Politics & Social Sciences

A Colony in a Nation

November 14, 2017 Filed Under: Books Read

Colony in a Nation, A by Christopher L. Hayes
Published by Recorded Books on March 21, 2017
Format: audiobook
See it @ Goodreads

Synopsis

New York Times best-selling author and Emmy Award-winning news anchor Chris Hayes argues that there are really two Americas: a Colony and a Nation. America likes to tell itself that it inhabits a post-racial world, yet nearly every empirical measure--wealth, unemployment, incarceration, school segregation--reveals that racial inequality has barely improved since 1968, when Richard Nixon became our first "law and order" president. With the clarity and originality that distinguished his prescient bestseller, Twilight of the Elites, Chris Hayes upends our national conversation on policing and democracy in a book of wide-ranging historical, social, and political analysis. Hayes contends our country has fractured in two: the Colony and the Nation. In the Nation, we venerate the law. In the Colony, we obsess over order, fear trumps civil rights, and aggressive policing resembles occupation. A Colony in a Nation explains how a country founded on justice now looks like something uncomfortably close to a police state. How and why did Americans build a system where conditions in Ferguson and West Baltimore mirror those that sparked the American Revolution? A Colony in a Nation examines the surge in crime that began in the 1960s and peaked in the 1990s, and the unprecedented decline that followed. Drawing on close-hand reporting at flashpoints of racial conflict, as well as deeply personal experiences with policing, Hayes explores cultural touchstones, from the influential "broken windows" theory to the "squeegee men" of late-1980s Manhattan, to show how fear causes us to make dangerous and unfortunate choices, both in our society and at the personal level. With great empathy, he seeks to understand the challenges of policing communities haunted by the omnipresent threat of guns. Most important, he shows that a more democratic and sympathetic justice system already exists--in a place we least suspect. A Colony in a Nation is an essential book--searing and insightful--that will reframe our thinking about law and order in the years to come.

In a Christian Science Monitor book review Nick Romeo, notes:

The title comes from a phrase that Richard Nixon used in a 1968 speech at the Republican National Convention. “Black Americans,” he said, “do not want more government programs which perpetuate dependency. They don’t want to be a colony in a nation.” Hayes argues that in the half-century since Nixon’s speech, white America has subjugated a colony of the unfree within its own borders.

The idea that the criminal justice system is divided into two systems, one for whites and one for black has come to the forefront of American political discourse. Hayes does a good job of providing us with overwhelming evidence that there still is a large amount of racial bias. Police departments have become more militarized since 9/11 and that has become very evident when you see protest marches on the television. Hayes describes how “white fear” has led to politicians and the police to institute in some areas of the country a warfare mentality. We need as a nation become aware of our tribal instincts and the need to rise above those.

Hayes is an excellent writer, very readable, sometimes I feel his writing is better than his interviewing as seen on All in with Chris Hayes. This was an audiobook and it was read by the author. I am a fan of Chris Hayes and look forward to hearing and reading more from him.

About Christopher L. Hayes

Christopher Loffrado Hayes (/heɪz/; born February 28, 1979) is an American liberal political commentator, journalist, and author. Hayes hosts All In with Chris Hayes, a weekday news and opinion television show on MSNBC. Hayes formerly hosted a weekend MSNBC show, Up with Chris Hayes. He remains an editor at large of The Nation magazine.

Website

The Last of the Tribe: The Epic Quest to Save a Lone Man in the Amazon

February 15, 2017 Filed Under: Books Read

The Last of the Tribe: The Epic Quest to Save a Lone Man in the Amazon by Monte Reel
on January 1st 1970
Pages: 273
See it @ Goodreads

Synopsis

Throughout the centuries, the Amazon has yielded many of its secrets, but it still holds a few great mysteries. In 1996 experts got their first glimpse of one: a lone Indian, a tribe of one, hidden in the forests of southwestern Brazil. Previously uncontacted tribes are extremely rare, but a one-man tribe was unprecedented. And like all of the isolated tribes in the Amazonian frontier, he was in danger.
Resentment of Indians can run high among settlers, and the consequences can be fatal. The discovery of the Indian prevented local ranchers from seizing his land, and led a small group of men who believed that he was the last of a murdered tribe to dedicate themselves to protecting him. These men worked for the government, overseeing indigenous interests in an odd job that was part Indiana Jones, part social worker, and were among the most experienced adventurers in the Amazon. They were a motley crew that included a rebel who spent more than a decade living with a tribe, a young man who left home to work in the forest at age fourteen, and an old-school sertanista with a collection of tall tales amassed over five decades of jungle exploration.
Their quest would prove far more difficult than any of them could imagine. Over the course of a decade, the struggle to save the Indian and his land would pit them against businessmen, politicians, and even the Indian himself, a man resolved to keep the outside world at bay at any cost. It would take them into the furthest reaches of the forest and to the halls of Brazil’s Congress, threatening their jobs and even their lives. Ensuring the future of the Indian and his land would lead straight to the heart of the conflict over the Amazon itself.
A heart-pounding modern-day adventure set in one of the world’s last truly wild places, The Last of the Tribe is a riveting, brilliantly told tale of encountering the unknown and the unfathomable, and the value of preserving it.

This book is a nice overview of how Brazil is handling the indigenous population of the Amazon. In 1996 in the state of Rondonia, in the Northwest of Brazil sharing a border with Bolivia, the Brazilian government’s Indigenous Affairs Department (FUNAI) found a single male living alone in the forest. For ten years they attempted to make contact with him, to protect him from the heavy settlement happening in the state. Interspersed with the search for this one last tribesman, is the modern-day story of how Brazil is dealing with their indigenous population. Finally in 2006, though the FUNAI never made contact with the lone tribesman, the Brazilian government set aside 31 square acres for him. Once the lone tribesman is gone, the land will revert to a natural reserve.

Today there are about a 100 tribes that have not been contacted within Brazil and they wish to stay that way. Additional pictures and stories are available at Survival International

The book is a little slow at times, but an excellent read and well worth the read if interested in either the Amazon or the indigenous Peoples of the Americas.

One of Us: The Story of Anders Breivik and the Massacre in Norway

November 15, 2016 Filed Under: Books Read

One of Us: The Story of Anders Breivik and the Massacre in Norway by Åsne Seierstad
on April 21st 2015
Pages: 544
See it @ Goodreads

Synopsis

A harrowing and thorough account of the massacre that upended Norway, and the trial that helped put the country back together
On July 22, 2011, Anders Behring Breivik detonated a bomb outside government buildings in central Oslo, killing eight people. He then proceeded to a youth camp on the island of Utøya, where he killed sixty-nine more, most of them teenage members of Norway’s governing Labour Party. In One of Us, the journalist Åsne Seierstad tells the story of this terrible day and what led up to it. What made Breivik, a gifted child from an affluent neighborhood in Oslo, become a terrorist?
As in her bestseller The Bookseller of Kabul, Seierstad excels at the vivid portraiture of lives under stress. She delves deep into Breivik’s troubled childhood, showing how a hip-hop and graffiti aficionado became a right-wing activist and Internet game addict, and then an entrepreneur, Freemason, and self-styled master warrior who sought to “save Norway” from the threat of Islam and multiculturalism. She writes with equal intimacy about Breivik’s victims, tracing their political awakenings, aspirations to improve their country, and ill-fated journeys to the island. By the time Seierstad reaches Utøya, we know both the killer and those he will kill. We have also gotten to know an entire country—famously peaceful and prosperous, and utterly incapable of protecting its youth.

One of Us presents a detailed account of Anders Breivik life and how he came to massacre 79 people. From his sad childhood until his total break with reality Anders Breivik devised a terrible plot against his country because he opposed the immigration happening in Norway. What struck me most about this story was how totally unprepared the Norwegian government was for this type of attack.

Was Anders Breivik a homegrown terrorist or raving manic? I think he was not working with a full deck. With a growing concern in the United States about immigration, One of Us is a timely read.

MICHEL MARTIN, host: Now to an issue that’s been on many of our minds since that tragic attack in Norway last week. Anders Behring Breivik confessed to the attacks that left more than 70 people dead. He said that he believes Europe is at war with Islam and his actions were necessary. Breivik’s lawyer, Geir Lippestad, spoke today at a press conference.

Additional reviews:
New York Times
Telegraph

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