ISBN: 978-0-525-95207-7

Publisher: Dutton

“In the eighteenth century when kings ruled by divine right and earthly whips, folks took it and said OK.  Then Rousseau wrote Discourse on the Origin of Inequality Among Men. He said the idea that a vulgar little hedge fund speculator like The Sack is worth $7billion and you don’t have health insurance (he cited the eighteenth century equivalent) is because we’ve all agreed to his rules, his rules of property, ownership and law. And why do we just go along with his rules? We don’t know, because the rules go all the way back to when there were guys named Ugh and Thug. Thug had a big rock and put a fence around the best dirt for growing corn and left Ugh with just about nothing and  Thug said “this is the rule and this is my big-ass rock. Get it?” and Ugh said “OK”

So who holds the big rock today?  Who made up this system and who enforces it for The Sack’s benefit, for Goldfinger, for BP PLC?” (p.33)

So it’s snowing outside and the thermometer hung on a tree in the backyard reads 20 below zero and its time to curl up in front of the fireplace with a good book and this good book is HOT.  It thrills like a spy novel but  is even more exciting because it is TRUE. Jim Hightower says it is like a cross between Sam Spade and Sherlock Holmes, I’d agree.  Robert Kennedy Junior calls Palast the “last of the great investigative reporters” but I’d like to hope maybe he’ll inspire more to follow.  A reviewer for the Chicago Tribune says that Greg Palast’s stories are so relevant they threaten to alter history and all I can say, is I certainly hope so because history needs altering NOW.  I read, reviewed and loved Armed Madhouse, said no one connects the dots like Greg Palast and now this one, even better. I want to shout about it, spread the word and see a new generation change history the way my generation tried to. A lot of folks smell a rat in much of the news that we see on television, we can all speculate about what we think REALLY happens but Greg Palast goes after the evidence and proves the case against big oil, corporations and Wall St.

He also speaks far better for himself than any reviewer possibly could so I have to quote some more, this time from his acknowledgements:

“I didn’t write this book. I just wrote it down. This work, like all my work, is the creation of folks with more soul and dedication than I can muster even sober.  They include my sources, too many who’d be endangered if I named them, though most are in danger anyway.” . .  . I don’t entirely agree, his writing style and organization of a multitude of facts make the necessary impact, but I have to admire his modesty as well as his humor. 

And moving right along:

“This  work is dedicated first to the Two Thousand: the donors to the Palast Investigative Fund. It’s because of you that I’m not picking cotton on Mr. Murdoch’s plantation. You allow us to hunt for news, not dollars.  And I would thank our corporate sponsors; but there are none, and that’s plenty.”

And one more:

“Like all gumshoes, I fancy myself a cultured man, with a knowledge of the classics good enough to fake it at a Soho cocktail party. I’ve thrown in two plagiarized lines each from Dante, T.S. Elliot, Ezra Pound, Shakespeare, Raymond Chandler, Charles Bukowski, the Torah and Oscar Hammerstein and one each from Yeats, Melville, Schiller, Douglas Adams and St. Augustine. The first 100 readers to find just one unattributed reference from six of these authors and saints will get a free film, book or deck of marked cards from our foundation.”   . . . . So on that note folks, get this book, read every line carefully (you’ll want to anyway) and maybe claim an additional prize (just reading the truth told so well is in itself a prize). Like I said, this book is HAPPENING.