Armed Madhouse

by Greg Palast

  Unfortunately, that “fact” isn’t a fact at all—reserves rise year after year—and those facts don’t change because Chevron paid my magazine to print it. (If Chevron is truly concerned that more oil is burnt than discovered, it might consider looking for some. The industry has cut exploration budgets from a third of production spending to an eighth. But that’s a churlish comment. Chevron is not in the business of finding oil, but finding profits.)

  Ads sell. What is Chevron trying to sell us when it sells us the “peak” idea that we now use more oil than we discover? The ad says, “We need your help.” I am, I admit, flattered that a big, giant oil company would ask my assistance. What could a petroleum goliath earning $14.1 billion in a year want from me? Apparently, more money. The new oil Chevron is finding “requires a greater investment to refine.” In other words, don’t bitch about high prices—we need your cash to mix your next fix of crude.

  The “we’re running out of oil” line still has its uses. In 2005, taking advantage of oil-shortage hysteria, the Republican Congress passed an “energy” bill that was a Petroleum Club wet dream. For example, the feds can now order cities to accept liquid natural gas ports, a boon to Big Oil’s Explosions-R-Us LNG divisions. Drilling under the caribou in Alaska is likely to follow. And, in 2006, George Bush is attempting to raise nuclear power from its crypt. In his State of the Union message, our nuke-salesman-in-chief admonished Americans for our “addiction” to oil—which was a bit like the pusher-man sermonizing against the dangers of the needle.

  Unfortunately, some environmentalists have echoed the “peak oil” theorem in the false hope that oil companies’ raising prices will lead to conservation. Fat chance. Despite $50-a-barrel oil, we don’t see windmills on the Empire State Building. We will reduce oil dependency only when we have a government less dependent on oil money.

  A closing note of caution: I fear that some may take my noting the super-abundance of oil remaining on the planet as approval for our using it. Far from it—getting off the oil habit is an urgent working-class issue. First, because cheap, good air and water are in limited supply. We can’t keep pooping combustion contaminants into the sky unless expect we expect our children to grow gills that will metabolize sulfur. There’s lots of arsenic on the planet. Don’t eat it. There’s lots of oil. Don’t burn it. Second, massive oil use is like any other addiction—it sickens the user and only enriches the pusher; in the case of oil, that would be ExxonMobil, OPEC and Vladimir Putin. Get the petroleum needle out of our veins and we get the extra bonus of watching Citibank go through agonizing petro-dollar withdrawal.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS, SOURCES, AND RESOURCES

  I hold the pen, but this book is, ultimately, the work of dozens of fact-hunters and whistle-blowers more courageous and dedicated than I could ever be. Some cannot be acknowledged publicly. My gratitude and admiration to you all.

  My unending thanks and devotion to those who pull the oars on the Greg Palast galley ship, the investigators, researchers, flak-catchers, webmasters, and producers who did the hard work for which I get the credit and they get the unpaid overtime. First and foremost among these, Matt Give-Me-Slack-or-Give-Me-Death Pascarella, next-wave 14-hour-a-day info-master, producer putting-it-all-together boy wonder—and the quadri-lingual Leni Badpenny von Eckardt, our undercover punk-a-licious investigatrix extraordinaire.

  And to team members Oliver Shykles, researcher, “fairy, peace-nik, tree-hugging asshole,” as one jealous reader called him and we love him for it; Duane Moonwalker Andrews, attorney-at-law and web wizard; Philippe Oui-Oui Borde; Rob iPunk Malchow; and deep-digging researchers Phil Tanfield, Marguerite Chandler, Gail Eilat, Lili Wilde and Adrianna Alty; video editor Jonathan Levin; and assistant producer/songstress Marylee Bussard; archivist Vickie Crawford; Charley Allan; and, in Venezuela, Delcy Rodriguez.

  And to the nonpareil investigative journalist, my producer at BBC Television Newsnight, Meirion Jones, for getting our stories on the air and getting them right and for his reasoned advice (“No no no wrong wrong wrong you’re fucking mad”) and visionary Peter Barron.

  And to all the jack-offs who send me death threats and thereby give me inspiration to live.

  To Amy Goodman for Democracy Now! not later; for carrying my BBC reports across the electronic Berlin Wall, and to the Democracy Now! crew, especially Sharif Abdel-Kouddous and the incomparable Jeremy Scahill; and the lovely John Pilger.

  To the radio broadcasters who first carried my samizdat reports: Randi Rhodes, who helped me wrestle the political alligators of the Florida swamps and to the other Air Americans, Janeane Garofalo and Sam Seder; the seditious Mark Riley and Marc Maron; the delicious Laura Flanders; Stacey Taylor, Thom Hartmann and Midnight Mike Malloy; and Al Truth-or-Consequences Franken and especially Wendy Wildes.

  To the Pacifica Radio Network and its fearless voices, including Dennis Flash Bernstein, Rob Lorei, Christina Blosdale, Deepa Fernandez and Free Speech Radio, Eileen Sutton, Dred Scott Keyes, the courageous and astonishing Jerry Quickly, Verna Avery Brown; the Radio Free Georgia crew, Ron Pinchback, Sam Husseini (and Accuracy in Media), Renee Blake, Allison Cooper (and Lawyers Guild Radio), Bernard White, Marty Durlin at the Genesis Radio Network, and Alex Jones.

  To Alan Colmes for quiet intelligent discourse amidst screeching stupidity; to Alan Chartock of Northwest Public Radio; Carmen Jackson and Wisconsin Public Radio; reporter John Nichols and globalization know-it-alls Murray Dobbin, Ellen Gould, Mary Bottari, Lori Wallach, Global Trade Watch and Maude Barlow of Council of Canadians; and especially, Nancy Alexander and Sara Grusky’s Citizens’ Network on Essential Services, whose research everyone must read at servicesforall.org; the labor union consortium, Public Service International, and Kevin Danaher of Global Exchange and the other half of the dynamite duo, Medea Benjamin of Code Pink; Arun Gupta of Indymedia.

  To Ed Asner, Alec Baldwin, Jello Biafra, Jim Hightower, Hon. Cynthia McKinney, Alexandra Paul, Shiva Rose, Brad Friedman and Larry David for their time, encouragement and for volunteering their inestimable talents for translating my words into live voice. To my legal bodyguard, Bianca Jagger, and follow-the-money mavens Loretta Napoleoni and John Perkins.

  To Internet guerrillas Commondreams.org, BartCop.org, Buzz Flash.com, AlterNet, GeorgeWBush.org, TomPaine.com, Salon.com, Truthout and Marc Ash, Scott Thill at Morphizm, and Shahram from MWC News.

  To Noam Chomsky, who encourages when others discourage (“Greg, never underestimate the cowardice of intellectuals”), and Howard Zinn for memories of the civil rights movement. To the Reverend Jesse Jackson for the Gospel choir and arming us all for the battle ahead, and for coauthoring our article; and to his family, especially Santita and Congressman Jesse Jr.; and Butch Wing and John Mitchell. And thanks, Reverend, for taking the bagel away from Senator Edwards. And to Martin Luther King III for bringing me to Birmingham.

  To Mark Swedlund and Deb Dobish for resuscitating the manuscript, and especially to Tom D’Adamo for making me remove the sentence “Tort reform has nothing to do with saving prostitutes from a life of sin.”

  To my provocative agent, Diana Finch; and Trena Keating, Jake Klisivitch, Susan Schwartz, Carla Bolte, Emily Haynes, Traci Maynigo, Alex Gigante, Clare Ferraro, Helen Conford in London, and the whole crew at Penguin; and Dan Simon, Lars Reilly, Ria Julian at Seven Stories, and Jessie, Maiko and Uli at Alternative Tentacles, Fat Mike at Fat Wreck Chords.

  And to selfless activists especially Kat L’Estrange, who may singly prevent the theft of the next election: Hollis Jacobson, Ellen Thiessen, Warren Stewart, Lowell Findley, John Boyd, Linda Yardley and Voter Action New Mexico; People for the American Way; the visionary Greg Moore at the NAACP Voter Protection Fund; Lou Posner and Voter-March Patrick Bergy and Jay Crocker; Antonia Juhasz for the skinny on Iraq; Chris Hoofnagle, Lillie Coney and the better-than-an-encyclopedia Wayne Madsen at the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC.org); and for assistance from OpenSecrets.org., Christy Speicher, Charlene Johnstone at Democracy for America; a
nd Howard Dean, who gets it; Roger Trilling, Liz Mescall, visionary Ed Rampell, Matt Blake; Daphne Wysham and the Institute for Policy Studies; Richard Luckett of AgitProperties, Michael Kieschnick and Lucy Radcliffe of Working Assets, Ronnie Dugger and Alliance for Democracy, Suzan Erem, Alex from Truth on Tees, Blase and Theresa Bon-pane of Office of the Americas, and a big up to Tanja Winter and Martin Eder at Activist San Diego.

  And to the dissenting voices of the web and air who’ve gotten the word out beginning with my guru, Danny Schechter the News Dissector (mediachannel.org), Sonali Sohatkar, Dave “Aloha” Rampell, Wilmer Leon, Scott Goodstein and Punk Voter, Chris Cook at CBC, Mike Webb, Chuck “This Is Hell” Mertz, Bev Smith, Eric Demby, Ruth Dreier, Mike Edison at Index, Greg Wilpert, John Grebe, the inventor of Internet radio reality Meria Heller, Nathan Fox and Working for Change, Bob McChesney, Mark Crispin Miller; and Jeff Cohen, Bobby Grossman and Phil Donahue (you courageous fools); Louie Free, Mike DeRosa, Pat Thurston, Nancy Skinner, Ski Andersen, Norman Stockwell, Joyce Riley and Power Hour maven Dave von-Kleist, Arianna Huffington, William Rivers Pitt, Free Speech TV, LINK TV, thoughtful Meera Cheriyan; investigator without compare Pratap Chatterjee and Corporate Watch; the ever-helpful Linda Starr; Punk Planet; XLR8R; Janine Jackson and Jim Naureckas at FAIR; Will Dana at Rolling Stone; Ruth Dreier, the marvelous Scott Harris of Between the Lines; Doug Henwood, the fair and balanced Scott Horton, Paul Krassner, Anthony Lappe and Ian Ianaba of GNN, Gary Null, Duke Skorich, Eleanor Smeal of Ms., John Sugg of Creative Loafing, Hilary Wainwright of Red Pepper, Peter Werbe, Marc Ash, Mark Karlin, Scott Vogel, and Scott Beibin of Hollywood Can Suck It; and in the UK, Mark Thomas, Rob Newman, and Taikonaut Anna Chen.

  To the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, Los Angeles (www.ConsumerWatchdog.org), for passing me the Ken Lay memos. And to the saviors of the Northwest Betty Snowden, Nancy Newell, KBOO, KOS, Michael Papadapolous, Ed Mays and Michael McCormick at KEXP.

  To Patt Morrison, E. J. Dionne, Paul Krugman, Bob Herbert, who snuck my words into their mainstream rags; and to Michael Moore, for introducing me and my work to the USA when the USA didn’t want to hear it.

  To those with the guts and lawyers to print this stuff, Rick MacArthur, Lewis Lapham, Roger Hodge and Bill Wasik at Harper’s; Katrina Vanden Heuvel at The Nation; Larry Flynt and Bruce David at Hustler; Alan Rusbridger and Roger Alton at the Guardian and Observer; and In These Times, the Utne Reader, The Progressive, and Michael Albert at Z Mag/ZNet and Peter Phillips at Project Censored and the members of IndyMedia and the Independent Press Association, and in memorium, Bob Slattery.

  And to the seditious Web sites Buzzflash, Common Dreams, Consortium News, Democrats.com, Democratic Underground, FAIR, Guerrilla News Network, IndyMedia, Online Journal, Truthout, Working For Change; and Scott Thill of Salon.com and Morphizm.com.

  To the soul painters Winston Smith, Bob Grossman and Tom Tomorrow. To Boots Riley and the Coup, Moby, Daron Murphy, Anti-Flag, Farang and the other musicians who’ve carried our words on their pulse—and no one more than Jello Biafra who made the Dead rise.

  To information and help from Johnathan Simon and Steven Freeman, Scott Young, Antonia Juhasz and IFG; Mark Weisbrot at the Center for Economic and Policy Research; Tom Fitton at Judicial Watch; Tony White; Joe Trento and National Security News Service; and my cowriters Dr. Ahamed Idris, the late Liz Idris-Soven, the beloved Anne Joelle Lonigro (The World As a Company Town), and the coauthors of Democracy and Regulation, Jerrold Oppenheim and Theo MacGregor.

  To my lawyer Victor Kovner for making my attackers wish they were never born. To my helpmeets John Sloss, Ari Emanuel and Harris Tulchin. To Hunter Thompson, whom I never got to meet, for the sentence in this book I plagiarized from his gallant pen. (A free signed Armed Madhouse poster to the first ten readers who find it and notify us at www.GregPalast.com.)

  And my gratitude to our sponsors, the two thousand readers who have supported the Palast Investigative Foundation, keeping us alive, independent and free from the obligation to thank corporate funders, of which we have none; and to the extra support for our research provided by Jeff Barden, the Friedell family, Lori Grace, Donna Litowitz, Sara McCay, Bill Perkins, Dr. Alice Tang and Working Assets.

  And to Linda Levy, leader of the pack and brainiac, the lightbulb above my head, my editor in chief and my comrade in facing down the bad guys for three decades.

  INDEX

  ABC

  Abdullah, King of Saudi Arabia

  Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier, “mission accomplished”

  Abrams, Elliott

  absentee ballots uncounted

  ACLU

  Adams, Stanley

  Aegis Energy

  “affidavit” ballots

  Afghanistan

  African-Americans

  “caging lists”

  felon voters, incorrect

  uncounted votes

  Agostini, Joseph

  Ailes, Roger

  Ajinomoto

  Alabama Christian Coalition

  Albright, Madeleine

  Albuquerque, New Mexico

  Alien Torts Act

  Aljibury, Falah

  Allbaugh, Joe

  Allen, Richard

  Al-Qaeda. See bin Laden, Osama

  Al-Qaeda junkies

  America, exceptional

  American Enterprise Institute

  American Express

  American Foreign Power and Electric Corporation (“Emelec”)

  American Native votes

  American Petroleum Institute (API)

  Americans for Tax Reform

  America, tribes of

  Amstutz, Dan

  Andreas, Dwayne

  Andreas, Mick

  Anglo-Persian

  Arab-American Oil Company (Aramco)

  Araphaoe County, Colorado

  Archer Daniels Midland (ADM)

  Archuleta, Richard

  Argentina

  Armitage, Richard

  Arredondo, Carlos

  Ashcroft, John

  Ashcrom, Terry

  Aspiazu, Fernando

  Associated Press

  atomic bomb, selling to Libya and North Korea

  Automated Election Services (AES)

  auto part manufacturers, bankruptcy

  AWACS, selling to Saudi Arabia

  “back-off” directive

  backup logs, computer voting

  Bagert, Brod

  Baker-Carter Election Reform Commission

  Baker, James A., III

  AWACS, selling to Saudi Arabia

  Baker-Carter Election Reform Commission

  best little legal whorehouse in Texas

  defending Saudis from American families of September 11 terrorist attacks

  Florida 2000 votes maneuvering by

  foreign sovereigns’ employee, office in White House

  George W. Bush and

  James A. Baker III Institute Joint Committee on Petroleum Security

  Kuwait invasion by Saddam Hussein and

  “restructuring” the debts of Iraq

  Ronald Reagan and

  Saudi Arabia and

  “sovereign debt”

  Bank of America

  “Bank Law” (Order Number 40)

  Bantustans

  Barger, Brian

  Barnes, Ben

  Barnes, Elisa

  Bartley, Joyce

  BBC. See also Newsnight

  BearingPoint

  Bechtel

  Bentsen, Lloyd

  Berezovsky, Boris

  Berger, Sandy

  Beriwal, Madhu

  Bernalillo County, Albuquerque

  Berra, Yogi

  Berry, Mary Frances

  best little legal whorehouse

  bin Laden, Abdullah

  bin Laden, Osama

  Battalion

  Caliphate, re-creating (fifth step)

  Construction, Saudi Arabia’s failure to pay past-due invoices

  Declarati
on of War (1996)

  Islamic oil reserves, threatened by U.S.

  mission of

  Operation Islamic Liberation (O.I.L.)

  Saddam Hussein, removing (second step)

  Saudi Arabia, removing U.S. troops from (fourth step)

  September 11 terrorist attacks

  Shia “dogs” (Iranians), removing (third step)

  Soviets, removing from Afghanistan (first step)

  Taliban and

  See also fear

  blackout (2003) from Ohio to New York

  Blackwell, Kenneth

  Blair, John M.

  Blair, Tony

  “Blood for Oil”

  Boccardi, Louis

  Bolívar, Simon

  Bolton, John

  Bremer, Paul

  British Petroleum (BP)

  Broward County, Florida

  Brown Boycott theory, “unvotes”

  Brown, Corinne

  Brownell, Nora

  Brown, Michael

  “Brown Tide” (Latin America)

  Buchanan, Pat

  Bureau of Indian Affairs

  “burial sites” of unvotes

  Burkett, Bill (Lt. Col.)

  Bush, Barbara

  Bush, George Herbert Walker, Sr.

  Bush, George W.

  Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier “mission accomplished”

  Al-Qaeda junkie

  Americans who voted for