Folder: Justice Education
Works of Mike Palecek
Page Contents
About the Author | George Bush is a Liar | Joe Coffee's Revolution | KGB: [Killing George Bush, a novel] | Looking For Bigfoot | Other Palecek books | Prophets Without Honor | The Truth | Twins
About the Author
Palecek has worked as a small-town newspaper reporter, editor, publisher; he has been a seminary student; he was the Iowa Democratic Party nominee for the U.S. House of Representatives, Fifth District, 2000 election, receiving 67,500 votes on an anti-military, anti-prison, pro-Hispanic platform in a conservative district. He now works at a group home for disabled adults, drives a bus, and lives with his wife and two children in a small town in northwest Iowa.
Mike Palecek has received various writing awards from the Minnesota Newspaper Association and the Iowa Newspaper Association. His work has appeared on CommonDreams.org, and Bartcop.com. He has written for the Sioux Falls [SD] Argus Leader, the Norfolk, [NE] Daily News, the Rochester [MN] Post-Bulletin, and the National Catholic Reporter. He has worked as a reporter for the Ainsworth [NE] Star-Journal, the Byron [MN] Review, the Cherokee [IA] Daily Times, the N'West Iowa Review.
His newest book, "Looking For Bigfoot", will be released in Spring 2005 by Howling Dog Press.
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George Bush is a Liar
George Bush is a Liar.
Mike Palecek tells the Truth.
Since Palecek was released from prison in 1989, jailed for opposition to the United States empire, he has remained an American dissident.
He has written six novels exposing the myth of the American Dream. Palecek lets us know that Beaver Cleaver killed children in El Salvador and Barney Fife sold drugs for the CIA to single mothers.
Because he has been there: walked down small-town Nebraska and Iowa and Minnesota main streets, and huddled in the dungeon intake cave of Leavenworth Penitentiary--even though he went insane in prison due to missing his son, he has survived to tell us that unfortunately, the birds on our lawn are chirping out of tune.
The world is not as we think it is. We are the criminals. Our presidents and our congressional yes-men are not heroes. The real heroes in our military are those who refuse to kill, who go to Canada. The poor are not poor because they are lazy. Our prisons do not protect us. Voting for the Democratic Party is not nearly enough, as their succession of candidates lay down and play dead under the thumb of terrorist political machines. We are not keeping ourselves free by killing people around the world. Evil men will do anything to gain power and riches and glory and fame.
There is good news.
Now we know. Freedom is not slavery, and daily deception does not make us free.
We can truly be Free only when we have the truth. These freedom fries they have been selling us have only made us sick.
We can now get well, and live as God truly intended us to live, not under the whip of the American rich and powerful, but within the enlightened wonder of this great creation called earth.
"Our kids grow up thinking the world is a perfect place. We owe it to them and to the child within ourselves not to give up on that plan too soon." -- From "Joe Coffee's Revolution"
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Joe Coffee's Revolution
Badger Books, Madison, Wisc.
Former peace protester Joseph Coffee runs for Congress in Iowa as a Democrat on an anti-prison, anti-military, pro-Hispanic platform: and the Democratic Party doesn't like it. It's not nice to fool with Mother Nature.
"... the story is substantial and satisfying. The characters' lives are full of palpable detail, handled deftly by the author. Palecek's greatest talent lies in his ability to depict the ordinariness of life. Many of the scenes are in real time, grinding along at the pace of the characters' days, full of the irrelevant details that mortals must endure. Coffee cups are handed across tables, food is chewed, doors slammed, children listened to, movies rented, trucks thrown into reverse in muddy driveways. After a few chapters of Palecek's tender attention to the characters' small lives, readers will feel the same itch for revolution that the characters give into. By the end of the book, we are so familiar with the characters' bodily space and personal experience that it is almost physically painful when they all die. It is a good read."
- Meta Hogan, Voice Of Olympia [Olympia, WA] March 2004
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KGB: [Killing George Bush, a novel]
Publish America, Baltimore
George Bush Jr. is a war criminal.
Like Son Like Father.
The prisoners in D Block in the Woodbury County Jail read about the arrest of General Pinochet, in the one newspaper copy passed around to all the blocks. They determine that George Bush Sr. is also a war criminal.
These prisoners, the damned of America, scheme how to bring about justice in these United States.
"Well-written and imaginative."
- Danny Schechter, one of first CNN producers, 20/20 producer, two-time Emmy award winner
"KGB is truly provocative entertainment and a must read for a woefully un-informed public."
- Stewart Bradley, Bradley Infotainment, Lancaster, Penn.
"A strong, suspenseful, mostly fast-paced story with fully developed characters and rich dialogue. "
- Jill Barrett, Confluence Magazine
KGB also recommended by Kate Thompson of the Sioux City Journal.
"Isn't it interesting that the killing of the poor and anonymous is not illegal?"
- Author Mike Palecek
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Looking For Bigfoot
"To go Looking For Bigfoot is to go in search of the truth about America"
Howling Dog Press To Bust Loose American Dissident Novelist's Latest Work From American Literary Penitentiary
Extra! Extra!
"LOOKING FOR BIGFOOT", a tale by Mike Palecek, breaks free of the prisons of politically correct and socially condoned Bushian literary dogma. With leg irons dragging behind he has escaped the prison camp where American writers with challenging viewpoints are sent to die for crimes against the current American journalistic trend of mundane and worthless writing.
Howling Dog Press, an independent publisher of the world's most progressive, controversial, and innovative writers--those not intimidated by schemes and devices of control politics and inbred socialization--blows open the jail house door and sets Palecek free to rat on the Republican Guard and hold Bush accountable for crimes against humanity.
"A small press, but a dynamic one, we travel where the publishing giants dare not. We show you new, exciting worlds and authors, and we are proud to introduce our newest find, Iowan Mike Palecek. We know you will like what you read. How many American novelists from the left have been in prison? How many can relay a message of suffering and hope and humor at the same time? Think Solzhenitsyn, think Allende, think Vonnegut."
Does Bigfoot exist?
Who killed the Kennedy's? Who killed King, the children at Waco, and why? How did Paul Wellstone's plane really go down in the northern Minnesota woods? Why did George W. Bush sit reading a children's book while America was under attack? Did George W. Bush actually have a hand in planning that very attack?
Want to know the answers?
Want to know what kind of country you really live in?
Can you live another day: going to work, fixing food for the kids, bending over to wipe up spills, without knowing?
Does any of that really matter if you don't know the truth?
... Then, come along, get on the bus -- let's go "Looking For Bigfoot".
"Looking For Bigfoot" chronicles the travels of Jack Priest, a man in a middle-aged crisis, seeking the truth about himself, about America, about Bigfoot.
To be released: Spring 2005, Howling Dog Press
Publisher Michael Annis
P.O. Box 853
Berthoud, CO 80513-0853
http://www.howlingdogpress.com
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Other Palecek books
Other Palecek books:
(For more information: http://www.iowapeace.com)
The Last Liberal Outlaw
New Leaf Books, Chicago
"Hard-hitting"
- Dr. Eve Malo, Prof. Emeriti, Univ. of Montana-Western
"Palecek is at his best when writing about small-town America ... We haven't had a writer like this since Kurt Vonnegut was at his peak."
- Chuck Gregory, All Books and Records, Fort Lauderdale, FL, writing for BlueEar.com, A Global Journalism Community
In Iowa where corn grows tall and families gather for apple pie, a murmur of dissent echoes across Town Square.
Plans to build a federal prison on Liberal soil divide a town and family once united. Newspaper editor Tom Blue stands at the forefront of the opposition, ready to take on City Council, the bank, and even his boss in the middle of Main Street with a Macintosh, at noon.
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Prophets Without Honor
Prophets Without Honor, non-fiction, with William Strabala
Algora Publishing, New York City
The book tells the story of a group of American men who happen to be priests who happen to have served decades in American prisons for opposition to United States military policy. Darrell Rupiper, Larry Rosebaugh and Carl Kabat are Oblate missionary priests. Frank Cordaro is a diocesan priest from Des Moines . Roy Bourgeois is a Maryknoll priest. Charlie Liteky is an ex-Trinitarian priest.
"... to inspire us all because it looks beyond the false gods of our time, the ruthless political leaders, the timid intellectuals, the stars of People magazine, and tells the story of the bravest people in America."
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The Truth
Writer's Publishing Cooperative, New Hampshire
Through fiction we are able to tell the truth about the murderous, deceitful administration of United States President George W. Bush. Follow Iowa postman Pete Penny on his daily route and discover what you really, truly already know.
Against the backdrop of history, we have the story of a small-town mailman whose son is one of the U.S. casualties during the Occupation of Iraq and his almost inevitable realization of the cruel, deceptive and cynical context within which many sons and daughters continue to sacrifice their lives.
"The Truth" is a vital book on a vital subject: Democracy (of any definition) is threatened in the United States more than any time in her history - not only by the erosive events enacted by the Bush Administration (and the events are many, both in domestic and foreign affairs, but also by the inertia in response, or non-response, by a truly frightening number of the American public.
"The book is organized with even-numbered pages carrying quotes of significance to the point of the lockdown of America (from Goebbels, from Goering, from Ari Fleischer, - but also the wonderful and inspiring words of such human beings as St. Augustine, as Thomas Jefferson, as well as writers and thinkers and journalists ranging from Helen Thomas to William Shakespeare..) and the odd-numbered pages relate the story of Pete Penny. Either the quotes alone or the story would be fully satisfying, but together they serve in creating an acute tension of the individual life in historical context. This same tension is further played out in the very, very funny sections that run throughout an otherwise almost Kafkaesque unraveling of the life of one man. The extremely comic attend the tragic of both the story and history's narrative - just as the ludicrousness of an absurd "President" underline the daily horror: The horror of the Administration's avarice and lies in a bloodshed which shows no signs of abating; the mockery and indifference to much that the American people have valued; the ravaging of any American dream.
"It is without hesitation that I urge everyone to read this book: For those who are lost in the chaotic events of our times, it is illuminating; for those who are familiar with the aspects that Mike describes, his lucidity and fine perceptions further organize our thinking."
"I found out the truth, man, but it's better to stay stupid, go to ball games, smoke cigarettes and fish from the shore. Figuring it out's not the hard part. It's what are you gonna do, now, man? That's when it gets tough. What you gonna do now?"
- Sheila Conroy, International Progressive Publications Network
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Twins
Badger Books, Madison, Wisc.
Based in Minneapolis/Saint Paul. Twin brothers, one a revolutionary priest, the other the warden of the local federal penitentiary, battle in the streets and from the rooftops. It's a sibling rivalry, rich vs. poor, yuppies against the gangs of the ghetto, the Kiwanis Club meets the prison yard weightlifters. It's walleye sizzling in the crisp north woods air and dirty diapers in the gutter. It's food on a stick, a seat on the third-baseline, and halftime mud wrestling between Dorothy Day and Mary Tyler Moore, in this one-of-a-kind American metropolis.
It's God's Country, or, it could be, might truly be, after the revolution. "Thanks so much for being a part of the fantasy." - author
"I'm enjoying immensely the detailed setting of the book in the Twin Cities -or at least a virtual reality of the area (e.g.the Foshay Tower as a Federal Prison?). Give it a try, I think you'll like it."
- Stu Webb, Minneapolis Attorney
"Reading Twins, a first novel by Nebraska native Mike Palecek, who attended St. Thomas College as a member of St. John Vianney Seminary in 1979, is like watching "True Confession," an American film made during the 1970s about two brothers, one a Catholic priest and the other a Chicago detective, both on opposite ends of a moral continuum, playing the cards they were dealt - to the end."
- Jerry Irsfeld, Roseville, Senior News
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