Culled from Democracy Now
Friday, August 22nd, 2003
Investigative Reporter Greg Palast on the Real Reasons for Blackout 2003,
Elections Past and Present and Disenfranchised Voters
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Speaking at a WBAI-sponsored event in New York City, Greg Palast, author of
The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, links the cause for Blackout 2003 to a “dim
bulb in the White House.” [Includes transcript] <A HREF="http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/08/22/#transcript">Click here to read to full
transcript</A> The New York Times in a front-page report yesterday said that “three
months before the blackout a report called for Vigilance in a vulnerable region.”
The North American Electrical Reliability Council , an industry body singled
out the sections of the grid covering Ohio and other parts of the Midwest,
was particularly vulnerable to the kind of ‘cascading events’ that unfolded
last Thursday. Palast’s trenchant analysis of the blackout was the primary
subject of his speech in New York City on the 19th of June at an event sponsored by
Pacifica affiliate WBAI. Addressing issues related to the US invasion of Iraq,
Palast quoted from a 101 page classified State Department document and said
it was “a plan for the post-conflict economy of Iraq, written before we knew
there was going to be a conflict in Iraq and it has some very interesting
statements including this one at page 73 that the state department will approve
plans to support private sector involvement in strategic sectors including
privatization, asset sales, concessions, leases and management contracts – especially
those in the oil and supporting industries, privatization of oil and
supporting industries , the sell off of Iraq’s oil fields- do not destroy the wells."
He added that, "I am not one of those cynical people who says that we went
into Iraq for the oil, but we sure as hell are not leaving without it.”
Greg Palast, author of the The Best Democracy Money Can Buy speaking on Aug.
19th, 2003 at a WBAI-sponsored event. Palast is an investigative reporter for
the BBC and the Guardian of London.TRANSCRIPT
GREG PALAST: For those of you who don’t know-before I was a reporter I worked
for a living and I was an investigator-and I investigated power companies-
and one company I investigated was this company called First Energy-and if you
don’t know who these guys are-they were the model for this film called the
China syndrome-that was Ohio Edison-that was these guys. That is where the power
outage started-then it moved over to their GPU Pennsylvania Unit-that was the
guys that gave us the 3-mile Island nuclear plant-then it crosses over the
great lakes to a company called Niagara Mohawk-it is owned by a bunch of Brits-who
a couple of years ago laid off a couple of hundred workers-almost their
entire maintenance staff-and carted of 90 million dollars to its British stock
holders. Not surprisingly that the three stooges of the power industry got
together and poked out their lights and poked out our lights and this is not
surprising-but what I begin to find surprising is a statement by a guy called Spencer
Abraham. He is our Energy Secretary and our Energy Cop-if you get mugged you
go to a cop and say you have been mugged-what Secretary Abraham said and I
quote, “We need to pass an energy bill that gives the FERC the authority to impo
wse mandatory reliability standards.” That’s like going to a cop and saying I
have been mugged and the cop says-Yeah, there ought to be a law. Mr. Abraham
there was a law and as a senator you voted to eliminate the law-you voted to
end the Department of Energy-he is now Secretary of Energy, right. And he voted
to end this department but in fact there is a law-the FERC are the cops-they
do have supposedly reliability standards-these guys are supposed to keep the
lights on-so what happened-who is the cop who was not on the beat? So what
happened? The chairman of the FERC is a guy named Pat Wood-so Pat Wood is the guy
who let the lights go out-so how did we get Pat Wood-where did Pat Wood come
from? Now, I have a letter here-for those of you who know me-I have a friendly
relationship with these helicopters that drop things on my desk-and here is the
letter: “Dear George-this is to the honorable George W Bush-written some
while back-Dear George-I want to underscore some of the recommendations that were
recently made by Karl Rove with reference to the Utility Commission-the
appointment is a critical one-to achieve the economic growth that you and all of us
hope for it is essential that we achieve maximum efficiency within the Public
Utility Sector. Based on the various candidates that we are aware of –we
believe that Pat Wood is best qualified to provide that new thinking-Linda joins me
in wishing you, Laura and the entire family a joyous holiday season and we
look forward to seeing you early in the New Year-sincerely Ken-this is from Ken
Lay Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of a company that is not in business
anymore-that is how we got Pat Wood. But I thought tonight with the lights out
that it would be nice to have a second and a half of silence for the poor
Jake Horton-Jake-see the biggest power company –once there is now a hole in the
ground where Enron used to be and some of us realize that we once had 401 (K)
plans-they are now 201 (K) plans. Jake Horton was the senior vice president of
a company called Southern which since the sad demise of Enron is the number
one power company in the United States-they are the guys who have us by the
bulbs. Who are these guys? Jake Horton was the Vice President of that company and
he found something unusual in the mid eighties-he found that the company was
making political campaign contributions. He knows because he was delivering
them in little brown paper bags-and in the good old days before the miracle of
de-regulation-there was a guy- a disabled president called Franklin D
Roosevelt-who was morally however abled. He gave us a law called the Public Utility
Holding Company Act- which didn’t put a limit on campaign contributions by power
companies-he said no soft money, FDR-he said no hard money-he said NO
MONEY-because when a power company gives money to the government that regulates it-it
has got to be a bribe, right? That went out the window, right? But with
de-regulation signed by George Bush senior in 1992 on his way out, right? But in the
meantime before that Jake had delivered some cash and he was going to take the
fall-so he said you know what else-he said make me take the fall and I have
some news for you-there is a little bit of a problem with our accounting
system-there is one set of books that we give to our regulators and there is another
set of books locked in the trunk of the car of the Senior Vice President of
the company. This is the biggest power corporation that is there in North
America, right? And they pretended according to these books that the company had
spent 61 million dollars repairing its power plants and its grid systems-but it
didn’t. It pocketed the money-Now Jake thought that the Attorney General ought
to have this information-borrowed the company plane-10 minutes after the
plane took off, April 1989-the plane exploded. Co-incidence? I don’t want to hear
from the conspiracy nuts out there-actually the company did not believe it was
an accident-the chairman of the board said to BBC television, where I work,
that Jake saw no other way out-and anyway the company was about to be indicted
by Grand Jury not for Jake’s demise but for the funny books under the US
Racketeering Laws-except there is a funny provision in the country’s racketeering
laws which says that the justice dept can pull an indictment-and in fact the
Justice Dept under George Senior’s government pulled out the indictment on this
company-because they said it may be an odd method of keeping your books in the
trunk of the car of the company’s Vice President-but according to Bush’s
guys it was approved by that upstanding auditing firm-Arthur Anderson And that
was the signal. The company has since committed itself to stop breaking the
law-not by going straight but by changing the law-that’s what is called
de-regulation, so now instead they give the bags of money to the politicians. Enron was
Number One contributor to the Bush Campaign, Exxon No. 2, Southern No. 3-so
for campaign contributions they were found guilty of felony crime- so what was
previously jail time for their guys-they now get an invitation to the Crawford
ranch for their donations. Well let’s move on-heard any good wars lately? I
thought I’d go back into ancient history tonight-March 17th of this year-and I
know this because I was just on Fox News and I know this kind of professional
amnesia that goes on in the American news industry-lets go back to ancient
history. March 17th our President gave his ‘Get Out of town, High Noon, Saddam’
speech’ and he said’ I want to speak to the Iraqi people’-which is obviously
very interesting because Dick Cheney did not tell him that they speak Arabic.
But OK Good Enough I thought he’d say something like please don’t shoot our
boys-they are here to liberate you- but he didn’t. He said and I quote-he said, “
Do not destroy oil wells’. I don’t make this up-he also said that we are
going into Iraq after those who have aided, trained and harbored terrorists
including operatives of Al-Qaeda. And I thought (expletive) he is going to bust his
Daddy. And he also said ‘War has no certainty except the certainty of
sacrifice-He would know because he was a war hero during Vietnam-I mean you saw him
doing that Tom Cruise Top Gun thing landing on the deck of an aircraft
carrier-you are laughing but you don’t have an action doll-but he really was a fighter
pilot during the Vietnam War-not in the real Air Force like it says on the
Box-but he was in something called the Texas Air National Guard-which is an army
for warriors who are afraid of the sight of blood-especially their own right?
And its amazing now-keep in mind that we have had this three front war
going-we have had a war against Osama, against Saddam and we have also had this war
on affirmative action going and our President believes that no one should get
their position except by merit-and he did in all fairness. I just did an
investigative one hour show for BBC Television-you can unlock the women and
children-we will not be showing it on American TV-but Bush took a test young George
and out of a possible 100 he scored 25. Whatever! So who won the war-we just
had a war-who won the war? Democracy? Who won Gulf War 1? We were supposed to
get Democracy remember in the first Gulf War 12 years ago-all we had to do was
get rid of the evil Saddam-get his foot off the neck of the Kuwaitis-and they
would have a democratic monarchy women would drive in cars-and its 12 year
later and I am still waiting for the election returns from Kuwait. So we are
bringing democracy to Iraq-kind of like we brought democracy to Afghanistan-one war
lord-one vote there. I know you are laughing but so before we can remember
who won Gulf War 2 we should try and kind of remember who won Gulf War 1. It wasn
’t democracy-so who won? After Daddy Bush was asked to leave the White House
by the American public he writes a letter to the Sheikhs-the Emirate-the
royals of Kuwait-we call them royals right-that means oil guys with robes and
crowns-they are dictators with robes and crowns. He writes a letter to the Kuwaiti
dictatorship-he doesn’t say Gee! Didn’t you promise elections-you know we
have some kids buried in the sand there-he said would you please give my friends
at Chevron Oil a drilling concession in the Gulf-and he saved their Rolls Royce
’s- you know what the Kuwaiti army fighting song is- Onward Christian
soldiers! Yeah look it up So they got their oil drilling concession-and then George W
Bush we see from Chevron oil, a 660 thousand contribution into Republican
campaign funds-and I don’t want you to think that the two are connected-I am just
throwing it out… So who has won the current war? Jay Garner said that there
would be elections in 90 days that was 30 days ago-He is gone, so who won? Well
the envelope please-A document landed in my hands-it’s a 101 pages-it is a
confidential document out of the files of the State Department-it was - It is a
plan for what they call the post-conflict economy of Iraq-it was written long
before we knew there was going to be a conflict in Iraq and it has some very
interesting statements including this one at page 73 that the State Department
will approve plans to support private sector involvement in strategic sectors
including privatization, asset sales, concessions, leases and management
contracts-especially those in the oil and supporting industries-it calls for the
privatization of ‘all state owned companies with a goal of rapid divestiture.’
-privatization of oil and supporting industries-the sell off of Iraq’s oil
fields-do not destroy the wells. I am not one of those cynical people who says
that we went into Iraq for the oil-but we sure as hell are not leaving without
it. I was very interested you know-there were 28 pages missing from the Sept 11
attack report from the US Congress-This might help them-I have got some pages
here-these I do know are the material that went into those missing pages. On
the top the document is marked secret and on the left side it is marked-199 I
which means national security and WF which means Washington Field Office of the
FBI-now how did I get this document-this was not a helicopter drop actually
oddly enough-some FBI agents came to the BBC offices and they came to us and
asked some questions about God knows what and as they were leaving they had
dropped a file on the Desk and then they called-little while later and said Oh my
God-we accidentally left the file on your desk-you haven’t read it have you
and they said we will be back for it in 30 minutes unless you need 45 What is
interesting about this document is that it talks about an investigation FBI
agents wanted to do but were not released to do until September 13, 2001-to
investigate what the FBI calls a suspected terrorist organization-why cant the FBI
investigate a suspected terrorist organization? A lot of these guys do not want
to go after guys throwing cream pies at anti globalization protests-these are
not nice guys-this organization they were looking at backed by the Saudi
royal family-I have obtained tapes of some of their discussions talking of the
wonders of attacking civilian targets-and one of their staff members is the
conduit for Osama Bin Laden’s Valentine Tapes to America on Al-Jazeera- so these
are the kind of guys that FBI agents would like to go after but they couldn’t-
Why-who are these guys and I turned to page 2 and what do you know-there it
says Abdul and Omar Bin Laden-now that was kind of interesting to me-because we
were told that there is the black sheep of the Bin Laden family and that is
Osama and then there is the white sheep of the Bin Laden family-now we know that
the rest of them are White Sheep because they have supported the Bush family
enterprise-for example our President George W Bush became a very rich man in
the oil industry-he never struck any oil-all he struck was into the pockets of
Salim Bin Laden-older brother of Osama-so I was very interested in that
Apparently some of the FBI agents thought that a couple of members of the Bin Laden
family were gray sheep-but by the time they released-there was a hole in the
ground a block from here-where I used to work incidentally and these birds had
flown. My good friend Cynthia McKinney is in town-she made a mistake-see she as
former Congresswoman of Georgia used to read the transcripts of my reports
from BBC TV and make speeches on the floor saying we got to investigate this
stuff-we ought to investigate the intelligence failures before September
11-especially our blindness towards Saudi involvement in funding terrorist
organizations-almost the exact words used by Sen. Bob Graham of Florida-for which her
words were changed by the New York Times and NPR-National Petroleum Radio-and
Pacifica the WBAI network ran an interview with her-two separate
statements-completely separate statements at the back and front of the interview were pasted
together by NPR and they said that ‘What Cynthia Mc Kinney said was that George
W Bush knew about the attacks of Sept 11 in advance and didn’t tell anyone so
that his buddies could make a profit-this is not what she said-they wouldn’t
give her a chance to reply-they simply said it-John Sugg –the editor of an
Atlanta paper said it was the worst case of journalistic abuse he had seen his
career-and I said well you haven’t been hanging around-but they got her-she was
a loony and a fruitcake because she asked some questions But its your fault at
Pacifica and I thought I’d let you know-Cynthia will be here tonight and I
want to make sure that we recognize the one place where she is allowed to tell
the truth I was interested in why they went after her. I know why they didn’t
go after Bob Graham –the Graham family owns the Washington Post-I was
interested in a deeper question-my book is all about money and elections and money and
the democratic process-because in the last election the guy with the most
votes lost-the guy with the most money won-which meant that instead of an election
we had an auction-it is efficient- I was interested in this issue-I am
looking at the donors-who are the big donors for the Bush campaign-there is
Enron-there is Exxon, there is Southern Company-there is Barrick Gold Mining-in
Canada-why are these Canadians so patriotic that they are giving us money? Looking
at the Board of this company-what do you know there is George Senior-who is he
working for? It was started by that well known Canadian Adnan Khashoggi-but
why would Barrick hire George Bush Senior out of the White House when two thirds
of American public asked him to leave-I mean what do you do with a used
President-what caught their attention about this guy and then I took a look and lo
and behold-just before Bush is asked to leave the White House-his
administration changes the rules for gold mining companies so that gold mining companies
like the old prospectors can lay claims to the mines-so Barrick Gold
Mining-said Eureka we found it-they took George Bush to the claims office and they
grabbed the largest gold mine in the US-10 billion dollars worth of gold and they
paid the US treasury for thee claim-10,000 dollars-Then they gave Bush a job.
Now I reported this-you saw this in the paper if you were in England right-in
the Guardian Observer-and Bush’s gold finger buddies sued my paper-they didn’t
deny that Bush got the job-they didn’t deny that they got the gold mine for
10 grand-they didn’t deny that Khashoggi started the company-they didn’t deny
that they gave donations to Sonny Bush-what they said was that any reasonable
person reading this set of facts might conclude that they are connected-well
wait, that is pretty grim-under British libel law I was in real trouble-because
if someone thought they were connected-libel-my paper is liable-so I sign a
statement that there is no connection-so I want you to remember tonight that
Barrack got the gold mine, Daddy got the job and the public got the shaft-so
there is no connection right? But it is a bad thing-and I want you to remember it
is about the USA-we are the only nation in the world with this precious thing
called the First Amendment-the only nation in the world that has a true legal
right of freedom of speech and press and I have been campaigning-if you read
my book-for a First Amendment for Britain-in fact I suggested that they borrow
ours since we are not using it But I still don’t know what do you do with a
used President and I looked at the Barrick website and it says there that the
President helped them get a gold mining concession in Tanzania-so I wonder-why
do you need a President to do this for you? Why cant you just bid for it-there
was a political problem-because the gold field in Tanzania already had gold
miners on it-Tanzanians you would be surprised to hear-and which got in the way
of the Canadian-Saudi-American deal-so the Tanzanians had to go for Barrick
to buy the land-so it was cleared by running bulldozers across the property-
August 1996 they ran bulldozers across the property-smashed the workers houses,
filled the mine pits and chased away 30,000 workers-all but 50-because
according to our reports 50 miners were in the mining pits when they were sealed-yeah
and I reported that too and they sued me and my paper. It is no co-incidence
that my outlet BBC TV is not for profit and my paper like WBAI is run by a non
profit-we do not have the cash to pay for these armed and dangerous
billionaires-to fight these guys-so we were nervous-they wanted me to sin a statement
saying that no one died in the peaceful clearing of these mines-I said I would
love to sign that what is your evidence. They said the evidence is that we are
billionaires -You are not, so sign. I said I need a little bit more than
that- they said OK-they provided nothing-my paper sent one of the top human rights
investigators in the world-Tundu Lissu is his name-he is a member of the
Tanzanian bar- a lawyer-speaks Swahili-he sent back photos off crushed corpses-he
sent back statements he sent back a videotape of the bodies being exhumed-and
I showed this to the gold-fingers-Bush’s guys and they said OK sign here-no
one died-I said I cant do that-and I will tell you why I didn’t-because Tundu
Lissu before he left had a press conference in Dar El Salaam and said that there
ought to be an investigation of the clearance of the mines and for that he
was charged with sedition and so I couldn’t sign off and hang him literally-it
turns out though he’d left the country without knowing that he had been
charged-and he got back safely to his home in DC-his wife was pregnant and I met up
with him and I said Tundu what are you going to do after the twins are born and
he said go back to Tanzania and I said they are going to arrest you and he
said if I am lucky. Now he did go back-in case he wanted to change his mind the
Bush administration pulled his visa and took away 3 million dollars from the
World Resources Institute because they refused to stop their investigation in
Tanzania-he went back and has been in and out of jail-his offices were burnt
down-
go to <A HREF="htt://www.gregpalast.com/">Gregpalast.com</A> and keep abreast of what is going on with that story
"The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are
evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it."
- Albert Einstein
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change
the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has."
- Margaret Mead
"When the government fears the people, you have liberty. When the people fear
the government, you have tyranny."
- Thomas Jefferson
"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing"
- Edmund Burke
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