Today, the New York City Board of Elections announced its contract with global public relations firm Burson-Marstellar for a $6.5 million campaign to "educate" New York residents about the wholly non securable computerized voting systems NY plans to implement in 2009.

Also today, B-M announced it appointed former U.S. Army Reserve Public Affairs Officer Pamela Keeton as a managing director in its U.S. Public Affairs Practice.  Earlier this month, B-M hired Karen Hughes, the former U.S. Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, as Global Vice Chair based in Washington, D.C. 

This $6.5 million expenditure follows yesterday's Financial Control Board meeting where Governor Paterson admonished city workers for "failing to appreciate" the economic crisis faced by the city and the state.  Mayor Bloomberg warned that since he expected a $1 billion deficit in FY 2009 and a $2.3 billion deficit in 2010:

"That's why we've put the lid on City-funded spending... We've directed City agencies to be very judicious in identifying where and how to save, in order to maintain our essential services and our economic competitiveness." 

The lid has slipped, Your Honor.  The NYC Board of Elections cannot justify $6.5 million in promoting a brand new, high-tech, exorbitantly expensive voting system that doesn't work.  Nor is it "essential" to switch to a new system when fiscal prudence demands that NYC retain its secure, reliable lever voting machine in light of such grave fiscal deficits.  

Burson-Marsteller's Clients

According to Wiki, B-M's most notorious client is Blackwater USA, the mercenary group alleged to have murdered 17 Iraqi civilians last year.  Though the Iraq Prime Minister's office sought murder charges, Blackwater has never been brought to justice.  Blackwater's Iraq contract was extended for another year in April.  Apparently B-M did its job. 

B-M also headed the PR campaign to dispute allegations of genocide against the Nigerian government, and represented Argentina's military junta government of General Jorge Videla to attract industrial investment. 

The military takeover ended a protracted civil war and was hailed by world media as a prelude to peace in Argentina. Burson-Marsteller's client was the Ministry of the Economy. During the Videla government's reign, thousands of Argentine citizens disappeared and many more were tortured for their political beliefs, known as the Dirty War. Burson-Marsteller has maintained through the years that it was never asked by its client to defend human rights violations.

In The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein states:

Victor Emmanuel, the Burson-Marsteller public relations executive who was in charge of selling the Argentine junta's new business-friendly regime to the outside world, told a researcher that violence was necessary to open up Argentina's "protective, statist" economy. "No one, but no one, invests in a country involved in a civil war," he said, but he admitted that it wasn't just guerrillas who died. "A lot of innocent people were probably killed," he told the author Marguerite Feitlowitz, but, "given the situation, immense force was required."

No stranger to defending oppressive regimes, B-M also represents multinational corporations, like:

"Union Carbide Corporation, jointly responsible for the Bhopal disaster that killed some 2,000 employees and nearby neighbors and seriously injured thousands more.  The plant was a joint venture of Union Carbide Corporation, a long time B-M client, and the Indian government. While originally operated by Union Carbide, it was taken over by local Indian management prior to the accidental discharge of a deadly gas used in the manufacture of insecticides." (Wiki)

Corporate Watch reports this list of B-M clients:

BP Chemicals - In 1992, it was found that BP's Hull facility discharges twice the level of methyl ethyl ketone (MEK) - a chemical which can cause genetic damage, fetal damage or birth defects at unsafe levels of exposure - into the water than the total amount of MEK released in the United States.

Kerr McGee - owners of a uranium mine in the Navajo Nation, New Mexico. Accused of paying low wages and not informing the workers about the hazardous effects of uranium. Deaths are being recorded every month.

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Book Recommendations for "Blackwater"

Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army [Revised and Updated] by Jeremy Scahill $16.95 Lowest New Price $4.64 Number of pages: 452 Publisher: Nation Books

Master of War: Blackwater USA's Erik Prince and the Business of War by Suzanne Simons $27.99 Lowest New Price $13.99 Number of pages: 288 Publisher: Harper

The Blackwater Lightship: A Novel by Colm Toibin $15.00 Lowest New Price $3.99 Number of pages: 288 Publisher: Scribner

Blackwater (Harper Trophy Books) by Eve Bunting $5.99 Lowest New Price $2.48 Number of pages: 160 Publisher: HarperCollins

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Michael Collins What a deal! The promoters, apologists so to speak, for BlackWater are shilling for the New York elections officials. There's something really wrong with that but the poetic truth is unavoidable.  Thanks! by Michael Collins (130 articles, 20 quicklinks, 7 diaries, 484 comments [42 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Wednesday, Jul 30, 2008 at 1:19:02 AM   (0+)

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steve scheetz More work from those following the Stalin Philosophy This $6.5 million expenditure follows yesterday's Financial Control Board meeting where Governor Patterson admonished city workers for "failing to appreciate" the economic crisis faced by the city and the state.  Mayor Bloomberg warned that since he expected a $1 billion deficit in FY 2009 and a $2.3 billion deficit in 2010: This is how government works.  It concludes that we need to enact failed policy, that costs the Tax Payers entirely too much money, but when it is demonstrated, to the government, that this putting forth this policy is utter folly, instead of revisiting the issue to see if the policy could be fixed, Government finds a way to make people feel better about the screwed up policy!  It is completely transparent that the government, both on the state and city level don't care, AT ALL, about the people who elected them into office. The question I would really like the politicians to answer, is WHY?  Why would they want to push for this when they KNOW how bad it is..  This is not something that is up for debate, there is concrete evidence supporting out position that we should not change out the system that works, replacing it with a system that can be used to steal elections. I want that question answered, in front of a microphone, on TV, during a NASCAR event in the last 20 laps. Ciao, CZ by steve scheetz (4 articles, 0 quicklinks, 3 diaries, 829 comments [52 recommended, 0 rejected]) on Wednesday, Jul 30, 2008 at 7:04:17 AM   (0+)

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Rady Ananda Reply: Last 20 laps [chuckling].. meanwhile let's keep blogging. ;-) by Rady Ananda (182 articles, 374 quicklinks, 49 diaries, 1718 comments [201 recommended, 2 rejected]) on Wednesday, Jul 30, 2008 at 8:02:19 AM   (0+)

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Brent Turner Yikes Let's hope NY can fend off Blackwater tactics and retain their lever machines until better, sustainable systems finally arrive-   We know NY has good leadership as they have waived fees for open source systems.  Unfortunately there is no open source system yet certified-  but there soon will be-  Hang on to those levers as long as you can, NY-   In San Francisco, we presented a front to keep Sequoia out by advising the county to hand count / hand mark until they could assemble their own open source paper ballot printing system-   but they caved in eventually and spent 12 + million on bogus goods-   We hope NY is better than that-  Please keep using what you have until proper systems are available.   Brent Turner  by Brent Turner (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 94 comments) on Wednesday, Jul 30, 2008 at 1:55:49 PM   (0+)

 
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