(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)
The Lingering Cloud of 9/11
byJenna Orkin,World Trade Center Environmental Organization
www.wtceo.org
September 11 was a tragedy that has changed the course of history and the way we live. It was also an environmental disaster of epic proportions. Hundreds of tons of asbestos were pulverized and dispersed around Lower Manhattan and beyond. The tens of thousands of fluorescent lightbulbs each contained enough mercury to contaminate a quarter of a city block. The Trade Center's 50,000 computers were each made with four to twelve pounds of lead. The smoke detectors contained radioactive americium 241. The alkalinity of the air was equivalent to that of Draino. A month after the disaster, Dr. Thomas Cahill of the University of California at Davis found levels of very-fine and ultra-fine particulates that were the highest he'd ever recorded in the course of taking 7000 samples around the world, including at the burning Kuwaiti oil fields.1 In addition there were record levels of dioxin, PCBs, and all the other contaminants one might expect to find when a modern city - which is what the World Trade Center was - burns for several months. In the words of Dr. Marjorie Clarke, 9/11 was "equivalent to dozens of asbestos factories, incinerators and crematoria - as well as a volcano." 2
Nevertheless, beginning on September 13, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued reassurances about the air quality downtown.A report by the EPA Inspector General released in August, 2004, found that these pronouncements came about because of interference from the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ.) "[B]ased on CEQ's influence reassuring information was added to at least one press release and cautionary information was deleted;" Why was the CEQ interfering in this way? The report states: "[T]he desire to reopen Wall Street [was] considered when preparing EPA's early press releases." 3 As a result of EPA's reassuring lies, Lower Manhattan reopened with much fanfare about 'showing the terrorists.' Often, Ground Zero workers were told not to wear respirators for fear of frightening the public. Residents removed tons of toxic debris from their homes (some of which looked like Pompeii) in accord with instructions provided by the New York City Department of Health: "Use a wet mop or wet rag."4 On October 9, Stuyvesant High School, where this writer's son was a student, reopened. Flanked by Ground Zero four blocks to the south, Stuyvesant also had on its north doorstep the main transfer station for the toxic debris to be carted off to Fresh Kills, Staten Island.
As a result of this placement, Particulate Matter 2.5 - dust that is small enough to penetrate deep into the lungs and not come out again - was often higher at Stuyvesant than at Ground Zero. Because it is so small, P.M. 2.5 has a relatively large surface area to volume ratio which means that the toxic chemicals in the debris would adsorb (i.e., be absorbed onto its surface) onto the particles, compounding their toxicity. High levels of asbestos, lead, tetrachloroethane and isocyanates were found at the school which had been used as a triage center but whose ventilation system had not been cleaned prior to the school's reopening. Did Bush himself know about the air quality downtown? If he didn't, it was because he operated on a "Don't ask, don't tell" policy so that the buck would stop short of him. The fact is: Scientists and other experts testified early and often on the dangers of the air downtown and the toxic dust in people's homes. Yet to date all the federal government has provided is testing with outdated equipment and sometimes untried protocols; a dangerously flawed and limited cleanup and little or no health care for the affected community.The Commission Report deals with the envirodisaster of 9/11 in a footnote in which they refer to an interview with Sam Thernstrom, coordinator for the White House Council on Environmental Quality. He denies changing press releases in order to reopen Wall Street, explaining that the reasons for the changes were procedural. His story is corroborated by Christy Todd Whitman who told the initial lies.
John Gotti and Lucky Luciano have got their stories straight. But as Uncle Remus said, "You can hide the fire but how you gonna hide the smoke?"Three years later we are beginning to see the results of the disastrous policies of the White House which put economic concerns ahead of public health. Over half of the heroes who toiled at Ground Zero now have debilitating respiratory symptoms. Among residents, workers, and the Stuyvesant community are many illnesses such as new-onset asthma, Reactive Airways Disease, and chronic bronchitis. Lawyer Robert Gulack, for instance, has suffered permanent lung damage from his exposure to contamination in the Woolworth building. And as a dreadful portent of what may be in store for the community of Ground Zero, fourteen rescue dogs have died.
The White House's actions in response to the environmental aftermath of 9/11 reveal that Osama Bin Laden could not have stumbled on a more felicitous collaborator than George W. Bush.
For more information, see:
www.wtceo.org
http://www.911ea.org
1 http://delta.ucdavis.edu/news.htm
2 http://www.911ea.org/Clarke.WTC%20City%20Council%20Testimony%20revised.March%2030,%202004.pdf
3 http://www.epa.gov/oigearth/reports/2003/WTC_report_20030821.pdf.
4 http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/html/alerts/wtc1.html
Monday, October 11, 2004
MICHAEL RUPPERT RESPONDS TO VICTOR THORN'S TEN QUESTIONS
This post is a little bit of a side show, and definitely not something that a casual reader would find easily digestible. However, it's interesting that Ruppert took the trouble to post it, and it give a accurate impression of how much dissention that can be within the 911 Truth Movement as it tries to ascertain the truth and make reasonable conclusions.
MICHAEL RUPPERT RESPONDS TO VICTOR THORN'S TEN QUESTIONS
(full matching text is posted at http://www.fromthewilderness.com/10questions.shtml for comparison and verification of non-tampering with my responses by Victor Thorn at http://69.28.73.17/)
On October 1, 2004 pseudo-journalist Victor Thorn posted a 36-page character-assassination hit piece about me titled "Mike Ruppert Unmasked." He did so without presenting me with his allegations or offering me an opportunity to correct the record. He has mistakenly misrepresented to his audience that he was being "fair" because he had previously asked me to appear on his web-based TV show. I declined that invitation. Subsequent to that Thorn (whose real name has been reported to be Scott Magufka (I am unsure about the spelling) posted his attack piece without even advising me of its content or offering me an opportunity to comment before he published. He has also refused to disclose whether his real name is Victor Thorn or not.
Therefore, as an attempt to avoid legal action I am responding to ten questions submitted to me in writing 24 hours ago. I have posted them on an unpublished URL at the FTW web site for two reasons. First: to guarantee that whatever Thorn posts on his web site is accurate. Second: because I have no intention of helping to publicize some of the most unprofessional, unethical and unreliable journalism I have ever seen.
Mike Ruppert
Oct. 7, 2004
---
RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS, BRIEF COMMENTS ABOUT THE ARTICLE CALLED "MIKE RUPPERT UNMASKED"
Before I answer your specific questions let me start by rebutting an assertion you made in your hit piece about my journalism experience and training. In your story you wrote that I was educated in Political Science and trained in law enforcement so therefore you believed that I was dishonest when I said that I was also trained as a journalist. My previous response to that libelous implication may save all of my readers a lot of time and energy and they may conclude that they don't have to read any further.
Can't anyone do any better than this? This is boring. Astute readers will also note that you are obviously aware of this response because you quoted only a part of it. (Another breach of ethics)
"I did not say that I was "educated" as a journalist. I said I was 'trained' as a journalist. That was after my training at LAPD. Are you suggesting that in a long life (53 years) people can only receive one kind of training? Is that it?
"None of this would have happened had Victor Thorn or any of the others done what a professional journalist is required to do: fact check and ask for confirmation before publishing. The fact that I refused to do Thorn's show (because of sloppy journalism and reporting) has nothing to do with the fact that a professional journalist would have called or emailed me with their allegations and asked for my comment first. That is a professional journalist's responsibility.
"[Daniel] Hopsicker was worse! I sent him a detailed on-record response which he quoted selectively and then ignored answers from me which disproved his theory. I gave all of those answers on the record and in writing. (That response is attached below.)
"Journalists who operate like this don't deserve responses.
"The training I received was from editors at The Los Angeles Times (where I was published as a freelancer in 1985); the Los Angeles Daily News (also published in 1985); The LA WEEKLY, (three stories between 1983 and 1984). The US Journal of Drug and Alcohol Dependence (West Coast Correspondent, 1984-7) -- The Editor, Milan Korcok, had 30-plus years of newspaper editing behind him and was a great teacher.); INTRO Magazine (Published in 1986); and Entrepreneur Magazine, where I worked as a staff writer right after leaving LAPD in 1979-80.
"In addition, because of my 'training and experience' I served as the LA County Press Spokesman for the Perot Campaign in 1992 and was on TV, radio and in the papers every day dealing with professional journalists including all the networks and the biggest papers. I learned from watching them work, how they checked facts, how they checked sources and how they offered a chance for response before publishing.
"The training I received was called OJT but it was indeed training and it involved direction and guidance from some really experienced editors who taught me the ropes because I had writing ability plus investigative skills and experience.
"Of course I have clips to prove all this but really, these criticisms are barely worthy of a response. I am hoping that some of you will get this and redirect your energies to more useful pursuits.
"Would anyone like to debate what I had for dinner last night and whether that affects my credibility? Can't you people find something better to do like discuss what's tearing the world apart right now?"
VICTOR THORN'S TEN QUESTIONS
1) POPULATION REDUCTION: "You are quoted as saying that you would like "to stop global population growth and to arrive at the best possible and most ethical program of population reduction."
Question: Do you have a specific program in mind to achieve this goal? Who do you feel should be in charge of it - someone like the Rockefeller family, who has a history of such endeavors via their eugenics programs? In your opinion, how many people should be eliminated? And finally, what "ethical" criteria do you suggest using to determine who is eradicated?"
ANSWER: No I do not. But I am certain that the Neocons and Neolibs do have a plan. That's what frightens me so much.
If there is a man who sees a horrible train wreck about to happen, and attempts with all his energy to warn people that the train wreck is coming and many lives may be lost (more than need be), does that mean that he is responsible for causing the train wreck? Does it mean that he likes or enjoys train wrecks; that he wants the train wreck to happen?
I have no list of people who should be in charge of this. Everyone should have a say. I have suggested that such an endeavor might best include people of more humane vocations than those of the economists, politicians, and financiers who are currently in charge of most domestic and international institutions. I have never said anywhere that there was a specific group of organizations or people who should run this. I have listed philosophies and disciplines that ought to be included in an effort to avoid the sort of draconian disaster that now seems likely.
In my view, people like the Rockefellers (with whose appalling research on eugenics I am quite familiar), should not have a say, nor should the lunatics currently running the country.
To be ethical in the face of an inevitable disaster, the entire human community will have to share useful information as equably as is humanly possible. I believe that is called democracy. Fully feasible or not, it seems to me the only ideal worthy of pursuit, whether in times of relative stability or of unprecedented danger.
I have never had any other position.
Here is just one example of what is happening as Peak Oil makes itself known. It is a good model for many of the other decisions now being made by some members of powerful elite circles, without the knowledge or assent of the non-elite majority (who depend for our survival upon the same scarce resources).
In Nantucket, home to some of the wealthiest families on the planet, including Martha's Vineyard, a taxpayer-funded wind farm is being constructed with funding from the poorer tax bases surrounding this ultra-wealthy enclave. The problem is (and FTW has just begun an in-depth investigation of developments like this around the country), the wind farm itself will supply only enough energy for the rich folks while being paid for with middle and lower-class tax dollars. Roughly translated, the rich folks will be warm and have electricity while the middle and lower classes freeze and go dark after losing financial resources they needed to protect themselves. (Source: Boston.com, 9/27). We have already begun our investigation and come up with very some disturbing answers on these developments. We will be doing a large investigative series on this sometime in the next few months.
My point is, as it is with any proposed solution to the planetary carrying-capacity train wreck, is that everyone should have a fully-informed say in the discussions and, let us hope, in their outcomes. Ultimately, this will involve spiritual questions; hence I think that spiritual leaders chosen by various peoples should have input because that is how you get real ethics inserted into the discussions. Or do you advocate making these tough decisions solely on the basis of money, property and prestige? I advocate no particular religion of any kind (never have). But spiritual leaders, chosen by the people affected should be involved in the discussions and solutions so that broader ethical and moral considerations will be included.
Of course, history is rife with episodes in which clerical leaders - whether in the red robes of a cardinal, the black robes of an Imam, or the white lab coat of a scientist - abused their authority and their charisma, escalating the harm they were called upon to diminish. The present moment is at least as burdened with such characters as previous centuries have been. But the particular possibility we all deplore - a repetition of the professionalized, bureaucratic, technologically efficient horror of the Nazi period - is surely more likely to occur under the advisory leadership of, say, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Ariel Sharon, and Porter Goss than that of, say, Helen Caldecott, Ramsey Clark, the Dalai Lama, and Dick Gregory. These are just names plucked from the air, chosen to illustrate the point.
I do not have an answer or a plan. I want all the people to come up with a plan, the way Thom Paine and Jefferson would have wanted.
I agree with Matt Simmons: "There is no (public) Plan B." It is the "secret" Plan B which scares the bejeesus out of me and should also scare you; especially since the secret plan appears to involve the development and deployment of gene-specific bioweapons, enforced starvation, and possibly nuclear war.
I don't advocate any of these options. I am trying to prevent them.
Any reader of my publication From The Wilderness or my book Crossing the Rubicon will see that clearly. The book is my fullest answer on this point.
2) PINNACLE QUEST INTERNATIONAL: "In Daniel Hopsicker's article, Cointelpro 9-11: Peak Oil & the Level Above Saudi, he writes about a company named Pinnacle Quest International, which was involved in banking scams, money laundering, wire & mail fraud, and tax evasion. Yet you admit to being the recipient of two all-expense paid trips by them, and are even quoted as saying, "I have great respect for Pinnacle Quest International.
"Question: Is your opinion of Pinnacle Quest International still the same today; and in the future do you plan on accepting any payments from them (or any other entity engaged in criminal activities)?"
ANSWER: You are wrong all over the place on this question. Had you done the slightest bit of fact-checking or request for comment before publishing, you would have found this out.
First, I have not taken two all-expense-paid trips to speak for PQI. I have taken four! The money I received was hotel and air fare plus $1,000 for each appearance. That's it. I don't know where anyone got a figure of $40,000. And I plan on going again. PQI is great.
As you will see from the attached email, I provided Daniel Hopsicker with detailed on-record responses which he misquoted, out of context. (See below) You will also see that I disclosed the amount of money I was paid therein. I have never kept this a secret. Compare what I wrote about PQI's legal presenters with what he wrote about me. Please compare all of my responses with what Hopsicker wrote.
This is why professional journalism requires a standard of fairness that includes providing people with an opportunity to respond in writing before going to press.
PQI completely separated from a Global Prosperity before I ever became involved with it. That occurred because Global's practices were both illegal and unethical. The people who left Global and started PQI did so because they were committed to bringing useful and powerful information (that has been officially suppressed) to its clients. What's more, at every successive PQI event I have watched its leadership cull out any exhibitor or presenter that was less than the best. I did a background check on PQI before attending and found nothing to dissuade me that this was a very powerful business and information model, one that was creating wealth and economic freedom for people trapped in a governmental and economic system which is nothing more than an organized crime "ecosystem." Do you like the way the economy works? The way banks and government use, abuse, and limit your financial freedom and the fruits of your labor?
Am I aware that some members of PQI have had criminal charges pressed against them? Absolutely! So have many dedicated patriots and whistleblowers throughout our country's history, whose ordeals were intended to silence them. What's surprising about this? I even offered some consultation in the case of the ex wife of Dave Struckman, who was maliciously prosecuted by the IRS on charges of "structuring." The record of the criminal investigation was so flawed and offensive that it made a former FBI agent and several detectives I know choke. That case is also under appeal. I am also aware that the New York Times once reported that Dave Struckman was a fugitive from justice when, in fact, there was not a single charge against him and he was not wanted anywhere. That served to damage his business, even though a subsequent retraction/correction/apology from the Times was buried following their initial story. Both PQI and I are going after Wall Street and Wall Street fights dirty. They use the government wherever possible.
As Catherine Austin Fitts writes:
"It's simple. Those who help the average person achieve financial independence through knowledge and hard work will be perceived as competitors by those who take advantage of the average person. Economic warfare."
These are risks that all truth-tellers must face and accept before they commit to their work. At PQI I have found a large and growing number of educated and very aware souls who are taking action to build economic, medical, legal and other kinds of life rafts before the Titanic sinks. They are taking informed and educated steps to disengage themselves from an economic system which breeds this destruction. By doing so, they have begun to stop feeding it. Unfortunately, you can't get that information easily inside the US as a result of oppression.
PQI has presented some remarkable information that is totally suppressed in the US. That includes successful treatments for cancer and for many other serious diseases, treatments the pharmaceutical companies don't want out; rock-solid legal evidence that the 16th amendment was never ratified, thus making the Federal income tax illegal; presentations from former IRS agents who, as whistleblowers, expose the corruption within the US treasury (just as Fitts and I have); legal means to obtain cheap credit, eliminate debt, finance real estate at almost zero interest; and many other things.
One of their key presenters, Bill Benson, was actually imprisoned, tortured and drugged before being acquitted, exonerated and released. He has won every court case where he appears with his documentation and the IRS is scared to death of him. One medical doctor has been forced to live out of the country because he has been beaten and attacked several times after large hospitals, universities and corporations suppressed his work and its medical successes.
I am proud to associate with such people and I hope that when my time comes I will show as much courage as they have.
3) AMR IBRAHIM "TONY" ELGINDY: "I am in the [sic] possession of e-mails between yourself and Tony Elgindy, a "short seller" who was arrested for running a racketeering ring using information obtained from corrupt FBI agents. He has also served time for, or been charged with, insurance fraud, bribery, illegal stock market manipulation, and extortion.
" Question: Please explain your relationship with Mr. Elgindy (who now faces conspiracy and racketeering charges in a Brooklyn federal court), and also the circumstances revolving around your public apology to him in November, 2002."
ANSWER: I have no relationship with Mr. Elgindy. We communicated two years ago about an entry in my "Oh Lucy" 9/11 timeline, based upon press reports which I had quoted accurately and he acknowledged this. Those press reports suggested that he had engaged in pre-9/11 insider trading. After he contacted me and I looked at records he provided, I was convinced that, based upon the legal record then in existence (including court documents he provided me), there was no evidence to support any knowledge on his part of the 9/11 attacks.
There is an ongoing trial about charges of insider trading but I also found out that even the FBI had reluctantly admitted in court that none of Elgindy's alleged trades had anything to do with 9/11. There was also a detailed record of Mr. Elgindy publicly attacking Mr. Adnan Khashoggi and charging him with "pump and dump" operations. Khashoggi is, in my opinion, one of the baddest people on the planet and a known crook.
I had been pushed to publish my timeline entry on Elgindy by a researcher who, as it turned out, had a personal and possibly financial agenda regarding Elgindy. Though my timeline entry was indeed accurate - and he acknowledged this - it contained a "spin" which I came to believe was unfair and so I withdrew the entry.
The matter was settled amicably between us and I have had no contact with him since.
As a journalist, I have always, whenever I found that I was in error, corrected the mistake and apologized. FTW has a clear record of that. Every journalist makes mistakes from time to time. The New York Times, CNN, the Washington Post, all of them publish hundreds of corrections every year. It's the journalist who does not acknowledge and correct errors who cannot be trusted.
4) MIKE VREELAND: "Over the past few years, Delmar[t] "Mike" Vreeland's credibility as a witness and/or information source has been severely eroded by 9-11 researchers, law enforcement officials, judges, lawyers, radio personalities, and virtually every other individual who has ever come in contact with him.
Question: Since you devoted two entire chapters of Crossing the Rubicon to Mr. Vreeland, do you still place credence in him as a reliable source, and if so, please explain why?"
ANSWER: The question has never been whether I considered Vreeland a reliable source or not. A homicide detective gathers evidence and statements from good people, from bad people, from stupid people, from smart people. Under the law all that matters is whether the evidence is true or not.
The only place where I have ever hung my hat with regard to Vreeland is in three specific areas of evidence:
1. He was definitely connected to and working in some capacity for the United States Navy (ONI) for many years.
2. It has been proven that he wrote a warning note approximately one month before the attacks of 9/11 and that this note was sealed into his property in a Canadian jail.
3. Based upon a detailed written record and on-the-record statements by his attorneys, court documents and more, there is no doubt - especially in the minds of his attorneys - that he was referring to the attacks of 9/11.
Whether one likes Vreeland or not; whether he is a good guy, a bad guy, or a combination, does not matter. I have devoted two chapters in "Rubicon" to the events surrounding Mike Vreeland precisely because this point is so important. You might have noted that I also described him as a royal pain in the ass or that I also said that I knew that in some respects he was deliberately feeding me disinformation to improve his negotiating position with the US intelligence community.
But an ethical homicide detective, or journalist, cannot afford to throw out facts that have been independently verified just because he doesn't like the source. A tree is still a tree regardless of who says so or whether one likes him or not. To take any other approach is foolhardy.
Everyone should read the two chapters in Rubicon and decide for themselves. That is my best answer.
5) ALAN GREENSPAN: "On June 1, 2002 you relayed an incredible report to a Yahoo public forum where you stated that Mike Vreeland had been poisoned by Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan.
Question: At the time of that message, did you find it even remotely possible that Alan Greenspan would try to poison a career criminal and con-man with two bottles of delivered wine? If your answer is "no," do you find the above post an example of "shoddy, error-prone" journalism?"
ANSWER: You are lying yet again. First, it was not a public forum but a members-only CIA-Drugs discussion list. I have records of the emails. But they aren't necessary to answer this question. I also added the caveat at the bottom of my e-mail message that I had received the "poisoning" phone call from Vreeland while I was in a hotel room preparing for a lecture in Northern California and could not independently verify any of the allegations Vreeland was making. What I said in that email was that I needed help from anyone on the list who could help verify or investigate the claims before I or anyone else decided to print a news story.
Even David Corn of The Nation, one of my worst and most unethical critics, acknowledged in one of his many hit pieces on me that I had written this caveat about what Vreeland had said. How did that happen? Well even Corn did something you haven't done. He emailed me and asked me what I had actually written. I forwarded him the email message myself. That's the way journalists are required to behave, and at least in one case, that's what Corn did.
6) LAWSUITS: "After reading about your propensity to threaten detractors with lawsuits, a well-known 9-11 researcher/chronicler e-mailed the following to me: "I can assure you that at least 5-7 people came forward in the last two years telling me that Ruppert tried to take legal steps against them too. The last bizarre, almost public threat was against the writer of the play J'accuse Cheney two weeks ago."
Multiple choice question: During the past five years, approximately how many people have you threatened to sue: (a) 1-50 (b) 50-100, or (c) over 100?"
ANSWER: (a). There are lots of people who are sloppy and not-credible at best, or government operatives at worst. The law is a means by which unethical and illegal practices can be curtailed for the benefit of journalism and the public's ability to trust it.
How many times have I been sued after about 250 hard-hitting articles taking on the government, political figures and financial institutions? None.
How many times have I been threatened with a suit? Once. In that case I encouraged the other party to go right ahead and take their best shot. We never heard from them again.
Does that tell you something?
7) POISON PEN: "Your attacks on detractors (and even colleagues) are legendary. Since "Mike Ruppert Unmasked" blazed across the Internet on October 1, 2004, I've received scores of reports from others who were also subjected to this type of onslaught. One such illustration originates from a woman who is well-known to 9-11 researchers. She wrote: "I have an example of Mike at his finest, exhibiting just those traits you describe so perfectly. He attempted to intimidate me on the 9-11 Truth Alliance list when I alerted people to his new stance on the Air Force stand-down and criticized his war games line back in June 2004. In response to this, he posted the following flames: per Ruppert, I am a "crazy woman," I'm "stupid," I'm a "fool," I'm a "nuisance and distraction," "I have an IQ under 50," "I filter every piece of information through [my] psychological needs," and I have put erroneous words and interpretations into his mouth - all this while I was quoting directly from his written work, and linking to a recording of him at a public gathering."
Question: Why do you find it so necessary to continually lash out at fellow researchers; and in your opinion, is this pattern of behavior one that generally harbors positive or negative consequences? Secondly, do you make a habit of treating women this way all the time? If so, do you feel anybody should have any respect for you whatsoever after reacting in such a fashion?"
ANSWER: I do not lash out at all 9/11 researchers. In "Crossing the Rubicon" I have given intense praise and credit to the really good ones, more than twenty-five of them.
I also do not "suffer fools gladly." And there are some people doing 9/11 research who have neither the training nor the discipline to investigate and report according to high standards. I have spent 26 years training, studying and learning to fight the fight I am fighting with Crossing the Rubicon. I am trained (see above) as both a detective and as a journalist.
Sometimes I am too harsh and I hurt people's feelings. We all have unfinished work to do on ourselves, don't we? I'm working on it. In the meantime, do try and carry on without the benefit of my eventual tact. I am busy trying to fight fascism.
8) PATRIOT FOR HIRE: "In a response to "Mike Ruppert Unmasked" (October 4, 2004), you carefully avoided and/or ignored 99% of the content (36 pages worth), and instead boasted about how many books you were selling on Amazon (i.e. money money money).
Question: What is more important to you - the truth about what actually happened on the morning of September 11, 2001, or the revenue which can be generated from it. Also, how do you plan to dispel rumors that you're a Patriot for Hire when revenue from your various activities seems to be of such prime importance?"
ANSWER: And this is where, in your 36-page attack piece, you left yourself so wide open for a lawsuit that I'm amazed at your foolishness.
I support four fulltime employees who are dedicated activists and thrilled to be feeding their families as a result of doing work they love. I pay three editors (Hecht, Goff and Pfeiffer) and four freelance writers. In addition I buy many products from credible authors and activists and resell them, giving a large share of the revenue back to people who are thrilled to receive energy and financial support which makes them more effective and keeps them in the game.
Personally, I live in a studio apartment, drive a 9-year-old Ford and have lived for many years in poverty an animal might not recognize. I have no medical insurance, no retirement plan and every one of my employees will tell you that they have always gotten paid before I do and that I have many times forsaken my own paycheck to make sure that they got paid and were taken care of.
I even sold Hopsicker's books and tapes from our website until he suddenly turned on and attacked the entire 9/11 movement last April. Since he attacked me personally and without warning I dropped his products. I still have a great photo of him hugging me in San Francisco just before that.
So Hopsicker has a personal motive for attacking me because I cut off a chunk of his income. As a journalist, he was required to disclose that in his attack piece on me, and you were required to investigate it before you did the same thing.
The bottom line is that I do not work with people who are not professional and trustworthy. Is there something wrong with that?
9) MEDIA: "You stated in an e-mail to me on September 1, 2004, "I will not now or ever be on your television show. There will be no discussion."
Question: What criteria do you use to determine which media venues you will appear on, and have you ever compiled a J. Edgar Hoover-like "black list" such as the one your publicist mentioned to me over the telephone?"
ANSWER: There are people I choose to work with and people I don't. Are you fascistically arguing that I am obligated to work with every Joe Blow who knocks on my door? Are you saying that I have no right to Freedom of Choice as outlined in the First Amendment?
10) FLIP-FLOPPING: "When my review of your Truth and Lies of 9-11 video first appeared in The New World Order Exposed, the people operating your From the Wilderness website were so pleased with it that they gave me a free one-year subscription to your newsletter. But then, just last month, you completely flip-flopped and denounced my research as sub-standard.
Question: How frequently do you undergo such dramatic, almost schizophrenic turnarounds, and do you foresee any other flip-flops in the near future when they become "convenient" for you (i.e. peak oil)?"
ANSWER: Boy, you're really not going to like this one. FTW has had a firm and consistent policy that it will sell no product or affiliate with any entity that I have not first approved. The employees you refer to were both terminated several months ago for multiple violations of company policy. One Cynthia (last name withheld to protect privacy) was a retired FBI agent who did a number of things in an apparent attempt to sabotage my business.
She showed me your book. After two minutes of looking at the cover I realized that under no circumstances would I ever be affiliated with you or sell your products. I told her this.
She ignored my direct instructions and continued a relationship with you behind my back and in secret. This was possibly as part of an FBI-engineered COINTELPRO type operation to discredit me by attacking me for affiliating with your absolutely horrendous journalism and well-documented errors.
I fired her (and another employee, Tim) for this and other violations of my company rules. I have never once, inside or outside my office said that I wanted to be connected to illuminati jerks, UFO advocates or David Icke's Lizard people. Anyone who knows me at all knows that this is ironclad policy with me.
So now, let me ask you a couple of questions, publicly and for the record.
What is your real name? Is it Scott? Have you ever been arrested? Have you ever received any money from any agency of the United States government for any services rendered?
If you answer is no then I guess the only thing left to explain your conduct is gross incompetence, jealousy, lack of professional ethics and stupidity.
Sincerely,
Michael C. Ruppert
www.fromthewilderness.com
My response to Daniel Hopsicker (sent before he published his story).
From: Mike Ruppert [mruppert@copvcia.com]
Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2004 2:18 AM
To: 'daniel hopsicker'
Subject: RE: A John Gray Dossier
All of these answers are on the record. You may publish them or quote them at will as long as you quote them accurately and completely.
First, if you put it in writing that I am working with Adnan Khashoggi you can bet your bippy I'm going to sue you.
As to the card:
I do not recognize it or remember it.
I have no business affiliation with this group and I have no knowledge of what they do. The business card may have some direct or indirect connection to the following, however:
I have traveled - not only to Cabo San Lucas, but to Cancun (2x), and the Dominican Republic - all expenses paid plus a $1,000 speaking fee for a group called Pinnacle Quest International. I have great respect for PQI. It has evolved and become something incredibly useful in terms of information and knowledge sharing, marketing, medicine and health, financial survival, and they present some incredibly powerful and useful legal information and lectures.
Catherine Austin Fitts has spoken with me at PQI twice.
None of this has ever been a secret. Would you like to contact the PQI executives? I'll be happy to give you their information. They can confirm all this for you and I would encourage them to do so. They may also be able to shed some light on this business card for you.
As a journalist with an IQ above 30 you are now obligated to do just that. If you don't I will happily see that your failure to follow professional ethics is reported accurately along with whatever else you chose to write.
You should contact first Claudia Hirmer at claudia@pqi.cc.
You might also try Mr. Mark Seaton at freequest@rogers.com.
BTW, PQI has some incredible attorneys! One of them did a presentation where he talked about Barry Seal and quoted you several times. I thought it was pretty good.
You really have gone round the bend, haven't you?
Mike Ruppert
-----Original Message-----
From: daniel hopsicker [mailto:commandantemadcow@yahoo.com]
Sent: Wednesday, September 22, 2004 8:08 PM
To: Mike Ruppert
Subject: RE: A John Gray Dossier
mike,
when my next story goes up you may want to sue me too.
maybe your lawyer will give you a two-for-one discount.
daniel hopsicker
p.s. BTW... what do you know about a company called CLF International Consulting?
i've attached their biz card. their website was www.clfic.com. they took the site down the day after i started looking into the, but its still on wayback, and i've got it cached in case it shows up missing there.
have you spoken to this group? did you travel to cabo san lucas to speak to them?
if so, how much were you paid? what kind of contract did you have with them, one time only or continuing?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MICHAEL RUPPERT RESPONDS TO VICTOR THORN'S TEN QUESTIONS
(full matching text is posted at http://www.fromthewilderness.com/10questions.shtml for comparison and verification of non-tampering with my responses by Victor Thorn at http://69.28.73.17/)
On October 1, 2004 pseudo-journalist Victor Thorn posted a 36-page character-assassination hit piece about me titled "Mike Ruppert Unmasked." He did so without presenting me with his allegations or offering me an opportunity to correct the record. He has mistakenly misrepresented to his audience that he was being "fair" because he had previously asked me to appear on his web-based TV show. I declined that invitation. Subsequent to that Thorn (whose real name has been reported to be Scott Magufka (I am unsure about the spelling) posted his attack piece without even advising me of its content or offering me an opportunity to comment before he published. He has also refused to disclose whether his real name is Victor Thorn or not.
Therefore, as an attempt to avoid legal action I am responding to ten questions submitted to me in writing 24 hours ago. I have posted them on an unpublished URL at the FTW web site for two reasons. First: to guarantee that whatever Thorn posts on his web site is accurate. Second: because I have no intention of helping to publicize some of the most unprofessional, unethical and unreliable journalism I have ever seen.
Mike Ruppert
Oct. 7, 2004
---
RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS, BRIEF COMMENTS ABOUT THE ARTICLE CALLED "MIKE RUPPERT UNMASKED"
Before I answer your specific questions let me start by rebutting an assertion you made in your hit piece about my journalism experience and training. In your story you wrote that I was educated in Political Science and trained in law enforcement so therefore you believed that I was dishonest when I said that I was also trained as a journalist. My previous response to that libelous implication may save all of my readers a lot of time and energy and they may conclude that they don't have to read any further.
Can't anyone do any better than this? This is boring. Astute readers will also note that you are obviously aware of this response because you quoted only a part of it. (Another breach of ethics)
"I did not say that I was "educated" as a journalist. I said I was 'trained' as a journalist. That was after my training at LAPD. Are you suggesting that in a long life (53 years) people can only receive one kind of training? Is that it?
"None of this would have happened had Victor Thorn or any of the others done what a professional journalist is required to do: fact check and ask for confirmation before publishing. The fact that I refused to do Thorn's show (because of sloppy journalism and reporting) has nothing to do with the fact that a professional journalist would have called or emailed me with their allegations and asked for my comment first. That is a professional journalist's responsibility.
"[Daniel] Hopsicker was worse! I sent him a detailed on-record response which he quoted selectively and then ignored answers from me which disproved his theory. I gave all of those answers on the record and in writing. (That response is attached below.)
"Journalists who operate like this don't deserve responses.
"The training I received was from editors at The Los Angeles Times (where I was published as a freelancer in 1985); the Los Angeles Daily News (also published in 1985); The LA WEEKLY, (three stories between 1983 and 1984). The US Journal of Drug and Alcohol Dependence (West Coast Correspondent, 1984-7) -- The Editor, Milan Korcok, had 30-plus years of newspaper editing behind him and was a great teacher.); INTRO Magazine (Published in 1986); and Entrepreneur Magazine, where I worked as a staff writer right after leaving LAPD in 1979-80.
"In addition, because of my 'training and experience' I served as the LA County Press Spokesman for the Perot Campaign in 1992 and was on TV, radio and in the papers every day dealing with professional journalists including all the networks and the biggest papers. I learned from watching them work, how they checked facts, how they checked sources and how they offered a chance for response before publishing.
"The training I received was called OJT but it was indeed training and it involved direction and guidance from some really experienced editors who taught me the ropes because I had writing ability plus investigative skills and experience.
"Of course I have clips to prove all this but really, these criticisms are barely worthy of a response. I am hoping that some of you will get this and redirect your energies to more useful pursuits.
"Would anyone like to debate what I had for dinner last night and whether that affects my credibility? Can't you people find something better to do like discuss what's tearing the world apart right now?"
VICTOR THORN'S TEN QUESTIONS
1) POPULATION REDUCTION: "You are quoted as saying that you would like "to stop global population growth and to arrive at the best possible and most ethical program of population reduction."
Question: Do you have a specific program in mind to achieve this goal? Who do you feel should be in charge of it - someone like the Rockefeller family, who has a history of such endeavors via their eugenics programs? In your opinion, how many people should be eliminated? And finally, what "ethical" criteria do you suggest using to determine who is eradicated?"
ANSWER: No I do not. But I am certain that the Neocons and Neolibs do have a plan. That's what frightens me so much.
If there is a man who sees a horrible train wreck about to happen, and attempts with all his energy to warn people that the train wreck is coming and many lives may be lost (more than need be), does that mean that he is responsible for causing the train wreck? Does it mean that he likes or enjoys train wrecks; that he wants the train wreck to happen?
I have no list of people who should be in charge of this. Everyone should have a say. I have suggested that such an endeavor might best include people of more humane vocations than those of the economists, politicians, and financiers who are currently in charge of most domestic and international institutions. I have never said anywhere that there was a specific group of organizations or people who should run this. I have listed philosophies and disciplines that ought to be included in an effort to avoid the sort of draconian disaster that now seems likely.
In my view, people like the Rockefellers (with whose appalling research on eugenics I am quite familiar), should not have a say, nor should the lunatics currently running the country.
To be ethical in the face of an inevitable disaster, the entire human community will have to share useful information as equably as is humanly possible. I believe that is called democracy. Fully feasible or not, it seems to me the only ideal worthy of pursuit, whether in times of relative stability or of unprecedented danger.
I have never had any other position.
Here is just one example of what is happening as Peak Oil makes itself known. It is a good model for many of the other decisions now being made by some members of powerful elite circles, without the knowledge or assent of the non-elite majority (who depend for our survival upon the same scarce resources).
In Nantucket, home to some of the wealthiest families on the planet, including Martha's Vineyard, a taxpayer-funded wind farm is being constructed with funding from the poorer tax bases surrounding this ultra-wealthy enclave. The problem is (and FTW has just begun an in-depth investigation of developments like this around the country), the wind farm itself will supply only enough energy for the rich folks while being paid for with middle and lower-class tax dollars. Roughly translated, the rich folks will be warm and have electricity while the middle and lower classes freeze and go dark after losing financial resources they needed to protect themselves. (Source: Boston.com, 9/27). We have already begun our investigation and come up with very some disturbing answers on these developments. We will be doing a large investigative series on this sometime in the next few months.
My point is, as it is with any proposed solution to the planetary carrying-capacity train wreck, is that everyone should have a fully-informed say in the discussions and, let us hope, in their outcomes. Ultimately, this will involve spiritual questions; hence I think that spiritual leaders chosen by various peoples should have input because that is how you get real ethics inserted into the discussions. Or do you advocate making these tough decisions solely on the basis of money, property and prestige? I advocate no particular religion of any kind (never have). But spiritual leaders, chosen by the people affected should be involved in the discussions and solutions so that broader ethical and moral considerations will be included.
Of course, history is rife with episodes in which clerical leaders - whether in the red robes of a cardinal, the black robes of an Imam, or the white lab coat of a scientist - abused their authority and their charisma, escalating the harm they were called upon to diminish. The present moment is at least as burdened with such characters as previous centuries have been. But the particular possibility we all deplore - a repetition of the professionalized, bureaucratic, technologically efficient horror of the Nazi period - is surely more likely to occur under the advisory leadership of, say, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Ariel Sharon, and Porter Goss than that of, say, Helen Caldecott, Ramsey Clark, the Dalai Lama, and Dick Gregory. These are just names plucked from the air, chosen to illustrate the point.
I do not have an answer or a plan. I want all the people to come up with a plan, the way Thom Paine and Jefferson would have wanted.
I agree with Matt Simmons: "There is no (public) Plan B." It is the "secret" Plan B which scares the bejeesus out of me and should also scare you; especially since the secret plan appears to involve the development and deployment of gene-specific bioweapons, enforced starvation, and possibly nuclear war.
I don't advocate any of these options. I am trying to prevent them.
Any reader of my publication From The Wilderness or my book Crossing the Rubicon will see that clearly. The book is my fullest answer on this point.
2) PINNACLE QUEST INTERNATIONAL: "In Daniel Hopsicker's article, Cointelpro 9-11: Peak Oil & the Level Above Saudi, he writes about a company named Pinnacle Quest International, which was involved in banking scams, money laundering, wire & mail fraud, and tax evasion. Yet you admit to being the recipient of two all-expense paid trips by them, and are even quoted as saying, "I have great respect for Pinnacle Quest International.
"Question: Is your opinion of Pinnacle Quest International still the same today; and in the future do you plan on accepting any payments from them (or any other entity engaged in criminal activities)?"
ANSWER: You are wrong all over the place on this question. Had you done the slightest bit of fact-checking or request for comment before publishing, you would have found this out.
First, I have not taken two all-expense-paid trips to speak for PQI. I have taken four! The money I received was hotel and air fare plus $1,000 for each appearance. That's it. I don't know where anyone got a figure of $40,000. And I plan on going again. PQI is great.
As you will see from the attached email, I provided Daniel Hopsicker with detailed on-record responses which he misquoted, out of context. (See below) You will also see that I disclosed the amount of money I was paid therein. I have never kept this a secret. Compare what I wrote about PQI's legal presenters with what he wrote about me. Please compare all of my responses with what Hopsicker wrote.
This is why professional journalism requires a standard of fairness that includes providing people with an opportunity to respond in writing before going to press.
PQI completely separated from a Global Prosperity before I ever became involved with it. That occurred because Global's practices were both illegal and unethical. The people who left Global and started PQI did so because they were committed to bringing useful and powerful information (that has been officially suppressed) to its clients. What's more, at every successive PQI event I have watched its leadership cull out any exhibitor or presenter that was less than the best. I did a background check on PQI before attending and found nothing to dissuade me that this was a very powerful business and information model, one that was creating wealth and economic freedom for people trapped in a governmental and economic system which is nothing more than an organized crime "ecosystem." Do you like the way the economy works? The way banks and government use, abuse, and limit your financial freedom and the fruits of your labor?
Am I aware that some members of PQI have had criminal charges pressed against them? Absolutely! So have many dedicated patriots and whistleblowers throughout our country's history, whose ordeals were intended to silence them. What's surprising about this? I even offered some consultation in the case of the ex wife of Dave Struckman, who was maliciously prosecuted by the IRS on charges of "structuring." The record of the criminal investigation was so flawed and offensive that it made a former FBI agent and several detectives I know choke. That case is also under appeal. I am also aware that the New York Times once reported that Dave Struckman was a fugitive from justice when, in fact, there was not a single charge against him and he was not wanted anywhere. That served to damage his business, even though a subsequent retraction/correction/apology from the Times was buried following their initial story. Both PQI and I are going after Wall Street and Wall Street fights dirty. They use the government wherever possible.
As Catherine Austin Fitts writes:
"It's simple. Those who help the average person achieve financial independence through knowledge and hard work will be perceived as competitors by those who take advantage of the average person. Economic warfare."
These are risks that all truth-tellers must face and accept before they commit to their work. At PQI I have found a large and growing number of educated and very aware souls who are taking action to build economic, medical, legal and other kinds of life rafts before the Titanic sinks. They are taking informed and educated steps to disengage themselves from an economic system which breeds this destruction. By doing so, they have begun to stop feeding it. Unfortunately, you can't get that information easily inside the US as a result of oppression.
PQI has presented some remarkable information that is totally suppressed in the US. That includes successful treatments for cancer and for many other serious diseases, treatments the pharmaceutical companies don't want out; rock-solid legal evidence that the 16th amendment was never ratified, thus making the Federal income tax illegal; presentations from former IRS agents who, as whistleblowers, expose the corruption within the US treasury (just as Fitts and I have); legal means to obtain cheap credit, eliminate debt, finance real estate at almost zero interest; and many other things.
One of their key presenters, Bill Benson, was actually imprisoned, tortured and drugged before being acquitted, exonerated and released. He has won every court case where he appears with his documentation and the IRS is scared to death of him. One medical doctor has been forced to live out of the country because he has been beaten and attacked several times after large hospitals, universities and corporations suppressed his work and its medical successes.
I am proud to associate with such people and I hope that when my time comes I will show as much courage as they have.
3) AMR IBRAHIM "TONY" ELGINDY: "I am in the [sic] possession of e-mails between yourself and Tony Elgindy, a "short seller" who was arrested for running a racketeering ring using information obtained from corrupt FBI agents. He has also served time for, or been charged with, insurance fraud, bribery, illegal stock market manipulation, and extortion.
" Question: Please explain your relationship with Mr. Elgindy (who now faces conspiracy and racketeering charges in a Brooklyn federal court), and also the circumstances revolving around your public apology to him in November, 2002."
ANSWER: I have no relationship with Mr. Elgindy. We communicated two years ago about an entry in my "Oh Lucy" 9/11 timeline, based upon press reports which I had quoted accurately and he acknowledged this. Those press reports suggested that he had engaged in pre-9/11 insider trading. After he contacted me and I looked at records he provided, I was convinced that, based upon the legal record then in existence (including court documents he provided me), there was no evidence to support any knowledge on his part of the 9/11 attacks.
There is an ongoing trial about charges of insider trading but I also found out that even the FBI had reluctantly admitted in court that none of Elgindy's alleged trades had anything to do with 9/11. There was also a detailed record of Mr. Elgindy publicly attacking Mr. Adnan Khashoggi and charging him with "pump and dump" operations. Khashoggi is, in my opinion, one of the baddest people on the planet and a known crook.
I had been pushed to publish my timeline entry on Elgindy by a researcher who, as it turned out, had a personal and possibly financial agenda regarding Elgindy. Though my timeline entry was indeed accurate - and he acknowledged this - it contained a "spin" which I came to believe was unfair and so I withdrew the entry.
The matter was settled amicably between us and I have had no contact with him since.
As a journalist, I have always, whenever I found that I was in error, corrected the mistake and apologized. FTW has a clear record of that. Every journalist makes mistakes from time to time. The New York Times, CNN, the Washington Post, all of them publish hundreds of corrections every year. It's the journalist who does not acknowledge and correct errors who cannot be trusted.
4) MIKE VREELAND: "Over the past few years, Delmar[t] "Mike" Vreeland's credibility as a witness and/or information source has been severely eroded by 9-11 researchers, law enforcement officials, judges, lawyers, radio personalities, and virtually every other individual who has ever come in contact with him.
Question: Since you devoted two entire chapters of Crossing the Rubicon to Mr. Vreeland, do you still place credence in him as a reliable source, and if so, please explain why?"
ANSWER: The question has never been whether I considered Vreeland a reliable source or not. A homicide detective gathers evidence and statements from good people, from bad people, from stupid people, from smart people. Under the law all that matters is whether the evidence is true or not.
The only place where I have ever hung my hat with regard to Vreeland is in three specific areas of evidence:
1. He was definitely connected to and working in some capacity for the United States Navy (ONI) for many years.
2. It has been proven that he wrote a warning note approximately one month before the attacks of 9/11 and that this note was sealed into his property in a Canadian jail.
3. Based upon a detailed written record and on-the-record statements by his attorneys, court documents and more, there is no doubt - especially in the minds of his attorneys - that he was referring to the attacks of 9/11.
Whether one likes Vreeland or not; whether he is a good guy, a bad guy, or a combination, does not matter. I have devoted two chapters in "Rubicon" to the events surrounding Mike Vreeland precisely because this point is so important. You might have noted that I also described him as a royal pain in the ass or that I also said that I knew that in some respects he was deliberately feeding me disinformation to improve his negotiating position with the US intelligence community.
But an ethical homicide detective, or journalist, cannot afford to throw out facts that have been independently verified just because he doesn't like the source. A tree is still a tree regardless of who says so or whether one likes him or not. To take any other approach is foolhardy.
Everyone should read the two chapters in Rubicon and decide for themselves. That is my best answer.
5) ALAN GREENSPAN: "On June 1, 2002 you relayed an incredible report to a Yahoo public forum where you stated that Mike Vreeland had been poisoned by Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan.
Question: At the time of that message, did you find it even remotely possible that Alan Greenspan would try to poison a career criminal and con-man with two bottles of delivered wine? If your answer is "no," do you find the above post an example of "shoddy, error-prone" journalism?"
ANSWER: You are lying yet again. First, it was not a public forum but a members-only CIA-Drugs discussion list. I have records of the emails. But they aren't necessary to answer this question. I also added the caveat at the bottom of my e-mail message that I had received the "poisoning" phone call from Vreeland while I was in a hotel room preparing for a lecture in Northern California and could not independently verify any of the allegations Vreeland was making. What I said in that email was that I needed help from anyone on the list who could help verify or investigate the claims before I or anyone else decided to print a news story.
Even David Corn of The Nation, one of my worst and most unethical critics, acknowledged in one of his many hit pieces on me that I had written this caveat about what Vreeland had said. How did that happen? Well even Corn did something you haven't done. He emailed me and asked me what I had actually written. I forwarded him the email message myself. That's the way journalists are required to behave, and at least in one case, that's what Corn did.
6) LAWSUITS: "After reading about your propensity to threaten detractors with lawsuits, a well-known 9-11 researcher/chronicler e-mailed the following to me: "I can assure you that at least 5-7 people came forward in the last two years telling me that Ruppert tried to take legal steps against them too. The last bizarre, almost public threat was against the writer of the play J'accuse Cheney two weeks ago."
Multiple choice question: During the past five years, approximately how many people have you threatened to sue: (a) 1-50 (b) 50-100, or (c) over 100?"
ANSWER: (a). There are lots of people who are sloppy and not-credible at best, or government operatives at worst. The law is a means by which unethical and illegal practices can be curtailed for the benefit of journalism and the public's ability to trust it.
How many times have I been sued after about 250 hard-hitting articles taking on the government, political figures and financial institutions? None.
How many times have I been threatened with a suit? Once. In that case I encouraged the other party to go right ahead and take their best shot. We never heard from them again.
Does that tell you something?
7) POISON PEN: "Your attacks on detractors (and even colleagues) are legendary. Since "Mike Ruppert Unmasked" blazed across the Internet on October 1, 2004, I've received scores of reports from others who were also subjected to this type of onslaught. One such illustration originates from a woman who is well-known to 9-11 researchers. She wrote: "I have an example of Mike at his finest, exhibiting just those traits you describe so perfectly. He attempted to intimidate me on the 9-11 Truth Alliance list when I alerted people to his new stance on the Air Force stand-down and criticized his war games line back in June 2004. In response to this, he posted the following flames: per Ruppert, I am a "crazy woman," I'm "stupid," I'm a "fool," I'm a "nuisance and distraction," "I have an IQ under 50," "I filter every piece of information through [my] psychological needs," and I have put erroneous words and interpretations into his mouth - all this while I was quoting directly from his written work, and linking to a recording of him at a public gathering."
Question: Why do you find it so necessary to continually lash out at fellow researchers; and in your opinion, is this pattern of behavior one that generally harbors positive or negative consequences? Secondly, do you make a habit of treating women this way all the time? If so, do you feel anybody should have any respect for you whatsoever after reacting in such a fashion?"
ANSWER: I do not lash out at all 9/11 researchers. In "Crossing the Rubicon" I have given intense praise and credit to the really good ones, more than twenty-five of them.
I also do not "suffer fools gladly." And there are some people doing 9/11 research who have neither the training nor the discipline to investigate and report according to high standards. I have spent 26 years training, studying and learning to fight the fight I am fighting with Crossing the Rubicon. I am trained (see above) as both a detective and as a journalist.
Sometimes I am too harsh and I hurt people's feelings. We all have unfinished work to do on ourselves, don't we? I'm working on it. In the meantime, do try and carry on without the benefit of my eventual tact. I am busy trying to fight fascism.
8) PATRIOT FOR HIRE: "In a response to "Mike Ruppert Unmasked" (October 4, 2004), you carefully avoided and/or ignored 99% of the content (36 pages worth), and instead boasted about how many books you were selling on Amazon (i.e. money money money).
Question: What is more important to you - the truth about what actually happened on the morning of September 11, 2001, or the revenue which can be generated from it. Also, how do you plan to dispel rumors that you're a Patriot for Hire when revenue from your various activities seems to be of such prime importance?"
ANSWER: And this is where, in your 36-page attack piece, you left yourself so wide open for a lawsuit that I'm amazed at your foolishness.
I support four fulltime employees who are dedicated activists and thrilled to be feeding their families as a result of doing work they love. I pay three editors (Hecht, Goff and Pfeiffer) and four freelance writers. In addition I buy many products from credible authors and activists and resell them, giving a large share of the revenue back to people who are thrilled to receive energy and financial support which makes them more effective and keeps them in the game.
Personally, I live in a studio apartment, drive a 9-year-old Ford and have lived for many years in poverty an animal might not recognize. I have no medical insurance, no retirement plan and every one of my employees will tell you that they have always gotten paid before I do and that I have many times forsaken my own paycheck to make sure that they got paid and were taken care of.
I even sold Hopsicker's books and tapes from our website until he suddenly turned on and attacked the entire 9/11 movement last April. Since he attacked me personally and without warning I dropped his products. I still have a great photo of him hugging me in San Francisco just before that.
So Hopsicker has a personal motive for attacking me because I cut off a chunk of his income. As a journalist, he was required to disclose that in his attack piece on me, and you were required to investigate it before you did the same thing.
The bottom line is that I do not work with people who are not professional and trustworthy. Is there something wrong with that?
9) MEDIA: "You stated in an e-mail to me on September 1, 2004, "I will not now or ever be on your television show. There will be no discussion."
Question: What criteria do you use to determine which media venues you will appear on, and have you ever compiled a J. Edgar Hoover-like "black list" such as the one your publicist mentioned to me over the telephone?"
ANSWER: There are people I choose to work with and people I don't. Are you fascistically arguing that I am obligated to work with every Joe Blow who knocks on my door? Are you saying that I have no right to Freedom of Choice as outlined in the First Amendment?
10) FLIP-FLOPPING: "When my review of your Truth and Lies of 9-11 video first appeared in The New World Order Exposed, the people operating your From the Wilderness website were so pleased with it that they gave me a free one-year subscription to your newsletter. But then, just last month, you completely flip-flopped and denounced my research as sub-standard.
Question: How frequently do you undergo such dramatic, almost schizophrenic turnarounds, and do you foresee any other flip-flops in the near future when they become "convenient" for you (i.e. peak oil)?"
ANSWER: Boy, you're really not going to like this one. FTW has had a firm and consistent policy that it will sell no product or affiliate with any entity that I have not first approved. The employees you refer to were both terminated several months ago for multiple violations of company policy. One Cynthia (last name withheld to protect privacy) was a retired FBI agent who did a number of things in an apparent attempt to sabotage my business.
She showed me your book. After two minutes of looking at the cover I realized that under no circumstances would I ever be affiliated with you or sell your products. I told her this.
She ignored my direct instructions and continued a relationship with you behind my back and in secret. This was possibly as part of an FBI-engineered COINTELPRO type operation to discredit me by attacking me for affiliating with your absolutely horrendous journalism and well-documented errors.
I fired her (and another employee, Tim) for this and other violations of my company rules. I have never once, inside or outside my office said that I wanted to be connected to illuminati jerks, UFO advocates or David Icke's Lizard people. Anyone who knows me at all knows that this is ironclad policy with me.
So now, let me ask you a couple of questions, publicly and for the record.
What is your real name? Is it Scott? Have you ever been arrested? Have you ever received any money from any agency of the United States government for any services rendered?
If you answer is no then I guess the only thing left to explain your conduct is gross incompetence, jealousy, lack of professional ethics and stupidity.
Sincerely,
Michael C. Ruppert
www.fromthewilderness.com
My response to Daniel Hopsicker (sent before he published his story).
From: Mike Ruppert [mruppert@copvcia.com]
Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2004 2:18 AM
To: 'daniel hopsicker'
Subject: RE: A John Gray Dossier
All of these answers are on the record. You may publish them or quote them at will as long as you quote them accurately and completely.
First, if you put it in writing that I am working with Adnan Khashoggi you can bet your bippy I'm going to sue you.
As to the card:
I do not recognize it or remember it.
I have no business affiliation with this group and I have no knowledge of what they do. The business card may have some direct or indirect connection to the following, however:
I have traveled - not only to Cabo San Lucas, but to Cancun (2x), and the Dominican Republic - all expenses paid plus a $1,000 speaking fee for a group called Pinnacle Quest International. I have great respect for PQI. It has evolved and become something incredibly useful in terms of information and knowledge sharing, marketing, medicine and health, financial survival, and they present some incredibly powerful and useful legal information and lectures.
Catherine Austin Fitts has spoken with me at PQI twice.
None of this has ever been a secret. Would you like to contact the PQI executives? I'll be happy to give you their information. They can confirm all this for you and I would encourage them to do so. They may also be able to shed some light on this business card for you.
As a journalist with an IQ above 30 you are now obligated to do just that. If you don't I will happily see that your failure to follow professional ethics is reported accurately along with whatever else you chose to write.
You should contact first Claudia Hirmer at claudia@pqi.cc.
You might also try Mr. Mark Seaton at freequest@rogers.com.
BTW, PQI has some incredible attorneys! One of them did a presentation where he talked about Barry Seal and quoted you several times. I thought it was pretty good.
You really have gone round the bend, haven't you?
Mike Ruppert
-----Original Message-----
From: daniel hopsicker [mailto:commandantemadcow@yahoo.com]
Sent: Wednesday, September 22, 2004 8:08 PM
To: Mike Ruppert
Subject: RE: A John Gray Dossier
mike,
when my next story goes up you may want to sue me too.
maybe your lawyer will give you a two-for-one discount.
daniel hopsicker
p.s. BTW... what do you know about a company called CLF International Consulting?
i've attached their biz card. their website was www.clfic.com. they took the site down the day after i started looking into the, but its still on wayback, and i've got it cached in case it shows up missing there.
have you spoken to this group? did you travel to cabo san lucas to speak to them?
if so, how much were you paid? what kind of contract did you have with them, one time only or continuing?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Webs of Illusion
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
October 11, 2004
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Webs of Illusion
By BOB HERBERT
t's understood that incumbents campaigning for re-election will spotlight the good news and downplay the bad. The problem for President Bush, with the election just three weeks away, is that the bad news keeps cascading in and there is very little good news to tout.
So the president and his chief supporters have resorted to the odd tactic of claiming that the bad news is good.
The double talk reached a fever pitch last week after the release of two devastating reports - the comprehensive report by Charles Duelfer, the chief U.S. weapons inspector, which destroyed any remaining doubts that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction; and the Labor Department's dismal employment report for September, which heightened concerns about the strength of the economic recovery and left Mr. Bush with the dubious distinction of being the first president since Herbert Hoover to stand for re-election with fewer people working than at the beginning of his term.
Mr. Bush turned the findings of the Duelfer report upside down and inside out, telling crowds at campaign rallies that it proved Saddam Hussein had been "a gathering threat." It didn't matter that the report, ordered by the president himself, showed just the opposite. The truth would not have been helpful to the president. So with a brazenness and sleight of hand usually associated with three-card-monte players, he pulled a fast one on his cheering listeners.
Vice President Cheney had an equally peculiar response to the report, which said Iraq had destroyed its illicit weapons stockpiles in the early 1990's. Referring to the president's decision to launch the war, Mr. Cheney said, "To delay, defer, wait wasn't an option."
The September jobs report, released on the same day as Mr. Bush's second debate with Senator John Kerry, was deeply disappointing to the White House. Just 96,000 jobs were created, not even enough to keep up with the monthly expansion of the working-age population.
The somber findings forced the president's spin machine into overdrive. Reality, once again, was shoved aside. The administration's upbeat public response to the Labor Department report was described in The Times as follows: "The White House hailed it as evidence of continued employment expansion, saying that it validated Mr. Bush's strategy of pursuing tax cuts to support a recovery from the 2001 economic downturn."
In the president's parallel universe, things are always fine.
Mr. Bush sold his tax cuts as a mighty force for job creation. They weren't. The Times article that reported the sunny White House response to the disappointing job creation figures also said: "In September, an estimated 62.3 percent of the working-age population was employed, two full percentage points below the level at the beginning of the recession in March 2001. That difference represents over 4.5 million people without work."
Hyperbole is part of every politician's portfolio. But on the most serious matters facing the country, Mr. Bush's administration has often gone beyond hyperbole to deliberate misrepresentations that undermine the very idea of an informed electorate. If unpleasant realities are not acknowledged by the officials occupying the highest offices in the land, there is no chance that the full resources of the government and the people will be marshaled to meet those challenges.
The president continues to behave as if he's in denial about the war. Iraq remains a tragic mess and the electorate needs to know that.
In yesterday's Week in Review section, The Times's Dexter Filkins wrote movingly from Baghdad about the reporters trying to cover the war. There's been a relentless expansion, he said, of areas that reporters dare not venture into because they are too dangerous. Most European reporters have left the country, and there are far fewer Americans than just a few months ago.
Forty-six reporters have been killed and Mr. Filkins himself has been attacked by a mob, shot at and detained by the Mahdi Army.
If Mr. Bush has a plan to clean up the mess in Iraq, he should say so. If he has a strategy - besides more tax cuts - to bolster employment in the U.S., he should tell us. If he's in touch with the real world in which these and other very serious problems exist, he might consider letting us know.
Spinning gets old after a while. A president who spends too much time spinning webs of illusion can find himself trapped in them.
E-mail: bobherb@nytimes.com
Explains a good bit, wouldn't you say.
Thanks to Meria Heller for her email reference to this. (www.meria.net)
EXCLUSIVE! Bush's Interpreter Says Bush Uses Earpiece
Sunday October 10, 2004 1:46 AM
[Editor's Note: I received a copy of the e-mail below on Friday, and requested (and received) permission to publish it. I found independent confirmation that Fred Burks worked as an interpreter for George W. Bush comes in an article in the Los Angeles Times in January 2004.]
From: Fred Burks
As a deep insider myself, I have independent confirmation of President Bush using an earpiece to assist him in communicating intelligently with others. I've worked as a contract Indonesian language interpreter with the US State Department for over 18 years. I first started interpreting at the presidential level in 1995 at a White House meeting for President Clinton and President Suharto of Indonesia with their top advisors. You can read a short story of the many small miracles that led me to interpret for presidents at www.gcforall.org/inspirations (scroll down to Issue #1, where it is the second story).
On September 19, 2001, just eight days after 9/11, I was in the White House interpreting for an important 90-minute meeting between President Bush and President Megawati Soekarnoputri of Indonesia. This meeting made national news on all the TV networks, as at the time, the administration wanted to show they were supportive of our Muslim friends. Indonesia has the largest population of Muslims in the world. Over 80% of Indonesia's 220 million people are Muslim.
This was my first time interpreting for Bush. The previous day, I had been given the 22 points Bush would be covering in this meeting in order to familiarize myself with the topics to be discussed. About half of these "talking points" had to do with terrorism, which was to be fully expected given what had just happened. The other points, however, involved many details of Indonesian politics which even I would have had a tough time addressing, let alone Bush, who I assumed had limited knowledge of Indonesia.
During those 90 minutes, President Bush not only covered all the points, he covered them quite well and without any notes! Not once during the entire meeting did he look at any notes or receive cues from anyone present in discussing the Indonesian political situation with depth and intelligence. I was astonished! "How could this be?" I asked myself. It was a huge surprise. I concluded either that Bush was much more intelligent than we had been led to believe, or that somehow someone was feeding answers to him through a hidden earpiece. At the time, I really didn't know which of these was true.
Having worked directly with President Bush twice since then, and having additionally talked with many of my fellow interpreters who have worked directly with him, I am now certain that he could not have had that much knowledge of Indonesia. He doesn't even read the daily newspaper to keep up with what's being reported in the press. I am convinced that he must have been using some sort of earpiece through which someone was telling him what to say.
Having interpreted for media guests touring large TV studios, I've seen how the news anchors all have hidden earphones, and how the news producers are feeding them all sorts of information even as they talk live on TV. "20 seconds to a commercial," "15 seconds of filler here," "wrap it up quick " etc... This is standard practice for live TV shows. The "let me finish" comment made by Bush in the debate was only confirmation of something I already knew.
I will also mention that a number of months ago a colleague of mine was in the room with President Bush and his advisors when Bush threw a full blown temper tantrum filled with foul language and all. He ranted and raved at his advisors for a number of minutes to the shock and dismay of my colleague who was standing unseen in the refreshment corner. When he finally finished blowing off steam, Bush turned towards the refreshment table only to see my colleague standing there. He instantly switched into his "good ol' boy" friendly demeanor and said, "Hey, how ya doin' buddy?"
Politics is not a pretty business. I have many stories from my experiences interpreting at international conferences and secret meetings attended only our leaders and their interpreters. I have seen a number of our world's leaders (not just Americans) acting like high school boys playing power games. But for now, I just wanted to confirm my own strong belief that President Bush is often fed what he is supposed to say at important events. Though he can truly be a friendly guy, I have not found him to be particularly bright or competent. To be fair, I must admit that I tend to be of a more liberal persuasion, but I thought you all would appreciate knowing some of what goes on behind the scenes. You take care and have a great day!
With best wishes, Fred
PS Though I am still on contract with the State Department, I greatly reduced my work with them two years ago. I saw how important it was for me to devote my time to getting the word out through the websites I manage, and through email lists like this. I have done only three weeks' worth of paid work this year. Thankfully, I am able to draw on money I had set aside for retirement to support me in focusing full time on this important work. I want to invite you to look carefully at what you can do in your life to help build a better world in these important times. You might start by sharing this email with your friends and colleagues.
Explore these empowering websites coordinated by Fred:
www.momentoflove.org - Every person in the world has a heart
www.WantToKnow.info - Revealing major cover-ups & working together for a better world
www.gcforall.org - Building a Global Community for All
www.weboflove.org - Strengthening the Web of Love that interconnects us all
Together, we are building a better world based on love and cooperation
EXCLUSIVE! Bush's Interpreter Says Bush Uses Earpiece
Sunday October 10, 2004 1:46 AM
[Editor's Note: I received a copy of the e-mail below on Friday, and requested (and received) permission to publish it. I found independent confirmation that Fred Burks worked as an interpreter for George W. Bush comes in an article in the Los Angeles Times in January 2004.]
From: Fred Burks
As a deep insider myself, I have independent confirmation of President Bush using an earpiece to assist him in communicating intelligently with others. I've worked as a contract Indonesian language interpreter with the US State Department for over 18 years. I first started interpreting at the presidential level in 1995 at a White House meeting for President Clinton and President Suharto of Indonesia with their top advisors. You can read a short story of the many small miracles that led me to interpret for presidents at www.gcforall.org/inspirations (scroll down to Issue #1, where it is the second story).
On September 19, 2001, just eight days after 9/11, I was in the White House interpreting for an important 90-minute meeting between President Bush and President Megawati Soekarnoputri of Indonesia. This meeting made national news on all the TV networks, as at the time, the administration wanted to show they were supportive of our Muslim friends. Indonesia has the largest population of Muslims in the world. Over 80% of Indonesia's 220 million people are Muslim.
This was my first time interpreting for Bush. The previous day, I had been given the 22 points Bush would be covering in this meeting in order to familiarize myself with the topics to be discussed. About half of these "talking points" had to do with terrorism, which was to be fully expected given what had just happened. The other points, however, involved many details of Indonesian politics which even I would have had a tough time addressing, let alone Bush, who I assumed had limited knowledge of Indonesia.
During those 90 minutes, President Bush not only covered all the points, he covered them quite well and without any notes! Not once during the entire meeting did he look at any notes or receive cues from anyone present in discussing the Indonesian political situation with depth and intelligence. I was astonished! "How could this be?" I asked myself. It was a huge surprise. I concluded either that Bush was much more intelligent than we had been led to believe, or that somehow someone was feeding answers to him through a hidden earpiece. At the time, I really didn't know which of these was true.
Having worked directly with President Bush twice since then, and having additionally talked with many of my fellow interpreters who have worked directly with him, I am now certain that he could not have had that much knowledge of Indonesia. He doesn't even read the daily newspaper to keep up with what's being reported in the press. I am convinced that he must have been using some sort of earpiece through which someone was telling him what to say.
Having interpreted for media guests touring large TV studios, I've seen how the news anchors all have hidden earphones, and how the news producers are feeding them all sorts of information even as they talk live on TV. "20 seconds to a commercial," "15 seconds of filler here," "wrap it up quick " etc... This is standard practice for live TV shows. The "let me finish" comment made by Bush in the debate was only confirmation of something I already knew.
I will also mention that a number of months ago a colleague of mine was in the room with President Bush and his advisors when Bush threw a full blown temper tantrum filled with foul language and all. He ranted and raved at his advisors for a number of minutes to the shock and dismay of my colleague who was standing unseen in the refreshment corner. When he finally finished blowing off steam, Bush turned towards the refreshment table only to see my colleague standing there. He instantly switched into his "good ol' boy" friendly demeanor and said, "Hey, how ya doin' buddy?"
Politics is not a pretty business. I have many stories from my experiences interpreting at international conferences and secret meetings attended only our leaders and their interpreters. I have seen a number of our world's leaders (not just Americans) acting like high school boys playing power games. But for now, I just wanted to confirm my own strong belief that President Bush is often fed what he is supposed to say at important events. Though he can truly be a friendly guy, I have not found him to be particularly bright or competent. To be fair, I must admit that I tend to be of a more liberal persuasion, but I thought you all would appreciate knowing some of what goes on behind the scenes. You take care and have a great day!
With best wishes, Fred
PS Though I am still on contract with the State Department, I greatly reduced my work with them two years ago. I saw how important it was for me to devote my time to getting the word out through the websites I manage, and through email lists like this. I have done only three weeks' worth of paid work this year. Thankfully, I am able to draw on money I had set aside for retirement to support me in focusing full time on this important work. I want to invite you to look carefully at what you can do in your life to help build a better world in these important times. You might start by sharing this email with your friends and colleagues.
Explore these empowering websites coordinated by Fred:
www.momentoflove.org - Every person in the world has a heart
www.WantToKnow.info - Revealing major cover-ups & working together for a better world
www.gcforall.org - Building a Global Community for All
www.weboflove.org - Strengthening the Web of Love that interconnects us all
Together, we are building a better world based on love and cooperation
So Alike, Rivals Make It Personal
Why does the NYT publish this idioticy. I know many who believe that our American Democracy has been corrupted (and there's not that much difference to be made by who is elected), but this editorial is just so superficial I can't believe it's not a way to try to calm the populace down or something.
For those who need reminding:
1) The budget deficit is not a personal issue.
2) The integrity of the Social Security System is not personal.
3) Healthcare access and costs are not personal.
4) Our outlaw war activities are not personal.
5) The betrayal by the 911 Coverup Commission is not personal.
6) The police state authorizations of the Patriot Acts are not personal!
7) The collaspe of Enron was not personal.
This list could go on and on and on. I'm not saying John Kerry is on the right side of these issues, but an editorial like this glosses over the reality that we have a mentally ill criminal in the White House.
Below is a Boston Global piece:
THIS STORY HAS BEEN FORMATTED FOR EASY PRINTING
HEALTH CARE
Kerry, Bush plans offer a stark choice
By Raja Mishra, Globe Staff | October 10, 2004
Both presidential candidates agree the American health care system is troubled: Coverage is too costly, too many are uninsured.
But President Bush and Democratic nominee John F. Kerry drastically diverge on the solution, offering voters a stark choice in November.
Bush seeks to allow more people to buy health care on their own, rather than through employers or government, arguing that consumer choice would force health care costs down.
Kerry would spend significantly more taxpayer money than Bush on health care, but his plan would provide insurance to nearly three times more people.
''Both candidates' plans provide an expansion of coverage for people currently lacking health insurance," said John Sheils, vice president of the nonpartisan Lewin Group consulting firm, which analyzed both plans earlier this month. ''But the two plans differ in their scope. ''
A Lewin Group analysis found that Kerry's plan would insure 25.2 million more Americans, at a cost of $1.2 trillion; Bush's plan would cover 8.2 million people with a $227.5 billion price tag. More partisan analyses differ, though the wide differences in scope and cost between the plans are a common theme of virtually all of them.
Neither proposal, however, would cover all Americans or significantly slow the health care price increases bedeviling so many families and businesses, according to analysts. And both plans are unlikely to pass in a Congress still deeply split over health care more than a decade after Bill Clinton launched his unsuccessful reform effort.
''It's going to take a generation to make the changes needed," said Joseph Antos, health policy specialist at the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute. ''The will just isn't there now."
The nation's health care woes are most dramatically personified by the nearly 45 million Americans lacking health insurance in 2003, up 1.4 million from the year before. These people can still get medical care in hospitals, but typically they postpone care until symptoms become serious. Thus, they often fare worse than those with insurance, who get care earlier and are generally healthier.
Moreover, the uninsured raise health care costs for everyone else. Hospitals treat them for free, but turn around and charge other patients more to make up the costs.
The largest chunks of the uninsured population fall into several categories: working families not poor enough to qualify for government programs but unable to afford insurance; healthy young adults willing to risk forgoing insurance; part-time workers and the self-employed; poor people unwilling to sign up for government programs because of the perceived stigma.
And rising health care costs are forcing more and more people to join the ranks of the uninsured. Workers' average monthly contributions for insurance coverage have risen to $201 in 2003 from $52 in 1988. By 2006, the average annual family premium is expected to be $14,500.
However, the spike is actually a symptom of a desirable trend. It reflects the fact that ever more medical technologies -- surgeries, drugs, tests -- are available to treat sickness. Of course, there is more sickness: As people live longer, they develop all sorts of chronic ailments that require lifelong care. Nonetheless, other countries with similar access to high-tech medicine, such as Germany, Canada, and France, manage to do it at a lower cost and cover their populations. These nations have government-run systems that offer universal coverage.
Bush has signed into law one major health care change: the addition of drug coverage to Medicare, the government program that pays for seniors' care.
He pushed though legislation expanding use of Medical Savings Accounts (MSAs), which allow workers to start tax-free accounts to pay for health care rather than buying insurance through employers. Money not spent on health care would be saved rather than lost, as is the case with insurance.
Still, few Americans have opted in, and MSAs remain a marginal part of the system.
Also, Bush proposed a cap on medical malpractice awards, which many argue add to health costs by forcing doctors and insurers to pay out exorbitant amounts in court cases. His bill is stalled in Congress. Finally, Bush has opened or expanded more than 600 community health centers, many in poor and rural areas, giving millions better access to primary care.
Still, the number of uninsured people and health care costs have spiraled upward during his first term.
Kerry proposes expanding government-funded coverage. He would spend between $653 billion and $1.5 trillion over 10 years. (Health care costs are complex and hard to predict, and therefore estimates vary.) To pay for this, he would raise taxes on those making over $200,000 a year.
''The Kerry proposal is a big proposal, not a huge proposal like the Clinton plan, but a big one. It's also much more expensive. The Bush proposal is much smaller," said Harvard economist David Cutler, who advised the Kerry team on health care.
Kerry offers a two-pronged plan: First, Kerry would expand existing government programs in order to cover virtually every American child lacking insurance, as well as millions more adults.
Secondly, he would help companies pay for very sick patients. These ''catastrophic patients" usually suffer from chronic conditions and although they make up about 1 percent of those in the health care system, they use 30 percent of the health care dollars spent. Kerry would pay 75 percent of companies' catastrophic costs. Companies would save money on health care, and be able to afford to cover more workers while charging them lower premiums. Kerry's campaign estimates that the average worker at companies participating -- the plan is voluntary -- would save $1,000 annually.
''That's a big deal for the average worker," said Cutler.
Kerry's plan would cover about an additional 27 million Americans.
But Antos said the Massachusetts senator's plan relies too heavily on government, noting that the centerpiece of Kerry's plan, the catastrophic patient coverage, meant the government would have to spend hundreds of millions more on health care.
''Who makes health care decisions? In the Kerry plan, it's the same people who have been making the decision all along -- the government. But it's still not me, it's not the individual," he said. ''Kerry doesn't change the fundamental decision-making structure in health care, which caused the problems in the first place. He reinforces the problems."
Campaigning recently in St. Cloud, Minn., Bush characterized the health care debate this way: ''When it comes to health care, we have a difference of opinion -- and it's a big difference of opinion in this campaign. My opponent wants the government to dictate. I want you to decide when it comes to health care."
Bush's plan is far smaller: The price tag is about $145 billion to $160 billion. And its reach is more modest: An estimated 6.7 million to 11 million uninsured Americans would be covered. But his plan is more conceptually audacious, falling under his ''Ownership Society" mantra.
Its core principal is that most Americans should buy health care as they buy anything else, like cars, or groceries. Right now, most people don't buy health care -- they buy insurance, paid for with set monthly payments. Therefore, they don't actually feel the costs of health care -- so its nothing to order costly or unnecessary tests and procedures, which in turn inflate costs. If patients paid on their own, they would be more likely to decline extra tests and procedures and be more careful about maintaining their own health, many specialists say.
Bush's plan would try to move in that direction, at least on a small scale. He would offer tax credits of up to $2,000 for joining MSAs, where people would buy care on their own. Also, he would offer a tax credit of up to $3,000 for low-income families to buy insurance.
Critics argue the amount set aside by Bush is so small, only a fraction of the population would benefit.
Moreover, critics say the health care market is far too confusing for the average consumer to make informed choices.
The last major part of Bush's plan would be to help businesses and individuals to organize into collectives to negotiate lower health insurance prices. And he would continue to expand the rural health clinic network.
However, health care specialists say that neither candidate has proposed anything that would end the twin problems of rising costs and growing numbers of people who are uninsured.
''I don't expect either candidate to solve this problem this year," said Antos.
Earlier installments of this series appeared Sept. 29, Oct. 2, 4, and 8 and can be found at www.boston.com/politics.Raja Mishra can be reached at rmishra@globe.com.
For those who need reminding:
1) The budget deficit is not a personal issue.
2) The integrity of the Social Security System is not personal.
3) Healthcare access and costs are not personal.
4) Our outlaw war activities are not personal.
5) The betrayal by the 911 Coverup Commission is not personal.
6) The police state authorizations of the Patriot Acts are not personal!
7) The collaspe of Enron was not personal.
This list could go on and on and on. I'm not saying John Kerry is on the right side of these issues, but an editorial like this glosses over the reality that we have a mentally ill criminal in the White House.
Below is a Boston Global piece:
THIS STORY HAS BEEN FORMATTED FOR EASY PRINTING
HEALTH CARE
Kerry, Bush plans offer a stark choice
By Raja Mishra, Globe Staff | October 10, 2004
Both presidential candidates agree the American health care system is troubled: Coverage is too costly, too many are uninsured.
But President Bush and Democratic nominee John F. Kerry drastically diverge on the solution, offering voters a stark choice in November.
Bush seeks to allow more people to buy health care on their own, rather than through employers or government, arguing that consumer choice would force health care costs down.
Kerry would spend significantly more taxpayer money than Bush on health care, but his plan would provide insurance to nearly three times more people.
''Both candidates' plans provide an expansion of coverage for people currently lacking health insurance," said John Sheils, vice president of the nonpartisan Lewin Group consulting firm, which analyzed both plans earlier this month. ''But the two plans differ in their scope. ''
A Lewin Group analysis found that Kerry's plan would insure 25.2 million more Americans, at a cost of $1.2 trillion; Bush's plan would cover 8.2 million people with a $227.5 billion price tag. More partisan analyses differ, though the wide differences in scope and cost between the plans are a common theme of virtually all of them.
Neither proposal, however, would cover all Americans or significantly slow the health care price increases bedeviling so many families and businesses, according to analysts. And both plans are unlikely to pass in a Congress still deeply split over health care more than a decade after Bill Clinton launched his unsuccessful reform effort.
''It's going to take a generation to make the changes needed," said Joseph Antos, health policy specialist at the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute. ''The will just isn't there now."
The nation's health care woes are most dramatically personified by the nearly 45 million Americans lacking health insurance in 2003, up 1.4 million from the year before. These people can still get medical care in hospitals, but typically they postpone care until symptoms become serious. Thus, they often fare worse than those with insurance, who get care earlier and are generally healthier.
Moreover, the uninsured raise health care costs for everyone else. Hospitals treat them for free, but turn around and charge other patients more to make up the costs.
The largest chunks of the uninsured population fall into several categories: working families not poor enough to qualify for government programs but unable to afford insurance; healthy young adults willing to risk forgoing insurance; part-time workers and the self-employed; poor people unwilling to sign up for government programs because of the perceived stigma.
And rising health care costs are forcing more and more people to join the ranks of the uninsured. Workers' average monthly contributions for insurance coverage have risen to $201 in 2003 from $52 in 1988. By 2006, the average annual family premium is expected to be $14,500.
However, the spike is actually a symptom of a desirable trend. It reflects the fact that ever more medical technologies -- surgeries, drugs, tests -- are available to treat sickness. Of course, there is more sickness: As people live longer, they develop all sorts of chronic ailments that require lifelong care. Nonetheless, other countries with similar access to high-tech medicine, such as Germany, Canada, and France, manage to do it at a lower cost and cover their populations. These nations have government-run systems that offer universal coverage.
Bush has signed into law one major health care change: the addition of drug coverage to Medicare, the government program that pays for seniors' care.
He pushed though legislation expanding use of Medical Savings Accounts (MSAs), which allow workers to start tax-free accounts to pay for health care rather than buying insurance through employers. Money not spent on health care would be saved rather than lost, as is the case with insurance.
Still, few Americans have opted in, and MSAs remain a marginal part of the system.
Also, Bush proposed a cap on medical malpractice awards, which many argue add to health costs by forcing doctors and insurers to pay out exorbitant amounts in court cases. His bill is stalled in Congress. Finally, Bush has opened or expanded more than 600 community health centers, many in poor and rural areas, giving millions better access to primary care.
Still, the number of uninsured people and health care costs have spiraled upward during his first term.
Kerry proposes expanding government-funded coverage. He would spend between $653 billion and $1.5 trillion over 10 years. (Health care costs are complex and hard to predict, and therefore estimates vary.) To pay for this, he would raise taxes on those making over $200,000 a year.
''The Kerry proposal is a big proposal, not a huge proposal like the Clinton plan, but a big one. It's also much more expensive. The Bush proposal is much smaller," said Harvard economist David Cutler, who advised the Kerry team on health care.
Kerry offers a two-pronged plan: First, Kerry would expand existing government programs in order to cover virtually every American child lacking insurance, as well as millions more adults.
Secondly, he would help companies pay for very sick patients. These ''catastrophic patients" usually suffer from chronic conditions and although they make up about 1 percent of those in the health care system, they use 30 percent of the health care dollars spent. Kerry would pay 75 percent of companies' catastrophic costs. Companies would save money on health care, and be able to afford to cover more workers while charging them lower premiums. Kerry's campaign estimates that the average worker at companies participating -- the plan is voluntary -- would save $1,000 annually.
''That's a big deal for the average worker," said Cutler.
Kerry's plan would cover about an additional 27 million Americans.
But Antos said the Massachusetts senator's plan relies too heavily on government, noting that the centerpiece of Kerry's plan, the catastrophic patient coverage, meant the government would have to spend hundreds of millions more on health care.
''Who makes health care decisions? In the Kerry plan, it's the same people who have been making the decision all along -- the government. But it's still not me, it's not the individual," he said. ''Kerry doesn't change the fundamental decision-making structure in health care, which caused the problems in the first place. He reinforces the problems."
Campaigning recently in St. Cloud, Minn., Bush characterized the health care debate this way: ''When it comes to health care, we have a difference of opinion -- and it's a big difference of opinion in this campaign. My opponent wants the government to dictate. I want you to decide when it comes to health care."
Bush's plan is far smaller: The price tag is about $145 billion to $160 billion. And its reach is more modest: An estimated 6.7 million to 11 million uninsured Americans would be covered. But his plan is more conceptually audacious, falling under his ''Ownership Society" mantra.
Its core principal is that most Americans should buy health care as they buy anything else, like cars, or groceries. Right now, most people don't buy health care -- they buy insurance, paid for with set monthly payments. Therefore, they don't actually feel the costs of health care -- so its nothing to order costly or unnecessary tests and procedures, which in turn inflate costs. If patients paid on their own, they would be more likely to decline extra tests and procedures and be more careful about maintaining their own health, many specialists say.
Bush's plan would try to move in that direction, at least on a small scale. He would offer tax credits of up to $2,000 for joining MSAs, where people would buy care on their own. Also, he would offer a tax credit of up to $3,000 for low-income families to buy insurance.
Critics argue the amount set aside by Bush is so small, only a fraction of the population would benefit.
Moreover, critics say the health care market is far too confusing for the average consumer to make informed choices.
The last major part of Bush's plan would be to help businesses and individuals to organize into collectives to negotiate lower health insurance prices. And he would continue to expand the rural health clinic network.
However, health care specialists say that neither candidate has proposed anything that would end the twin problems of rising costs and growing numbers of people who are uninsured.
''I don't expect either candidate to solve this problem this year," said Antos.
Earlier installments of this series appeared Sept. 29, Oct. 2, 4, and 8 and can be found at www.boston.com/politics.Raja Mishra can be reached at rmishra@globe.com.
The Secret Relationship Between Israel and Oil: What the US Media Hides
The Secret Relationship Between Israel and Oil: What the US Media Hides
By Wendy Campbell
Al-Jazeerah, October 6, 2004
I have found that there is nothing more inspiring than taking a trip, especially to a foreign country where I leave behind my daily routine, including e-mails and the internet, to get to think outside the box and to get a chance to write down my thoughts.
The moment of inspiration for me to start writing this article on my latest trip (to Baja Mexico) came moments after I stepped into the Alaska Airlines jet and picked up the complimentary issue of The Wall Street Journal. Generally I avoid mainstream media these days since I know it is mostly pro-Israel propaganda as well as blown-up sensationalist stories, such as the case of Scott Peterson, which are meant to distract people from the more important issues of our time, such as the US foreign policy, for example.
The article in the Wall Street Journal, dated September 21, 2004, that rankled me into finally writing this article, which has been brewing in my mind for some time, was one by Jeffrey Ball entitled “As Prices Soar, Doomsayers Provoke Debate on Oil’s Future”. The sub-title was: “ In a 1970’s echo, Dr. Campbell (no relation to me!) Warns Supply Is Drying Up, but Industry Isn’t Worried”.
Now let me explain to you that I have already come to the conclusion a while ago that this controversy about the “shortage of oil” is being pushed forward by mostly pro-Israel forces for their own narrow agenda that has nothing to do with the vast majority of the American people’s interests.
Even in this article, it is explained that: “Dr. Campbell is at the center of a small but suddenly influential band of contrarians known as the “peak oil movement”. Their general thesis is that the world is running out of oil and quickly. They have been saying this for years, yet most experts believe that there is no need for panic, noting that new sources are constantly being discovered. Some experts even claim that oil supplies are self-renewing.
US MEDIA DETERMINES WHO WILL BE INFLUENTIAL
Is it a coincidence that Dr. Campbell is “suddenly influential”? No, it is not. Even the Wall Street Journal is playing into the game of making Dr. Campbell “suddenly influential” with this article.
Why is the US media pushing Dr. Campbell, a man who lives in a tiny Irish village, into the limelight? Because the media, which is run by pro-Israel forces, want people like Dr. Campbell to be in the limelight is why.
And you may ask, why is that? Well, because Dr. Campbell’s views help support the pro-Israel agenda of that other “suddenly influential band of contrarians”, known as the NeoConservatives. The NeoConservatives are mostly Zionist Jews, headed by Paul Wolfowitz, who qualify as Israeli-Americans, and who are now openly directing US foreign policy almost completely. Christian Zionists such as Bush and Cheney have jumped on their bandwagon. Of course, it looks even more convincing when a non-Jew such as Dr. Campbell, puts forward claims that will lend support to the pro-Israel agenda.
People whose voices the US media wants you to hear will be heard. Conversely, people whose voices and actions the US media want to hide, will go into the memory hole. It’s only an illusion that we have a free and democratic press here in the US. Personally, I think it’s about time to press for the right to vote for affirmative action laws with regards to specifically the US mass media and our US foreign policy department, both of which have a hugely disproportional percentage of Israeli-Americans in them.
The over-representation of Israeli-Americans in US newsrooms tends to undermine journalistic integrity. When the news media consistently manipulates public sensibilities with a bias favoring a foreign country such as Israel, American democratic values and institutions are compromised, as well as Americans’ ability to objectively and independently access the situation. America needs more non-Zionists (ie. people ineligible for Israeli citizenship) in high news and government positions to safeguard our own national interests against foreign interests. Whoever shapes public opinion has an unfair advantage politically. It serves as the government’s propaganda mouthpiece, but only when the government does as the media wants. Conversely, it has to power to bring politicians down who are not pro-Israel enough, often simply by ignoring them or by pulling out something unsavory from his or her dossier to suddenly put into the limelight. It’s works kind of like blackmail, actually.
The news establishment is termed by some to be “The Fourth Estate”, meaning the fourth branch of American government, after the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches. This mighty, and in many ways, secretive, consolidated collection of media networks manages the American mind, shaping public opinion. American public opinion is the world’s second most powerful super-power, but it’s too bad that it is managed by the narrow interests of the elite controllers of the “free” and “democratic” media. Thank God for the internet, although “they” are franticly trying to control this last bastion of liberty as well.
LET’S DEBUNK SOME COMMON MYTHS ABOUT ISRAEL, OIL and U.S. SECURITY / INTERESTS
First of all, I’m sure many of you are aware of the notion put out there by political pundits (who are most likely pro-Israel) that the US somehow needs Israel in the Middle East to be its stationary “aircraft carrier” to act as the “tough cop” looking out for American interests in that region, specifically with regards to oil.
Let me ask you these few revealing questions.
When has Israel EVER sent any troops in to lend us a hand in ANY war the US has waged in the Middle East? Pretty amazing, especially when you consider that any wars the US has waged on the Middle East has been at the prodding of Israel and Israeli-Americans, particularly the NeoConservatives.
Have you ever noticed that bottled water is actually cheaper than gas?
Have you noticed or read the reports that the price of gas has not risen in keeping with inflation? Adjusted for inflation, gasoline today would have to sell for around $3.50 a gallon to the match prices Americans paid in 1981. And this does not factor in the additional savings in consumption we enjoy since today’s cars get nearly twice the gas mileage of cars produced only 25 years ago.
Do you realize that the Arab world needs to sell its oil even more than we need to buy it from them?
Did you know the US gets oil from many other countries including Mexico, Venezuela, Canada, etc. besides a few Middle Eastern countries? Actually, both Russia and Canada supply the US with quantities of oil comparable to Saudi Arabia. And what about the fact that there are more and more discoveries of new oil resources throughout the world? And that many geologists say that oil is actually a renewable resource? Even this Wall Street Journal article that sparked my writing this article gave many examples of how geologists scoff at Dr. Campbell’s prediction of an “oil crisis” looming ahead.
Even in Michael Moore’s Arab-bashing, misleading, “daring” documentary “Fahrenheit 9/11”, he made it clear that the Saudis are heavily invested in some sectors of American business, and that the Saudis are and always have been very cooperative with the US government, with the exception of the “oil crisis” of 1973, which I will discuss later in this article. It is well-known that the despotic Saudi government caters to the US government, so much in fact that the Saudi government is not popular with a vast majority of its own people, who see their government as selling out to the American government, which supports Israel’s brutal persecution of the Palestinian people. In fact, the Saudi government risks being overthrown by its own people because of their government’s relationship with the US. Osama bin Laden was thrown out of his country Saudi Arabia, his assets frozen in banks there, and he was ex-communicated from his family, because he advocates the overthrowing of the Saudi government for cooperating with the imperialistic, materialistic, Zionist-dominated US government, which has thousands of American troops stationed on Saudi soil, a key sticking point with bin Laden.
By the way, did you notice how Michael Moore didn’t even mention the word “Israel”? Or “Zionism”? Or even “NeoConservatism” in his documentary? Not surprising. His agent is top Hollywood Jewish Zionist Ari Emmanuel whose brother is Rahm Emmanuel, who served in the Carter administration, and is currently a hyper pro-Israel senator in Illinois.
Another interesting note about Moore’s documentary: he even pointed out how none of the Saudis could reap any financial benefits from the war on Iraq, unlike American companies such as Halliburton. So his whole Arab-bashing approach basically backfires. It shows how cowardly Moore is in the face of Zionist Hollywood, not to mention how greedy he obviously is to go for the big bucks, which toeing the Zionist line assures anyone in the worlds of US media and politics. It’s ever so convenient and “somehow” politically “acceptable” to scapegoat Arabs and Muslims in Zionist Hollywood and US media.
Consider this as well: does it make any sense whatsoever to spend over $200 BILLION on the war on Iraq to get control of Iraqi oil for US interests? Especially when we could easily buy it, if we needed to? Not to mention the war’s cost in human lives and alienating much of the world in the process? The “War for Oil (for US interests)” fable is a completely ridiculous and outrageous lie!
SO WHAT IS REALLY THE PRO-ISRAEL AGENDA WITH REGARDS TO OIL?
What is the connection between Israel and Arab oil, and where does the US fit into this picture?
First of all, the ethno-centric Jewish state of Israel is a small, resource-poor country, with no natural oil resources, and is almost completely dependent on US support in the form of not only massive financial support (billions of US tax dollars yearly) but US military and political cover as well. Israel, quite simply, would not survive as the apartheid, imperialistic, war-mongering Jewish state that it is, without the massive support of the US government. Israel is surrounded by well-deserved, self-made enemies thanks to the initial injustice of the UN unilaterally giving away Arab land that was not theirs to give away in the first place to Eastern European Zionist Jews who have been committing ethnic cleansing and persecution of the indigenous non-Jewish Palestinians ever since 1948. Since that time, Israel has continued to aggressively steal even more Arab land and has blatant ambitions to control the entire Middle East, using the power and might of the United States.
If more Americans were truly aware of how racist and imperialistic Israel is, they would most likely demand that our government stop supporting Israel at all until it is transformed into a true democracy for all regardless of religion, race or gender, as the world pressured South Africa to transform from an apartheid country to a true democracy ten years ago. If more Americans knew how support of Israel increases anti-American sentiment worldwide and ensures endless unjust wars, they might very well question their government’s support of Israel. There are many reasons for Americans to question their government’s support of Israel including first and foremost for real financial and security concerns as well as our country’s hard-won reputation as a democracy for all, regardless of religion, race or gender.
The fact is that the pro-Israel, Zionist-dominated US media very rarely even mentions the topic of Israel outside of incidents that involve Palestinian suicide bombers, which then make the screaming front page headlines. The footage of the aftermath of such an attack is played over and over again, back to back on ZNN (oops! I meant to write CNN!) and Fox News and all the other US media. These isolated attacks by Palestinian suicide bombers are thus over-reported while the context in which these desperate acts occur is usually completely ignored. The on-going brutal persecution of the non-Jewish Palestinian people, including the killing of innocent civilians and children, since 1948 by the Israeli army goes almost totally unreported and is generally veiled from view by the American public.
MOST AMERICANS DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT ZIONISM IS, US MEDIA LIKES TO KEEP IT THAT WAY
Most Americans don’t even know what Zionism is. In a nutshell, it is a racist, nationalistic, political ideology conceived by Theodor Hertzl, an Austrian Jew in the 1890s, that maintains that there must be a Jewish state in Palestine, although that means and always has meant policies of ethnic-cleansing, apartheid and general persecution of the indigenous non-Jews of that land, the Arab Muslim and Christian Palestinians. In a nutshell, advocates of this racist Zionist ideology are driving our US foreign policy. What ever happened to separation of synagogue/ church and state? Isn’t it time to openly discuss this? Why are double standards allowed for Israel and for Zionists?
However the US media does not want Americans to even think about these things, never mind discuss them! Certainly, the pro-Israel media does not want Americans to question our government’s support of Zionist Israel. That is why there is never any mention in mainstream US media of the Israeli connection to 9-11, to the war on Iraq, to the so-called “war on terror”, and to the subject of Israel’s quest for oil.
This intentional covering up by the Zionized US media of the Israeli connection to anything that impacts the US negatively has been going on for decades.
WHAT THE US MEDIA STILL HIDES ABOUT THE 1973 “OIL CRISIS”
And nothing proves to me that the US media has been covering for Israel and still covers for Israel (refusing to show the negative effect for Americans of the US government’s “special relationship” with Israel) more than this article about the “oil crisis”. Here is a specific case in point:
Does anyone remember that time during 1973 when there was such an “oil crisis” that there were really long lines at all the gas stations and when gas was actually rationed out at the gas stations so that you could only get gas every other day, depending on whether or not your license plate ended in an even or an odd number?
I do remember that time vividly. I didn’t know why it was happening at the time, but I know exactly why now. And it’s not because I got “enlightened” by the pro-Israel US media.
Here is how this Sept. 21, 2004 Wall Street Journal article by Jeffrey Ball (who obviously passed the required litmus test of being pro-Israel enough to work in the US media) presented the “oil crisis” of 1973, in such a manner that still puts a veil of the Israeli connection to that event even today. Here is a direct quote:
“Then in 1973, the Arab members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) tightened their spigots, and the world panicked. The result: high prices, long lines and frequent shortages at gas stations across the U.S. and Europe.”
There was exactly no mention of the context of why OPEC “tightened their spigots” in 1973. No mention at all.
Are you ready for the Israeli connection to this crisis that is almost uniformly covered up by the pro-Israel US media?
Here it is: In 1973, Egypt went to war against Israel in order to win back the Sinai Peninsula, which Israel had stolen six years earlier in Israel’s infamous pre-emptive “Six Day War” in 1967 against her neighboring countries.
In that pre-emptive 1967 war, Israel not only stole the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, but also part of southern Lebanon, which Israel has since relinquished, and the Golan Heights from Syria, which is still being occupied to this day by Israeli forces, as well as The Palestinian Territories: the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, now generally referred to as The Occupied Territories. Pro-Israel forces generally prefer to refer to the Occupied Territories as the “disputed territories”.
Egypt appeared to be winning its retaliatory war against Israel in 1973, so Golda Meir, the American-Israeli Prime Minister of Israel at the time, worked with American-Israeli Henry Kissinger to pressure the US government to come to Israel’s rescue, which it did.
Therefore in a show of solidarity with Egypt, the Arab countries of OPEC “tightened their spigots” of gas and oil for export to the U.S.
There you have it: the real reason for the “oil crisis” of 1973. But the pro-Israel US media does not want Americans to realize that support for Israel has many negative effects on the lives of Americans, which includes potential politically induced “oil crises”, such as was obviously the case in 1973.
Pro-Israel forces in this country and around the world want to minimize the power of Arab countries which is mostly due to their oil resources. Therefore the pro-Israel forces are relying on the US government to directly control these resources primarily for Israel via wars, campaign contributions and a manipulative media. Pro-Israel people detest going to the gas station, because every time they pump gas into their cars, they angrily believe they are helping Arab Muslims (“terrorists”), whose land and resources Zionists view somehow as rightfully theirs. But of course, they don’t want the non-Zionist or unaware-of-it-all Americans to resent their US government’s support for Israel which can possibly mean paying more for gas in a future politically induced “oil crisis”, as it did in 1973.
Another example of the Israelization of America: have you been to the airports lately? The kinds of procedures at the US airports that you have been experiencing lately have always been the “norm” in Israel. This is a prime example of how Israel’s “war on terror” has SOMEHOW become America’s “war on terror” and how it directly impacts the lives of Americans. The “war on terror” is NOT about democracy. It’s an imperialistic war which will have no end if the Zionists (anyone who is pro-Israel) have their way, because it is unjust and breaks International Laws.
There is another aspect of the Israeli connection to the war on Iraq, which many people wish to believe is all about oil for the US, rather than the Zionist ideology that is actually the driving force behind the push for a war on the entire Middle East, which began with Afghanistan, and moved onward to Iraq, and threatens to expand to Iran, Saudi Arabia, and even Syria, which is not an oil exporting country (which just goes to show once again: it’s not just about the oil!)
PRO-ISRAEL FORCES WANT TO RE-OPEN A PIPELINE FROM IRAQ TO HAIFA, ISRAEL
The fact that American-Israelis in our government are endeavoring to use the war on Iraq as a way for Israel to gain control over oil in the Middle East is rarely reported in the Zionized mainstream US mass media, however it has been reported in Jewish newspapers with Jewish readership as well as in Israeli papers.
A case in point is the fact that American-Israelis in our government want to “re-open” or re-instate, the pipeline that used to exist between Iraq and Palestine, which is now specifically Haifa, Israel. When Israel was created in 1948, that pipeline was re-directed by Iraq to Syria. Now pro-Israel forces are actively seeking to cut off the pipeline to Syria and re-direct it to Haifa, Israel. For more information on this, please do a Google-search using such keywords such as “Iraq oil pipeline to Haifa Israel” and see what you come up with.
Just as Israel’s connection to the war on Iraq has been kept out of the US mainstream mass media (as you may have noticed, Israel has not even been mentioned as one of our “allies” in the war on Iraq !), this choice nugget of information with regards to Israel’s ambition to get a basically free supply of Iraqi oil is also kept out of view for the vast American public consumption.
I could go on about all this (and, yes, there is much more) but I will stop here.
You get the picture, I hope. You won’t get it from the Zionized US mainstream media.
***********
Wendy Campbell is a California-based producer and distributor of political documentaries. For more information, please check out her websites www.marwenmedia.com
Note: Ms. Campbell’s latest documentary “Rosa Remembers Palestine”, featuring an interview with a Palestinian woman who became a refugee when the Jewish state of Israel was created in 1948, will premiere at La Pena Cultural Center on Thurs. Oct. 28 at 8pm. For more information on this and other ground-breaking documentaries, please visit www.marwenmedia.com.
By Wendy Campbell
Al-Jazeerah, October 6, 2004
I have found that there is nothing more inspiring than taking a trip, especially to a foreign country where I leave behind my daily routine, including e-mails and the internet, to get to think outside the box and to get a chance to write down my thoughts.
The moment of inspiration for me to start writing this article on my latest trip (to Baja Mexico) came moments after I stepped into the Alaska Airlines jet and picked up the complimentary issue of The Wall Street Journal. Generally I avoid mainstream media these days since I know it is mostly pro-Israel propaganda as well as blown-up sensationalist stories, such as the case of Scott Peterson, which are meant to distract people from the more important issues of our time, such as the US foreign policy, for example.
The article in the Wall Street Journal, dated September 21, 2004, that rankled me into finally writing this article, which has been brewing in my mind for some time, was one by Jeffrey Ball entitled “As Prices Soar, Doomsayers Provoke Debate on Oil’s Future”. The sub-title was: “ In a 1970’s echo, Dr. Campbell (no relation to me!) Warns Supply Is Drying Up, but Industry Isn’t Worried”.
Now let me explain to you that I have already come to the conclusion a while ago that this controversy about the “shortage of oil” is being pushed forward by mostly pro-Israel forces for their own narrow agenda that has nothing to do with the vast majority of the American people’s interests.
Even in this article, it is explained that: “Dr. Campbell is at the center of a small but suddenly influential band of contrarians known as the “peak oil movement”. Their general thesis is that the world is running out of oil and quickly. They have been saying this for years, yet most experts believe that there is no need for panic, noting that new sources are constantly being discovered. Some experts even claim that oil supplies are self-renewing.
US MEDIA DETERMINES WHO WILL BE INFLUENTIAL
Is it a coincidence that Dr. Campbell is “suddenly influential”? No, it is not. Even the Wall Street Journal is playing into the game of making Dr. Campbell “suddenly influential” with this article.
Why is the US media pushing Dr. Campbell, a man who lives in a tiny Irish village, into the limelight? Because the media, which is run by pro-Israel forces, want people like Dr. Campbell to be in the limelight is why.
And you may ask, why is that? Well, because Dr. Campbell’s views help support the pro-Israel agenda of that other “suddenly influential band of contrarians”, known as the NeoConservatives. The NeoConservatives are mostly Zionist Jews, headed by Paul Wolfowitz, who qualify as Israeli-Americans, and who are now openly directing US foreign policy almost completely. Christian Zionists such as Bush and Cheney have jumped on their bandwagon. Of course, it looks even more convincing when a non-Jew such as Dr. Campbell, puts forward claims that will lend support to the pro-Israel agenda.
People whose voices the US media wants you to hear will be heard. Conversely, people whose voices and actions the US media want to hide, will go into the memory hole. It’s only an illusion that we have a free and democratic press here in the US. Personally, I think it’s about time to press for the right to vote for affirmative action laws with regards to specifically the US mass media and our US foreign policy department, both of which have a hugely disproportional percentage of Israeli-Americans in them.
The over-representation of Israeli-Americans in US newsrooms tends to undermine journalistic integrity. When the news media consistently manipulates public sensibilities with a bias favoring a foreign country such as Israel, American democratic values and institutions are compromised, as well as Americans’ ability to objectively and independently access the situation. America needs more non-Zionists (ie. people ineligible for Israeli citizenship) in high news and government positions to safeguard our own national interests against foreign interests. Whoever shapes public opinion has an unfair advantage politically. It serves as the government’s propaganda mouthpiece, but only when the government does as the media wants. Conversely, it has to power to bring politicians down who are not pro-Israel enough, often simply by ignoring them or by pulling out something unsavory from his or her dossier to suddenly put into the limelight. It’s works kind of like blackmail, actually.
The news establishment is termed by some to be “The Fourth Estate”, meaning the fourth branch of American government, after the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches. This mighty, and in many ways, secretive, consolidated collection of media networks manages the American mind, shaping public opinion. American public opinion is the world’s second most powerful super-power, but it’s too bad that it is managed by the narrow interests of the elite controllers of the “free” and “democratic” media. Thank God for the internet, although “they” are franticly trying to control this last bastion of liberty as well.
LET’S DEBUNK SOME COMMON MYTHS ABOUT ISRAEL, OIL and U.S. SECURITY / INTERESTS
First of all, I’m sure many of you are aware of the notion put out there by political pundits (who are most likely pro-Israel) that the US somehow needs Israel in the Middle East to be its stationary “aircraft carrier” to act as the “tough cop” looking out for American interests in that region, specifically with regards to oil.
Let me ask you these few revealing questions.
When has Israel EVER sent any troops in to lend us a hand in ANY war the US has waged in the Middle East? Pretty amazing, especially when you consider that any wars the US has waged on the Middle East has been at the prodding of Israel and Israeli-Americans, particularly the NeoConservatives.
Have you ever noticed that bottled water is actually cheaper than gas?
Have you noticed or read the reports that the price of gas has not risen in keeping with inflation? Adjusted for inflation, gasoline today would have to sell for around $3.50 a gallon to the match prices Americans paid in 1981. And this does not factor in the additional savings in consumption we enjoy since today’s cars get nearly twice the gas mileage of cars produced only 25 years ago.
Do you realize that the Arab world needs to sell its oil even more than we need to buy it from them?
Did you know the US gets oil from many other countries including Mexico, Venezuela, Canada, etc. besides a few Middle Eastern countries? Actually, both Russia and Canada supply the US with quantities of oil comparable to Saudi Arabia. And what about the fact that there are more and more discoveries of new oil resources throughout the world? And that many geologists say that oil is actually a renewable resource? Even this Wall Street Journal article that sparked my writing this article gave many examples of how geologists scoff at Dr. Campbell’s prediction of an “oil crisis” looming ahead.
Even in Michael Moore’s Arab-bashing, misleading, “daring” documentary “Fahrenheit 9/11”, he made it clear that the Saudis are heavily invested in some sectors of American business, and that the Saudis are and always have been very cooperative with the US government, with the exception of the “oil crisis” of 1973, which I will discuss later in this article. It is well-known that the despotic Saudi government caters to the US government, so much in fact that the Saudi government is not popular with a vast majority of its own people, who see their government as selling out to the American government, which supports Israel’s brutal persecution of the Palestinian people. In fact, the Saudi government risks being overthrown by its own people because of their government’s relationship with the US. Osama bin Laden was thrown out of his country Saudi Arabia, his assets frozen in banks there, and he was ex-communicated from his family, because he advocates the overthrowing of the Saudi government for cooperating with the imperialistic, materialistic, Zionist-dominated US government, which has thousands of American troops stationed on Saudi soil, a key sticking point with bin Laden.
By the way, did you notice how Michael Moore didn’t even mention the word “Israel”? Or “Zionism”? Or even “NeoConservatism” in his documentary? Not surprising. His agent is top Hollywood Jewish Zionist Ari Emmanuel whose brother is Rahm Emmanuel, who served in the Carter administration, and is currently a hyper pro-Israel senator in Illinois.
Another interesting note about Moore’s documentary: he even pointed out how none of the Saudis could reap any financial benefits from the war on Iraq, unlike American companies such as Halliburton. So his whole Arab-bashing approach basically backfires. It shows how cowardly Moore is in the face of Zionist Hollywood, not to mention how greedy he obviously is to go for the big bucks, which toeing the Zionist line assures anyone in the worlds of US media and politics. It’s ever so convenient and “somehow” politically “acceptable” to scapegoat Arabs and Muslims in Zionist Hollywood and US media.
Consider this as well: does it make any sense whatsoever to spend over $200 BILLION on the war on Iraq to get control of Iraqi oil for US interests? Especially when we could easily buy it, if we needed to? Not to mention the war’s cost in human lives and alienating much of the world in the process? The “War for Oil (for US interests)” fable is a completely ridiculous and outrageous lie!
SO WHAT IS REALLY THE PRO-ISRAEL AGENDA WITH REGARDS TO OIL?
What is the connection between Israel and Arab oil, and where does the US fit into this picture?
First of all, the ethno-centric Jewish state of Israel is a small, resource-poor country, with no natural oil resources, and is almost completely dependent on US support in the form of not only massive financial support (billions of US tax dollars yearly) but US military and political cover as well. Israel, quite simply, would not survive as the apartheid, imperialistic, war-mongering Jewish state that it is, without the massive support of the US government. Israel is surrounded by well-deserved, self-made enemies thanks to the initial injustice of the UN unilaterally giving away Arab land that was not theirs to give away in the first place to Eastern European Zionist Jews who have been committing ethnic cleansing and persecution of the indigenous non-Jewish Palestinians ever since 1948. Since that time, Israel has continued to aggressively steal even more Arab land and has blatant ambitions to control the entire Middle East, using the power and might of the United States.
If more Americans were truly aware of how racist and imperialistic Israel is, they would most likely demand that our government stop supporting Israel at all until it is transformed into a true democracy for all regardless of religion, race or gender, as the world pressured South Africa to transform from an apartheid country to a true democracy ten years ago. If more Americans knew how support of Israel increases anti-American sentiment worldwide and ensures endless unjust wars, they might very well question their government’s support of Israel. There are many reasons for Americans to question their government’s support of Israel including first and foremost for real financial and security concerns as well as our country’s hard-won reputation as a democracy for all, regardless of religion, race or gender.
The fact is that the pro-Israel, Zionist-dominated US media very rarely even mentions the topic of Israel outside of incidents that involve Palestinian suicide bombers, which then make the screaming front page headlines. The footage of the aftermath of such an attack is played over and over again, back to back on ZNN (oops! I meant to write CNN!) and Fox News and all the other US media. These isolated attacks by Palestinian suicide bombers are thus over-reported while the context in which these desperate acts occur is usually completely ignored. The on-going brutal persecution of the non-Jewish Palestinian people, including the killing of innocent civilians and children, since 1948 by the Israeli army goes almost totally unreported and is generally veiled from view by the American public.
MOST AMERICANS DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT ZIONISM IS, US MEDIA LIKES TO KEEP IT THAT WAY
Most Americans don’t even know what Zionism is. In a nutshell, it is a racist, nationalistic, political ideology conceived by Theodor Hertzl, an Austrian Jew in the 1890s, that maintains that there must be a Jewish state in Palestine, although that means and always has meant policies of ethnic-cleansing, apartheid and general persecution of the indigenous non-Jews of that land, the Arab Muslim and Christian Palestinians. In a nutshell, advocates of this racist Zionist ideology are driving our US foreign policy. What ever happened to separation of synagogue/ church and state? Isn’t it time to openly discuss this? Why are double standards allowed for Israel and for Zionists?
However the US media does not want Americans to even think about these things, never mind discuss them! Certainly, the pro-Israel media does not want Americans to question our government’s support of Zionist Israel. That is why there is never any mention in mainstream US media of the Israeli connection to 9-11, to the war on Iraq, to the so-called “war on terror”, and to the subject of Israel’s quest for oil.
This intentional covering up by the Zionized US media of the Israeli connection to anything that impacts the US negatively has been going on for decades.
WHAT THE US MEDIA STILL HIDES ABOUT THE 1973 “OIL CRISIS”
And nothing proves to me that the US media has been covering for Israel and still covers for Israel (refusing to show the negative effect for Americans of the US government’s “special relationship” with Israel) more than this article about the “oil crisis”. Here is a specific case in point:
Does anyone remember that time during 1973 when there was such an “oil crisis” that there were really long lines at all the gas stations and when gas was actually rationed out at the gas stations so that you could only get gas every other day, depending on whether or not your license plate ended in an even or an odd number?
I do remember that time vividly. I didn’t know why it was happening at the time, but I know exactly why now. And it’s not because I got “enlightened” by the pro-Israel US media.
Here is how this Sept. 21, 2004 Wall Street Journal article by Jeffrey Ball (who obviously passed the required litmus test of being pro-Israel enough to work in the US media) presented the “oil crisis” of 1973, in such a manner that still puts a veil of the Israeli connection to that event even today. Here is a direct quote:
“Then in 1973, the Arab members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) tightened their spigots, and the world panicked. The result: high prices, long lines and frequent shortages at gas stations across the U.S. and Europe.”
There was exactly no mention of the context of why OPEC “tightened their spigots” in 1973. No mention at all.
Are you ready for the Israeli connection to this crisis that is almost uniformly covered up by the pro-Israel US media?
Here it is: In 1973, Egypt went to war against Israel in order to win back the Sinai Peninsula, which Israel had stolen six years earlier in Israel’s infamous pre-emptive “Six Day War” in 1967 against her neighboring countries.
In that pre-emptive 1967 war, Israel not only stole the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, but also part of southern Lebanon, which Israel has since relinquished, and the Golan Heights from Syria, which is still being occupied to this day by Israeli forces, as well as The Palestinian Territories: the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, now generally referred to as The Occupied Territories. Pro-Israel forces generally prefer to refer to the Occupied Territories as the “disputed territories”.
Egypt appeared to be winning its retaliatory war against Israel in 1973, so Golda Meir, the American-Israeli Prime Minister of Israel at the time, worked with American-Israeli Henry Kissinger to pressure the US government to come to Israel’s rescue, which it did.
Therefore in a show of solidarity with Egypt, the Arab countries of OPEC “tightened their spigots” of gas and oil for export to the U.S.
There you have it: the real reason for the “oil crisis” of 1973. But the pro-Israel US media does not want Americans to realize that support for Israel has many negative effects on the lives of Americans, which includes potential politically induced “oil crises”, such as was obviously the case in 1973.
Pro-Israel forces in this country and around the world want to minimize the power of Arab countries which is mostly due to their oil resources. Therefore the pro-Israel forces are relying on the US government to directly control these resources primarily for Israel via wars, campaign contributions and a manipulative media. Pro-Israel people detest going to the gas station, because every time they pump gas into their cars, they angrily believe they are helping Arab Muslims (“terrorists”), whose land and resources Zionists view somehow as rightfully theirs. But of course, they don’t want the non-Zionist or unaware-of-it-all Americans to resent their US government’s support for Israel which can possibly mean paying more for gas in a future politically induced “oil crisis”, as it did in 1973.
Another example of the Israelization of America: have you been to the airports lately? The kinds of procedures at the US airports that you have been experiencing lately have always been the “norm” in Israel. This is a prime example of how Israel’s “war on terror” has SOMEHOW become America’s “war on terror” and how it directly impacts the lives of Americans. The “war on terror” is NOT about democracy. It’s an imperialistic war which will have no end if the Zionists (anyone who is pro-Israel) have their way, because it is unjust and breaks International Laws.
There is another aspect of the Israeli connection to the war on Iraq, which many people wish to believe is all about oil for the US, rather than the Zionist ideology that is actually the driving force behind the push for a war on the entire Middle East, which began with Afghanistan, and moved onward to Iraq, and threatens to expand to Iran, Saudi Arabia, and even Syria, which is not an oil exporting country (which just goes to show once again: it’s not just about the oil!)
PRO-ISRAEL FORCES WANT TO RE-OPEN A PIPELINE FROM IRAQ TO HAIFA, ISRAEL
The fact that American-Israelis in our government are endeavoring to use the war on Iraq as a way for Israel to gain control over oil in the Middle East is rarely reported in the Zionized mainstream US mass media, however it has been reported in Jewish newspapers with Jewish readership as well as in Israeli papers.
A case in point is the fact that American-Israelis in our government want to “re-open” or re-instate, the pipeline that used to exist between Iraq and Palestine, which is now specifically Haifa, Israel. When Israel was created in 1948, that pipeline was re-directed by Iraq to Syria. Now pro-Israel forces are actively seeking to cut off the pipeline to Syria and re-direct it to Haifa, Israel. For more information on this, please do a Google-search using such keywords such as “Iraq oil pipeline to Haifa Israel” and see what you come up with.
Just as Israel’s connection to the war on Iraq has been kept out of the US mainstream mass media (as you may have noticed, Israel has not even been mentioned as one of our “allies” in the war on Iraq !), this choice nugget of information with regards to Israel’s ambition to get a basically free supply of Iraqi oil is also kept out of view for the vast American public consumption.
I could go on about all this (and, yes, there is much more) but I will stop here.
You get the picture, I hope. You won’t get it from the Zionized US mainstream media.
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Wendy Campbell is a California-based producer and distributor of political documentaries. For more information, please check out her websites www.marwenmedia.com
Note: Ms. Campbell’s latest documentary “Rosa Remembers Palestine”, featuring an interview with a Palestinian woman who became a refugee when the Jewish state of Israel was created in 1948, will premiere at La Pena Cultural Center on Thurs. Oct. 28 at 8pm. For more information on this and other ground-breaking documentaries, please visit www.marwenmedia.com.
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