"Razor sharp research ...shows why every US citizen should be quaking in their boots" - "Metro, Books of the Year", 'Bill Hicks with a press pass'. The List Award-winning guerrilla journalist Greg Palast has gone where most have been too scared to unearth the ugly truth about the haves and have-mores who rule our world ...America. Here he reports from behind enemy lines to reveal just: how bad it's got in a dangerous regime; how elections are bought and free speech comes at a price; how citizens are ruled by fear; and how our brave new globalized world means the poor get hammered, while corporations silently buy up the planet. It's not pretty - but it's all true ..."Palast is one of the few journalists writing who has both the anger and the wit to offer himself up as a persuasive - and more importantly, readable - voice of the left' - "Observer". "A roller coaster ride from Baghdad to New Orleans and Osama bin Laden's cave to the back rooms of the Pentagon" - "Big Issue". "Very funny ...For anyone who thinks that no-one from the US knows what's going on, Palast is the perfect riposte' - "Guardian".

2008-03-18 Between Moore and Chomsky: Entertaining, yet detailed.

Warning! If you're not already cynical about politics, this will turn you! Those who vehemently attacked the likes of Michael Moore without any real criticism of substance were once strange to me. Now I see that many do not wish to listen to grumbling acrimony about the world around them, particularly their own nation - such wrath is too stressful for anyone to bear at times. Moore has the populist voice, and may be deserving of some small digs - he does play to his audience.

What Moore achieves, though, is the opening of eyes and the ignition of debate. Truth-seekers then tend to migrate to the writings of intellectual giants like Noam Chomsky, which can be very heavy reading for all but the University graduate political student. His books are generally not best-sellers!

However, if you avidly seek out truth, read Palast, who strikes the perfect middle ground. A respected journalist with the BBC, his relative anonymity in his home nation media upholds his claim about its bias. He tackles each subject with the determination one expects of a 'real' investigative journalist; he seeks out documents and people himself and provides clear evidence - info is rarely through a 3rd party.
AND conspiracy theory this ain't!! Too much written about controversial events descends into mad theories involving the Illuminati or UFOs, and our governments relish this since they can bundle up the truth with such crackpot ideas and dismiss it as the same. Hitler mentioned it in Mein Kampf, so it's nothing new. Palast concisely explains complex history and news in good detail. He avoids oversimplifying, but keeps things interesting for the most cerebrally-challenged. You need to pay attention in places: when reciting to others what I learnt about Iraq, for instance, I find I have to refer back to the book to get names and dates right. Iraq wasn't simply 'about the oil' and Palast covers it all (which is most of the late last century), though in the end, you can see it really was, mainly, all along, about oil, which is itself a very complex political topic.

The long rants about 'stolen US elections' also refuses to fall into the accusation of nationwide corruption of the entire political machine, but Palast shows clear (and MANY!) examples of little tactics and manoeuvres that just managed to tip scales where votes were close, enough to change outcomes. I would challenge anyone to read this, and still deny these things ever happened.

Read it and pass it on.