“It’s amazing what you can see when you look.” – Yogi Berra
This is quite possibly the greatest and most important spoken-word album Alternative Tentacles has ever released. Since the Jello Biafra-founded label is home to some of the finest political commentary ever recorded (having catalogued the most pressing and pointed works of esteemed American linguist and theorist Noam Chomsky, begrudging historian Howard Zinn, award-winning author and lecturer Michael Parenti, and, of course, hours and hours of Biafra’s own fiery opposition), that is truly saying something, no hyperbole. In all that history, no one has nailed together such a razor-sharp combination of personally researched, pinpoint fact-declaration and compelling, common-sense storytelling presentation without resorting to what naysayers refer to as badgering, know-it-allism, or conceit. You can tell the guy works for the media with his level of poise and public speaking skill. And, in this rare case, it’s not a bad thing. I mean, have you ever looked in Wolf Blitzer’s eyes? He does more Ritalin than all the high schools in LA, lines of the shit as wide as roadkill.
Greg Palast, the man and future legend, is a New York Times bestselling author and award-winning investigative journalist. Through the dogged determination proven by 20-odd years of rigorous personal research, he displays the raw ins and swollen outs of the last two U.S. elections -- stolen through uncounted African-American votes -- the exact destructive process white governments created for the purpose of abusing Iraq and its monumental crude nest egg, and why Hugo Chavez is about to be assassinated by the big-business-controlled American government (wait for it), among other now- and soon-to-be-proven conspiracies, in a method history many see as being even more captivating than the late, great Dr. Hunter S. Thompson’s political commentary, and definitely more warm and hopeful. It took me three listens just to get over the shock that people like this still exist, let alone people working for the British Broadcasting Corporation. I’ve been waiting for truth like this for years. Thank Gawd almighty, truth at last.
It was from that BBC vantage point, on that moistened aisle off the coast of Europe, where Palast first broke the story that Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris stole the 2000 American presidential election. On Live From The Armed Madhouse, his follow-up to 2004’s Weapon Of Mass Instruction, he not only outlines the last two electoral rapings, but the plan they’re going to use to steal 2008, and so much more. Want to know how the world works? Listen to his train of thought for yourself. This is not the liberal knee-jerk, pundit hysteria Michael Moore (Gawd bless him) has slapped together since his first few films got his name on all the media blackout lists. Palast is the last great reporter, the likes of whom we haven’t seen since the days of McCarthyism, who is willing to put himself in the line of fire just to be able to report proven stories outside the party line the corporate media happily crams down our throats. This album deserves to be taught or, at the bare minimum, discussed in every classroom in the whole of the Americas, if not the entire world. It would do more for American diplomacy than all the peanut butter you can drop off a fighter jet.
Recorded in 2006, live from the Fletcher Lounge at the University Of Tampa, this CD is a lone-disk gunman taking laser-guided shots at all of the major problems caused by devious coups since FDR’s New Deal was born out of the last flooding of New Orleans in 1927. If that doesn’t compel you to find out what’s going on in our world according to Palast, at least do us all one small favor and vote. Sure, they’re going to steal around five million votes next year, just throwing them straight in the dumpster, but, as Greg says, “make them steal it.” Ain’t it worth it just to know how much you’re annoying the Bush dynasty and its cloak-and-dagger backers? Frank Zappa voted. That makes it cool.
More about: Greg Palast
