• Ralph - You were my HERO - Mr.

Nadar where WHERE

YOU as a VOICE when this ‘went down’.

• “The Bush Family Fortunes” video (Netflix) shows the suppression of the Black vote via electronic
voting devices that give no ‘receipt’ and show no audit trail of the printouts.
• It also shows the $4 million dollar ‘smear’ campaign used by the RNC and Bush Campaign to link
100,000’s of African American males with similar names of criminals as in-eligable to vote as a
result of being felons. (NOT TRUE) Currently there are over 5 million African
American Males unable to vote due to past ‘felon’ records (Source: West Wing - “Bowling for
Columbine”)
• 10’s of thousands (79,900) of votes were not counted, ‘lost’ and disrupted by these measures in
Florida, where Jebb Bush and the Head of the RNC declared a ‘fix’ in the mix.
• This is NOT Democracy, and if the RNC and DNC are set as being the “United CONSPIRATORS of
AMERICA”.
• The American people will RISE UP [and have been doing so and being cheated by chicanery within the
system manipulating the mechanisms to win even when they lose.
• They have been lied to about “Politics as Usual” for the sake of power grabbing and Control long
enough.
• Mr. Kerry - You should have insisited “COUNT THE VOTE”, It is unforgivable that your “Skull &
Bones” society connections and Frat House allegiances to Mr. Bush and that end would allow you to
‘concede’ the issue so easily.
• Mr. Nadar where WHERE YOU as a VOICE when this ‘went down’?
• We have suffered enough under the ‘Complicity of Politics” are we about to really get something done?
• In listening to Shirley Chisolm’s documentary “Chisholm '72: Unbought and Unbossed” (First African
American Female to run for president and was betrayed by the men of the “Black Caucus” as well as
the women of “NOW” – National Organization of Women) on Netflix,
• The first thing that ‘struck me’ is that the same words, the same issues and the same politics have
been ‘played out’ since 1972.
• That was 36 years ago and little social, economic or racial change has occurred.
• Society’s change slowly, politics is put in place to steer the ‘ship’ of change without chaos and with
order, but some things needed to change ‘yesterday’ and they are being talked about but in introducing
strong arm measures of ‘garnering wages’ and ‘fines’ as measure to ensure health care plans; give us
your paycheck and we will be more than happy to allow wage garnishment.
• Gives us your wealth and you can fine us,
• until then - you can ‘forget it’.
•

1
• The Russell Trust Association is the business name for the New Haven, Connecticut based Skull and
Bones society, incorporated in 1856.
• In 1943, by special act of the Connecticut state legislature, its trustees were granted an exemption
from filing corporate reports with the Secretary of State, which is normally a requirement.
• From 1978 onward, business of the Russell Trust Association was handled by its single trustee, Brown
Brothers Harriman & Co. partner John B. Madden, Jr. Madden started with Brown Brothers Harriman
in 1946, under senior partner Prescott Bush, George Herbert
Walker Bush’s father.
• On its 2004 Form 990, the Russell Trust Association reported $3,205,143 in net
assets.[citation needed] (George H. Bush is reported as having acquired $5,000 million or $5 billion
during his political reign and oversite of the CIA.
• The business and political network of the Skull and Bones is well detailed by Hoover Institution
scholar Antony Sutton in the expose America’s Secret Establishment. Social organizations connected to
the Russell Trust covert activities network include Deer Island Club, which also operate as a
corporation.
• (“See movie: The Good Shephard) The origin of the
CIA.
• [edit] See also Bonesmen [www.wikipedia.com]
Main article: List of Skull and Bones members
• Skull and Bones 1947, with George H.W. Bush just
left of clock [picture insert]
• Judy Schiff, Chief Archivist at the Yale University Library and the most authoritative (and
impartial) chronicler of secret societies at Yale has written that: “The names of (S&B’s) members
weren’t kept secret—that was an innovation of the 1970s—but its meetings and practices were.
• The secrecy seems to have attracted fascination and curiosity from the start.
• The first exposé of Skull and Bones, published in 1871 by Lyman Bagg in his book Four Years at Yale,
noted that “the mystery now attending its existence forms the one great enigma which college gossip
never tires of discussing.” [6]
• Notwithstanding that resourceful researchers could assemble member data from these original sources,
renewed attention may have been paid to leading families in Skull and Bones because in 1985 an
anonymous source leaked rosters to a private researcher,
• Antony C. Sutton, who wrote a book on
the group titled America’s Secret Establishment: An
Introduction to the Order of Skull & Bones.
• This leaked 1985 data was kept privately for over 15 years, as Sutton feared that the photocopied pages
could somehow identify the member who leaked it. The information was finally reformatted as an
appendix in the book Fleshing out Skull and Bones, a compilation edited by Kris Millegan, published
in 2003.

2
 • Many influential figures have been in Bones and influential families have often had multiple members
over successive generations, much like other societies [such as the Masons] at Yale.
• Bonesmen include U.S. Presidents such as George W. Bush, George H.W. Bush and William Howard
Taft,
• Supreme Court Justices,
• and U.S. business leaders.
• Both 2004 Presidential Nominees—Democratic Massachusetts Senator John Kerry and Republican
President George W. Bush—were members of Skull and Bones. The nominees were interviewed
separately by Meet the Press’s Tim Russert. When asked about the organization, both declined to
give any details.

Note: Palast will be speaking this Saturday at UCLA on “White Sheets and Black Votes: Race, Politics and
Disenfranchisement.” Free but RSVP required.
Greg Palast is the author of the NY Times best-sellers, Armed Madhouse and The Best Democracy Money Can
Buy. View Palast’s investigative reports for BBC Television on our YouTube Channel (Link).

Join our social networking sites on Facebook on MySpace and on Google’s Orkut. Sign up for RSS updates of
our site(link) and for our podcasts(link).
Support our work by donating to the Palast Investigative Fund(a 501c3 educational foundation).
Share This

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0704/S00338.htm

Scoop IV: "Armed Madhouse" Author Greg Palast

Friday, 20 April 2007, 12:46 pm
Article: Alastair Thompson

Scoop Interviews "Armed Madhouse" Author Greg Palast

Interview By Alastair Thompson

Transcript by Rosalea Barker

3
 Greg Palast – image MotherJones.com – Click For GregPalast.Com
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Over the past decade best-selling author Greg Palast has put the word "investigation" back into US journalism
(while working mainly for publications in the United Kingdom). And even if much of the US media steadfastly
continue to ignore his remarkable investigations – the fruit of his work is more than apparent in numerous
aspects of US political life – most obviously in the growing awareness within the United States of
the decay of its democratic processes and massive efforts in recent elections by the GOP to
disenfranchise black voters.

• A former RICO corruption prosecutor Palast became a journalist a little over 10 years ago.
• His latest two books
• "The Best Democracy Money can Buy"
• and "Armed Madhouse"
• are both New York Times best-sellers and are required reading for any person seriously interested in
what is really going on inside the United States.

Scoop's Alastair Thompson caught up with him today for a wide ranging interview.

4
INTERVIEW PART 1 (19 Mins)
Listen to Part One (19 Mins)
CLICK TO VIEW TRANSCRIPT OF PART ONE
Scoop Streaming Audio (click here to listen): Armed Madhouse Author Greg Palast (Part 1) - Friday, April 20,
2007 (NZT)
Click to download the file (MP3)

• Including…
• Greg Palast's New Version Of "Armed Madhouse"
• What Karl Rove Thinks Of It
• Rove's Hitman Tim Griffin's Role In A Black Voter (Including Armed Servicemen) Purge
• Who Really Won the 2004 Election?
• What This Means For US Democracy – Criminals Become Prosecutors
• Non-existent "Voter Fraud" vs Massive "Vote Fraud"
• Florida's New Governor & Changes To Felon Voting Laws
• Is There Any Hope For US Democracy? – Ohio Wakes Up
• Theft Of Africa's AIDs Money Raised With Bush – Some Signs Of Congressional Oversight.
• Is Gonzales Toast? (Lessons From Watergate)
• Who Are The Real Culprits In The USAs Scandal

http://www.talkleft.com/story/2004/09/19/695/05430

Sunday Reading
By Jeralyn, Section Blog Related
Posted on Sun Sep 19, 2004 at 10:06:02 AM EST
Tags: (all tags)
TBogg takes on Powerline's pictures comparing Kerry to Bush with ones that cast the two in a far truer light.
Dave Johnson at Seeing the Forest says in the strongest possible terms that those under 30 should be worried
enough to vote because they are going to be drafted. Go copy his post and email it to someone you care about
who's in the target age group. They need to know how crucial it is that they vote in this election.
Democracy Now has a transcript of BBC investigative reporter Greag Palast's interview with Bill Burkett about
Bush's National Guard service from his new documentary, "Bush Family Fortunes: The Best Democracy Money
Can Buy" by Greg Palast. [link via Buzzflash.]
Mary Jacoby of Salon interviews Seymour Hersh who provides an "alternative history of Bush's war."
The crack investigative reporter tells Salon about a disastrous battle the U.S. brass hushed up, the frightening
True Believers in the White House, and how Iran, not Israel, may have manipulated us into war.
Ben Wasserstein, writing in the LA Times, on why the conservative bloggers should get a pat on the back but
not a standing ovation for their role in Rathergate.
Veteran political reporter Martin Nolan in the San Francisco Chronicle explains why Bush may lose the
election, despite current opinion polls. Four reasons:
(1) A self-described "war president" needs to be winning the war at re- election time. U.S. troops are bogged
down in Iraq, and the death toll is growing. (2) Bush and his party represent a declining demographic. The
Republican Party is a white, male, Anglo-Saxon Protestant party, as photos from its convention show. (3) Re-

5
election is not the presidential norm. Only 11 presidents have served eight consecutive years. President Reagan
was the last Republican president to be re-elected. (4) Al Gore won the popular vote in 2000. The three
presidents who failed the first time around to win the popular vote did not return to the White House

South Carolina Primary Colors: Black and White?

Published January 25th, 2008 in Articles
The South Carolina You Won’t See on CNN
by Greg Palast
South Carolina 2000: Six hundred police in riot gear facing a few dozen angry-as-hell
workers on the docks of Charleston. In the darkness, rocks, clubs and blood fly. The cops
beat the crap out of the protesters. Of course, it’s the union men who are arrested for
conspiracy to riot. And of course, of the five men handcuffed, four are Black. The
prosecutor: a White, Bible-thumping Attorney General running for Governor. The result: a
state ripped in half - White versus Black.
South Carolina 2008: On Saturday, the Palmetto State may well choose our President, or at least the Democrat’s
idea of a President. According to CNN and the pundit-ocracy, the only question is, Will the large Black
population vote their pride (for Obama) or for “experience” (Hillary)? In other words, the election comes down
to a matter of racial vanity.
The story of the dockworkers charged with rioting in 2000 suggest there’s an awfully good reason for Black
folk to vote for one of their own. This is the chance to even the historic score in this land of lingering Jim Crow
where the Confederate Flag flew over the capital while the longshoreman faced Southern justice.
But maybe there’s more to South Carolina’s story than Black and White.

• Let’s re-wind the tape of the 2000 battle between cops and Black men. It was early that morning on the
19th of January when members of International Longshoremen’s Association Local 1422 “shaped up” to
unload a container ship which had just pulled into port. It was hard work for good pay. An experienced
union man could earn above $60,000 a year.
• In this last hold-out of the Confederacy, it was one of the few places a Black man could get decent pay.
Or any man.
• That day, the stevedoring contractor handling the unloading decided it would hire the beggars down the
dock, without experience or skills - and without union cards - willing to work for just one-third of union
scale.
• That night, union workers - Black, White, Whatever - fought for their lives and livelihoods.
• At the heart of the turmoil in South Carolina in 2000 then, was not so much Black versus White, but
union versus non-union. It was a battle between those looking for a good day’s pay versus those looking
for a way not to pay it.
• The issue was - and is - class war, the conflict between the movers and the shakers and the moved and
shaken.
• The dockworkers of Charleston could see the future of America right down the road. Literally. Because
right down the highway, they could see their cousins and brothers who worked in the Carolina textile
mills kiss their jobs goodbye as they loaded the mill looms onto trains for Mexico.

6
The President, Bill Clinton, had signed NAFTA, made China a “most favored nation” in trade and urged us,
with a flirtatious grin, to “make change our friend.”

• But “change,” apparently, wasn’t in a friendly mood. In 2000, Guilford Mills shuttered its Greensboro,
Carolina, fabric plant and reopened it in Tampico, Mexico.
• Four-hundred jobs went south.
• Springs Mills of Rock Hill, SC, closed down and abandoned 480 workers. Fieldcrest-Cannon pulled out
of York, SC, and Great America Mills simply went bust.

• South Carolina, then, is the story of globalization left out of Thomas Friedman’s wonders-of-the-free-
market fantasies.
• This week, while US media broadcasts cute-sy photo-ops from Black churches and replay the forgettable
spats between candidates, the real issues of South Carolina are, thankfully, laid out in a book released
today: On the Global Waterfront, by Suzan Erem and E. Paul Durrenberger.

Erem and Durrenberger portray the case of the Charleston Five dockworkers as an exemplary, desperate act of
economic resistance.
Thomas Friedman’s bestseller, The World is Flat, begins with his uplifting game of golf with a tycoon in India.
Erem and Durrenberger never put on golf shoes: their book is globalization stripped down to its dirty
underpants.
While Friedman made the point that he flew business class to Bangalore on his way to the greens to meet his
millionaire, Global Waterfront’s authors go steerage class. And the people they write about don’t go anywhere at
all. These are the stevedores who move the containers of Wal-Mart T-shirts from Guatemala to sell to customers
in Virginia who can’t afford health insurance because they lost their job in the textile mill.
And the book talks about (cover the children’s ears!) - labor unions.
South Carolina is union country. And union-busting country. But who gives a flying fart about labor unions
today? Only 7%, one in fourteen US workers belongs to one. That’s less than the number of Americans who
believe that Elvis killed John Kennedy.
Think “longshoremen” and what comes to mind is On the Waterfront with Marlon Brando, the good guy,
beating up the evil union boss. The union bosses were the thugs, mobbed-up bullies, the dockworkers’ enemies.
The movie’s director, Elia Kazan, perfectly picked up the anti-union red-baiting Joe McCarthy zeitgeist of that
era of - which could go down well today.
Elected labor leaders are, in our media, always “union bosses.” But the real bosses, the CEOs, the guys who
shutter factories and ship them to China … they’re never “bosses,” they’re “entrepreneurs.”
Indeed, the late and lionized King of Union Busters, Sam Walton, would be proud today, were he alive, to learn
that the woman he called, “my little lady,” Hillary Clinton, whom he placed on Wal-Mart’s Board of Directors,
is front-runner for the presidency. She could well become America’s “Greeter,” posted at our nation’s door, to
welcome the Saudis and Chinese who are buying America at a guaranteed low price.
So what happened to those five union men charged with felonious rioting in 2000? Through an international
union campaign, they won back their freedom - and their union jobs - after the dockworkers of Spain, the true
heroes of globalization, refused to unload the South Carolina scab cargoes.
Erem and Durrenberger ask themselves why they were so drawn to a story of five Carolina cargo-handlers put
in prison a decade ago. Maybe it’s because the Charleston Five show how courage and heart and solidarity can

7
lead to victory in the midst of a mad march into globalization that threatens to turn us all into the Wal-Mart Five
Billion.
See video of the dockworkers’ uprising and read more from the book, On the Global Waterfront, by Suzan Erem
and E. Paul Durrenberger (introduction by Greg Palast) at http://www.ontheglobalwaterfront.org/.
************Please note a correction- Elia Kazan is the director of ‘On the Waterfront**************
Note: Palast will be speaking this Saturday at UCLA on “White Sheets and Black Votes: Race, Politics and
Disenfranchisement.” Free but RSVP required.
Greg Palast is the author of the NY Times best-sellers, Armed Madhouse and The Best Democracy Money Can
Buy. View Palast’s investigative reports for BBC Television on our YouTube Channel (Link).

Join our social networking sites on Facebook on MySpace and on Google’s Orkut. Sign up for RSS updates of
our site(link) and for our podcasts(link).
Support our work by donating to the Palast Investigative Fund(a 501c3 educational foundation).
Share This
Tags: .

17 Responses to “South Carolina Primary Colors:

Black and White?”
Feed for this Entry Trackback Address

1. 1 Jennifer Jan 25th, 2008 at 9:38 am

Actually, Elia Kazan directed On the Waterfront, but his HUAC testimony only further serves to
underscore Greg’s point.

2. 2 anniek Jan 25th, 2008 at 12:29 pm

I wrote off Bill & Hillary Clinton the day they abandoned their cat Socks to Betty Curry. Seriously.

3. 3 Sandra Rodriguez Jan 25th, 2008 at 12:46 pm

This is the kind of journalism that we need!

Allow me to add that it is particularly needed throughout the Hispanic communication “markets”, where
the flow of opinion and information is almost invariably and blatantly right-wing tinged and biased. I,
for one, would gladly volunteer translation services – if I knew there was a chance to turn the tide that is
swamping Hispanics. Take note Palast!

From the cheering section of Hispanics that refuse to be brainwashed, here’s a salute to journalism that
honors our trade!

Sandra Rodriguez
San Juan, Puerto Rico

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4. 4 Edward Burch Jan 25th, 2008 at 5:37 pm

I was writing to post the Elia Kazan directed On the Waterfront, but another astute reader beat me to the
punch. My guess as to Mr. Palast’s slip is that he misread the list from which he was checking his facts:
The noted Stanley Kramer, who gave us the film adaptation of Inherit the Wind, Judgment at
Nuremberg, and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (film and TV), also directed a 1959 feature entitled On
the Beach–a feel-good tale of life in Australia in the immediate aftermath of a nuclear holocaust.

5. 5 orangutan Jan 25th, 2008 at 6:02 pm

America is like a stoner coming to the end of a wonderful acid trip. The brilliant visions of shiny
emerald Chryslers, God’s love, spangled Old Glory snapping in the wind, comic book combat heroes
(Sgt. Rock!) and megamammaried Hooter’s girls in candy orange high heels… they are all fading.
Reality is creeping in around the edges. We are starting to notice that our jobs suck. We’re deep in debt.
Food, gas and cigarettes aren’t cheap anymore. The wheels are coming off the Chrysler. Our roommate
is as ugly and stupid and impoverished as we are.

Should we straighten out, give our heads a shake, get a grip? Or maybe we should just do some more
acid.

6. 6 george Jan 26th, 2008 at 8:42 am

I love all your reporting. As far as S. Carolina goes, and NH for that matter, i don’t trust the powers at be
(in this case the Democratic leadership and DLC) that they don’t steel the primary elections!!! How do
we ensure that they don’t mess around with the voting process?

Chris Matthews (yea yea I know) had a very interesting commentary before the primary in NH. He said:
When ever you have a new charismatic leader (read Dean, Obama) the powers (DLC) start bushing
people to events just to show their candidate has more supporters than they really have, bad mouthing
(Yea-scream), Crying !!!!

I frankly believe that !!!

So my question is to you Greg, is this something worth investigating? I mean after all our election
process is worse than the ones in third world countries !!!!

7. 7 t king Jan 26th, 2008 at 10:26 am

STELLA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!or is it Hillary?

8. 8 Mike Corbeil Jan 26th, 2008 at 4:10 pm

Very fine or appreciable comment Sandra Rodriguez posted.

9
And this article by Greg Palast is excellent. I’m very glad to not have only bookmarked (for later
reading) but to have taken the time to read the article right away. It’s definitely illustrative of the kind of
reporting that we need; or if not reporting per se, then nonetheless and educational truth-telling.

I’m not wholly for unions, for there are very corrupt instances, although the only ones that I’m aware of
fitting this judgement today are like police unions in Canada. I’ve listened to and read some of their
arguments now and then, and they give me a serious impression that they’re very gangsterish. This is for
police unions in Quebec and the RCMP in Canada that I’m speaking of though; not being able to say
what the situation is in the U.S.A. Here, these damn unions weigh in very strongly on, f.e., whether or
not marijuana should or not be legalised or decriminalised altogether, and it’s very clear to me that
there’s a sort of gangsterism, criminal arm-twisting that they’re then trying to impose on society; as if
forgetting that they are NOT the law makers and are only employed to provide security for society.

Other than for that kind of crap I’m for unions. I’ve never been a union member, except for a few
months back around 1976, having left that pitifully low-paying job (was then in the U.S., which I’m
born citizen of) to enlist in the USN; hence my saying that I’ve never been a union member. But I’m all
for workers having their human rights and dignity [respected]; always being against disrespect of others’
rights and dignity, regardless of what the context in question is.

And I was washed out [totally] due to the offshoring of high-tech jobs and the major wave of imporation
of H-1B high-tech professionals in the U.S. in 1998-99. I’ve lived roughly half my life in the U.S. and
Canada (dualised citizen here in 1981), and returned to the U.S. in 1994 to seek computer jobs, while not
having known anything at all at the time about the H-1B program that began in 1991 and was quickly
used to start importing foreign “temps” to … of course [replace] U.S.-citizen professionals. And having
wound up needing to abandon my apartment (with due notice to the landlord) and to return my car to the
bank (had a year and half more of payments to make on the loan), with only $700 left to my name, total,
well, I returned to Canada where elderly parents have had their house since retiring here in 1978. They
had a spare room while I’d be totally homeless, living, sleeping, … on the streets if I had stayed in the
U.S., so I figured coming back here provided better odds of finding work again.

Well, I haven’t; the area has virtually no jobs at all for someone with my professional experience, and
needing to relocate to Montreal or Ottawa, f.e., it’d be great to be able to do; but it costs a lot more
money than the meager or maigre stipends I get per month on bottom-rung welfare. So I’ve been stuck
in this damn situation of economic wipe-out for roughly ten years now and I see nothing economically
hopefully anytime soon; if ever. Stuck is stuck, and I’m stuck in this situation.

So reading the article was great. I’m always for workers’ and citizens’ rights and dignity being
RESPECTED; while also always being against prejudices. I wish for workers’, citizens’ and human
rights and dignity to always be respected, but am not the kind of person who’d support people here
wanting to import foreigners to replace workers already here. It’s not to be prejudiced, but about
economic security, and I’m not greedy; I wouldn’t want to oppose importation of foreign workers in
need of employment just so that I could keep demanding for ever higher incomes. When I have enough,
then I have enough and prefer to share extras.

The article, however, does illustrate one economic reality of very serious injustice that exists in the West
though, and it’s that dock workers who I suppose require little more for education than factory workers

10
do make tremendously more. There’s something about two groups of people who need nothing more
than highschool diplomas for jobs they do while one gets $60,000 and more a year in salary, besides
benefits, while the other group is lucky to get what for wages, perhaps $12,000 to $15,000 a year when
“fortunate”. But I also don’t know what’s involved in dock work, so maybe considerably more skills
need to be learned and mastered.

For me, life is not about luck, even if it’s how it often turns out for the … lucky. That only happens
because there is virtually NO solidarity at all among citizens (and other residents, instead of only those
with full citizenship status). GREED will always clobber solidarity among peoples or groups or
populations. And another example of such greed and lousy government policies is, f.e., the lottery
system in the province of Quebec. It’s supposed to be a socialist, enough, society, but it barely is this.
Spain provided a good example several years ago when some citizen won a major lottery and Spain, the
PM I believe, decided that no one was going to be allowed to win that huge amount of money when a lot
of others were or are also in [need], dictating that the winning was going to instead be split among
multiple winners; and I think it’s the prior PM who sided with the totally criminal Bush administration’s
GWoT and war on Iraq. (I despised him on pretty much everything, but believe his decision was very
good on that lottery winning needing to be split up in order to provide greater social or socio-economic
justice.)

But letting people win huge lotteries perhaps is a way to play psychological games with society; like the
brainwashing, mind-control sort of games. By letting lotteries build up to huge amounts, far more than
any family, let alone single individual, could ever need for not one lifetime but multiple lifetimes, it’s
been striking me as a way for the governments to try to psychologically or morally transform citizens
into becoming blindly supportive of the fascist capitalism we have in North America; not as bad in
Canada as in the U.S. yet, I suppose, but Canada’s been trying to “catch up”.

We had a lot of injustice in the high-tech industry, the computer one anyway, and a strong example of
this is when we could have five, eight, ten years of professional experience but hadn’t yet needed to
learn the newest skills, though had learned a lot over our years of experience. And to complete the
picture, we’d then have juniors without significant, if any, experience coming out of school where they
learned some of the newer skills and would very quickly be getting wages far above what plenty of
senior experienced professionals had ever gotten. Oh, plenty of the latter also billed far too high for what
is economically sustainable for a society or simply this world, too many were demanding unsustainably
high rates, which I told many computer professionals that this had to stop; else they were just
encouraging the replacement of ALL of us. I had started out dirt poor and was always alone, which left
me in a difficult position for being able to firmly negotiate not high but fair market rates, instead of not
being able to get fair rates due to not being productive, say. Oh, I was more than sufficiently productive,
including qualitatively, but my personal financial situation made it difficult to negotiate. So I applied the
old paradigm of taking a job at a low wage and then proving yourself, after which workers would be
given raises; formerly, once upon a time, and with plenty of employers, anyway.

There was absolutely no way that juniors of even three years of experience could be justly paid higher,
including much higher, than professionals with many more years of experience and capable of quickly
learning the new skills the other, juniors, worked with; quickly meaning like a month or less too.

11
 But this is the unjust way the RACKET West works. It happens with employment and lotteries, and
surely other ways; it’s pervasive, like a usually unrecognised part of culture or social norms, only going
unstated and often not even recognised.

That might not be quite precise for description, but based on what I’ve read of Greg Palast’s articles over
the past several years, he’s surely capable of understanding of what I’m saying or trying to say.

And, anyway, HOORAY for the five longshore workers of South Carolina, and for the great action taken
by their Spanish counterparts. GREAT! Society, this world needs more of that kind of solidarity spirit
and ethics.

From what I believe to recall having read, another group of dock or longshore workers in (I believe)
California staged a good anti-Iraq war protest very early on too. I recall having enjoyed reading about
their protest anyway.

9. 9 Robin Jan 26th, 2008 at 11:21 pm

Outstanding article and a tip of my hat to you Ms. Rodriguez. There is gold to be mined in Hispanic
solidarity. However, our future depends upon a people’s solidarity whereby all of “We the People” insist
upon our sovereignty. It is well past time to stop supporting those whose interests are sold to the highest
bidder. Corporatism is the enemy and this is class warfare no matter what our corporate media tells us.

10. 10 resubro Jan 27th, 2008 at 11:41 am

Southerners got a taste of what their northern brothers got three decades ago when all the factories move
south of the mason-dixon. Flavorful? You bet, y’all. Seems we’re all in this together, but the every-man-
for-himself got the best of you, huh? Unions aren’t the only answer, but they would be a good start.

11. 11 rawdawgbuffalo Jan 27th, 2008 at 3:06 pm

nice blog. chk me ou someime and is it ok if i roll u? HC is the political cruella DeVille. We know she
doesnt mean it…besides she cant even do her stumpin’ with out Billy….she needs as all of the horses in
the race, to focus on education, iraq, and the econonmy….the stimulus is a farce…
(the midas touch) …regardless i feel for who ever wins this horse race (poor mr or mrs next president)

12. 12 Mrs.Linder-Carr Jan 27th, 2008 at 10:07 pm

Sam Walton was good to the little ladies. Mrs. Clinton was on the board of Walmart when all products
were ‘Made in America,’ many years ago. What Palast is leaving out is the fact that Mr. Walmart has
been very good, real good to Michelle Obama too. Mrs. Obama, a lawyer does legal work for Walmart
today. How absent minded of Mr. Palast to ignore giving credit to Mrs. Obama.

13. 13 twennytree Jan 28th, 2008 at 12:20 pm

You Go Greg! Unions rule! x23

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14. 14 Bon Chance Jan 28th, 2008 at 9:21 pm

The need for collective action, like that taken by the Spanish longshoreman has never been stronger but
collective action need not come from a collective mind. A collective mind creates the support for the
most undemocratic of political manifestations. Collective minds are forged by a process of conformity to
a dogma, an illusory certainty. Class is an important concept in defining our collective situation but it is
ideology which turns that into a war within the class not between the classes. Ideology, religion,
nationalism and the manipulation of identity by the powers that be create a toxic narcissism that
threatens not only our autonomy but our ability to take collective action in our own interest. Rather, we
should as individuals seek coalitions that strenghten our political voice, coalitions that stretch across the
limited boundaries of identity to form a union of autonomous political beings: Collective action not
collective minds.

15. 15 your basic poor man Jan 29th, 2008 at 11:22 pm

“Greg Palast for president” that sounds good to me. I just wanted to tell you i love the work your doing.
I am a 30 yr old Puerto Rican man trying to find a job. Ha ha surprised i guess not. But I stopped
praying for a job and started to pray for you. Keep doing what your doing and I’ll keep posting it on my
space ha ha. God bless you and be safe!!!

1. 1 Radio Left Trackback on Jan 25th, 2008 at 1:16 am

2. 2 South Carolina Primary Colors: Black and White? by Greg Palast + 2000 Attack On Longshore
Workers (video; over 18 only) « Dandelion Salad Pingback on Jan 25th, 2008 at 12:31 pm

< Molestation Abuse Hysteria | The CIA History of Torture >

1. Democracy Now! | New Greg Palast Documentary Highlights How Bush's ...

... documentary "Bush Family Fortunes" by investigative reporter Greg Palast that ... examines Bush's
military duty and includes a rare interview with former Texas ...

democracynow.org/2004/9/17/new_greg_palast_documentary_highlights_how - 38k - Cached

2. Democracy Now! | Enron: The Bush Connection

... Bush Family Fortunes, produced by our guest and author today, Greg Palast, ... of the meeting, he
then has an interview with the Los Angeles Times either the ...

www.democracynow.org/2006/5/26/enron_ the_bush_connection - 53k - Cached

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by Greg Palast. Watch the BBC Report / Read the Transcript ... Bush Family Fortunes in the City of
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gregpalast.com/september-11-what-you- %E2%80%9Cought-not-to-know%E2%... - 55k - Cached

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4. Scoop Interview with Greg Palast Greg Palast

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Bush Family Fortunes' President Correa- Chavez Boy Toy ...

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... Bush Family Fortunes: The Best Democracy Money Can Buy , journalist Greg Palast ... He cracked
himself up in an interview with Talk magazine by mocking a woman on ...

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Transcript of the SoonerThought Podcast Interview with Greg Palast. SoonerThought Podcast ... a
phenomenal DVD, "Bush Family Fortunes", which I just re ...

www.soonerthought.com/?p=1883 - 36k - Cached

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Listen to Interview with Greg Palast on Enron - Bush ... connections between Enron and the Bush
administration in his documentary "Bush Family Fortunes. ...

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I met him while filming for BBC's Television documentary, "Bush Family Fortunes. ... Greg Palast's
interview with Col. Burkett for BBC can be read at http://www. ...

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... Now has a transcript of BBC investigative reporter Greag Palast's interview ... "Bush Family
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10.(DV) Palast: The Real Lt. Col. Burkett in His Own Words to BBC Television

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Greg Palast's interview with Col. Burkett for BBC can be read at: ... This month, Palast, who has
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www.dissidentvoice.org/Oct04/ Palast1005.htm - 15k - Cached

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