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Title: Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs, and Cheap Labor in the American Black Market by Eric Schlosser ISBN: 0-618-33466-1 Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Co Pub. Date: 08 May, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $23.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.65 (55 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: comprehensive, analytical.....but not well organized
Comment: The premise of the book is simple - the impact of black market in three different fields - drug (specifically pot), porn, and illegal immigrants is much more than acknowledged...but the organization of the book doesn't live up to the reputation of the author. Both books by the author, undoubtedly deserves critical acclaim and serious attention. However, the current book pales in comparison with the well-organized, single-themed Fast Food Nation. Nevertheless, the book does raise interesting questions in an apolitical way and each of the three disparate segments in the book is a great "essay" in itself. Each of the segments uses a slightly different narrative style ranging from reporting to some character profiling, all interspersed with some stark observations and interesting questions. For any of the three problems highlighted in the book, the author doesn't offer any analysis on what needs to be done to alleviate any of the issues raised. That drawback diminishes the value of the arguments to a small extent. Apart from the above minor complaint and the lack of a common thread connecting the three topics, the book is an excellent read and is highly recommended for any serious reader.
Rating: 4
Summary: Another Great Work By Schlosser
Comment: With Reefer Madness, Eric Schlosser provides us with another extraordinary piece of reporting. This work is well documented (a large number of pages are deveoted to notes and references) and is a compelling, hard to put down read. Perhaps the most important theme that unifies the three essays in this book is how the US Government manipulates the moral and legal arguments for or against an issue (legalizing marijuana or cheap farm labor, for example) in order to meet its needs or agenda. An eye opening look at three underground industries and at our own dishonest policymakers.
Rating: 4
Summary: A Mild Disapointment Compared To Author's Previous Book
Comment: Eric Schlosser's latest book Reefer Madness is a bit of a disappointment after his very good and very popular Fast Food Nation. Schlosser's investigative acumen is on display in this book, but what he ends up producing are three long essays that could stand alone as books in and of themselves. I think that the choice of Reefer Madness for a title was a bad decision. The notoriety Schlosser gained from Fast Food Nation could have sold the book without the rip off title. I think the long "An Empire Of The Obscene" essay about Reuben Sturman's porn empire, which totals 100 pages, would have made for a better title and focus for the book. The porn business is an interesting study in and of itself and Schlosser should have gotten his publisher to make it into a separate book. Those reservations aside, I think the book is a worth a look for somebody looking for good investigative journalism to read.
Reefer Madness is a business book that focuses on three separate sectors of the black market economy: Marijuana consumption, migrant labor in the strawberry fields of California and porn. "Reefer Madness" deals with the persecution of the users of by far and away the most popular drug in the U.S.: Marijuana. Originally smoked by poor blacks and Mexicans in the early 20th century, marijuana has become the most popular drug in the country. Schlosser traces the interesting case of Indiana biker Mark Young, who was originally sentenced to life in prison without possibility for parole for his involvement in a marijuana delivery. It was Young's first marijuana offense. He's wasn't even the grower or major dealer in the transaction he was involved in, but he refused to play the role of a snitch for the prosecution in his case and received the ultimate punishment for his "crime." Young's sentence was later reduced. Young remains an unrepentant pot smoker to this day.
"In The Strawberry Fields" Schlosser deals with the misfortune of the nation's poorest workforce: The migrant laborers in California's strawberry's fields. Schlosser focuses on the heart of the Strawberry business in Watsonville and the failed mid-90's campaign by the AFL-CIO to organize the fields in the area. The market in migrant labor is a very important study because of the profound effect it has on bringing wages down in the overall economy, thus helping fuel the black market, as people fed up with declining wages look to find ways to make money off the books. The '70s was a time when it appeared that the United Farm Workers were going to finally organize most of the migrant work force. However, like with the rest of organized labor, whatever hopes the UFW had of organizing the fields has been dashed by the aggressive union busting of growers.
Schlosser notes that while tax payer cash is lavished onto the largest corporations on a daily basis, the one sector of the economy where the "free market" has been most ruthlessly applied has been with labor. Observing the burgeoning shanty towns that have sprouted up throughout much of California to house this exploited labor force Schlosser writes, "The market will drive wages down like water, until they reach the lowest possible level. Today that level is being set not in Washington or New York or Sacramento but in the fields of Baja California and the mountain villages of Oaxaca. That level is about five dollars a day. No deity that men have ever worshipped is more ruthless and more hollow than the free market unchecked; there is no reason why shantytowns should not appear on the outskirts of every American city. All those who now consider themselves devotees of the market should take a good look at what is happening in California. Left to its own devices, the free market always seeks a work force that is hungry, desperate, and cheap - a work force that is anything but free."
"An Empire Of The Obscene" traces the rise and fall of the real "King of Porn." It wasn't porn start John Holmes, but an obscure, rarely photographed, Cleveland based businessman named Rueben Sturman. Sturman was able to fend off all federal charges of peddling in "obscenity," but in the end he was brought down, like Al Capone before him, by tax evasion charges. I hadn't even heard of Sturman before reading Schlosser's book. Porn, like with marijuana, is one of those products which Americans publicly abhor, privately adore and consume in astonishingly high amounts. Schlosser points out that the porn business has been at the cutting edge of exploiting technology to increase its size. From the VHS video tape to cable to the Internet, technology has brought porn from red light district store fronts and theaters into the homes of millions of eager porn consumers. Today, heavy handed prosecutions of the porn business are less likely, and less likely to have much of an effect on the business, than ever now the that ranks of the largest distributors of porn include major cable providers, not anti-government counter culture types like Sturman.
Schlosser reviews the economics of the economic underground. Nobody knows just how large it really is, but it could be ten percent or more of the overall U.S. economy. The reasons for the sharp rise of the black market starting in the '60s and '70s are manifold. Declining wages, regressive taxation and government regulation are all factors in this. The hippie counter culture of the '60s and the anti-tax movements of the '70s have all played a role in shaping the anti-government attitudes that have fueled the black market boom. What it all reveals is the huge chasm between what the government tells us is "bad" for us and should be banned and what we actually do consume in private. As Schlosser said in his May 19 Working Assets Radio interview, "Maybe some of these things aren't so bad afterall."
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Title: Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal by Eric Schlosser ISBN: 0060938455 Publisher: HarperCollins Pub. Date: 08 January, 2002 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right by Al Franken ISBN: 0525947647 Publisher: E P Dutton Pub. Date: 29 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic by John De Graaf, David Wann, Thomas H. Naylor, David Horsey, Scott Simon, John de Graaf ISBN: 1576751996 Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Pub Pub. Date: August, 2002 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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Title: A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson ISBN: 0767908171 Publisher: Broadway Pub. Date: 06 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $27.50 |
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Title: Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich ISBN: 0805063897 Publisher: Owl Books Pub. Date: 01 May, 2002 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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