Thursday, December 09, 2010

Big Media's Guilt in Gary Webb's Death

By Robert Parry
December 9, 2010

It’s been six years since I received the shocking news that journalist Gary Webb had committed suicide with his father’s pistol.

Read on.
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8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you so much for this wonderful article. I so appreciate that you never fail to honor Gary Webb each year.

Thu Dec 09, 07:57:00 PM 2010
Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Thu Dec 09, 07:57:00 PM 2010
Anonymous said...

Your homily is earnest and honors a Fool. What you say? A Fool? No higher honor can be bestowed on one who fears not to tread where others do fear to tread. Gary defines bravery where it treads onward to the truth. Often the timid and meek cower and refuse to go. They gather at the mouth of the cave telling tall tales and selling fictional accounts while they bury the explorer and his message at the entrance to the tomb. They have declared the secret world off limits to all men because of their cowardice. They are not inspired by explorers but fear them and prefer to be employed in the profession of denial and obfuscation at the gates of knowledge that their benefactors pay highly for. The cash rewards are given to the guards who hide the truth and not to those who seek and find it. The Modern Media is that hoard of charlatans at the gate to the cave where they warn off all citizens to not venture there. They provide the cover to the under miners of society who lurk in the tunnels below the Main Stream Media's false fields of Elysium and prepare the underworld for the great swallowing of unsuspecting souls.
Look out below! There's a surprise in store for you! They really are gonna gobble you up like the Morlocks.
We are bred to be Eloy. Gary was trying to save us. Robert Parry is the Time Traveler happening upon this bizarre landscape so normal to so many of us and yet so alien to him. And me too.

Thu Dec 09, 08:51:00 PM 2010
Anonymous said...

A very powerful piece. Gary's memory lives in all who read it.

FWIW, you and all who reported this story served your nation when so many in the profession betrayed theirs.

It's a h--l of a trade to have to make, keeping one's honor instead of one's job. But the alternative is a lot worse.

--Charles

Thu Dec 09, 11:18:00 PM 2010
Anonymous said...

From: Mary Anne Sharkey
Thank you for a great piece and the work you have done to restore Gary's reputation.
I worked with Gary in the 1980s at The Plain Dealer (Cleveland) where Gary did great investigative work that led to the ouster of the Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice for running the court like a Chicago ward club. He left behind a great body of work in Cleveland and Ohio.
I too was shocked by the barrage of criticism, and the way Gary was abandoned and ostracized by people in the news media.
One nit-pick though is that Gary was wide-eyed about the consequences, or potential consequences, of his stories. He knew it had the potential for far-reaching impact, and he had no illusions about big government or even big media.
Was the series perfect? No. But Woodward and Bernstein got a few things wrong too. Gary Webb's series contained essential truths that the government was indirectly complicit in the crack cocaine epidemic. It should have led the rest of the media on the investigative trail rather than trashing a fellow journalist.
Shame on the big media which can be every bit as sinister as big government when it comes to facing unpleasant truths.
Thank you for honoring Gary every year, and keeping his memory alive.

Fri Dec 10, 08:57:00 AM 2010
Anonymous said...

Ian,Eric,Christine,and I are forever thankful for you honoring Gary every year with your great work. It never ceases to amaze and shock me when I read your stories that bring us back in the reality of Gary's downfall. . It brings back all those memories of living it with Gary.Being by his side while I watched his love for journalism and seeking the truth destroyed. And feeling helpless,because I could not change it. Losing Gary was a tragedy for his family,but also a tragedy because he was such a gifted investigative reporter and writer and still had so much more to give.. We all miss him dearly. -Sue Webb

Fri Dec 10, 11:16:00 AM 2010
Anonymous said...

1. THANK YOU for the work you do; such poor times that real reporters are relegated to inertnet backwaters (no offense); while brazen mediawhores, infotainment droids, korporate barkers, and defenders of the status quo dominate the media, and reap the rewards of fawning over Empire...

having failed to control it, 'our' (sic) system has failed, and now it controls us without fail...

2. who *ARE* the quisling media who cooperate with the spooks and their various propaganda ploys ? ? ?

WHY isn't the 'legitimate' media investigating who else is on the payroll of the gummint ?
doesn't this go to the heart of the credibility of the media ? ? ?

3. the preponderance of evidence has ZERO meaning... if the power elites want a person, organization, law, or idea destroyed, it does NOT matter what the facts, reasons, or benefits are, they will be subject to the type of actions you describe as done to Mr. Webb (and many others)...

the opposite is true as well: there can be a TON of evidence against a power elite player, BUT -unless The They cut them loose- it will NOT stick, i don't care if you have live video of them eating babies for breakfast...

4. it is curious to me how the story (i recall a blip-mention of it during some mainstream news shows) of how drug money was crucial to the first bailout that was made to our banksters...

there are at least a dozen HUGE stories connected to that factoid alone, and it gets a blip-mention ?
'in other news, a cute white girl was briefly in distress...'

5. so, that means they tolerate something otherwise the most heinous, horrible, despicable profession in the world, in order to stop something even more heinous: socialism...
uh huh...

6. an alien field investigator studying this situation impartially, might see that the drug trade the spooks/feds 'condoned' wasn't a 'bug', but a feature...

(again, WHY is it NO ONE DARE breathe a word of the banksters making zillions laundering money, etc ? ? ? hmmm...)

7. it doesn't matter if 99% of the people working at the sea eye ehh, enn ess ehh, and the rest of the alphabet spooks, are honest, loyal, and competent; it only takes a relative handful of directors, etc to have a stranglehold on recommendations and actions...

8. besides the media vilification, 'we' are not conditioned to accept that political figures, pesky investigative reporters, or inconvenient whistleblowers, ARE -in FACT- subject to whole programs of virtual and real assault to discredit OR -ultimately- KILL them... thus, it makes it difficult for us to accept when it DOES HAPPEN...

i am sure that 90-99% of the time, killing doesn't enter into it, because -much like john perkins explains about 'the jackals' being a last resort- mere bribes, threats, extortion, or violent 'messages' prevent the person from becoming problematic before The They resort to murder...

NOW, we can officially, 'legally' (sic), and all neat and tidy-like, assassinate ANY ONE, ANY WHERE, for ANY 'reason', and not have to explain, justify or acknowledge our god-like decision to anyone...

geez, that makes me wonder what we used to do 'unofficially'...
*why* is it we've had to issue 'we don't assassinate laws' repeatedly ? seems like once should stick...

it may be good to be the king, but it is even better to be the emperor...

art guerrilla
aka ann archy
artguerrilla@windstream.net
eof

Fri Dec 10, 09:28:00 PM 2010
Unknown said...

I wonder how close I came to being there I was at "The Black Rose Ranch" just south of Herrmanns' Royal Lipizzan Stallions
I saw all kind of small signs "Go this way"
"Go 5 miles an hour" "Get out of your car and lie on the ground" I was on a motorcycle a yamaha rd350b I should not even post here I just rode a toy. Any way I did not want to park on the soft ground so I rode around in a circle, Finaly a guy poped out from cover wearing what might have been a Marine uniform from the 1920's with a rifle and he told me I had not followed orders and to leave, and I left

The “Cocaine Coup”.



On July 17, 1980, for the first time in history, drug traffickers actually took control of a nation. It was not just any nation, it was Bolivia, at the time the source of virtually 100 percent of the cocaine entering the United States.[6] The “Cocaine Coup” was the bloodiest in Bolivia’s history. It came at a time that the US demand for cocaine was skyrocketing to the point that, in order to satisfy it, suppliers had to consolidate raw materials and production and get rid of inefficient producers. Its result was the creation of what came to be known as La Corporacion—The Corporation—in essence, the General Motors or OPEC of Cocaine.


Immediately after the coup production of cocaine increased massively until, in short order, it outstripped supply. It was the true beginning of the cocaine and crack “plague” as the media and hack politicians never tire of calling it. July 17, 1980 is truly a day that should live in equal infamy along with December 7th, 1941. There are few events in history that have caused more and longer lasting damage to our nation.



What America was never told, in spite of mainstream media having the information and a prime, inside source who was ready to go public with the story, was that the coup was carried out with the aid and participation of Central Intelligence. The source would also testify and prove that, in order to carry out that coup, the CIA, State and Justice departments had to combine forces to protect their drug dealing assets by destroying a DEA investigation—US v Roberto Suarez, et al. How do I know? I was that inside source.[7]


All the events I am referring to are detailed in my book The Big White Lie, a book that, to date, has been virtually ignored by mainstream media—with good reason, as I hope this chapter makes clear.[8] The documentation of the events portrayed was carried out in accordance with accepted techniques and practices of evidence gathering as taught in each of the four federal law enforcement training academies I attended. I took precisely the same precautions I would have taken were I preparing a case for a jury, backing up every assertion with solid evidence in the form of reports and tape-recorded conversations.



The Big White Lie is, at present, out-of-print, but it is available in libraries. I can only urge the reader, particularly those in law enforcement and the legal professions to read it and judge its evidentiary value for yourselves.



During the months after the Bolivian coup I watched the massive news coverage with astonishment. Nothing even came close to the true and easily provable events. All of it was accurate in that it frighteningly portrayed the new Bolivian government as one comprised of expatriate Nazis like Klaus Barbie and drug dealers like Roberto Suarez and that the power and influence of the drug economy was much greater than all the US experts had imagined, but it left out the most important fact of all: It was CIA directed and US taxpayer dollars that had put these guys in power.

Fri Dec 10, 10:38:00 PM 2010

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