Discovering America as It Is

Boo Hoo.

Rating: 20%

Wow and wow. It's all gloom and doom and fire and brimstone. To all of America's faults let's add another one: "Guilty of not being a paradise and/or utopia". Apparently author suffers from an industrial strength case of sour grapes. Well, overinflated expectations can be bad for one's health. Author's assessment is shared only by true believers in the fact that America is the source of all evil. It is obvious that same assessment is not shared by 12 million (or more) illegal aliens who apparently didn't get Mr. Anelauskas' memo about how bad things are around here. Perhaps translating this book into Spanish and packaging it together with border-hopping instructions, issued by Mexico's government, would help in reducing this mad stampede from the South.

This book is all bile and no substance, a rehash of cherry-picked facts and statistics that fit author's ideology. I just wonder what that ideology might be. He is invariably referred to as an anti-Soviet dissident who was forced into exile. It is awfully strange that having been forced out of USSR for protesting many things there, he turns around and advocates introducing same things here. Hello! As a result, he rather comes accross as an know-all Marxist or a professional revolutionary and his thunderous reaction to problems here in the US are more similar to an alergic culture shock and not a passionate concern for his adopted country.

I come from the similar background as Mr. Anelauskas (I was born and raised in Lithuania at about the same time and now live in the US), however judging from this book, it seems that he lives not in US, but somewhere down in the Ninth Circle of Dante's Inferno.

In light of all his pessimism I wonder which country could fit Mr. Anelauskas' idea of paradise?

smakas (Amazon.com)

Not sure what this nut case is doing in the United States

Rating: 20%

I did not read this book. So why am I writing this if I have not read his book? Mainly because I just came from a website that he helped set up and the link to this book was accompanied by a burning American flag. The whole website dealt in anti-American BS! I am curious why this Eurotrash from Lithuania is still sucking up the air in the United States?
And it does not deserve any star rating but you can not post without giving it at least one. In the real world it gets a minus ten star rating from me.

Judith Stefchak (Amazon.com)

Some Books Just Have To Be Read

Rating: 100%

And this is one. It doesn't matter what your political persuasion is, this book will open your eyes and make you think. Sometimes you need to see another point of view to help you understand your own.

This book was out of print until civil rights lawyer Michael O'Neill underwrote the second printing. Until then, it was impossible to find a used copy of this book anywhere. This is an important book, and I recommend you buy it now before it goes out of print again.

M. G. Oneill (Amazon.com)

As far as America-bashing goes, this one's not too bad

Rating: 60%

Don't get me wrong: I disagree with Anelauskas on almost every count. We used to have long discussions with him over e-mail, and there are few people further apart than him and I in our thoughts and convictions. The closest things about Anelauskas and myself is that we're both Lithuanians.

I think, however, that in the crowded and ungrateful industry of bashing America this man is among the more skilled ones: definitely a better writer than the celebrated (but talentless) Michael Moore. Yes, in common with other militant left-wingers, Anelauskas rarely allows factual truth to stand in the way of his ideological convictions, but there are no shameless fabrications here or totally rabid ramblings that Moore often plunges into.

Anelauskas' research is impressive: he did dig deep to get all the facts and quotes together. This skill alone could elevate him to the rank of first-grade journalists; sadly, facts here are hand-picked only to support the ideas directed and shaped by ideology.

Anelauskas is candid: he does not conceal that his hatred of America is, in many cases, just sour grapes. He came to America with inflated expectations of a Soviet dissident and was let down. He now hates America with the same black-and-white passion with which he once hated the communist regime. Fair enough, but he never asks himself (and never responds when asked) - if America is so awfully bad, how come it does not have to build fences to keep people in, like Soviet Union had to do?

And if capitalism is so wrong and so bad for the people, how come you don't see queues of people trying to get to Cuba or North Korea? Valdas Anelauskas prefers not to answer this.

Then again, on the positive side - the man is a skilled writer and manages to keep his book readable and entertaining (not a bad achievement for a publication so full of figures and percentages).

It's probably one of the more enjoyable books which I managed to read back to back without agreeing with its author.

Andrius Uzkalnis (Amazon.com)

A new de Toqueville

Rating: 100%

Sometimes it takes an outsider to cut through the wishful thinking, and outright lies, and make you see your country as it truly is. That is why history departments still quote Alexis de Toqueville as an unbiased outside observer after all these years. I suspect that future historians may refer to this book in the same manner.

The author, a former anti-Soviet dissident, once saw the American political and corporate power structure as an ally and role model. Then, upon actually seeing the reality of the American capitalist system, first hand, and on it's own turf, he began to realise that it was just the "other end of the same stick" when compared to Soviet state capitalism. He saw it was the same old story, a small elite at the top benefitting from everything while spinning an illusion of lies. This massive volume shows the facts of the corporate/government/military monolith that has usurped the true Ameican Democracy.

Read this, sometimes it takes an intelligent outsider to show you how badly you have been fooled.

OAKSHAMAN (Amazon.com)