LEFTIST LATIN AMERICA: Palast on the Mexico Presidential Election

Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestsellers, Armed Madhouse and The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. His investigative journalism and television reports are frequently seen in the U.K.’s Observer and BBC’s Newsnight. In the U.S. he is virtually banned from the mainstream media, but can be found in Harper’s Magazine and throughout the Internet. Fresh back from his investigations into Mexico’s recent election, Palast spoke with Dustin Glick of the New York Inquirer. Read the first half of their interview here, and read below for his take on Latin American Politics and the mainstream media.

NYI: You just mentioned that you were down in Mexico — how’s it shaping up for their election? Is it going to be another Bush?

Greg Palast: Not at all, because Obrador is not another Gore or Kerry. He has said the votes weren’t counted, and we’re going to count them. He’s kicked off a massive series of marches where people all over Mexico will march a thousand miles to the capital for a series of demonstrations allied to political and legal maneuvers to make sure all the votes get counted. He’s not going to let this go.

He’s going to go up to the point of violence, but I know he’s very and truly concerned that it not devolve into bloodshed. Now the idea that Mexico has suddenly completely changed is a complete crock. Top-to-bottom it is a corrupt nation run by a cabal of scheming, rich, violent oligarchs and it certainly hasn’t changed under Vincente Fox. And under the NAFTA regime it’s just been one way to beat the living shit out of the average Mexican. This is a nation floating in oil — let’s not forget that. And what’s really going on now is who controls the oil wealth in the state of Mexico.

Continue after the jump for the rest of the interview . . .

NYI: You seem to be a big supporter of Chavez in Venezuela?

GP: Well let me amend that a little bit. I don’t have much faith in politicians. I’m very impressed with Chavez so far, but I’d hate to lend my name to support any politician because like fish left out of the fridge too long, they rot. I’m not going to make that accusation now but I certainly don’t want to be embarrassed. There’s a great Punjabi saying: we pray that history will not make fools of us. So I don’t want to put my name behind any person.

What I do want to put my name behind is a political movement and policy. Here’s a guy who’s not a Marxist, but a guy who says “The average guy is getting shafted, we’ve got a lot of oil wealth in our country, why don’t we share it with the population?” They’re used to sending the money to Miami and the U.S. Federal Reserve. That ain’t happening anymore. He just stone cold stopped it. He’s actually instituting capital controls.

Venezuela is one of the few nations on the planet where you can’t move your capital out. As the Wall Street Journal noted with frustration, that required capital to be invested in the nation with the result that over the last two years the economy has grown 26 percent in two years. People make a big deal about the growth of China and India — that ain’t nothin’ compared to the growth of Venezuela. And it’s simple. People say, “Well, they’ve got a lot of oil.” They had a lot of oil in the ’70s and the ’80s — more than they have now. They were producing more oil and making more money in the ’70s with nothing to show for it. This time there’s 26 percent growth in two years and no one has seen anything like that on the planet.

NYI: The first time I ever really heard about Chavez was through your books. Before that, I had no clue, and most people I know still don’t. It seems that most of America is in the dark about him and what’s going on in Venezuela.

GP: Or they hear that there’s some fruitcake down there, he’s a communist, he’s Fidel’s friend. Go ahead, do a Google on the New York Times and Chavez and take the last 50 articles and see if you can find two that don’t mention Fidel Castro. Now, keep in mind that Vicente Fox, our rightwing quasi-dictator down in Mexico and George Bush’s buddy, is very close to Fidel Castro, and go into the New York Times and see how many times they mention that. There’s a line that has been put forth and it is absolute complete bogus horseshit. The Times has gone beyond propaganda. The material out of Venezuela is worse than the material the Times produced during the war in Vietnam or even the weapons of mass destruction line they sold us through Judith Miller. The reporting out of Venezuela is an abomination and it’s criminal.

NYI: Why is the Times so intent on pushing this side of the story?

GP: I’ll give them a little break. Maybe the editors don’t even know what the hell the real story is. First of all half of their stories come from the AP or Reuters and those reporters are actually on the payroll of the Chavez opposition. Then you have this guy Juan Forero — I don’t know where the hell he’s from, but he does these stories that are typical hotel reporting, just like in Mexico.

You notice that the press announced that the elections in Mexico were clean? Take a look at the bylines and find one that doesn’t say Mexico City. I know Mexico City was clean — Obrador is the mayor. There’s no question. The election was stolen out in the hinterland. But they wont go out to Guerrero State. Why? They’d get shot. Find one goddamn byline from this election that isn’t Mexcio City in a U.S. paper. I challenge you. They sit there in the capital in the Sheraton Hotel and go up and down the elevator from the bar to their room to the press conferences.

That’s how they determine that the election was clean. But you can’t do that, man. I just came back from Mexico and to come back and read that the election was clean? What do these guys know?

And then they have this bullshit thing called International Elections Observers — we should get rid of those guys right now. They get 20 guys from Switzerland to march around and take a look at three polling stations. There are 130,000 polling stations. You tell me that the vote in Yucatan made any sense when you had precinct after precinct with 1,000 votes for Calderon when you’re not even allowed to have more than 750 voters in a precinct? But they’re not going to march into the goddamn jungle because they know they might not march out. It’s a dictatorship blessed by fake balloting. But you’ve got a guy in Obrador who understands what’s going on, yet doesn’t want it to end up in civil war. On the other hand, I might want to disagree with him on that. That’s where we probably spilt.

NYI: What are your feelings on that?

GP: Liberty or death. That’s true in Ohio too. If you would have burned down Cincinnati I think they would have counted the votes.

NYI: You sure you want me to print that?

GP: Yup.

NYI: I’m sure a lot of people will read this and ask, “If this guy is so hard core, why doesn’t he run for office?”

GP: I’d run away from office. I really would. I do one thing well. And anyway, because of the media lock-up now, if you have a candidate that begins to actually make some real points — for example when Howard Dean began to take some big bites out of the powers that be, he was savaged. Now I’m not saying I would have or did vote for Howard Dean — I couldn’t have because I’m not a registered Democrat or part any political party. Just seeing what happened to him — not for opposing the war in Iraq but for grassroots fundraising. He didn’t take any money and didn’t owe these sonsofbitches a dime. He raised more money than any of them just by going to the people. And I tell people, “Give to your candidates!” Give to your non-profit radio station and join every group you can.

(Photo of Obrador during protests in Mexico City from flickr.)