Story Behind The Song

Florida was the first state to create, computerize and purge lists of allegedly "ineligible" voters. Meant as a reform, in the hands of partisan officials it became a weapon of mass voting rights destruction. More right here: www.gregpalast.com/detail

Song Description

At the heart of the ethnic purge of voting rights was the creation of a central voter file for Florida placed in the hands of an elected, and therefore partisan, official. Computerization and a 1998 "reform" law meant to prevent voter fraud allowed for a

Lyrics

Greg Palast is an award-winning investigative journalist and the author of the international bestselling book ?The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.?

Palast?s reports first gained international attention in his column, Inside Corporate America, for The Guardian & Observer newspapers (UK). Now Palast?s investigative reports broadcast internationally on BBC Newsnight Television and appear regularly in Harper?s magazine.

He has written for The Washington Post, Vanity Fair, The Nation, and Salon.com, as well as numerous other publications.

Palast earned his MBA from University of Chicago, where he studied under the tutelage of ultraconservative Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman. A native of California, he divides his time between New York and London.

Greg Palast has broken some of the most infamous stories of the past decade, including:

- How the Bush Family stole the 2000 election in Florida;

- How Bush killed the FBI's investigation into the financing of terrorist organizations by Saudi Arabia;

- How Enron cheated, lied, and swindled its way into an energy monopoly;

- Groundbreaking reports on the World Bank, the IMF, the World Trade Organization, Wal-Mart and more.
What they're saying ...


"The greatest investigative reporter of our time" -Tribune magazine

?Twisted" -Katherine Harris

"We hate that sonuvabitch." -The White House

Michael Moore says Palast?s reporting for BBC Television is ?courageous.?

In England, Tribune Magazine calls him, "The most important investigative reporter of our time.?
?Greg Palast is investigative journalism at its best. No one has exposed more truth about the Bush Cartel and lived to tell the story.? - Baltimore Chronicle

?To Americans who cannot read his stories printed in Britain?s Observer, he is America?s journalist hero of the Internet.? - Alan Colmes, Fox Television

After exposing on BBC TV the contents of a stack of documents from inside The World Bank and the World Trade Organization, the WTO called his report, ?Rubbish rubbish rubbish,? and CNN reported, ?The World Bank hates Greg Palast? -- for stories the Wall Street Journal?s Jude Wanniski called, ?Extraordinary reporting on the IMF,? and Nobel Laureate Joesph Stiglitz called, ?Excellent on the WTO.?

"The information is a hand grenade."
- John Pilger, New Statesman

"What does a multi-award winning reporting investigator do when he has a huge story to break? If it?s Greg Palast, one of America?s foremost journalists, he goes to England! Greg Palast has repeatedly scooped the U.S. networks, and newspaper elites, reporting for London's Guardian newspaper, and BBC television?s current affairs flagship program, Newsnight. He?s reported on the truth behind George W. Bush?s theft of the 2000 presidential election, the attempted theft of Venezuelan democracy, the World Bank?s willful destruction of Argentina, Enron?s looting of California, and the cozy relationship between the Bush and Bin Laden dynasties. The problem is: The men behind the curtain of America?s media don?t want you to know about these, or any of the other stories he has to tell. Undeterred by the sucking vacuum of America?s mainstream media, Greg put together a few of his greatest journalistic hits in the book, ?The Best Democracy Money Can Buy: the Truth About Corporate Cons, Globalization, and High-Finance Fraudsters.? Ironically, the stories the New York Times didn?t find fit to print have become a New York Times best-seller. Now Greg Palast is releasing a DVD, ?Bush Family Fortunes,? based on ?The Best Democracy Money Can Buy,? and featuring some of his reports from Britain." - Chris Cook, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

?The world?s greatest investigative reporter you?ve never heard of.?
-Cleveland Free Times

Awards

Patron of the Philosophical Society, Trinity College (an award previously given to Oscar Wilde and Jonathan Swift)

The Upton Sinclair Freedom of Expression Award ?The American Civil Liberties Union

George Orwell Courage in Journalism Award ? Freedom Cinema Fest atThe Sundance Film Festival

The Financial Times David Thomas Prize

Nominated for Business Journalist of the Year 1998 (UK)

Politics Story of the Year on Salon.com 2001

Guerilla News Network?s Reporter of the Year

The Peace and Justice Award -Office of the Americas

Path Breaking Investigative Journalism Award ?Long Island Progressive Coalition

National Press Club's Arthur Rowse Award for Press Criticism, Book Category, First Place.