How the "Mighty" Fell, Part 2

I have already stated that there wasn't enough money to afford the move to Oregon. And when I say that I mean that I mean there wasn't enough money to pay just for the move. That was a big red flag waving in the wind, hammered into the peak of this Ruppert-imposed iceberg. And everyone saw it except Ruppert -- no surprise. Not that we didn't tell him about it, time and time again. It just wasn't that big of a deal. We were overreacting, nervous-nellies. "I'll sell my car," he said, as if trying to deliver a one-two knock-out wisdom-rationality punch combo that would shut us up for good. After all, he used to be a cop. He knew what he was doing.

"It's a 2005 Cadillac. I should at least get 25k for it!"

You could tell he thought we were all idiots, but I doubt it was just as apparent to him what a dumbass we all thought he was. After a while it became clear that there was no talking to him and so we just stopped trying. More and more, any expression of doubt in Mike's "plan" led to a sort of diaper rash freak-out on his part -- like a demon-possessed, straight-jacketed Wilfred Brimley. It got old fast.

Mike first tried selling his car online, which didn't work out so well since his "busy schedule" wouldn't allow for the five minutes it would have taken to explain to him how to actually go about selling a car online. There was no way he was going to get $25,000, not on the web, and definitely not at a car dealership, which is where he went next. Just knowing Mike, I imagined him walking on the lots of these places with the type of confidence that only a fool who thinks he can beat the house in Vegas would have. And to more than a few dealerships did Mike go. This was over the course of one week. Every now and then Mike would show back up at the office to get his mail. We'd ask him how selling his car was going and he kind of growl or mumble something about how they were offering too little money and that they were just trying to rip him off but that that wouldn't happen because what did they think he was a sucker he wasn't a sucker he used to be a cop and he knows more about the in's and out's than any civilian and if they thought for one second they were going to sucker him then they had another thing coming. Then he'd force himself to perk up and attempt to assure himself more than us that everything would turn out alright and that he'd get the dough in time and that it would be enough.

All this time I'd been under the impression that selling a car at a dealership was the last thing you'd want to do because they'd tea-bag you every time. 25k? It was hard to think that Mike was serious. He was quirky and a little crazy but this was something concerning, at least to me, because it didn't seem like he truly had a grasp on reality -- oh, if I only knew how much more crazy and absurd things would get.

It was a Thursday or Friday when Mike called. He said that he'd sold the car and needed someone to pick him up at the dealership. I went, following the directions he gave me, and eventually ended up in a part of town where all the storefronts, billboards are in Spanish, and Mexican music is piped out onto the street. The "dealership" looked like a chop shop. Mike was standing out front, looking like he'd just been released from jail immediately after having been gang-raped. When he got in the car, neither one of us said anything for a while. Mike was the first one to pipe up. He wanted us to go to the bank. I figured that was was as good a cue as any so I asked him how much he got for the car. Looking out the passenger window he said, "Seventy-five hundred."

"Yeah?" I said, thinking OMG he stuck his dick in it this time!

"Yeah. See? I told you guys not worry. I told all of you that everything was going to turn out alright -- that the universe would take care of us. We're gonna make it. Everything's going good so far and it's only going to get better."

He spoke with an almost smug, pissed-off expression, as if to say, "I shouldn't have to tell you so."He was serious, or so it seemed. At the bank he flirted with the teller like he was depositing his first million. When I dropped him off at his apartment he said, "It's been a good day, buddy," and then shook my hand. Before pulling away from the curb I accidentally caught, out of the corner in my eye, the spring in Mike's step as he walked down the street like he owned it.

$7500. Jesus. I laughed my ass off all the way home and continued off and on until I fell asleep.

Repost: "Poor Poor Mike Ruppert" written 9-16-2006

Mike Ruppert:

Egomaniac with an undeserved sense of importance

works himself into a corner from which the only escape is Venezuela.

"It's funny. I can look back on a life of achievement, on challenges met, competitors bested, obstacles overcome. I've accomplished more than most men, and without the use of my legs. What...What makes a man, Mr. Lebowski?...Is it...is it, being prepared to do the right thing? Whatever the price? Isn't that what makes a man?...Are you surprised at my tears, sir?...Strong men also cry...Strong men also cry."

--from The Big Lebowski

Having known Mike Ruppert I find it quite funny (and sad) that, being as odious a human being as he truly is, there are a number of folks out there who continue to hold him aloft as some sort of modern-day Jesus -- just as sinless, forgiving, and selfless as He who died on the cross for the sake of the world's sins. Of course someone in Montana would not know how a man in Oregon comports himself, but there are other people who should know better. Then again, a subscriber to Ruppert's website should, in my opinion, begin to have their doubts when one lame plea for donations -- in addition to the sale of a great many products -- follows another, and another, and another. And in light of some allegations that later turned out to be true (by Ruppert's own admission) regarding inappropriate sexual behavior with a female employee (he took off his clothes and ran around the office in his underwear), I find it interesting that many people out there do not once stop to question his character.

The suspicious nature of the burglary that took place in his office is also another example that should be cause for Ruppert's followers to second-guess their loyalty. Maybe it's just sexy for one to think that the U.S. Government directly, or indirectly, perpetrated that crime. Maybe being a reader of FTW, in their minds, makes them somehow apart of the real-life Enemy Of The State movie that is Mike Ruppert's supposed life. Of course these people don't have all the information. Therefore, in the context of FTW, these poor souls are living in a fantasy world.

Mike Ruppert, without a doubt, is very good at portraying himself as being quite the benevolent soul. He's "spiritual" and socially conscious. To paraphrase something he recently wrote on his blog, he cannot rest, or be happy, unless the world is a better place. He has sacrificed everything for the sake of us all. Now how can you not dig someone like that? The reality, however, is a little different.

For instance, it might interest some people that when Mike Ruppert moved to Ashland, Or., rather than live the simple, sustainable life (which was closer to what he had living in a one-bedroom apartment in LA), and grow his own tomatoes and lettuce outback of a simple, practical, wasteless, rural dwelling, he instead chose to live in a house. This house had no garden and he made no attempt to create one. Instead, he purchased a $4,000 leather couch, plus a high-quality entertainment center with all the bells and whistles. Rather than shop locally at the co-op, he bought his groceries at Albertson's, to which he drove to and from in his gas-guzzling Ford Bronco. On the weekends he would go out to the bars and try to score tail (preferably very young tail) and to sing karaoke. Often he would frequent The Office, a strip club in Medford, Or.

"But wait," someone might ask, "as a recovered alcoholic in the middle of an alcoholic drug den he would abstain, right?" Well...no. If only that had been the case then many embarrassing situations could have been avoided. Very quickly one could see how necessary AA was for Mike Ruppert, as he is a pathetic drunk. Of course, according to him, he has beaten the addiction, but then again, doesn't that go against AA principles? So why does he cite his twenty years of 12-step work if he no longer walks the walk? It seems a little disingenuous to me. But that's just my opinion and I could be wrong.

Back to the issue of sustainability: Wouldn't it make sense to construct a simple, bare-bones operation that was fluid and flexible, yet secure? In speech, according to Ruppert, this would be the only way. In action, however, he committed the opposite action. Upon moving to Ashland, Mike Ruppert rented a large office space and pulled out all the stops with regard to purchases made to furnish and equip said office (yet, strangely enough, a security system was never brought up). He had dreams of commanding a large office staff that would revere him and be obsequiously at his disposal. He immediately hired an assistant (Woman #1), an attractive woman whom he met at a bar during his first week in town. This woman complained of not having enough work to do, as there really wasn't much justification for Mike Ruppert having an assistant to begin with. But of course that wasn't the actual reason Mike Ruppert had hired her. The real reason was carnal and she rebuffed advances from Ruppert on numerous occasions. When Ruppert's other female employee (Woman #2) alleged sexual harassment and was fired for her trouble, Ruppert requested that his staff write statements to support his position on the matter. Woman #2, therefore, quit her job rather than write something that basically would have said that Mike Ruppert was innocent of any and all inappropriate behavior. In other words, she refused to lie.

The day before the alleged "burglary," Ruppert was in his office all day long. This is not a fact that he has chosen to disclose in any of his writings about said topic. It is, however, a matter of police record and local knowledge. Of course, if one were to take Ruppert's words at face value, one would think that he was somewhere else that entire day, as he already had a ready-made timeline for when the crime took place. He was "at home watching Deadwood," right? That's his alibi, along with the fact that his Bronco "sticks out like a sore thumb." Right. If he was there all day on Sunday, as he normally was, would anyone notice? He would have all day to smash and trash his office.

Also, this has been said, but I'll say it again: nothing was stolen. Doesn't that seem odd? The gun that Mike Ruppert kept in his desk, which was right next to the tapes that Ruppert claims he made of the interactions between himself and his former, female employee, who claims to have been sexually harassed (which he has claimed was stolen by the thieves during the burglary - police record), was still there, after the fact. Nothing was stolen. Nothing other than the computers was damaged. Not even Ruppert's "precious library," or his pictures of his travels around the world, or his display of every FTW newsletter that hangs on the wall of the office's conference room. No TV or other electrical device was damaged. Just enough damage was done to garner the sympathy needed to justify a little extra cash, as well as an office-wide computer upgrade (on computers that were 1-5 years old).

If this is supposed to be a crime of passion, let's say; a crime committed by a disgruntled, drug-addled, former employee, then wouldn't one think that the whole crime scene would be ... just a little more colorful?

If the government did it - it being the "burglary" - then it's kind of needlessly complex, no? It's something they could have done all along, at any time. They wouldn't have needed to throw in some agent(s) to infiltrate a small business run by a selectively paranoid man who doesn't even think to install a simple security system, right? Granted, the burglary is much sexier than the "sabotage" committed by a former employee that later ended in a small claims court judgment on behalf of FTW... Right.

I mean, really...that's some X-files shit right there!

It's the worst friggin' excuse for continuing "to be" that I've ever heard, yet a lot of people buy it. Basically, it's like this: "Uh... yeah, the government is out to get to me because I speak the truth and they tell lies and stuff, and they're bad, so they like, want to put me out of business... .And I know, like, they do a real half-assed job of it, and stuff, because, like, you know, they conspirisize and mastermind all over the world to control the world, and they're evil, and they can bring down the World Trade Center and kill Kennedy, and get away with it, but they can't bring down a simple, small business... that doesn't even have a security system? I mean, I know that's weird... . Seriously, they're gonna kill me... -C-C-Can I have some money?"

I guess what it comes down to is this: think for yourselves. Stop looking for leaders and heroes. One step at a time, guys. Do your own research. There are people who have made significant life decisions based on what Mike Ruppert has said, especially when it comes to money - and we're talking about a guy that can't run a business and is up to his eyeballs in debt. Think for yourselves. Empower yourselves. Don't trade in your status of being a sheep to the status quo for being a sheep to Mike Ruppert, or any other guru for that matter. If you're not going to be a sucker when it comes to big corporations then don't be a sucker when it comes to anything else. Think for yourselves.

The fact of the matter is that the police had only one suspect. The former, female employee that Ruppert speaks of was cleared early-on in the case and so was her friend. After that, the only one left was Mike Ruppert.

Shortly thereafter, he fled the country -- coincidentally right before he was scheduled to take a lie-detector test with the Ashland Police Department.

Pure and simple, folks, it's not a conspiracy and it never was. It at least wasn't a conspiracy against Michael C. Ruppert. If you want to put so much importance on evidence then look at the evidence in this case -- the actual evidence, the circumstantial evidence, the logical evidence. Quit giving the benefit of the doubt. It's like you're trading one evil for another -- no different than someone who hears that Bush lied about WMD's and says, "Well, he's the President, I guess he knows what he's doing..."

Just consider what I'm saying.

Think for yourselves.

How the “Mighty” Fell, Part 1

“Oh how the mighty have fallen…Oh how the mighty yet continue to breathe.” MCR, “From Me to You”, January 31, 2007

Oh how the mighty are not yet behind bars, homeless, or dead from a self-inflicted bullet to the brain. It's been almost a year since MCR returned to the U.S., after having fled it; after having vowed to never return and to henceforth take being "part of the solution" to the next step by being either the chief of some indigenous tribe somewhere (like Martin Sheen at the end of Apocalypse Now) or possibly even consigliere to Hugo Chavez. He wasn't yet quite sure at the time.

But the world is a delicate place for a leader with no cult. He had a good thing and screwed it up. I wonder if he wishes sometimes that he had never moved to Oregon, but rather stayed in his apartment on Magnolia: writing his stories, manning a small staff and, although not exactly importing barrels of money, making just enough cheddar to justify being one's own boss. Most importantly, above and beyond everything else, is that when MCR lived in L.A. he was able to enjoy the right amount of privacy and anonymity required for him to maintain the following he possessed, enjoyed, and wholly took for granted.

You see the thing about MCR is this: he's a bad internet date. He's that all-around perfect guy or gal you've been looking for all your life. He says all the right things, and surprises you frequently with a few more. He gets your blood pumping and makes you feel alive and hopeful. That is, of course, until you meet him and very quickly realize that he is, in every way imaginable, the exact opposite of what you'd expected -- to an almost menacing and predatory degree; in many ways, kinda like a child molester.

To this date, as far as I've been made aware, MCR has continued to reside in NY with Jenna Orkin (or, for those who need refreshing: "the dyke that loves me" "[that girl] I fucked in the a$$ when we went to that ASPO conference in NY..."). None of us ever thought that relationship would last two months. Lucky for Mikey that it did, or one hard-assed rite of passage it would have been until his trust fund kicked in -- which it finally did, I think, sometime in August or September.

Say what you want about MCR but he is lucky. For instance, there was so much evidence proving that he (not the government, meth-dealers, ex-employees, or who-ever-the-hell) was the actual perpetrator of that burglary in Ashland, Or. Again, I don't think many people thought it would turn out the way it did, but it did. To this day the APD, although having named MCR as having been its only suspect, hasn't done anything whatsoever to do anything at all about it. I think MCR was probably just as surprised, being that he fled the country and all, in my opinion, as a direct result of his botched plan to make some easy money -- i.e. committing insurance fraud. This is just one example of how lucky MCR has been. Or, more accurately put: lucky-enough, as more bad has befallen him than good -- most usually by his own doing; in fact, I'm not aware of anything bad that's ever happened to him that wasn't the direct or indirect result of his own power-hungry, desperately sadistic, cosmocentric self. That being the case then what happened in Oregon, i.e. MCR's supposed "downfall" and humiliation, was bound to happen in one form or another at some time, regardless of whether or not he had decided to move out of L.A.

The longer MCR stayed on the activist scene the more his true colors bled through. His days were numbered. To put it one way, he wasn't the genuine article -- a concerned citizen selflessly slaving away to expose and fight the wrongs committed by the United States government. Anyone not a complete sheep whose known Ruppert is well aware of his lust for social status and power. This is where his actions belied his words, his writings and all his friggin' footnotes. He despised fellow 9-11/Peak Oil activists, attacked and dismissed them. Only he was the expert. Only he was worth listening to. As a result, the number of his followers shrunk over time, and increasingly so as his narcissistic frustration and anger swelled. It's always been my belief that, when you get down to it, most rebels are just individuals who're pissed off that they aren't the ones in charge. For all his seemingly endless ranting and raving about the corrupt elite that control the world I have no doubt in my mind that Mike would give his balls for a seat at the conspirator's table. Being that most of the people involved in the 9-11 and Peak Oil activist movements are truly concerned and well-meaning people who are genuinely selfless in their cause, an animal like Ruppert could only move among them undetected for so long. Again, as it was, he was on borrowed time, and as said time passed it was clear that some changes were about to take place. Knowing this, to one degree or another, Mike was determined to remain in the game. Now it was Peak Oil that he began to singularly focus on, but with much more of a doomsday bent than others in the field ("others" such as university professors, geologists, people with the qualifications necessary to address said topic, etcetera etcetera etcetera...), which again served to allow Mike to be special and stand apart.

Mike once said, "Oregon is the promised land for me." He could not have been more wrong. His reasons for wanting to move aside, it never was a practical venture -- at least not in the way it was approached by Ruppert. First of all there wasn't an actual plan...for anything. It was as if Mike assumed that things would naturally fall into place when the times were right. "The Universe will guide me," he said on more than a few occasions when either myself, or a whole bunch of us were trying to talk sense into the man -- trying to get him, for the love of god, to change his mind about moving north. He talked about the universe a lot and how much clout he had with it, being that he was such an awesome guy and all. To the rest of us it seemed that if the universe did have Mike's back then it was for sure going out of its way to send message after message warning him that moving to Oregon was bad ju ju. Take the business, for example, which at the time was operational, sustainable, whose earning potential had already peaked. There was only so much money that could be made from Mike's beloved following who, as a demographic, aren't characteristically wealthy people. Just enough money was made to pay employees, rent, bills, and Mike's expenses, which to briefly state, were lavish. Since there was no plan for relocation that also meant that there hadn't been any money set aside to bankroll the expenses of a move. Being that FTW was a sole proprietorship, Mike was FTW and vise versa. Mike was up to his neck in debt. Money was owed to credit card companies, vendors. There were back taxes that would have to be dealt with, state and federal. The whole thing was a mess.

It was at the beginning of 2006 and Mike was determined to make the move sometime during the first half of February. Despite having made bogus predictions within the past two years about when exactly the fall of western society would happen, for some reason that now slips my mind Mike had come to the conclusion that the shit would hit the fan on a world-wide scale in March or April – or maybe it was May; anyway, according to Mike it wasn’t that far off. Of course it’s quite understandable how, in the face of impending societal collapse, money would be low on the list of priorities. That said, I was never able to reconcile Mike’s thinking along those lines. How was it that Mike could have such big plans for FTW, such as expanding the business on a five-fold scale once in Oregon, while at the same time believing that life as we have known it was about to come to a tragically sudden and, no doubt, bloody end? Mike had spoken many times about how it was his dream that someday FTW would become as big as The New York Times. How he could sort out those two ideas is way beyond my scope of imagination.

What was very clear was what Mike expected from Oregon with the same vigor with which he desired it all his life (of course Reality ended up presenting him with a severely disappointing polar opposite). To put it simply, Mike wanted to be a leader of the masses just like his sworn enemies, his secret idols. He had always been well received in Oregon whenever he gave lectures there and he just assumed that in the wake of all the destruction to come he would just naturally be able to step up as a wise chieftain, warlord, or commandant somewhere – most likely in the Ashland area, being that that’s where he was going. I am not kidding. His "relocation fantasy" was based on the idea that Peak Oil was going to hit and hit hard. Almost overnight it would be anarchy as the fuel that made our way of life possible simply just ran out. It would be like Mad Max and Road Warrior, basically. The communities that remained, or that would crop up during this time, would have to circle the wagons and be able to defend themselves in order to survive. Mike spoke of building a small army that we would train – he even said I could be one of the D.I.’s! He would whip those hippies into shape, train them up to Delta caliber, arm them, and when the time was right all of us would head a few miles south and blow up the mountain pass separating Oregon from California. The reasoning for this was to keep the thousands of tired, hungry, scared, fleeing California refugees from entering the Rogue Valley (where Ashland and a few other small towns are located) to suck dry whatever realistic chance of hope and survival the communities they were to eventually come across still had – they would be like locusts, a walking scorched-earth policy. Yes, this was cruel, Mike admitted, but it was necessary. The pie would not be big enough for everyone to have a slice.

To be continued…

"[E]specially a little girl..."

"Years ago, just after he had left the LAPD and was staying at random friends' houses, Mike claimed that a 11 or 12 year old daughter of a neighbor and her friend dropped by the apartment while Mike was there alone. He said that nothing happened, other than the girl fondling him, getting him worked up enough to induce him to kick the girls out before he took a cold shower. It appears that appropriate sexual conduct, let alone personal behavior, is one maladaptive gray zone for Mike...Mike has a long way to go to overcome his sexism and deeply rooted resentment of women. I know he was molested by his mother when he was nine but he's totally responsible for healing himself of that wound now. When he and I were still engaged, Mike said that he was interested in adopting. That freaked me out, thought I didn't let it show. Many of the kids who were molested turn around and reprduce the behavior as adults in a subconscious effort to change the outcome or resolve conflicted feelings. I had an intuitive chill in the pit of my stomach against the idea of adopting with Mike, especially a little girl."

-- MCR's fiance, 2005-6

Be Warned...

In the end, or at least during the last phase of FTW as it existed until the day of its demise in Ashland, Or., there wasn't much room for ruddy, clueless optimism now that MCR had split town faster than a hooker leaves Salt Lake. Things were happening too quickly. Every day seemed to present a new set of problems, mostly having to do with money. Sales were falling dramatically, either due to IT failure or lack of customer interest. Either way it was going to shit.

Although MCR had surprised some, if not all, of his friends, by leaving the country, most remained loyal to him, and helped to the extent that they could. A few, like Carolyn Baker here to the right, was a dedicated follower of Ruppert's going on six years. A very passionate woman, strong in her beliefs, toting a PhD she would write well-meaning tirades for FTW every once and a while. It went without saying that she was considered a chair holder in Mike Inner-Circle.

Here you can read her story about how she came to be editor in chief after Ruppert left the country. Basically, she went up for a visit and stay something like four months before deciding she'd had enough. Now that's a friend: someone who will drop everything to help you. Suffice it to say this is no more. Below is an excerpt of the article referenced above, which is followed by her resignation letter. I do, however, suggest reading her entire story to gain a much fuller perspective -- assuming that you just might be into this just as much as I am.

Excerpt from: "Samurai Sunrise: The Last Hours Before Mike Ruppert's Departure From The United States," Carolyn Baker writes:

"As I ponder his thirty years of harassment and attack by the U.S. government and the so-called progressives, ill-informed, who willingly join the chorus of defamation, I am most astonished by one thing: None of the attacks on Michael C. Ruppert have ever been delivered at the only level that really matters—the impeccably-researched, painstakingly-documented evidence that he has committed his life to delivering in the most ethical, thorough, fastidious, and intellectually sound manner. Little intelligence, critical thinking, or valor is required for National Enquirer-style cheap shots, lurid depictions, and ad homonym attacks. How do those begin to compare with the resolve of one human being to risk his life, his career, his financial security, and his reputation in order to uncover evidence which he has not only researched but onerously lived and experienced?"

As I just recently mentioned, Carolyn would go on to sing a different tune. So, without further ado, CAROYN BAKER'S RESIGNATION LETTER:

From: carolyn@*****.org
Sent: Saturday, November 04, 2006 10:55 AM
To: Mike Ruppert
Cc: admin@copvcia.com; Ken Levine; Mike Kane; Ray Kohlman; Jennakilt@aol.com; Marion ***; Spencer *****; KLevine***@********
Subject: FTW NO LONGER HAS AN EDITOR

To All Named In This Email:

Based on a plethora of unanswered questions about Mike Ruppert's departure from the U.S. in July, the deplorable condition in which FTW's finances were left by MCR, and no concrete, verifiable evidence that his life was ever in danger when he left, and given the abusive, unprofessional behavior displayed by Mike Ruppert since his departure toward the Ashland office staff and anyone who does not choose to agree with or serve his singular cause, I am no longer willing to serve as editor in any capacity, and I am not willing to post any further articles by anyone for any purpose and thereby collude in what appears to be the intentional, deliberate, well-orchestrated destruction of FTW by Mike Ruppert which began in July, 2006 and which any way you spin it IS A CRIME. That destruction is both tragic and profoundly unnecessary, and it is now the fait acompli that MCR accused the Ashland office of carrying out some weeks ago. Mike Ruppert has a few non-Ashland disciples left, and they will do his bidding for publishing his last article. If Spencer is still around and is willing to continue working another day for free, he will probably publish whatever self-serving drivel MCR wishes to post. This is just what you wanted, eh Mike, no writers left and now you can take what little money is left in FTW, plead for more, and run even farther away from the mess you created than you already are? I don't give a rat's ass what you say about me in your final article. Whether it is ugly or glowing, if you said it, it's a lie.

Mike says he's "too sick" to deal with my comments? Ever since I've known him, whenever there's anything he doesn't want to deal with, he's "too busy", "too stressed", "too pre-occupied" with some project--usually one that he calls "the most important message of my life"-- to deal with anything that he prefers not to deal with.

I do not wish to be associated in any manner with FTW and will from this point utilize my energy to pursue my personal career agenda. I will also do everything in my power to dissociate my name with Michael C. Ruppert. While I will continue to respect the writings and research of Mike Ruppert, he has proven himself to be devoid of integrity and inexorably incapable of taking ANY responsibility for his own behavior beyond making feigned amends and expressing feigned remorse which lasts, oh I would say, around five minutes. For his devotees, personal behavior is largely irrelevant, and on that issue, Karl Rove would ecstatically agree with them. Some would say "Fighting fascism isn't pretty." I don't recall that any of us has asked for "pretty". What we have asked for are fundamental qualities of human decency: accountability, truthfulness, integrity, and respect. Such a statement inherently implies that the end justifies the means and that it is OK to use fascist techniques to fight fascism, especially when one glibly laughs them off as "part of my German heritage." An individual who excuses this kind of behavior has already lost his/her self, and may never get it back.Furthermore, I choose NOT to receive the library and research files from Marion . They are not my problem, nor will they "pay me off" and "shut me up". Nor will I provide peace of mind for MCR so that he can know where they are. That would mean I would have to have further contact with him which I am not willing to have. I consider them the booby prize, the white elephant, or perhaps "hush money" for the hysterical, deceitful ride that Mike Ruppert has taken all of us on for the least four months. My paramount regret is that I chose to take the ride, but I congratulate myself for being able to stand back and see the madness and abysmal lack of integrity that I was facilitating with the best of intentions--you know, that thing that the road to hell is paved with. My hope is that those who continue to defend MCR will one day be able to stop compartmentalizing (i.e. "Sometimes he can be a real asshole but he's so intelligent") and open their eyes and understand the cult-leader characteristics of their hero, BEFORE not after, they drink the Kool Aid. I am humbled by the necessity of admitting that I speak from my own experience, having been a "cult member" for six years until my up close and personal experiences of the past four months blasted the blinders from my eyes. We all need heroes, sheroes, mentors, and guides, but there comes a time when we must "kill the Buddha" and become our own heroes, sheroes, mentors, and guides. Otherwise, we are actually worse off than the American sheeple we are supposedly working to awaken.

I especially want to acknowledge the Ashland staff: Marion, Spencer, Brendan, as well as Ken Levine for their stunning, mostly unpaid efforts, for the past three months in order to save a dying FTW. I wish all of us well as we extricate ourselves from intolerable toxicity and move on to pursue and enrich our personal and professional lives. For my part, I want to apologize to Marion, Brendan, Spencer, and Ken for taking so long see the forest for the trees, the "Truth & Lies" if you will, of Mike Ruppert. I have learned an enormous lesson in this experience about trust--who deserves it and who doesn't.One last comment: Had the Pentagon, the White House, the Federal Reserve, and the Carlyle Group set out together to obliterate FTW, they could not have been more successful than Mike Ruppert has been. Mike Ruppert's intentional destruction of FTW has been a gargantuan betrayal of his readers, subscribers, supporters, employees, and worst of all, a heinous betrayal of the resistance in the United States . Please remove me from all discussions of the fate of FTW and Mike Ruppert.

Carolyn Baker

Mike's responce lisped and stuttered mercilessly as he chucked one sterile threat after another at Carolyn. It's hard to imagine that at one recent point during this time she and Mike cuddled on Mike's $5,000, sustainable-living leather sofa in Ashland, eating pizza and watching movies. Again, I might not be able to stop myself from adding a comment or two.

From: Mike Ruppert [mailto:stgeorge119@gmail.com]

Sent: Sunday, November 05, 2006 8:18 AM

To: Michael KaneCc: carolyn@carolynbaker.org; FTW Admin: Brendan; Ken Levine; Ray Kohlman; Jennakilt@aol.com; Marion Black; Spencer Merkel; KLevine641@aol.comSubject:

Re: FTW NO LONGER HAS -- A word on libel and message for Spencer

Enough bullshit, Carolyn.

Even within a small group like this, libel can is a legal issue if it is intended to unfairly cause damage or harm to a personal reputation or harm corporate interests. In a corporate environment like this, where assets are at stake, I think the laws might be even stronger. After all the laws always favor corporations, don´t they?(FTW was never a corporation. It tried to get there but didn't quite make it. Of course at the time Mike's writing this FTW was just as far away from being a corporation as the brass ring from Mike's grasp.) Of course if you were to publish such crap or even circulate it through emails as you suggested (easily discoverable via subpoena) it would a dead-bang, open and shut case of libel. (It's not libel if it's true, Mike.)

Ray Kohlman (BTW, I've checked and Ray Kohlman's not a real lawyer. He probably has a J.D. but in none of the fifty states is he licensed to practice law. This is Mike's pitbull.) frequently visits New Mexico and can file suit against you there. You would have to get a lawyer and the first thing your lawyer would ask for is your PROOF -- proof like I put in Rubicon. I know proof. I have never been sued. Whoever led you down this primrose path, fed you bullshit and manipulated you will NEVER step forward to back you up. (I can't say this enough but, there's proof up the ass and around the corner -- the shit is everywhere -- Mike's just banking on intimidation mixed with the small chance that anyone would actually take him to court, which is a very dangerous way to ride there, cowboy. The reason Mike hasn't been sued in the past is because 1) his writings are too small time (really no different that what I'm doing here with this blog) to come to the attention of those he was writing about; and if so, such writing would be laughed off as just more crackpot conspiracy bullshit lowlife drivel. Basically, in a nutt-sack, Mike hasn't been sued because nobody takes him seriously; and 2) Why bother bringing a suite against a man who hardly has anything? The lawyer's fees would dwarf the amount of money one would be awarded in a judgment against Mike. What would be the point other than that? Like I'm going to shell out a bunch of my own money to expose this guy for what everyone already knows him to be? Get real, Mike. Get it into your head: YOU ARE NOT SPECIAL; THE UNIVERSE DOESN'T HAVE A PLAN FOR YOU!!!!)

They will leave you twisting because you were the only person stupid enough to put all these accusations in writing and sign your name to it. You were the perfect patsy. After you´ve explained to your lawyer what ¨evidence¨ you have his only possible advice to you would be: ¨Settle¨, ¨Settle now¨. You absultely were used. But it sure wasn´t by me. (What a way to treat a former friend who, just a few months prior was disgustingly loyal to and gagingly sentimental about the man:

Mike may remember it differently, but I remember the two of us sitting at the table across from each other as Don passionately crooned these words, our singing the song together with gusto, smiling through our tears at each other, cherishing a moment in time that we had never shared before and would never share again. The album was over, and I had broken. My tears were unstoppable. Then Mike said, 'I’d like you to go get your camera.' I was too distraught to ask why and after wiping my face and regaining composure, I brought my camera into the dining room where we were sitting.
'Now,' he said, 'I’d like you to take a picture of me.' He turned away from me in profile pose and looked out onto the deck. I snapped the picture and proofed it on the screen of my digital camera then stood dumfounded as he said with a somber, stone-like face, 'From this moment on, we will not hug, we will not touch, and we will begin to prepare. This is the way of the warrior going into battle—the way of a samurai. I must prepare myself.'”)

Marion has indicated that there is a trust settlement offer. Ray had begun the process of confirming this. Soon he´ll be able to start executing on my behalf. I´m already personally trashed, my company is destroyed, so I don´t give a rat´s ass what people will say. I am ¨radioactive¨ as they say, but I am not dead. I can still move and that makes me dangerous. (And I'm sure that you'd agree that none of this could be constued as a threat, right Mike?)

I will get medical help and may have to return to the states to get quick access to the Trust. Who cares anymore? It would take only a very small portion of that to sue your ass off in New Mexico (In my opinion, I think it'll take about a year, or a year and a half for ol'Mike to blow his wad). You have done more damage than you can possibly know to someone who has NEVER lied to you and an organization you professed to love. You were stupid enough to sign your name to these messages and I seriously doubt if you´ll have the common sense to ponder what a serious legal sling you have just put yourself in.

Be warned.

Money is the only thing...that will make a difference.

(What follows are a few emails written by MCR in October of 2006. They're a good example of the kind of beautiful prose that only narcissism, paranoia, and an undeserved sense of accomplishment can create.)

...

Look, I don’t know what else to do write now. Treat this as confidential and let me take the lead on public disclosures unless I disappear. I am moving fast and have little time.

A lot of people need to know what’s happening here.

I have tied WING TV directly to the FBI and to the sabotage in my office and this court case. I’m fighting for my life.

Mike

-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Ruppert [mailto:mruppert@copvcia.com]
Sent: Thursday, October 06, 2005 9:06 PMTo: 'Judith Plant'Cc: 'KLevine641@aol.com'; 'Chris Plant'; 'Ailene Warner'Subject:
RE: Odds and ends

Just back from NY. There is a pending death in the family. The FBI has – within the last three days -- used agents and illegally raided my bank account and taken $5,200. Someone filed an appeal to a court case I had previously won, signed my name on the subpoena while the FBI intercepted all mail notifying me of the court date. I never even knew about it. When I failed to show up for a hearing I had never heard about a judgment was issued and my bank account looted yesterday. Sure, I can win this but it will take maybe two years and thousands of dollars in legal fees and I’ll probably never get the money back from the stooge (Chris Fusco) the FBI used who they had planted in my office.

In the meantime, your best-selling author is about to become homeless and may, within weeks, be seeking political asylum in a foreign country. I am penniless. WING TV has called for someone to assassinate me as a war criminal (three days ago). (No they didn't. When he told us this we all listened to their "radio" show where they had supposedly said that MCR should be put down as a war criminal. Well, suffice it to say they said no such thing about MCR or anybody else for that matter being assassinated. Thus we all assumed that Ruppert never listened to the broadcast but rather took the word of some douche bag friend of his. No to mention that it was very sexy for him to believe.) [That’s exactly what happened before Malcolm X was murdered.]

The reason I demanded is because we had already discussed this once and reached an agreement which you forgot about. I need every freaking penny – every cent – I can get my hands on and I need it right now. Ken Levine needs every penny I can give him right now because the FBI is working him hard on a bullshit case as well. We are enemies of the state.

Somebody please understand: threats are being made on my life. The FBI is seriously messing with me and if I don’t get some money soon you will never see me again and I will be sleeping under a bridge somewhere, using an assumed name, and asking for food money.

I cannot make it any clearer than this. I do not have time to be polite now. Everything is on the line and I will take whatever steps are necessary. It would be nice to have some real support that is tangible and that allows me to eat and pay my rent.

I am inches away from activating contingency plans which might necessitate me going deep underground. Money is the only thing that will make a difference.

Mike

"Oh how the mighty have fallen..." MCR, January 31, 2007

Oh how the mighty are not yet behind bars, homeless, or dead from a self-inflicted bullet to the brain.

It's been almost a year since MCR returned to the U.S., after having fled it; after having vowed to never return and to henceforth take being "part of the solution" to the next step by being either the chief of some indiginous tribe somewhere (like Martin Sheen at the end of Apocolypse, right?) or possibly even consiglere to Hugo Chavez. He wasn't yet quite sure at the time.

But the world is a delicate place for a leader with no cult. He had a good thing and screwed it up. I wonder if he wishes sometimes that he had never moved to Oregon, but rather stayed in his apartment on Magnolia: writing his stories, manning a small staff and, although not exactly importing barrels of money, making just enough chedder to justify being one's own boss. Most importantly, above and beyond everything else, is that when MCR lived in L.A. he was able to enjoy the right amount of privacy and anonymity required for him to maintain the following he possessed, enjoyed, and wholey took for granted back in those days.

You see the thing about MCR is this: he's a bad internet date. He's that all-around perfect guy or gal you've been looking for all your life. He says all the right things, and surprises you frequently with a few more. He gets your blood pumping and makes you feel alive and hopeful. That is, of course, until you meet him and very quickly realize that he is, in every way imaginable, the exact opposite of what you'd expected -- to an almost menacing and predatory degree; in many ways, kinda like a child molester.

To this date, as far as I've been made aware, MCR has continued to reside in NY with Jenna Orkin (or, for those who need refreshing: "the dyke that loves me" "[that girl] I fucked in the ass when we went to that ASPO conference in NY..."). None of us ever thought that relationship would last two months. Lucky for Mikey that it did, or one hard-assed rite of passage it would have been until his trust fund kicked in -- which it finally did, I think, sometime in August or September.

Say what you want about MCR but he is lucky. For instance, there was so much evidence proving that he (not the government, meth-dealers, ex-employees, or who-ever-the-hell) was the actual perpetrater of that burglary in Ashland, Or. Again, I don't think many people thought it would turn out the way it did, but it did. To this day the APD, although having named MCR as having been its only suspect, hasn't done anything whatsoever to do anything at all about it. I think MCR was probably just as surprised, being that he fled the country and all, in my opinion, as a direct result of his botched plan to make some easy money -- i.e. committing insurance fraud. This is just one example of how lucky MCR has been. Or, more acurately put: lucky-enough, as more bad has befallen him than good -- most usually by his own doing; in fact, I'm not aware of anything bad that's ever happened to him that wasn't the direct or indirect result of his own power-hungry, desperatley sadistic, cosmocentric self. That being the case then what happened in Oregon, i.e. MCR's supposed "downfall" and humiliation, was bound to happen in one form or another at some time, regardless of whether or not he had decided to move out of L.A.

The longer MCR stayed on the activist scene the more his true colors bled through. His days were numbered. To put it one way, he wasn't the genuine article -- a concerned citizen selflessly slaving away to expose and fight the wrongs commited by the United States government. Anyone not a complete sheep whose known Ruppert is well aware of his lust for social status and power. This is where his actions belied his words, his writings and all his friggin' footnotes. He despised fellow 9-11/Peak Oil activists, attacked and dismissed them. Only he was the expert. Only he was worth listening to. As a result, the number of his followers shrunk over time, and increasingly so, as his narrisistic frustration and anger swelled. It's always been my belief that, when you get down to it, most rebels are just individuals who're pissed off that they aren't the ones in charge. For all his seemingly endless ranting and raving about the corrupt elite that control the world I have no doubt in my mind that Mike would give his balls for a seat at the conspirator's table. Being that most of the people involved in the 9-11 and Peak Oil activist movements are truly concerned and well-meaning people who are genuinley selfless in their cause, an animal like Ruppert could only move among them undetected for so long. Again, as it was, he was on borrowed time, and as said time passed it was clear that some changes were about to take place. Knowing this, to one degree or another, Mike was determined to remain in the game and shift gears. Now it was Peak Oil that he began to singularly focus on, but with much more of a doomsday bent than others in the field ("others" such as university professors, geologists, people with the qualifications necessary to address said topic, etcetera etcetera etcetera...), which again served to allow Mike to be special and stand apart.

Mike once said, "Oregon is the promised land for me." He could not have been more wrong. His reasons for wanting to move aside, it never was a practical venture -- at least not in the way it was approached by Ruppert. First of all there wasn't an actual plan...for anything. It was as if Mike assumed that things would natually fall into place when the times were right. "The Universe will guide me," he said on more than a few occassions when either myself, or a whole bunch of us were trying to talk sense into the man -- trying to get him, for the love of god, to change his mind out moving north. He talked about the universe a lot and how much clout he had with it, being that he was such an awesome guy and all. To the rest of us it seemed that if the universe did have Mike's back then it was for sure going out of its way to send message after message warning him that moving to Oregon was bad ju ju. Take the business, for example. At the time operational, sustainable, and had peaked a long time ago. There was only so much money that could be made from Mike's beloved following who, as a demographic, aren't characteristically wealthy people. Just enough money was made to pay employees, rent, bills, and Mike's expenses, which to briefly state, were lavish. Since there was no plan for relocation that also meant that there hadn't been any money set aside to bankroll the expenses. Being that FTW was a sole proprietorship, Mike was FTW and vise versa. Mike was up to his neck in debt. Money was owed to credit card companies, vendors. There were backtaxes to would have to be dealt with, state and federal. The whole thing was a mess.

But, No. These were just minor things not worth a second thought; things not worth expending the energy worrying about. They would be taken care of in time. Sure.

I know that what he wanted and had in mind were quite different from what reality presented him. To say that Mike wanted to take FTW in a new direction would be an understatment. His "relocation fantasy" was based on the idea that Peak Oil was going to hit and hit hard. Almost overnight it would be anarchy as the fuel that made our way of life possible simply ran out. It would be like Mad Max and Roadwarrior, basically.

It was easier to work for him then, too. MCR lived and worked down the street, but the actual FTW headquarters was set up in a one-room apartment on Magnolia Blvd in Sherman Oaks, CA. At any on time there would be two to four people (necessarily or unnessarilly) employed there, performing various tasks as delegated to them by Mike, and yeah, there were a lot of frustrating days when MCR would get so annoying you'd want to choke him, it wasn't really all that bad of a gig. He would only come into the office once or twice a week to pick up his bills and lord over those of whom I came to learn were not just merely his employees, but actual extensions of the man himself. He'd call bullshit meetings purely for the pleasure of giving orders and hearing himself speak -- b/c he thinks he sounds wise. Admittedly, looking back on those days, I really believe that he believed that we believed everything that came out of his mouth as if it were the Word of God. I have the emails to prove it; enough emails to almost make you feel sorry for the man whose employees at the very least took as a sad joke and at the very worst felt nothing but hatred towards the man.

Like I said, Lucky. Not many people that I know of are able to do that. Such turns of events allow me to be more open to the possibility that fairies, sprites, and trolls are very real and something to be taken seriously. From the time that I first learned of the break-in, all the way to the very moment I sit here writing this, I remain in awe of everything that has transpired since July 5, 2006. Why it continues to be a subject of interest for me, to the extent that the events that took place around that time still feel