Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I had very mixed feelings about this book. One thing I can't say is that it's boring. I read it in two sittings. I could identify with many of the experiences, if not with the people. I lived in my car all the way to Central America. I have pulled a travel trailer across the United States with a 27-year-old pick-up in order to start a new life on the opposite coast. I worked as an Amazon holiday temp, and like the protagonist I made it through those painful, mind-numbing nights by never forgetting I was working towards my goal of escaping the American nightmare. I even used the same phrase as a woman in the book to describe to others what I was doing: "working inside the belly-of-the-beast." However, my goal was not to escape to the hinterland of Arizona, but rather, to a poor third-world country (where the poor are left to go about their lives in relative peace). I came away baffled about two things: #1 Although the people in the book seemed to all have figured out that the American dream is a con by the Establishment Elite to rob Americans and keep us as slaves, none seemed to have awakened to the biggest con-job of all: the American system of health care. The Power Elites poison our food (GMO's, aspartame, chemicals) and our water (fluoride) and our air (spraying aerosol particulates) and then offer us more poison (pharmaceuticals) for "the cure". Many in the book seemed more worried about keeping their health care than dropping out of the American health care con-game. Only one person in the book seemed to care about eating a healthy diet. Their plans for dealing with old age (suicide) were extremely depressing. It need not be. Scattered around the globe are cultures where people expect to live a healthy, laboring, old-age up to age 100 and beyond. To maintain stability in a life of poverty one MUST put the health of one's body before everything else. This means a vegetarian diet of fresh, unprocessed foods, and eschewing bad habits like eating junk food, getting tattoos ( a drip-feed of carcinogens into the bloodstream) smoking, hormone injections and eating in restaurants (also a waste of precious resources). Keeping a healthy body involves maintaining a healthy mind, ergo, no television propaganda or pop-culture filth inserted into the brain. The Power Elites use fear-porn to control the American people. The overseers on the plantation are the Establishment Elite universities and publications, but the favored method for the perfect Pavlovian response remains the boob tube.The jig is up though as more and more folks reclaim power over their own health from the medical-industrial complex. #2 Many people in the book seemed careless to me, and at times even reckless. The second most important rule for maintaining stability in poverty is that you must be smarter, more resourceful, more resilient, more prudent and have more self-control than the average person. Sloppiness, forgetfulness and impatience are luxuries the poor can't afford. One must always be scanning the future for the potential problems and than taking steps to try and avoid such problems. When one is poor, one mistake can pull you into a black hole that's damn hard to extricate yourself from. The people in this book did not seem to me to have learned this important lesson yet. People of color often say they must be smarter, work harder and be better over-all than an average American, just to partake of what the average American receives by default. The truth of the matter is that this applies to Americans in poverty as well, even though this idea is anathema in our PC culture. A poor American living in a majority-poor foreign country can relax a bit and take things easier, but not back home living in the American nightmare. I found the author very irritating. Her assertion that people so poor they don't have a pot to pee in, or a window to throw it out of, are enjoying some kind of "white privilege" is laughable, and extremely offensive. Only someone with a background of elite privilege could have written something so ridiculous. I can't speak to the experience of black folk, but I do know a bit about the Latino migrant experience. I married into a Latino migrant family and I have many illegal alien friends. Decades ago Latino migrants figured out how to deal with low wages and high rent. In any Hispanic community there are a few entrepreneurial souls with legal status who rent a house (or many) and then proceed to cram as many people into the house as possible, each paying a nominal rent. I have seen three bedroom homes with ten people living in the house. Closets, garages and outdoor sheds are turned into bedrooms. The most extreme thing I've seen is a wooden storage compartment on a back deck transformed into a sleeping chamber. In many cases this situation is not much different than what these people experienced growing up. Of course there are exceptions, but the Latinos I have known are miserable when forced to live in isolation. The "lone wolf" is simply not a part of Hispanic culture. Except for the rare case of an extended family renting a large home and then everyone chipping in on the rent, this solution is just not available to white folk. Latin Americans still come to the United States for "a better life", while ever-increasing numbers of Americans are exiting the United States as economic refugees. How can they find a better life in the US when we are moving to their countries for a better life? I have asked my migrant friends about this and they can't give me an answer. Perhaps someone will tackle this conundrum in a book. I'd love to read a book about Americans who have fled to Mexico and Central America as economic refugees, or to escape the tyranny of the PC, far-left police state that America has become. The author rails a lot about how the Power Elites have caused the problems addressed in her book (very true) yet I find it ironic that she thanks the Rockefeller Foundation ( a stalwart of the Power Elite) at the end of her book. She teaches at an Establishment Elite university, and she has written for Establishment Elite publications. However, one wonders if the Washington Post will continue to publish her work after this book. And then there is this thank you in the Acknowledgements: "My father Ron helped me co-pilot Halen during much of the journey back East." Was she too cowardly to fully immerse herself into the life she was writing about, or was there another reason her father helped her get the van home? I feel the author lacks the personal background and experience to adequately cover this engaging subject matter, although she does write well, and in an easy-to-read style. Any person other than one of the poor working-class brings too much social conditioning to this subject to be able to comprehend what they are seeing and hearing. There's no need for one of the privileged elite to dip her big toe into the murky waters of poverty, just so she can convey our plight to the world. The Internet has given a voice to the voiceless, and there are plenty of blogs written by those who actually live this life. This subject should be handled by someone within the poor working-class. However, if one of us wrote a book like this, we would certainly have to publish it on our own, and I guarantee that it would never make the best seller list. I wish Linda May all the luck in the world building her dream home, and God's blessings upon it when it is completed. Update 02/19/2021: One way to know when the Power Elite are behind a book, is when the movie version follows soon after. In the case of Nomadland, I'm only surprised it took so long, although I understand that work on the film commenced shortly after the book came out. Why a fictional account of a non-fiction book? It's easier for the globalists to defend their propaganda if it's classified as fiction, although as we have seen of late, they no-longer even bother to hide their plans anymore. Just say NO to them. Don't eat their poisonous fake food, don't accept their poisonous drugs and medical care, and don't rot your brain with their poisonous films, social media and "news". Ignore their hate-spewing, virtue-signaling celebrities. They need our attention and acquiescence to hold onto their power. We don't need them. Ignore them and claim your freedom.