
for the British Broadcasting Corporation as well as the British newspaper The Observer
. His work frequently focuses on corporate
malfeasance
but has also been known to work with labor unions and consumer advocacy groups. Notably, he has claimed to have uncovered evidence that Florida
Governor Jeb Bush
, Florida Secretary of State
Katherine Harris
, and Florida Elections Unit Chief Clay Roberts, along with the ChoicePoint
corporation, rigged the ballots
during the US Presidential Election of 2000 and again in 2004 when, he argued, the problems and machinations from 2000 continued, and that challenger John Kerry
actually would have won if not for disproportional "spoilage
" of Democratic
votes.
Palast spoke at a Think Twice conference held at Cambridge University
and lectured at the University of São Paulo
.
"A couple of years ago, Michael Isikoff|Mike Isikoff passed me truly disturbing information on Bill Clinton|President Clinton, not your usual Monica Lewinski|intern-under-the-desk stuff. I said, Mike, why don't you print this?' And he said, 'Because no one gives a shit.' Where are you, America? Don't you want to know how your president was elected? How the International Monetary Fund|IMF spends your money?"
"Come by my town today and count the strip malls and fluorescent lamp|fluorescent signs directing you to, 'Bagels Hot! Cars Like NEW No Down-Payment! Dog Burger!', where corn once grew."
"Every landlord of fenced-in intellectual real estate began life as a thief. As Isaac Newton would say now, 'If I see further than others, it is because I stand on the shoulders of giants too dumb to patent their discoveries!'"
"Globalization|Multinational corporations, many you've never heard of, may soon have extraordinary control of your health, your culture, and your Freedom (political)|freedom."
"One in eight American adults has worked at a McDonald's. This acts as a kind of morality|moral instruction for the working class, as prison|jail time does for ghetto residents."
"In the free market|deregulated market, profits are privatization|privatized and losses are socialism|socialized."
"The purpose of every industrial revolution is to make craft and skills obsolete, and thereby make people interchangeable and cheap."
"Quietly tucked into George W. Bush|Bush's budget is a big fat zero for the key Environmental Protection Agency|EPA civil enforcement team. This has no connection whatsoever to the petrochemical industry dumping $48,000,000 into the United States Republican Party|Republican U.S. presidential election, 2000|campaign."
"The spiky-haired WTO Ministerial Conference of 1999 protest activity|protesters in Seattle, Washington|Seattle believe there's some kind of grand conspiracy between the corporate powers, the International Monetary Fund|IMF, the World Bank, and agencies which work to suck the blood of Bolivians and steal the gold from Tanzania. But the tree-huggers are wrong; the details are far more stomach-churning than they imagine."
"Who owns America? How much did it cost? Was the transaction cash, check, or credit? Or a donation? Or a consulting contract? What do you give a billionaire who has everything? A gold mine? Immunity from prosecution?"
for the British Broadcasting Corporation as well as the British newspaper The Observer
. His work frequently focuses on corporate
malfeasance
but has also been known to work with labor unions and consumer advocacy groups. Notably, he has claimed to have uncovered evidence that Florida
Governor Jeb Bush
, Florida Secretary of State
Katherine Harris
, and Florida Elections Unit Chief Clay Roberts, along with the ChoicePoint
corporation, rigged the ballots
during the US Presidential Election of 2000 and again in 2004 when, he argued, the problems and machinations from 2000 continued, and that challenger John Kerry
actually would have won if not for disproportional "spoilage
" of Democratic
votes.
Palast spoke at a Think Twice conference held at Cambridge University
and lectured at the University of São Paulo
. He lives in New York City. Palast is originally from Los Angeles
, and was educated at the University of Chicago
, and eventually earned an MBA.
Presidential Elections
Palast's investigation into the Bush family fortunes for his column in The Observer led him to uncover a connection to a company called ChoicePoint. In an October 2008 interview Palast said that before the 2000 Election ChoicePoint "was purging the voter rolls of Florida under a contract with a lady named Katherine Harris, the Secretary of State. They won a contract, a bid contract with the state, with the highest bid."
After subsequently noticing a large proportion of African-American voters were claiming their names had disappeared from voter rolls in Florida in the 2000 election, Palast launched a full-scale investigation into voter fraud, the results of which were broadcast in the UK by the BBC on their Newsnight show prior to the 2004 Election. Palast claimed to have obtained computer discs from Katherine Harris' office, which contained caging lists of "voters matched by race and tagged as felons."
Palast appeared in the 2003 documentary film, Florida Fights Back! Resisting the Stolen Election, along with Vincent Bugliosi
, Former L.A. Deputy D.A. & Author of " The Betrayal of America
", and including footage from the 2001 Washington D.C. Voter Rights March with founder Lou Posner.
Palast also appeared in the 2004 documentary Orwell Rolls in His Grave
, which focuses on the hidden mechanics of the media.
Palast alleges that Andrés Manuel López Obrador
— and not Felipe Calderón
— won Mexico's last presidential election.
In May 2007, Palast said he'd received 500 email
s that former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove
exchanged through an account supplied by the Republican National Committee
. Palast says the emails show a plan to target likely Democratic voters with extra scrutiny over their home addresses, and he also believes Rove's plan was a factor in the firing of U.S. Attorneys.
After Palast was invited by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
to appear on his Air America talk show to discuss, among other things, election fraud, the pair teamed up to find out if democracy was in a better state in 2008. In their report, which was published in October 2008 in Rolling Stone
, they concluded that the 2008 Election had already been stolen. "If Democrats are to win the 2008 election, they must not simply beat John McCain at the polls -- they must beat him by a margin that exceeds the level of GOP vote tampering", Palast and Kennedy summarized.
To combat the extensive acts of voter suppression that Palast and Kennedy uncovered, the duo launched a campaign called Steal Back Your Vote, which features a website and free downloadable voter guide / adult comic book.
Long Island Lighting Company
In 1988, Palast directed a U.S. civil racketeering investigation into the nuclear power plantbuilder Long Island Lighting Company
. A jury
awarded the plaintiffs US$4.8 billion; however, New York
's chief federal judge
reversed the verdict. The racketeering charges stemmed from an accusation that LILCO filed false documents in order to secure rate increases. LILCO sought a dismissal of these charges on the grounds that Suffolk County
lacked authority under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act
and that the allegations of a history of racketeering did not qualify as a continuing criminal enterprise.
Exxon Valdez
Palast has also taken issue with the official story behind the grounding of the Exxon Valdez, claiming the sobriety
of the Valdezs captain was not an issue in the accident. According to Palast the main cause of the Exxon Valdez accident in 1989 was not human error, but an Exxon decision not to fix the ship's radar
in order to save money. The Raytheon
Raycas radar system would not have detected Bligh Reef
itself - as radar, unlike sonar
, is incapable of detecting objects under the waterline of a ship. However the radar system would have detected the "radar reflector", placed on the next rock inland from Bligh Reef for the purpose of keeping boats on course via radar.
Palast argues the original owners of the land, the local Alaska Natives
tribe, took only one dollar in payment for the land other than a promise not to pollute
it and spoil their fishing ground.
Lobbygate
In 1998, working as an undercover reporter for The Observer, Palast, posing as a US businessman with ties to Enron
, caught on tape two Labour party insiders, Derek Draper
and Jonathan Mendelsohn
, boasting about how they could sell access to government ministers, obtain advance copies of sensitive reports, and create tax breaks for their clients.
Draper denied the allegations. At Prime Minister's Question Time July 8 1998 British
Prime Minister
Tony Blair
claimed that all the specific claims had been investigated and found groundless "every allegation made in The Observer has been investigated and found to be untrue".
Vulture Funds
Starting in 2007 Palast published a series of investigations on what aid groups and the investors call "Vulture Funds." "Vulture Funds," are when companies or people buy the the debt of poor countries and sue in courts to recover the funds, often at the expense of aid and debt relief. Prime Minister Gordon Brown commented on the practices saying "We particularly condemn the perversity where Vulture Funds purchase debt at a reduced price and make a profit from suing the debtor country to recover the full amount owed - a morally outrageous outcome".In 2011, the UK made permanent the Debt Relief (Developing Countries) Act 2010, which severely restricts the activities of vulture funds in the UK.
Newsnight
Since 2000, Greg Palast has made more than a dozen films for the BBC Newsnight programme, with the Investigations Producer Meirion Jones, which have been broadcast in the UK and worldwide. In addition to the films on US elections they have investigated the oil companies, the Iraq War, the Coup against Chavez, and the Vulture Funds which target the poorest countries.
Criticism
In An Open Letter to Greg Palast on Peak Oil Richard Heinbergoffers friendly criticism of Palast who conflates the "amount of oil left" with "peak (maximal) flow rates" for oil, the latter being key to Peak Oil
.
Left-wing former MP George Galloway
also criticised Palast by claiming he "conflates meetings, truths and half-truths, statements taken out of context to produce a toxic smear which would be actionable in the country he claims to work in" http://www.counterpunch.org/galloway09202005.html
Books
- Vultures' Picnic (2011)
- Armed Madhouse (2006)
- Democracy and Regulation (2003) (Co-AuthorsAuthorAn author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
: Theo MacGregor and Jerrold Oppenheim) - The Best Democracy Money Can BuyThe Best Democracy Money Can BuyThe Best Democracy Money Can Buy is a 2002 book written by investigative journalist Greg Palast. It is about corporate corruption, global capitalism, environmental destruction, third world exploitation, freedom of speech and political corruption, and the United States presidential election of 2000...
(2002)
Films
- American BlackoutAmerican BlackoutAmerican Blackout is a documentary film directed by Ian Inaba. It premiered at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival. The film chronicles the 2002 defeat, and 2004 reelection, of Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney to the U.S...
- Big Easy to Big Empty [Part 1], Part 2
- Bush Family Fortunes
- The Election Files
- Palast Investigates
Newsnight
- "Vulture Funds attack Liberia 2010"
- "Vulture Funds attack Zambia 2007"
- "Bush and the Vultures 2007"
- "US Election 2008 (2008)"
- "Tim Griffin (2007)"
- "US Election 2004 (2004)"
- "US Election 2000 (2001)"
- "Bush and the Bin Ladens (2001)"
- "Bush dances with Enron (2001)"
- "Chevron and Ecuador (2007)"
- "Secret US plans for Iraq's oil (2005)"
- "Iraq - Jay Garner's story (2004)
- "Chavez and Oil (2006)"
- "Chavez and the Coup (2002)
- "Stiglitz (2001)"
- "Microsoft (2000)"
See also
- 2004 United States election voting controversies2004 United States election voting controversiesDuring the 2004 United States presidential election, concerns were raised about various aspects of the voting process, including whether voting had been made accessible to all those entitled to vote, whether ineligible voters were registered, whether voters were registered multiple times, and...
- International Monetary FundInternational Monetary FundThe International Monetary Fund is an organization of 187 countries, working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world...
- World BankWorld BankThe World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans to developing countries for capital programmes.The World Bank's official goal is the reduction of poverty...
- World Trade OrganizationWorld Trade OrganizationThe World Trade Organization is an organization that intends to supervise and liberalize international trade. The organization officially commenced on January 1, 1995 under the Marrakech Agreement, replacing the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade , which commenced in 1948...
External links
- GregPalast.com - 'The Writings of Greg Palast' (official website)
- GregPalastOffice Greg Palast's YouTube page
- Election 2004 Shoplifting the Presidency? - interview on Democracy Now!Democracy Now!Democracy Now! and its staff have received several journalism awards, including the Gracie Award from American Women in Radio & Television; the George Polk Award for its 1998 radio documentary Drilling and Killing: Chevron and Nigeria's Oil Dictatorship, on the Chevron Corporation and the deaths of...
- Scoop.co.nz - 'OPECOPECOPEC is an intergovernmental organization of twelve developing countries made up of Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela. OPEC has maintained its headquarters in Vienna since 1965, and hosts regular meetings...
& The Economic Conquest Of Iraq', Greg Palast - New York Inquirer Interview with Greg Palast
- Palast article 'On the 2006 Mid-Term Elections'
- "A Sleeper Cell of Rove-Bots" - May 24, 2007 interview
- Greg Palast Tracks Vulture Funds Preying on African Debt - video report by Democracy Now!Democracy Now!Democracy Now! and its staff have received several journalism awards, including the Gracie Award from American Women in Radio & Television; the George Polk Award for its 1998 radio documentary Drilling and Killing: Chevron and Nigeria's Oil Dictatorship, on the Chevron Corporation and the deaths of...