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The BLOG BOOK CLUB
Linked to groups: DFA Books
Join Us!THE BLOG BOOK CLUB
WHAT: Armed Madhouse, by Greg Palast
WHEN: Wednesday JUNE, 28th, 7:00pm
GUEST BLOGGER: Greg Palast
WHERE: www.BlogForAmerica.com
HOW: Just go on BlogforAmerica.com and go to the comments section in the Blog Book Club blog Post from Greg Palast. Greg will be answering our questions in the comment section. Remember to refresh so you don't miss anything. Also, please post a comment NOW in this DFA Link section to suggest our next book, and let us know you will be joining us for the June 28th event. Note, if you can't swing the cost of the book, email me and I can send you a free copy.
IMPORTANT: If you haven't read Armed Madhouse yet, Join Us anyway, we will be posting relevant sections of the book that you can read and thus join in the conversation :-)
Thanks- ChrisNYC ( Christy)
_______________________________________
Greg Palast the BBC investigative reporter, and author of 'The Best Democracy Money Can Buy', has an important new book out 'Armed Madhouse, Dispatches from the Frontlines of the Class War'. Just as his last book kicked open the debate on the manipulation of US elections, this book, currently on the New York Times Best Seller list, can do the same duty and more with expanded exposes on topics including this administrations education, energy, corporate fraud and war policies.
The information in Armed Madhouse identifies and explores crucial issues we can use to raise awareness and to frame the most important issues of today and tomorrow.
What People are Saying About Armed Madhouse...
"Everyone must read this book"-- Jesse Jackson, Jr. Rainbow PUSH
"Greg Palast taught me how they are going to try and steal this election"-- Gregory Moore, Exec. Dir. NAACP, newly appointed Director of Voting Rights Institute, DNC
"This book is our Weapon of Massive Instruction. Read it and use it. Armed Madhouse is subtitled, 'Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Class War' -- For all its humor, I find the book a serious resource of information for action and organizing, covering war, oil, economic struggle and globalization."-- Medea Benjamin, Founder CODE PINK
"The top investigative journalist in America and the funniest"-- Randi Rhodes, Air America Radio
"When I was under attack, and lies piled on lies, BBC investigative reporter Greg Palast defended me and the truth. His new book, Armed Madhouse, is more truth to throw in the face of their lies."--Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney
"Gripping, provocative, inspiring"--John Perkins, author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man.
ARMED MADHOUSE,
Dispatches from the Frontlines of the Class War
This is an autopsy of what happened to the American dream"¦
Greg Palast tells us how elections manipulations, Social Security chicanery, oil wars, Hurricane Katrina and Chinese yuan are interlinked, all pieces of the same puzzle: Class Warfare -- the war of the movers and shakers on the moved and shaken. Those with wealth and power have the ability to control--and do control our democracy, our economy and all too often our government. And it doesn't stop at our borders....
Voting Fraud Looking back at 2004, and forward to more tricks for 2006 and 2008. How two million of John Kerry's votes were stolen, the plan in '08 for four million ballots to go missing, and how it will be done.
Iraq Greg Palast reveals two secret plans he obtained that explain the battle between neo-cons and Big Oil that keeps our troops under fire. Why Saddam had to go. An historic perspective on the suppression of Iraq's oil for the last 80 years and its continuation to the present day.
The Great Voucher Hoax from "No Child's Behind Left". The class war in the class room rages on. According to No Child Left expert Scott Young, 76% of the money handed out for Arizona's voucher program has gone to children already in private schools. In other words, the $1,000 check from the state turned into a $1,000 subsidy for wealthy parents, a $1,000 discount on private schools for the privileged. How astonishing: A program touted as a benefit for working-class kids that turns into a subsidy for rich ones.
Nightmare of NAFTA How 95% of Americans are being left behind in this new world order run like a company town. The decimation of autoworkers and General Motors and how it's just the beginning. The truth about globalization, straight from the vaults of the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO.
Hurricane Katrina 1927 revisited. How the great flood of 1927 led to FDR's "New Deal", how it was taken away, and New Orleans drowned again. The privatization of the New Orleans' evacuation and Palast's search for the elusive plan.
Economics 101 The complex economics of how the threat to your social security relates to the ballooning trade deficit with China. How Bush needs to remain best friends with Saudi Arabia to finance his trillion dollar debt.
Hugo Chavez How the president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez is sitting on the largest pool of oil in the world and is refusing to play by America's petro-dollar rules. Bypassing Wall Street, Chavez is setting himself up as a Latin American mini IMF, and why Chavez has good reason to take Pat Robertson's
***
Greg Palast, says Britain's Tribune Magazine, "is the most important investigative reporter of our time." His investigative reports for BBC Television's prestigious Newsnight, his reports for the Guardian papers and, in the USA, for Harper's Magazine have earned him journalism's top prizes abroad; however, notes Asia Times, "Greg Palast, the man widely considered as the top investigative journalist in the United States is persona non grata in his own country's media." Best known in the states for the investigations behind Michael Moore's film 9-11, his book The Best Democracy Money Can Buy and the Eminem video "Mosh," Palast is recipient of the ACLU's Upton Sinclair Freedom of Expression Prize -- and a record six Project Censored awards from California State University -- for crucial stories that appear worldwide but not in the USA.
Palast, author of a seminal United Nations study of energy prices, combines academic credentials, satire and hard, old-fashioned investigative reporting. As the Baltimore Chronicle says, "No one has investigated the Bush clan like Greg Palast -- and lived to write about it."
Welcome back bookclub !
Just like an old friend - the blog bookclub returns and, as always, it will be a pleasure to be there among friends !
Just like an old friend - the blog bookclub returns and, as always, it will be a pleasure to be there among friends !
Just picked up my book
Don't know how much I will get to read.
But, am I supposed to be signing up for this event, or is this serving just as a reminder?
Don't know how much I will get to read.
But, am I supposed to be signing up for this event, or is this serving just as a reminder?
Armed Madhouse Except
Hurrican katrina and The New Deal
www.gregpalast.com/madhouse/inde...
There is nothing new under the sun. A Republican president going for the photo op as the Mississippi rolls over New Orleans. It was 1927, and President Calvin Coolidge sent Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover, "a little fat man with a notebook in his hand," who mugged for the cameras and promised to build the city a wall of protection. They had their photos taken. Then they left to play golf with Ken Lay or, rather, the Ken Lay railroad baron equivalent of his day.
In 1927, the Democratic Party had died and was awaiting burial. As depression approached, the coma-Dems, like Franklin Roosevelt, called for, of all things, balancing the budget.
Then, as the Mississippi waters rose, one politician, the state's electricity regulator, stood up on the back of a flatbed truck rigged with loudspeakers, and said, roughly, "Listen up! They're lying! The President's lying! The rich fat jackals that are drowning you will do it again and again and again. They lead you into imperialist wars for profit, they take away your schools and your hope, and when you complain, they blame Blacks and Jews and immigrants. Then they drown your kids. I say, Kick'm in the ass and take your share of the wealth you created." Huey Long was our Hugo Chávez, and he laid out a plan: a progressive income tax, real money for education, public works to rebuild Louisiana and America, Social Security old age pensions, veterans' benefits, regulation of the big utility holding companies, an end to what he called, "rich men's wars," and an end to the financial royalism of the One Percent.
He even had the audacity to suggest that the poor's votes should count, calling for the end to the poll tax four decades before Martin Luther King succeeded in ending it. Long recorded his motto as a musical anthem: "Everyman a King."
The waters receded, the anger did not, and, in 1928, Huey "Kingfish" Long was elected Governor of Louisiana. At the time, Louisiana schools were free, but not the textbooks. The elite liked it that way, but Long didn't. To pay for the books, the Kingfish levied a special tax on Big Oil. But the oil companies refused to pay for the textbooks. Governor Long then ordered the National Guard to seize the oil fields in the Delta.
It was Huey Long who established the principle that a government of the people must protect the people, school them, build the infrastructure, regulate industry and share the nation's wealth-and that meant facing down "the concentrations of monopoly power" of the corporate aristocracy-"the thieves of Wall Street," as he called them.
In other words, Huey Long founded the modern Democratic Party. FDR and the party establishment, scared witless of Long's ineluctable march to the White House, adopted his program, albeit diluted, called it the New Deal and later the New Frontier and the Great Society. America and the party prospered.....
Hurrican katrina and The New Deal
www.gregpalast.com/madhouse/inde...
There is nothing new under the sun. A Republican president going for the photo op as the Mississippi rolls over New Orleans. It was 1927, and President Calvin Coolidge sent Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover, "a little fat man with a notebook in his hand," who mugged for the cameras and promised to build the city a wall of protection. They had their photos taken. Then they left to play golf with Ken Lay or, rather, the Ken Lay railroad baron equivalent of his day.
In 1927, the Democratic Party had died and was awaiting burial. As depression approached, the coma-Dems, like Franklin Roosevelt, called for, of all things, balancing the budget.
Then, as the Mississippi waters rose, one politician, the state's electricity regulator, stood up on the back of a flatbed truck rigged with loudspeakers, and said, roughly, "Listen up! They're lying! The President's lying! The rich fat jackals that are drowning you will do it again and again and again. They lead you into imperialist wars for profit, they take away your schools and your hope, and when you complain, they blame Blacks and Jews and immigrants. Then they drown your kids. I say, Kick'm in the ass and take your share of the wealth you created." Huey Long was our Hugo Chávez, and he laid out a plan: a progressive income tax, real money for education, public works to rebuild Louisiana and America, Social Security old age pensions, veterans' benefits, regulation of the big utility holding companies, an end to what he called, "rich men's wars," and an end to the financial royalism of the One Percent.
He even had the audacity to suggest that the poor's votes should count, calling for the end to the poll tax four decades before Martin Luther King succeeded in ending it. Long recorded his motto as a musical anthem: "Everyman a King."
The waters receded, the anger did not, and, in 1928, Huey "Kingfish" Long was elected Governor of Louisiana. At the time, Louisiana schools were free, but not the textbooks. The elite liked it that way, but Long didn't. To pay for the books, the Kingfish levied a special tax on Big Oil. But the oil companies refused to pay for the textbooks. Governor Long then ordered the National Guard to seize the oil fields in the Delta.
It was Huey Long who established the principle that a government of the people must protect the people, school them, build the infrastructure, regulate industry and share the nation's wealth-and that meant facing down "the concentrations of monopoly power" of the corporate aristocracy-"the thieves of Wall Street," as he called them.
In other words, Huey Long founded the modern Democratic Party. FDR and the party establishment, scared witless of Long's ineluctable march to the White House, adopted his program, albeit diluted, called it the New Deal and later the New Frontier and the Great Society. America and the party prospered.....
Thanks
Thanks for putting this together. Greg was in Albuquerque on 6/17 at a packed event and brought the house down. I'm sure he'll be excellent tonight as well.
I'm assuming this is 7 PM Eastern time?
Thanks for putting this together. Greg was in Albuquerque on 6/17 at a packed event and brought the house down. I'm sure he'll be excellent tonight as well.
I'm assuming this is 7 PM Eastern time?
Where The BLog Book CLub Takes Place
www.blogforamerica.com
At 7:00pm EST you will see a Post From Greg Palast, hit the comment section there--and you are in. the Blog Book Club does not take place here at DFA Link
Don't forget to keep hitting "refresh" or you will not see the newest comments going on.
www.blogforamerica.com
At 7:00pm EST you will see a Post From Greg Palast, hit the comment section there--and you are in. the Blog Book Club does not take place here at DFA Link
Don't forget to keep hitting "refresh" or you will not see the newest comments going on.
Mr. Palast, you haven't yet responded to my email below - would you here please?
Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 13:10:20 -0700 (PDT)
From: "James Morris"
Subject: Re: Was the Invasion of Iraq A Jewish Conspiracy?
To: palast@gregpalast.com
Mr. Palast,
So what about the paper by Mearsheimer/Walt (about the pro-Israel lobby) which I gave you at the recent KPFK event in Los Angeles? I see that you are conveniently overlooking such with what you wrote in the article below.. The links for the Mearsheimer/Walt paper can be found via the following URL even though I already gave you that printed-out version from the London Review of Books which included the link for the full version currently showing at the Harvard Web site:
Scroll down to the 'Pro-Israel lobby under fire' UPI article at the following URL:
www.warwithoutend.co.uk/zone0/vi...
"Hawkish Israeli Lobby Wants War with Iran!"
baltimore.indymedia.org/newswire...
How about the recent appearance by Mearsheimer and Walt on C-SPAN's 'Washington Journal' this past Friday (with the 'counter' segment by Abraham Foxman of the ADL yesterday as the call for Foxman by the London viewer was most interesting as well):
www.warwithoutend.co.uk/zone0/vi...
Ewen0who@aol.com wrote:
A member of the audience asked, "Put it together Who's behind this war? Paul Wolfowitz and Elliott Abrams and the Project for a New American Century and, and, why don't you talk about that, huh?"
www.gregpalast.com/was-the-invas...
Was the Invasion of Iraq A Jewish Conspiracy?
Published by Greg Palast June 26th, 2006 in Articles
Tikkun Magazine JULY/AUGUST 2006
Did the Jews do it?
Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 13:10:20 -0700 (PDT)
From: "James Morris"
Subject: Re: Was the Invasion of Iraq A Jewish Conspiracy?
To: palast@gregpalast.com
Mr. Palast,
So what about the paper by Mearsheimer/Walt (about the pro-Israel lobby) which I gave you at the recent KPFK event in Los Angeles? I see that you are conveniently overlooking such with what you wrote in the article below.. The links for the Mearsheimer/Walt paper can be found via the following URL even though I already gave you that printed-out version from the London Review of Books which included the link for the full version currently showing at the Harvard Web site:
Scroll down to the 'Pro-Israel lobby under fire' UPI article at the following URL:
www.warwithoutend.co.uk/zone0/vi...
"Hawkish Israeli Lobby Wants War with Iran!"
baltimore.indymedia.org/newswire...
How about the recent appearance by Mearsheimer and Walt on C-SPAN's 'Washington Journal' this past Friday (with the 'counter' segment by Abraham Foxman of the ADL yesterday as the call for Foxman by the London viewer was most interesting as well):
www.warwithoutend.co.uk/zone0/vi...
Ewen0who@aol.com wrote:
A member of the audience asked, "Put it together Who's behind this war? Paul Wolfowitz and Elliott Abrams and the Project for a New American Century and, and, why don't you talk about that, huh?"
www.gregpalast.com/was-the-invas...
Was the Invasion of Iraq A Jewish Conspiracy?
Published by Greg Palast June 26th, 2006 in Articles
Tikkun Magazine JULY/AUGUST 2006
Did the Jews do it?
RE: Was the Invasion of Iraq A Jewish Conspiracy?
*First of all, DON'T use racist (or even racist sounding) language to fight racist reactionaries. "Jewish conspiracy" sounds way too much like the language of the John Birch Society and Republican talk radio way of expressing oneself.
*The most thoughtful, creative, leftist and anti-Zionist members of my anti war group happen to be Jewish. Marx was a Jew.
*Cheney is NOT Jewish yet no one can deny that he isn't part of the conspiracy.
*Even though it's a bit too much of an empty slogan, I can agree with "Zionism is Racism", but please don't tell me about "big Jewish conspiracies". That's exactly the trap that the Zionists try to put is in: so that they can then negate our arguments by calling us "anti-semetic".
We on the left are supposed to think before we speak and we read rather than watch Fox TV.
*First of all, DON'T use racist (or even racist sounding) language to fight racist reactionaries. "Jewish conspiracy" sounds way too much like the language of the John Birch Society and Republican talk radio way of expressing oneself.
*The most thoughtful, creative, leftist and anti-Zionist members of my anti war group happen to be Jewish. Marx was a Jew.
*Cheney is NOT Jewish yet no one can deny that he isn't part of the conspiracy.
*Even though it's a bit too much of an empty slogan, I can agree with "Zionism is Racism", but please don't tell me about "big Jewish conspiracies". That's exactly the trap that the Zionists try to put is in: so that they can then negate our arguments by calling us "anti-semetic".
We on the left are supposed to think before we speak and we read rather than watch Fox TV.
What can I do?
What is the one thing that and individual can do in this next election beside vote and spread the word that will make a difference? I do work with Rep. McKinney but am sorta bed ridden right now. What can I do from home? What can I encourage other's to do in my same situation?
What is the one thing that and individual can do in this next election beside vote and spread the word that will make a difference? I do work with Rep. McKinney but am sorta bed ridden right now. What can I do from home? What can I encourage other's to do in my same situation?
Next book reading
Richard Clark, the former White House national security chief's book, whose title excapes me now, should be excellent reading. Excellent website.
Richard Clark, the former White House national security chief's book, whose title excapes me now, should be excellent reading. Excellent website.
Hi!
I have three suggestions for the next Book Club:
1. _Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism_ by Susan Jacoby. FANTASTIC book, especially if you want to arm yourself against the American Taliban. I can't recommend it enough. Progressive Christians (and I know we have a good gaggle of them on the blog) I think will also find this book interesting and helpful. I think the author will be easy to get to blog; she lives in NYC, and I've heard her on Ring of Fire.
2. _Confessions of an Economic Hitman_ by John Perkins. I haven't read it yet, but I really want to. I also think this author would be happy to blog; he recently appeared at Bluestockings, a progressive feminist bookstore in the Lower East Side. If this book wins, please get Bono to blog, too, pretty please?
3. _A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present_ by, of course, Howard Zinn. I'm currently on the chapter "The Other Civil War," which is about the birth of the labor movement in the US. Reading the chapter on the Mexican-American War, I was struck by so many parallels with the war in Iraq. In fact, I'm sadly moved by so many repetitions in history, and... ok, I'll nip this digression in the bud. I don't know if Howard Zinn will blog, but if he does... ooooooohhhhh!!!! If this book wins, I think we'll need a little extra time to read it, or focus specifically on some chapters.
I'll be back in time for linkup, so Christy, I'll see you then. I'm looking forward to the next Book Club event... Armed Madhouse, both the book and the discussion, was awesome (though I apologize for the bad words, lol!). You kick butt!
I have three suggestions for the next Book Club:
1. _Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism_ by Susan Jacoby. FANTASTIC book, especially if you want to arm yourself against the American Taliban. I can't recommend it enough. Progressive Christians (and I know we have a good gaggle of them on the blog) I think will also find this book interesting and helpful. I think the author will be easy to get to blog; she lives in NYC, and I've heard her on Ring of Fire.
2. _Confessions of an Economic Hitman_ by John Perkins. I haven't read it yet, but I really want to. I also think this author would be happy to blog; he recently appeared at Bluestockings, a progressive feminist bookstore in the Lower East Side. If this book wins, please get Bono to blog, too, pretty please?
3. _A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present_ by, of course, Howard Zinn. I'm currently on the chapter "The Other Civil War," which is about the birth of the labor movement in the US. Reading the chapter on the Mexican-American War, I was struck by so many parallels with the war in Iraq. In fact, I'm sadly moved by so many repetitions in history, and... ok, I'll nip this digression in the bud. I don't know if Howard Zinn will blog, but if he does... ooooooohhhhh!!!! If this book wins, I think we'll need a little extra time to read it, or focus specifically on some chapters.
I'll be back in time for linkup, so Christy, I'll see you then. I'm looking forward to the next Book Club event... Armed Madhouse, both the book and the discussion, was awesome (though I apologize for the bad words, lol!). You kick butt!
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By Thankful2Thankful4Dean on Jun 20, 2006 1:36 PM EDTGot my copy of the book and am really looking forward to the 28th. will be putting the pedal to the medal coming back from MI, but should be able to get home in time. so thankful the bookclub is back!!!