Review: Nobodies–Modern American Slave Labor and the Dark Side of the New Global Economy

5 Star, Atrocities & Genocide, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Crime (Organized, Transnational), Culture, DVD - Light
Amazon Page
Amazon Page

Riveting, Gifted Reporting, Deeply Depressing, Call to Arms, May 18, 2008

John Bowe

This is a spectacular piece of work with many gifted turns of phrase. The author has done his homework, and melds economic facts and philosophical reflections in a worthy manner. The author opens with a challenge: how should a free people respond to slavery, i.e. should they knowingly buy products and services that are rooted in slavery?

I ordered this book on the strength of the author's appearance on CSPAN BookTV, and this is one of those instances where I think that listening to him talk about the book first is hugely beneficial to appreciating the book. The author, in person (on CSPAN), is funny, intelligent, informative, a really excellent presenter of facts in a coherent manner.

Supreme Court Justice Brandeis is cited in this book: “You can have great concentration of wealth in the hands of a few or you can have democracy. You can't have both.” While the author documents slavery, at least 27 million world-wide (not counting the prison-slave population) with 800 million not enslaved but utterly poor going hungry each day, 33 million of them in the USA, his book is a socio-economic ideo-cultural treatise on “whither globalization.” His bottom line is clear: if we allow slave labor and sweatshop conditions to undercut each of our homeland industries, we are toast.

The author does something quite special with this book. I am deeply impressed. Since the 1970's I have understood the conflict between multinational corporations and governments, the trade-offs between profits and social value, but it is only recently that my reading has brought forth the sharp battle that will define the 21st Century: the battle between Collective Intelligence (one for all, all for one) and Corruption at all levels of government and business.

The meme “true cost” is the ideological battle line. Also known as the triple bottom line (economic, social, and environmental), it is my view that the ability of my generation to promulgate True Cost information in the next ten years is going to determine what kind of future our children have. The author provides numbers, and I am gripped by the 40 cents paid to the slave laborer for a bucket of tomatos, versus the $12.00 plus paid to the farmer or “organizer/enforcer.” The author is eloquent in describing how slave wages have not risen in thirty years, while all else has….

This book is deep, richly textured, a tremendously informative and socially-valuable offering.

Here are a few highlights that stayed with me:

1) US Census statistics are so “delusional and deceptive” that Wall Street investors no longer use them–they commission their own studies.

2) The conditions of slavery and poverty and abuse are so deeply entrenched, and imposed on individual held in isolation from society and the rule of law–when the law is willing to be enforced–that they might as well be on another planet, a slave planet.

3) FBI Special Agents get very high marks for being able to master law enforcement in an illegal immigration environment, but the author speaks of “institutional malfeasance” in how often the FBI transfers people. I have long felt that we need to turn government inside out–we need to mass Latin American specialists across government, military, law enforcement, etc, and we need to start putting people into 10 year tours.

4) It is clear we need a “white hat” side of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), I envision something in which all information they might collect in investigating human rights and other labor violations is firewalled from illigal immigrant status.

5) 911 operators are virtually helpless in responding to foreign langugage calls. I have been saying for years that we need to have an international implementation using Telelanguage.com.

6) The author surprises me with his optimism, his expectation that we can achieve a profound change in attitude across our population, completely boycotting all products and services whose “true cost” include slave labor.

I want to end this laudatory review by pointing readers toward the World Index of Social and Environmental Responsibility, the Interra Project, the World Cafe, and the Earth Intelligence Network.

Below I list a few other books that support this one. The first book documented the commoditization of human labor as the beginning of commercialized evil. The rest are increasingly positive about all of us coming together to overcome power and information asymmetries. “Put enough eyes on it, no bug is invisible. That's us: intelligence officers to the poor and the disenfranchised, who in being lifted from slavery, will create infinite revolutionary wealth. We can do this.

The Manufacture Of Evil: Ethics, Evolution, and the Industrial System
The Working Poor: Invisible in America
Nickel and Dimed On (Not) Getting By in America
The Case Against Wal-Mart
Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor
The Power of the Powerless: Citizens Against the State in Central-Eastern Europe
A Power Governments Cannot Suppress
The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All
The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace

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Review: Palestine Inside Out–An Everyday Occupation

5 Star, Atrocities & Genocide, Country/Regional

Palestine Inside OutAbsolutely Vital, June 8, 2008

Saree Makdisi

FINAL REVIEW of 15 June 2008

I was moved and outraged by the cancellation of the author's appearance at the Politics & Prose bookstore, which shall never–in consequence–receive my custom. However, the benefit is that the author received space in the Washington Post, and the idiocyof the Politics & Prose management may well have done more good than bad as a result.

I have one word that summarizes my feelings after reading this book:

FURY

The other word, now in vogue in Egypt, is

ENOUGH

The author, an American with both Lebanese and Palestinian heritages, is a scholar of English literature. His book is NOT a polemic. His book is an elegant essay on reality, perhaps the finest work I have ever been privileged to read on this topic, with notes, maps, and statistics of the first order.

The author does NOT seek to damn the Israelis, only to demonstrate, in calm reasoned well-documented language, that the Israelis have become the Nazis of our era, and that their ghettoization of Palestine, with gates, roadblocks, checkpoints, and walls, has become the atrocity of all atrocities in our time.

The opening insight grabs me: like Gandhi, the author sees that Palestine and Israel are one in spirit. He nails the Israeli objective: to occupy as much sacred land as possible, without regard to other peoples, religions, historic rights, or common perceptions of justice.

Gandhi had it right in the first place: the English were idiots to divide India. Similarly, Palestine is a Holy Land for all of us, and if the Israeli's cannot accept Gandhi's vision, then it is time we imposed it on them–there could be no better expenditure of $250 billion a year than in occupying Palestine, knocking down the fascist walls, and restoring the nature of that land to green and goodness, while making Jerusalem an international city similar to the Vatican, but open to all faiths.

I am completely fed up with ideological zealots, both left and right. Israel is clearly the enemy of peace in the Middle East, and an obstacle to progress there. I support the author's view, that a single holy state is needed, one that does not allow the Israelis to be the Gestapo of our time. More to the point, I agree with the author with respect to the inhumanity, immorality, indignity, and fiscally fatal inconvenience being imposed by the Israelis on the Palestinians.

This is where the book shines brightly: it is a meticulou8sly documented, ably presented catalogue of the day to day atrocities committed by the Israeli “police state” against individual Palestinians, families, and small businesses. Kafka could not have done better, but in this case, the author is not making it up. It is real, and it is a genocidal crime against humanity, day after day after day.

I have read many books, and a number on the Middle East, and I can only conclude that this book is totally extraordinary for the following reasons:

1) Multicultural perspective
2) Pragmatic review of the consequences of Israeli Gestapo tactics
3) Fullsome use of statistics to demonstrate Israeli atrocities against “day to day” Palestinian life and families
4) Timely–the era of state terror is over. It is time for We the People, including Palestinians and Jews, to rise up and dismember governments that cheat us, steal from us, and misrepresent us.

For perspectives that completely support the author's views as described in his article (I have posted a summary review of each):

A Power Governments Cannot Suppress
The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People
The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (Vintage)
Web of Deceit: The History of Western complicity in Iraq, from Churchill to Kennedy to George W. Bush
The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (American Empire Project)
Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy
Democracy Matters: Winning the Fight Against Imperialism
All Rise: Somebodies, Nobodies, and the Politics of Dignity (BK Currents)
Society's Breakthrough!: Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People
The Health of Nations: Society and Law beyond the State

I have also published (free online, in superb low-cost hardback on Amazon), COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace, the first in a series from Earth Intelligence Network.

The bottom line of all of the above books is that governments are dysfunctional, corrupt, and cannot deal with complexity and adversity. We the People need to revitalize participatory democracy and stop waging war. Peace and prosperity for all seven billion can be achieved for one third the price we pay now for war. A strategy of peace is a strategy that will create infinite wealth.

It's time for America the Beautiful to be honest and open again. I totally embrace the idea of an international occupation of the Holy Land, with Jerusalem as an international city, the Israeli's stuffed back in their box, and a 50-year occupation that fully integrates Palestine and Israel and Lebanon, while providing both an international and a regional guarantee of dignity and justice for all in this sacred land.

The Israelis have dishonored God, dishonored man, and dishonored faith. They have become a modern holocaust unto themselves. For this they are damned by this author's bearing witness, as a people, absent a public uprising or international intervention.

Review: Poets For Palestine

5 Star, Atrocities & Genocide, Culture, DVD - Light, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Values, Ethics, Sustainable Evolution, War & Face of Battle

Poets PalestineRemarkable Gift, Bargain Price, Provokes Reflection, October 30, 2008

Remi Kanazi (Editor)

This is one of those rare books that I agreed to read and review after hearing from the publisher. At first I said no, then I realized Palestine was very much within my range of interests even if poetry was not, and I am glad to have said yes.

The book brings together 37 poets offering 48 poems interwoven with 30 artist renditions each on their own page. The book is made possible in part by a New York based organization, Al Jisser or “the bridge.”

The introduction connects the Palestinians to the much broader concerns of indigenous peoples everywhere, social justice being the shared issue.

Turns of phrase that stayed with me:

– hybrid ideology

– our city is a cell

– memory holding history too harsh to taste

– feel the future dissolve in a moment

– clean water

Five of the poems that resontated with me in a more special way (all are worthy of reading):

– Fathers in Exile

– Moot

– The Coffin Maker Speaks

– Those Policemen are Sleeping: A Call to the Children of Israel and Palestine

– This Is Not a Massacre

As I was preparing to write the review, I noticed the other books that Amazon brings up, using reader choice to connect to other readings of interest, and it hit me: this books is a perfect beginning for anyone who wishes to explore the literature on Palestine's history, current condition, and dubious (or inevitably triumphant) future.

In my notes I wrote “cornerstone for the resurgence of Paletinian identity and self-determination. I am certainly among those who stands with Gandhi, who said “Palestine belongs to the Palestinians the way France belongs to the French.”

I was struck by the book's extension to include Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, and Lebanon, the latter a country I have come to care about after a teaching mission there in 2007. In that light, below are some links to books I recommend along with this one:

Other non-fiction books I recommend:
Web of Deceit: The History of Western Complicity in Iraq, from Churchill to Kennedy to George W. Bush
The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (Vintage)
Leap of Faith: Memoirs of an Unexpected Life
Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century
Robert Maxwell, Israel's Superspy: The Life and Murder of a Media Mogul
They Dare to Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront Israel's Lobby
The Unconquerable World: Power, Nonviolence, and the Will of the People
The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All
Society's Breakthrough!: Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace

You can buy this book with confidence that it will satisfy and provoke. Still, as a service to the publisher, who did not use the Amazon “look inside this book” features, here are the titles of all the poems; I type them as a gesture of respect for all that they represent:

Who Am I, Without Exile?
Enemy of Civilization
Portrait of Mona Lisa in Palestine
The Camp Prostitute
Fathers in Exile
Palestinian Identity
Ar-Rahman Road
And So It Goes…
Curfew
Installation/Occupation
The Seven Honeysuckle-sprigs of Wisdom (extract)
Untitled
a moonlit visit
Black Horses
Moot
The Promised Land
Hate
Wall Against Our Breath
Lights Across the Dead Sea
The Coffin Maker Speaks
Morning After the US Invasion of Iraq
The Price of Tomatoes
Regret
Calm
Palestine in Athens
Saudi Israelia
Hamza Aweiwi, a Shoemaker in Hebron
Humming When We Find Her
Wire Layers
Making Arabic Coffee
My Father and the Figtree
The Tea and Sage Poem
Letter to My Sister
In Memoriam: Edward Said 1935-2003
At the Dome of the Rock
Those Policemen Are Sleeping: A Call to the Children of Israel and Palestine
This is Not a Massacre
23 isolation (Infirad)
Free the P
Another Day Will Come
Morning News
break (bas)
Baby Carriages
Kindness
An Idea of Return
changing names
Abu Jamal's Olive Trees
A Tree in Ratah

One last observation: here in the United States of America, the Republic has been destroyed–the people are no longer sovereign. Instead, two criminal parties conduct electoral fraud as theater to they can retain their monopoly of political power which they prostitute to Wall Street and the inbred very small financial class that considers both the American people and the Palestinian people to be virtual slaves of no consequence. At some point soon, the American system will “break” and new possibilities will emerge–it remains lunacy as well as criminal for the USA to spend $1.3 trillion a year on war when a third of that amount could assure a prosperous world at peace, including an international Holy City, a Palestine with access to the sea, and an Israel that is not stealing all the water from the Arab aquifers but instead trading high technology for food grown by Arabs.

Poetry–and indigenous peoples reasserting the sovereignty of people over organizations–may yet save us all.

Review: The Attack on the Liberty–The Untold Story of Israel’s Deadly 1967 Assault on a U.S. Spy Ship

5 Star, Atrocities & Genocide

Attack LibertySummary Review Intended to Inspire Wrath of US Voters,June 20, 2009

James Scott

I have reviewed earlier books on the Liberty, and stood with the Liberty survivors and their kin in believing that the U.S. Government then led by Lyndon Johnson betrayed the public trust in this instance. A handful of books support the general betrayal of the public trust that began with Lyndon Johnson and continues to this day:
An Act of State: The Execution of Martin Luther King, New and Updated Edition
Someone Would Have Talked: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the Conspiracy to Mislead History
The Trial of Henry Kissinger
None So Blind: A Personal Account of the Intelligence Failure in Vietnam
Who the Hell Are We Fighting?: The Story of Sam Adams and the Vietnam Intelligence Wars

That is the context within which the USS Liberty was attacked with impunity, and the deliberate attack covered up by the US Government, i.e. the White House and Cy Vance the Secretary of Defense. The US Navy protested but was silenced.

Perhaps the most important contribution this book makes is to record the current (2007) views of participants on both sides to the effect that this was a deliberate premeditated attack ordered by a person high enough in Israel to order the combined “joint” attack by both air force attack jets and naval torpedo boats.

The book confirms what has been claimed before, that the vessel was known to be US, and that the American flag was clearly seen by the attackers. DCI Richard Helms, interviewed in 2008, specifically confirmed the atrocity.

QUOTE from page 47: “The fighters destroyed the Liberty's machine guns, knocked out the antennas, and targeted the bridge to kill the officers and spark chaos among the crew.”

I am especially angry at the manner in which the Israeli's have bought the US Congress along with Wall Street and the banking world. See for instance:
They Dare to Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront Israel's Lobby
The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy

Israel also spies with impunity on the US, both with formal and technical spy networks such as depicted in Robert Maxwell, Israel's Superspy: The Life and Murder of a Media Mogul, where every American Jew is considered a “sayonim,” a person who will support Israel spy operations that are treason against the US, and with non-official spying such as Congresswoman Jane “this conversation never happened” Harman supports.

The book is both a labor of love and extremely well-executed investigative journalism.

Israel murdered 34 US naval personnel and wounded 171. This was an international war crime.

This is a RIGHTEOUS BOOK (I actually write this just before putting the book down). Here are some of my notes:

+ Immediate impact of the cover-up was the failure to learn anything, such that the USS Pueblo was captured by the North Koreans (at the request for the Soviets, completing their needs for use of the crypto cards they acquired earlier).

+ Middle of the book is sad sickening detail not here-to-fore presented in such an organized and detailed manner, along with 22 compelling shameful photographs of battle damage. Points to remember:

–Smell of rotting bodies

–Oil-soaked environment

–Partial bodies were a recovery & identification challenge

+ Communications breakdowns combined with a quick Israeli apology kept reinforcements from reaching the Liberty for 17 hours.

+ The Skipper ramped readiness up, wanted to move, but would have lost line of sight needed for NSA intercepts. Similarly, Navy advisor to Adm McCain (the father) wanted to pull the Liberty back at same time that a submarine was pulled back, but Admiral McCain did not want to tangle with NSA and claimed he did not have the authority when he actually did. (Later he redeems himself somewhat by insisting on Purple Hearts and combat pay.]

+ The context (Viet-Nam in particular) made the Liberty a “problem” for LBJ. Quote from page 93: “The Liberty–now riddled with cannon blasts, its decks soaked in blood, and its starboard side ripped open by a torpedo–evolved in a matter of hours from a top-secret intelligence asset to a domestic political liability.”

+ We learn that LBJ's upbringing taught him to favor Jews, and that “Johnson has too heavy a roster of Jewish and pro-Israeli advisors” (page 139.

+ We learn that Pentagon loyalists toed the party line on covering the whole thing up.

+ We learn that the US inquiry did not answer the question “How and why did this happen,” that Admiral McCain forbade travel to Israel, and that the Israeli's were not forthcoming with logs from any of the attacking units.

+ We learn that the original Israeli “investigation” was done by one officer alone, and after very angry exchanges on all sides, redone with an outcome of 7 counts of negligence recommended and not accepted. The final report from Israel is riddled with lies that are pointed out by the Israeli Ambassador himself in furious messages home. I am reminded of Kiss the Boys Goodbye: How the United States Betrayed its Own POWs in Vietnam and Is Anybody Listening?: A True Story About POW/MIAs In The Vietnam War.

+ We learn the Israeli's ordered napalm to be used against the USS Liberty as it would be “more efficient,” and we learn that the US politicians in the White House considered sinking the USS Liberty at sea to get rid of the evidence–one can only recoil in horror knowing that they considered the crew “expendable” and did not care if it was sunk with or without crew.

+ We learn that the US was willing to accept $3.3 million for the families, and the Israeli'[s refused, offering $1.25 million. Ultimately the Israeli bill came to $17 million of which $9 million was interest, and they finally settled for $6 million in three payments of $2 million each. What the author does NOT tell us is that the US taxpayer pays 20% of the entire Israeli government budget every year at the same time that the USA turns a blind eye to Israeli genocide against the Palestinians and Israeli theft of water from the Arab aquifers (see Chuck Spinney's brief on this at oss.net).

The book ends on a graceful note. I am impressed by the author's balance throughout. He finally visits Israel and meets one of the pilots, now Brigadier General Yiftah Spector. Accompanied by his father, who served on the USS Liberty, the author witnesses the Israeli officer saying “I'm sorry,” and his father saying “Thank you.”

Review: Censorship of Historical Thought–A World Guide, 1945-2000

3 Star, Atrocities & Genocide, History, Intelligence (Public), Misinformation & Propaganda, Power (Pathologies & Utilization)
Amazon Page

5 for content, 1 for outrageous pricing, June 19, 2009

Antoon De Baets

I am the #1 Amazon reviewer for non-fiction, quite by accident (loading annotated bibliographies from the books I write) and have for the past two years been protesting the price jumps from industry.

I am also a publisher. This book cost no more than $10 per copy to produce. Industry has gone nuts and I protest this book's price and urge readers and reviewers to join me in protesting. Amazon takes 55% of the retail price, so all things considered this book should not be priced at more than $45.00. The last $100 is criminal irresponsibility toward the field of knowledge and the public interest, and blackmail against libraries and other institutions that may consider the superb content a “must have.”

Instead I recommend the book Responsible History which I am buying myself today.

Other books in this vein you can buy (ALL of them for the price of CENSORSHIP) include:
Forbidden Knowledge: From Prometheus to Pornography
The Lessons of History
Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & ‘Project Truth'
1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
Fog Facts : Searching for Truth in the Land of Spin (Nation Books)
The Age of Missing Information
Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media
Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush's War on Iraq
Rule by Secrecy: The Hidden History That Connects the Trilateral Commission, the Freemasons, and the Great Pyramids

See my loaded images above (under book cover).

Worth a Look: Book Reviews on Evil

00 Remixed Review Lists, Atrocities & Genocide, Banks, Fed, Money, & Concentrated Wealth, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Censorship & Denial of Access, Corruption, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Culture, Research, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Worth A Look

Evil

Review: The Lucifer Principleā€“A Scientific Expedition into the Forces of History (Paperback)

Review: The Manufacture of Evilā€“Ethics, Evolution and the Industrial System

Review: The Marketing of Evilā€“How Radicals, Elitists, and Pseudo-Experts Sell Us Corruption Disguised As Freedom (Hardcover)

Review: War, Evil, and the End of History

NOTE:Ā  There are enormous amounts of evil depicted across all of the lists in the negative master list.Ā  This just focuses on the few that have evil (or Lucifer) in the title.

Worth a Look: Book Reviews on War Complexā€”War as a Racket

00 Remixed Review Lists, Asymmetric, Cyber, Hacking, Odd War, Atrocities & Genocide, Budget Process & Politics, Capitalism (Good & Bad), Complexity & Catastrophe, Congress (Failure, Reform), Corruption, Crime (Corporate), Crime (Government), Culture, Research, Economics, Empire, Sorrows, Hubris, Blowback, Environment (Problems), Force Structure (Military), Impeachment & Treason, Intelligence (Government/Secret), Iraq, Justice (Failure, Reform), Military & Pentagon Power, Misinformation & Propaganda, Politics, Power (Pathologies & Utilization), Secrecy & Politics of Secrecy, Security (Including Immigration), True Cost & Toxicity, War & Face of Battle, Water, Energy, Oil, Scarcity, Worth A Look

War Complexā€”War as a Racket

Review:DVD: Behind Every Terrorist There Is a Bush

Review DVD: The Fog of War ā€“ Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara

Review DVD: Lord of War (Widescreen) (2005)

Review DVD: The Good Soldier

Review (DVD): Unthinkable

Review DVD: Why We Fight (2006)

Review: Betraying Our Troopsā€“The Destructive Results of Privatizing War

Review: Blood Moneyā€“Wasted Billions, Lost Lives, and Corporate Greed in Iraq

Review: Hope of the Wicked

Review: House of War (Hardcover)

Review: The Price of Libertyā€“Paying for Americaā€™s Wars

Review: The Shock Doctrineā€“The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

Review: The Swiss, The Gold And The Deadā€“How Swiss Bankers Helped Finance the Nazi War Machine

Review: The True Cost of Conflict/Seven Recent Wars and Their Effects on Society

Review: War is a Racketā€“The Antiwar Classic by Americaā€™s Most Decorated Soldier