About the book

The rhetoric of ‘freedom and democracy for all’ has become almost synonymous with the US. However, at home its business elites have enslaved the poor and underclasses and further afield, while masquerading as a force for good in the world, it has enslaved much of humanity in the name of progress.

In this controversial book, investigative journalist Matt Kennard takes us deep into the dark heart of American power. From the corporate state, the prison state and the state of the environment, to humanitarian intervention, the free trade fetish and the divide-and-rule of the working class, The Racket reveals how, no matter which side of the border we are on, we are all being conditioned to condone this modern form of slavery.

About the authors

Matt Kennard is a Fellow at the Centre for Investigative Journalism in London. He is the author of the critically acclaimed Irregular Army (2012), and has worked as a staff writer for the Financial Times in London, New York and Washington DC. He has written for the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, and the Guardian.

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

PART 1: HOW WE OWNED YOU

1. Creating a Modern-day Slave State
2. The Racket
3. Rigging the System
4. Cursing Your Riches

PART 2: ENFORCEMENT

5. The Mob
6. With Friends Like These
7. Might is Right
8. A Drug War Colony
9. War on Hope

PART 3: REINFORCEMENT

10. The First Peoples of America and Their Land
11. Working America
12. Destitute America
13. Lock-up America

PART 4: WE’RE LOSING YOU

14. Turf War
15. Freedom Fighters
16. Revolutionaries
17. Successful Defiance
18. Culture as a Weapon of Resistance

Afterword

Index