I experienced the lost of the American dream in the daily life in USA, but more agents for a change are coming up, there is hope, but it will not be easy
Stuck Nation - Can the United States change course on our history of choosing profits over people?
Stuck Nation: Can the United States Change Course on Our History of Choosing Profits Over People?
Stuck Nation: Can the United States Change Course on Our History of Choosing Profits Over People?
By Bob Hennelly
Published July 2021, by Democracy at Work
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-7356013-2-8
Stuck Nation flyer
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In the midst of this once-in-a-century public health crisis, the United States was almost toppled from within by one of the two national political parties that a white-supremacist authoritarian had commandeered. For decades, American workers had been losing their leverage, as the world’s biggest corporations were able to successfully play one country’s workforce off another. For centuries, we have failed to directly address the crimes against humanity that were the cornerstones of American capitalism and are part of the continuum that extends systemic racism to our current circumstances. Our global brand may be equality, but the lived experience of tens of millions of Americans is the stark opposite, and there can be no forward motion if we fail to perceive just how deep a rut we are in.
Stuck Nation is the work of award-winning print and broadcast journalist Robert "Bob" Hennelly. Its depth reflects his many decades of on-the-ground reporting, from the streets to historical archives and the White House. In his reporting and in this book, Hennelly bears witness to the ongoing assault of systemic racism, the toll from the World Trade Center toxic exposures, the attacks on our civil service by our own government, the breathtaking concentration of corporate media, the power of our collective agency, and more. It features interviews with the key players and shapers of history - everyday people - as well as with union leaders and politicians, historians and academics, organizers and activists.
Stuck Nation lifts up the stories of those whom our capitalist system would otherwise see ‘disappeared’. It bears the human cost of our system and our silence. It holds accounts of individuals and a broader movement willing to put everything at risk to change our national narrative. Through it all, Hennelly shares his observations on the origins of our national stuck-ness, his reporting on how it endures, and his analysis of what might be required for us to change the course of our historical patterns, so that America can begin putting the wellbeing of its people ahead of its profits.
American history is airbrushed,
and we wonder why we just can’t seem to master our destiny.
Praise:
“Hennelly brilliantly analyzes our capitalist crises and how individuals cope with them, tragically but often heroically. He helps us draw inspiration and realistic hope from how courageous Americans are facing and fixing a stuck nation.”
- Richard D. Wolff, Economist and author of The Sickness is the System: When Capitalism Fails to Save Us from Pandemics or Itself
"With the skill of a seasoned reporter drawing from an impressive trove of scholarship and first-hand experience, Hennelly artfully presents a granular narrative of the political economy of contemporary US society that is simultaneously enlightening, infuriating and inspirational. Stuck Nation reads like a kind of updating and reframing of the modern contradictions of capitalism on a timeline that includes presidents Obama, Trump, Biden, the COVID-19 pandemic and the rise of the Amazon gig economy. Echoing Howard Zinn’s classic People’s History of the United States, Stuck Nation is a must read for those interested in extending democracy and combating racism, especially trade unionists, educators and social activists seeking justice, equality, and a new world order— from the bottom up!"
- Joe Wilson, PhD, Labor historian & Political Scientist
“One of journalism's prized possessions, investigative reporter Bob Hennelly has occupied a relentless forward position on every major issue of our time: from housing to healthcare, from education, economics, and social justice, to voting rights and labor. A specialist in drilling down into the core of where real people live and work, Hennelly gathers his materials on the ground, to unleash the toughest, most uncomfortable questions on those at the top of the ivory tower power chain. While much of our contemporary media protects the status quo, Hennelly can be found rummaging through the back alleys and ravaged, foreclosed-on, job and food-deprived neighborhoods of Newark and New York City, using his own reporting as the brick and mortar to ram the complacent underpinnings of the country on behalf of working-class people. To those like myself who have long depended on his pieces, StuckNation gathers the marrow of Hennelly's work into one sustained, impassioned, and always detail-oriented argument, and serves as a primer for those who will no doubt find themselves returning often for more from the workshop of a master.”
- Max Pizarro, Insider NJ executive editor
“Hennelly provides reasons to hope - he shows how all across the US, community groups and labor activists are reviving the combination of practical organizing plus a truly progressive agenda that is essential to get our “Stuck Nation” — and our “stuck planet” — unstuck. A must read.”
- James S. Henry, Esq. Investigative journalist, economist and lawyer. Global Justice Fellow, Yale University.
“Hennelly has been chronicling the churning and burning global scene for three decades with wit and lucidity, making sense of what makes no apparent sense, linking cause and effect where none is obvious, and describing multiple levels of interactive disfunction and contradiction in economics, military strategy, the natural environment, democracy, and public culture. With perfect clarity, Hennelly depicts our Stuck Nation’s inconsistency, paradox, ambiguity, illogic, conflict, and flat-out denials. No small task, and a great read.”
- Peter J. Woolley, Ph.D., Director, School of Public and Global Affairs at Fairleigh Dickinson University
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Press:
October 16, 2021: Interview on WBGO: "Chief Leader and WBGO contributor Bob Hennelly authors "Stuck Nation""
September 6, 2021: Interview on Economic Update: "20 Years after 9/11, the U.S. is still a 'Stuck Nation'"
August 7, 2021: Interview on The David Feldman Show: "Robert Hennelly, author of 'Stuck Nation'"
August 5, 2021: Interview on The Brian Lehrer Show: "Power and Profits"
August 2, 2021: Article in Insider NJ: "‘Stuck Nation’ Author Hennelly Sees a Chance for Labor to Gain Ground"
July 25, 2021: Excerpt in Salon: "What's a "Stuck Nation"? America in 2021, paralyzed by injustice and inequality"
July 21, 2021: Interview on Leonard Lopate at Large on WBAI Radio in New York
July 19, 2021: Interview on By Any Means Necessary: "New Book Asks How America Can Become Un-'Stuck' from Societal Rot"
July 15, 2021: Interview on The Attitude with Arnie Arnesen
June 30, 2021: Interview on Tell Me Everything with John Fugelsang
Download the Stuck Nation Press Kit
In the midst of this once-in-a-century public health crisis, the United States was almost toppled from within by one of the two national political parties that a white-supremacist authoritarian had commandeered. For decades, American workers had been losing their leverage, as the world’s biggest corporations were able to successfully play one country’s workforce off another. For centuries, we have failed to directly address the crimes against humanity that were the cornerstones of American capitalism and are part of the continuum that extends systemic racism to our current circumstances. Our global brand may be equality, but the lived experience of tens of millions of Americans is the stark opposite, and there can be no forward motion if we fail to perceive just how deep a rut we are in. Stuck Nation is the work of award-winning print and broadcast journalist, Robert “Bob” Hennelly. Its depth reflects his many decades of on-the-ground reporting, from the streets to historical archives and the White House. In his reporting and in this book, Hennelly bears witness to the ongoing assault of systemic racism, the toll from the World Trade Center toxic exposures, the attacks on our civil service by our own government, the breathtaking concentration of corporate media, the power of our collective agency, and more. It features interviews with the key players and shapers of history - everyday people - as well as with union leaders and politicians, historians and academics, organizers and activists. Stuck Nation lifts up the stories of those whom our capitalist system would otherwise see ‘disappeared’. It bears the human cost of our system and our silence. It holds accounts of individuals and a broader movement willing to put everything at risk to change our national narrative. Through it all, Hennelly shares his observations on the origins of our national stuck-ness, his reporting on how it endures, and his analysis of what might be required for us to change the course of our historical patterns, so that America can begin putting the wellbeing of its people ahead of its profits.
A NOTE FROM BOB HENNELLY
Why "Stuck Nation"...?
I have spent my career as a journalist--more than 40 years now--digging into the details of how our country's public, private and government institutions work (or don't work) and telling the stories of the people running them or impacted by them. Over the last 10 years, many of our institutions and systems have stopped working--including the corporate news media--or at least, they have gotten away from serving their core purposes and their constituencies. We are suffering from major "gridlock" as a country, with tens of millions of Americans struggling to make ends meet, or at least feeling that they are worse off now than their parents were at their age. How did we get here? Can we find our way out of this current environment and redefine a new American prosperity? Can we go from a public safety paradigm to a community wellness strategy? We have become a "StuckNation" on so many fronts, that it's hard to decide what we need to fix first in order to get un-stuck: campaign finance, government bureaucracy, unemployment and "under-employment," the stagnant economy, public infrastructure, education, healthcare, law enforcement, immigration, agriculture, the environment, international relations... shall I go on? And how do we know whether the people in charge of fixing things have the best interests of their constituents at heart? Are we counting on the news media to be our watchdogs and tell us? Do they have the resources and power to even do that? As I have often asked students -- and my own daughters -- to step back and consider when hearing the news, "How do we know what we know?" Do we have the facts we need in order to verify that the institutions in which we have instilled so much trust are telling us the whole story? This is why I have been writing under the title and Twitter handle, "StuckNation." For years now, we have heard from politicians, regulators and bankers -- and repeated by corporate news media -- that we were recovering from the Great Recession and that the foreclosure crisis was over. But years later, only 7% of America's counties had experienced a recovery. Polls indicate that the prolonged economic stagnation has angered the public, because they believe the political system is rigged in favor of special interests. We saw Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump harness those undercurrents to appeal to disillusioned voters in the 2016 election season. Then, in 2018, the frustration with the unchecked power of a single-party government swept a new wave of progressive candidates into office. How will our economic challenges shape the debates that will define our future? I have reported on a wide range of topics, from real estate development, the environment, and the economy, to politics, national security and immigration. I started my career in print (newspapers and magazines), then moved into broadcast (radio and television) and into digital (online journals and news sites). I have been reporting on this current climate in print, digital and broadcast media. On my "Profile" page, you can read my bio and on the "Articles" and "Radio Features" pages to read and listen to some of my work. I have interviewed politicians, from small-town mayors to Presidential candidates, and covered local, state and national elections for almost four decades. I reported from both parties' National Conventions for the last 5 Presidential elections (going back to 2000). It's fair to say that the 2016 Presidential election season broke all the molds on so many levels and highlighted the undercurrent of struggle and disappointment felt by so many Americans in the current environment. And the first two years of the Trump Administration, did nothing to improve things--other than for the already comfortable top 1%. Certainly, now more than ever, "StuckNation" describes the state of our country in 2021. Be a change agent and stand up for others who put something at risk so that our democracy can redeem its promise both where we line and work. Thanks for listening. ~ Bob