Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Muzzling Michael

Greg Palast | 05.06.2004 13:47

Hands off the fat guy in the chicken suit, Mr. Mogul.
by Greg Palast, author of the New York Times bestseller, “The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.” Palast is currently in LA to receive the ACLU's Freedom of Expression award.

WHEN the fattened cats at Disney put the kibosh on Michael Moore's new film, “Fahrenheit 9-11,” they did more than censor an artist. Gagging Moore is only the latest maneuver in suppressing some most uncomfortable facts: the Bush Administration's killing off investigations of Saudi Arabian funding of terror including evidence involving a few members of the bin Laden family in the USA.

I know, because, with my investigative team at BBC television and The Guardian of Britain, I wrote and filmed the original reports on which Moore's new documentary are based.

On November 11, 2001, just two months after the attack, BBC Television's Newsnight displayed documents indicating that FBI agents were held back from investigating two members of the bin Laden family who were fronting for a "suspected terrorist organization" out of Falls Church, Virginia - that is, until September 13, 2001. By that time, these birds had flown.

We further reported that upper level agents in the US government informed BBC that the Bush Administration had hobbled the investigation of Pakistan's Khan Laboratories, which ran a flea market in atomic bomb blueprints. Why were investigators stymied? Because the money trail led back to the Saudis.

The next day, our Guardian team reported that agents were constrained in following the money trail from an extraordinary meeting held in Paris in 1996. There, in the Hotel Monceau Royale, Saudi billionaires allegedly agreed to fund Al-Qaeda's "educational" endeavors.

Those stories ran at the top of the nightly news in Britain and worldwide but not in the USA. Why?

Our news teams picked up several awards including one I particularly hated getting: a Project Censored Award from California State University's school of journalism. It's the prize you get for a very important story that is simply locked out of the American press.

And that hurts. I'm an American, an L.A. kid sent into journalistic exile in England.

What's going on here?

Why the heck can't agents follow the money, even when it takes them to Arabia? Because, as we heard repeatedly from those muzzled inside the agencies, Saudi money trails lead back to George H.W. Bush and his very fortunate sons and retainers. We at BBC reported that too, at the top of the nightly news, everywhere but America.

Why are Americas media barons afraid to tell this story in the USA? The BBC and Guardian stories were the ugly little dots connected by a single theme: oil contamination in American politics and money poisoning in the blood of our most powerful political family. And that is news that dare not speak its name.

This is not the first time that Michael Moore attempted to take our BBC investigative reports past the US media border patrol. In fact, our joke in the London newsroom is that if we can't get our story on to American airwaves, we can just slip it to the fat guy in the chicken suit. Moore could sneak it past the censors as 'entertainment.'

Here's an example of Moore's underground railroad operation to bring hard news to America: In the Guardian and on BBC TV, I reported that Florida's then Secretary of State, Katherine Harris, removed tens of thousands of Black citizens from voter rolls just prior to the 2000 election. Her office used a list of supposed 'felons' - a roster her office knew was baloney, filled almost exclusively with innocents.

I printed the first installment of that story in the Guardian papers while Al Gore was still in the race. The Washington Post ran my story seven months later. By then, it could be read with a chuckle from the Bush White House.

The Black voter purge story would have never seen the light of day in the USA, despite its front-page play over the globe, were it not for Moore opening his book, “Stupid White Men,” with it.

So go ahead, Mr. Mickey Mouse mogul, censor the guy in the baseball cap, let the movie screens go dark, spread the blindness that is killing us. Instead, show us fake fly-boys giving the "Mission Accomplished" thumbs up. It's so much easier, with the lights off, for the sheiks, who lend their credit cards to killers, to jack up the price of oil while our politicians prepare the heist of the next election, this time by computer.

Let's not kid ourselves. Tube news in the USA is now thoroughly Fox-ified and print, with few exceptions, still kow-tows to the prevaricating pronouncements of our commander in chief.

Maybe I'm getting too worked up. After all, it's just a movie.

But choking off distribution of Moore's film looks suspiciously like a hunt and destroy mission on unwanted news, even when that news is hidden in a comic documentary. Why should the media moguls stop there? How about an extra large orange suit for Michael for the new Hollywood wing in Guantanamo?


****
On April 26, Penguin launched the Expanded Election Edition of Palast's New York Times bestseller, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. For more information, or media inquiries, go to www.GregPalast.com. Palast will be speaking at the Immanuel Presbyterian Church Friday, May 7 at 7pm, in Los Angeles, 3300 Wilshire Blvd - and in Washington DC on May 12.
============================================
If you would like to have your e-mail address removed from this mailing list. Cut and paste the following URL into your browser address bar. This will automatically remove from the mailing list and you will receive no further mailings.
 http://www.gregpalast.com/emailremove.cfm?id=4615

Greg Palast
- Homepage: http://www.gregpalast.com

Comments

Display the following comment

  1. What an honour... — Rebel W
Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech