The Racket: A Rogue Reporter vs. the Masters of the Universe

Description

The story Americans are wont to tell themselves about their nation is a compelling one: the United States is a force for good in the world, a haven for prosperous upward mobility, and a stalwart defender of democracy and human rights abroad. With The Racket, veteran investigative journalist Matt Kennard pulls back the curtain and reveals a much darker truth. The picture of America he paints is radically at odds with that noble image: through Kennard’s eyes we see another America, one that has lashed the world to a neoliberal vision and has rewarded wealthy elites at the expense of ordinary people, genuine freedom, and the global environment. Building his case from more than 2,000 interviews with officials, intellectuals, and artists around the world, including Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, Howard Zinn, John Pilger, and Banksy, Kennard reveals how we are sold a dream and how that dream obscures the reality of the corporate state, mass incarceration, and the evisceration of human rights. A ringing polemic that’s powerfully rooted in fact, The Racket is as sure to be controversial as it is to fan the flames of serious reform and revolt. Praise for Irregular Army “Kennard’s careful and judicious investigations reveal an aspect of the modern US military system that should be of deep concern to American citizens—and to everyone.”—Noam Chomsky   “Chilling. . . . Illuminating. . . . Kennard’s nonpartisan portrait of martial waywardness is foreboding.”—Publishers Weekly