Rating: 
Summary: Palast's sordid addiction to muckraking
Review: Look... Greg Palast currently shows acute signs of informational and factual addiction. Palast is a madman on a fiendish roll for anyone in dereliction of duty, and truth needing to be exposed. Everyone I have ever seen step up against Greg Palast, whether it be through C-SPAN television or town hall discussion, has been burned by his savvy wit, and nasty retort - his childhood indigence obviously taught young Palast that no one can get anything past him."The Best Democracy Money Can Buy" tells the tale of a stolen election through voting roll swindle along with other stories of depraved reporting. Not only does Palast expose Katherine Harris' henchman on live footage, he also has the greatest reply for those who think he is incessantly obsessed with the "Get Over It" presidential election of 2000, "What if it happens again in 2004?" (C-SPAN) Forget the "hanging chads" of Florida and drunken ship captains crashing massive oil tankers off the Alaska coast... you have been lied to! The writing contains no poetry, very little prose, but massive amounts of information backed by massive amounts of paper-trail evidence, all exhumed and excavated through constant harassment of many different bureaucratic individuals. Palast remains almost completely objective in his reporting and rarely leans to the left or right of the political spectrum, which is a miracle in journalism of these times! Although Palast does become tedious in sections devoted to fact finding, he does have personable sections at the beginning, and sporadically laced throughout the book about his life and interactions with some powerful people. During his studies at university, Palast had the fortunate opportunity to run into, study, talk, and eat with the actual economic theorists who now run the globalization and free-trade circus we consider the 21st century state of being. This writer refers to the original hardcover edition of "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy" published over a year ago. I know over a certain period of time, Mr. Palast has added on to the book, while also writing articles in George Orwell's (pseudonym) vacated position at the BBC, and doing investigations into the pogrom for profit in African diamond mining and New York Times / NPR blunders with Rep. Cynthia McKinney and Pres. Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. If anyone who reads this review holds any legitimate information disclaiming or arguing what Greg Palast has presented in this work, please e-mail me... it seems as though so many individuals despise his doings, but don't have the information needed to back up their claims
Rating:
Summary: simply stunning
Review: This is flat out the best political book I have ever read. With a REAL journalist's respect for the truth (not the typical journalism we have become accustomed to, corporate promotion disguised as muckraking)and a decidedly populist bent, Greg Palast blows the lid off one media icon after another. In shocking detail, he describes how greedy and powerful men have used backroom shenanigans to controlamong other things, our last election, the California energy crisis, the collapse of banks in Argentina and the even the New Mexican penal system, while reaping profit from every source. The extent to which the US media have become complicit in these schemes by simply ignoring them makes our First Amendment right to a free press nothing more than a lame joke. Were there a hundred more journalists out there like Palast, we'd be living in very different, and much more humane world. Hoepfully the success of this book is an indication that mad free market economics might have reached the end of their pendulum swing and be coming back the other way.
Rating:
Summary: A must read.
Review: This is in important book. Other reviewers have accurately pointed out that this book is no great literary work. Fortunately that is not Palast's goal. Greg Palast's continuing investigations can be read about further on his web site (easily searched for).
Rating:
Summary: Investigative journalism at its best
Review: Author Greg Palast is angry. As this anger comes across in the first few pages of "The Best Democracy..." the reader may be put off. But the further one reads the more justifiable strong emotion seems. After all, Palast is describing corruption in the most respected offices of government and business. Admirably, the book does not become about the author and how HE feels. Palast's tells the story by letting the facts speak for themselves.
"The Best Democracy..." exposes electoral shenanigans in Florida that altered the outcome of the 2000 presidential election, the WTO, World Bank, Pat Robertson, Enron and George Bush I and II.
The depth and breadth of Palast's investigative work is awe-inspiring. Hopefully in addition to awe it will inspire action by citizens fed up with power brokers and institutions who live to serve themselves, even if at the cost of the greater good.
Greg Palast is angry. All of us should share that anger.
Rating:
Summary: What An Eye Opener
Review: We spent over 20 million dollars trying to catch the Clintons with personal land deals, and sex. We have all of this going on with our present guy in the Whitehouse and not one investigation? No corporate executives indicted? This is a sad government we have when one party controls everything to include the Supreme Court. A must read because history will not be kind to this period in our nations history.
Rating:
Summary: An eye-opening read
Review: While I've spent my (fairly short) adult life being critical of the government and most everything else, the 2000 presidential elections were probably the last straw. However, I thought that Florida was a relatively crude and small-time operation. Boy, was I wrong. Greg Palast's book begins with a detailed account of his investigations into the controversial vote in Florida (the whopping majority of which has been widely available only to the people of Britain), where it becomes quickly obvious that Florida was far worse than any US citizen was aware of. The following chapters discuss globalization, the California energy crisis, the American press, Wal-Mart, and other targets with the same level of disdain-all of which are backed up with loads of evidence. Of course, the Republicans receive most of the blows in this book....but only because they're in control of the White House and Congress at the moment. If you've got a fairly open mind, this book which open your eyes. If not, feel free to keep the wool firmly over your eyes (just as the people described in this book would like).
Rating:
Summary: amazingly well documented
Review: It is telling that Palast's most vocal critics are quickly reduced to slinging barbs like the ever-handy "anti-American" slur. Palast has an obsession with documentary evidence, and his book is full of photicopies of reports, direct references to interviews, meetings, and fully reported incidents. What is even more amazing: when Palast doesn't have documentation, HE TELLS YOU HE DOESN'T HAVE IT (can you imagine Fox news bing that honest??? They would be bankrupt in a week.) The truth of the matter is that Palast's critics can't refute him -- he has done too fine of a job mastering his craft and documenting his sources.
Rating:
Summary: The real Book of Morals
Review: This book is a very good source of information that you will not see or read in the Corporate news. People who do not read a lot, or only read books by Authors that promote their own political views for information about our country and the world, will not believe some of the things talked about in this book.
That's OK, the rest of the world does believe, and how, for they have seen things that I hope we never see in this country.
One interesting tidbit in the book is this factoid. The three hundred richest people in the world have more money than the poorest three billion. Read and learn if you want to know. If you are Dogmatic in what you think you know, don't bother.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant, and Essential
Review: Greg Palast is doing important work, and it's more than a little embarrassing that it's the BBC -- not NBC or ABC -- writing his paycheck. His devastating account of the 2000 election, and particularly the part played by the private company ChoicePoint in providing flawed data for voters rolls, should be read by everyone planning to vote in 2004. Palast is like Michael Moore, but he goes in even deeper and eschews the rant for the carefully researched facts. This is a terrifying and necessary book. (Reads more like a series of disconnected articles -- with attendant repetition -- but I forgive him!!)
Rating: 
Summary: Sharp Wit - Harsh Tone
Review: Oh boy, one more book that details out all that went on with the 2000 election. It just makes my skin crawl that in American this type of activity can take place and there is not more of an outrage. The book is worth the purchase prices just for the section on Bush Jr. It gives the reader the down and dirty on him that is probably closer to the truth then some of the puff reporting that is going on via FOX et all. The author also covers some other slimy politicians and to be honest I usually can not get enough of this stuff so I was enjoying every page. The last half of the book is basically a run down of some of the more back-handed and devious ways corporate big wigs get away with murder plus a nice big old WTO, World Bank and IMF are running the world conspiracy rant. I did find the info interesting and the author does provide a good amount of detail and facts to back up his claims. I was disappointed with the way the author strung the book together. The chapters just did not flow together smoothly. They gave the reader the impression that the central theme to the book was not well developed, at least in the writing. I even found that within some chapters the author seemed to bounce from one topic to another. The author also has a significant chip on his shoulder; sure that makes for good investigative reporters, but at times I thought maybe he was going out of his way to find the problem. Small items that did not take much away from the book. Overall it was entertaining and informative.
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