Discovering America As It Is [Anglais] [Broché]

Anelauskas, a Lithuanian patriot and former anti-Soviet dissident, paints an extraordinary portrait of the America he discovered the America as it exists for most Americans. While it has been argued that capitalism in Russia failed because the Russians "didn't know how to do it," in the United States, the veritable beacon of world capitalism, capitalism doetwo-decades-long love affair with its free market gurus under Democrats and Republicans alike, gutted the body politic, leaving the American Dream of prosperity for the ordinary man little more than a charade the U.S. corporate, media and government elite successfully fronts to a credulous world.

Twelve highly-documented chapters on poverty, crime, health, education, homelessness, the deterioration of the family, income inequities and the replacement of welfare by workfare detail the public disarray which results from an unfettered system of great wealth where the rich determine the social priorities.

In thousands of citations, Anelauskas documents the precipitous plunge in living standards of American citizens, measured not only against the standards enjoyed by citizens in other capitalist countries in the industrialized world, but against their own past levels. Among the many searing results: in all categories that measure economic equity, citizens of all other industrialized countries generally fare better than do Americans.

This blistering reality is culled from innumerable researches by international organizations, domestic and international NGOs, independent U.S. think tanks, journalists, scholars, and even from American government sources, documented in over 80 pages of endnotes. While most critiques focus on one social sector or another, this multidimensional study brings them all together, and the impact is staggering. What this book enables us to grasp intellectually and emotionally is the predatory and wasteful operation of unbridled capitalism in its systemic dimensions, and the needless, preventable injury it wreaks upon millions. The linkages between government, wealth, poverty and policy, the conflicts between elite interest and collective well-being, clarify as we read.

Here are just a few of many mind-catching findings scattered liberally throughout the book: An American child has one chance in 432 of becoming a doctor -- but one chance in five of growing up illiterate. One in four Americans working full time does not earn enough to stay above the official poverty line. "Food insecure households" add up to over 34 million people. The notion that stock ownership is widespread in America is absolutely false -- the bottom 90 percent of Americans own 15.6 percent of stocks (including through mutual funds), while the bottom eighty percent onlyShape," elaborates the socio-military resources and paradigms which serve to entrench and extend American hegemony, as it seeks to deflect global efforts to institute the rule of international law, and to turn the world back to the rule of force. From the expropriation of Indian lands, and the exploitation of African labor, to a taste for empire which spread to the continental rim, then jumped across many waters in a hundred-year history of invasions all around the globe, culminating at last in the hegemonic military-economic grip on the world by what many in the Third World view as a Rogue Superpower -- from domestic colonialism to imperial America -- this is America as it is. own three percent!

Anelauskass not appear to be working for most people, either. Americas not only concerning America

Anelauskas' revelations punch holes through the public policy platitudes surrounding the Republican Contract With America, and reveal in shocking terms the impact recent public policy has had upon the American body politic. Even more significant than present effects are the projections that are drawn from these "facts on the ground."

How does American capitalism treat its citizens, compared to capitalism in other countries in Europe and elsewhere? Anelauskas provides copious amounts of up-to-the -minute comparative documentation on indicators of social well being in health, education, housing, the environment, etc., not only concerning the U.S., but also concerning a range of European and other capitalist countries. His sources range from government statistics, mainstream newspapers and business publications, to studies by international organizations, highly reputed non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and institutes.