The book is Days Of Destruction Days Of Revolt. It is a
team effort between Chris Hedges (writer/journalist and Joe Sacco, (writer/cartoonist)
showing us the down and awful of daily life in four centers of 21st-century
American poverty. Hedges’ is the muckraker with facts and opinion. . Sacco’s
contributes words of real people whose story ivisualized in a dramatic cartoon form. Both authors had reported on the ugly effects
of various wars around the world. In
Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt they take us to the bombed-out and
collapsed areas of our own country. Sacco’s part, I think is the better
of the two. You see the people and their surroundings, read their stories and draw
your own conclusions. Hedges fills in
the background and then opines in a very forceful manner. For one, I mostly
agreed with his conclusions. They ownly fueled my anger. Perhaps, I am a
revolutionary at heart. You own reaction would, no doubt, depend on you present
political views.
If you’ve seen your town fade and then crumble with jobs
shipped overseas, unions’ broken, corrupt and bribed government taken over and
drugs and violence endemic like Camden, New Jersey you’d be angry too. Perhaps
you live in the “rust belt.”
Anyone who grew up near a postindustrial area — who has seen
a middle-class town become a pocket of destitution — will not find any one
chapter in this book too shocking. What is shocking is the degree to which this
depth of poverty is found everywhere, from rural Indian reservations to
near-slave conditions in Florida tomato fields. These are not pleasant stories.
They are the very sort of thing we all prefer to forget so that we can focus on
our daily lives, and this makes it all the more important that they are
recorded.
Days of Destruction,
Days of Revolt is split into five chapters focusing on different regions within
America. There is the life of the
Native-Americans in Pine Ridge, South Dakota, a reservation where the average
salary can range between $2,600 to $3,500 a year. Alcoholism, violence, and
sexual abuse are a regular part of their lives. Their current plight finds its
historical roots in a policy that can only be described as genocide
Joe Sacco doesn't glamorize his drawings of the miners, emphasizing gestures, wrinkles, poses brimming with both resignation and defiance. They sweat tears, covered in grime, struggling against both the planet and their supervisors to eke out a meager living.
What makes this section so damning is what Julian Martin, a seventy-four-year-old retired high school teacher, says about the reasons for the coal mining and the devastation that has leveled the region. They consider it "...a sacrifice zone. It's so the rest of the country can have electric toothbrushes and leave the lights on all night... and shit like that."
If I felt bad about lights, I felt even worse about eating tomatoes with the fourth chapter that takes place in Immokalee, Florida. Illegal immigrants have a tough life, and this because they chase their dreams of making enough just to support their family. Farm work is one of the toughest professions around, and pesticides and chemicals make their already rigorous tasks deadly. With no legal rights, their lives verge on bondage with unbearable living conditions that they are forced to bear. We see this with Ana who started her life in Guatemala. Her husband came to the States first and she crossed the border afterward. The illegal smuggling is depicted in harsh illustrations with corpses and snakes littering the way. She trudged through the desert, clinging to the hope of something better. When she met her husband in Philadelphia, she was shocked at the poor condition of the house they shared with many others. Moving to Immokalee was supposed to be better. But, as she says: "...In the trailers where we had to live there were rats and cockroaches... The reality is we're not free; we're treated badly... Americans don't look at us as human beings. They look at us as tools for work."
I found myself respectfully disagreeing, not on the
symptoms, which are clearly disastrous, but the medicine he proposes,
particularly the more extreme calls he makes. Call me naïve, but I still
believe in the American system and its capacity to change, however slow it
might seem. I also thought that his demonization of corporations was too
general, because even with all the examples of corruption, there are still many
companies that don't follow that path. Of course I don't want to get into a
political discussion. I only mention my disagreement to emphasize the point
that this is where the book might risk alienating certain readers. The
quotation about revolt as the only hope, taken out of context, could also turn
off potential readers. But that would be a big mistake because this book should
be read, regardless of the readers' inclinations and beliefs. Hedges carries
the mantle of Upton Sinclair, Howard Zinn, George Orwell, and all the agitators
in fighting for the soul of nations when so many have forgotten what that
means. His eloquence is in the eloquence of the lives he presents, and Sacco
lovingly animates them. It's rare that a book carries so much courage and
conviction, forcing reflection and an urge to immediately rectify the problems.
Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt, is a memoir not just of
the impoverished, but one of all of us. It's a call to start rewriting the
forthcoming days by redressing these issues now. I imagine Hedges's hope is
that we can eventually all have new chapters, ones we can proudly draw out with
the brush strokes of our own lives.
Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt by Chris Hedges and Joe
Sacco.....