Friday May 14, 2004

Welcome Read Greg's Web Log Sign up to receive Greg's writings by email Click here for instructions on how to link to this site Buy books, videos, and posters online New Postings Greg on Counterspin April 21, 2004 CartaCapital: Profissao: Reporter De Investigacao (Portugese Language Article, PDF format) BBC TV: Iraq: Palast & Gen. Garner PETITION! Martin Luther King III and Greg Palast: Sign Here to Stop the Florida-tion of the 2004 Election GRAND THEFT AMERICA - An Eric Blumrich Flash Animation Based on the 2000 Election Theft Voices For Working Families See No Evil: What Bush Didn't (Want To) Know About 9/11 on TomPaine.com Donate to the Palast Investigative Fund:

Speaking Tour, Film Screenings and TV Appearances Check the calendar for information about the 2004 "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy" tour and events in your area. Groups please email us for sponsoring and fundraising opportunities. Order Counting on Democracy, the film that tells you what really happened in the Florida presidential election of 2000. For more information about the film click here. Groups please email us for information on holding screenings. Download the MP3 of Silence of the Media Lambs featuring Greg, part of Say it LOUD: New Songs for Peace, produced by Pacifica Radio and The Polemic Consortium. It's great!

by Ed Rampell

Not everyone gets to be Woodward and Bernstein, cracking the big story and coming out a hero. BBC investigative reporter Greg Palast is getting the Southern California branch of the American Civil Liberties Union's 2004 Upton Sinclair Freedom of Expression Award this weekend - but he was also recently sued for $15 million by former New York Governor Mario Cuomo, a Democrat. Investigative journalism, the pride of the reporting profession, can be an exercise in pure masochism these days: As a big story takes one closer and closer to power, the costs and consequences mount.

Palast has emerged as a Grand Inquisitor of corporate wrongdoers and their political lackeys, from Baghdad to Sacramento to Washington. Britain's Tribune Magazine called him: "The most important journalist of our time dominating journalism in two continents." About 1,000 people turned up for his appearance at Immanuel Presbyterian church in L.A. last week. But ruffling feathers right and left has its price, earning Palast powerful enemies. Born in Los Angeles and raised in the San Fernando Valley, he was recently inducted as a "patron of the Philosophical Society" of Trinity College in Dublin, but Palast called it "one of the great and bitter ironies for me. I'm part of the European letters establishment, but in America, I'm the 'kook,' the 'conspiracy nut,' which is pretty disconcerting, because I want to be American." Previous patrons include Jonathan Swift, Oscar Wilde, and Salman Rushdie.

Consider the company. Socialist author Upton Sinclair was savaged by Hollywood moguls when he ran for governor of California during the Depression on a radical anti-poverty program. And Rushdie lives still under the threat of a Muslim fatwa, a death sentence, for his book, The Satanic Verses. So maybe they're not doing him any favors with all these awards, even if a lo ... [ Click here for full article ]

Monday May 10, 2004 by Jenn Bleyer

Greg Palast is back with an updated, expanded edition of the bestseller that won't die, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. GNN's Jenn Bleyer caught up with America's most prolific muckraker at a recent New York event. Palast was in rare form, pulling no punches as he explained how we're headed for another election debacle, the connection between Iraq and America's African-American community, and why Michael Moore is allowed to get away with what he does.

GNN: What's new in this edition of your book?

Palast: Well, there's nothing new in the sense that it's the same old thieving shits that have been walking away with everything in our nation that isn't bolted down, plus hunks of Mesopotamia. That ain't new. What's new is the information that I have on exactly how they do it. What's new on the election story? It's grim. Our president has signed the Help America Vote Act. When George W. Bush is going to help me vote, I'm concerned.

They're pushing it to go digital, and I think a lot of people are getting distracted worrying about the hacking. The real game is what the Civil Rights Commission calls the "no count," which is machines that don't work, power failures, machines that lock up. Hey, you have a laptop, right? Your presidency is hanging on it. This isn't about whether the machines work or not-they work perfectly. That's where I investigated. I went into Broward County's white precinct where touch screen v ... [ Click here for full article ]