Greg Palast

I started this book somewhat sceptical about both its tone (snarky attempts at humour can often be plain irritating) and its content (was there really going to be anything substantially new here or just rehashing well known info with a good dollop of outrage?) But ultimately I was blown away by both the quality of research and the writing. First off Palast has finally made sense of the cause and conduct of the Iraq war from a U.S. policy point of view. It was such an absurd war, and so badly show more managed that despite reading a mass of insider books about it one could never quiet figure it out. Palast offers an explanation that finally fits the pieces together. Secondly his look at the ever-growing practice of manipulating voting in U.S. elections by using various methods to essentially deny voters the right to vote in the 2000 and 2004 elections are prophetic as they seem to have really come in to their own in recent months in the lead up to the 2012 elections. show less

This book started out strong for me with the chapter on how the 2000 Presidential election was stolen in Florida. He makes a compelling case for tens of thousands of voters being deleted.

However, as the book went on, I was suprised to find myself quite bored. First off, it wasn't a compelling read. Second and more importantly, for a book with these allegations, the fact that it had no notes and references I found troublesome. Palast constantly says "here is a reproduction of xyz document" show more but it is not a photo of it, but a representation. I also could have done without that hedgy tactic, if he had endnotes.

It was enough where I was turned off of the book. I read a third of it.

Having said that, I did flag a few quotes:

"Mary Frances Berry, chairperson of the US Civil Rights Commission, said the real horror of the 2000 election was not the vote count that so transfixed our media, but what she calls "the noncount"- the means of keeping citizens from voting or having their votes counted."

"I reported these stories from Europe, where simple minds think that the appropriate response to the discovery that the wrong man took office would be to remove him from that office."

Two other presidential elections were nearly stolen in the year 2000, in Peru and Yugoslavia. How ironic that in those nations, though not in the US, the voters' will ultimately counted. Peruvians and Yugoslavs took to heart Martin Luther King's admonition that rights are never given, only asserted. They knew: When the unelected seize the presidential palaces, democrats must seize the streets.

[Former TExas AGriculture Commissioner Jim Hightower]: They've eliminated the middleman. THe corporations don't have to lobby the government anymore. THey are the government." Hightower used to complain about Monsanto's lobbying the secretary of agriculture. Today, Monsanto executive Ann Veneman is the Secretary of Agriculture.

"I want my fair share, and that's all of it"-- attributed to Charles Koch

Now lets count the corpses. From 1950 to 1980, socialist and welfare statist policies added more than a decade of life expectancy to virtually every nation on the planet. From 1980 to today, life under structural assitance [IMF/World Bank] has gotten brutish and decidedly shorter. Since 1985, in 15 African nations the total number of illiterate people has risen and life expectancy fallen ... In the former Soviet states, life expectancy has fallen off a cliff--adding 1.4 million a year to the death rate in Russia alone." show less

Palast is an investigative reporter of some note. He has tackled subjects in the past that other journalists shy away from. If only a.third of this book is true, it is still a scandal.

In this book he looks at the power triangle of big oil, finance and politics. And he doesn't lile what he finds. In fact he finds it detestable and immoral the way that the individuals in power hold everyone else in.contempt.

The primary focus of the book is BP, their safety record and the way that they have show more done business for the past decades. Palast does not like what he finds. The amount of rules that they, and the other oil companies evade is astonishing, they have a complex about doing anything that might benefit anyone other than themselves. The other large oil companies have similar charges leveled.at them.

In the final few chapters he considers the role that the large banks have played in perpetuating similar frauds and the global financial scandal, and the fact that Brazil and Ecuador refused to follow suit and have done remarkably well despite the 'advice' of the world bank and the others.

I didn't always like the writing style, hence four stars, but otherwise this is a must read book. show less

Here is another compendium of political and corporate con men who would sell your future and your children's future to the highest bidder (or give it away to their political friends).

Everyone thinks that George Bush had a secret plan to seize Iraq's oil. Actually, there were 2 secret plans. The neo-con/Pentagon plan involved privatizing, or selling off, Iraq's vast oil reserves to foreign companies. When all those oil wells start pumping, ignoring their OPEC quota (insurgency? what show more insurgency?), the world market would be flooded with oil, causing the price to plummet. OPEC would be forced out of business, and, coincidentally, Saudi Arabia, the real target, would be forced to its financial knees. A problem with this is the assumption that the oil fields would remain undamaged in an American invasion. Also, it would be silly to think that Saudi Arabia would sit back and let this happen. Whenever other OPEC countries have ignored their quota, the Saudis have opened their oil spigots, flooding the market and causing the price to drop, forcing the offending country into bankruptcy. Also, the major oil companies made it very clear that privatizing Iraqi oil would not be acceptable. But they had no problem with the privatizing of the rest of Iraq, including the sale of banks and water companies, big tax cuts for wealthy Iraqis, a complete elimination of tariffs and new copyright laws protecting American companies.

The State Department/Council on Foreign Relations plan involved keeping the Iraqi government as is, especially the state oil monopoly. It also envisioned the removal of Saddam Hussein as taking no more than THREE DAYS. Hussein would be overthrown, some Iraqi general dismissed by Hussein in the 1980s (it didn't matter who) would come in by parachute, he would be given the keys to Iraq's political and security apparatus, and snap elections would be held in 90 days to legitimize everything. Simple, no? Once the Pentagon got wind of it, the three-day part didn't last very long.

Saddam Hussein's "crime," the reason he was removed from power, had nothing to do with being a tyrant, or WMD, or gassing the Kurds of Halabja. When it came to oil production, one week he would suddenly decide to support the Palestinian cause, and not pump any oil at all. The next week, he would forget about the Palestinians, and pump right up to the Oil for Food limit. Singlehandedly turning the world oil market into a yo-yo upset Big Oil and the Council on Foreign Relations, among others. It's all about control of the oil market, and Hussein was not cooperating.

This book is about much more than just Iraq. Palast goes into great detail about how the 2000 and 2004 elections were stolen by the Republicans. Any number of methods have come to life, from using supposed lists of felons, to sending not enough machines to black districts, to machines in those same districts that miscount or don't count votes at a much greater rate than in white districts, to uncounted paper ballots in the tens of thousands. In Native American districts in the Southwest, if one accepts the "official" results, many Native Americans would drive miles and miles to the polling place, and specifically NOT vote for President. What are Democrats doing about this, if only to be sure that it never happens again? Little or nothing. This book also covers subjects like globalization, New Orleans, No Child Left Behind and Enron.

By themselves, any of the chapters in this book are worth the price of the book. Put them together, and this book easily reaches the level of Wow. It's an extraordinary piece of journalism, and is extremely highly recommended. show less