The Greatest Sedition Is Silence: Four Years in America (Hardcover)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Pitt, coauthor of War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know, is an angry leftist. He is angry with the president and his administration for dismantling the Bill of Rights, distorting our national purpose and placing environmental policy, tax policy and our military power in the hands of corporate oil interests. He is angry with the media for ineptly reporting on important policy issues while endlessly chasing Gary Condit. He is angry at the Supreme Court for giving Bush the presidency. And he is angry with the American public because they "have not been minding the store." It is unfortunate that many of Pitt's speculations about the Bush administration are too far off-center and inflammatory for the majority of even those who oppose the president. His report of the death of democracy in America ("The American Experiment may well be finished") will strike many as premature; his statement that "[p]atriotic Americans fear to speak out against the government" is patently untrue, given the size of recent antiwar demonstrations. Repeatedly, such flights undercut Pitt's more salient complaints. And his impassioned suggestions to the left (e.g., "end tax giveaways to corporations and the rich") break no new ground.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"Passionate, informed, important: Williams Rivers Pitt helps us see what's wrong with American politics today." -- Greg Palast, journalist and best-selling author of "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy"

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 196 pages
• Publisher: Pluto Press (March 21, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0745320104
• ISBN-13: 978-0745320106
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #998,948 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

96 of 102 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Riveting account of corruption in the USA, May 19, 2003

By	William Podmore (London United Kingdom) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This fascinating book reveals many extraordinary facts about present-day America, most importantly about its current war on terrorism. An Executive Order signed by Bush authorised secret military tribunals to try suspected terrorists: US citizens can be arrested and held without charge, without access to a lawyer, without trial and without limit. The Attorney-General says that those who oppose these tribunals are aiding the terrorists: dissent equals treason and terrorism!

Capitalism ... has discovered a fatal cancer in its guts. Deregulation allowed asset-stripping (theft), as at Enron. There is much evidence of Bush and Cheney doing the same. As Pitt writes, the pirates have seized this ship of state, and have two of their own at the helm.

The core of the book is a riveting account of the provenance of 9/11. From January 2001 to August, Bush held talks with the Taliban government in Afghanistan to get them to agree to Unocals proposed pipeline from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to Pakistan. The Taliban rejected the deal. The Bush administration then threatened them with war, while watering down anti-terrorism measures. Before 9/11, Israel, Russia, Egypt, France and Germany had all specifically warned US security agencies of imminent terrorist attacks using hijacked airplanes against US landmarks. The Bush administration did not pass these warnings on to airport security agencies. When this was revealed, Bush responded that he did not order heightened airplane security because it would have cut industry profits!

Stanley Hilton, a former aide to Republican Senator Bob Dole, charges that Bush allowed 9/11 to happen on purpose, so that he could make political gains from the tragedy. Bush has consistently refused to allow a public inquiry into the events surrounding 9/11, and last November he signed an Executive Order sealing all presidential documentation. After 9/11, US forces replaced the Taliban with a government friendly to the USA and its oil interests: Afghanistan is now, nominally, run by Unocals man on the spot.

Saudi Arabia is the USAs key ally in the Middle East, supplier of most of the USAs oil and of 80% of Al Qaidas recruits, and chief funder and sponsor of Al Qaida. Yet Cuba is part of Bushs Axis of Evil, and Saudi Arabia is not! The CIA did not investigate the roots of Al Qaida terrorism in Saudi Arabia because this could have harmed US oil companies interests. As John ONeill, Deputy Director of the FBI before he resigned in protest, said,  The main obstacles to investigating Islamic terrorism were US oil corporate interests, and the role played by Saudi Arabia in it. (Incidentally, George Bush Senior is on the advisory board of the Carlyle Group, a huge multinational heavily involved in the oil business.) Pitt writes, a blind spot developed in our anti-terrorism preparations out of deference to these business interests. The USA has now withdrawn its troops from the very country where it should be focusing its war on terror.

On 16 May 2002, the Boston Globe revealed that the CIA had warned Bush months before 9/11 that Al Qaida planned to hijack planes. Four days later, on 20 May, the government issued warnings of more terrorist threats: Donald Rumsfeld, for example, said that terrorists would definitely use nuclear or biological weapons in the USA. The next day, 21 May, the Toronto Globe and Mail reported, the White House acknowledged that the threats are not urgent and that they are partly motivated by political objectives. ... the blunt warnings issued yesterday and Sunday do not reflect a dramatic increase in threatening information but rather a desire to fend off criticism from the Democrats. In Britain, we too have been lied to about fictitious threats to our national security. How could anything be more irresponsible than to play politics with national security and peoples fears?

32 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Citizens of the United States should be concerned, April 16, 2004

By	J. O. Brandon (Sydney, Australia) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I read William Rivers Pitt's book "The Greatest Sedition Is Silence" in June of 2003. It is every bit as important (and terrifying) now as it was then.

As an outside, neither American citizen nor resident (though I am a frequent visitor), I read the book with a detachment that I think helps me avoid some of the emotion and concern that I would have if I actually lived in the States. That said, in many ways it reads like a horror story of a regime that one would never countenance in your fair and beautiful country. Detailing incidents of government fear-mongering and suppression of free speech, such as university students told that they would be suspended if they did not clap George W. Bush at a speech on their campus, would have just a few years ago been thought impossible in the United States.

I recommend this book thoroughly to anyone who has even a slight interest in just what it is that's going on in your backyard. Having read this book and others addressing similar issues, I find myself believing more and more that the great American Experiment might very well be over.

31 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Will Pitt hits a homerun again, April 19, 2003

By A Customer

I've only recently become aware of how the Bush administration has used the tragic events of 9/11 to push their own hegemonious agenda. Mr. Pitt's book succinctly presents all the facts relating to the current crisis facing our nation, and presents them in a linear, easy to follow fashion. This book is for those whose mind is fully open to examining all facets of our current political and sociological circumstances - freepers need not apply.