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| States of Neglect : How Red-State Leaders Have Failed Their Citizens and Undermined America
ISBN: 9781620976425
Platform/Publisher: Ebook Central / New Press, The
Digital rights: Users: Unlimited; Printing: Limited; Download: 7 Days at a Time
Subjects: Political Science;
Journalist Kleinknecht (The Man Who Sold the World) delivers a scathing rebuke of Republican politicians who have created financial opportunities for companies at the expense of the health and safety of their constituents. Contending that conservative governors and state legislators, in conjunction with their "corporate allies," have made working-class people in red states "poorer, sicker, less educated" than their counterparts in blue states, Kleinknecht writes that "only by fully understanding the trend toward autocracy and corporate dominion in the red states" will progressives be able to "wrest control of the narrative from the far right and begin to alter the course of American politics." His evidence includes the gutting of environmental enforcement efforts in Texas and the 2014 Elk River chemical spill in West Virginia, "one of the worst cases of contaminated drinking water in American history." Meanwhile, Kleinknecht claims, "evacuation orders, poisoned drinking water, red tides, beaches with no-swimming signs, bays with fishing bans, cancer hotspots... have either disappeared or become rarities in the blue states." Kleinknecht also tackles disparities in education and healthcare funding and highlights innovative welfare programs such as Connecticut's "Baby Bonds" initiative. Copious evidence, impassioned prose, and astute political analysis make this a must-read for progressive policymakers and activists. (Nov.)
William Kleinknecht is a longtime newspaper reporter who covered politics, government, criminal justice, and the environment for the Detroit Free Press, New York Daily News, and Newark Star-Ledger. The author of The Man Who Sold the World: Ronald Reagan and the Betrayal of Main Street America, The New Ethnic Mobs: The Changing Face of Organized Crime in America, and States of Neglect: How Red-State Leaders Have Failed Their Citizens and Undermined America (The New Press), he lives in Ridgewood, New Jersey. |
