Superb Personal Effort, Narrow, Needs Other References,
Robert Parry
This is a superb personal effort by the author, and it does a tremendous job of harvesting both news media stories and key books. It is however a bit anrrow, and I recommend other references.
A simple example: he speaks of the narrow Bush victory in Florida without reference to Greg Palast's PRE-ELECTION reporting, subsequently summarized in the book, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy or any understanding of the fact that over a year in advance of the election Jeb Bush stole the election by disenfranchizing over 35,000 black voters whose names were remotely–very remotely–linked to the names of felons from other states (only Florida felons cannot vote, but Jeb Bush wanted this so bad he paid ten times the going rate to a “friendly” company that used Texas felon lists to “disqualify” voters who only found out they were disqualified on election day.
Another example: he has a great (but dated) appendix on CIA and who it has funded as intermediaries and end recipients of CIA cash all over the world, but he completely misses the same necessary information for Wall Street, the 40,000 non-profits created to hide wealth and manage perceptions (as well as lure people off land with gold, see Confessions of an Economic Hit Man).
There are many other books on the Nazi, mafia, and Saudi corruption ties of the Bush family, and there are also other books that are more comprehensive and current on the problems we face today because of young Bush II and his war criminal vice President. See for example, “Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil; Rule by Secrecy: The Hidden History That Connects the Trilateral Commission, the Freemasons, and the Great Pyramids and my personal favority, Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency.
Robert Parry is a gifted investigative reporter. His first book, Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & ‘Project Truth' remains among my favorites. In this book, what may be his most important message is this: the extremists Republicans (I am an estranged moderate Republican disgusted with Karl Rove's hijacking of the party) have combined secrecy, lies, and “perception management” to completely confuse and mislead the public, while carrying out high crimes and misdimeanors against the government, the treasury, the military, and the people.
From Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon to Karl Rove and Dick Cheney and the young (and rather stupid) George Bush II, this book paints a very ugly and accurate picture of the pathological abuse of power and of the public purse by these people. Most of them need to be tried, convicted, and jailed. None of them are fit for public office in a moral informed democracy, but then, as the author makes clear, we do not live in a moral, informed democracy. We live in a The Cheating Culture: Why More Americans Are Doing Wrong to Get Ahead where most Americans cannot identify all the states around their own, much less other countries. We have gotten the government we deserve.
One final observation: this book is super but in isolation. I am increasingly persauded that Amazon should digitize ALL books, so that customers can “buy” composite renditions of information that honor copyright at the paragraph and page level, while creating unique original visualizations and summarizations that are free of copyright and can be bought on their own. I would pay $1,000 for a visualization–a poster–of all of the criminal, dictator, and immoral connections of George Bush II and his evil former master, Dick Cheney (whose Secret Service nickname is “Edgar,” for the guy that managed the puppet). Bush has finally figured out, way too late, that Cheney hijacked and destroyed the first six years.
See also:
Bush's Brain
9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA, Fourth Edition
Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy
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