The latest comes in a new book, “Armed Madhouse,” a five-part investigation of the “global economic piggery” that starts at home in the good ol’ U.S. of A.
To borrow a friend’s coinage for one of Greg Palast‘s typical columns, Zounds! What a palasterin’! This time it goes like so:
Here is our new world of militarized greed, where America’s panic over lunatics with box-cutters has metastasized into a billion-dollar fear industry; where Republicans sucking on Super-sized Slurpies® are hunting dark-skinned voters to eliminate their rights; where James Baker’s fixer in alligator boots sets up the grab for Iraq’s oil on her way to the rodeo; where miners are suffocated by the same investment bankers who are siphoning off auto workers’ pensions.
Palast is ornery and relentless and right. He’s also a bitchin’ writer whose take on things can surprise you. For example, have a look at his recent piece in The Guardian on why Rummy Boy — “a swaggering bag of mendacious arrogance, a duplicitous chicken-hawk, yellow-bellied bully-boy and Tinker-Toy Napoleon,” to quote his lovely description — should not resign. Palast has no use for the “wannabe Rommels,” now “safely retired,” who are calling for Rummy Boy’s ouster. They’re not only “four years too late,” he points out, they’re going after “the puppet instead of the puppeteers.”
“Armed Madhouse” is divided into five sections:
THE NETWORK: The World as a Company Town. The weird and frightening facts about the tidal flow of international currency — the real story of China’s rise and the death of Detroit. Plus a report from the future on the assassination of Hugo Chavez — [which] explains why it had to be done.
THE CON: Kerry won. But two million of his votes were never counted. They can’t take away your Social Security until they take away your vote. In the 2008 race, four million ballots will go missing. Here’s how it will be done.
THE FEAR: Who’s Afraid of Osama Wolf? Turning Ground Zero into a Profit Center. Why does Southold, New York, have machine guns on SUVs at the casino ferry? Investigations of health insurance and suicide bombings — in other words, the fun chapter.
THE FLOW: Trillion Dollar Babies. If you thought George Bush had a secret plan to seize Iraq’s oil — you’re wrong. He had TWO plans, and Armed Madhouse has both of them.
THE CLASS WAR: I go deeper into George Bush’s crude system of educational terror (“No Child’s Behind Left”), Ken Lay’s REAL crimes for which he won’t be tried, and the story of New Orleans you won’t get on Fox Snews. Here you’ll get some complex economics and a free ticket to the circus — and the core issue of the book: the war of the movers and shakers against the moved and shaken.
Palast is going on a book tour. Here’s the sked.
And here in reverse order, in case you missed them, are previous items about Palast: Ahead of the Curve; The Gun That Smokes; Big Oil vs. the Neocons; Oh, Those Kooks and Crazies; Saint Ronald Gets the Heave Ho, and Stiffing Culifornia
