Reviews for Freiheitsrechte und soziale Emanzipation

The average rating for Freiheitsrechte und soziale Emanzipation based on 4 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2014-07-02 00:00:00 George Andraous John Shattuck was a political appointee in the Clinton administration, selected as the human rights honcho at the State Department. In this book, he openly shares the struggle to find an honored place for human rights within the politics and bureaucracy of Washington and abroad. Let's just say: it's a bleak picture. Shattuck arrives in Washington at a moment when the world is embarking on a new chapter in geopolitical relations. The collapse of the Soviet Union leaves the US as the sole hegemony, and they handle it about as well as a fifth grader at his first middle school dance ... that is, awkwardly. For all the rhetoric of freedom and traditional American values. It becomes clear that such convictions become victim not only to bi-partisan dueling of Capitol Hill but also contentious factions within an administration. In the accounts, Clinton is not always portrayed positively. Clearly, he is a well-intentioned idealistic child of the Sixties, but the pressure of the office in the early-goings buckle the cavalier. After all, he has earned the nickname Slick Willy, political astuteness is his forté. With the horrors of Rwanda, Bosnia and Haiti and the diplomatic bouts with China, Shattuck lends a valuable perspective. His conclusions miss the mark a bit. Indeed, he is not an international relations scholar and his points come off as a little too prosaic. The narrative plods a little at times, but the intention is always admirable. He wrote this in 2003 and it is painful to reflect on the years to follow and how little his lessons colored our international policy.

Review # 2 was written on 2014-07-02 00:00:00 Anton Levandovskiy John Shattuck was a political appointee in the Clinton administration, selected as the human rights honcho at the State Department. In this book, he openly shares the struggle to find an honored place for human rights within the politics and bureaucracy of Washington and abroad. Let's just say: it's a bleak picture. Shattuck arrives in Washington at a moment when the world is embarking on a new chapter in geopolitical relations. The collapse of the Soviet Union leaves the US as the sole hegemony, and they handle it about as well as a fifth grader at his first middle school dance ... that is, awkwardly. For all the rhetoric of freedom and traditional American values. It becomes clear that such convictions become victim not only to bi-partisan dueling of Capitol Hill but also contentious factions within an administration. In the accounts, Clinton is not always portrayed positively. Clearly, he is a well-intentioned idealistic child of the Sixties, but the pressure of the office in the early-goings buckle the cavalier. After all, he has earned the nickname Slick Willy, political astuteness is his forté. With the horrors of Rwanda, Bosnia and Haiti and the diplomatic bouts with China, Shattuck lends a valuable perspective. His conclusions miss the mark a bit. Indeed, he is not an international relations scholar and his points come off as a little too prosaic. The narrative plods a little at times, but the intention is always admirable. He wrote this in 2003 and it is painful to reflect on the years to follow and how little his lessons colored our international policy.

Review # 3 was written on 2009-07-21 00:00:00 Mary Morhart Trained as a historian, I am skeptical about the evidence of a "Golden Age" when the Fourth Estate "spoke truth to power" and made the lives of our leaders uncomfortable. There's always been enormous pressure to maintain the status quo but I'll admit that we're at a particularly low nadir when the media obsesses about Miley Cyrus' naked back and the absence of flag pins on pols' suits, all the while ignoring the crimes of the most incompetent administration in the last century and the easily predictable, disastrous results of 30 years of neoliberal economics (just two among a host of problems confronting the Republic). So it is a bittersweet revelation to read John Pilger. Sweet to find that we still have people capable of uncovering the myriad sins committed by our leaders in our name; bitter to read of those sins and how they continue to torment the innocent unrequited (and unlikely ever to be atoned for). Pilger covers five areas in this book: Diego Garcia, Palestine, India, South Africa and Afghanistan. As Pilger writes in the Introduction: "This book is about empire, its facades and the enduring struggle of people for their freedom. It offers an antidote to authorized versions of contemporary history that censor by omission and impose double standards. It is, I hope, a contribution to what Vandana Shiva calls `an insurrection of subjugated knowledge.'" The strength of the book lies in how Pilger captures the view of people affected by (in thses cases) American foreign policy (if you can call shilling [whoring?] for corporatist elites a foreign policy) and the contemptuous disdain of our leaders, so enamored with the trappings of power. It's not all depressing; people continue to struggle against state violence, oppression and iniquity, and sometimes they make progress.

Review # 4 was written on 2009-07-21 00:00:00 Seri Chimera Trained as a historian, I am skeptical about the evidence of a "Golden Age" when the Fourth Estate "spoke truth to power" and made the lives of our leaders uncomfortable. There's always been enormous pressure to maintain the status quo but I'll admit that we're at a particularly low nadir when the media obsesses about Miley Cyrus' naked back and the absence of flag pins on pols' suits, all the while ignoring the crimes of the most incompetent administration in the last century and the easily predictable, disastrous results of 30 years of neoliberal economics (just two among a host of problems confronting the Republic). So it is a bittersweet revelation to read John Pilger. Sweet to find that we still have people capable of uncovering the myriad sins committed by our leaders in our name; bitter to read of those sins and how they continue to torment the innocent unrequited (and unlikely ever to be atoned for). Pilger covers five areas in this book: Diego Garcia, Palestine, India, South Africa and Afghanistan. As Pilger writes in the Introduction: "This book is about empire, its facades and the enduring struggle of people for their freedom. It offers an antidote to authorized versions of contemporary history that censor by omission and impose double standards. It is, I hope, a contribution to what Vandana Shiva calls `an insurrection of subjugated knowledge.'" The strength of the book lies in how Pilger captures the view of people affected by (in thses cases) American foreign policy (if you can call shilling [whoring?] for corporatist elites a foreign policy) and the contemptuous disdain of our leaders, so enamored with the trappings of power. It's not all depressing; people continue to struggle against state violence, oppression and iniquity, and sometimes they make progress.