172 of 181 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Star Continues to Shine the Light on Welfare, January 2, 2004
By A Customer
This review is from: Uncle Sam's Plantation: How Big Government Enslaves America's Poor and What We Can Do About It (Hardcover)
Star Parker's recent book "Uncle Sam's Plantation..." is
informative, inspiring, and written with the experience
of someone who has been there. As a former bleeding heart
liberal who was involved in a number of social services
organizations, it became obvious to me that many well intentioned
programs become a self perpetuating industry allowing 'do
gooders' to play Lady Bountiful to people they obviously
consider too incompetent to run their own lives.
The rewards go to those who exhibit self destructive behavior.
The more self destructive the behavior the more programs
exist as if throwing enough money and time will cure three
generations of government dependence. Ms Parker spells it
out clearly and effectively. I recommend this book to anyone
who feels that our welfare programs are going to create
independent, self supporting citizens. Your eyes will be
opened.
Lisa N
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163 of 180 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Great Read from A Great American, Star Parker, December 30, 2003
This review is from: Uncle Sam's Plantation: How Big Government Enslaves America's Poor and What We Can Do About It (Hardcover)
It is no surprise that government attempts at social engineering have proven costly, counter-productive, and oftentimes disastrous. Look no further than the 1960's War on Poverty programs of the LBJ administration, which instead of "winning" the war on poverty, only served to exacerbate the plight of the poor, creating three generations of dependence, laziness, irresponsibility and psychological nihilism - a cycle that has only started to be undone with the Welfare Reform Act of 1996.
But don't take my word for it. Just ask Star Parker, president and founder of the Coalition of Urban Renewal and Education (CURE) and self-proclaimed "former welfare queen." Picking up where she left off in her blisteringly honest memoir Pimps, Whores and Welfare Brats (Pocket Star, 1997), Parker takes big government to task in Uncle Sam's Plantation: How Big Government Enslaves America's Poor and What We Can Do About It (WND Books). If there is anyone who knows first hand the degradation and moral bankruptcy that comes with perennial dependence on "Uncle Sam," it's Ms. Parker - she lived it.
The author lays out her own categorical definitions of poverty and recounts the hard lessons she learned as a welfare mother. In discussing how liberals have hijacked history and used the poor as pawns for political purposes, Parker describes the typical government safety net as simply a way of covering up the social pathologies associated with the bad choices of the underprivileged.
Arguably the most harmful effects of massive government intervention have been the breakdown of the family unit. This is especially true in the black community, where according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services roughly 70% of black children are born out of wedlock. According to Parker, radical feminism has helped to produce this horrible state of affairs. The author shows in surgical detail how buying into the radical feminist party line (i.e. that men are "the enemy," marriage is "prostitution and slavery in a different form," and "money is power") has not only contributed to high rates of illegitimacy and abortion in the black community, but has also rendered many black women "unpaid whores and old maids."
The last third of Uncle Sam's Plantation outlines the author's proposed solutions on weaning the poor off of government dependence and liberal mind control. From analyzing the wastefulness of our current tax system and the counter-productive economic effects of minimum wage and rent control laws, to outlining how Social Security can (and should) be privatized to benefit all those who pay into it, the author displays erudition far beyond the average layperson and an iron-clad compassion born out of the experience of a woman who has indeed "been there, done that."
Star Parker's life is a shining example that individual freedom and self-reliance are indeed possible for those who desire and are willing to work for it. A person's income does not determine his/her outcome, and those desiring a better outcome for their lives should heed this extraordinary woman's words of redemption and deliverance. She is a true inspiration, and this book is a great read.
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66 of 74 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Freeing the Captives, March 25, 2004
This review is from: Uncle Sam's Plantation: How Big Government Enslaves America's Poor and What We Can Do About It (Hardcover)
Few people will admit how analogous government dependence is to living on a plantation. Star Parker, once enslaved by "Big Government", is now unshackled and ready to expose her former master in her new book, <u>Uncle Sam's Plantation: How Big Government Enslaves America's Poor and What We Can Do About It</u>. She openly takes on "Uncle Sam" for keeping millions trapped in poverty.
A former "welfare queen" and current president and founder of the Coalition for Urban Renewal and Education (CURE), Parker courageously analyzes Big Government's system of dependency. She encourages those living on handouts to break the chains of poverty and find purpose and meaning in their lives.
In a follow-up to her first book, Pimps, Whores and Welfare Brats, where she handed down a stinging indictment against liberal politicians and the black leaders they exploit, Parker hits the mark once again in Uncle Sam's Plantation. "Uncle Sam has developed a sophisticated poverty plantation, operated by a federal government, overseen by bureaucrats, protected by the media elite, and financed by taxpayers."
The author knows of what she speaks. Parker lived a reckless life; she was promiscuous, had four abortions, smoked pot and burglarized people's homes. One day while looking for "under the table" cash to supplement her welfare check, she was given a Bible instead. She was told that her lifestyle was unacceptable to God.
Three years later, still on welfare, the pastor at her church preached to no one in particular, "What are you doing living on welfare?" At that moment, Parker says, she knew he was talking to her and felt a sense of personal responsibility for the choices she'd made.
"Before the pastor could finish his sermon," Parker writes, "my heart was stirring with the desire to find real purpose and meaning for my life." The next day, she wrote her caseworker and asked that her name be taken off the welfare rolls. Parker began to wrest the chains of dependency and hopelessness and dared to dream.
Parker's charges against the liberal establishment will move readers to challenge Big Government's plantation system. Tracing the shift in America's attitude from belief in strong families and hard work to the flawed idea that it's the government's role to solve social problems, the author contends that the Great Depression marked a turning point in the American conscience.
After the stock market crashed, fear caused people to turn to the government for help in the face of the "dark side of capitalism." Looking to the government for solutions became acceptable.
As increased racial tension and discrimination led blacks to demand civil rights, societal guilt over past wrongs in turn led to a lie still perpetuated today.
"Social engineers of the late 1960s told Americans that black people could not take control over the poverty in their lives due to centuries of racism and segregation," Parker writes. The onus was now on society to "fix" poverty. Thirty-five years later, taxpayers are still trying to fix it.
But poverty cannot be fixed with money, Parker asserts. Moral bankruptcy, caused by the scourge of relativism, must be overcome. Government "safety nets" allow people to escape the consequences of personal behavior (free health care, abortion on demand, sex education, affirmative action, etc.). As a result, there is little incentive to learn from bad behavior.
For example, by removing the man's responsibility to take care of his family, the welfare state has freed men to abandon their pregnant women, the author argues. The collapse of morals in America has virtually destroyed the black family.
Uncle Sam's Plantation offers more than Parker's personal journey; it's about what works and what doesn't. The author outlines in detail several "mission-critical" challenges to anyone who wants to respond constructively to race and poverty in America. These challenges include dismantling multiculturalism, abolishing affirmative action, allowing school choice and privatizing social security. Radical!
Parker's life is a testimony to her faith in God and determination not to waste the precious gift she's been given: freedom. Read for yourselves the first-hand account of a black single mother on welfare who dared to dream. Freedom and personal responsibility, not government dependence, are the answers to poverty.
Uncle Sam's Plantation will inspire you to resist the lie next time you hear it.
© 2004 La Shawn Barber
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