Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt

This book is extremely difficult, emotionally, to read through. I've been having to take it one chapter at a time because it is so heartwrenching. I've had the book for 2 months now (since May 29th) and I've just finished chapter 3. I'm not a slow reader, I probably could've finished it in a few hours if it weren't for the content involved. I am deeply moved (to lamentations and profound listlessness) after reading about what has happened. I especially found it difficult to get past the racially charged content but I did for the sole purpose of understanding the very real torment and pain that fellow Americans have endoured from all backgrounds. I wanted to put the book down in anger several times but like seeing a trainwreck happen in slow motion, no one can look away. If there is anything to say about this book, it is that it illicits compassion and understanding for those outside your own cultural background, because the book talks about many in so short a discussion. If you aren't crying at any point (inside or out) by end of chapter 3 or affected on a profound level by what you've read, then you fail to have placed yourself in the shoes of those outside your experiences. So many lives have been destroyed. So many. If there's anything I learned so far it is that you don't need to call it a war for it to be a detrimental and violent experience for those affected. Lady Liberty is patina from all the tears she weeps.I study global scale problems, looking for newly released technological or philosophical answers for solving them on regional and localized scales. I haven't yet been able to get past the sadness associated with the content of this book to even begin to seek out potential solutions yet. Something has been going very, very wrong on such a grand design scale and for so long that I question the viability and survivability of the culture and way of life I was born into. I fear for my fellow Americans from all walks of life, all creeds, cultures and backgrounds. The silence is deafening and the violence of it all is overwhelming at it's core.The only reason I knocked off one star for this book is because there are pointed statements, claims that where made generalized rather then specified. The writer seems to have painted a picture in terms of black and white, us and them. I haven't completed reading the book yet, so will update this review upon completion. I STRONGLY advocate its purchase or at the very least read it cover to cover if your local library has a copy. If you are a problem solver, this work is a complicated challenge quagmired in political swamps, social upheaval and a kind of financial instability that can only best be described as "complete insolvency for the future of humanity as a civilized society due to greed." There is nothing civil about it, and this book cuts to the core of a profoundly disturbing subject. Financial interests have taken priority over the human element.Update: July 22nd. Upon completion of reading the book, cover to cover I must conclude that my opinion on the content hasn't changed much. There are some elements of racism contained in this book but the context must be read to understand and determine where it is coming from. There are also strong anti-capitalist sentiments within the content, but coming from the standpoint of environmental degredation as well as the complete disregard for human life and human capital as they pertain to community stability overall. The book is a STRONG BUY, if only for the storytelling element alone. Though I am concerned that the book may incite hate towards specific ethnicities rather than identified individuals, the authors do a fantastic job of bringing to light stories not otherwise searchable in news and other media outlets. I stand firm on my stance that the book has strong elements of "us vs. them" mentalities, and there is clearly zero understanding involved in how the stock market or business works on a fundamental level. If I had a sit down with the author, it would result in another book. I've been working on a way to serve the disenfranchised by developing "plug and play" or "key in door" solutions that can be emulated on shoestring budgets and from 3rd world country scenarios. I've found a few solutions to some of the elements the problems the author speaks about and the potential to end unemployment as we know it today without dropping elements of automation which have affected everyone around the world.In this highly competitive 21st century we live in, we must understand as a combined force- humanity as a whole, that automation offers us all the freedom from menial tasks which limit our own potential. The missing element in the economy thus far has been the complete replacement of the old, dead system which has never worked for anyone born after 1975. What we need are those automations made cheaper and available to more consumers for the purpose of dropping industry pricing and more home based businesses.My own solutions focus on environmental restoration as a commercial endeavor and to alleviate the brunt of prolonged unemployment through financial tactics and combined efforts of business endeavors. The author's sequal should focus entirely on the solutions the world has come up with to resolve the existing problems of today. As much as I appreciate the history lesson, it doesn't help the starving homeless and the bankrupted disenfranchised to look for a target group to blame for all these ills. Instead, step out of the 20th century decay and rot. Stroll effortlessly right into the 21st century, where the age of collaboration has reached full swing and is now cresting and about to overlap the next age.This book is a fascinating read and I am deeply affected by it on an emotional level. However, cerebrally, I've already jumped past the problems and have been trying to find the solutions. Humanity literally doesn't have the time left required to fight out a war and the kind of war we need isn't against one another but a race against the clock to rebalance the earth's ecosystem before it's too late. I personally feel that we may have already passed the point of no return with the climate but trying to place blame on one group of people doesn't fix the problem but instead serves as a distraction when there is real work to be done.

There is so much to like about Chris Hedges's and Joe Sacco's, Days of Destruction Days of Revolt (Nation Books, New York, 2012), I hardly know where to begin. What's not to like when a book that speaks the unvarnished truth? Corporations flourish, ordinary people languish; the super rich get richer, ordinary people suffer; the American Dream is an illusion, with "winners" tap-dancing uneasily over the freshly dug graves of those for who have long since lost hope. Do you want change? Behold the national security state, the smartly clad and well-armed local police departments, the smug prosecutors, Wall Street and the politicos, dancing hand-in-hand round and round in Washington while the rest of us turn away in disgust. Hedges tells it like it is. Sacco illustrates. This work is part text and part graphic presentation. I was at first put off by the graphic component. Times are grim. This is no time for comic books, I found myself thinking. But as I studied the graphic portraits of despair in such places as the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota, the desolate streets of Camden, New Jersey, the desiccated mountains of West Virginia, or the plantation-like cruelty supporting the tomato harvesting agribusiness in Immokalee, Florida, I was moved by the grimness on the look of the characters' faces. These line drawings convey what words have difficulty expressing. Call it dignified hopelessness: There are Americans who read their death warrants written on corporate ledgers of firms too big to fail who nonetheless continue to speak the truth. I devoured this book in an afternoon, feeling as though I had found friends: My ruminations about a country adrift, corporate fat-cats hand-in-hand with their cronies in government turning the nation into a fascist fat farm, these thoughts don't mark me as a solitary grievant. There are thousands, if not millions, of Americans thinking and feeling the same thing. Hedges gives voice to a grumbling evidence to any who will listen. Hedges and Sacco traveled to some of the most distressed regions of the country to see how the dispossessed live. Their reports are grim: Alcoholism and despair on the Pine Ridge reservation; drug use and rage in the ghetto; fear and exhaustion in immigrant communities; wary resignation in coal country. But alongside all this misery the bitch goddess profit and her handmaidens in the form of corporate thuggery and political diffidence among the elite. It's enough to make you want to ... Well, what, exactly? The book ends with a chapter on the Occupy Movement that flourished in an instant, and then vanished almost as quickly as it came. Hedges interviews Occupiers, and you can hear something like flinty hope in their voices. They may not have had a vision of how to reconstruct a better world. It was enough to assert that the world as it is fails to deliver what is both needed and promised. There was, and there remains, a value in refusal. Where has that struggle gone? Hedges writes too briefly about a trial in Utah of an activist named Tim DeChristopher, who disrupted a Bureau of Land Management auction in 2008 - he sought to impede the Bush administration's selling of federal land to gas and oil interests. DeChristopher hoped to rely on jury nullification to defend himself. He was devastated when the judge told jurors they could do no such thing. The judge "said it was not their job to decide [what]... is right or wrong, but to listen to what he said the law was and follow that even if they thought it was morally unjust. They were not allowed to use their conscience." The fact that he was surprised by the fact that the law can be applied devoid of conscience was oddly refreshing. Perhaps people can be taught to reclaim their sovereignty. When DeChristopher was convicted and sentenced to two years in prison, he told the judge: "I am here today because I have chosen to protect the people locked out of the system over the profits of the corporations running the system. I say this not because I want your mercy, but because I want you to join me." Fat chance the judge will do that; it is far easier to decide cases according to law, to put blinders on about who writes the law to serve what interest -- a sleeping people are easily managed. Jury nullification remains, in my view, a powerful means of citizens' taking direct action to challenge the law, a topic I wrote about at length in Juries and Justice. (Sutton Hart, 2013). I've not seen enough written on the topic and its potential to radicalize and mobilize ordinary people in literature about what can be done to reclaim the promise of the American dream. The final chapter on the Occupy movement rings with hope and fiery prose. "There are no excuses left. Either you join the revolt or you stand on the wrong side of history." I like the sentiment, but the call to "create monastic enclaves where we can retain and nurture the values being rapidly destroyed by the wider corporate culture and build the mechanisms of self-sufficiency that will allow us to survive," rings a little defeatist and hollow - even prosaic, even if, as it seems, it is the only realistic course. The American century has ended, and with it visions of common dreams. And that is, I suppose, the flaw in this otherwise wonderful book. The world is unhinged. Corporations and government are joined at the hip in a new form of something like fascism. The new national security or surveillance state promises security at the expense of a numbing uniformity. If ever there were a time that the anarchists in our history looked like prophets, it is now. I wonder why Hedges couldn't bring himself more directly say so? When even radicals pull punches the future seems dark indeed.

The first four chapters in this book are polemical but powerful with the message greatly enhanced by the superb contributions from Joe Sacco.Unfortunately, as is so often the case with this type of writing, when the author moves from reportage into prescription the quality falls through the floor.The final chapter, Days of Revolt, is just silly.

I came to this book because of my enthusiasm for the work of Joe Sacco, but finished it searching on the internet for more info about the ideas of Chris Hedges, who for me is one of the most articulate radicals i have come across in a very long time.Sacco is one of a kind, a political investigative journalist through the media of comic strips. I have several of his books, and particularly enjoyed "Safe Area Gorazde", an account of the conflict in Bosnia. He puts you on the ground and introduces you to his friends and associates.He does the same thing here as he and Hedges visit four areas, where interestingly four different racial groups have been chewed up and spat out by corporate America. These are Pine Ridge Indian reservation, Camden New Jersey where departing manufacturing industry has left little but a drug culture, the Appalachian mountains, where mountains are literally taken apart in open cast coal mining, and Florida where Central American immigrant labour is exploited in tomato picking without any kind of regulation.The common theme is that corporate industry has bought and sold government at police, state and federal levels in such a way that whereas lipservice is paid to liberal and constitutional ethics and standards, in practice justice is not a commodity that is generally available for poor working class people, at least not without a fight.As an English person several of these scenarios were new to me. Corruption is not quite as entrenched or uninhibited I don't think in my country, although it works in a similar way.The section on Pine Ridge stands out because the travesties of justice go back a hundred and fifty years or more, and we realise that what we are seeing now all over was always the American way when ethics come up against profit.Hedges' writing is very impressive. If you research him on the internet as I have done you discover he has a track record of reporting oppression and over the years has put himself at risk in a number of situations, he seems a fairly committed guy.He is also very thoughtful and spiritual as a person. His point of view is never negative imo. A lot of people found this book depressing according to the reviews. I didn't. I found it truly shocking, and I speak as a guy who has thousands of books on his shelf, many of them about history and politics. This book is shocking because it talks to real people, depicts them, and then comes up with a poltical narrative built up from their experience, and it demonstrates the conflict between the "democratic" narrative and reality.The final chapter is about the Occupy movement, and Hedges gives his poltical credo. I am not sure what I think about this but it is cohesive, clearly put, and far more intelligent than any other such credo I have read for several decades at a political level. it is easy to criticise and not easy to come up with a plan, and this is a fairly intelligent and unflinching attempt at least.This book is an up to date indictment of modern capitalism and put together in an extremely thought-provoking way

Probably the most powerful combination of formats I have ever experienced this book will blow you away. As journalism goes this work is a landmark in terms of the use of medium to transport the reader into the situation and context unlike anything before it. It utilises this to portray very complex social problems and personal histories in a way that feels intuitive to the reader, to the extent that you become unaware that you are imaging yourself as the subject and it is only after reading that you realise just how affected you have been.The material itself deals with the most important and overlooked issues that face Americans in our generation, however much of it has been dealt with before. Critically however, it has never been processed (or rather the lack of over-processing) or presented in this way.Entirely different to anything I have ever read and any of Hedges other works.

This is essential stuff for anyone who is interested on the dynamics driving contemporary america. The first four chapters each are brilliantly written investigative pieces on some of the places at the sharp end of the contemporary crisis in industrial capitalism. The first chapter excavates Americas past through looking at the bloody legacy of the creation of the country and how it bleeds into the present. It takes in life and death on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota and looks at the issues of dispossession that the Sioux people have to live with. The second chapter looks at the inner cities (specifically, Camden NJ.) and charts many of the processes that anyone who has seen The Wire will be familiar with. Chapter 3 looks at West Virginia and the murder of communities of the rural poor by the Coal industry. In chapter 4 we're in the Florida and looking at the fresh produce industry.The themes that connect each of these chapters is the degradation of the physical landscape, the dispossession of its population and their sacrifice before the altar of an increasingly rapacious and destructive capitalism. In illustrating this Joe Saccos drawings are brutally illuminating. The comic strips that intersperse the text, each of which tells the life story of one of the inhabitants of these areas, also brings the stories of these people and their world to life in uncomfortable and uncompromising detail.The last chapter details what the author hopes, and what many of us still hope, is the beginnings of a large scale fight back with the occupy movement. Its good that the author finishes on a note of hope. Seriously, after reading about West Virginia I was genuinely puzzled as to why america doesn't have more indigenous terrorists in the Appalachians going all ELF on the bastards and taking out a few of those big ass multi million pound earth-rapers the mining companies use. You could see it couldn't you? A few hillbillies baking up batches of backyard dynamite in their out houses or pilfering it from the mining companies themselves, merking some heavy equipment and disappearing off back into the hills. I suppose he does answer this one indirectly by making the point that most people tend to opt for escape (either physical through internal migration or figurative into the haze of OxyContyn) as a less dangerous option. I suppose when you stand up and fight its because you have something to fight for and by god they aren't leaving them much of that.The authors commentary on the Occupy movement and its methods of organisation and resistance do a lot to balance some of the nihilism of the previous chapters. In it though you can see some of the issues and contradictions that would become more apparent as occupy spread across the world, and a few of the very real problems with it are left unaddressed. That said, it is nice to have an insiders account of the beginnings of something that I at least have confidence will be seen as a real turning point.I've seen other people dismissing this book as polemic. Well, I think thats fair enough, but its necessary to counteract the constant one sided braincandy pumped out by the mainstream media. The carnival of consumerist apologia has given enough air space and time to the system and its defenders, frankly more is not needed. There is an urgent need in fact for more of this kind of stuff and I hope it gets the airing it deserves.

The American Dream is one of the most powerful myths of all time. It is so powerful because one of its main tenets appeals to a basic sense of justice which dictates that if you work hard, you should be rewarded in kind. This is America's promise. In 'Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt', Chris Hedges and Joe Sacco show this promise to be tragically hollow.Hedges is a former New York Times journalist who has previously won the Pulitzer prize. Joe Sacco is the pioneer of 'comics journalism', and the author of a number of excellent works in that genre. 'Days of Destruction...' is largely a collection of prose reportage supported by detailed drawings by Sacco, along with a number of longer comic strips which tell particular parts of a certain character's story. It is an interesting idea, and one which is executed with mixed success.The book contains five sections in total. The first four focus on places in America facing extreme poverty and exploitation at the hands of corporate and governmental elites - Pine Ridge, South Dakota; Camden, New Jersey; southern West Virginia; and Immokalee, Florida. The fifth section looks at Occupy Wall Street and what it might mean for the future. All concern people who have done what they were supposed to for their share in the American Dream, and were dispossessed in the name of power and profit.Hedges is foremost an excellent writer. His prose is simple, crisp, and engaging. He provides vivid portraits of characters, places and their stories; fitting them neatly into a wider context, and in some cases even adding a bit of theoretical background to bolster his arguments. He is clearly disgusted at what he has seen in his country, writing furiously in the hope that the stories he tells will gain wider attention. This lends him an air of deep compassion, but also, at times, a degree of sanctimoniousness. From time to time I felt that his sympathy for the people he interviewed (and indeed the fact that he avoided interviewing anyone on the opposing side of an issue in all but one case) skewed the reality of the stories a stroke too far, but then again, this isn't supposed to be objective reporting; it's a worthy expression of outrage at needless indignity and squalor. Particularly interesting was the part about Camden, New Jersey. Though it tells a story similar to that of many East Coast cities, the corruption and brutality of Camden's experience is both moving and depressing, evoked sensitively by Hedges. The Pine Ridge, South Dakota story is also very good, but is difficult to read since it portrays the diminished and broken people living on a native American reservation, forgotten by the rest of America, condemned to a life of alcohol, drugs, and crime.The contributions by Sacco are fewer, but when set alongside prose, they serve to highlight the largely unrecognised strengths of 'comics journalism'. While Hedges with his writing can sometimes lapse into tracts of righteous indignation, the form Sacco works with allows him room only to let the subjects speak. There is no space for preaching. As a result, the reports are often stark and shocking in the terseness - perhaps even the banality - with which they tell of endless heartbreak, tragedy and suffering. It is true that Sacco has to take liberties with his drawings, which because they seek to put together a story from the past, he must base to a good extent on his own imagination. But his gift for capturing important moments, and teasing out a person's humanity make his journalism uniquely affecting. I was a little disappointed there were not more comic strips from Sacco in this book, but I can imagine it probably took him just as long to do what he did as it took Hedges to write the other 200 or so pages, such is the detail of Sacco's work.One thing that left me unconvinced was the final section on Occupy Wall Street. While I am broadly sympathetic to its cause and appreciated the insight the piece gave, I felt Hedges avoided looking at some of the deeper issues it raises. For example, I am not sure there is a better alternative to a properly regulated free-market economy, and Hedges didn't question any of his interviewees about the possibility that capitalism may be a good thing, and that better regulation rather than dissolution could be a safer and more beneficial solution to what we have now. I was also concerned about the kinds of anarchistic power structures which seemed to develop there. Though in an ideal world I could be happy living in an anarcho-syndicalist community, in reality this seems completely impossible for a number of reasons. Hedges accepted this anarchistic take on the organisation without raising any of the general problems with the theory. Nonetheless, I found the details of the way the organisation developed quite compelling, and the intelligence, empathy, and eloquence of the people interviewed was heartening.'Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt' is an important work which shows how people in America have been brutally beaten down by the quest for profit, but also how they refuse to be defeated by continually fighting back and never losing hope. There is a brilliant quote by H. L. Mencken which is included in the book which perfectly sums up the attitudes of the authors and those they met:"The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is naïve and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one who likes his country more than the rest of us, and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched. He is not a bad citizen turning to crime; he is a good citizen driven to despair."Though the traditional American Dream may be a lie, these people still love America and are doing their best to help make it into the place they know it can become.