Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt

Starred review from May 15, 2012
An unabashedly polemic, angry manifesto that is certain to open eyes, intensify outrage and incite argument about corporate greed. In the proud populist tradition of Howard Zinn (whose A People's History of the United States provides a foundation for this book), a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and a renowned cartoonist combine their talents for an illumination of the American underbelly, as the exploitation of a perpetual (and growing) underclass makes the "sacrifice zones" of global capitalism seem like Dante's circles of hell. Truthdig columnist Hedges (Death of the Liberal Class, 2010) was a foreign correspondent for the New York Times and other newspapers, though he plainly feels that advocacy can come closer to the truth than what passes for journalistic objectivity. Sacco (Journalism, 2012, etc.) shared the American Book Award for Palestine (2002) and has subsequently earned considerable acclaim for his graphic narratives of war zones. Though the team has plenty of experience with international warfare, the war they document here is in America, where "[c]orporate capitalism will, quite literally, kill us, as it has killed Native Americans, African Americans trapped in our internal colonies in the inner cities, those left behind in the devastated coalfields, and those who live as serfs in our nation's produce fields." Through immersion reportage and graphic narrative, the duo illuminate the human and environmental devastation in those communities, with the warning that no one is immune. "The ruthless hunt for profit creates a world where everything and everyone is expendable...it has enriched a tiny global elite that has no loyalty to the nation-state," writes Hedges. "These corporations, if we use the language of patriotism, are traitors." While finding some surprising pockets of hope within communities that are otherwise steeped in despair, the pair reserve their concluding glimmer of optimism for the Occupy movement. Otherwise, they find no hope in politics as usual, depicting Democrats and Republicans as equally complicit in policies that benefit the few at the expense of the many. A call for a new American revolution, passionately proclaimed.

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November 15, 2012

The first of our country's sacrifices to the common greed, writes Hedges, were the Native Americans ravaged in the U.S. western expansion from the 1700s onward. Channeling the late Howard Zinn (A People's History of American Empire), Hedges and Sacco visit four modern "sacrifice zones" where corporate interests have left tire treads all over the environment, the local economy, and the quality of life. Pine Ridge, South Dakota's exploited and impoverished Native American reservation; the ravaged urban slum life of Camden, New Jersey; the Appalachian degradation wrought by coal mines in Welsh, WV; and the near-slavery conditions of immigrant farm workers in Immokalee, FL, all testify to laissez-faire policies gone foul and the burden economic forces place on every American. A final chapter dives into the Occupy movement. Hedges's powerful text is intercut by Sacco's interviews, allowing us to meet some of our suffering countrymen through evocative, black-and-white comics. VERDICT More a call to arms than a fix-it manual (Hedges trusts neither Republicans nor Democrats, maintaining that both perpetuate evils of the corporate system), this powerful prose-graphic hybrid belongs in all public and academic libraries.--M.C.

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