Customer Reviews

Workin' on the Chain Gang: Shaking Off the Dead Hand of History (Library of Contemporary Thought)

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Once again, Walter Mosley pitches a great game. This book may be light in physical weight, but it is full of heavy thinking.

Mosley examines modern American culture in a way that probably seems heretical to most Americans. Mosley asks his readers to do things most people would never seriously (I mean really seriously) consider.

The light stuff includes viewing people as individuals, not skin colors. Getting to know someone before passing mental judgement on them. Treating everyone with respect, until a person gives you reason to do otherwise. Ensuring all the elderly and all children have adequate food and medical care. Yeah, everyone's with Mosley on those ideas; if not deep inside, at least the majority of Americans realize that is the way it should be.

However, can you name three close friends or family members whom you could convince to give up all television for three months? How about a season's moritorium from sporting events and sports news? While you're at it, locate a group of friends also willing to forgo other forms of LCD (lowest common denominator) entertainment.

If you find it easy to contemplate abandoning those activities, Mosley has another suggestion for you. Let's dump capitalism as a way of life, as a staple of American society. There, are you still with me? Your job is slowly killing you. Going to work daily is like going to the plantation, except the whip has been replaced with credit card debt . . . that is, if you're lucky enough to have a credit card. By eagerly participating in the world as it is, you are no less brainwashed and perversly dependent than a woman who stays with a physically abusive man.

Perhaps even more amazing than the fact that Mosley considers and suggests such actions, is that he presents a convincing argument for all of his suggestions. You may not always agree with Mosley (though I did), but he always presents a logical line of thinking.

Once again, Mosley has produced a book that I am recommending to everyone I know. So far, Mosley is pitching a perfect game.

I've been enjoying the author's fiction career for some time. With Always Outnumbered,Always Outgunned, I started to think he was becoming one of the great writers of our century. When he branched out from his original genre to speculative fiction with Blue Light my respect grew.

This non-fiction analysis of our current life has little to do with the problems of 'race'. As in his fiction, it has to do with the problems and solutions of humans imbedded in an inhumane system.

I belive the 21st century equivalent to Luthers manifesto to the ruling church will be a team effort. Walter Mosley is a member in good standing in that team.

I suggest reading Birth of the Chaordic Age by Dee W. Hock in close proximity to this book. Members of the team come from all races and classes.

Vivez la revolution! Vivez l'humanite!

I believe that Walter Mosley is the greatest author I have ever read. That is no small feat. His works of fiction paint a picture so vivid, I find myself believing and becoming his characters.

Workin' on the chain gang is a different story. This book has changed my way of thinking. Mosley references to the human's quick judgement i.e. the blue car, the dead tree. This is what causes most of our problems with other people.

I now see that the "people" I see everyday, are not limited to their physical frames. That is not really them at all. They are a consciousness that is so deeply rooted, that they themselves may not be fully aware of it.

This book should be read to children everywhere and taught in every school. To let this genius go unnoticed would be a travesty.

What is even worse is that we must be reminded of these social issues that have become ingrained in this Country's psyche. This essay by Mr. Walter Mosley is not a one-dimensional discussion on race; rather it encompasses all of the citizens of our Country and what we accept actively or passively.

He touches on several topics in this brief work ranging from the selective history we continue to believe and teach, to obsessions with the absurd and worthless that consumes billions of dollars. He specifically cited the time and money spent on the coverage of O.J. Simpson, and Monica Lewinsky as examples. He challenges readers to turn off the television for three weeks to live outside of the sitcom, arena sports, and the for profit network news. Why? So that people have the time to think about what is truly important to them, and for many to realize the system that they are a part of has little concern for them, ever.

He also touched on privatized for profit prisons. This should not be a cause for debate for anyone who thinks about the topic for a moment. What decisions have been made when a prison needs to be profitable? What does a prison become when it is a business like any other that must have a positive bottom line from its operations? What incentive is there to minimize incarceration and its causes when those that are imprisoned have become a source of profit?

And then there is the apathy that is the cause of a minority of eligible voters that bother to vote. Less than half of those who can, choose from two candidates from the same parties election after election. These candidates resemble about 5% of the Country they wish to lead. They are wealthy, well educated, white, male, and have the ability to raise tens of millions of dollars in their pursuit of power. As this last Presidential Election showed, neither candidate could have cared less what was required of them to gain the office they sought for themselves. Winning was never about those voters they say they want to represent, just the fulfillment of their own selfish wishes. We heard that every vote should count, and then both candidates wanted to specify which were to be counted. One candidate who wished to be Commander in Chief thought nothing of trying to and successfully eliminating the votes of actively serving members of the armed forces.

None of these issues are new and that is what should concern all of us. This Country continues to be polarized by essentially two groups, possible three with the advent of almost 300 multi billionaires in the United States. There is nothing wrong with the creation of wealth, what matters is how it is made and how it is used when in the control of one individual. The irony of one of the super rich is that while at the same time accumulating wealth by means that allegedly were illegal, the same person has personally funded the largest charitable foundation on the planet.

Nothing new, no easy answers, but they must be addressed.

When Walter Mosley wrote this essay, he intended it to make people think about the way things are, and the way things can change. However this book was not a one-sided rant, nor is just for African-Americans. This issues addressed in this essay, ranging from capitalism in America to voter apathy, reveal some profound insights and proposes soulutions to the problems brought forth. To many people this book will be an eye-opener; it certainly was for me. While I might not agree with the degree of some of Mr. Mosley's assertions, I recommend this book highly for anyone trying to gain a different perspective of the United States than what you see in the news or read in the paper.

We [the working class] are marginalized by the profit of capitalism. We are footnotes to Citibank and the Mobil Oil Corporation and Chiquita Brands International (once know as the United Fruit Company). --Walter Mosely

Because I have read and advocated the analysis, ideas, and visions of Jesus, Karl Marx, Fedel Castro, Dorothy Day, Kwame Nkrumah, Rosa Luxanburg, and Mother Jones, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King, and Paulo Friere, and many others, I didnt find much new in this work by Walter Mosley. However, it was refreshing to see a fiction writer with skill, talent, and insight, attempt to give a piece of his mind in an honest, direct way.

Im not sure how people who are fans of Mosleys best selling fictional works will read this, his first non-fiction book. But I would suggest that despite its brevity and lack of development, this book would make a great book club discussion. Its packed with enough insight and ideas for contemporary political thought that it might indeed lead readers to ponder life beyond their American Dream homes, automobiles, household gadgets, and Kodak moments.

Mosely makes sharp criticism of an American capitalist society which essentially puts profits before people and consumption before real needs. Thus, while people starve and receive medical care in this the richest country in the world, 5% of the population holds at least half the wealth in the country. There are people in this country who make say $5000 an hour when they go to work, while the rest of the population gets by on two-family incomes, over-time hours, and two-jobs salaries. And this says nothing about the poorest parts of the world where a bar of soap and toothpaste are luxury items.

As Mosely reminds us, We know how much money every armed bandit has stolen from banks but almost nothing about how much the banks have stolen from us. We are told, during the commercial, how much some piece of clothing costs, but the returning anchor refrains from telling us what economic havoc we have caused in the third world by paying slave wages to local workers to make the price attractive [and profitable].

Mosely attempts to give his view of an ideal system that would replace capitalism. But here he falls short. He regrets the doesnt know the exact steps that need to be taken to free us from our entanglements. Hes not even sure its possible. But when tries to say that everyone has a right to a living wage, a right to competent medical care, and a share in the natural resources that the nation either owns or creates, he sounds to me, as I understand it, like hes a calling for a socialist system--though he dismisses early on in his book Marxism and communism as failed ideologies. Thats too bad. For I think if he had put more thought into a socialist transformation of society, he could have provided his readers with more to think about.

Instead, he suggest that readers contemplate their visions for a better world. But I bet when people do that, it will simply sound more like individualistic, capitalist visions of society. Its not that we shouldnt contemplate our own visions, but I suggest that its not that we, as Mosely suggest, need to make a list of what it is that you deserve for a lifetime of labor, but that we need to involve ourselves in a process of political education. We need political reading groups in our places of worship, our colleges, communities, and places of employment. As we politically educate ourselves, we can begin to ask ourselves what could I do with other in an organized manner to work for what I think is just and right.

This political education process could begin with Mosely work.

I am about half-way through reading this book. I am stunned. I am encountering the observations and thoughts that I have been trying to graple with for several years now. And here they are in a well thought out, articulate, literate book.

I am recommending this book to a lot of friends and family.

I recommend it to you.

After reading this book, I changed the way I live my life. I stopped waiting for that time when I can change the world, and started changing it in whatever small ways I can right now. I would advise everyone read this exceptional book.

In this essay Walter Moseley examines the American condition using African American history as a tool to expose the plight of the common man. America is a nation where a few hold the majority of the power, while the rest of us are enslaved to an economic system that allows these few with power to deprive us of our one true asset, labor. In America a man MUST work to live. There are no guarantees, such as safety or healthcare (although it will be interesting what the near future has in store). Moseley preaches to us about a subject that most Americans know all too well, "Money is the root of all evil." He takes this stance from a seemingly unbiased position (although this could be argued) discussing how America's capitalist machine has enslaved us all. From there he lays the groundwork on what we can do as a people to break these" chains of injustice" and transform the American culture into one that we (or he) envision.

I enjoyed this essay by one of my favorite fictional authors, Walter Moseley. I did feel like it was a bit too idealistic for my political views, but morally I will attest to having some of the same feelings that Moseley expresses throughout his essay. In America we have been living in excess for far too long with way too many "fat-cats" at the top hoarding profits while the rest of us are enslaved to the same products that we create. I'm sure Moseley is even further disgusted by our current financial crisis and the big players involved whose greed and excess nearly bankrupted America. I hope that anyone who reads this book takes Moseley's words to heart. It is a quick read and will really make you think about all of the things in life that have you distracted from focusing on what really matters... You.

WORKIN' ON THE CHAIN GANG: Shaking off the Dead Hand of History by Walter
Mosley takes a look at the chains that bind citizens of the United States.
Money, and producing more of it, is what is driving the country these days.
Even what we see on television is more about what sells rather than what is
true. The entire nation is pushing against the injustice brought about by
the few who own and control everything. While Blacks have long fought
against this type of injustice, now it is everyone's battle. Making money
has become global and therefore the need to pay attention to the
needs of the workers and unions are long dead. He ends on a note of hope,
using his platform for the presidency to show what must happen for America
to survive these chains.

WORKIN' ON THE CHAIN GANG is a very enlightening book and says what so many
of us are thinking. It certainly takes courage to make this public in
today's age of fear, retribution and loss of Constitutional protections.
Mosley has penned a book that every thinking citizen in the United States,
indeed the world, should read. It explains so much that we wonder about but
can't articulate.

Reviewed by Alice Holman
of The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers