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CD Feature/ Greg Palast: "Live from the Armed Madhouse"

  Tobias

The reaction of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and George Baker III to this album can easily be predicted: You and whose army? There is something to be said about that. After all – who is Greg Palast?

There are several answers to that. First of all, Greg Palast is a Los-Angeles born journalist working for Biritsh newspaper The Guardian and the BBC. As such, he has been involved in one of the single-most noteworthy claims of investigative journalism of the past few years, namely that the two last Presedential elections in the USA were rigged with three million ballots cast but never counted in 2004. Many have made him out to be a critic of big corporations, a supporter of ordinary Joe, a left-winged idealist, “the last honest journalist” and a cross-over between Jack Kerouac and Seymour Hersh, but it’s not that simple. If Palast is chastising the global players, it is not for a fear of change or a general aversion to the rules of the market. Rather, this man is after the truth. If there is a comparison which makes sense at all, you could see him as a 21st century version of Oriana Falacci, as someone who believes that journalism not only can not be objective, bur should not be in the face of leaders who laugh in the face of this very objectivity. His technique is simple, using questions to drive his rhetoric, but unlike Michael Moore, his work (and above all the reading of his work) doesn’t only spread reasonable doubt, but raises serious suspicions on the basis of hard facts - no faint whispers of conspiracy here. After having listened to “Live from the Armed House”, an hour-long lecture at the University of Tampa recorded in June of last year, you are certainly a different person than after “Fahrenheit 9/11”: While the latter left you with a notion of huge disappointment and powerlessness, this one sows the seed of wholy justified anger at a regime which rides roughshod over its people. Palast is a rapid-fire reader, but even if he were an accountant with a monotonous voice, his speech hits you right in the heart.

At the end, you’re left with a simple decision: What are you going to do about it? Of course, until you get to that question, there is plenty to laugh about, as this does not come across as a dry preach, but a breathtakingly exciting report with many at first amusing, but really totally absurd anecdotes. At the moment it may not yet amount to much, but the political elite should be careful with smiling this man away. Palast’s army is getting bigger with each day.

By Tobias Fischer

Homepage: Greg Palast
Homepage: Alternative Tentacles Records