[Marxism] Bush Team Helps Ruling Party "Floridize" Mexican Presidential Election by Greg Palast

[Ralph Johansen <mdriscoll@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> *STEALING MEXICO: Bush Team Helps Ruling Party "Floridize" Mexican
> Presidential Election*
>
> By Greg Palast
>
> /Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller, "//ARMED
> MADHOUSE/
> <http://www.gregpalast.com/mailing/link.php?URL=aHR0cDovL3d3dy5ncmVncGFsYXN0LmNvbS9tYWRob3VzZS9pbmRleC5waHAvb3JkZXItdGhlLWJvb2sv&Name=&EncryptedMemberID=Mjc2Mg%3D%3D&CampaignID=21&CampaignStatisticsID=14&Demo=0&Email=lizr@xxxxxxxxx>/:
> Who's Afraid of Osama Wolf?, China Floats Bush Sinks, the Scheme to
> Steal '08, No Child's Behind Left and other Dispatches from the Front
> Lines of the Class War."
>
>
> /Friday, June 30, 2006 --* GEORGE* Bush's operatives have plans to
> jigger with the upcoming elections.  I'm not talking about the
> November '06 vote in the USA (though they have plans for that, too).
> I'm talking about the election this Sunday in Mexico for their Presidency.
>
> It begins with an FBI document marked, "Counterterrorism" and "Foreign
> Intelligence Collection" and "Secret."  Date:  "9/17/2001,"  six days
> after the attack on the World Trade towers.  It's nice to know the
> feds got right on the ball, if a little late.
>
> What does this have to do with jiggering Mexico's election?  Hold that
> thought.
>
> This document is what's called a "guidance" memo for using a private
> contractor to provide databases on dangerous foreigners.  Good idea.
> We know the 19 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the
> Persian Gulf Emirates.  So you'd think the "Intelligence Collection"
> would be aimed at getting info on the guys in the Gulf.
>
> No so.  When we received the document, we obtained as well its
> classified appendix.  The target nations for "foreign counterterrorism
> investigation" were nowhere near the Persian Gulf.  Every one was in
> Latin America -- Argentina, Venezuela, Mexico and a handful of
> others.  See one of the documents
> <%27%22http://www.gregpalast.com/mailing/link.php?URL=aHR0cDovL3d3dy5mbGlja3IuY29tL3Bob3RvX3pvb20uZ25lP2lkPTE2MDEyNTg5MiZhbXA7c2l6ZT1vJmFtcDtjb250ZXh0PXNldC03MjE1NzU5NDE1MjgzODcwMQ%3D%3D&Name=&EncryptedMemberID=Mjc2Mg%3D%3D&CampaignID=21&CampaignStatisticsID=1>
> yourself.
>
> /Latin America/?!  Was there a terror cell about to cross into San
> Diego with exploding enchiladas?
>
> All the target nations had one thing in common besides a lack of
> terrorists:  each had a left-leaning presidential candidate or a
> left-leaning president in office.  In Venezuela, President Hugo
> Chavez, bete noir of the Bush Administration, was facing a recall
> vote.  In Mexico, the anti-Bush Mayor of Mexico City, Andres Manuel
> Lopez Obrador was (and is) leading the race for the Presidency.
>
> Most provocative is the contractor to whom this no-bid contract was
> handed:  ChoicePoint Inc. of Alpharetta, Georgia.  ChoicePoint is the
> database company that created a list for Governor Jeb Bush of Florida
> of voters to scrub from voter rolls before the 2000 election.
> ChoicePoint's list (94,000 names in all) contained few felons.  Most
> of those on the list were guilty of no crime except Voting While
> Black.  The disenfranchisement of these voters cost Al Gore the
> presidency.
>
> Having chosen our President for us, our President's men chose
> ChoicePoint for this sweet War on Terror database gathering.  The use
> of the Venezuela's and Mexico's voter registry files to fight terror
> is not visible -- but the use of the lists to manipulate elections is
> as obvious as the make-up on Katherine Harris' cheeks.
>
> In Venezuela, leading up to the August 2004 vote on whether to re-call
> President Chavez, I saw his opposition pouring over the voter rolls in
> laptops, claiming  the right to challenge voters as Jeb's crew did to
> voters in Florida.  It turns out this operation was partly funded by
> the International Republican Institute of Washington, an arm of the
> GOP.  Where did they get the voter info?

> In that case, access to Venezuela's voter rolls didn't help the
> Republican-assisted drive against Chavez, who won by a crushing
> plurality.
>
> In Mexico this Sunday, we can expect to see the same:  challenges of
> Obrador voters in a race, the polls say, is too close to call.  Not
> that Mexico's rulers need lessons from the Bush Administration on how
> to mess with elections.
>
> In 1988, the candidate for Obrador's Party of the Democratic
> Revolution (PDR), who opinion polls showed as a certain winner,
> somehow came up short against the incumbent party of the ruling
> elite.  Some of the electoral tricks were far from subtle.  In the
> state of Guerrero, the PDR was leading on official tally sheets by
> 359,369.  Oddly, the official final count was 309,202 for the ruling
> party, only182,874 for the PDR.  Challenging the vote would have been
> dangerous.  Two top officials of Obrador's party were assassinated
> during the campaign.
>
> Crucial to the surprise victory of the ruling party was the
> introduction of computer voting machines and the centralization of
> voter databases.  Observer Andrew Reding of the Council on Hemispheric
> Affairs reported that ruling party operatives had special access codes
> denied the opposition.
>
> Whether the US "War on Terror" lists will find a use in Sunday's
> election, we cannot know.  But the use of American government
> resources to interfere in south-of-the-border campaigns is an open
> secret.  The GOP's International Republican Institute has run training
> sessions for the PAN youth wing, funded by US taxpayers through the
> "National Endowment for Democracy."
>
> Foreign -- that is, American -- interference in political campaigns is
> a crime.  That didn't stop Team Bush.  However, when the theft of its
> citizen files was discovered, Argentina threatened to arrest
> ChoicePoint contractors until the company returned the tapes -- and
> Mexico's attorney general did in fact arrest the ChoicePoint data
> thieves to avoid his party's looking too much the stooge of its
> Washington patron. Whether George Bush gave back his copy, no one will
> say.
>
> Wholesale theft is expected on Sunday in forms both subtle and
> brutal.  How the US' purloined "counterterrorism" lists will be used,
> we don't know.  We are certain however, that the Administration did
> not siphon off these Latin voter files to fight a War on Terror.  It
> appears, rather, part of the Bush Administration's and GOP's
> hemispheric War on Democracy -- along a battle line which runs from
> Florida to Ohio to Juarez.
>
> **********
>
> For as-it-happens reporting on the Mexican election, check
> www.GregPalast.com
> <http://www.gregpalast.com/mailing/link.php?URL=aHR0cDovL3d3dy5HcmVnUGFsYXN0LmNvbQ%3D%3D&Name=&EncryptedMemberID=Mjc2Mg%3D%3D&CampaignID=21&CampaignStatisticsID=14&Demo=0&Email=lizr@xxxxxxxxx>
> for dispatches from our team investigator Special Correspondent Matt
> Pascarella with video journalist Rick Rowley in Mexico City.
>
> Get your copy of Palast's new book, Armed Madhouse, at
> www.GregPalast.com
> <http://www.gregpalast.com/mailing/link.php?URL=aHR0cDovL3d3dy5HcmVnUGFsYXN0LmNvbQ%3D%3D&Name=&EncryptedMemberID=Mjc2Mg%3D%3D&CampaignID=21&CampaignStatisticsID=14&Demo=0&Email=lizr@xxxxxxxxx>

Special thanks to the Electronic Privacy Information Center
<http://www.gregpalast.com/mailing/link.php?URL=aHR0cDovL3d3dy5lcGljLm9yZy8%3D&Name=&EncryptedMemberID=Mjc2Mg%3D%3D&CampaignID=21&CampaignStatisticsID=14&Demo=0&Email=lizr@xxxxxxxxx>,
Washington DC, which received and passed on to our team the FBI
ChoicePoint files and other foreign intelligence documentation.

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