This is why I was banned from The Guardian for several years. Beginning in 1997, I was an investigative reporter for The Guardian of Britain and a columnist in its Sunday paper The Observer. Until I was banned.Here’s the story that did it: “Two Symbols of American Capitalist Hegemony“
I was, as far as I know, the only American investigative reporter whoever worked for The Guardian. I also kept my day job as an investigator of corporate crime. My office was in the World Trade Center.
On September 11, 2001, while my New York officemates were jumping out of 50-story windows to die in a moment rather than burn to death, my London officemates were preparing stories with such titles as “America deserved it,” and describing my public interest law office as a “Symbol of American Capitalist Hegemony” which deserved to die. I’d also had an office in Trade Center when I was Director of the New York Legislature’s Science and Technology Commission. You see, one of the two symbols of American Capitalism was a state office building.
I’ll admit, I was a bit nonplussed that my fellow Guardian writers thought I deserved to die, that I had it coming. Well, they had good reason. America, wrote one of my colleagues, supported Israel, and specifically, “terror by Jewish groups.”
New York, overrun by Jews, was therefore, a justifiable target.
I dissented. I thought that I didn’t deserve to die nor any of my co-workers in New York, whatever their faith.
I had won The Guardian the UK Story of the Year for my undercover reporting. The Guardian had nominated me for Britain’s Columnist of the Year. Well, that didn’t provide me a lot of protection.
The ban was effectively imposed by editor Seamus Milne or, as saner Guardian writers called him, “Shameless” Milne — who shamelessly left The Guardian to go on a politicians payroll, which I find ethically incomprehensible. But never mind.
Sometime after Shameless left, I was apparently taken off the bad-boy list because the new editorial chief called me when Seal Team Six killed Osama bin Laden. Seal Team Six found near Osama’s bed a copy of my book, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.
The Guardian wanted me to explain why one of their writer’s books (I was, and remain, on the paper’s masthead), was in the hands of a mass murderer. My reaction? I thought, “Damn, you can’t BUY product placement like that!”
I hoped Osama got to the chapter, “Two Symbols,” about the people he so blithely killed.
So I wrote a little commentary with all the dark humor it deserved…including a mention of The Guardian editor’s sending me into years-long exile. Uh, oh! The Guardian didn’t have much of a sense of humor about their censorship; so they censored my mention of their censorship.
Look, I still love The Guardian and I’m chuffed (a Brit term, look it up) they’ve kept my name up in ink.
But, call me crazy, I just don’t like mass murderers. I only know one personally, Steve Paddock, the “Vegas shooter” (53 dead). (See “I Went to School either the Vegas Shooter.”) And what I find is this: every killer has a reason. (That article about Steve was ALSO spiked by my paper at the time, Truthdig, I guess I attract these things.) Let me repeat: Every killer has a reason — retribution against “Jewish terrorists,” “Muslim terrorists,” people dancing at a country music concert in front of a lonely, unhappy man — this list of reasons and excuses are infinite, especially when we turn people into “symbols.”
Twenty five years have passed since a day that spawned crazy wars and resurrected hatreds we should have left behind in the Dark Ages.
Oh, my dear humans, the Lord gave us just Ten simple rules to follow. And we can’t even do that.
But not to worry: AI will end us all anyway. I look around, and I mumble to myself, “We had it coming.”
Greg Palast (Rolling Stone, Guardian, BBC) is the author of The New York Times bestsellers, Armed Madhouse, Billionaires & Ballot Bandits and the book and documentary, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy.
His latest film is All Washed Away: The Untold Story of the Drowning of New Orleans and Texas. Palast is currently working on a new documentary Long Knife, exposing the Koch Brothers' theft of Osage oil, to be released in 2025.
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