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Postcards from the End of America
Roaming the country by bus and train, on a budget and without any institutional support, Linh Dinh set out to document, in words and pictures, what life is like for people. From Los Angeles, Cheyenne, Portland, and New Orleans, to Jackson and Wolf Point--Linh walked miles and miles through unfamiliar neighborhoods, talking to whoever would talk to the homeless living in tent cities, the peddlers, the protestors, the public preachers, the prostitutes. With the uncompromising eye of a Walker Evans or a Dorothea Lange, and the indomitable, forthright prose of a modern-day Nelson Algren or James Agee, Dinh documents the appalling and the absurd with warmth and honesty, giving voice to America's often forgotten citizens and championing the awesome strength it takes to survive for those on the bottom. Growing out of a photo and political writing blog Linh has maintained since 2009, Postcards from the End of America is an unflinching diary of what Linh sees as the accelerating collapse of America. Tracking the economic, political, and social unraveling--from the casinos to the abandoned factories and over all the sidewalks in between--with a poet's incisive tongue, Linh shows us the uncanny power of the people in the face of societal devastation.
- GenresNonfictionTravel
416 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 12, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
January 14, 2023
This book is about a people that, to paraphrase George Carlin, were thrown overboard by the system 40 years ago. While the author cris crosses the nation (although frequently stopping at Pennsylvania for whatever reason), the common theme is the working and lower class who has been ground down and almost decimated. You can find these people all over the country and this is what the author intends to explore. The execution is mixed, though.
The book is uneven. There are some really interesting chapters that not only have compelling stories but the statistics that back them up; others are just banal with the author providing the lightest skimming over, as if to wrap up the chapter and move on. Some chapters are simply repetitive in his commentary. I compare this to Studs Terkel’s Hard Times and sometimes it’s better but many times it’s not.
I do like the overall concept and it’s been nearly ten years since the author has visited these communities. Let’s face it, they’re probably even worse off than 2013-2014. Could be a good concept to revisit these communities and the people there. I think this book has some solid strengths but I wouldn’t hold it against yourself if some chapters you just skim through because of a lack of anything that’s being said. A solid three star book.
The book is uneven. There are some really interesting chapters that not only have compelling stories but the statistics that back them up; others are just banal with the author providing the lightest skimming over, as if to wrap up the chapter and move on. Some chapters are simply repetitive in his commentary. I compare this to Studs Terkel’s Hard Times and sometimes it’s better but many times it’s not.
I do like the overall concept and it’s been nearly ten years since the author has visited these communities. Let’s face it, they’re probably even worse off than 2013-2014. Could be a good concept to revisit these communities and the people there. I think this book has some solid strengths but I wouldn’t hold it against yourself if some chapters you just skim through because of a lack of anything that’s being said. A solid three star book.
March 24, 2018
This is a powerful, bitter account of the decline of America. I recently read Morris Berman's "Why America Failed" which is in a similar vein, but this book is a more personal series of accounts by the downtrodden themselves.
Generally in each chapter the author arrives in some part of the country, meets people (usually in a bar) and gets them to tell him about their lives. They talk about unemployment, broken families, lots of suicides, premature death, how they lost their teeth, prostitution, addiction and general misery.
He visits a poisoned, fracking "Boom Town" in North Dakota where crime and rape are rampant. One of his bleakest visits is to an Indian Reservation in Montana, a hopeless place where alcoholism is rampant, he hears about several suicides and murders in his brief visit. In Washington State he recalls how a century ago a family could support itself by "truck farming" with a little land, but this was supplanted long ago by big agribusiness "...Old MacDonald has become super efficient at cranking out preternatural chalupas for Taco Bell."
He gives a searing portrait of the hostile Levittown, a place with a racist past, where outsiders aren't welcome and a car is a necessity. He goes on a great rant against zoning laws here -- how they essentially exist to hide poverty so we can pretend everything is fine. These laws punish the poor and only the big corporations can plow through the red tape. He remarks in another chapter about people getting creative to survive, "In an overly regulated society, however, this natural drive is often stamped out, and at a very early age at that. We’re bred to be cogs."
In Portland he scours the hipsters, "In this illusionistic and narcissistic society, it’s imperative that you look a certain way if you want be slotted into one of the socially acceptable subgroups. It’s all cosplay, all the time, for even the nerd look has been commodified and imbued with irony." Portland was big for the Occupy Movement, but he has no sympathy for it, "Let’s not forget that Time magazine had “The Protester” as its 2011 Person of the Year, so if the mainstream media can chuckle and affectionately muss up your dreadlocks like that, it means you’re no threat to the status quo." One woman in Portland tells him that both her father and brother have committed suicide, and she has had seven abortions and three miscarriages.
Here's something straight, no chaser for ya. He calls those who espouse multiculturalism but don't live it:
"To stroke his twitchy conscience, he’ll elect an Uncle Tom, twice even, and pretend that it ain’t so. Though the working poor of any color have daily, direct experience of the multiculturalism espoused by the liberal affluent, their opinions on its pros, cons and limits are peremptorily dismissed from “enlightened” conversations. In any case, when nations crumble, they often crack along racial or ethnic lines, and there’s no reason why it won’t happen here [...] As for the elites, though they don’t welcome social unrest, since it’s bad for business, they will benefit from increasing racial animosity since it distracts from the serial crimes they’re inflicting on us all."
A sentiment about sports I can agree with entirely:
"In countless small towns, the streets are deserted if there’s a high school football game many miles away. If only such unity and singularity of purpose could be deployed for anything other than cheering for touchdowns, we wouldn’t be in such deep shit."
In Iowa he talks of the absurd, drawn-out election process:
"The American presidential election is a drawn-out, byzantine process that involves precinct meetings, regional caucuses, state primaries and national conventions, all to give citizens the impression that their participation matters, for in the end, the lying buffoon who gets to stride into the White House has long been vetted and preselected by the banks, death merchants and brainwashing media that run our infernally corrupt and murderous country.
[...] Since voting cannot change the system but legitimizes it, voters become collaborators in all of the system’s crimes, as well as their own destruction, for the system works against nearly all of them.
Don’t tell this to Iowans, though, for they take the election farce very seriously, with intense and subtle debates among themselves and close listening to bullshitty speeches from the corporation-jerked marionettes. Earnestly playing along with this sick charade, Iowans do get to claim the national spotlight every four years, though, for it’s here that the election “season” begins."
He gives a satisfying brutalizing of the whore of Babylon Washington DC has become. "With a more bloated federal government, Washington is even richer now, even as the rest of the country has become destitute. Just about every expensive house, car, tie, loafer, call girl, gigolo and martini in DC is being paid for, one way or another, by Joe Six-Packs from across this nation. [...] Everybody else is going to hell."
Not everyone will be able to swallow this medicine. America comes off as a big dystopian shithole after reading these accounts. This is an bitter, angry book. Any hope is to be found among your acquaintances, people you can do things for, and vice versa. Voting, the government, all a waste of time.
He meets a lot of older people who recall how much better things were several decades ago, while their kids work several part-time shit jobs. And probably worst of all is that most of them expect things to get worse, not better.
A few other quotes I liked...
"Just about any flyspeck across this land is solemnly declared a “city,” on government buildings, official stationery and cop cars, etc. Similarly, an American peasant is spiffed up as a “farmer” or “agricultural worker,” and an American coolie who keeps rolling over his payday loan, dwells in a shared squat, has four broken teeth left and must take two subways and a bus to each of his three jobs is merely a “low-wage worker.”"
"Along with the visible decay that can be seen in cities and small towns alike, there is a widespread malaise afflicting the American spirit, and this is most acutely felt among the younger set. If they have gone to college, then they are most likely crippled with insane debt while stuck in a job that doesn’t require their overpriced yet diluted education, acquired with bankster loans. To make ends meet, they’re living in a crowded, shared apartment or at home with mom and dad, again. As for the professions, many are rotten with fraud, corruption or other immoralities, what a quaint word, so that to hold even the lowliest job in the military, police, government, banking, accounting, insurance, health care, media, advertising or the academy, etc., is to swim among crooks and liars, and it’s all too easy to become a cynical and sinister asshole yourself."
"Since logging is dead in Humboldt County, pot growing is the meat, skin, heart and backbone of the local economy, and for pot prices to stay high, its cultivation has to remain illegal. What you have, then, are a bunch of towns where just about everyone is a criminal, and they want to stay that way forever just to survive."
Generally in each chapter the author arrives in some part of the country, meets people (usually in a bar) and gets them to tell him about their lives. They talk about unemployment, broken families, lots of suicides, premature death, how they lost their teeth, prostitution, addiction and general misery.
He visits a poisoned, fracking "Boom Town" in North Dakota where crime and rape are rampant. One of his bleakest visits is to an Indian Reservation in Montana, a hopeless place where alcoholism is rampant, he hears about several suicides and murders in his brief visit. In Washington State he recalls how a century ago a family could support itself by "truck farming" with a little land, but this was supplanted long ago by big agribusiness "...Old MacDonald has become super efficient at cranking out preternatural chalupas for Taco Bell."
He gives a searing portrait of the hostile Levittown, a place with a racist past, where outsiders aren't welcome and a car is a necessity. He goes on a great rant against zoning laws here -- how they essentially exist to hide poverty so we can pretend everything is fine. These laws punish the poor and only the big corporations can plow through the red tape. He remarks in another chapter about people getting creative to survive, "In an overly regulated society, however, this natural drive is often stamped out, and at a very early age at that. We’re bred to be cogs."
In Portland he scours the hipsters, "In this illusionistic and narcissistic society, it’s imperative that you look a certain way if you want be slotted into one of the socially acceptable subgroups. It’s all cosplay, all the time, for even the nerd look has been commodified and imbued with irony." Portland was big for the Occupy Movement, but he has no sympathy for it, "Let’s not forget that Time magazine had “The Protester” as its 2011 Person of the Year, so if the mainstream media can chuckle and affectionately muss up your dreadlocks like that, it means you’re no threat to the status quo." One woman in Portland tells him that both her father and brother have committed suicide, and she has had seven abortions and three miscarriages.
Here's something straight, no chaser for ya. He calls those who espouse multiculturalism but don't live it:
"To stroke his twitchy conscience, he’ll elect an Uncle Tom, twice even, and pretend that it ain’t so. Though the working poor of any color have daily, direct experience of the multiculturalism espoused by the liberal affluent, their opinions on its pros, cons and limits are peremptorily dismissed from “enlightened” conversations. In any case, when nations crumble, they often crack along racial or ethnic lines, and there’s no reason why it won’t happen here [...] As for the elites, though they don’t welcome social unrest, since it’s bad for business, they will benefit from increasing racial animosity since it distracts from the serial crimes they’re inflicting on us all."
A sentiment about sports I can agree with entirely:
"In countless small towns, the streets are deserted if there’s a high school football game many miles away. If only such unity and singularity of purpose could be deployed for anything other than cheering for touchdowns, we wouldn’t be in such deep shit."
In Iowa he talks of the absurd, drawn-out election process:
"The American presidential election is a drawn-out, byzantine process that involves precinct meetings, regional caucuses, state primaries and national conventions, all to give citizens the impression that their participation matters, for in the end, the lying buffoon who gets to stride into the White House has long been vetted and preselected by the banks, death merchants and brainwashing media that run our infernally corrupt and murderous country.
[...] Since voting cannot change the system but legitimizes it, voters become collaborators in all of the system’s crimes, as well as their own destruction, for the system works against nearly all of them.
Don’t tell this to Iowans, though, for they take the election farce very seriously, with intense and subtle debates among themselves and close listening to bullshitty speeches from the corporation-jerked marionettes. Earnestly playing along with this sick charade, Iowans do get to claim the national spotlight every four years, though, for it’s here that the election “season” begins."
He gives a satisfying brutalizing of the whore of Babylon Washington DC has become. "With a more bloated federal government, Washington is even richer now, even as the rest of the country has become destitute. Just about every expensive house, car, tie, loafer, call girl, gigolo and martini in DC is being paid for, one way or another, by Joe Six-Packs from across this nation. [...] Everybody else is going to hell."
Not everyone will be able to swallow this medicine. America comes off as a big dystopian shithole after reading these accounts. This is an bitter, angry book. Any hope is to be found among your acquaintances, people you can do things for, and vice versa. Voting, the government, all a waste of time.
He meets a lot of older people who recall how much better things were several decades ago, while their kids work several part-time shit jobs. And probably worst of all is that most of them expect things to get worse, not better.
A few other quotes I liked...
"Just about any flyspeck across this land is solemnly declared a “city,” on government buildings, official stationery and cop cars, etc. Similarly, an American peasant is spiffed up as a “farmer” or “agricultural worker,” and an American coolie who keeps rolling over his payday loan, dwells in a shared squat, has four broken teeth left and must take two subways and a bus to each of his three jobs is merely a “low-wage worker.”"
"Along with the visible decay that can be seen in cities and small towns alike, there is a widespread malaise afflicting the American spirit, and this is most acutely felt among the younger set. If they have gone to college, then they are most likely crippled with insane debt while stuck in a job that doesn’t require their overpriced yet diluted education, acquired with bankster loans. To make ends meet, they’re living in a crowded, shared apartment or at home with mom and dad, again. As for the professions, many are rotten with fraud, corruption or other immoralities, what a quaint word, so that to hold even the lowliest job in the military, police, government, banking, accounting, insurance, health care, media, advertising or the academy, etc., is to swim among crooks and liars, and it’s all too easy to become a cynical and sinister asshole yourself."
"Since logging is dead in Humboldt County, pot growing is the meat, skin, heart and backbone of the local economy, and for pot prices to stay high, its cultivation has to remain illegal. What you have, then, are a bunch of towns where just about everyone is a criminal, and they want to stay that way forever just to survive."
October 5, 2017
Prepare for a very depressing and sad piece of literature. I am neither American, nor do I live there, and I am convinced that the near future of this country will be very bleak. But this book made me shed a tear or two at some points, because Dinh's captivating gonzo style makes you feel as if it was you traveling the country and talking to its broken people there. I've always been fascinated by America, its culture, music, food, customs, history, not only the inspiring, beautiful, but also the often truly insane, outright ugly parts. I've traveled there several times during the Clinton years, which made it more easy to imagine the scenes the author is describing. Even though I was shocked at the time by the levels of poverty and misery I was able to see in both urban and rural areas (as a European I wasn't used to it, not even when I traveled with my parents behind the "Iron Curtain"), but what is described in this book truly shocked me and it made me really sad. It's a contemporary witness testimony of a society in steep decline suffering a tightrope walk on the edge of psychotic breakdown. I am sure it will be a valuable source for historians in future decades, when they will try to make sense of the madness we can all now witness on mainstream media and of the things yet to come.
This book is a more or less random travel journal that I think benefits from the fact that the author is not an American-born citizen. He is a Vietnamese immigrant and therefore has a power of observation and an ability of honesty which a native citizen rarely can achieve. I know this, because I have a Portuguese background and even though I was born and raised in Germany, I have always had kind of an outsider view on German society. I've noticed this with other "migration backgrounders", too, and I recognize it strongly in Dinh's writing.
This is not a book that'll make you happy, and if you prefer to sustain your postcard image of the USA, then I recommend watching Hawaii 5-0 or Rosewood, but not this book. But: there is always beauty in darkness, while the light often just glosses over meaningfulness and depth. After years of viciously opposing US geopolitics and imperialism up to the point of wrathful animosity, I was able to restore the soft spot for America again with this book by realizing how much the American people are victims of a batshit crazy, borderline psychotic loony bin that has the audacity to call itself "establishment".
There should be more books like this, and not just from America. The view from the bottom is always the most insightful. This book is in best tradition of the works of Charles Bukowski and Hunter S. Thompson.
This book is a more or less random travel journal that I think benefits from the fact that the author is not an American-born citizen. He is a Vietnamese immigrant and therefore has a power of observation and an ability of honesty which a native citizen rarely can achieve. I know this, because I have a Portuguese background and even though I was born and raised in Germany, I have always had kind of an outsider view on German society. I've noticed this with other "migration backgrounders", too, and I recognize it strongly in Dinh's writing.
This is not a book that'll make you happy, and if you prefer to sustain your postcard image of the USA, then I recommend watching Hawaii 5-0 or Rosewood, but not this book. But: there is always beauty in darkness, while the light often just glosses over meaningfulness and depth. After years of viciously opposing US geopolitics and imperialism up to the point of wrathful animosity, I was able to restore the soft spot for America again with this book by realizing how much the American people are victims of a batshit crazy, borderline psychotic loony bin that has the audacity to call itself "establishment".
There should be more books like this, and not just from America. The view from the bottom is always the most insightful. This book is in best tradition of the works of Charles Bukowski and Hunter S. Thompson.
September 18, 2017
Phenomenal book! A heartrending, searing portrait of a country in terminal decline. Highly recommended for any American or foreigner who wants to understand why Hillary Clinton did not win the last election and why the worst is yet to come. Trump is just the tip of the iceberg, not the cause, and author Linh Dinh with humor, humility and passion pulls no punches as he guides us through the ruins of this strange new land.
September 25, 2017
An enlightening, yet sobering read....Linh Dinh has traveled all over the U.S. and spoken with the middle and working class people he finds there. He tells the stories of the people he meets, throws in quirky facts and bizarre tales about the cities that you probably weren't aware of before, and adds in his own stories and findings, as well.
Margaret Thatcher (the milk snatcher) HAHA
"Many of our homeless are also in wheelchairs, so this is how we treat our lame, feeble and sick, even the horribly injured or diseased....Our criminal bankers, meanwhile, are kept in high style with billion-dollar bailout after bailout, as served up, shuffling and grinning, by our criminal politicians, with the entire criminal enterprise sanctioned by American voters, whether conservatives, liberals or progressives, and explained away or ignored by our moronic or dishonest intellectuals. It's no wonder we're bankrupt. Critical thinking is dead in this country, at least in the public sphere, for the most serious and urgent questions are never asked, or only briefly aired to be ridiculed."
"San Jose is tolerating the Story Road tent city for now, but in March its police tore down a more conspicuous encampment near the airport. It's all about appearance, of course, for you can't have out-of-town visitors see destitution or squalor as their first impression of San Jose. Before the last Super Bowl, New Orleans also cleared out a large homeless community living by its train and bus station. As a nation, we also have no plans to fix our economic problems, only cosmetic touches to disguise them, such as the fixed unemployment and inflation rates, and constant media assurances that the recovery is on course, or even accelerating. Meanwhile, costly wars continue, as well as job outsourcing, dressed up as "free trade" agreements."
"The government that harassed, then murdered Martin Luther King now commemorates him, in the most superficial manner, each year. Flatulent speeches are given, but no sanctioned maven ever asks why he was gunned down, or points out that the syndicate that squashed King continues to kill, torture or lock up anyone who can seriously shine a light on its sinister workings."
The Posse Comitatus Act
'
"All writing is self-vindication, and all talking, too, for that matter. Further, how we see ourselves is always radically different from how others perceive us. Still, a writer can strive to minimize these distortions by treating himself as just another subject, as simply another vain and bumbling fool, in short, who's always trying to prove, with sad results, that he's not a vain and bumbling fool."
"Every couple of blocks, there was a flyer taped to a pole advertising a yard sale, for as our military contractors gorge on billion-dollar contracts, we are reduced to selling whatever we have left to make ends meet, be it silverware, DVDs of movies no one has ever heard of, or broken toys."
"The poor's worst habits are magnified and roundly condemned, but these same vices become glamorized in the rich. A cloudy-eyed chick in sweat pants who's strung out on drugs is nothing but trash, but if she came from money, she'd be a socialite, like Britney Spears. A slumping man at the bar scratching away his last buck is a fool, but if he had an office in Lower Manhatten, he'd still be respectable as he gambled away everyone's money. A small-time killer is a monster who deserves to be beaten, then shot, but our most prolific mass murderers, of foreigners and Americans, are (s)elected to the highest offices in the land."
"Notice that the troops featured in these touching reunions are never visibly damaged, as in missing one or several limbs, an eyeball or part of a brain, etc., for that would scare off future recruits."
"All over Chicago, there are these posters that plead for donations to food banks, with '1 in 5 kids faces hunger,' and I've seen enough homeless Americans rummaging through dumpsters for bits of meat and limp French fries to know that hunger has become a serious issue in this greatest of nations, the indispensable one and global beacon, but too many of us will keep squandering all resources as if the worst is not coming, for even as we sink into Third World status, we can't or won't shake imperial habits."
"Globalism is not just about exporting decent jobs, but also importing cheap labor until everyone everywhere makes just about nothing. That's the master plan, dude, so although ningún ser humano es ilegal is self evidently true, it's also a smoke screen to make slaves out of all of us."
"Universities have colluded with banks and government to fleece students and shackle them to a lifetime of debt servitude, but as long as you're still enrolled and your payments deferred, life will seem good and promising, for the university's primary job is no longer to teach, but to maintain this rosy illusion. In these United States of universal debt bondage, universities have become a marketing branch of the criminal banks. It's all good children, so just sign here to get your very own academic(ish) casket!"
"Across the street, a store was for rent, and there was a jeweler with "WE BUY OLD GOLD" In the window. The ubiquity of these signs is yet another indication of our destitution. Have you sold your heirloom, keepsake, or wedding ring? I too have learned how to eBay."
"With more reliance on machines, fewer farmhands are needed, but the remaining ones are paid like raw fertilizer. According to the 2002 National Agricultural Workers Survey, the latest available, a farm worker makes just $6.84 an hour, if paid by the hour, or $8.27 an hour, if paid by the piece (and converted hourly). Since most Americans won't bend over and sweat bullets under a hellish sun for such chump change, 78 percent of our crop workers are foreign-born, with over half of them illegal immigrants. A solution seems obvious. We can stanch our influx of foreigners, since this will force wages to be raised high enough to attract fat-assed Americans, like me, you and our in-laws, into picking strawberries, apples, and melons..."No way, José," sayeth Old MacDonald, "for this will jack up my prices and make me so uncompetitive, I won't be able to export my crops or even sell domestically, for Americans will prefer to buy imported veggies and fruits, E-I-E-I-O!"
"If adequately paid, Americans will work on farms, so one solution is to supplement their wages, and this won't just yield economic but social benefits as well, for a people should know how to grow their own food.
Margaret Thatcher (the milk snatcher) HAHA
"Many of our homeless are also in wheelchairs, so this is how we treat our lame, feeble and sick, even the horribly injured or diseased....Our criminal bankers, meanwhile, are kept in high style with billion-dollar bailout after bailout, as served up, shuffling and grinning, by our criminal politicians, with the entire criminal enterprise sanctioned by American voters, whether conservatives, liberals or progressives, and explained away or ignored by our moronic or dishonest intellectuals. It's no wonder we're bankrupt. Critical thinking is dead in this country, at least in the public sphere, for the most serious and urgent questions are never asked, or only briefly aired to be ridiculed."
"San Jose is tolerating the Story Road tent city for now, but in March its police tore down a more conspicuous encampment near the airport. It's all about appearance, of course, for you can't have out-of-town visitors see destitution or squalor as their first impression of San Jose. Before the last Super Bowl, New Orleans also cleared out a large homeless community living by its train and bus station. As a nation, we also have no plans to fix our economic problems, only cosmetic touches to disguise them, such as the fixed unemployment and inflation rates, and constant media assurances that the recovery is on course, or even accelerating. Meanwhile, costly wars continue, as well as job outsourcing, dressed up as "free trade" agreements."
"The government that harassed, then murdered Martin Luther King now commemorates him, in the most superficial manner, each year. Flatulent speeches are given, but no sanctioned maven ever asks why he was gunned down, or points out that the syndicate that squashed King continues to kill, torture or lock up anyone who can seriously shine a light on its sinister workings."
The Posse Comitatus Act
'
"All writing is self-vindication, and all talking, too, for that matter. Further, how we see ourselves is always radically different from how others perceive us. Still, a writer can strive to minimize these distortions by treating himself as just another subject, as simply another vain and bumbling fool, in short, who's always trying to prove, with sad results, that he's not a vain and bumbling fool."
"Every couple of blocks, there was a flyer taped to a pole advertising a yard sale, for as our military contractors gorge on billion-dollar contracts, we are reduced to selling whatever we have left to make ends meet, be it silverware, DVDs of movies no one has ever heard of, or broken toys."
"The poor's worst habits are magnified and roundly condemned, but these same vices become glamorized in the rich. A cloudy-eyed chick in sweat pants who's strung out on drugs is nothing but trash, but if she came from money, she'd be a socialite, like Britney Spears. A slumping man at the bar scratching away his last buck is a fool, but if he had an office in Lower Manhatten, he'd still be respectable as he gambled away everyone's money. A small-time killer is a monster who deserves to be beaten, then shot, but our most prolific mass murderers, of foreigners and Americans, are (s)elected to the highest offices in the land."
"Notice that the troops featured in these touching reunions are never visibly damaged, as in missing one or several limbs, an eyeball or part of a brain, etc., for that would scare off future recruits."
"All over Chicago, there are these posters that plead for donations to food banks, with '1 in 5 kids faces hunger,' and I've seen enough homeless Americans rummaging through dumpsters for bits of meat and limp French fries to know that hunger has become a serious issue in this greatest of nations, the indispensable one and global beacon, but too many of us will keep squandering all resources as if the worst is not coming, for even as we sink into Third World status, we can't or won't shake imperial habits."
"Globalism is not just about exporting decent jobs, but also importing cheap labor until everyone everywhere makes just about nothing. That's the master plan, dude, so although ningún ser humano es ilegal is self evidently true, it's also a smoke screen to make slaves out of all of us."
"Universities have colluded with banks and government to fleece students and shackle them to a lifetime of debt servitude, but as long as you're still enrolled and your payments deferred, life will seem good and promising, for the university's primary job is no longer to teach, but to maintain this rosy illusion. In these United States of universal debt bondage, universities have become a marketing branch of the criminal banks. It's all good children, so just sign here to get your very own academic(ish) casket!"
"Across the street, a store was for rent, and there was a jeweler with "WE BUY OLD GOLD" In the window. The ubiquity of these signs is yet another indication of our destitution. Have you sold your heirloom, keepsake, or wedding ring? I too have learned how to eBay."
"With more reliance on machines, fewer farmhands are needed, but the remaining ones are paid like raw fertilizer. According to the 2002 National Agricultural Workers Survey, the latest available, a farm worker makes just $6.84 an hour, if paid by the hour, or $8.27 an hour, if paid by the piece (and converted hourly). Since most Americans won't bend over and sweat bullets under a hellish sun for such chump change, 78 percent of our crop workers are foreign-born, with over half of them illegal immigrants. A solution seems obvious. We can stanch our influx of foreigners, since this will force wages to be raised high enough to attract fat-assed Americans, like me, you and our in-laws, into picking strawberries, apples, and melons..."No way, José," sayeth Old MacDonald, "for this will jack up my prices and make me so uncompetitive, I won't be able to export my crops or even sell domestically, for Americans will prefer to buy imported veggies and fruits, E-I-E-I-O!"
"If adequately paid, Americans will work on farms, so one solution is to supplement their wages, and this won't just yield economic but social benefits as well, for a people should know how to grow their own food.
April 7, 2019
No joking or contradictory messages distract from the fact that hundreds of thousands of Americans have been reduced to living like savages in this self-proclaimed greatest country on earth.Linh Dinh explores the country's underclass as he travels around engaging people in conversation as the empire crumbles all around. From the working poor to the unhoused, we get insight into the invisible who have fallen by the wayside under neoliberalism. Some, working multiple jobs, others who have given up, those who are elderly or sick, they're all given a voice and share their points-of-view.
- Linh Dinh
I laughed, I felt pain and empathy towards those who all seem somehow familiar to me living in the various stages of disenfranchisement. The prevailing mindset seems to be despair; that dark cloud that takes over a person's thoughts and wrestles control away from their choices.
When your media of choice tells you the economy is recovering, ask yourself for whom? Not for a sizable part of our population. Under Trump's leadership, I don't see things getting better very soon, especially under his new tax plan.
As a fellow outsider to the mainstream, I can relate to the author. Don't miss this touching chronicle of American society.
December 7, 2017
You can learn more about this work through the live interviews:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TD0qo...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0Ylw...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TD0qo...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0Ylw...
May 26, 2017
Couldn't put it down.
Having traveled the country extensively in the past it confirms my view of the US today sadly. Capitalism is killing us!
Having traveled the country extensively in the past it confirms my view of the US today sadly. Capitalism is killing us!
September 12, 2017
A must read for anyone who has spent time in Philadelphia and is interested in getting a well documented read of the increasingly sordid underbelly of the United States
February 15, 2018
Amazing stories and photography.
December 3, 2022
Linh Dinh is a Vietnamese-American and in this book he describes US cities and towns he visited and people he met between 2013 and 2015.
He mostly (or better said only) speaks with people that are close to poverty and struggling and the meeting place is usually a cheap dive bar.
I can't say he's an objective man, despite being very realistic in his judgement of America as a concept and her politics. He mostly focuses on the bad sides of America, which are plenty, but not everyone lives like the people he interviewed.
For example I personally have many friends who went to US peniless and built up great lives and live happily with their families. But it's different when you're raised in a 'normal' country, then emigrate to "The Great Satan", as Ayatollah Khomeini called the USA.
Author himself is a bit of a bum so to say, he seems like an alcoholic, doesn't take very good care of himself and is a bit of an anarchist. He's also a bit too liberal for my tastes, but not too much. I also sense some anti-white sentiment from him, but I can't blame him, being both Vietnamese and American.
That being, he's a great writer and the book is very readable, fun and I've learned many new words and expressions from it. I also Googled many places he visited since his writing made them interesting to me.
I'd like to read a sequel, since things are a lot worse now then they were, and they will get worse and worse.
He mostly (or better said only) speaks with people that are close to poverty and struggling and the meeting place is usually a cheap dive bar.
I can't say he's an objective man, despite being very realistic in his judgement of America as a concept and her politics. He mostly focuses on the bad sides of America, which are plenty, but not everyone lives like the people he interviewed.
For example I personally have many friends who went to US peniless and built up great lives and live happily with their families. But it's different when you're raised in a 'normal' country, then emigrate to "The Great Satan", as Ayatollah Khomeini called the USA.
Author himself is a bit of a bum so to say, he seems like an alcoholic, doesn't take very good care of himself and is a bit of an anarchist. He's also a bit too liberal for my tastes, but not too much. I also sense some anti-white sentiment from him, but I can't blame him, being both Vietnamese and American.
That being, he's a great writer and the book is very readable, fun and I've learned many new words and expressions from it. I also Googled many places he visited since his writing made them interesting to me.
I'd like to read a sequel, since things are a lot worse now then they were, and they will get worse and worse.
February 27, 2024
As a reader of Linh's vlog I was excited to read a full book of his. All of his "post cards" are basically his vlog entries which are always enjoyable. With him being in America for this, the entries are bit more harsh and sad than his current entries which are in Vietnam.
Although I do think how Linh writes is extremely unique and funny. the content is a bit repetitive and extremely negative. It's supposed to be negative bc it is showing the brutal reality of the underclass of America. However Linh never suggests a way to fix things or a call to action. Book is a sneaky prologue to the 2016 election and Trump's victory. A lot of Linh's doom and gloom predictions however come off as pretty lackluster compared to todays reality.
Although I do think how Linh writes is extremely unique and funny. the content is a bit repetitive and extremely negative. It's supposed to be negative bc it is showing the brutal reality of the underclass of America. However Linh never suggests a way to fix things or a call to action. Book is a sneaky prologue to the 2016 election and Trump's victory. A lot of Linh's doom and gloom predictions however come off as pretty lackluster compared to todays reality.
September 8, 2022
Basically every chapter is like this: Linh travels to a town and talks to the people about their economic situation. Everyone is struggling. Drunk and poor (most of it takes place in dive bars). Im halfway through and im probably going to quit because each chapter repeats the same story, no one is doing good, it's the fault of politicians. Linh's photography in the front of the book is so good, if he had only wrote less and included more photography, the book would have been better
July 22, 2017
Raw, jarring and disheartening...America's decline explained by Dinh, a modern day social explorer who chats up the people we don't often hear from: the homeless, the uninsured, the exhausted and the disenfranchised.
The writing is biting, empathetic, absurd -- a moribund tone suggests that more books like this are likely on the horizon unless the system is changed.
The writing is biting, empathetic, absurd -- a moribund tone suggests that more books like this are likely on the horizon unless the system is changed.
July 1, 2019
Essay? documentary? travel note? Compile of short stories/essays at downtown bar anywhere in the U.S. I recalled "Journey to the End of the Night" somehow, but not hopeless as it. This book sighs "still we are living".
August 16, 2025
One of those books that sticks with you. A wonderful book which tells tales from the people that you don’t hear from.
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December 22, 2017362.50973 D584 2017
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