Tuesday, January 25, 2005

CounterPunch Strikes Again: Kurt Nimmo's Utterly Irrelevant Attack on Ruppert & Rubicon

It's a shame when someone you've appreciated and respected is found swimming
in the gutter. For example when Alan Dershowitz -- thought to be by many one
of the nation's top legal minds -- turns out to be a Zionist torture-monger.
That sort of thing can cause you to pause, reflect, and respond, which should
be a positive thing in the long run. It's the kind of moment where you set your
priorities, your morality and your understanding of the world back on kilter.


So this is a tale of two articles. In my own reaction to Michael C. Ruppert's
Crossing the Rubicon book, I go
into detail
about the clear evidence Ruppert presents of US government complicity
in the events of September 11th 2001. Dick Cheney is connected to the numerous
-- and covered-up -- war game exercises that shut down the nation's air defenses
during the actual plane attacks.


This evidence, spread out over several chapters in the book, seems to have
eluded Kurt Nimmo, who is usually a bit sharper at finding the important information
in those topics he chooses to address.


Nimmo's
low point
is his charge that Ruppert is making a profit from the sale of
his book, which somehow should detract from Ruppert's character.[1] This gives
Nimmo an excuse to avoid the content of the book:



"It was obviously an evening tailored for the middle class, the sort
of people who have enough money to buy Ruppert's book and apparently have
problems with "personal consumption," that is to say buying things
they don't need with credit cards."



In fact, Ruppert's book is on sale right now at FromtheWilderness.com
for "$15.99 + s&h" which for a 675 page 6"x9"
book in today's market is quite a steal. Nimmo tangents off from this charge
into a socialistic type rant that because Ruppert isn't as dirt poor as others
(such as Nimmo), he should be dismissed. No matter that Michael Ruppert had
been homeless, unemployable, charged with mental instability for daring to accuse
the CIA of importing narcotics into Los Angeles.


Does Kurt Nimmo really want book publishing for profit to be considered evil?
Or is that consideration reserved for CounterPunch's enemies list? The CounterPunch
site doesn't seem to have an ethical problem promoting its own for-profit catalogue
of titles.



"Precious metals aside, millions of Americans are finding it increasingly
difficult to pay for shelter and food."



But why is this relevant, Kurt? Certainly you're not trying to put the state
of the economy onto the shoulders of an investigative journalist? What sort
of misguided attack is this?



"As Mike [Ruppert] apparently sees it, I am cosigned to a fate of
pushing a wheelbarrow down Main Street, piled with useless greenbacks to buy
a loaf of bread, like German paupers of yore."



This is quite an absurd series of smears. Rather than evaluating the truth
or falseness of Ruppert's claims, Nimmo would have Ruppert judged as some tyrannical
political leader who has just bankrupted the nation.



"Ruppert may call Dick Cheney "a murderer," again
stating the obvious,
but offers no concrete solution for getting rid
of such multiple and repeat felons beyond slimming down the consumption habits
of middle class Americans in preparation for the Grapes of Wrath, the sequel."



On no, Kurt, when Ruppert calls Dick Cheney "a murderer" he's
directly tying him to the September 11th attacks on World Trade Center and Pentagon.
That's the part you've omitted. That's the part CounterPunch doesn't want to
touch. That's the part that won't make it into corporate mass media. And thank
God that Ruppert's eye for the relevant has brought this information out. You
could learn a thing or three from the man.


 


 


1. CounterPunch.org, Gold-Plated Activism? The Problem with Mike Ruppert, By
KURT NIMMO, January 21, 2005