More Alastair: Scoop's Mission, the 2004 Election, and Online Independents

[Joanne98]

Interview with Scoop's Alastair Thompson, part three

Welcome back, Alastair and our readers, for the next installment of our conversation. When we left off, you were just discussing the "smoking gun" from the 2000 presidential election. Where to from there?

And then, there was 2004. In 2007, Michael Collins (who has been writing for Scoop ever since the 2004 election) wrote a fantastic piece based on inconsistencies in the official count in 2004. This sparked my writing- Bigger Than Watergate II - a.k.a. Election 2004 vs George On The Block & The White Ghosts Of NYC and the publication of Michael Collins' The Urban Legend.

This article concluded for me the debate around the 2004 election in which George Bush - already hopelessly unpopular managed to receive more votes than any Presidential candidate ever. That he managed to do so in urban neighborhoods just makes the entire story of the 2004 election bullcrap.

In recent years, Michael Collins has been a stalwart on the subject of election fraud but we have published articles by lots of people and often carry the reports of the inimitable Brad Friedman.



In the lead up to the 2008 elections, we ran an advertising giveaway campaign to support election integrity efforts and launched this archive. We expect it will come back to life in a big way next year.

Unfortunately, this is not a story which is even remotely near finished.

You live thousands of miles from America. Why do you care so much about our compromised elections? (It's a bit ironic since, over here, it's like pulling teeth to get the media to deal with the subject seriously).

I think the answer to that is the context in which this story arose. In 2002, we were living in a post 9/11 world full of fear. The US was marching toward war - a war which was going to affect everybody on the planet.

Scoop had always had a fairly broad global outlook. And, in the aftermath of 9/11, we had already started helping US dissidents express views about their own country. While now there are loads of websites like RawStory and OpEdNews which are working in this area, back then, there were only a handful and for whatever reason Scoop had found itself involved fairly deeply in the alternative online news space with regards to the US.

So, when the idea emerged that the administration of George Bush - which seemed determined to destroy peace at whatever cost - might not have been legitimately elected, (and perhaps, more importantly, could not be restrained by the electorate because the electoral machinery was being hacked) we jumped on it.

And then there is the simple scoop in it all.

Thanks to Bev Harris, we had the scoop. And while most publishers in the US were too fearful to publish, we wanted the scoop; so we did.

And since then, we have had the great enjoyment of working with loads of fantastic Americans and publishing their work from the likes of Mark Crispin Miller, Paul Lehto to Lynn Landes, Thom Hartmann, Nancy Tobi, Cliff Arnebeck, John Gideon, Ellen Theisen, Ernest Patridge, Greg Palast and, of course, your good self, Joan Brunwasser. (Plus, of course, the previously mentioned Michael Collins and Brad Friedman). It has been a pleasure to assist a bunch of dedicated and true patriots in a mission which is so important to the entire planet.

Finally, there is the perspective that comes with distance. Not only am I far away from harm and the fear that comes with working with such difficult matters. I think, in a significant way, it has been easier for me, as an outsider, to cover this issue as a publisher precisely because it is not my own electoral system which is broken. So, I do not have quite such an emotional block in dealing with the issue that so many US based media appear to have.

Continued>>>
http://www.opednews.com/articles/More-Alastair-the-2004-El-by-Joan-Brunwasser-090711-896.html

[Peace Patriot]

1. I don't know about "emotional block"...

"Finally, there is the perspective that comes with distance. Not only am I far away from harm and the fear that comes with working with such difficult matters. I think, in a significant way, it has been easier for me, as an outsider, to cover this issue (US election fraud) as a publisher precisely because it is not my own electoral system which is broken. So, I do not have quite such an emotional block in dealing with the issue that so many US based media appear to have."

I think that the utter failure of our corpo/fascist media to expose election fraud is far worse than an "emotional block." It is dictated by the five far rightwing billionaire CEOs who control all the media here!

In any case, Scoop has been a beacon in the darkness, for sure! What a great news site! I remember discovering it, back when--circa 2004 and its aftermath--and being, at once, horrified that we had to find a site half way round the world to find honest reporting on elections HERE, and thrilled to find such a news site. A REAL news site.

Kudos and laurel wreaths to Scoop, Thompson and Michael Collins!

:applause: :applause: :applause: