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WORSE THAN WE KNOW
Our emails are overrun with anti-Bush tirades as much as ra
dio and television are awash in liberal bashing, and we're jerked
back and forth by the swift-boating of anybody who rises to be
come a serious threat to orthodoxy: Clinton, Dean, Kerry, Rather.
Overwhelmed, we generally just feed on our addictions of right or
left propaganda and despair of ever knowing the real truth about
anything anymore.
Greg Palast is an old-fashioned investigative reporter who still
believes in going to the sources and asking them the difficult
questions. You don't want to hear the answers, and you won't if
you stay away from his latest book. Armed Madhouse (Penguin,
New York, 2006). Palast is too hot for corporate television and
most other media in America, though he is a contributing editor at
Harper's and the author of The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, his
2002 book that details, among other things, how the 2000 elec
tion was stolen.
According to Palast, it's even worse than we can imagine: our
conspiracy theories are true. He has been digging for facts long
enough now that he can connect a lot of dots. Reading Armed
Madhouse you find yourself
jolted by answers to those
vague questions that have been
floating in your brain, like, hey,
how come gasoline prices are
so high because of shortages,
yet oil companies are reporting
insanely high profits, and, gee.
corporate America is posting re
cord earnings while working America is losing wages and benefits
and wow, the Republicans really did steal the 2000 election and
the 2004 election and the 2008 election (already).
And, is it about oil? Oh, yes. it is, but not quite the way you
think. You already knew that the State Department, under Colin
Powell, w?' at odds with the Department of Defense, under Donald
Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz. Under Palast's tutelage, you find out
that it really is about oil. but State wants that oil to stay in the
ground, while Defense wants it on the world market. Defense is
fighting to seize that oil and pump it out of the ground and use
it to break the stranglehold of the Organization of the Petroleum
Exporting Countries (OPEC). State, backed by Exxon 'n them, wants
that oil to stay right where it is. because tht higher OPEC pushes
the price, the more profit our oil companies make, and they're do
ing great right now, thank you.
Palast has done a lot of homework to help you understand
what's going on in Iraq, and it begins to make more sense, in
a horrible way, as he puts the puzzle together. Our first guy in
charge after the invasion. General Garner, had a 90-day plan for
restoring essential services and electing a new Iraqi government:
basically accomplishing regime change and getting out. He was
immediately fired, because the neocons at Defense had their own
plan for selling off all of Iraq's assets—oil, banks, whatever—
which forced the Iraqis into the resistance movement that contin
ues today at the great cost of Iraqi and American lives.
How can they do that? Because we let them. In his chapter on
the elections, Palast goes right down to the grass roots to explain
just how the Republicans stole Florida in 2000 and then Ohio and
New Mexico in 2004 and how the fix is in for 2008. He's a numbers
man, but he also goes out and talks to precinct voter registrars
and blacklisted ''felons* who have never been accused of any crime
except being black.
Why do they do that? In his chapter on the world economy,
Palast lays out for us how the multinational corporations batten
on low-cost labor and dodge responsibility for pensions and health
care while pitting American workers against wage slaves in China,
India and South America.
In short. Palast is writing about class war and how it all fits to
gether beneath the sands of Arabia, in the sweatshops of the East,
in the uninsured unemployment lines of America, in the attempts
to fight back in South America by such “enemies" as Hugo Chavez.
Palast operates in the belief that the truth shall make you free
and at the end of his book, he harks back to that American origi
nal, Huey Long, who seized on the anger seething in the down
trodden who had for too long been ground under the heels of big
oil, big money and corrupt government. Long threw such a scare
into the ruling classes that Franklin Roosevelt was able to water
down his program and get it passed as the New Deal, after Long
was murdered. Is another Huey Long lurching toward Washington,
or have the money guys become too adept at killing the dream?
LOCAL NOTE
In case you're wondering what the rearranged sign on the local
Republican headquarters said, it was "Yur Cunt Party." Shocking!
Pete McCommons Editor & Publisher edilor@flagpole com
According to Palast, it’s
even worse than we can
imagine: our conspiracy
theories are true.
THIS WEEK’S ISSUE:
NEWS & FEATURES
This is Not a Review! 9
Ann Coulter’s Godless: The Church of Liberalism
If you tove Ann Coulter, don’t read this.
Burger To Go 10
My John Wayne Moment
When guns are hip. only hippies will have guns.
Recognition Of Awesomeness 17
The 2006 Flagpole Athens Music Awards Return For Another Great Show Honoring Local Music.
The awards show shines a light on those whove made local music so vibrant and vital ow the past year.
AthFest 2006: Sound Advice 23
Free Outdoor Music On Multiple Stages! What An Easy Choice! But Things Get Trickier Once The Club
Crawl Kicks In. Flagpolds Music Staff Clues You In To The Best Bets For When The Sun Goes Down.
AthFest 2006: A Closer Look 24
This Year's Festival Features More Than 175 Separate Performers. Flagpole Examines 10
Performances That Shouldn't Be Missed, And Leaves The Remaining 94% Up To You.
AthFest 2006: Dexter Romweber 27
Though He May Have Cleaned Up His Act, The Primitive Rock Of Romweber
Remains As Dangerous And Dirty As Ever. A New Film 20 Years In The Making
Documents His Growth As A Musician And As An Idiosyncratic Individual.
AthFest 2006: Time Toy 28
Finally Releasing Its Two-Decades-Old Album Fly Swatter / Ice Water.
A Remvrgorated Time Toy Turns Back The Clock But Looks Ahead
LETTERS
4
WRITERS’ATHFEST PICKS..
24
CITY PAGES
6
DEXTER ROMWEBER
27
ANN COULTER
9
TIME TOY
28
BURGER TO GO
10
C0UL1ER
29
BOOK REVIEW
11
HEROSSEVERUM
30
OUT THERE!
12
REDUX NATION
:ai
MOVIE DOPE *.
14
RECORD REVIEWS
32
MOVIE PICK
15
THREATS & PROMISES ....
33
MUSIC AWARDS
17
COMICS
34
ABC
19
REALITY CHECK
35
ATHFEST CHARTS
23
CLASSIFIEDS
36
EOITOR l PUBLISHER Pete McCommons
ADVERTISING DIRECTOR l PUBUSHER Alicia Nickles
PRODUCTION DIRECTOR Larry Tenner
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CITY EDfTOR Ben Emanuel
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ABC Chris Hassiotis. Ben Emanuel
WRITERS Michael Andrews. Tom Bavis, Will Brooks. Hillary Brown. T. W Burger, Tom Crawford, David Eduardo,
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Sanders, Old Smiley, Lee Valentine Smith. Jeff Tobias, Brandon Waddell. Emily Waldron, Michael Wehunt.
Gretchen Wood
CIRCULATION Charles Greenleaf. Clayton Aucion. JoJo GJideweil, Ansley Greene. Zxk Haas
WEB DESIGNER lan Rickert
ADVERTISING INTERN SieiaWitt
COVER DESIGN by Kelly Ruberto
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VOLUME 20
ISSUE NUMBER 24
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