That "Words are sharper than swords" has to be scientifically proved. This is a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA)of the rhetorical strategies employed in Richard Mann's Plots and schemes that brought down Soeharto, a political memoir that describes day-by-day events mounting to the fall of Soeharto, a smiling general who can order his troops with a single lift of his finger tip. How Mann alligned his readers into pro-reformists has been analyzed using Systemic Functional Linguistics and its related disciplines in order to come up with the rhetorical strategies he might or might not have realized that he used. Most significantly, the current study reveals that critical reading is the key to thorough comprehension of text, and thereby suggests a number of recommnendations with respect to improving literacy pedagogy, specifically in the teaching of reading comprehension in order to create a reading society in a developing country where literacy in its broader sense has not progressed much, and where individuals have not been able to participate in globally acceptable discursive practices. After all, this book tries to fight against non-democratic use of hegemonic language.