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The Best Democracy Money Can Buy Paperback – February 25, 2003
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Award-winning investigative journalist Greg Palast digs deep to unearth the ugly facts that few reporters working anywhere in the world today have the courage or ability to cover. From East Timor to Waco, he has exposed some of the most egregious cases of political corruption, corporate fraud, and financial manipulation in the US and abroad. His uncanny investigative skills as well as his no-holds-barred style have made him an anathema among magnates on four continents and a living legend among his colleagues and his devoted readership.
This exciting collection, now revised and updated, brings together some of Palast's most powerful writing of the past decade. Included here are his celebrated Washington Post exposé on Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris's stealing of the presidential election in Florida, and recent stories on George W. Bush's payoffs to corporate cronies, the payola behind Hillary Clinton, and the faux energy crisis. Also included in this volume are new and previously unpublished material, television transcripts, photographs, and letters.
- Print length384 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherPlume
- Publication dateFebruary 25, 2003
- Dimensions1 x 5.25 x 8 inches
- ISBN-100452283914
- ISBN-13978-0452283916
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- Publisher : Plume; Revised American edition (February 25, 2003)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 384 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0452283914
- ISBN-13 : 978-0452283916
- Item Weight : 11.3 ounces
- Dimensions : 1 x 5.25 x 8 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #2,205,291 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #139 in International Accounting (Books)
- #78,270 in Politics & Government (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the authors

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read book recommendations and more.

Greg Palast is the author of Billionaires and Ballot Bandits, Vultures' Picnic and the New York Times bestsellers, Armed Madhouse, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy and the upcoming How Trump Stole 2020: The Hunt for America's Vanished Voters (July 14).
Palast turned his skills to journalism after two decades as a top investigator of corporate fraud. Palast directed the U.S. government’s largest racketeering case in history–winning a $4.3 billion jury award. He also conducted the investigation of fraud charges in the Exxon Valdez grounding.
Following the Deepwater Horizon explosion, Palast set off on a five-continent undercover investigation of BP and the oil industry for British television’s top current affairs program, Dispatches
Palast turned his skills to journalism after two decades as a top investigator of corporate fraud. Palast directed the U.S. government’s largest racketeering case in history–winning a $4.3 billion jury award. He also conducted the investigation of fraud charges in the Exxon Valdez grounding.
Following the Deepwater Horizon explosion, Palast set off on a five-continent undercover investigation of BP and the oil industry for British television’s top current affairs program, Dispatches.
Palast is best known in his native USA as the journalist who, for the Observer (UK), broke the story of how Jeb Bush purged thousands of Black Florida citizens from voter rolls before the 2000 election, thereby handing the White House to his brother George. His reports on the theft of the 2000 and 2004 US elections, the spike of the FBI investigations of the bin Ladens before September 11, the secret State Department documents planning the seizure of Iraq's oil fields have won him a record six Project Censored awards for reporting the news American media doesn't want you to hear. "The top investigative journalist in the United States is persona non grata in his own country's media." [Asia Times.] He returned to America to report for Harper's Magazine.
Palast's Sam Spade style television and print exposés about financial vultures, election manipulations, War on Terror and globalization, are seen on BBC's Newsnight and Amy Goodman's Democracy Now!
Palast, who has led investigations for governments on three continents, has an academic side: the author of Democracy and Regulation, a seminal treatise on energy corporations and government control was commissioned by the United Nations based on his lectures at Cambridge University and the University of São Paulo.
Beginning in the 1970s, having earned his degree in finance at the University of Chicago studying under Milton Friedman and free-trade luminaries, Palast went on to challenge their vision of a New Global Order, working for the United Steelworkers of America, the Enron workers' coalition in Latin America and consumer and environmental groups worldwide.
In 1998 Palast went undercover for Britain's Observer, worked his way inside the prime minister's inner circle and busted open Tony Blair's biggest scandal, "Lobbygate," chosen by Palast's press colleagues in the UK as "Story of the Year." As the Chicago Tribune said, Palast became a "fanatic about documents--especially those marked "secret and confidential" from the locked file cabinets of the FBI, the World Bank, the US State Department and other closed-door operations of government and industry--which regularly find their way into his hands. The inside information he obtained on Rev. Pat Robertson won him a nomination as Britain's top business journalist.
Palast is Patron of the Trinity College Philosophical Society, an honor previously held by Jonathan Swift and Oscar Wilde. His writings have won him the Financial Times David Thomas Prize--and inspired the Eminem video, Mosh. "An American hero," said Martin Luther King III. In the BBC documentary, Bush Family Fortunes, Palast exposed George Bush Jr.'s dodging the Vietnam War draft. Greg Palast, says Noam Chomsky, "Upsets all the right people."
Palast won the George Orwell Courage in Journalism Award for his BBC documentary, Bush Family Fortunes.
What they're saying ...
"Greg Palast is one of my heroes. The last investigative reporter in America. In Armed Madhouse he has the best inside story of the war inside the White House over the war in Iraq, the battle between the neo-cons and Big Oil." -Robert F Kennedy Jr. -Air America Radio
"Twisted and maniacal" -Katherine Harris
"We hate that sonuvabitch." -The White House
"Doggedly independent, undaunted by power. His stories bite, they're so relevant they threaten to alter history" -Chicago Tribune
In England, Tribune Magazine calls him, "The most important investigative reporter of our time."
"Greg Palast is investigative journalism at its best. No one has exposed more truth about the Bush Cartel and lived to tell the story." - Baltimore Chronicle
“Armed Madhouse is great fun. Palast, detective style, provides … pieces of the secret puzzle.” - The New Yorker
The Chicago Reader asks about Greg Palast, "Can one reporter change the entire political discourse of the nation?"
In Britain he's called, "The most important investigative reporter of our time." -Tribune
After exposing on BBC TV the contents of a stack of documents from inside The World Bank and the World Trade Organization, the WTO called his report, "Rubbish rubbish rubbish," and CNN reported, "The World Bank hates Greg Palast" for stories the Wall Street Journal's Jude Wanniski called, "Extraordinary reporting on the IMF," and Nobel Laureate Joesph Stiglitz called, "Excellent on the WTO."
"The information is a hand grenade." - John Pilger, New Statesman
"Up there with Woodward and Bernstein." -Manchester Guardian
"Just read Armed Madhouse - fantastic work." - Comedian Doug Stanhope
"What does a multi-award winning reporting investigator do when he has a huge story to break? If it's Greg Palast, one of America's foremost journalists, he goes to England! Greg Palast has repeatedly scooped the U.S. networks, and newspaper elites, reporting for London's Guardian newspaper, and BBC television's current affairs flagship program, Newsnight. He's reported on the truth behind George W. Bush's theft of the 2000 presidential election, the attempted theft of Venezuelan democracy, the World Bank's willful destruction of Argentina, Enron's looting of California, and the cozy relationship between the Bush and Bin Laden dynasties. The problem is: The men behind the curtain of America's media don't want you to know about these, or any of the other stories he has to tell. Undeterred by the sucking vacuum of America's mainstream media, Greg put together a few of his greatest journalistic hits in the book, "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy: the Truth About Corporate Cons, Globalization, and High-Finance Fraudsters." Ironically, the stories the New York Times didn't find fit to print have become a New York Times best-seller. Now Greg Palast is releasing a DVD, "Bush Family Fortunes," based on "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy," and featuring some of his reports from Britain." - Chris Cook, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
"Armed Madhouse is a work of Genius" -Robert F Kennedy Jr. -Air America Radio
Awards
Patron of the Philosophical Society, Trinity College (an award previously given to Oscar Wilde and Jonathan Swift)
The Upton Sinclair Freedom of Expression Award The American Civil Liberties Union
George Orwell Courage in Journalism Award: Freedom Cinema Fest at The Sundance Film Festival
The Financial Times David Thomas Prize
Nominated for Business Journalist of the Year 1998 (UK)
Politics Story of the Year on Salon.com 2001
Guerilla News Network's Reporter of the Year
The Peace and Justice Award -Office of the Americas
Path Breaking Investigative Journalism Award--Long Island Progressive Coalition
National Press Club's Arthur Rowse Award for Press Criticism, Book Category, First Place.
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Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonCustomers say
Customers find the book riveting, interesting, and a must-read for patriots. They appreciate the high quality of information, painstakingly collected facts, and interesting perspective. Readers describe the pacing as well-written and clear. In addition, they mention the content is disturbing and revealing.
AI-generated from the text of customer reviews
Customers find the book riveting, interesting, and entertaining. They say it's a must-read for all patriots.
"...And Palast's book is worth the read. This version is an updated one from the 2002 edition, and was apparently a New York Times bestseller...." Read more
"...Very interesting. Here Palast shows his versatility by writing like an English journalist himself. What an unusual slang...." Read more
"...It's a fast, entertaining and SCARY read...." Read more
"...his commentary on Wackenhut and other exposes, this one was the most riveting. It scares me. This isn't supposed to happen in the US...." Read more
Customers find the book highly informative, with a sense of humor. They appreciate the painstakingly collected facts, interesting perspective, and complex economic theory explained in normal language. Readers also mention the book challenges the mainstream understanding of our current situation.
"...Good information on the 2000 presidential election, the WTO, the World Bank and IMF, Bush, Gore, Robertson and Blair, nuclear waste, oil spills,..." Read more
"...This is a very complex and intriguing chapter, and has much to do with the Saudis in all their numbers, from arms dealers to gold and oil speculators..." Read more
"...from the more important part of the book - the painstakingly collected pile of facts...." Read more
"...I will be purchasing more books by this author. It is very informative as to the details of things I already knew or suspected about the Bush..." Read more
Customers find the book well-written, detailed, and clear. They say it reads like a house on fire. Readers also mention the book is a good start to Greg Palast's writings.
"...A thorough explanation is well detailed to show the reader how this occurred...." Read more
"...This is a very complex and intriguing chapter, and has much to do with the Saudis in all their numbers, from arms dealers to gold and oil speculators..." Read more
"...This is a good start to Greg Palast's writings, as in some later books he brushes over these stories on the assumption you would have met them..." Read more
"...This book is compelling, disturbing, & highly readable. It shows us the lies we live in. The rest is up to us." Read more
Customers find the content disturbing, revealing, and scary. They say it's compelling and highly readable.
"...The book has many more disturbing and revealing chapters that readers will find very interesting...." Read more
"...It's a fast, entertaining and SCARY read...." Read more
"...This book is compelling, disturbing, & highly readable. It shows us the lies we live in. The rest is up to us." Read more
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Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
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For years now I've been watching the media and have given up in the bourgeois mind melt of the believing public in a news media that falsely claims to report truth as their main objective. And Palast's book is worth the read. This version is an updated one from the 2002 edition, and was apparently a New York Times bestseller. It's amazing how this book was not prevented from publishing. I mean the amount of weight the many parties involved in the book carry, you would think this book would get lost somewhere, never to be found. But since it's not, I'm glad for the opportunity to read it. It's really a very educational book, to say the least
In this Palast exposes both Republicans, Democrats and many Corporate giants in areas from environmental, pharmaceutical, financial (of course), evangelical and etc. Good information on the 2000 presidential election, the WTO, the World Bank and IMF, Bush, Gore, Robertson and Blair, nuclear waste, oil spills, Wallmart, OPEC and Chavez, BST hormone & etc. Really, you'll get a good education with this book. Of course, there's no use arguing this stuff with the partisan views and fundamentalists, which is like driving a car into a brick wall. And really, if you open your eyes and mind, you'll know that our so-called democracy only lives in a misused, misguided word, which definition radically changes from year to year, while the real meaning resides in the history books.
One thing I do get out of this book, whether it's the WTO, IMF, World Bank and all the Corporations, is that it's the LLM's manifesto on page 283, which states that "leaders who lead today are antique creatures of the Passing World. Today, markets lead. Industry CEOs lead. In the Emerging World, prime ministers and presidents merely 'listen.'" It's as though the new "Popes," with the power of the medieval Popes, are emerging as the new leaders, the corporate giants, who through the market and partisan monetary ventures that only benefit the elites, will rule the world in an unethical, authoritarian structure. Only this time around, with technology, both the environment and extreme totalitarianism are the stakes.
Early on in the book, the presidential election of 2000 (focusing on Florida) is put under the microscope with some dramatic revelations. Thousands of registered U.S. voters were denied their right to vote, many of them African-Americans. A thorough explanation is well detailed to show the reader how this occurred. Obstruction of civil rights and bias immediately come to mind coupled with the fact that statistically, African-Americans in Florida predominantly vote democratic. Coincidence? Not likely.
Farther along, the book describes how the Bush family has indeed been linked with the Bin-Laden family (not Osama himself) in Saudi Arabia regarding business ventures. Not for public knowledge of course, the presidential administration ordered the Department of Justice (FBI) to steer clear of any revealing investigations concerning this match not made in heaven. The sum total, to a point, is that the United States may have missed out on critically valuable information regarding terrorism.
Rounding out this review, chapter 4 of the book gives you a taste of the heinous activities of the IMF (International Monetary Fund). Here's a group that likes to throw third world and even developed countries into chaos with outrageous financial policies and procedures. One example is privatizing water and power structures and then financially bleeding consumers to death with exaggerated fees. Another that I found most distasteful was in Tanzania. A relatively poor African country with a rampant AIDS epidemic now charges fees for hospital appointments and charges fees for school attendance, all courtesy of the IMF.
These above summations are just the tip of the iceberg. The book has many more disturbing and revealing chapters that readers will find very interesting. Finishing off, Greg Palast sends a clear message that the mainstream media is not your friend and they love to expose critical news stories long after public sentiment has elapsed and damage control has been completed. As a former governor of Minnesota once said, the media is no longer in the business of reporting the news, they are in the business of creating the news.
Greg Palast has written an outstanding, although disturbing book of who actually controls power and money and their machinations to sweep aside the little people regardless of consequences. This is a highly recommended read for those that are fed up and those looking for answers.
Top reviews from other countries
Although I am always sceptical about the motives of politicians I still found this book a real eye opener and was unprepared for the extent of corruption in the highest places. For instance, Maggie's sell off of the country's silver (the public utilities) was actually due to following the teachings of a maverick professor in a Boston (USA) university. I never realised that the IMF and the World Bank were anything but benign institutions. However, the loans by these institutions come with strings attached. Countries are compelled to sell off their state owned utilities and largely USA-owned buyers snap them up at a bargain price and then increase the costs enormously which subsequently results in profits going out of the country and therefore reducing the country's ability to pay back the loan. A vicicous circle is thus created that keeps the country in debt.
There are many other revelations in this book but don't want to spoil it too much for readers so I'll leave it at that. The only negative I can find is that I think it is a little self-indulgent and the style is a little Americanised for British taste but that doesn't detract from the content. I shouldn't hold the latter against him as Greg is an American although he has spent much of his working life in UK.
Definitely worth checking out!
Democracy is the best system of governance.......
Corporations are successful due to all their collective hard work and customer focus.....
Western governments are not corrupt.........
Big Media always tells us the unedited truth......
Standing for ones right against authority is bad.........
I think the world need more Palasts to help us deal with our learned helplessness.





