Michael Ruppert: in memorium, 2014

From the Wilderness: 1996-2006

author, Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil

CIA and drugs

"This is the man who cost CIA Director Deutch his guaranteed appointment as Secretary of Defense after confronting him at Locke High School with hard facts about CIA dealing drugs."
-- Dick Gregory

" ...in the course of investigations in the mid 70's he came across information that the CIA was trading drugs in order to fund covert operations in the Middle East...Perot called him back to offer encouragement...Ruppert says that his main objective is to see that the country gets a leader worthy of its people. Even for Ross Perot those will be tough shoes to fill."
-- People Magazine 6/22/1992

1996 confrontation with CIA director
Ruppert confronts CIA director John Deutch at forum on CIA drug smuggling in Watts, Los Angeles, 1996
Ruppert at 9/11 Inquiry
Mike Ruppert speaking at the International Citizens' Inquiry into 9/11, Toronto, May 30, 2004 (9/11 widow Ellen Mariani is seated to Mike's left)
9/11 Inquiry, Toronto, May 2004
Ruppert presents evidence about 9/11 war games at International Citizens' Inquiry, Toronto, 2004

https://www.globalresearch.ca/911-truth-and-the-legacy-of-michael-c-ruppert-connecting-the-dots-like-no-one-else/5636046

9/11 Truth and the Legacy of Michael C Ruppert: Connecting the Dots Like No One Else | Global Research - Centre for Research on Globalization

Global Research News Hour episode 216

By Michael Ruppert, Michael Welch, Carolyn Baker, Jamey Hecht, Jenna Orkin, Mimi German, and Mark Robinowitz

Global Research, April 14, 2018
Region: USA, World
Theme: Economy, GLOBAL RESEARCH NEWS HOUR,History, Intelligence, Media Disinformation, US NATO War Agenda

Personal note: I was among those whose eyes were opened by MCR, not only about 9/11, but about the virtue of what he called 'map-making' as a tool for providing context for world events, such as the Western air-strikes smashing Syria as I write these words. I am privileged to have had the chance to interview him more than once. Rest in Peace Tracker of Truth! – [Michael A. Welch, April 13, 2018]

LISTEN TO THE SHOW- Click to download the audio (MP3 format)

This week, the Global Research News Hour radio program marks the fourth anniversary of the death of an independent journalist and alternative media figure who served as an inspiration to many in the post 9/11 period. His name was Michael C Ruppert.

MCR first gained notoriety on the public stage after his confrontation with CIA Director John Deutsch in 1996, when he essentially outed the agency's involvement dealing drugs in the US.

He would go on to found a newsletter and website: From The Wilderness, which featured ground-braking stories on government corruption and malfeasance along with incisive geopolitical and economic analysis.

Among the stories pursued by Ruppert and FTW: the dependence of the world economic system on drug money laundering, the phenomenon of peak oil, the demonstrable deceptions surrounding the war in Iraq, and the friendly fire death of U.S. Army Ranger Pat Tillman.

Among the biggest marks Ruppert ever left however, was his expert dismantling of the official story of 9/11. He wrote a major, heavily footnoted tome on the subject which not only named Vice President Dick Cheney as the prime suspect in the attacks, but connected the event with peak oil and the corruption of the U.S. economy.

Yet in spite of such achievements, far from being rewarded for challenging power, Ruppert found himself in precarious circumstances, struggling with emotional instability, mocked and maligned as a 'conspiracy theorist'. It appears that overwhelmed by personal and world circumstances, he took his own life on the evening of April 13, 2014.

In this special anniversary program, with the help of some of his many friends and acquaintances who graciously agreed to be interviewed for this show, we will try to get a better understanding of his achievements, his struggles, and the meaning of his untimely death.

Carolyn Baker was an adjunct professor of history and psychology for 11 years and a psychotherapist in private practice for 17 years. She contributed to Ruppert's on-line newsletter From The Wilderness, and co-hosted his final radio broadcast before he died. She continues to host the weekly 'Lifeboat Hour' podcast which Ruppert started.

Jamey Hecht, PhD is a poet, scholar, actor, and practicing psychotherapist whose interests span Shakespeare, peak oil and the Classics. He was a long time associate of Michael Ruppert's having not only contributed to the From the wilderness website, but also having edited Crossing the Rubicon: The decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil.

Barry Silverthorn is a Canadian cinematographer who has worked on programs for the Vision channel, and had worked with fellow Canadian Barrie Zwicker to produce the acclaimed documentary film 'End of Suburbia' in which Ruppert made an appearance. Silverthorn hosted Ruppert in his home when he returned from Venezuela.

Jenna Orkin had been acquainted with Michael Ruppert since 2004 when they both attended the 9-11 Citizens' Commission. She also contributed to FTW until its demise. She shared her New York home with Ruppert as he was convalescing following his return from Venezuela. In 2014 she authored the account:Scout: A Memoir of Investigative Journalist Michael C. Ruppert, with Against the Dying of the Light.

Mark Robinowitz is a writer, political activist, ecological campaigner and permaculture practitioner and publisher of oilempire.us, a political map to connect the dots. His site features an 'In Memorium' section which profiles not only MCR, but a similar researcher: John Judge.

Mimi German is an Earth activist and poet and Portland Oregon resident who has helped monitor radioactive fall-out from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster through the Radcast platform she founded. She became close friends with Mike Ruppert and was in fact one of his last guests before he died.

Music for the radio feature (not available in the soundcloud version) was by David Baerwald, who Michael Ruppert had also been close to in life.

In addition, excerpts of two past CKUW interviews with Mike Ruppert are included here:

Michael Ruppert addresses 9/11 Truth and JFK Truth on the Global Research News Hour (second half hour):

Michael Ruppert talks Peak Oil and Collapse on CKUW 95.9 FM Part One:

Michael Ruppert talks Peak Oil and Collapse on CKUW 95.9 FM Part Two:

This program is dedicated to the memory of Michael Ruppert's girlfriend and life partner Jessy Re, and to his beloved dog Rags.

From the Wilderness: a retrospective

http://letters.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/07/24/journalism/permalink/cacb4e0bcb3ca8ff7c3f249e4f39ae56.html

Friday, July 25, 2008

Credit to Independent Journalists

As the former publisher/editor of "From The Wilderness" (FTW) which broke the Pat Tilman case wide open in the early summer of 2006 I applaud your article.

In May of 2006, after being contacted by Mary Tillman, Pat's mother, I drove to her home near San Jose and copied 2,000 pages of Army records that revealed the depth of USG duplicity and criminal activity in the case. I then flew my Military Affairs Editor, Stan Goff (US Army Special Forces, retired) to our corporate offices in Oregon and we spent days analyzing and decoding those records.

As many mainstream writers have noted to me privately, the AP, Washington Post and L.A. Times (among others) stories which broke the Tillman case open in August and September were virtual cut and pastes of our original copyrighted series. If you don't believe me, just ask Mary "Dannie" Tillman directly. On my bookshelf, among maybe 30 other autographed volumes ranging from Daniel Ellsberg to Gordon Liddy, sits a copy of Mary Tillman's book autographed by herself and Pat's brothers Kevin and Richard. It thanks me for the help we gave the family.

Every congressional handout used by the Tillman family was a copy of our series which is still posted on the FTW site at http://www.fromthewilderness.com. Henry Waxman, who chaired the Tillman hearings, had been one of my subscribers for many years.

As we were running the series, my offices were burglarized in June of 2006 and all 7 of our computers were destroyed with a sledge hammer. I cannot prove this was a US government operation but we will always suspect it.

During our eight and a half years FTW broke many major stories that were picked up by the mainstream. Never once did we get any acknowledgement, even from Salon, which ran several stories based upon my documentation of five war game exercises takng place on 9/11 which effectively prevented any effective Air Force response to the hijackings.

Other major stories we broke included details of massive insider trading on 9/11, the fact that former CIA spy Edwin Wilson had been convicted with perjured CIA testimony, the fact that the wife of Medellin Cartel co-founder Carlos Lehder was employed by insurance giant AIG, and that Texas Gov. George W. Bush was flying in a state-owned airplane once oned by the legendary drug smuggler Barry Seal.

Never once have we been acknowledged by the mainstream press.

The plain fact is that the mainstream media scours the net and blatantly rips off the work of indy journalists who almost never get any credit at all. To me and many others it is a shameless and dishonorable form of theft.

Michael C. Ruppert

Author: "Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil".

 

From the Wilderness closed in November 2006

http://mikeruppert.blogspot.com
FTW admin said...
From Michael Kane:

Advice for those looking to continue the spirit of FTW: Read Crossing the Rubicon. Read the FTW archives. Understand our maps on oil&gas, geo-political events, the economy, and renewable energy. Once you understand this to the best of your ability follow the news, link relevant reports at the blog and analyze them. Follow the websites that are in FTW's links section, but do not assume they are always 100% correct in their analysis. FTW's demise could be a resurgence for critical thinking and personal responsibility. No longer do you have the crutch of FTW - now you have to do it on your own. Keep following and contributing to the blog and watch for reports and articles from past FTW writers to help guide you. We are not gone entirely. For example Stan Goff is still writing feverishly.
www.truthdig.com/dig/item/200601003_white_supremacism_sexism_militarism/

Personally, I believe the last article of true importance on Peak Oil in the context of geo-political events (which has been the FTW mandate) was written on October 4, 2005 by Mike Ruppert and myself titled THE MARKETS REACT TO PEAK OIL. That report details the bumpy plateau of oil production that we are now balancing upon. That report was the last relevant word on the geo-political reality of Peak Oil. That reality is now history. It is virtually written in stone. The only thing that matters now is the LOCAL reality of Peak Oil. Anyone focussing on geo-political events like a soap opera has not paid close enough attention to FTW's past 5 years of work. There are greater forces at play that are out of our control - both political and spiritual. We must recognize what we can control and start taking responsibility for it. The end of FTW came at the perfect time - it sends the right message at the right time. Stop worrying about the world's problems and start worrying about your community's problems. The latter is actually within your grasp. Start fixing your own personal problems. If you want to be a valid and valuable member of a Post-Peak community you need to get over your hang-ups, maximize your health, exercise extreme mental discipline, develop excellent socialization skills (perhaps the most important), and ready your mind to open up and take in the many important skills and lessons you will need to thrive and survive; this is the knowledge we must pass on to the next generation.

peace eternal
m>k<
Michael Kane

www.eugeneweekly.com/2005/05/26/news.html#news1

Stuck on Oil
Michael Ruppert on the messy decline of the oil age
BY KERA ABRAHAM

Michael Ruppert is a leading proponent of the theory that the Bush administration was complicit in the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, part of a scheme to control the world's dwindling oil supply. He publishes a newsletter called "From the Wilderness" from his base in L.A., and he explores the connections between oil and the military in his 2004 bestseller, Crossing the Rubicon: The decline of the American Empire at the end of the Age of Oil. Ruppert will speak at McDonald Theater at 7 pm May 31 about the politics of peak oil. For more information, visit www.fromthewilderness.com

What is peak oil?
All oil production follows a bell curve. Peak oil is the moment in time when you are at the apex of the bell curve. No matter how much money, technology or effort you throw at it, you will never be able to increase oil production after that point. It will be in a steady, permanent decline.

How does peak oil relate to our military?
The United States has been aware of peak oil for quite a long time, and peak oil is on us now. The attacks of 9/11, which I have shown were facilitated by the U.S. government, and all subsequent U.S. military deployments have been engineered with one specific goal: to control the last remaining oil reserves on the planet.

Tell me what you think happened on 9/11.
It's very clear that the U.S. government, under the control of Vice President Richard Cheney, had scheduled five conflicting war games for the morning of Sept. 11, which moved a substantial number of the U.S. fighter response forces out of the region so that they could not respond. The so-called hijackers were, in effect, agents working for the U.S. government. Al Qaeda had been co-opted to perpetrate the attack, which then gave the U.S. government the pretext for all the military adventurism and occupation that has taken place since.

Why do you think the mainstream media parroted the Bush administration's version of events?
In some cases, the mainstream media did not, because there were many stories coming out of the mainstream media that flatly contradicted the Bush administration's line of events on 9-11. But the mainstream media failed to acknowledge, recognize, address or even pursue these glaring inconsistencies, and the same holds true for the so-called 9-11 Independent Commission report, which was nothing more than a cover-up, a fabrication, a packet full of very demonstrable lies.

Why does this administration cling so desperately to oil when alternative energy sources are available?
There is no replacement for what hydrocarbon energy does for human life on this planet. Until you change the way money works, you cannot change the way energy is used. We live in an economic paradigm that requires infinite economic growth, and all economic growth requires energy. So there are no solutions. And rather than address the problem sanely, the United States government has just taken a position of, 'We will take whatever we need to take, wherever we need to take it — damn the world, full speed ahead — to protect our way of life.' The U.S. has committed to a bitter, bloody war to the end to control oil. All over the planet, the world is in full revolt because where the U.S. takes oil, other economies suffer.

What would it take to shift this country toward more sustainable energy sources?
Again, nothing is going to change this country's path. We have passed the point of no return. It takes 30 years to change energy infrastructure. Even SAIC, Science Applied International Corporations, which does huge government intelligence contracts — they're the heart of the military-industrial complex — has a report that was leaked out that says very clearly, 'Listen, guys, we need to start something right now, but it may be too late to save everything.

Is the federal government interested in 'saving' anything?
No. I believe that the policies of the U.S. Treasury and the Federal Reserve and the Bush administration — especially in regard to the foreign trade deficit, the U.S. budget deficit, the pricing of the dollar and the exportation of American manufacturing jobs — show one intent and one intent only, which is bankrupting the United States. I predict major economic collapse in this country.

Why would the U.S. government want to do that?
First of all, these people are not tied to the United States. Their money has all been moved offshore. People in the United States are saddled with mountains and mountains of debt. We have the highest per-capita debt level ever in U.S. history. We can't buy any more stuff on credit. The market here is saturated. The deal is to collapse this market and come back and foreclose on everything. China, however, is a vastly untapped market where the demands are very high. The rich elites in this country will be happy to shut this economy down. That serves two purposes. It allows them to foreclose on real estate property and jobs, but it also reduces demand for hydrocarbon energy.

How much time do we have before this major economic collapse?
I predict it will start this year, and we're certainly seeing some signs of that. GM and Ford bonds have been downgraded to junk status. United Airlines has just taken away all of its employees' pensions. There's a whole litany of things that are showing just how weak the U.S. economy is right now. As happened during the Great Depression, we will have large-scale domestic and economic upheavals. Now, this is not gonna happen overnight. It will happen progressively along with blackouts. By 2007, these blackouts are going to start becoming permanent simply because there's not enough oil.

Did you always have this worldview?
No, I most certainly did not. I'm an only child who was born into a conservative Republican family. My grandfather and my father were both veterans of the U.S. Army, and my mother was a senior cryptanalyst for the Army Security Agency during World War II. I was a Republican through college at UCLA for four years, a true believer. But when I was a police officer on the streets of South Central, around 1977, the CIA tried to recruit me. I discovered that the CIA was dealing drugs, laundering $600 billion a year in drug profits through the U.S. financial markets. I said, "I won't get involved in dealing drugs. I became a cop to stop drugs." Which resulted, ultimately, in the end of my career. People were trying to kill me.

Do you still feel threatened by the government?
The threats on me are not now so much physical, because that would cause too many problems. There have been severe and sustained efforts by the government to put me out of business. They've sabotaged records, things like that. That kind of pressure on me has been very intense, especially since the book came out.

Is the war on drugs connected to the war on terror?
Well, yes. It's primarily an economic connection. One of the most important things that happened after 9-11 — and boy, we predicted this — is that the Taliban had destroyed roughly 96 percent of all the opium grown in Afghanistan right before 9-11. That move took an estimated $200 billion in liquid cash, laundered money, out of Western banks. Since the U.S. occupied Afghanistan, which it did right after 9-11, Afghan opium production has exponentially grown. Afghanistan, under CIA control, now supplies more than 75 percent of all the heroin grown on the planet. That's to keep the drug money flowing through Western banks to keep the U.S. economy sustained.

If you could change one thing about the world today, what would it be?
I would change the way money works. We are seeing in the human paradigm a collision between the requirement for infinite growth and finite energy. The economy paradigm places incentives on destruction and death. The energy companies and the banks are going to make more money by killing people on the way down the peak oil slope. That's how profits are made. Until you change the way money works, you can't change anything else.

Do we have to change capitalism before we can shift to a more sustainable society?
It is now a futile effort to try to change the government or the economy. Governments and economies move too slowly. My philosophy is to educate people on ways that they can save themselves, their communities and their neighbors. All we can do now is empower people, and that's what I see happening in the Pacific Northwest. All throughout the region, people are waking up. They're working local currencies, permaculture, everything else that needs to happen to help people survive. I happen to love the state of Oregon deeply, and I'm trying like heck to move there. I will be a resident of Oregon someday.

I've heard talk of the Pacific Northwest, from San Francisco to B.C., potentially breaking into a separate state. Do you see that happening?
Yes. I think that at some point, the U.S. government plans to divide the country into 10 regions. As the economy collapses and as the world situation grows tenser, the U.S. government won't be able to police the entire country. A civil war, at some point, is not out of the question, if for no other reason than because the draft is coming, and because the U.S. military is so over-extended right now that military families are being horribly abused. We can't sustain that. I'm aware of maybe 15 or 20 very great thinkers on the subject of peak oil and war who, if not already there, are moving into the Pacific Northwest region, and dammit, I'm doing it too.

You're describing an increasingly isolationist world that seems to contradict globalization.
Globalization is dead. Why are we flying strawberries from Chile to markets in Los Angeles? You know how much energy that takes? You cannot ship goods around the world anymore. Seventy percent of world's transportation is powered by oil. Fuel costs are rising; they're going through the roof. So globalization is totally dead.

The economy is killing globalization?
Exactly. Geography will determine everything. Korea and ultimately Japan will have to fold into China's sphere of influence. Britain will have to join Europe whether it wants to or not because the only natural gas it can get is from Russia, and it will come through the European Union. Latin America is unifying so rapidly from an economic standpoint you can't believe it. Even from a survival standpoint locally, it's gonna be what's in your neighborhood that's gonna save your life, not the government.

Does biology also play a factor?
If I were to sum up the problem facing mankind right now, I would use one word: overpopulation. Planet Earth before the oil age had a carrying capacity of roughly 2 billion people. There are 10 calories of hydrocarbon energy in every calorie of food consumed on the planet. You take away the oil and natural gas, you take away the food. When we hit our peak, we run into a situation called population overshoot. We see the mathematical shortfalls, and now the population cannot sustain itself and we reach a point of collapse. I do not have any plan, myself, to depopulate the planet. But what terrifies me is that I'm certain that Dick Cheney, the Rockefellers, the Bushes, the economic elite, do have a plan to depopulate the planet.

All of this is pretty disheartening.
[Laughs.] I know. I'm sorry to do that. But I and many others are very gratified to see that tens of thousands of people are making changes in their own personal lifestyles as a result of the information we're putting out. They are preparing themselves to survive. That's gratifying.

So it's not necessarily the end of humanity, just life as we know it?
One of the best quotes I've ever heard was from one of the premier spokesmen for peak oil, Colin Campbell, an eminently credible retired petroleum geologist who was the head of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil. He said, "The species Homo Sapiens may not become extinct, but the sub-species of Petroleum Man most certainly will."


www.politicalstrategy.org/archives/000875.php
An Intimate View of the Cheney-Bush Junta and 9-11
By William Hare 11/30/04

Mike Ruppert uses the operative word to describe the Cheney-Bush regime, that of Empire, an all-encompassing octopus-like power grab at world preeminence at the expense of international order. With "Crossing The Rubicon" Ruppert has clearly established himself alongside the venerable essayist and political critic Gore Vidal as articulate voices decrying the rush to Empire and the tragic consequences of such dictatorial actions. ....


www.netrequisite.com/%7Ekai/ruppert.html
Who is Michael C. Ruppert?

"This is the man who cost CIA Director Deutch his guaranteed appointment as Secretary of Defense after confronting him at Locke High School with hard facts about CIA dealing drugs." - Dick Gregory, publisher of Global Watch.

In 1992 People Magazine wrote: "...in the course of investigations in the mid 70's he came across information that the CIA was trading drugs in order to fund covert operations in the Middle East...Perot called him back to offer encouragement...Ruppert says that his main objective is to see that the country gets a leader worthy of its people. Even for Ross Perot those will be tough shoes to fill."
"Mike Ruppert is a one man crusade trying to expose America's bogus war on drugs. From the time we met on the campaign trail in 1992 while filming THE LAST PARTY, through his challenge to John Deutch, Mike Ruppert has been on the front line trying to get the story out." - Marc Levin, - Emmy award winning Director of PBS's The Secret Government, THE LAST PARTY and Producer of Bill Moyers' 1998 series on Addiction.
Mike Ruppert, 51, is the Publisher/Editor of From the Wilderness or FTW, a newsletter he founded in March 1998 by mailing out 68 copies to friends and researchers. Some folks might also know this by his mirror site copvcia.com. FTW is now read by more than 4,000 subscribers in 32 countries including 20 members of the US Congress and professors at 15 universities in the US and Canada. Through the newsletter and his website at www.copvcia.com, Mike has pioneered innovative analysis and groundbreaking original stories on the impact of $5-600 billion per year in drug money moving through the US economy and the illegal covert operations which maintain control of that cash flow for US economic interests.
An Honors graduate of UCLA in Political Science (1973), Mike is a former LAPD narcotics investigator who discovered CIA trafficking in drugs in 1977. After attempting to expose this he was forced out of LAPD in 1978 while earning the highest rating reports possible and having no pending disciplinary actions. In 1996, after 18 years of struggle, he finally achieved one of his deepest wishes in a face to face public encounter with then CIA Director John Deutch on national television. Washington sources later told Mike that Deutch's mishandling of the encounter cost him a guaranteed appointment as Secretary of Defense.
Mike's stories, which have expanded to include economic analysis and detailed exposés of the CIA and the American political system, have been reprinted in 12 countries. Now a popular lecturer on the college circuit, Mike has given dozens of lectures on "The Truth & Lies of 9-11" in three countries. He is a regular guest on talk radio shows at major stations throughout the country.
In the wake of the September 11th attacks Mike was among the first to be publicly critical of a number of transparent flaws in the official story presented by the US government. In more than sixty stories since 9-11 he has followed his tested strategy of using only government documents, official statements or verifiable press reports as the basis for his work. As a result he has been openly received by several members of Congress and maintains open lines of communication with congressional and committee staffs.
On November 28, 2001 Mike gave his first post 9-11 lecture at Portland State University, which was attended by more than 1,000 and resulted in a standing ovation. FTW's video, The Truth and Lies About 9-11, has sold more than 4500 copies. It includes special exclusive interviews with Representatives Ron Paul (R-TX), Cynthia McKinney (D-GA), Barbara Lee (D-CA), Professor Peter Dale Scott, (UC, Berkeley), Professor John Metzger (Michigan State) and Catherine Austin Fitts (former Assistant Secretary of Housing and Managing Director, Dillon Read).
Mike is soon to be publishing a book based on his experiences and researches called "Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil". An excerpt, Chapter 23, of the book can be read online. http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/022803_chap_23.html
To learn more about Mike, click here http://www.fromthewilderness.com/about_Mike_part_one.html to read a two part, 1981 Herald Examiner series on Michael C. Ruppert.


www.pressaction.com/news/weblog/full_article/wellen12062004/

Monday, December 06, 2004
Fueling a Profitable Future: 9/11 and U.S. Energy Policy
By Russ Wellen
A Review of Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil by Michael C. Ruppert (New Society, 674 pages, $22.95).

By marching his forces across that most infamous of rivers, the Rubicon, and into Rome, Julius Caesar not only trampled on its constitution, but sowed the seeds for fascism centuries later. Now, with Crossing the Rubicon, Michael Ruppert, founder of FromTheWilderness.com, implores us to make an about-face on our own march toward the system of governance on which even Mussolini bestowed the alias, “corporatism.” ....

While many of us have heard about the Project for a New American Century’s lust for a new Pearl Harbor to open the floodgates for military intervention, we know little about Dick Cheney’s US National Energy Policy Development Group. Extrapolating from the few documents the conservative watchdog Judicial Watch was able to secure under the Freedom of Information Act, Ruppert maintains that in April 2001 the NEPDG signed off on plans to cross the Rubicon -- that is, secure what oil remains by facilitating attacks on the US.
Next Cheney was placed in charge of all response to a terror attack, including control of FEMA. A month later most of the decision-making power to scramble NORAD fighter jets was taken out of the hands of commanders and remanded to the secretary of defense. Then when the depth of the Caspian Basin’s inadequacy became known, engendering fears of a market crash, plans for the attack were put in action before they were finalized, thus accounting for mistakes in execution and cover-up.
While Ruppert provides no smoking gun, you watch with lurid fascination as the pieces fall into place with such precision that the tumbler in your brain clicks, the lock opens, and the scenario is admitted. Ruppert’s coup is discovering, as many now know, that it’s the war games, stupid.
On September 11, NORAD, the FAA, the Canadian Air Force, and the National Reconnaissance Office were conducting as many as five war-game drills. Not only were fighters diverted from the northeast US, but the insertion of blips simulating emergencies onto radar screens bewitched air traffic controllers’ lost in the fog of war games. Ruppert discounts the likelihood of a stand-down order to fighter pilots, because, as he reminds us, they’re constitutionally incapable of remaining in a holding pattern while their country is attacked.
As for the hijackers, Ruppert theorizes that, other than the “muscle,” they were CIA assets too valuable to lose. Lest you think that the remote control he suggests guided the planes is the realm of fantasy, refer to the unmanned X-43A jet with which, as of this writing, NASA is attempting to set a speed record.
By exploring the links between Wall Street and the CIA and emphasizing the influence of overlords like the Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations, Ruppert encourages us to look beyond the current administration. For this alone we owe him a debt of gratitude: Four more years of hating the dynamic duo could have almost as debilitating an effect on us as their policies. Besides, as Ruppert says, “... you will change nothing until you change the way money works.” ....

Crossing the Rubicon is one of those rare books capable of ruining a reviewer’s credibility by seducing the superlatives out of him. It is, however, open to another interpretation. Sure, Cheney accords Halliburton hallowed-ground status. But to many, the American way of life, which Cheney declares is “not negotiable,” is an end that more than justifies the means, however untidy. In other words, he cares, he really cares.

 

Peak Ruppert was probably in 2004, around the time of Crossing the Rubicon.

Rubicon had some excellent and important material in it. The central thesis -- that 9/11 was allowed to happen as part of covert preparation for Peak Energy -- is at the core of understanding what's happening with global resource conflicts.

Dealing with deep issues is difficult at best, most people choose to ignore them and hope they go away on their own. That's worse than the way Ruppert focused on them.

There were a number of examples where he would make grandiose predictions that were generally true on the big scale, but the timing would be totally wrong. Anticipating that the housing bubble would burst, and that peak energy would be a factor, was correct. Assigning specific dates to it was a fool's errand.

 

Richard Heinberg wrote an article looking at a decade of peak predictions. No one is going to be precisely correct as we all slide down Hubbert's curve.

"10 Years After 'The Party's Over': an interview with Richard Heinberg"

www.resilience.org/stories/2013-11-07/10-years-after-the-party-s-over-an-interview-with-richard-heinberg

 

Ruppert's websites

www.fromthewilderness.com - now archived at www.fromthewilderness.net

mikeruppert.blogspot.com

collapsenet.com

 

my In Memorium pages for deep politics researchers Michael Ruppert, John Judge and Rob Falotico www.oilempire.us/ruppert.html www.oilempire.us/john-judge.html www.oilempire.us/rob-falotico.html
my mention in Ruppert's book Crossing the Rubicon www.oilempire.us/911parable.html
my article for Ruppert's From the Wilderness about 9/11 disinformation www.oilempire.us/state.html

- Mark

 

 

https://kennedysandking.com/obituaries/the-deaths-of-two-unsung-heroes-john-judge-and-mike-ruppert

The Deaths of Two Unsung Heroes:
John Judge and Mike Ruppert

By James DiEugenio

Posted April 17, 2014

In the space of a few days in mid April, two fighters for the truth about America's recent history were lost to us. John Judge passed away in Washington D.C. and Mike Ruppert passed in Napa, California. It's appropriate that the two deaths in essence straddled the country. Because in a real sense, John and Mike worked hard to create an alterative paradigm to the MSM's version of contemporary American history.

 

www.resilience.org/stories/2014-04-16/in-memoriam-michael-c-ruppert

Mike Ruppert, RIP

Richard Heinberg (Post Carbon Institute)

Just three weeks ago I saw Mike for the first time in four years. We talked at a restaurant; then, a couple of days later, I was a guest on his Lifeboat Hour radio show. He had clearly been to hell and back since we last saw each other, but appeared to have come to a better place within himself. He had a couple of big projects on the horizon and gave no hint of the end that he would choose. During the past decade he alerted many thousands of people to the precarious nature of our global, fossil-fueled industrial system, and many of those folks changed their careers or moved to another location in search of more resilience and sustainability. That's a legacy that deserves enduring thanks.

 

from the introduction to Michael Ruppert's lecture in Eugene, Oregon on May 31, 2005

Mike Ruppert’s publication From the Wilderness states that it provides a road map for understanding world events. if you were lost in a place you don’t want to be, an accurate map that told unpleasant truths would be more useful than a map that was more pleasant but unable to help you extricate you from your predicament.

Facing the full truth, as much of it as can be determined, is needed to solve our deepest problems. We can’t be “not see’s” - who do not want to see - if we want a better world.

Michael Ruppert is an Honors graduate of UCLA in Political Science and a former LAPD narcotics investigator who discovered CIA trafficking in drugs in 1977. After attempting to expose this he was forced out of LAPD in 1978. In 1996, after 18 years of being a “voice crying in the wilderness” he managed to have a face to face public encounter with then CIA Director John Deutch on national television - the CIA director had gone to Watts to respond to community uproar about the Cocaine Importation Agency ...

Mike is most notorious for being a courageous voice after September 11, who helped connect the dots to show that 9/11 was not a surprise attack, it was deliberately allowed to happen in order to provide the pretext for a seizure of the Middle East oil reserves.

Most wars have some sort of justification created to whip up public fear and anger, something that top Nazi Herman Goering said at the Nuremberg trials

All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.

Eugene’s most famous politician, Senator Wayne Morse, saw through the phony pretext of the Gulf of Tonkin resolution in 1964, and voted no - while no one was killed by that deception, 58,000 Americans and about three million Vietnamese were killed as a consequence.

Mike’s November 2001 presentation at Portland State University, archived in the film “the Truth and Lies of 9/11,” has withstood the test of time.

In early 2002, the liberal “alternative” media responded to this information that Mike and many others had compiled -- not by independently confirming whether the claims for complicity were true or not -- but instead, they made crude efforts to ridicule and discredit. These defenders of the “surprise attack” paradigm include David Corn of The Nation, Norman Solomon and Chip Berlet. Whatever their motivations, their actions did an enormous favor for Bush if the media had made a serious effort to investigate 9/11, Bush would have been impeached and indicted, and the invasion of Iraq might have been avoided.

Last year, when Crossing the Rubicon neared publication, I was curious what sort of reception it would have in the media and by the powers that be.

Last May, when Amy Goodman was in Eugene, she replied “good” when told that Mike’s book was about to be published, but her show Democracy Now will not put him on the air. A few voices in Pacifica have promoted this information, but not many. KBOO in Portland, a co-sponsor of his talk on Thursday, and has aired these issues since 2001 -- but they are a minority in the media, even in the alternative media. KWVA at the University of Oregon and KOPT had interviews on Friday. We need to vote with our money to support media that dare to investigate unpopular truths and pressure those that ignore the core issues of 9/11, Peak Oil and the reasons for the Iraq war.

Now that “Crossing the Rubicon” is available, a strange smear campaign has accelerated on the internet making all sorts of bizarre accusations about Mike from voices promoting extreme ideas about 9/11 complicity that lack any substantive evidence, an effort that seems to be the official response to the book. These efforts resemble Karl Rove style hoaxes - use fake evidence of scandals to turn off the media and the public to looking at the real evidence -- is a strategy that is now being used to turn people off from looking at Peak Oil.

The precise timing of Peak Oil is not the issue - whether it is now, next year, or in a decade or two doesn’t matter much nor change the need to shift course from exponential growth that is devouring the very basis for the planet’s ability to sustain humanity.

Surviving and thriving after Peak Oil will require using the resources currently invested in the military. How we use the remaining half of the oil determines the future of human civilization: Will we use the remaining oil to make solar panels and relocalize food production, or will we use it to build more military equipment to control the oil as it runs out?

Converting those resources to peaceful, permaculture use will require removing the pretext for what Cheney calls the "war that will not end in our lifetime".

A century ago, Thomas Edison said "I'd put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don't have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that."

Three years ago, FTW’s science editor wrote:

You see, there is a lot more at stake here than just a continuation of the Cold War or U.S. imperialistic greed. There is enough energy remaining in the world right now for us -- the people -- to take control and ease ourselves into a democratic, egalitarian, stable-state society. Or there is enough energy for the elite to build a feudalistic, fascist, police state with themselves at the top. This is the choice facing us right now, and this is what is truly at stake.

 

 

 

www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/013004_in_your_face.html
The Most Important FTW Story in Two Years...
IN YOUR FACE

- Connections between Dick Cheney's Energy Task Force, 9/11 and Peak Oil “On the Table”
- July '04 Supreme Court Ruling on Secrecy, Task Force Documents Obtained through FOIA Suit on Collision Course as Cheney “Duck Hunts” with Scalia
- The Reason Why Activists of All Stripes are Ineffective


www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/070103_beyond_bush_1.html
BEYOND BUSH

July 1, 2003 1600 PDT (FTW) -- Let's just suppose for a moment that George W. Bush was removed from the White House. Cheney, Powell, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, Wolfowitz and Rove too. What would that leave us with? It would leave us stuck in hugely expensive, Vietnam-like guerrilla wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It would leave us with the Patriot Act, Homeland Security and Total Information Awareness snooping into every detail of our lives. It would leave us with a government in violation of the 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th and 8th Amendments to the Constitution. It would leave us with a massive cover-up of US complicity in the attacks of 9/11 that, if fully admitted, would show not intelligence "failures" but intelligence crimes, approved and ordered by the most powerful people in the country. It would leave us with a government that now has the power to compel mass vaccinations on pain of imprisonment or fine, and with no legal ability to sue the vaccine makers who killed our friends or our children. It would leave us with two and half million unemployed; the largest budget deficits in history; more than $3.3 trillion missing from the Department of Defense; and state and local governments broke to the point of having to cut back essential services like sewers, police, and fire. It would leave us with a federal government that had hit the debt ceiling and was unable to borrow any more money. And we would still be facing a looming natural gas crisis of unimagined proportions, and living on a planet that is slowly realizing that it is running out of oil with no "Plan B". Our airports however, would be very safe, and shares of Halliburton, Lockheed and DynCorp would be paying excellent dividends.
This is not good management.
Leaving all of these issues unaddressed is not good management either.
And this is why, as I will demonstrate in this article, the decision has already been made by corporate and financial powers to remove George W. Bush, whether he wants to leave or not, and whether he steals the next election or not. Before you start cheering, ask yourself three questions: "If there is someone or something that can decide that Bush will not return, nor remain for long, what is it? And if that thing is powerful enough to remove Bush, was it not also powerful enough to have put him there in the first place? And if that is the case, then isn't that what's really responsible for the state of things? George W. Bush is just a hired CEO who is about to be removed by the "Board of Directors". Who are they? Are they going to choose his replacement? Are you going to help them?
What can change this Board of Directors and the way the "Corporation" protects its interests? These are the only issues that matter.
So now the honest question about the 2004 Presidential campaign is, "What do you really want out of it?" Do you want the illusion that everything is a little better while it really gets worse? Or are you ready yet to roll up your sleeves and make some very unpleasant but necessary fixes?
The greatest test of the 2004 presidential election campaign is not with the candidates. It is with the people. There are strong signs that presidential election issues on the Democratic side are already being manipulated by corporate and financial interests. And some naïve and well-intentioned (and some not-so-naïve and not-so-well intentioned) activists are already playing right into the Board's hands. There are many disturbing signs that the only choice offered to the American people will be no choice at all. Under the psychological rationale, "This is the way it has to be done", campaign debates will likely address only half-truths and fail to come to grips with - or even acknowledge - the most important issues that I just described. In fact, only the least important issues will likely be addressed in campaign 2004 at the usual expense of future generations who are rapidly realizing that they are about to become the victims of the biggest Holocaust in mankind's history. The final platforms for Election 2004 will likely be manifestos of madness unless we dictate differently.
Some on the Democratic side are already positioning themselves to co-opt and control what happened on 9/11 into a softer, less disturbing "Better this than nothing" strategy. This attitude, that the only thing that matters is finding an electable Democrat, is nothing more than a rearrangement of deck chairs on the Titanic. Has everyone suddenly forgotten that the 2000 election was stolen: first by using software and political machinery to disenfranchise tens of thousands of eligible voters, then by open interference at polling places, and finally by an absolutely illegal Supreme Court decision? Do these people believe that such a crime, absolutely successful the first time, will never be attempted again?
And has everyone also forgotten that in the 2002 midterm elections the proprietary voting software, in many cases owned by those affiliated with the Republican Party or - as in the case of Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska - the candidates themselves, has been ruled by the Supreme Court to be immune from public inspection. (Hagel won by a lopsided 83% majority). Throughout the United States in 2002 there was abundant evidence that the so-called "solution" to hanging chads did nothing more than enshrine the ability to steal elections with immunity and also much less fuss afterwards? Who in their right mind would trust such a system? Why have none of the candidates mentioned it?
And, if all else fails, we can have more Wellstone plane crashes. It has worked with three Democratic Senate candidates in key races over the last thirty years. Maybe that's why no one in Congress is talking about the election process. Plane crashes are part of that process too.
Unless people find the will to address scandals, lies, and betrayals of trust that, by their very existence, reveal that the system itself is corrupt and that the people controlling it - both in government, and in America's corporations and financial institutions -- are criminals, there is no chance to make anything better, only an absolute certainty that things will get worse. ....

Unless people find the will to address scandals, lies, and betrayals of trust that, by their very existence, reveal that the system itself is corrupt and that the people controlling it - both in government, and in America's corporations and financial institutions -- are criminals, there is no chance to make anything better, only an absolute certainty that things will get worse. ....
There is only one difference between the evidence showing the Bush administration's criminal culpability in and foreknowledge of the attacks of 9/11, and the evidence showing that the administration deceived the American public about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein. Both sets of evidence are thoroughly documented. They are irrefutable and based upon government records and official statements and actions shown to be false, misleading or dishonest. And both sets of evidence are unimpeachable. The difference is that the evidence showing the Iraqi deception is being seriously and widely investigated by the mainstream press, and actively by an ever-increasing number of elected representatives. That's it.


NOVEMBER 26, 2003
THE KENNEDYS, PHYSICAL EVIDENCE AND 9/11
by Michael C. Ruppert. What works, what doesn't and a long overdue amends to our readers. There is much to be learned from the 40th anniversary of the JFK assassination, other great crimes and what has worked on the post-9/11 playing field. But we may not have forty years to debate the point.
Read Now:
www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/112603_kennedy.html

excerpt:
What I believe is that on Septmeber 11th, many of the alleged hijackers were likely not even aboard the planes, and that it is possible that they were flown (via existing and well-documented) remote control technology. I believe that none of the alleged hijackers had acquired the proficiency required to perform the complicated maneuvers used. I do not accept the government's version of the collapses of the towers and WTC 7, and I believe that those collapses were caused by artificial means other than the aircraft collisions. The fact that there are credible mainstream reports showing that many of the 19 hijackers are still alive leads me to question the government's account further. But with the hijackers, one confronts what is called in the intelligence trade a "legend" of immense complexity that has not been definitively unraveled. I do believe that some of the 19 hijackers were aboard the four flights as tokens, and I am absolutely convinced that Flight 93 was shot down as some attacks were allowed to take place successfully, and others were prevented.
An execellent analysis of this legend by Chaim Kupferberg is located at: "Truth, Lies, and The Legend of 9/11", by Chaim Kupferberg.
www.globalresearch.ca/articles/KUP310A.html
This brings me to an artificial "straw" argument that has evolved from the controversy over physical evidence: Let-it-happen-on-purpose (LIHOP) vs. Make it happen on purpose (MIHOP). Again, for the record, as I have stated clearly on many occasions, I am absolutely convinced that the US government was a deliberate facilitator of the attacks before they occurred. I believe that the US government and its intelligence agencies - in cooperation with other intelligence agencies, especially the Israeli Mossad, Pakistan's ISI and Britain's MI6 - actively protected some of the 19 hijackers before the attacks, and made sure that they were free and allowed to circulate unmolested in order to fulfill the requirements of the "legend". One might include Russia's DFS and Germany's BND in this list, but the evidence here is inconclusive.
I believe that in its desperation to secure an attack "on the order of Pearl Harbor" (that would, as Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote in 1997, cause the Amercian people to support "the imperial mobilization necessary" to control 60% of the world's known energy resources), controlling elements of the US government, using highly compartmentalized procedures, saw to it that the attacks were carried out. I believe that those attacks were brought together using elements of plans already in place within Al Qaeda (Project Bojinka), the above named intelligence services, and some cooperation from Saudi "assets" operating outside the Saudi government, and that they were "enhanced" and refined by US intelligence agencies using existing assets and covert manipulation of command and control capabilities to ensure that fighter aircraft were not scrambled in a normal fashion as they had been 67 times in the year before 9/11.
I believe that much of Al Qaeda and many of the so-called hijackers were either witting or completely unwitting US assets who were either ordered, pushed or manipulated into fulfilling their roles on 9/11. I do not believe that it is established that Khalid Sheikh Muhammad was captured, or that he delivered the confessions which have been attributed to him. Multiple credible mainstream press reports indicate that he was either killed or still remains at large. The only thing we have to go on here is the government's questionable word and no appearance of KSM to back it up.

 

Ruppert attacked by Left Gatekeepers and Conspiracy Gatekeepers

http://rigint.blogspot.com/2006/11/back-to-wilderness.html#comments

owlindaylight said...
(edited because the original post was a tad reactionary)

Most of the people I see criticizing Ruppert are what I consider the second-tier theorists ... they get their info from other researchers, pick their favorites, and spend their online time onanistically savaging the others with ad hominem attacks.
Mike Ruppert has his flaws, no doubt about it. But let's remember what he did: He provided unimpeachable research from primary sources over a lengthy career, research that couldn't be found anywhere else, and gave us a map we're all using to some degree or another. Anybody notice how, right after Stan Goff and Ruppert's piece on Pat Tillman, for example, the shit hit the proverbial fan in the media about this story, when it had been quiet for years? Remember how Mike was telling us about the multiple simultaneous wargames on 9/11, years before NORAD came out and admitted it in that Vanity Fair piece? These kinds of stories couldn't be found anywhere but FTW. That was what I *happily* paid for.
Disagree with elements of his "map" all you want, criticize him rightly for his character flaws ... fine. But too much of the criticism I hear of him is so very petty, and doesn't address his body of work. A great deal of the anti-Ruppert commentary I've read in the RI comments section in the past, and some of it from this post, has come from armchair theorists who haven't done one iota of the WORK Mike Ruppert did.
How many people can claim to have gotten up in front of John Deutch and publicly proclaimed him to be a crack-smuggling liar? All those "Ruppert-is-a-disinfo-agent" smartasses who see a CIA operative behind every rock have never had to deal with real harassment of the kind Ruppert endured. It's sad, to see how the "deep politics" community bashes one of its own.


see www.oilempire.us/gatekeepers.html for the "Left Wing" attacks in 2002 by David Corn, Washington Editor for The Nation, Norman Solomon (FAIR / Institute for Public Accuracy), Chip Berlet and other ostensible leftists who came to the defense of the Bush adminstration when it was incredibly vulnerable

After "Rubicon" was published, a new round of discrediting attacks was launched, as described below:

 

WING TV (Wingnut TV?)
A shoddy effort to discredit Ruppert's work while ignoring the information in "Rubicon"

www.fromthewilderness.com/10questions.shtml
A very good rebuttal to the worst and sleaziest attacks.

http://911review.com/wingtv/markup/hoffman.html
Another excellent writer refutes still more nonsense from "Wing TV"

 

From a review posted to amazon.com

40 of 42 people found the following review helpful:
Beware: Anti-Ruppert Campaign Has Started!, November 11, 2004
Reviewer:
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/cm/member-glance/-/A2F1SFO2B6L4U5/1/ref=cm_cr_auth/104-0252411-2578325?%5Fencoding=UTF8>
Jason R. Stanson - <http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/A2F1SFO2B6L4U5/ref=cm_cr_auth/104-0252411-2578325?%5Fencoding=UTF8>See all my reviews
Mike Ruppert is unquestionably a great American hero. His book, Crossing the Rubicon, is the single most important book written in the last fifty years at least. The Patriot Act, Homeland Security and the lies about WMDs in Iraq have created a growing sense of unease in the collective unconscious. As a result, a growing number of intellectuals and every day citizens are begining to see the Truth and more and more people are begining to wake up every day. Crossing the Rubicon is at the forefront of this new awareness. Most reviewers here have already done a great job summarizing the content of Mike's book. The many five star reviews are well deserved.
I want to write a note about the campaign to discredit Mike Ruppert and his book, a campaign which has apparently begun full blast. Another reviewer has already correctly noted how the few one-star reviews on this site follow the standard rules of organized disinformation campaigns. Through the use of innuendo, character assasination, and classic misdirection, several reviewers make it appear that the book rests its case on a handful of issues, such as the Vreeland case. In fact, all 696 pages are saturated with enough well documented and diverse evidence to prove the 911 criminal conspiracy many times over while adhering to the highest possible journalistic standards. Mike makes a case that could actually hold up in a court of law, whereas the establishment case for 911 could not even hold up in a high school debate. Quite a pathetic comment on the state of our society but I digress.
The most comically pathetic aspect of the disinformation campaign is a new "conspiracy website TV show" which proceeds to slam Ruppert in a laughable thirty-minute video. They make such shocking claims that Ruppert is "rude...impolite...a liar, blah, blah, blah" without offering anything substantive to back up their "claims". Anyone with even a degree of clear perception can clearly see that these people are either operatives with very poor acting skills or low grade actors hired by operatives. The lack of sincerity in their eyes, their nervous body language and laughable "faux-left-wing" wardrobe and demeanor betray an obvious Wag the Dog operation. A little research into their website and published books indicate that the entire operation has been slapped together in the last few months, no doubt to coincide with the publication of Crossing the Rubicon. This type of thing might fool the sheeple who think CNN is their friend. But those of us who have already seen the underbelly of the Propaganda Beast can only shake our heads in sad amusement. What a joke. Ruppert is wise to simply briefly address their libel on his own site but otherwise ignore them.
As Crossing the Rubicon gains ground, one can only imagine what new lows the disinformation campaign will hit. What's next? Websites that scream: Mike Ruppert Married Satan and Gave Birth to a Pink Alien Octopuss who Molested your Mother!! Don't TRUST HIM!!
Hang in there Mr. Ruppert. Heroes are rarely recognized in their own time. You may or may not get the adulation you deserve in this lifetime but your work will help many people survive the coming storm.
Generations will owe you.

 

Daniel Hopsicker attacks Mike Ruppert (a distraction from the fact Mike's book is published)

www.madcowprod.com/mc532004.html

The “No Arabs aboard” attack was fail-safed and backstopped with missiles hidden in the undercarriage of the airliners, explosive charges secreted inside WTC7, and a voodoo hex placed on the WTC by the Spiders from Mars.
It’s not an excuse to hold a UFO Conference with an entrée for every conspiratorial taste—like the 9/11 Conference in San Francisco—where attendees can check out everything from plaster molds of alien footprints to literature written by alien abductees to presentations on "The Reptilian Perspective: Serpents of Wisdom or Snakes in the Grass.”

Earth to Mike: It wasn't “Peak Oil” slitting passenger’s throats on those hijacked airliners.
“Peak Oil” bears the same relationship to the 9/11 investigation that the Iraq War bears to the World Trade Center Attack.


Dear Daniel Hopsicker:

I've read your latest "article" that mixes some truth with some blatantly wrong material. There are so many mistakes here that it's hard to know where to start.
First, you're right to point out that there are some cointelpro type disinfo artists masquerading as 9/11 skeptics. The "pod and flash" people are perhaps the most blatant example of this, although the topic certainly attracts non-governmental groupies whose enthusiasm is not matched by fact checking or even a skeptical approach to wild claims that are based on bogus photos. I recommend looking through www.oilempire.us/bogus.html -- a page that our friend Kris Millegan has given great praise to, and one that has attracted attacks and ugly abuse directed against me (but no substantive rebuttals).
Second, Ruppert has similar journalist credentials as you do. Neither of you publish for a major institution. Both of you have dug up some original material on 9/11. I hope there's not too much jealousy going on. Who gives you omnipotent power to determine who is and who is not a journalist?
It is fascinating that in your attack on him you don't dare discuss the information that is disclosed in "Crossing the Rubicon" such as the six war games that were underway on 9/11 that paralyzed the Air Force protection of Washington and New York. That is a very interesting omission. I don't know anything about the "Pinnacle" company you discuss, whether it is honorable or sleazy or neutral. But whether it is wonderful or a scam does not have any relevance that I can see to the factual material in "Crossing the Rubicon." When I attack folks for putting out things that aren't true, I take the time to read their material before putting my foot in my mouth (such as the "bogus.html" page referenced above).
It would also be interesting to know in your allegations about the Toronto inquiry being supposedly funded by Mr. Khashoggi if you would dare to point out that the organizers are deeply in the hole financially (partially some poor decisions that resulted in an event that was too long and poorly attended compared to the expectations of the organizers). Mr. Khashoggi is even wealthier than Teresa Heinz Kerry, and if he really was funding all of this stuff, those of us scraping dollars together for ISP fees and copies would be flush with cash (and not merely deception dollars). If he's funding this stuff, how come I haven't gotten my check yet?
Some simple fact checking would have prevented some other glaring errors. 911visibility.org has nothing to do with Mr. Fred Burks (the 911visibility folks are quite perplexed at your inability to discern who is who, which doesn't reflect well on your investigative reporting skills). Perhaps if the "we" that you write in (when you mean "I") would be better if you had an editor to fact check basic claims such as this. I did attend the Berkeley Unitarian event last fall that you lampoon. It must be wonderful to have such finely attuned psychic ability to be able to discern how the event went when you were not there.
As John Judge has stated, the key question with 9/11 is how the protection of the Pentagon was turned off -- AFTER the second tower had been hit. This is one question that the powers-that-be dare not answer. I don't buy the "no plane" theory at the Pentagon (see www.oilempire.us/pentagon.html), but I would love to know how a flight school drop out managed to spiral dive into the nearly empty, recently reconstructed and strengthened sector of the compound, thereby minimizing casualties. It is actually strong circumstantial evidence that remote control flight technology was used (hijacking the hijackers?) - see www.oilempire.us/remote.html I know that Kris Millegan's "Fleshing Out Skull and Bones" book has some info on this, too.
Your discussion of the San Francisco Inquiry in March suffered from inventing bogus claims to discredit it. I was there the entire time, and did not see the fabled "alien footprints" that you claimed were for sale. I did see material there that I thought was bogus, but it would have been much more useful for establishing truth to point out the material there that is not true, instead of making up material to discredit the event. What sort of journalism is it to invent fake facts?
Also, your citing of John Kaminski in order to discredit the inquiry suffered from a misunderstanding -- Mr. Kaminski is probably not an authentic 9/11 truth investigator, given his promotion of blatant disinformation (Search "Shadows of a Hologram" for details) that claims there wasn't a plane at the North Tower and his promotion of neo-Nazi Ernst Zundel (search for "kaminski zundel"). No planes and no gas chambers? It's probable that this is a dirty trick against the 9/11 movement to muddy the waters and discredit by association, although it is possible that he is merely completely incompetent yet very prolific.
Finally, if you're going to be holier than thou about all of this, you might want to consider the links that you have on your "madcowprod" website. It's not consistent to attack Mike Ruppert and link to his website. It's not consistent to make up a story claiming alien footprints were central to the 9/11 inquiry and then link to rense.com (which is notorious for promoting disinfo) and davidicke (who claims that the rulers of Earth are alien reptiles). TomFlocco.com is a mixed bag -- he has done some decent reporting on 9/11, but also praises the phony film "InPlaneSite" and the associated bogus website "letsroll911" AmericanFreePress praises holocaust denial and now even claims that there wasn't a plane in Pennsylvania, even though there were plenty of eyewitnesses and physical evidence that there was. ConspiracyPlanet.com is yet another site that offers readers a mix of real scandal and nonsense that muddies the waters (I don't link to it on my site).
Hunter S. Thompson wrote "gonzo" journalism very well, but I don't recall him ever writing in the first person plural to describe his own thoughts. At least he had the excuse of massive drug use to cover up his mistakes.
Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.
Sincerely,
Mark Robinowitz
www.oilempire.us

Peak oil is a motivation for allowing the attacks, not the mechanic of the attacks. This is a classic non sequitor that would flunk a freshman logic course.
Peak oil does bear quite a bit of relationship to the WTC attack -- it created the psychological shock that allowed the Iraq invasion to happen. It's like the old saying by bank robber Willie Sutton: "why do you rob banks? that's where the money is" Read an excellent analogy comparing 9/11 to a bank robbery at www.oilempire.us/911.html and how the proven evidence around 9/11 does fit an "inside job" paradigm at www.oilempire.us/understanding.html
I assume you know about patsies, Lee Harvey Oswald, false flag operations, the Reichstag Fire (and the luring of Mr. Van Der Lubbe into the Reichstag), and Operation Northwoods.
As for your false claim that the “Remote Controllers” scenario results in no one getting indicted, for example, I direct you to the information about Mr. Dov Zakheim, Comptroller of the Pentagon from 2001 until early this year (2004), who came from a company that builds remote control flight systems. He should be a witness in any real investigation, if one with subpoena power is ever held.
www.oilempire.us/remote.html#zakheim
www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0206/S00071.htm
In addition, while it is not possible to take "peak oil into custody," it IS possible to establish motivation(s) for allowing 9/11 to happen (ie. by suppressing multiple investigations that would have prevented it) and the probable technical assistance provided to ensure the paralysis of the Air Force response to the hijacked planes and the guidance of the third plane into the mostly empty part of the Pentagon.
Do you really think the fact that Atta was violent and that the flight schools had sleazy connections is the central issue of how the Cheney administration allowed (at the very least) 9/11 to happen?
Your Barry and the Boys book was much better at avoiding the "scenery" (as the Jim Garrison character in "JFK" put it) and focusing more on motivation. Would you now go back and focus on the alleged Oswald character as a nut case (in his many staged incidents before Nov 22 1963) and claim that this proves he wasn't the patsy after all? Do you really believe the FBI found a Koran and an Arabic language Boeing manual in the parking garage at Logan Airport, or that they found a paper passport of a hijacker on the streets of Manhattan that somehow had passed unscathed through the fireballs?