Third World America How Our Politicians Are Abandoning The Middle Class And Betraying The American Dream by Arianna Huffington

Third World America How Our Politicians Are Abandoning The Middle Class And Betraying The American Dream by Arianna Huffington



Arianna Huffington is the founder of The Huffington Post which is a liberal news and opinion site. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ . This book is being used as a platform for change.


Third World America attacks lobbyists and financial institutions for destroying the American middle class. It is more vitriolic against the Republican party than the Democratic party, but does not spare either side.



Arianna Huffington's main focus of attack is the lobbyists and financial institutions which participated in creating the mortgage and financial crisis which drove many homes into foreclosure, eliminated jobs, and had devastating consequences for the middle class. She describes how foreclosures and credit card debt have created a poverty industry fueled by lobbyists.



She gives many examples of how it is harder and harder to stay part of the middle class. Now, the dream is to keep what you have; stay in your home, keep your job, and hold onto your assets. Wealth is being transferred out of public institutions into private companies.



Congress looks the other way when we bailout companies like AIG, pay massive amounts for contracts to polluters like British Petroleum, and don't monitor companies like Blackwater closely enough. She is describing a fusion of government with private industry that lacks transparency.



This is most apparent in our infrastructure which is crumbling. Our roads, schools, trains, bridges, dams, and electrical grid all need upgrading. It is obvious that things are not quite working right. Trains are slower, schools are worse, and government is entangled.



In my own industry, I have watched downsizing, layoffs, and cuts to libraries. Now, I am seeing for the first time corporate takeover of public institutions like libraries by private companies like LSSI http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/27/business/27libraries.html  . It is an example of how companies will take over private institutions if possible, lower pay of people in communities, and be less transparent. What she is writing is very relevant to my own experience.



The answers which she gives are very liberal in nature. Have the government hire more people in public service, invest in infrastructure, stimulate green jobs, stop foreclosures, and regulate Wall Street. I am not sure this will work that well. It is a consistent liberal message. It feels very much like the consistent conservative message about what we should do about the economy. Both have pieces that have been tried to limited effect. There seems to be an unwillingness to acknowledge the world has changed and we might need to change and try a slightly different approach.



Where she most resonates with me is on the individual level. We can take money out of the banks and insurance companies which caused the crisis and invest in local banks and credit unions. We can start managing our personal finances better. We can also try to stay healthier, educate ourselves, and volunteer in our community. The personal steps which she suggests are not liberal or conservative, they are practical.



The book has an index and extensive notes. It is written as liberal opinion piece for the man on the street. The book is muckraking, expressive, and entertaining.



This is an excellent work. It is a call for change. It is a reminder that we should try and get the government to work for us, not lobbyists, financial institutions, or special interests. While many of Arianna Huffington's solutions on the national level seem impractical, her call to change on the individual level is very appropriate. This book is well worth reading. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/thirdworldamerica

Daily Thoughts 9/26/2010 (Where The Wild Things Are)

"Where The Wild Things Are" graffiti, in Kelsey-Woodlawn, Saskatoon, SK, Canada, 27, May 2009, 16:59, Scott Woods-Fehr (Freedom of panorama)
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Freedom_of_panorama#Canada , Creative Commons Attribution 2.0, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Where_The_Wild_Things_Are_graffiti_04.jpg
Daily Thoughts 9/26/2010

I watched the new film of Where The Wild Things Are which was released to dvd in 2010.  It is a live action film.  I very much liked the monster costumes.  My favorite was the minotaur.  The film was about anger and being wild.  Where The Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak was one of my favorite books as a child.



I also read some more of Third World America by Arianna Huffington. I liked the line, "There are no lobbyists for the American Dream," on p.133.  She argues that there are too many lobbyists and moneyed interests for change to effectively take place for the better in congress.  Arianna Huffington also describes how infrastructure from bridges, roads, dams, electricity to broadband internet is falling apart and costing the United States leadership in business.  The book mainly attacks republicans, but also does not spare some democrats incompetence.  It is very much a call for change.

Daily Thoughts 9/23/2010 (Third World America, Banned Books Week)

"Banish lonely hours in camp! Help provide libraries filled with books for soldiers A million dollars for a million books for a million men--Leave your money at the public library or at any bank. The Library War Council - appointed by the War Department through the American Library Association - is raising one million dollars during Camp Library Week, Sept. 24-30, to build and maintain a library at every training camp and cantonment for soldiers, sailors and airmen, at home and abroad. Massachusetts Library War Council."

Daily Thoughts 9/23/2010

Today has been very steady.  I started on weeding the oversize 300s.  Sometimes even doing a small amount is enough to get things going.  I also gathered together some bookmarks and flyers for my colleagues who are going to a career fair at the local high school.  A lot of our focus during the last week has been very much about business and jobs.  There is going to be a workshop from the Women's Enterprise Development Center for computers for business.

I also did a few minor things, bringing out some things that needed to be mended from storage, shifting some paperbacks around, and spotchecking the 300s for orderliness.

The young adult department is doing a display for banned books week.  Two books which I suggested for the display are a young adult novel by Laurie Halse Andersen called Speak and the graphic novel Bone by Jeff Smith.  There are of course many of the classic books; The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, A Vindication of the Rights of Women by Mary Wollstonecraft, The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, and Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut.  Attempting to censor books often has the opposite effect on reading material.  It makes the books more popular, not less.  Banned Books Week runs from September 25- October 2, 2010 http://www.ala.org/ala/issuesadvocacy/banned/bannedbooksweek/index.cfm

The book, Third World America How Our Politicians Are Abandoning The Middle Class And Betraying The American Dream by Arianna Huffington came in for me to read.  I started reading it on the way home.  It is about the dismantling of the middle class by government and business.  It describes the process of creating massive industries based on personal credit and foreclosure of property. Arianna Huffington describes how some elements in government and business feed off the middle class pushing people into poverty, then create mechanisms like payday loans, complex bankruptcy and foreclosure laws, and expensive healthcare to reinforce this poverty. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/thirdworldamerica

There is a strong liberal theme in this book.  It argues against the dismantling of the safety net for the middle class.  There is a lot to think about in what this book is saying so far.  Hopefully, it will spark some interest in change.

This book would also tie in well with another book Broke, USA: From Pawnshops to Poverty, Inc.How the Working Poor Became Big Business by Gary Rivlin who is a journalist for the New York Times.  This book also has strong polemics in it.  It is about the poverty industry, payday loans, credit repair groups, pawnshops, rent to own furntiture and similar financial schemes.  Sadly, this is a growth industry in our current economy.
Web Bits

Four color inkjet printers from Hewlett Packard.  This could make print on demand even cheaper.  http://bit.ly/aZB8v8

From Information Week.  People with ebook readers, read more books.  http://bit.ly/bxJwYL