Customer Reviews

The War on the Poor: A Defense Manual

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I did not see one picture of "mean Republicans stepping on poor, defenseless, and deserving poor people" in this book. In fact, one of the points of this book seems to be that people do not deserve to be poor, given the wealth of the United States. "War on the Poor" makes its argument with facts, numbers that seem to come from reliable sources, like the numbers the U.S. government provides. If you have any questions about the numbers you can look up the sources because the text is thoroughly footnoted (along with the cool graphics). The book demonstrates some of the failings of our society, including the welfare program, and challenges the reader for a response. I don't think even the most strident Republican would be foolish enough to deny there are too many poor people in this country, and that poverty is a problem! Yes, the book does have a liberal bent, but is it liberal or conservative to shine a spot light on a problem? It isn't until chapter 8, "Alternatives," that people might have disagreements with the authors, but then again, they only seem to be trying to start a dialogue. Anyhow, I recommend the book, and I hope it does make your blood boil.

I read this book for my Race, Class, and Gender course in college in which we deconstructed the institutions of our "fabulous" society to see what was really happening behind the scenes of democracy. "The War on the Poor: A Defense Manual" was a fantastic resource in doing so. The working class and welfare recipients in our society are silenced and horribly labeled, treated as the "under class". "Rightists" and "fundamentalists" and "Rush Limbaugh Junkies" (for lack of more insulting terms) have created a society where we are made to believe that individuals are solely responsible for their "plights". It's time these people take a course in sociology to understand that there are multiple factors in the existence of the "poor". And it's too bad that the "evil republicans" have to be displayed in this book as just that, but it's time they realize that bully, right wingers are outnumbered and will lose. Maybe that's childish, but it's also childish to claim a group of people are lazy and able to succeed in our society by "pulling themselves up by their bootstraps", which many right wing, republicans tend to do. This book is full of fabulous statistics, which are clearly not created for the sole purpose of sales...take a course in class sociology...the statistics will amaze you. And all that bulls**t you've been fed will make you laugh.

The objective of this book seems to have been to provide a bullet presentation regarding the issue of poverty, those on welfare and alternatives. Despite the fact that the reader may disagree with it's assertions and conclusions, one cannot argue that the authors did a good job in meeting their objectives. The book is written in such a way that the lay person can clearly understand points being made. Although there is always some compromising of the "facts" when presented in a simplistic way, it nevertheless meets its objectives. The best part of this book is how it attacks the myths surrounding the issues of poverty and welfare. It seems that those who did not like this book would not like ANY book that expressed the idea that poverty is primarily caused by societal forces not individual indolence. But of course, it makes them feel a lot safer thinking the latter, because if only indolent people become poor, than they can't possibly ever be poor.

What could be easier than a refutation of the canards of right wing opponents of social programs like Rush Limbaugh and other rightist commentators of the 1990s? Not much, but the authors fail at this easy task.

Their method is to take some right wing comment, and present irrelevant statistics that seem to vaguely have something to do with the claim and act like it refutes it.

Look at page 68, for example. As the "myth" they quote some right wing commentator saying that the federal government has never run a successful job training program. Under "reality" they basically agree, but say its because the programs don't receive enough funding. Rather than myth and reality, these are two compatible statements. The same technique is repreated over and over and over and over.

There are a few articles tacked on at the end, mostly uninformative and uninteresting.

The War on the Poor is an interesting subject and somewhat provides evidence against certain myths about the poor, welfare, health care, children, teen mothers, balancing the budget, the minimum wage, etc. It is set up in a Myth/Reality format where two pages are dedicated to each myth and then the reality of the issue is argued with statistics. Unfortunatley, frequently the statistics have nothing to do with the myth or faulty conclusions are reached from the information given. In someplaces, the book seems to even contradict itself. It has tons of picture but little text, so if you are looking for something REALLY short to read, this is it. It is very readable, easy to skim, and probably can be completely read in about an hour or so.

Even with its many faults, it is still a thought provoking book, and a good starting point into the more liberal economic issues. However the book is now somewhat out of date, so it would not make a great reference book.

Be warned: The authors seem to be incredibly biased in their feelings toward the poor, where in their attempts to get across the idea that we should not blame the poor and be sympathetic to the poor, they go really far in the other direction, making it seem like it is entirely societies' fault and being poor cannot be helped at all (and they really scrape for statistics to back up this extreme view).

This is supposedly some kind of "defense" manual for leftists full of neat pictures of mean Republicans stepping on poor, defenseless, and deserving poor people so they can build bombs and make guns. The stastistics they use the fill this, what I at first belived to be a coloring book, are completely misleading. The authors commit enough fallacies to make a professional statistician burst out laughing...errors regarding restriction of range, establishment of meaningless treadlines and irrelevant base periods, exageration of numbers they like and ignoring of numbers they don't, and as far as the authors are concerned - correlation IS causation as long as you pick the variable they like....if your looking for a book that is full of examples of statistical errors and some really cool pictures, then buy this book...or rather "defense manual".

The difficulty of any book of this sort is the same that plagues any attempt to hold up statistical inequalities of one form or another and draw certain conclusions from them. What's more bothersome about this book, however, is it's tone. Page after page we are treated to notion that the reason there is suffering in the world is because those who don't agree with the ideology of the authors are cruel, uncaring, unfeeling, or just plain stupid. The assertion incessantly implied is that their ideological adversaries are "not merely in error, but in sin." It makes all their arguments difficult to take seriously.

Charles Murray takes much of the same foundations underlying this book to draw opposite conclusions, and manages to do it in a way that is more analytical and unemotional - and certainly more persuasive. Perhaps the intentions of the authors wasn't to persuade, but to solidify and inspire those already in their camp. But if their intentions were the former, they failed miserably in writing a "polemic" that seems more childish than thought-provoking.