Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt [Paperback]

Using an intriguing style that utilizes both pulp fiction and literary non-fiction styles, Hedges and Sacco have developed a disturbing, yet honest, view of the 'voiceless masses of America'. Being not only previously defeated in former protests but totally unorganized, without political representation and lacking in funding, the four segments of society that were chosen should only be looked upon as being one of the many, one of the nameless victims to unfettered capitalism. The way out of this morass, to be honest, seems to be a near impossibility. While the authors spend a great deal of time at the text's end heralding the Occupy Movement, the result of such an spontaneous process seems, at best, very limited. Why? There are two reasons. First of all the moneyed 1% not only control the economics of the country but its political system as well. And, by doing so, the crowds were broken up through the simple use of police brutality. Across the country this was done not only in an coordinated manner but done under the guises of ignoring one of our sacred Constitutional rights, that of legal protest. The other reason for Occupy's apparent failure lies with the protestors themselves. When the group occupying Zuccotti Square first became newsworthy we immediately related it to the 1960s protests and, in turn, became very hopeful. But this era had one thing that this time is lacking; "skin in the game". It was members of that generation because they had dark skin that were being lynched, beaten and treated inhumanely. It was their personal pain that led to the initiation of those protests. Also, it was members of this generation that held 1A Draft Cards which were a near guarantee of being sent to the killing fields of Southeast Asia. It was them that first chanted "Hell no, we won't go." It was them who protested or fled to Canada such that they could hold onto their chances of mere survival. Lastly, it was the women of our society who led the march against having others be in charge of their bodies and placing glass ceilings above their heads. Such is not the case with the present situation. The occupiers, while of honest spirit and focus, have very little personal involvement with what is happening. They have `little skin in the game'. So when the eventual swarms of billeted police attacked their rightful positions, they fled. Oh, yes, they may have returned, even more than once, but eventually the blind force of corporatism won out and the public parks remain empty to this date. Our actions since this time against the evils that the book portrays have done little good as well. While we feel somewhat comforted in signing a computer-driven protest sheet or send on a shocking news item through Facebook, this may actually be the devil in disguise for we may begin to feel that our obligation to the aide of this situation is done. After all, we signed a petition, didn't we? Such attitudes, unfortunately, keep us prone in our chairs rather than actively out on the streets as we should be.

Chris Hedges, in the text's final paragraphs, holds onto the hope that the Operation Movement give. Is he naively stupid or is it myself who is inane through the lack of hope? Only time will tell and only time can show the way upward or downward. When the raft is sinking is it better to hold onto to something, anything in hopes that it will continue to allow you to breath or is it better to view reality for what it is and to completely let go? Chris says to hold on and I, at this point, choose not to argue with him. As the my summary title states; "We have met the enemy and he is us.". This, too, defines the plight of the USA as it appears before us. Is there an answer to the cruel prison which we have entrapped ourselves in? There must be or life, as we have come to know of it, has ceased to exist. We just aren't aware of it yet......

This book is a polemic, and an angry one at that.

We need more Sacco and Hedges to write/draw these pictures of the U.S. as it is lived in some of the poorest pockets of the country. It is a call to action and a move from armchair anger to on-the-street objection to what the élite are doing to our culture, our environment and our fellow human beings.

If you like Alain Badieu's message (try his latest - The rebirth of History: Times of Riots and Uprisings, 2012) but find his often dense writing difficult, then go for Hedges and Sacco. Like Badieu, they say it's time to move beyond party politics because the Democrats and the Republicans, both irrevocably in bed with the power élite, are beyond redemption.

S&H give us some clear and depressing pictures of lived America from Pine Ridge, South Dakota, to Camden New Jersey, to Welch West Virginia to Immokalee, Florida. As Zinn and others have shown us, the history of the U.S. is one of a power versus constant uprisings by common people. Frederick Douglass (a slave who became a social reformer who is qupoted in the book) said, "The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress." He was talking of the American political and economic élite.

Hedges (perhaps in a rush to get a desperate message out, sometimes bleeds different interviews together with abandon, which can make for a scatter-shot approach. But this too can be seen as part of the immediacy of the situation.

What Badieu calls "immediate riot" is perhaps similar to the starting point of the Wall Street protests: they are somewhat chaotic, largely youthful, and (something the mainstream media grasps with glee) not always focused— what do these people want, etc? But, as the élite know, they are the portent of something deeper: discontent and outrage at such endemic oppression. That's why they bring out the heavy guns: riot police, the army, propaganda by political leaders to explain the protesters away as thieves and thugs, and so on.

Read S&H. It's undeniably depressing. But it's also hopeful. I am not an American, but I can only get hope from those millions of American citizens, along with their like-minded brothers and sisters around the world, who are standing up and saying as they have for the last several hundred years, "Enough!" It is only through such efforts will the power structure be forced to budge.

Eye-opening assessment of what has been wrong with America, since the GOP (Greedy Old Plutocracy) and Neo-Democrats have been messing with America. Presents a clear view of what must happen here to reverse the recent decent of our nation into virtual-despotism, offering a future holding little hope for any of our citizens, but to watch the ultra-rich rationalize their unearned accumulation of massive yet unproductive gilt.