Mike's Story Part 20 - Snafu

By Jenna Orkin

To Mike 10-20-2006:

 

   ...be careful of email trails. a few days ago a sequence got forwarded to X in one email of which u said he was 'full of excuses...' 

[And, since Mike was no longer sure whom he could trust among the FTW staff]...remember that it's possible to set up a blog in the name of mike ruppert2 any time for free.

 

Email to Mike 10-22-2006:

 

after the conference call, it occurred to me that even if [the webmaster] were fired, xxx could replace him with, say, her best friend's niece and you'd have the same problem of sabotage again. so the underlying issue is control of the webmaster... 

your [political] arguments speak for themselves. where you live is your fucking business. ftw's credibility is based on the innate truth of ftw's work. 

i understand that it would be hard to explain coming back after the burning bridge article. but so what? you've learned things. there were factors you hadn't known about. these are complexities that readers would understand.  your enemies would jump for joy in their netherworld; that is what they do for a living. but allowing that to guide one's behavior is truly 'letting the terrorists win...'

  i'd like to talk to your unconscious for a moment. i'm concerned that your unconscious could think, 'if i come home after having written the burning bridge article, my fans will be disappointed.  but maybe that would turn into sympathy if i came home because i was sick and couldn't get healthcare otherwise. even X would relent and give me money for a ticket.' then you might allow some sickness to get the better of you... 

  please be on guard against this. you're vigilant against exterior enemies. but they have a mole in you whom you have to watch out for too.

 

From Mike to numerous recipients 10-25-2006:

My US cell phone was shut off today, I guess the hopeful message from X yesterday did not impact what was really a fait accompli.

   These are tough questions. I can only offer my two cents and suggest my priorities.

   1. I would like to get a new power executed to Ray ASAP. Ken, you shouldn´t be troubled. How do i do that without going to US embassy.

   2. Ray, in Ashland is a box with all of the Ruppert Family trust documents and records. That´s worth $300,000 to me-us. >From that I can pay you, Ken, and eventually the creditors. My stepmother may already be dead. I don´t know. But if we don´t have that box and the original trust docs we have nothing. This needs to get accomplished fairly quickly.

   3. We still have asstes. Ken has the mailing list and the archives are worth a lot. I will keep the copyrights to DVDs.

   Beyond this I am helpless to advise and can only rely on you two.

   Going to the doctor now.

FTW was now insolvent, with 200-250 orders unfilled and no credit left with Fedex or UPS.  Staff were working for no pay, some with thousands of dollars owed.  If the website was taken down, the newspaper article would no doubt be scrapped. 

 

From Mike 10-25-2006:

 

How do you evaluate archives etc. I should retain copyrights for DVDs in case of future miracles. There are lots of intangible assets and valuation but I don´t think the mailing list should be put up as equity due to privacy concerns. That´s the biggest asset of all though.    X in the Ashland office knows exactly where the box with the Trust docs is and can put her hands on it almost instantly. What we don't know for sure where the ORIGINAL trust docs are. Y sent something to the Portland firm. Don´t know what or if it has come back. You already have the name and contact info.    The key is that my stepmotrher may have died a months ago. As soon as she dies, it´s split 50/50 and there´s nothing her family can do about it. She´s past 90 and nuttier than a fruitcake. Her family wouldn´t dare put her on the stand now with her Alzheimer´s. The trust was always a 50/50 split between me and her heirs...    Medical report to come soon.

 

10/27/06:  Ray Kohlman wrote that as of the previous day 1445 east coast time, the Ashland police had no interest in Mike, except as a victim of B&E. [breaking and entering.] They had no idea when or where rumors of "person of interest" began.  

From Mike 10-27-2006:  

God, thank you Ray!!!!!!!!!

 

   Now where did all this bs originate.

Meanwhile, Michael Kane, for personal reasons, announced his resignation as Energy Editor.

Mike 10-27-20: 

  

I think we have to let FTW die.   Mike*****

On the phone he added mournfully, "I'd only been keeping it alive for him, because he loved it so much."

To Mike 10-29-2006:

I can't help thinking that at some level you do what you do for copy...  

Mike to me and Ray 10-30-2006:

CONFIDENTIAL

Ray, I´ve cc´d Jenna becasue she´s my only real sigificant other, aside from you. Stop laughing.

(Jenna, you may share with Mike Kane if you wish)

  Details you need to know.

  I am very sick. In my heart of hearts I just want to come home and stay out of public sight but would have no place to sleep if I did. There may be some breaks in Vz soon, but there have been a lot of maybes lately.

  As for FTW, it´s so fucked up I can´t describe it. X cannot sign checks because there´s a new bank account that Y walked out on. She´s sent paperwork to Z in LA and is waiting for its return so she can even write a check. She cannot ship product until she has those. She cannot ship you the Trust docs because she apparently can´t access any money. Catch 2222.

X´s cell phone number is XXX XXX XXXX. She takes calls, is no nonsense and straightforward. She´ll talk to you. You can cut through to simple solutions quickly.

I don´t know what the balances are in Ashland. And I just cannot figure out why the subscriber stories are still free. It is not that people don´t want to buy, it is that they can´t. I understand there have been glitches in converting to the new system (which was needed), but I have heard about four times now over more than a month that the store would be fixed and subscriber stories no longer free any day.

  I really don´t know where Y´s head is at these days and he´s just not going to take charge. As soon as I get the new PofA from you I´ll find a way to have it notarized properly, but please understand I am also almost out of money down here. Jenna´s made a deposit of $400 for me. I´ll sell my watch and last few little gold pieces if necessary but there is nothing more important for me right now than getting a new PofA into your hands.  

  If you just get me the Pof A, I´ll get it back to you. But it´s got to be fast. Make sure I have a street/delivery address. I have no idea how to solve the unable to write checks problem in Ashland. Y can solve that quickly if and when he sends X the paperwork that will allow her to write checks on the new Ashland bank.

  Ray, the Ruppert family trust is my ONLY hope right now. When you want and are able I will hook you with the LA attorney, a Yale grad and glacially slow W, who I retained after Dad died. Big mistake. I can give you all the background. Technically we´re supposed to wait until ¨[Mike's stepmother]¨dies but the trust can be dissolved earlier. Dad left an amendment saying that it was to be dissolved immediately after his death. They´re contesting it and saying I ain´t entitled to nothing, even the hafl he brought into it. The original deal as 50-50 split after [Mike's stepmother's]death. "XY" is my mother nickname. Her full name is YZ. If alive, she is 90, has Alzheimer´s and is nuttier than a fruitcake. But no one has even verified she´s alive in more than a year. Dad died in May of 05.

  Remember ¨Psycho?¨

  FOR THE RECORD -- If I do not live to see the money my father left me, I want you to use it to pay off all debts, pay all the writers, Carolyn, Stan, Mike Kane and all staff. Pay Ken and, or course, yourself (very well). I have no family. With Y solo on the Pof A all I can imagine is that it will just sit in a bank or go to my stepmother´s... niece who is an Alabama Democrat for Bush.

  Whatever´s left (might be a chunk) please split between Jenna Orkin and Mike Kane.

  This is not much of a will but when you have an executed PofA it will be all you´ll need.

  Please hurry Ray. Please. Please.

  I have no intention of doing anything irreversible as soon as it´s done. That´s not the point. But I just might be able to sleep one night without worrying about it being lost due to the fact that no one went after it and saved the documents. My share is probably over $300,000 right now. Even a negotiated half or a quarter of that could save my life.

 Mike

Mike to an ally 10-30-2006: 

...my frIend, I must trust that you can completely adhere to what I have asked here. My life is in danger and on the line. I need to come home. It is also possible that people who are not FTW´s friends are planning on taking the web site down soon. We are developing a plan.

   Please do nothing. You will here more from me, Mike, and Jenna soon enough...

10-31-2006 

Ray ''

  You´re going to have to read between the lines, but we know each other well enough that I know you can do that.

  1. The bad guys... fucked up. They let Mike Kane get his story up describing my health problems which are not getting any better. The Cuban doc has prescribed nothing. The response is overwhelming and now we see that there can be ample financial aid to accomplish two things A), get me back to the States, NYC for medical treatment and B) save the FTW web site. BUT NOTHING CAN GO THROUGH THE FTW WEB SITE. WE´LL NEVER SEE IT.

  2. X has outed himself as one of the sources of the unfounded rumors. We already know that Y was hostile before I left the country and helped spread them...  [One of the offers for the website] would have destroyed FTW and castrated me. At minimum X should be asked to take a polygraph exam by Ashland PD, but that´s much further down the road. We should squeeze X, but never directly. jusy keep working around him.

  3. Y is coming back around and we must leave the door open for her.  [She] was mind fucked and she´s worth every effort to save.

  4. We have no gauarntee that we will see any money donated through the web site. Yesterday, X said she couldn´t even write checks until Y sent her back papers for the new bank. But still she sees every penny coming in through the store and none of us have any idea how much money is coming in or where it is going.  (She can move it electronically) That includes Y. Why is the subscriber-only section still free?????????????????????? Where is a freaking sales report? how much money is coming in? Ray could really help here with timely phone calls to Y and X that mentions nothing of these plans.

 

  5. Y´s loyalty is questionable. What can I say about his competence? At present I don´t think I can write ANYTHING for the web site because of the fraud issue. I am on record as opposing any fruadulent behavior and there´s a clear record showing that I had nothng to do with these decisions. However, Y was on the original PofA and now he is the ONLY person with Power. Ray, maybe we can use that. So if the web site goes down and the store closes, etc, the fraud charges kind of roll in his direction, don´t they? The point is that they can´t close the business yet. They´re laible and I´m not.

  I (and Mike Kane) are leaning towards a guerilla web transmission of an emegerency message from me, Mike and Jenna that will call for rescue monies to be sent to a brand new account in NY that comp`letely bypasses FTW.  Between Mike and me, we can reach maybe 20,000 people in 24 hours and that will propagate to maybe a million within a week. This will only acknowledge the war that we already know has been underway for some time. But then, if in retaliation, X shuts the web site and walks out it only confirms their agenda in the first place, proves we were right and lets me, Mike and the good guys off the hook on fraud. It would increase sympathy and donations. 

  X has got to understand all this but I am not the guy to persuade her. We need to do everything possible to get her completely back in the fold before the message goes out, but we can still do it without her if we have to '' leaving the door open. X is a rescue mission, not an enemy.

  The question is how to structure this and do it quickly. Ray, if this works I can sign the new PofA in NY. It is to New York that I must come first.

  GETTING ME HOME

  I have no doubt that we´ll raise a lot of money. maybe over $100,000 that must not go anywehere near Y's hands. That can cover medical care and hopefully some place to stay in NY while Ray and I put the next phase together. I had already compiled a list of heavyweights and miks kane´s story has shown me how to reach out to them.

  Once we have money, which might be as soon as 3-4 days after the notice goes out and we have a place for me to stay, we should plan on flying me back via American Airlines. Here´s why. 
1. We´re going to have to plead for a one way ticket on medical emegrency grounds. For years I was an AA frequent flyer, member of the Admirals club and a VIP. They know me. I know they can make exceptions based on those grounds for a one-way ticket purchased with a credit or debit card. That will eliminate a lot of computer generated DHS problems but probably not all.

  2. Before buying the ticket Ray should call DHS and find out if I am on a no-fly list as a dissident author. By then our guerilla web plea will be making world news.

  3. When we have the ticket, the flight and the date, I make a cell phone call to Ray or Mike in NY as I board the plane and am sure I´m onboard. We make sure that all o our friends and lots of Indy media know what the flight number is. Then, if I don´t emerge at JFK the noise can start and Ray will know where to start looking for my habeased corpus.

  Ray, I think you´ll be able to fill in blanksfrom here. This just might work and get us FTW back in better shape than ever, with friends in VZ, and having eliminated what I am sure have been some long time, behind the scenes very nasty problems..

  But most important is my health. I am very weak and seemingly getting weaker. I have to go rest for a while before i can come back to the web.

  Ok, I´ll pray for a quick response from Ray.

   Mike

Mike's Story Part 19 - Suspicion

By Jenna Orkin

   Several colleagues in Ashland had become increasingly annoyed by the latest developments at FTW.  They felt that writing the Burning Bridge article was in itself an act of burning the bridge home; if Mike came back, particularly so soon, FTW's credibility would be trashed.

   Now that he'd relinquished his role as CEO, Mike could best serve the website, they maintained, by acting as its Latin American correspondent.

   Among their complaints was the appearance of alleged "compelling evidence" that Mike himself had been the one to wield the sledgehammer on the seven FTW computers, the act of burglary which had precipitated his flight to Venezuela.

   Mike was accused - not by law enforcement, nor by any government agency but by some of his own colleagues - of staging the burglary himself, then high-tailing it several thousand miles south, taking the insurance money with him the day before he was to have a lie detector test with the Ashland Police Department.

From Mike to numerous recipients 10-20-2006:

On my life and on my soul, I swear that I did not smash my own computers.

On my life and on my soul I swear that not a penny of the insurance money ever entered my pocket. I left with $2,100 and my gold. [Carolyn] and Mike Kane saw it in the silver box from which I took my Great Grandfather´s pocket watch for Mike. The cash came from one subscriber who saw what was coming and told me to use it personally, for anything I needed. I told you that.

Would I have been stupid enough to commit such an elaborate fraud for just $2,000? The only insurance check I ever saw for $7,000 went straight into the company account to pay bills.

On my life and on my soul there was no appointment for any polygraph test in Ashland. That´s absurd. I was asked if I was willing to take one within a week after the burglary. I said sure. For three weeks I never heard another word. I would not have left with that appointment hanging knowing that it would instantly condemn me for failing to appear. I had/have nothing to fear from a legitimate polygraph test. Why do we learn of this now? Where is the record of the appointment? Who found it?

As it is I have been tried, convicted and sentenced without having been given the right to examine or challenge the evidence against me. That is a fundamental human right. George Bush signs a bill and everyone starts acting like a fascist. This so-called evidence surfaces four months after the burglary and three months after I leave the states. Does anyone think that I would be stupid enough to leave such evidence if it existed?

Mohammed Atta´s passport has just been found in the wreckage of the World Trade Center. Case closed. Ruppert is guilty. No trial needed thankyou.

Where did this evidence come from? Who found it? What is it? Who told you about it? Answers to these questions are my fundamental rights as a human being.

If the evidence was strong enough to convince [he named three colleagues,] then I now know that this entire thing was very well orchestrated and executed.

If I hear nothing from anyone within ten days then you guys can assume that -- not knowing who I can trust -- I have gone to a new level of operation. Suicide is out now. [XX] you make me want to come back more than ever to clear my name. Someone does not want me to come back and they are obviously very afraid that I might. Who? Why? Who benefits?

We´ll see.

   Ray, we need to talk ASAP please.

At this point, the ante was upped:  Apparently, further evidence had been unearthed to show that Mike himself had written the "phantom" or fraudulent email to subscribers.

From Mike to numerous recipients:  10-20-2006 

I am innocent on all counts. I have been shown none of the so-called evidence or afforded an opportunity to comment on it. At least in a US court I might receive a little mopre justice than I am receiving here and now.

 

From Mike, undated:
   Who in the hell believes that I could have possibly sent that email message? Has everyone lost their minds?*******

From Mike, undated:  

  I again request that this ¨evidence¨ be shown to me, or at least described. What is it? Where was it found? Who found it? 

   The new allegation that I sent the bogus email is beyond ludicrous. Everyone who works with me knows that I absolutely lack the technical know-how to do that. I have never directly posted to our list even once, from the FTW offices. That´s why I paid IT people $900 a week.

   This is like Kafka, you talk of evidence and then produce none. Then you ask me to defend myself against somethng unspecified and undescribed. How can I prove evidence to be false if I am not even told what it is? When is my day in the FTW court? How can I disporve something that isn´t on the table.

   If it is evdience I can´t possibly tamper with it from here. Wrap it up, take it to Ashland PD and then tell me what it is.

   I repeat, I am innocent of all of these charges. I have admitted to my mistakes but that´s all there were. On every one of these allegations I am completely and utterly innocent. You have become sadly like Joe McCarthy with his list of known Communists. When do we get to see this list?

Mike's Story Part 18 - Decision

By Jenna Orkin


   Looking back, one purpose the Venezuela interlude served in Mike’s life was that of expiation.  Any potential friendship threatened with the most guileless of questions, “What brings you here?”  He couldn’t answer truthfully, that he was seeking political asylum (which on the phone, we referred to as “the ‘a’ word.”)  When the reporter from the US newspaper interviewed him for seven hours, Mike acknowledged only that he was requesting permanent residency.  Thus he was forced into solitary confinement with its attendant pastime, contemplating the sins that had brought him to this point.

Mike to numerous recipients 9-26-2006

   I have had much time to think about those horrible events and what I feel so utterly ashamed over is the fact that I was so terribly attracted to a very sick woman whose intent I clearly saw and understood was to destroy both me and FTW. I never crossed any lines through my actions, but I certainly did in my head and this is my great shame and embarrassment to which I now freely admit.

But, as a wise man once said, “They don’t put you in jail for thinking crazy. They put you in jail for acting crazy”.

Me to Mike, probably 9-27-2006:

if you feel like shit promise you'll email first before even thinking in terms of 'my public life may be over.'  [a phrase he'd used in his email.] this is why god invented the internet.  

 

Mike to me 9-27-2006

 

It is clear to me that the memo [the fake email] originated from within the FTW offices. we have at minimum a leak there and at worst a traitor. I´m just sick of betrayals.

  To be honest I was talking about life, life. not public life. [I had realized that but wanted to steer Mike’s thinking away from it.]  That´s how depressing things are. I am beginning to suspect that I may be too hot a political potato for Hc right now and they´re just hoping I´ll tire and go away. That would be a humiliation. The Bolivarian revolution embodies every belief I have acquired for all my years of study.

God bless [a woman who was helping him in Venezuela,] I truly believe she´s doing everything she can and she is one of those wonderful women, like you, Carolyn, Fitts and McKinney who have saved my life.

One day he called, his breathing labored, and said, "I've got to get out of here. I've got to write a notice for the blog and the website asking for emergency donations for Mike Ruppert to leave Venezuela, and to solicit offers from other countries."

Offers flooded in from England, Canada, Italy, South Africa, Thailand, Hawaii, Australia, the Philippines... all variations on that of “quarquin” who wrote... "hi Mike you can come here to Spain i have place for you You are welcome.” 

 

Along with them, health advice, mostly from holistic practitioners or patients.  Many readers took pains to write at length and in detail, as per the notice's request for information on health systems in the countries where they were offering their hospitality.

     One person wrote about a cottage on their property where Mike could hole up; another, about her extended family who lived down the road.

     A writer from Hawaii described a tent city whose inhabitants were fugitives from justice living simply off the land, undisturbed by the authorities.

     Mike held out hopes for Germany.  The culture wasn’t so alien; it was his family heritage.  (And although he was a California boy, his deteriorating health in the Venezuelan heat had perhaps induced a longing for cloud-cover.)  Andreas von Buelow, the former German cabinet minister who had written a blurb for Crossing the Rubicon, had once taken him to a concert of Janacek and Dvorak which had made Mike cry.

     "That's not German culture; it's Czech," I thought obnoxiously but had the sense not to say.

     He wrote to von Buelow whose delayed response, due to travel, was polite but understandably cautious.

     A correspondent from Costa Rica peaked Mike's interest with a description of the colony of intellectuals there working on alternative energy.  But an article in a local paper described the boredom of the ex-patriots, who found a life of playing golf unfulfilling, despite the idyllic surroundings.

     "I'd be a pet," Mike said, "and I don't want to be a pet."

     "No. You want to be among peers."

However, another lesson Mike had learned in Venezuela was that dabbling in a foreign culture may be fine for a holiday but in the end, one wants to be surrounded by familiar people who speak one's own language.

Most people know this intuitively but Mike had been banking on a warmer welcome in Venezuela which would have compensated for all the differences.  Failing that, he'd rather nurse his unhappiness at home.

I don't remember how the possibility arose of his coming to stay with me.  Much as I valued the connection to him as well as the conversations, having him live with me was another matter.  I'd been divorced for ten years, relishing every moment of freedom.  Being in his inner circle was all I wanted; the adage, "Familiarity breeds contempt" seemed all too apt.  And he was the last person from whom I wished to earn that contempt.

   But I was a known quantity, which mattered to him.  He knew I wouldn't treat him as a guru and ply him with questions.

   Another known quantity was Barry Silverthorn, the producer of End of Suburbia, who lived in Toronto.

Although Mike was (and remained for the rest of his life) too much of a gentleman to say so, at a level beyond his control, he must have felt disappointed, even betrayed by Venezuela.

 

Me to Mike 10-30(?)-2006:

 

beneath your admiration for chavez and the bolivarian revolution, your unconscious could be having this conversation with venezuela:  "don't you understand i'm your friend? i could help you; i've been fighting drugs in the u.s. all my life and gotten persecuted for it. now i escape here and the first night i venture out on my own, you drug me." 

i don't know why you need to tempt fate.  maybe you want something awful to happen so you won't have to fear it anymore. maybe it's your way of punishing yourself for something 'even worse' (according to your child-self) that you don't remember and don't want to, hence all the running.    

you are not lot's wife or eurydice. you can come home again if you want to, at least while the planes or even the trains are still running.  you need to accept the entirety of yourself and live in equilibrium so you're not buffeted from one extreme to the other. don't wait for your body to wrestle you to the ground.  acknowledge its needs the way you did when you went to macdonald's today, by walking slowly.

talk to u tomorrow 

 

Mike to me 10-30-2006

God, you know me so well.

I really want to come home and just rest but it seems so impossible. No money. Homeland Security. No place to live if I got there, not even a bed. Here, Carlos and xxxx are banking on getting me going with lectures and writing. I can´t tell them these feelings.

 Meanwhile, a plan was taking shape.

Mike Ruppert Subject: My AA Sponsor and Ray KohlmanSent: 19 Oct '06 21:32"stgeorge119@gmail.com>> Subject: My AA Sponsor and Ray Kohlman Sent: 19 Oct '06 21:32 [My AA Sponsor]

is XXXX. He lives in XXXX not far from XXX. His wife, XXX, is talking to some folks about trying to get me home. I think both of you should talk to them and coordinate. Their number is XXX-XXX-XXXX

   > On the issue of how I re-enter, I strongly suggest that we all defer to Ray Kohlman. I cannot walk accross the border lugging a huge suitcase, an overflowing backpack and a laptop case without getting searched. I know those rules. My passport will get swiped and the net result would the same as if I had landed at LAX on an American Airlines flight only I would be at the border and close to nobody, with no chance of help anywhere around.  We will do what Ray says and nothing else on that point. I have to insist on that. On legal matters we MUST listen to Ray.       The bridge is still calling. I say that not to threaten or pressure. I share it just to get it out of my head. I have had two close suicides and the breakup of an engagement in less than three years. Only now am I coming to grips with all of that and much more.       I am relieved that you guys are taking the intiative. That makes me feel as if someone actually saw all of the emergency flares I have been sending up. Mike

   But

But a powerful faction didn't want Mike to return.