6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The American Nightmare, April 27, 2002
This review is from: America Needs Human Rights (Paperback)
One can live America their entire life without realizing the extent of poverty and dispair. For so many Americans, life in this country is a nightmare. This book is a real eye-opener. Well-written, well-researched, and timely. Read it and discover for yourself the extent to which basic human rights have been abused and ignored. Moreover, discover how you can join in the effort to realize the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, both at home and abroad.
SOME OF THE THINGS YOU WILL FIND IN THE BOOK:
1) Detailed descriptions of labor camp life in the agricultural South: in particular, rounding up streets addicts or homeless youth to work as near slaves in the fields. Aka, debt peonage. I was absolutely shocked that some 130 after the Civil War, America is still enslaving the unfortunate and desperate so that we consumers can wear cotton shirts and eat fresh vegetables. If this not an example of human rights abuses, I don't know what is.
2) The Ghettofication of many inner-cities in America: in particular, the "decentralization of employment" phemenon, where jobs move from metropolitan areas to the suburbs. This often creates pockets of (usually Black and Latino) poverty in dense, inner-city areas, which are then often industrialized, or used as waste-disposal areas: medical equipment incineration, garbabe dumps, etc. Some authors have described this process as a new form of racism - environmental racism - in that disadvantaged minority groups are usually left to live in highly polluted areas, where asthma and cancer rates soar. (See FACES OF EMVIRONMENTAL RACISM, edit. Laura Westra and Bill Lawson for details on this issue.)
3) "Average unemployment rates have been rising for the last quarter century in virtually all Western Industrialized nations." People end up being "caught between declining income and rising costs." "Through most of the 60s and 70s, the income earned by a person working full time at a minimum wage job was sufficient to keep a family of three out of offical poverty. By 1994, a minimum wage job, forty hours a week, 52 weeks a year would not even keep a household of two above the poverty threshold...the minimum wage does not even pay enough to keep a single individual above the poverty line." But then, who didn't know that intuitively?
4) There is a "spiritual crisis facing America: that those who have more than they need rest comfortably, while those who lack basics struggle and suffer. If we pay attention only to the corporate media, we might believe in the sparkling, computer-driven, global marketplace, a new economy where everyone is better off. As we now know, the reality is otherwise for millions of Americans. We call for a national debate that addresses the root causes of the crisis that we face, and places them in the context of basic human rights for all."
5) "Since 1989 the poorest fifth of families have lost %587 each and the richest five percent have gained $29,533 each. We have five times more billionaires, but four million more poor children."
By no means exaustive or representative, I recommend reading the whole thing. This book is literally a cornucopia of essays from a variety of scholars, as well as some first-person accounts from peonage laborers. The book is broken up into Five sections: The New American Crisis, Root Causes, What's Wrong With Welfare, Human Rights for America, and the epilogue: Building the Movement for Human Rights in America. It would be impossible for me cover all the terraine this book encompases. A must read for anyone concerned with justice, human rights or the future of America.
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