Armed Madhouse: Undercover Dispatches from a Dying Regime [Paperback]

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.

I was lent this book by a mate who promised i would find it very interesting . Interesting is actually an understatement of such huge proportions that it makes the preceding sentence in itself an understatement....if that makes sense. This is a book that contains revelations that in any right thinking society would be be making scandalous headlines and precipitating the termination of high profile political careers and possible criminal charges. As it is i bet hardly anyone knows about the massive deceits perpetrated by the Republicans in America since 2000.
The book is an example of truly rigorous journalism - a lot of it carried out in the U.K. and it,s one that does,nt rely on hearsay or just expect you to believe what Palllast writes just because he wrote it.There is plenty of printed evidence to back up the claims made in the book. The claims basically boil down to these : That the Republicans have successively carried out massive electoral fraud to get and then keep George W Bush in the Whitehouse and that the invasion of Iraq had been planned before 9/11 and was exclusively about the oil...
Pallast explains in great detail how millions of legitimate democrat votes were lost and how millions of others were denied the right to vote at all. Possibly the most annoying thing about this is not that the Republicans did it but that the Democrats let them get away with it without barely a murmur. There is also a compelling section on how the American working class are being marginalised and disenfranchised by the ruling classes ,something that should resonate powerfully with the working class of this country as exactly the same thing is happening over here , started by Margaret Thatcher and scandalously carried on by New Labour.It must be said that in America this is based on denying black voters access to the ballot box -they are predominantly democrat meaning it will be fascinating to see how Barack Obama fares if he wins the democrat nomination.
Anyone used to reading dry and heavy academic tomes on politics will find Pallast,s writing refreshingly accessible.He uses humour effectively though in a one dimensional way and breaks things up into digestible bite sized chunks. Even so it can still be hard going with a relentless volley of facts and figures to take on board. This is not the authors fault of course, its the nature of the subjects he,s tackling . I found the book easier to absorb taken in small sections. Anymore than that and my brain started to fuse and i did,nt take in the important points. That's my failing though , not the writers . Readers more accustomed to this type of reading will find it a breeze, as did the mate who leant me the book.
Armed Madhouse is an important book that has,nt been given the attention it deserves, no surprise there as many of the means through which he could spread the word have vested interests in the Republicans staying in power. The presidential race in 2008 will be fascinating but it will be no surprise if the Republicans romped home.It,s democaracy ...but not as democracy truly should be, in fact nowhere near.

Palast has done a lot of investigative research and gives the best account I've read of the invasion of Iraq & the various ways in which US elections are rigged. On Iraq, he explains why Iraqi oil was not privatised: it would have broken the OPEC oil monopoly, dramatically reducing the price of oil & the profits of US Oil Majors, who would then have been reluctant to fund G. W. Bush's election campaign. On US elections, he shows how blacks, Hispanics & Amerindians, who tend to vote Democrat, were cheated out of their votes by not regeistering them, not counting their postal votes, rejecting them as felons etc. It sounds as if this affected the results of the 2000 & 2004 elections.