FROM THE PUBLISHER

A LOOK AT EVERYTHING YOU KNOW IS WRONG

Since money makes the world go 'round, we start the proceedings with the section 'Lucre.' Complaints about the International Monetary Fund and globalization in general are legion, but details about exactly how they destroy countries are harder to find. In "Burn the Olive Tree, Sell the Lexus," Greg Palast, investigative reporter for the BBC and the London Observer, and Oliver Shykles show precisely what globalization hath wrought, using exclusive leaked documents from the World Bank and the World Trade Organization. Political commentator Arianna Huffington then offers stinging criticism of the pharmaceutical industry in "Drug Companies: Sell Hard, Sell Fast...and Count the Bodies Later." When it comes to shady financial institutions, they don't come any shadier than the Vatican Bank. We're proud to present a groundbreaking article on the Holy See's financial workings by Jonathan Levy, an attorney involved in efforts to force the bank to return gold stolen by the Nazis to its rightful owners. With his purely free-market stance, economics professor Dominick Armentano may seem like the odd man out, but in "The Antitrust and Monopoly Myth" he shows that antitrust law actually hurts consumers and is used almost exclusively by businesses who want to kneecap their competitors. Investigative journalist Lucy Komisar specializes in following the worldwide trail of laundered money; "Dirty Money and Global Banking Secrecy" reveals some of what she's found. Finally, in "Globalization for the Good of All," Noreena Hertz--author of the British sensation The Silent Takeover--shows us that globalization isn't inherently a bad thing, but it must be modified drastically before it will benefit everyone.

"The High and Mighty" section is devoted to knocking the powerful off of their undeserved pedestals. Douglas Valentine ("The Senator's Ashes") examines former Senator Bob Kerrey's active role in the CIA's ultrasecret Phoenix program, which involved torturing and killing civilians in Vietnam. Sports professor Helen Lenskyj reveals the harsh, hidden costs of the Olympics, not to mention the arrogance and corruption of those involved, in "Olympic Industry Mythology." Since the end of World War II, a few elites have been attempting to destroy the nations of Europe, including the UK, by turning them into one big (undemocratic) country presided over by a secretive, unaccountable bunch of bureaucrats. They're succeeding. Lindsay Jenkins spills the beans in "The European Union Unmasked." To wrap up this section, "Watchdog Nation" by Cletus Nelson exposes the problems with the groups that earn their multi-millions by magnifying--and sometimes concocting--the threat of political extremists in America.

A distressing amount of true crime writing is sensationalistic, badly researched, misleading, and just plain wrong. The section "True True Crime" starts with a devastating look at the case of Henry Lee Lucas, alleged to be one of the worst serial killers of all time. With access to tens of thousands of primary documents and all the players in the case, investigator Brad Shellady shows what went wrong in "Henry: Fabrication of a Serial Killer." British reporter Rory Carroll examines new developments in the case of "The Monster of Florence," which inspired Thomas Harris to create his intellectual psychopath, Hannibal Lecter. Turns out that the ritualistic killings lead straight to Italy's high society. In "Charlie Manson's Image," counterculture legend Paul Krassner adds new twists to the famous case. "Witnesses to a Massacre" by Russ Kick assembles ignored reports by numerous eyewitnesses who saw people other than Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold perpetrating the massacre at Columbine High School. Village Voice reporter James Ridgeway and French journalist Sandra Bisin team up for "Free Lauriane," which breaks the news of a strangely overlooked event: For the first time ever, the US has granted political asylum to a French citizen. He claims his young daughter had been repeatedly molested by a pedophile ring comprised of government officials in Nice. With the help of US authorities, French intelligence kidnapped the girl from California and forcibly returned her to Paris. The section ends with a bang: Retired police chief Joseph D. McNamara reveals the existence of gangs of renegade cops in every major US city, confirms the existence of the "blue wall of silence," and indicts the War on Drugs in "When Cops Become the Gangsters." The first two articles in the "Body and Mind" section offer a real inspection of beef. Gabe Kirchheimer uses medical studies, expert opinions, statistics, and plain old scientific facts to demonstrate that mad cow disease has indeed invaded the US ("Bovine Bioterrorism and the Perfect Pathogen"). Mickey Z. (aka Michael Zezima) widens the subject to look at the health, humanitarian, and environmental problems associated with meat and other animal-based food in "Fear of a Vegan Planet." The second two articles switch gears. The legendary Thomas Szasz--prime architect of the anti-psychiatry movement--demonstrates that the concept of "mental illness" is a ruse ("Mental Illness: Psychiatry's Phlogiston"), while prominent psychiatric-drug whistleblower Peter Breggin, M.D., explains what's wrong with Ritalin ("Psychiatric Drugging of Children for Behavioral Control").

The "Social Distortion" section tackles the lies we've been told about society or segments thereof. For example, every generation loves to moan about the huge, unprecedented problems with 'today's young people.' Mike Males shows us in "Myths About Youth" that the facts tell a different story--kids nowadays are less violent and use less drugs and alcohol than their parents' generation. We've been led to believe that domestic violence automatically equals men beating women, but the fact is that men comprise a significant portion of domestic abuse victims (one third to one half). Phillip Cook shows us the proof in "The Whole Truth About Domestic Violence." Ready for another surprise? Not all disabled people want to be "cured," many don't admire Christopher Reeve, and they sure don't appreciate being kept prisoner in rehab homes. Lucy Gwin, editor of the militant disability-rights magazine Mouth, tells the shocking truth in "Postcards From the Planet of the Freaks." Adbusters founder Kalle Lasn ("Toxic TV") presents the scientific evidence that our media-saturated consumer culture is extremely damaging to our psyches, and Preston Peet ("Treatment or Jail?") has harsh words for the current trend toward forced treatment for drug users (the man knows whereof he speaks). In a pair of essays, Wendy McElroy presents old-school, individualist-feminist takes on pornography and prostitution. Our own sexual adventurer, Tristan Taormino--Village Voice columnist, editor of the Best Lesbian Erotica series, anal-sex guru, etc., etc.--tells us in "Two's Too Tough" that our relationship options extend far, far beyond the limited choices we're normally given. Turning to the big questions, Nick Mamatas uses "How to Rid the World of Good" to examine the relatively recent origins of the supposedly universal good/evil dichotomy, and Annie Laurie Gaylor eyes divine misogyny in "Why Women Need Freedom From Religion."

If you depend on the tube or the Times for all your news, you probably missed a few important stories. The section "Not on the Nightly News" will fill in some of the gaps. To begin with, there's the startling number of accidents, near-misses, and other problems in nuclear power plants, a subject near and dear to nuclear safety engineer David Lochbaum's heart (his "Fission Stories" tells all). Using Freedom of Information Act requests, attorney David Hardy ("Call It Off!") has uncovered even more skullduggery surrounding the Waco incident, including the smoking-gun document that proves the feds could've easily arrested David Koresh in the days before the disastrous raid. The destruction of a plane over Lockerbie, Scotland, has been officially pinned on a Libyan, but William Blum completely savages the Official Version of Events in his article on the subject, "The Bombing of PanAm Flight 103: Case Not Closed." If you think everyone who wants to relax drug laws is a pothead hippie, Russ Kick's collection of quotes in "Leaders Against the Drug War" will show you that over 70 government officials--including presidents, ambassadors, legislators, judges, and police chiefs in the US and around the world--have voiced their dissent, as well. Jonathan Vankin was writing about rigged elections a decade before the public had heard of a hanging chad, and in "Votescam 2000" he shows us that the ludicrous events of the 2000 presidential election were nothing new. Our man in India, Dr. K. Jamanadas, offers an unflinching look at the horrors being endured by Untouchables (aka Dalits) in his country ("Untouchables in the Twenty-first Century"). Robert Sterling gives an acid take on the demonization of the leaders of developing countries; they definitely have huge faults, he says in "Viva Kadaffi!," but their biggest sins have been to defy the wishes of the West and its corporations. In "Will This Be the Chinese Century?" the husband-wife team of Howard Bloom and Diane Starr Petryk-Bloom reveals the frighteningly underrated military and economic power of China. Living in Peru, Peter Gorman has an ideal view of the war the US is covertly waging in neighboring Colombia; in "Scenes From a Secret War," he explains the situation.

The attacks of September 11 are still being analyzed from multiple perspectives, and in "911 and Beyond," we bring you some early attempts to figure out that overwhelming day. "The Accidental Operative" is Camelia Fard and James Ridgeway's groundbreaking look at the Taliban's unofficial US ambassador, who just happens to be the niece of a former CIA Director. Alex Burns, editor of the Disinformation Website, looks at militant Islam's literal worship of the atomic bomb, as well as the complexity of the terrorist mindset, in "A Canticle for Osama Bin Laden." In the wake of the anthrax attacks and the looming threat of widespread biowarfare on the US, Naomi Klein (of No Logo fame) shows us in "Battle Boring" why America was/is so woefully unprepared. Finally, in "September 11, 2001: No Surprise," Russ Kick offers a huge amount of evidence indicating that the upper levels of the US government knew what was coming. Call it a conspiracy theory if you wish, but when the Director of the CIA privately warns Congress of "an imminent attack on the United States of this nature," it's hard to reach any other conclusion.

We end by looking backward, to the "Hidden History" that has been stripped from public consciousness. Howard Zinn's "The Ludlow Massacre" resurrects a mostly forgotten 1914 slaughter of men, women, and children that has resonance with Kent State, Waco, Rainbow Farm, and other relatively recent governmental killings of citizens. In "Mushroom Clouds in Paradise," Jack Niedenthal--the Trust Liaison for the People of Bikini--details the shameful treatment of the people of the Bikini Atoll, who were deprived of their homeland and their health so the US could detonate nuclear bombs on their islands. John Taylor Gatto, the New York State Teacher of the Year for 1991, has dug up the long out-of-print writings of the men who created and implemented the United States' public school system. Using their own words, he shows that they purposefully designed the system to keep us dumb and docile in "Some Lessons From the Underground History of American Education."

In Appendix A you'll find short takes on 35 more secrets and lies, including the multimillionaire officials who run the US, corporate malfeasance, the West Nile virus, AIDS, Gulf War Syndrome, vaccines, Hollywood's propaganda, exotic weapons, civilian deaths in Afghanistan, and income tax. Appendix B looks at 35 books you may want to peruse, since they deal with the auto industry, Henry Kissinger, innocent people in jail, antidepressants, guns, Islam, the Oklahoma City bombing, the swastika, non-voting, scientific support for herbal therapies, and other juicy topics. Finally, Appendix C tells you how to get these books from their publishers.

FROM THE CRITICS

Library Journal