Taking Liberties: Four Decades In The Struggle For Rights

by Aryeh Neier, Affairs Press Public Affairs Press (Ny) (Created by)

Since joining the staff of the American Civil Liberties Union in 1963 and becoming its youngest executive director, Aryeh Neier has been at the forefront of efforts to fight for civil liberties, human rights, and social justice. Whether he was confronting police abuse, defending draft opponents or defending free speech, as he did at the ACLU; out-maneuvering the Reagan administration over military abuses in El Salvador, promoting accountability for political crimes in Argentina and Chile or supporting dissidents in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, as he did at Human Rights Watch; or trying to eradicate landmines, promote stability in the Balkans or establish an International Criminal Court, as he has at the Open Society Institute; Aryeh Neier has been methodical, relentless, and unusually successful. In this look back at an amazing career, Neier both reflects on the unintended consequences of some of his victories and why, if he had anticipated them, he might have done things differently; and reveals that some of the various movements of which he was a part had their greatest triumphs under the most adverse circumstances.

432 pages, Paperback

First published January 7, 2003

Reviews

[Ietrio · Rating 1 out of 5]

A failed poet taking it out on everybody touching the book. Wasted metaphors like "pockmarked with bullets". And not just pockmarked, but with bullets not bullet holes. And overall contorted ways of saying nothing:

> [...] pockmarked with bullets from the eight-months-old siege that lasted nearly another three years.

What? "Nearly another"? And yes, people can read the Wikipedia, so tell the story. And here's the story: there is none. An old f*rt who felt self important all his life because of the gratitude of the people who could not afford his services. He is not employed by George Soros who sent him some place and Neier was happy to kiss the hand who was paying his bills. No. George Soros called Neier. George Soros needed him.

In short: I was very curious about the stories. But soon enough I got disgusted by this man's ego and kept turning the pages waiting for a more interesting part than his ways of getting high on his self importance.