• Home
  • About
    • Straight Up
    • Jan Herman
    • Contact
  • AJBlogs
  • ArtsJournal

Straight Up | Jan Herman

Arts, Media & Culture News with 'tude

GREG’S PALASTERIN’

April 28, 2006 by Jan Herman

ARMED MADHOUSE by Greg PalastThe 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.”


GREG“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

Share on email
Email
Share on facebook
Facebook
Share on twitter
Twitter
Share on reddit
Reddit

Filed Under: main

Jan Herman

When not listening to Bach or Cuban jazz pianist Chucho Valdes, or dancing to salsa, I like to play jazz piano -- but only in the privacy of my own mind.
Another strange fact... Read More…

About

My Books

Several books of poems have been published in recent years by Moloko Print, Statdlichter Presse, Phantom Outlaw Editions, and Cold Turkey … [Read More...]

Straight Up

The agenda is just what it says: news of arts, media & culture delivered with attitude. Or as Rock Hudson once said in a movie: "Man is the only … [Read More...]

Contact me

We're cutting down on spam. Please fill in this form. … [Read More...]

Archives

Blogroll

Abstract City
AC Institute
ACKER AWARDS New York
All Things Allen Ginsberg
Antiwar.com
arkivmusic.com
Artbook&
Arts & Letters Daily

Befunky
Bellaart
Blogcritics
Booknotes
Bright Lights Film Journal

C-SPAN
Noam Chomsky
Consortium News
Cost of War
Council on Foreign Relations
Crooks and Liars
Cultural Daily

The Daily Howler
Dark Roasted Blend
DCReport
Deep L
Democracy Now!

Tim Ellis: Comedy
Eschaton

Film Threat
Robert Fisk
Flixnosh (David Elliott’s movie menu)
Fluxlist Europe

Good Reads
The Guardian
GUERNICA: A Magazine of Art & Politics

Herman (Literary) Archive, Northwestern Univ. Library
The Huffington Post

Inter Press Service News Agency
The Intercept
Internet Archive (WayBackMachine)
Internet Movie Database (IMDb)
Doug Ireland
IT: International Times, The Magazine of Resistance

Jacketmagazine
Clive James

Kanopy (stream free movies, via participating library or university)
Henry Kisor
Paul Krugman

Lannan Foundation
Los Angeles Times

Metacritic
Mimeo Mimeo
Moloko Print
Movie Geeks United (MGU)
MGU: The Kubrick Series

National Security Archive
The New York Times
NO!art

Osborne & Conant
The Overgrown Path

Poets House
Political Irony
Poynter

Quanta Magazine

Rain Taxi
The Raw Story
RealityStudio.org
Bill Reed
Rhizome
Rwanda Project

Salon
Senses of Cinema
Seven Stories Press
Slate
Stadtlichter Presse
Studs Terkel
The Synergic Theater

Talking Points Memo (TPM)
TalkLeft
The 3rd Page
Third Mind Books
Times Square Cam
The Tin Man
t r u t h o u t

Ubu Web

Vox

The Wall Street Journal
Wikigate
Wikipedia
The Washington Post
The Wayback Machine (Internet Archive)
World Catalogue
World Newspapers, Magazines & News Sites

The XD Agency

Share on email
Email
Share on facebook
Facebook
Share on twitter
Twitter
Share on reddit
Reddit
This blog published under a Creative Commons license

an ArtsJournal blog

Copyright © 2025 · Magazine Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in