Another Breezy Sunday Book Review
Stop the Madhouse!
By Gil Brady, 7-29-07
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| Caption: "Armed Madhouse" by Greg Palast available at Amazon.com | |
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JACKSON, Wyo – He’s been called a “cross between Sam Spade and Sherlock Holmes,” or as one White House spokesman reportedly said it best, “We hate that sonovabitch.”
If you don’t know who Greg Palast is then it’s time you woke up and realized you can’t afford to still be sleeping while there’s a former corporate fraud investigator dropping juicy bombshells in his latest book “Armed Madhouse.”
From stuffed shirts to James Baker’s desk drawers, corrupt executives and shadowy political rainmakers fear what Britain’s Guardian newspaper calls “investigations up there with Woodward and Bernstein — and a lot funnier.”
While Palast’s Jack Anderson-inspired mudraking exposes make The New York Times’ best-seller lists, ironically you won’t find his well-researched and highly polished screeds there — despite the red-hot following of nearly two million readers of his Web column.
Reading “Armed Madhouse” indicated just how much the mainstream news establishment has been steadily sedating us with either the flashy “Big Story” or fluffy celebrity trivia — including The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, Olbermann, FOX and Meet the Press.
Why don’t A-list reporters dig in and follow up on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights‘ investigation into well-founded allegations of electoral fraud?
At some point, Palast’s book made me slap my lovely momma and go, “Hot damn, Louise! So, that’s what investigative reporting is?”
It also made me angry. Angry that while Big Media has been lazily and arrogantly keeping us in the dark and taking voters for granted — with their often lackluster, spineless, sensational, superficial and “safe” globe-trotting reportage — democracy at home has apparently spiraled down the tubes.
But maybe it’s not all the Big Boyz’ fault.
Maybe, we’re as much to blame for being fast asleep too, or worse indifferent to guarding the sacred pillars of our fragile democracy? After all, with the war rightfully sucking up all the oxygen among the talking heads who has any breath left for a few million regularly disenfranchised and faceless voters?
And let’s be honest: Aren’t the flying elbows of Hillary and Obama and their whole gender versus race thing just plain sexier and more exciting?
Palast’s arch, Bogarting style and the probing questions he raises ought to at least tweak the curiosity of anyone who: a) fancies themselves a red-blooded, patriotic American who believes the U.S. Constitution is not some quaint artifact to be played fast and loose with for political gain; b) calls themself a newshound; c) is a mild-mannered and well-informed citizen up-to-date on current affairs, if only to keep up with their know-it-all cocktail circuit.
Among Palast’s more controversial claims, of which some are gaining mainstream traction:
1) “Peak Oil” is a useful hoax, based on a 51-year-old theory by Dr. M. King Hubbert, perpetuated by the oil multinationals and petrol juntas — What! (Hold that objection).
Among other official fictions like “WMD,” Palast shows that all that sloganeering about spreading democracy in Iraq was just happy talk and hot air to sell the ill-fated invasion to a frightened, vengeful and patriotic post-9/11 public.
We’re in Mesopotamia and we’re staying in Mess-o-potamia, regardless of the invasion’s horrific costs and abject failures, to make sure Iraq’s oil is not privatized and over-produced. We are there, Palast says, not to open up the spikot but to protect OPEC quotas and the House of Saud’s price-fix racket.
But there’s an even bigger player in the “Great Game” causing all kinds of consternation and hair-pulling for the West and the White House. However, you’ll have to read Palast’s book to find out who they are.
To support his counter-intuitive indictment, Palast uses illustrations of officious-looking documents allegedly leveraged from GOP fix-it-man and former Bush I-era Secretary of Smooth James Baker’s secret files.
With his armory of loaded “smoking guns,” Palast blows away the much-ballyhooed “Peak Oil” hysteria and neo-con pipedreams of cake-walking through Babylon on the way to establishing a Middle East free-market zone in a year as originally concieved.
In fact, Palast claims, the globe has plenty of untapped black gold. And that’s exactly the way the good old boy Texas cartel and corrupt Saudi sheiks want it kept: untapped and percieved as scarce.
A slick, manipulated sandbox Saddam didn’t play well with others in and for now the neo-cons have been kicked out of.
2) Kerry lost because Republicans successfully suppressed, purged and intimidated over 3 million votes and voters in the 2004 election – scrubbing over 90,000 innocent African-Americans, miscast as “felons,” off Florida’s voter rolls with the alleged help of Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris.
In some parts of the country, according to Palast’s math, black voters in 2004 were 9 times more likely than whites not to have their ballots counted.
Further, in an e-mail purportedly released by the House Judiciary Committee in March, Tim Griffith, once Karl Rove’s right-hand man, gloated that “no [U.S.] national press picked up” a BBC Television story reporting that the Rove team had developed an elaborate scheme to challenge the votes of thousands of African Americans in the 2004 election.
Guess who lead the BBC news team coverage?
3) Inspired by Jim Crow-era “poll taxes” and other 24th Amendment violations, a plan is already underfoot to rig the 2008 election by “spoiling” or “losing” the ballots of the biggest voting block in the West: a people who still vote largely Democratic.
Through statistical analysis, official responses and photos of shockingly fraudulent-appearing documents, Palast illuminates the sorrowful example of New Mexico’s tragically flawed 2004 vote, suggesting that voting in America is a “class privilege.”
Because the press is scared to investigate anything on its own that hasn’t already been “blessed” by at least an official inquiry, Palast has likely unmasked us as a dumbed-down nation, oblivious to our ugly “voters apartheid,” where income-level in America is the greatest predictor of whose votes are counted and whose are “spoiled,” lost or uncounted.
The meat and potatoes of this BBC television reporter’s new book are Palast’s film noir-like detective skills and outrageous gumshoe tricks to dig up the dirt on the bogus War on Terror, greedy schemes by the World Bank, IMF and western oil oligarchs to suck little nations dry of their vast energy reserves and petro-dollars. And, most outrageously, the alleged diabolical program to snatch the 2008 election from the used-to-being ass-whupped Democrats.
But his biggest poisoned darts are aimed at the biased, slack-jawed U.S. media establishment, or “media border guards,” as Palast calls them, that keep all these structurally unconstitutional, anti-democratic shenanigans off-air, off the front pages and thus unreported in the land of the free and the brave.
“Armed Madhouse” is chock-full of photographed documents marked “secret” and “confidential” that have somehow, and perhaps miraculously, fallen into Palast’s hands. And because his work is so unfailingly backed-up, the label “conspiracy nut” doesn’t stick.
One of the private joys of reading Palast is getting an up close peek at the supporting documentation—as if the reader is sharing in the giddy reportorial process of illicit discovery that nails down an otherwise unbelievable story.
The author covers lots of ground and dark episodes of alleged official wrongdoing, cronyism and cover ups in his 400 pages. Some of which would have benefited from more photos or closer details of key documents to make bullet proof if not also more page-turning.
Still, if you view being anything less than au courant in this age of disinformation, spin, sucker-punches, lies and deception as a sin then “Armed Madhouse” is for you. Though reading it is likely to make you mad enough to want to shout, “Say it ain’t so!”
So far, Palast’s latest wiseacre. slapshot exposé appears to be as solid, revelatory and entertaining as it is incredible.
Click here for an original BBC report on possible voter fraud in Florida
[End of article]It is hard to know where to start with this claptrap. So I will not bother. Folks: ignore this ignorant rant - it is so poorly written and researched I am amazed it got published.
Comment By Gil Brady, 7-29-07Wow, Rod,
Real in-depth response.
Turn a blind eye, ignore.
You must consider yourself a real intellectual.
Everything is relative Gil
Comment By Gb, 7-29-07Rod,
Dig your pithy style. However, pith is one thing; glib is quite another.
Care to attack the facts or arguments presented?
best,
gb
The last I heard it was not the Texas oil cartel that filed lawsuit after lawsuit to stop drilling, it was environmental groups for a variety of reasons. They want to save the gidgy widgy, they want to preserve the beauty, they don't want contaminated air, they don't like roads, etc etc etc. I would swear that it is the "neocons", which I presume is Republicans, that want more drilling, and the media and Democrats who are bitterly opposed.
As for WMDs, I believe that was a big focus of the entire free world long before George Bush was elected President, did he really have that much influence back in the 90s?
I'll bet he even slipped in that the WTC bombing was masterminded by the President too huh?
Yeah right the election was stolen from Kerry, they checked and rechecked ad naseum and could not find any wrong doing on the part of Republicans.
There is enough male bovine excrement in this article to fertilize my yard and garden for the next hundred years.
One observation about Palast's theorizing against peak oil: it's all just words. One is free to take Palast at his word. It doesn't matter much anyhow, because the peak oil cause is lost. The argument that we should be preparing for imminent liquid fuels shortages is over. Business as usual prevails.
Some established facts to compare against Palast's theorizing:
--Hubbert's prediction of peak and decline for the US were DIS-believed by Big Oil up through the 80s. His prediction of world peak were simply ignored. He was hardly adored by the companies that employed him.
--Hubbert is on film saying that his original prediction for a worldwide peak in 1995 would be delayed "by about ten years" because of OPEC's curtailment of supply in the 70s. That would put peak about now.
--Oil extraction rate worldwide has been flat since May of 2005, when the new record for production of crude oil was set at just approx. 75 mmb/d.
--No new supergiant fields are being discovered. In fact, the rate of discovery for such fields peaked in the 1960s.
--Most crude oil comes from a small number of these giant fields, and of the top 14, most or perhaps all are in decline (Cantarell in Mexico and Burgan in Kuwait, definitely so. Ghawar in Saudi Arabia, perhaps, but try to get straight information from the Saudis).
--Worldwide spare capacity (extra oil lying around to be tapped in case of sudden need) has all but evaporated. Indeed, only the Saudis "claim" to have any excess capacity.
--As soon as this spare capacity began seriously to erode, oil prices began to spike in 2003-2004. Oil prices continue to trend upward. They're at nominal highs at this moment.
--Saudi Arabia, the world's largest reserve, the world's second largest exporter (behind Russia) has not increased its supply rate for two years. They claim this is "voluntary." They are "purposely" cutting back cashing in on current high oil prices.
--Exporting countries such as Venezuela and Canada are now counting the worst quality sludge as "reserves." They are expending vast amounts of time, energy, and capital trying to turn the stuff into synthetic oil. They are, in effect, rolling their pennies.
--World demand for crude oil products shows no sign of letting up.
This is the news. Nothing is being done about it. Let Palast theorize away if he wishes.
Marion,
Thought you might appreciate this, since you're convinced everything was tidy in Fla. during our last two general election cycles. It's from the Miami Herald. There's lots more out there too.
Florida has still not undone the improper purge of 2000
With less than six months to go before the presidential election, thousands of Florida voters who may have been improperly removed from the voter rolls in 2000 have yet to have their eligibility restored.
Records obtained by The Herald show that just 33 of 67 counties have responded to a request by state election officials to check whether or not nearly 20,000 voters should be reinstated as required under a legal settlement reached between the state, the NAACP and other groups nearly two years ago.
Some of the counties that have failed to respond to the state include many of Florida's largest, including Broward, Miami-Dade, Orange and Palm Beach.
Those counties that have responded told the state that they have restored 679 voters to the rolls so far -- more than enough to have tipped the balance of the 2000 election had they voted for Al Gore. President Bush won Florida and the presidency by 537 votes. -- Many voters not yet back on rolls (Miami Herald)
Palast has a history of innumeracy. He is incapable of pursuing the science behind the simple physical truth of peak oil. Though much of his other writings are in fact dead on and worth everyone's consideration, his blatherings about peak oil are specious at best, self-serving at worst.
What he has failed to note is that the discovery that the earth is a sphere occurred some several centuries ago and that fact is not in dispute. He also fails to note that spheres are inherently finite. Therefore, peak oil will happen, has already happened or we are right on top of it, which in any event requires quick action. If we have a peak 30 years in the future as some who have never been right before suggest, then great. That means we have enough time to use our relatively cheap energy to prepare for when it does peak. If it has already happened, oh, well. Been fun.
The oil conspiracy part is so completely ridiculous on its face that any scientist or reasonably sane person will see it is so. But, that doesn't stop those who live with the affliction known as "psychology of previous investment" from cheering on the current paradigm. People suffering this affliction believe that since we have spent so much time, money, energy and human effort on this world, it must continue. This sophistry is what causes otherwise sane people to continue believing in infinite growth. Unfortunately too many people are afflicted with this nonsense and will urge their civil servants to cut through the "conspiracy" and get them more oil pronto.
You can find truly interesting information about this physical process known as peaking production of oil by going to any of the following websites:
http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/Index.html
http://www.energybulletin.net/primer.php
http://www.tomudall.house.gov/display2.cfm?id=11447&type=Issues
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8677389869548020370
I highly recommend you go to the last link first. It is a movie that quite accurately covers the material you will need to get started. Tom Udall and Roscoe Bartlett are the U.S. House of Representatives who form the leadership of the Peak Oil caucus. I've listed Udall's site here.
The votes were counted by various media after the SCOTUS made their ruling, remember, and President Bush still got the majority of the votes. Remember Gore insisted on throwing out all of the military votes, or there would have never been a question, President Bush far and away had the majority of them.
Don't you guys think it is about time to quit trying to think of some way to change that election? The clock cannot and will not be turned back.
By the way Mike, you left out one big reserve of oil....ANWR. I'm not sure what you call giant oil fields, but Wyoming has started some pretty big ones the last few years, the main impediment to them is the lawsuits filed by enviros.
Marion,
SCOTUS had no bearing on the 2004 vote.
Go on-line, pick your "reputable source." FOX News has also, albeit briefly, covered this underreported topic.
Then go to U.S. Commission on Civil Rights -- they're still hashing out the 2004 vote and trying to figure out exactly what happened.
Just because past election results can't be undone, and no one here is asking for that, does that mean those who desire clean, fair and constitutionally sound elections...where everyone's vote counts regardless of economic status or race...in the future should throw in the towel?
Millions of uncounted votes--not due to individual error--every time around is unacceptable in a republic or a democracy.
It seems as if your attitude is: "So what? Live with it". But maybe it only sounds that way?
Should we try and do everything possible to make sure everyone's vote counts in the future and is faithfully recorded or not?
In Violation of Federal Law, Ohio's 2004 Presidential Election Records Are Destroyed or Missing
http://www.alternet.org/story/58328/
In 56 of Ohio's 88 counties, ballots and election records from 2004 have been "accidentally" destroyed, despite a federal order to preserve them -- it was crucial evidence which would have revealed whether the election was stolen.
Since the 2000 election is what you were refering to, I thought that is what you were talking about.
Wasn't it supposed to be Ohio that was messed up in 2004? But then as I remember it was the Dems that they discovered doing some messing around.
Remember the 1960 election? Millions of Chicago dead felt strongly enough about John Kennedy to rise from the grave and vote for him. that was discovered right after the very clsoe election. Richard Nixon refused to let there be a challenge, he felt the country did not need that kind of fight. That was the first presidential election I voted in, one had to be 21 in those days. So yes, everyone needs to move on, not sulk for 50 years.
I agree that everyone's vote should count, but only once. I firmly believe a photo id is good. Skulldugery can occur in any party by anyone.
They were supposed to be held for 22 months, and 22 months and a week after the election the judge said hang on to them? And they want to determine if enough of this or that ethnicity voted? Who won or lost in those precincts? Frankly it doesn't make sense to be fighting this nearly 3 years later.
I watched Chris Matthews interview Russ Feingold Sunday. As you know Feingold is trying to rig up a special council. Wallace reminded him of the number of interviews thay have done, the 8500 pages of documents that have turned up nothing, and asked if he had any new information. Feingold admitted that so far there has been no evidense of a smoking gun, but he (Feingold) "thinks" there must be something. He definately wants Rove, he said and I guess he is willing to spend millions of taxpayer money to try to get him. I do not understand that.
definition: a giant oil field contains more than 500 million barrels of recoverable oil /
there is considerable uncertainty regarding both the size and quality of the oil resources that exist in ANWR, per the EIA (pro-oil tank) /
A WY Outdoor Council report concludes that if the 3.9 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil underlying federal lands in the Rocky Mountains were drilled, it would satisfy the nation's energy appetite for only 198 days.
CO2, the thing is no one can know for sure until the field runs dry exactly how much oil there is in a location. Wyoming has wells still pumping after more than 70 years, perhaps some as long as a hundred years. Technology has changed dramatically, making it feasible to obtain fuel from different sources.
Uranium (which we also have a lot of) was selling for $10, now it is 135 and going up. Things change.
Does that mean I don't think we should be concerned about using resources carefully? Of course not, I think it is ridiculous to live in 10-20-30,000 sq foot houses, fly private jets, etc, and I am very frugal, but I am not going to loose sleep over those who do squander resources.
The WY outdoor council thinks wolves are good for ungulates and livestock too. They have lots of agendas, lots of opinions, but their conclusions are pretty out there. Being able to control other people is the main thrust of what they do.
Now if you want to worry about shortages, worry about water. I am far more concerned that we will run out of water long before we run out of fuel.
Folks,
Some info on the "hackability" of electronic voting machines
July 28, 2007
Scientists’ Tests Hack Into Electronic Voting Machines in California and Elsewhere
By CHRISTOPHER DREW
The New York Times
Correction Appended
Computer scientists from California universities have hacked into three electronic voting systems used in California and elsewhere in the nation and found several ways in which vote totals could potentially be altered, according to reports released yesterday by the state.
The reports, the latest to raise questions about electronic voting machines, came to light on a day when House leaders announced in Washington that they had reached an agreement on measures to revamp voting systems and increase their security.
The House bill would require every state to use paper records that would let voters verify that their ballots had been correctly cast and that would be available for recounts.
The House majority leader, Representative Steny H. Hoyer, Democrat of Maryland, and the original sponsor of the bill, Representative Rush D. Holt, Democrat of New Jersey, said it would require hundreds of counties with paperless machines to install backup paper trails by the presidential election next year while giving most states until 2012 to upgrade their machines further.
Critics of the machines said that some of the measures would be just stopgaps and that the California reports showed that security problems needed to be addressed more urgently.
The California reports said the scientists, acting at the state’s request, had hacked into systems from three of the four largest companies in the business: Diebold Election Systems, Hart InterCivic and Sequoia Voting Systems.
Thousands of their machines in varying setups are in use.
The reports said the investigators had created situations for each system “in which these weaknesses could be exploited to affect the correct recording, reporting and tallying of votes.”
Voting experts said the review could prompt the California secretary of state, Debra Bowen, to ban the use of some of the machines in the 2008 elections unless extra security precautions were taken and the election results were closely audited.
Matthew A. Bishop, a professor of computer science at the University of California, Davis, who led the team that tried to compromise the machines, said his group was surprised by how easy it was not only to pick the physical locks on the machines, but also to break through the software defenses meant to block intruders.
Professor Bishop said that all the machines had problems and that one of the biggest was that the manufacturers appeared to have added the security measures after the basic systems had been designed.
By contrast, he said, the best way to create strong defenses is “to build security in from the design, in Phase 1.”
The reports also said the investigators had found possible problems not only with computerized touch-screen machines, but also with optical scanning systems and broader election-management software.
Professor Bishop and state officials cautioned that the tests had not taken into account the security precautions that are increasingly found in many election offices. Limits on access to the voting systems and other countermeasures could have prevented some intrusions, Professor Bishop and the officials said.
Industry executives said that the tests had not been conducted in a realistic environment and that no machine was known to have been hacked in an election. The executives said they would present more detailed responses on Monday at a public hearing.
Ms. Bowen said yesterday that it was vital for California to have secure machines for its presidential primary in February. She said she would announce by next Friday what actions she would take.
The findings could reverberate in Washington, where the full House still has to vote on the measure and the Senate plans to take up a similar bill this year.
Concerned about security, House and Senate Democratic leaders said they wanted to require a shift to paper ballots and other backup records to increase confidence that votes would be accurately counted.
State and local officials have argued that it is too late to make many of the changes without creating chaos next year. Advocates for the blind and other disabled voters say better equipment needs to be developed to enable them to vote without help from poll workers, as federal law requires.
In trying to balance all the concerns, Mr. Hoyer and Mr. Holt decided to delay the most sweeping change, a requirement that every ballot be cast on an individual durable piece of paper, from next year to 2012.
To ensure that all machines would have some paper backup, they agreed to require hundreds of counties in 20 states to at least add cash-register-style printers to their touch-screen machines for 2008 and 2010. New York, which has delayed replacing its lever machines, would have to buy a new system by November 2008.
Advocates for the disabled praised the compromise. For many disabled people to vote independently, the advocates said, the touch-screen machines need to be modified to include audio files that can read back the completed ballots, while the ballot-marking devices used with the optical scanning systems have to be changed to feed ballots automatically.
Ralph G. Neas, president of People for the American Way, a group that helped broker the deal, said the bill offered hope for an end to “unaccountable, unverifiable and inaccessible voting.”
Mr. Holt said the measure could “keep the country from going through another election where Americans doubt the results.”
Critics say the California findings suggest that Congress should press for a quicker shift from the touch screens to optical scanning, in which voters mark paper ballots. Advocates of those systems say that the paper ballots would be less vulnerable to manipulation than the paper trails generated by the touch-screen computers and that they would hold up better for manual recounts.
Correction: July 31, 2007
Because of an editing error, an article on Saturday about three electronic voting systems that were hacked in California misstated a requirement in a House bill meant to ensure that there is a paper record of each vote cast in the 2008 and the 2010 federal elections. It gives counties that now have paperless touch-screen machines the option of attaching printers to them or switching to optical-scanning systems that count paper ballots. Attaching printers is not the only choice.
Also, the article gave an incorrect spelling in some copies for the given name of California’s secretary of state, who said her state must have secure machines for its presidential primary in February. She is Debra Bowen, not Deborah.