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It's Time To Ignore Michael Ruppert
In my opinion, Mike Ruppert is at best a blowhard gatekeeper who only cares that he is the ultimate mouthpiece of the alternative and Internet media, cashing in big time, or at worst, he is is a disinformation agent for one or more of our international alphabet soup intel agencies. When he first came to my attention, I bought his early 9/11 video.
rense.com
It's Time To Ignore
Michael Ruppert
Comment By Paul Fassa
Internet Trailer Park Trash
1-23-5
In my opinion, Mike Ruppert is at best a blowhard gatekeeper who only cares that he is the ultimate mouthpiece of the alternative and Internet media, cashing in big time, or at worst, he is is a disinformation agent for one or more of our international alphabet soup intel agencies. When he first came to my attention, I bought his early 9/11 video.
I was impressed, though a little bothered over how he gloated over getting CIA Director Deutch's goat at the Compton meeting, a meeting inspired by Gary Webb's "Dark Alliance" series in which Mike inserted himself as the star.
What bothered me even more in that same video is how he totally dismissed the possibility of ANY Israeli or Mossad involvement with 9/11. He never expressed that as an opinion. He authoritatively made it into a fact, despite so many reports involving Israeli spies posing as art students, suspicious moving vans with traces of explosives, the high-fivers with the Israeli moving company that promptly disappeared, and on and on. Not to rush to judgment, Mike, but those are critical areas to investigate ...unless there is an agenda NOT to.
Back to Ruppert's association to Gary Webb. Neat job of positioning on that meeting, which was assembled due to Gary's diligent journalistic efforts. Mike got the sound bite. Stole the show. Very impressive, and useful too. As Mike Ruppert eulogized Gary Webb's recent demise, all the while asserting it was a suicide and calling anyone who dared challenge that verdict as "Internet trailer park trash", I was reminded of a politician eulogizing an important figure more to grandstand than express true loss and regret.
As Mike waxed on with his "tribute" to Webb, he constantly inserted himself as someone who was a virtual buddy and prodigy of Gary in real life, urging us to be Webb like and not make hasty conclusions about Gary Webb being assassinated. Here's what Gary Webb himself said about Mike Ruppert, from a Boston Globe article on Ruppert a while back:
** Gary Webb, whose explosive 1996 ''Dark Alliance'' series in the San Jose Mercury News alleged CIA complicity in the Los Angeles crack epidemic, says, ''Mike is a real conundrum. I think he's a sincere guy, concerned about the right things, and he was quite supportive of my efforts to expose the interplay between the CIA and drug traffickers. But he's also written stories expounding a theory about the genesis of my Mercury News series that were, quite frankly, ridiculous.'' ** _
http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/
Original Source; Mark Jurkowitz can be reached at
jurkowitz [at] globe.com
http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2
Mike Ruppert's asserting Gary's death as a suicide, which he considered journalistic, were based on his discussions with an ex-wife and family, noting an error with "Freeway" Ricky Ross's testimony to an Alex Jones interviewer about the outside of Gary's house, and claiming that a .38 revolver is a "relatively weak" firearm, and as an ex-cop he has witnessed several double shot (in the head!?) suicides. By the way, the .38 revolver was used by the LAPD and virtually every police force in this nation for decades. I guess those bullets just bounced off bandits.
The .38 revolver has been replaced by automatic 9 mm pistols, more for efficiency and ease of rapid fire and reloading than power. What is an ex-cop doing when he implies that a .38 revolver is sufficiently weak to enable a suicide victim to squeeze off a second shot, not easy with a revolver, to the head at point blank because the first shot missed his brain and merely blew off half of his jaw? I say he is lying about something. There is more, but I must move on, as Mike would say.
Again, instead of expressing an opinion about Webb's death, albeit a stupid one, he proclaimed his suicide announcement as absolute, irrefutable truth, attacked earnest investigators Alex Jones and John Hankey, and drew a line in the sand, calling everyone who suspected foul play in Gary Webb's death "Internet trailer park trash". Sorta reminds me of "you are either with us or against us". Hmmm, let's splinter up the Internet news, eh Mike? For what reason? Your glory as king of the alt press, your ability to profiteer more as the opinion leader, or gate keeping for . . . .?
The same pattern exists with 9/11. Ruppert jumped in as the 9/11 authority early on, overriding others who were on the scene at the same time, and dismissed all sorts of forensic and logistical evidence and anomaly, maintaining his word as the word. Why? Now that a 9/11 "Truth Movement" has gained momentum and is jelling with more and more actual evidence, Mike jumps in again and says ''move on folks, nothing worth pursuing here!" Why?
Ken Levine, curiously, has been instrumental in helping Mike Ruppert obtain success on the international lecture circuit, promotes his the FTW (From The Wilderness) website, even by getting subscribers to donate big money for full page ads in large dailys promoting that website, and of course the books and videos that are included. Lots a bucks, eh?
Who the heck is Ken Levine and how are they managing to maintain all this in a relatively high profile arena without attacks from the mainstream? Remember, the Boston Globe article where Gary Webb was quoted, was about the emerging star of Mike Ruppert, not Gary Webb. How are they managing to handle the legal expenses of slander suits directed at or from Michal Ruppert, involving 9/11 and other researchers, or even have the confidence to threaten others with law suits, and still profit on? BTW, those tactics to intimidate others need financial backing. Where is that money coming from?
I would say, as part of the legacy of Gary Webb that Ruppert claims we should learn from, that Rupert's threats and assertions and gate keeping does deserve further investigation. They are resulting in schisms and infighting amongst sincere researchers. As for me, he has nothing to offer. I do not trust him, regardless of his motives, or wherever they come from. On second thought, let us not waste our time pursuing this investigation of Ruppert and his motives. It is time to move on. We should all simply ignore him.
Paul Fassa Internet Trailer Park Trash
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IMC Network
Henry Ayre, "Henri the Celt"
Ruppert and 9/11
The behavior of Ruppert leaves little room for guesswork as far as I'm concerned. He gives crumbs and snatches back the whole loaf. He uses "peak oil" as a diversion for the truthful and intensive investigation of 9/11. He makes pronouncements as if he were God speaking down from the clouds above to us mere mortals on earth. Good grief, he is an establishment shill, a clever one, but an establishment shill nonetheless. If we discount his grand authoritative pronouncements 100%, and search for bits of information in his orations, fine, but that takes a very level head to do all the time...
Gold-Plated Activism?
The Problem with Mike Ruppert
By KURT NIMMO
http://www.counterpunch.com/nimmo01212005.html
There's something wrong with a man that goes on the defensive and threatens a slander suit against anyone who says "hi, you're cool".
BTW, Ruppert is very clever, I would beware of repeating some of the cute insults he hurls because they are so catchy. It makes me sick how NPR and others now refer to "internet conspiracy theorists" as if we are some sort of scientificaly catagorized deviants. Ya, it was inevitable but should we add fuel the the fire?
Michael Moore and Michael Ruppert both fail to understand the total destruction of our voting systems, and with it the reduction of all concurrent democratic actions to nothing but charade and imagery.
It is more relevant to spend our time reviewing time proven mind control techniques, which have been advanced to common use in our media, government and corporate control segments of our society. We need to individually control our use and time interacting with these systems, that we may not lose ourselves to the imaginary world that internet use now allows us to experience.
The latest technique is the false reality of internet personalites, and the creation of lives/profiles that have little to do with the actual people hiding behind their profile. These imaginary lives are sometimes more fullfilling than real life, as the allure of anonymous/pseudonymous contact separates us from each other and the more difficult communications necessary in real human contact. The less we interact with each other, the more susceptable we become to external control systems. As the addiction takes hold, people begin to spend more time in their internet persona than in their real life interactions with others.
We live in a time where the drama of WWF wrestling is as real as our government, elections and media content. The size of the problem has been obscured by its' slow progression to this state, a state allowed by the inherent weakness of the human mind to repetitive images. When outright lies become accepted as the basis for public policy, foriegn policy and the use in education by inclusion in "history" books we may as well all be living in the village with Patrick McGoohan.
Oh wait, we are indeed all numbers. We all can not face our oppressors! We all are powerless to change our fate in the wake of our systemically fraudulent elections! Our information systems spew lies at us 24 hours a day! This is nothing less than tyranny, the likes of which has been introduced with all of the skills available to those who have attempted and failed several times before in the battle for the conquest of the human spirit. Our defenses have not progressed as sharply, nor been experimented on in so vigourous a fashion as to give us the resources to easily fight our brainwashing, and current state of citizenship.
The failure of Moore and Ruppert is to identify the deeper causes for the lack of civil society and the disregard for the rule of law, is based in their own greed, but is supported by a system of information that allows, even fosters an acceptable amount of dissent, as long as that dissent does not really cause any substantive change to the corporate fascists who control both world govenments and media actions.
I'm not surprised that Ruppert is a shill. So is Moore. Do you think if they were really dangerous they would still be alive?
Senator Wellstone, now he was an honest man!
Be Seeing You!
Paul Evil Kneevers
The WHOLE debacle seems to stem from what I considered pretty innoculous comments from Ruppert, regarding the debatability of the physical evidence. Even in "Rubicon", he contended that he doesn't believe Flight 77 hit the Pentagon, yet he CHOSE not to explore that avenue of investigation. No harm or foul there.
After that, however, it's blown up into this back and forth bickering about who's the Real Slim Shady FBI/CIA/ABC/XYZ agent, and I'm just not going to read it any more, from either side.
I can ALSO understand Ruppert's choice to shy away from the "Bohemian Grove", "Illuminati", "Hamburgler" groups, as he WANTS his book to be read by the mainstream, and to be honest, I know WAY more people willing to read his stuff precisely because of the inept, and sometimes cheesy B-movie horror schtick of some of the websites lashing out against him. Even though I have no doubts about many stories on sites like wingstv, Rense and infowars, their presentations are SORELY lacking. Friends I've directed to these site have raised virtual eyebrows regarding them. This is NOT to say the INTEGRITY of the articles is bad, but that it's definitely not MARKETABLE, and that IS important if you want to share vital information regarding a controversial subject to a larger audience. It's a sad truth of this modern world.
All that being said, I'm not a hardcore Ruppertite, believe it or not. For example, I think there WERE explosives in the WTC, and that the video of the collapses as well as testimony of charges going off, the weekend power outage etc etc all support this. Even Ruppert's own work regarding the war games including the "live" planes could be used to back up non-commercial planes being used.
Ruppert's a brash, bold and most likely downright abrasive guy. In fact, he's admitted to having some of those qualities in print. I'd suggest that what started out as a simple "I'm focusing on this aspect of the investigation" has spiraled into this schoolyard bickering.
A lot of great work has been done by both sides of this debate, but in the debate itself, both sides have lost track, and created an unnecessary polarizing effect.
It would behoove a reader of all this to keep the larger truths both of the physicality of that day, and the motives & methodology in mind, and not be caught up in this ego war, because when it comes to what's going to happen next, I don't think ANYONE can say for sure.
Personally I'm suspicious of anyone who posts a thread to IGNORE someone in the movement, and uses bogus Counterpunch to back themselves up. Counterpunch editors believe in the magic bullet and call 9/11 activists 'loonies.' So anyone using that rag to attack someone in the 9/11 movement is making a big mistake.
There are indeed efforts to derail the gains of movement by the government and you can see one of them on Thursday night at Cody's in person - a recently-former 'ex' CIA agent lamenting about how the agency became 'exhausted' by reforms and 'lost' in the post-coldwar era whatever. Oh, and BTW, 9/11 was all just a 'big mistake!'
Why don't you spend your time on that CRAP instead of attacking those within the movement that are doing far less damage. The Commonwealth Club appearance of this author is SOLD OUT. Ruppert hasn't done anything near what she and other fake ex-CIA writers will do from their pulpits at the Nation and Cody's.,
the article referenced here is not a COUNTERPUNCH article
instead, it is an article written by Kurt Nimmo, and posted on his blog, that was linked by COUNTERPUNCH
as it may have been linked elsewhere as well, as it already has been within the text of one of the responses to this article
in other words, the article existed prior to any involvement by COUNTERPUNCH, and did not originate with it
Nimmo maintains that Rupper is a libertarian who promotes classic gold bug paranoia as a way of surviving the future, while avoiding any social or class based organized alternative
I have no idea whether Nimmo is correct or not, but it might be a more effective approach to address Nimmo on his own terms and explain why he is right or wrong instead of ignoring his commentary
--Richard
Some posts just aren't worth the wasted time because you can cut to the chase in about 1 second.
Pods are like that. So is attacking 911 researchers who aren't invested in pods, missiles, holograms or even In Plane Site. Those efforts and others like them are far worse for the movement than Ruppert ever could be.
Some posts just aren't worth the wasted time because you can cut to the chase in about 1 second.
Pods are like that. So is attacking 911 researchers who aren't invested in pods, missiles, holograms or even In Plane Site. Those efforts and others like them are far worse for the movement than Ruppert ever could be.]
Instead, Nimmo engages in a social, class based critique of Ruppert, arguing that Ruppert's proposed solutions to surviving this politically dangerous period are warmed over libertarian gold bug paranoia, and fail to advocate any class based resistance to the American imperialism.
As I said, I don't know if Nimmo is correct or not, but to suggest that there is no political content to his article is incorrect, as it constitutes the kind of analysis and debate that has been essential to left politics globally.
Finally, I agree with you about the peculiarity of someone saying that we should "ignore" Ruppert. It has a strange, high school kind of sound to it, like, "I'm tired of Roger, so I think that we should freeze him out."
--Richard
with New Mexico State University, but as a local photographer who
occasionally does snapshots for the campus newsletter. His day job, on the other hand, is at the photo development desk at Walmart."
We Discover a Leftist Critic of DiscoverTheNetwork
By Steven Plaut
FrontPageMagazine.com | February 23, 200
["Who exactly is Kurt Nimmo? I have not done an exact count of his articles, but it looks to me like Cockburn runs Nimmo every few days in Counterpunch. Nimmo's credentials for analyzing global political events for Cockburn's webzine? Well, rather than Stanford or Harvard, his intellectual base seems to be a New Mexico Walmart. To be fair, he does seem to have some connection with New Mexico State University, but as a local photographer who occasionally does snapshots for the campus newsletter. His day job, on the other hand, is at the photo development desk at Walmart."
We Discover a Leftist Critic of DiscoverTheNetwork
By Steven Plaut
FrontPageMagazine.com | February 23, 2000]
unless, I'm getting it wrong, and your perspective is not progressive or left
after all, FrontPageMagazine is a creation of neo-conservative David Horowitz, if my memory is correct
--Richard
Ruppert is affliated Goldline, a gold brokerage. He is listed on their sitting giving interviews (in essence, investment advice) concerning the state of American capitalism--right along with all the other Capitalist flunkies, advisors, and analysts listed there.
But hey, if you wanna buy some gold or manage your stock portfolio, Ruppert is your man.
Most of what I'm reading here sounds like bar-room talk. This polarising of the so-called 'left' or 'protest' or '911 truth' movement is helping only one set of people, and you know who that is. Ruppert is, I believe, trying to concentrate on proper journalistic methods, related to the scientific method, so it can become possible to stand up in any company and present a convincing case against the madness we all know is occurring around the world. I don't believe I've ever read him say that his is the only way, in fact I've often read him positively encouraging people to take matters into their own hands and get up and act. Where I can imagine frustration - and anger - could enter the picture is when he feels, however subjectively, that a sloppy or unprofessional approach to research and presentation could result in harm for the wider acceptance of these facts, facts which are (remember!) _very_ hard for most people to integrate into their consciousness. In order for the majority of people to even _begin_ to contemplate such things as government complicity in 9/11, there must be an absolutely rock-solid set of facts and research that they simply can't deny, and even then they probably will still just let it pass by! I think that what some of you percieve as Mike's attention to money is confused - some level of financial education should be a mandatory part of education, and the fact that it isn't is telling, to say the least. Mike is well into his fifties, is he not entitled to a little bit of stability and/or forward planning? Anyway, that's a red-herring in itself - we need to avoid personalising these issues, it leads to division and it's exactly the kind of subtle manipulation that helps the processes we oppose. Personalisation of political or economic issues is, in my opinion, a clear sign of diversion - who cares what GWB or Blair think about x or y, we need to know more about the processes they are part of and what the controlling factors are in the world. This approach is something I believe to be espoused by Ruppert and all the writers at FTW. I don't rule out any eventuality, but to read some of the posts above, it's as if we're talking about real enemies, when most of what I see seems to be guesswork, or even just thoughtless. Let's be sensible!
Best regards,
Andrew
It doesn't really look to me like he is harmful to your cause. Maybe you think he could help more than he does, but you don't need to order people to ignore him. It smacks of "you're either with us, or you're with the terrorists".
(By the way, I've been following the exchange between WINGTV and Mike Ruppert since its apparent beginning, and I suspect his only crime was declining an interview, and, upon being pestered, becoming irate I think this is a clash of egos.)
Anybody approximately on the same side needs to stick together, because the people on the other side will cover for one another even if they are ostensibly enemies. (eg Kerry, election 2004)
Quit bickering over who has to play drums and who is the best lead singer. It's not important who takes the centre stage, it is important to maintain a unified front. Whatever Mike Ruppert did it is not comparable to the crimes of your mutual enemies.
Stop the in-fighting. People need you. This is a war!
It's true: You can survive a head shot. A cop in Toronto survived a head shot with a .38 handgun. Above is the URL of a story about a vietnam vet who continued to help his comrades after a head wound.
I've never shot anybody, but I've seen many an animal survive multiple head shots. Even small creatures. And to get off 2 shots, you only have to survive for a few seconds, long enough to realize you're not dead.
During my (government-devised) firearms training we were exposed to many articles about people who had been wounded in the head by weapons, several of whom survived.
I have also read many articles in the papers about people being wounded in the brain by everything from a throwing javelin to a high-powered rifle and surviving, even with little brain damage.
I'm also reasonably certain that any veteran, cop or emergency-room doctor could substatiate Mr. Ruppert's claim.
Do you do any research at all? Or was this whole thing on Mike Ruppert propaganda? Every time I read the article I feel worse.