politicians love snappy soundbytes like "class warfare" and "redistribution of wealth", but I tell you this, O voters, that ALL policy is a redistribution of wealth (and some of it is yours), like it or not. Furthermore, beware of the Democratic candidate beloved by the 1% (aka all of them). If Anna Wintour loves a politician, I can promise you that he's not going to prioritize people like me.
A rationale for regulating wealth:
"During elections for the 1776 convention to frame a constitution for Pennsylvania, a Privates Committee urged voters to oppose 'Great and overgrown rich men...they will be too apt to be framing distinctions in society.' The Privates Committee drew up a bill of rights for the convention, including the statement that 'an enormous proportion of property vested in a few individuals is dangerous to the rights, and destructive of the common happiness, of mankind; and therefore every free state hath a right by its laws to discourage the possession of such property.'"
I almost gave this book 5 stars, but though Zinn appears to be mostly right and factual, there's a statement early on that George Washington was the richest man in 18th century America. That's really the only sliver of history that I do have some prior knowledge about and Zinn's statement is false (I suppose it doesn't matter enough to anyone to correct it). That one error made me wonder if there were others that I was too ignorant to catch.
dark
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
dark
informative
slow-paced
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
5.0⭐️ For the People
My dude heard Marvin Gaye sing “What’s Going On” and decided to answer.
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My dude heard Marvin Gaye sing “What’s Going On” and decided to answer.
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