Michael Irving Phillips was born in Jamaica. He left home for Howard University in the US where he received MA (Education) and BS Chemistry) degrees. "Leave the Rat Race to the Rats" is a sequel to his previous book, "Boycott Money And Save Your Soul - Launching the Goodwill Revolution". The first book launched the Goodwill Revolution, while this one applies it. Previous work includes "Poems for Husbands and Other Underdogs", compilation and publishing poetry books "Bitten by Bonzo" and "Living in Constant Spring". However, most recent years has been spent in a one-man production of Hot Calaloo, a newsletter about Caribbean news and views. From April 1992 to December 1999 it was published monthly and was transferred to the web at hotcalaloo.com since then.

This time the Goodwill Revolution takes up the challenge of transforming the dismal ghetto into a model community. Our rat race culture pits people against each other in a competition to get as much money, materials, and power as they can. Greed, selfishness, ruthlessness and avarice are assets in the rat race. Kindness, sincerity, compassion are liabilities. The rat race culture has corrupted our values and our institutions. The winners of the rat race are highly respected. Losers are despised. If there are 10 participants in any race, there is only one winner, but nine losers. Similarly, the rat race creates lots of losers. This is unacceptable. In our society, the worst losers are poor people in the ghettos, poor black people.

The goodwill revolution encompasses a comprehensive set of principles which reinforces and mobilizes the inherent goodness of mankind as the key to true happiness. In the goodwill revolution, kindness, compassion, and honesty are valuable assets. Greed, selfishness, ruthlessness are liabilities.

So the book is about rejecting the rat race and adopting the goodwill revolution to fix the prevailing problems in our society with the focus on fixing the ghetto as a model. The poor black people in the ghetto are in crisis and need urgent care. Their jobs, education and living conditions all suck. But, the goodwill revolution can change all that.

(106 pages}