The Best Democracy Money Can Buy: An Investigative Reporter Exposes the Truth About Globalization, Corporate Cons, and High Finance Fraudsters

(If I remember correctly, it was 4.3 million.)This is an extraordinary book. There are eight chapters and it reads like a house on fire. Incindiary.The first chapter deals with the fraudulent election in Florida in 2000, that led to the investiture (by the Supreme Court) of George W. Bush as president. I don't know about you, but I remember that when I first heard about it that I dimly recalled and then investigated something out of the past; the theft of a presidential election a couple of generations before, engineered out of Florida and squeezed through the courts, and saw that the Bush election heist was engineered almost the same way in every detail. Or so it seemed at the time. Then I thought, Hell, the Bushes did it the old-fashioned American way; they just bought it. You know, the gentlemanly thing; you bribe, you cheat, you steal, but you get others to do the dirty work for you, and out of sight. You stay on camera wearing a bright smile an' wearing a sharp tux. It's what you do when you've got that kind of money and those kinds of connections. But now thanks to Palast I've been given the ability to see deep into the mechanism of the fraud, and I am amazed by the complexity of the scheme. A filthy business, it must have taken a great deal of planning to work out the details; my guess is that 'W' set the plot in motion only seconds after he decided to run.Palast shows us how in the months before the election, Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, working in cordination with Governor Jeb Bush, ordered local election supervisors to purge nearly 60,000 voters from State registers. They were deleted because they were designated as felons on a special CD-ROM database created for Florida's Republican Administration and administrators, and they were both Democrats and Black. But were they felons? No. The outfit that created the election software scrub list, was a private company called DBT Online, which becmae ChoicePoint, of Atlanta, and they were paid four million dollars for it, and for their services in working it. By whom? Guess.One chapter: This entire business takes up about 81 pages of dense but thrilling reading. The story doesn't simply lie there on the table: Pinned down for examination it thrashes and writhes, snarling and lashing out, fighting to excape. One can say that Katherine Harris fought tooth and nail to avoid indictment and trial, and her final identification as a liar under oath, and a criminal before the State of Florida, and the nation. Jeb Bush was never brought to trial. Neither was he impeached while in office. Actually, his family's pressure on the media was so intense that the entirety of the story was never aired on any of the Television Channels, nor printed in the United States, in any paper. Instead, the details of the crimes Jeb Bush perpretated to get his brother into the office despite a significant lack of popular votes, had to be printed abroad in two English newspapers, the GUARDIAN and the OBSERVER, in a series of stories and articles by Greg Palast. The lashing tail of this story vanishes out of the door as Palast informs us that this corrupt electronic service, ChoicePoint of Atlanta, has morphed and spread and become a kind of authority in the new field of electronic voting, and hopes that its new programmable voting console (that cannot be counted or tallied outside of ChoicePoint's laboratories) will soon become ubiquitous throughout the United States of America, replacing the live poling place authorities we have been accustomed to for so long. (First the 2000 election, and then the 2004 election.)The Second Chapter has to do with the fortunes of the Bush family, generally; particularly the free-flowig sources of wealth associated with President George Herbert Walker Bush, and to a lesser degree, the remarkable financial manipulations of President George Walker Bush. (We get to see how Sr. got Jr. out of the military and into the Texas Air Guard, and how much it cost him.) Much of Bush Sr's money appears to have derived out of the Enron scandals of a few years ago; the theft of retirement funds, etc. It appears to be reasonable considering the close relationship between Bush Sr. and Ken Lay, CEO of that tricky, swindling conglomerate.Palast outlines for us Enron's method of globalizing its control of Utilities, and shows us that internationally, this means water as well as gas and oil and electricity. In poor South and Central American countries when the cost of water goes up 2, 3, 4 hundred percent, people suffer. The contrast between Poppy Bush's activities as ex-President and, say Jimmy Carter's is phenomenal. Whereas Carter helps the poor and encourages peace and the growth of economic development, Bush lobbies world leaders and politicians for his friends, the lobbyists of American Corporate power, and gains for himself significant percentages of the costs of the transactions -- like the sale (privatization) of utilities. We're talking millions.This is a very complex and intriguing chapter, and has much to do with the Saudis in all their numbers, from arms dealers to gold and oil speculators, and involves the very curious way the Bushes managed to smuggle members of the Bin Laden family out of the country and away from the FBI immediately after the second and final Twin Towers attack, 09/11.Chapter 3 has mostly to do with the way Texas Utliities firms like Enron, managed by getting Washington to pass deregulating legislation, in order to be able to legally swindle California (and other parts of the country -- as well as other parts of the world) out of billions of dollars in sky-high electricity bills.Chapter 4 had mostly to do with spontaneous and not-so-spontaneous reactions to Globalization get-togethers throughout the world. Much of the writing has to do with The World Bank and how it functions with the International Monetary Fund and the Inter-American Development Bank, to strip debtor nations of not only their wealth, but their sustenance. The crippling of Argentina as it is told here is an engrossing story.Chapter 5 has to do with class action suits moving through the country's legal guts, and how the money for legal work is being handled; well? Or ill?Chapter 6 focuses largely on General Pinochet of Chile, and Pat Robertson. (Strange bedfellows) The smell is incredible. By the way, did you know that Pat Robertson's father was a Senator and close personal friend and mentor of Senator Prescott Bush, George Sr's father? Anyway, watch Ol' greasy-faced Pat, that grifter, handle money! Is he slick! Are you old enough to remember his bid for the Presidency? His speeches? Remember his sincere declaration that he was not and had never been a Television Evangelist?Chapter 7 is Palast's turn on the American Small Town thing. You know, Grover's Corners, the Red, the White and the Blue and small town values. Or, home-grown integrity vs. WAL-MART.Chapter 8 is called KISSING THE WHIP, and has to do mostly, with English Journalism's way of self-censoring itself. Because England has no Freedom of the Press doctrine, as we do, and consequently no protection for journalists and particularly investigative ones, their behavior in virtually all situations, is robustly devious, and has to be. Very interesting. Here Palast shows his versatility by writing like an English journalist himself. What an unusual slang. Very interesting indeed.I can't say I enjoyed reading DEMOCRACY, as much as it thrilled or shocked me in new and different ways. The book doesn't read like anything else; I don't read a lot of Journalism and that's what Palast writes. But mostly the reason I don't read American journalism much anymore is because it has become so weak and flabby over the past twenty years, it doesn't know what it is or wants to be. So much in American newspapers and on Television is mushy, epicene jibberish I hate to waste my time. I feel insulted. Not to worry here. This man is not diffident. He knows what he's doing, and nobody's got him cowed.I've subscribed to his columns in THE OBSERVER now, and expect to get them on my computer. I'll buy his other book in a week or two. As long as I'm alive I intend to stay awake. You? For one thing, I wonder if that skinny little guy with the big ears, Obama, will be able to dig us out of this? The suspense, man! Or will the Oligarchy wreck the economy utterly and gnaw his bones? And ours? Look out over the legislature: It's like THE REVENGE OF THE ZOMBIES, waiting.

Actually, you can't according to Greg Palast who challenges the results of the 2000 election in which he charges Jeb Bush with instituting his own style of Jim Crow laws to ensure that his brother would get elected. It's unique because time and again conservative papers and organizations conducted studies to show that Bush would have won anyway. Palast concedes that a recount of the actual votes would back that up. But Palast is concerned with the voters who were not allowed to vote, and the votes that were not counted.He charges that more than 57,000 law-abiding citizens were improperly labeled as felons, and were kept from voting in Florida. These were almost all African-American who universally vote Democrat. There was an 80% criteria for finding a match of felon names. The company Choice Point started with a 90% match, but the state told them that was too high! They were told to make it an 80% match.So, a felon named John Johnson Jr. would also keep a law-abiding citizen named Jack Johnson or John O. Johnson from voting too. When did the state of Florida inform these people that they were on a felons list and could not vote? They didn't, even though they were supposed to give ample notice to allow any mistake to be corrected.The company that got the job of putting the fix in, Choice Point was awarded a multi-million dollar contract over other companies that would have done the same job better for literally pennnies per voter. Florida decided to pay much more per voter with Choice Point.Now here's the lie. Choice Point said that they did not use race as a criterion, but it was used as a matching criterion. Presto! Even with the disproportionate number of Blacks in the prison population, Palasts states that the number kept from voting was statistically way out of proportion to the number of felons.Just to ensure the outcome, the voting machines in Black neighborhoods were fewer and older than the ones in White neighborhoods. In some cases 18% of the Black vote was thrown out for one reason or another while in White neighborhoods were 1 to 2% was the norm. This was the perfect scam since anyone knows that Blacks would overwhelmingly vote for Gore, and the Whites would have had a large voting block for Bush.Florida's official reason was that the law prohibited felons from voting. They didn't want any felons to try to vote. (?)Palast asks, what felon wants to vote so badly that he would risk going back to jail for it? Good point! Not one person in Florida was arrested for voting twice.Then, there were the roving republican goon squads who went to wherever the recount was attempted to intimidate the recount process.Palast accuses the press of doing nothing or investigating nothing about a national election that was obviously rigged. When he offered the story to CBS, a network that has long since cowed to conservative screams of bias, they refused. Why? The CBS executive called the state of Florida to verify the story. They, the state, assured them there was nothing to it? Isn't that like asking the fox if he can be trusted to protect the henhouse? Palast gained a large audience in Europe bringing this story to light. It received almost no attention here, and when it did, it was way after the election.This was the most important part of the book for me. While I enjoyed his commentary on Wackenhut and other exposes, this one was the most riveting. It scares me. This isn't supposed to happen in the US. That is why I recommend this book and especially his newer one, "Armed Madhouse."Palast proves by showing leaked documents, pictures and statistic improbability that this and the 2004 election were stolen by electronic ballot stuffing. I thought this was only supposed to happen in a third world nation.Shouldn't someone go to jail for this? Shouldn't we be able to count on it?

This is a tough emotionally challenging book which dueled with all of my established and secure blocks my world stands on.Democracy is the best system of governance.......Corporations are successful due to all their collective hard work and customer focus.....Western governments are not corrupt.........Big Media always tells us the unedited truth......Standing for ones right against authority is bad.........I think the world need more Palasts to help us deal with our learned helplessness.

Although a Brit and I like to keep abreast of current affairs I must confess to not having heard of Greg Pallast before I read this book. For those who do not know, like me beforehand, Greg is an investigative journalist who has worked for a number of quality British newspapers and produced reports for the BBC. Likewise, I had never heard of Michael Moore until I found a book by him when I was working offshore and found one in my cabin and decided to read it. However, having read and seen films since by the latter and then seeing his comment on the cover of this book, I was pretty sure I was going to like it before I started. Like MM, it is full of documentary evidence in support of his findings but unlike MM, this evidence is due to the author's investigative efforts rather than a collation of evidence based on the efforts of others.Although I am always sceptical about the motives of politicians I still found this book a real eye opener and was unprepared for the extent of corruption in the highest places. For instance, Maggie's sell off of the country's silver (the public utilities) was actually due to following the teachings of a maverick professor in a Boston (USA) university. I never realised that the IMF and the World Bank were anything but benign institutions. However, the loans by these institutions come with strings attached. Countries are compelled to sell off their state owned utilities and largely USA-owned buyers snap them up at a bargain price and then increase the costs enormously which subsequently results in profits going out of the country and therefore reducing the country's ability to pay back the loan. A vicicous circle is thus created that keeps the country in debt.There are many other revelations in this book but don't want to spoil it too much for readers so I'll leave it at that. The only negative I can find is that I think it is a little self-indulgent and the style is a little Americanised for British taste but that doesn't detract from the content. I shouldn't hold the latter against him as Greg is an American although he has spent much of his working life in UK.

Really badly written (what - no editor?) but once you get into the rhythm of the book it very interesting and engaging. At the end of the book it mentions that some readers have found the book depressing... Greg Palast is so right about that.

Purchased as a gift for a dissertation. They loved the book and used it a lot. It arrived quickly and was a good price.

arrived in good time , good purchase , well worth the money