Customer Reviews

The Unraveling of the Bush Presidency

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4 star:		(1)
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1 star:		(4)

 

 

The most recent edition of American historian Howard Zinn's classic A People's History of the United States ended with Bush's declaration of a `war on terror'. This brief volume brings the story up to date.

Zinn explains how Bush misled people into the wars. "It was part of a historic pattern in U.S. foreign policy to tell the American people that war was necessary to defend the United States against a threat, or to bring liberty and democracy to other countries, while the real motives for war - the profits of corporations, the control of vital raw materials, the expansion of the U.S. empire - were concealed."

He sums up that Bush's two wars have not brought democracy, freedom or security to the peoples of Iraq and Afghanistan and have not weakened terrorism. Far from bringing democracy abroad, the wars were violating democracy in the USA. The PATRIOT Act extended the state's power to intercept communications and gave it the power to search people's homes without their knowledge.

Zinn particularly condemns the US state's authorisation of torture. He notes that when the US Senate was considering a bill to ban torture, Vice President Cheney visited senators to argue against the bill. Late in 2006, Congress passed, and President Bush signed, a bill allowing the CIA to continue harsh interrogation - torture - of suspected terrorists in secret CIA prisons abroad. This bill also ended the right of habeas corpus for anyone, including US citizens, whom the President or the secretary of defense designated as an `unlawful enemy combatant'.

In 2006 Congress passed a military budget of $500 billion and arms and oil firms got huge profits, while education and medical care were cut. Chief Executive Officers got 400 times the wage of the average worker, while the minimum wage stayed where it was ten years ago, at $5.15 an hour.

Most Americans now oppose the war and want to withdraw the troops, and President Bush has the lowest ratings of any president in history.

Well thought out and balanced regarding how inapropriatley Bush and his administration is marshalling the unique resources of the US and not in the best interests of the world. Among the most precious of these resources is the Values it stands for and the Goodwill it had earned over centuries.

The message is not an argument but a reasoned voice for what is just.

A short book yet not a "quick" read and well worth the time.

Just a few months ago Zinn died. It was sad for me. To me Zinn was a real progressive, expressing ideas that just made sense. "Unravelling.." is a short book but so insightful and so well written, for me it is a "keeper." Highly recommended.

This book recaps much of what we have already heard about "Dubya's" corrupt and incompetent administration. No theme was developed beyond a cursory brushover. But why should have Zinn regurgitated all that we already know in a long running tome? It would have been redundant. However, if you are inclined, buy this book and thirty years down the line, in 2037, give it to your grand kids so they might read a good summary of just how dangerous and disgraceful Bush's 8 years in office really were. Hopefully Zinn will have to write a postscript some day about the endless crimes for which many of Bush's lieutenants were jailed -and- hopefully Bush himself. For such a work I might stick around for another 30 years!

I feel it is out of focus, so radical. I personally admire Howard but he has had better essays
Ernesto egmconsult.com

This book is a major disappointment. As Kenneth White said in another review, it could have been 1,500 pages instead of 48. And those 48 pages have wide margins and large type. In total it's probably the equivalent of 15-20 pages of a typical paperback. Too bad Mr. Zinn died before he could write the real book.

Bought this from Amazon via Kindle. Am still trying to figure out where the 40 or 60 pages are for basically you get about seven or eight pages from Kindle. With this, if this ois the product i was to get-save the money and go to any website that will give you the same narrative history probably with much more info than this book(was it a book?)

Well written, but only 30 or so pages. Not worth the cost. You can easily read the whole book at the store in 10 minutes.

After reading that Howard Zinn does not think it is important to investigate 9/11, I will have nothing more to do with him. I don't care how renowned he is. If he doesn't think it's important to stop the false flag operations that have gone on for many, many decades that have thrust us into wars that were instigated by interested 3rd party investors to cash in on the vast fortunes made when they finance both sides of a war, then he will get no support from me. Wake up people! Aren't you tired of being played like a puppet on a string. Watch "JFKII: The Bush Connection" and "Empire of the City: Ring of Power" on YouTube.

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