Ghosts of Gary Webb Part 1

Gary Webb was a White American Investigative Reporter who uncovered conclusive proof that the Nazi-American Government was directly involved with and responsible for the Crack-Epidemic of the 80's and had intentionally targeted Black American communities as the dumping ground for the Epidemic.

I am now going to post an article from 2012 in a series of parts that exposes how complicit and completely devoid of any shred of humanity, decency, or anything else. This entire affair was orchestrated, where Webb himself was ultimately given the same treatment that befalls Black Americans on a regular basis for standing up and speaking out too loudly and of course with proof and then tangibly produced, real-world results that would bring an end to this type of tyranny;

The Warning in Gary Webb’s Death

December 9, 2012

From the Archive: Modern U.S. history is more complete because journalist Gary Webb had the courage to revive the dark story of the Reagan administration’s protection of Nicaraguan Contra cocaine traffickers in the 1980s. But Webb ultimately paid a terrible price, as Robert Parry reports.

By Robert Parry (Originally published Dec. 9, 2011)

Every year since investigative journalist Gary Webb took his own life in 2004, I have marked the anniversary of that sad event by recalling the debt that American history owes to Webb for his brave reporting, which revived the Contra-cocaine scandal in 1996 and forced important admissions out of the Central Intelligence Agency two years later.

But Webb’s suicide on the evening of Dec. 9, 2004, was also a tragic end for one man whose livelihood and reputation were destroyed by a phalanx of major newspapers – the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times– serving as protectors of a corrupt power structure rather than as sources of honest information.

Journalist Gary Webb holding a copy of his Contra-cocaine article in the San Jose Mercury-News.

In reviewing the story again this year, I was struck by how Webb’s Contra-cocaine experience was, in many ways, a precursor to the subsequent tragedy of the Iraq War.

In the 1980s, the CIA’s analytical division was already showing signs of politicization, especially regarding President Ronald Reagan’s beloved Contras and their war against Nicaragua’s Sandinista government – and the U.S. press corps was already bending to the propaganda pressures of a right-wing Republican administration.

Looking back at CIA cables from the early-to-mid-1980s, you can already see the bias dripping from the analytical reports. Any drug accusation against the leftist Sandinistas was accepted without skepticism and usually with strong exaggeration, while the opposite occurred with evidence of Contra cocaine smuggling; then there was endless quibbling and smearing of sources.

So, to put these reports in anything close to an accurate focus, you would need special lenses to correct for all the politicized distortions. Yet, the U.S. news media, which itself was under intense pressure not to appear “liberal,” worsened the Reagan administration’s fun-house reflection of reality and attacked any dissident journalist who wouldn’t go along.

Thus, Americans heard a lot about how the evil Sandinistas were trying to “poison” America’s youth with cocaine, although there was not a single interception of a drug shipment from Nicaragua during the Sandinista reign, except for one planeload of cocaine that the United States flew into and out of Nicaraguan in a clumsy “sting” operation.

On the other hand, substantial evidence of Contra-related cocaine shipments out of Costa Rica and Honduras was kept from the American people with Reagan’s Justice Department and CIA intervening to head off investigations and thus prevent embarrassing disclosures. The chief role of the big newspapers in this upside-down world was to heap ridicule on anyone who told the truth.

During that time frame of the early-to-mid-1980s, the patterns were set for CIA analysts to advance their careers (by giving the president what he wanted) and mainstream journalists to protect theirs (by accepting propaganda). By 2002-2003, these patterns had become deeply engrained, leaving almost no one to protect the American people from a new round of falsehoods – aimed at Iraq.

Though I was not in touch with Webb in the last months of his life in 2004, I have always wondered if he saw this connection between his own valiant efforts to correct the historical record about Contra-cocaine trafficking in 1996 and the victory of lies over truth regarding Iraq’s WMD in 2002-2003.

In the weeks before Webb’s suicide, there also was the intervening fact of George W. Bush’s reelection – and with it, the dashed expectation that the CIA analysts and the mainstream journalists who played along with the Iraq-WMD fabrications might face some serious accountability. At the moment when Webb picked up his father’s pistol and put it to his head, there must have appeared little hope that anything would change.

Indeed, we are now seeing yet another replay of this systematic distortion of information, this time regarding Iran and its alleged nuclear weapons program. Any tidbit of information against Iran is exaggerated, while exculpatory data is downplayed or ignored.

So, it may be timely again to recount what happened to Gary Webb and to reflect on the dangers of allowing this corrupt disinformation system to press ahead unchecked.

Dark Alliance

For me, the tragic story of Gary Webb began in 1996 when he was working on his “Dark Alliance” series for the San Jose Mercury News. He called me at my home in Arlington, Virginia, because, in 1985, I and my Associated Press colleague Brian Barger had been the first journalists to reveal the scandal of Reagan’s Nicaraguan Contras funding themselves in part by collaborating with drug traffickers.

Webb explained that he had come across evidence that one Contra-connected drug conduit had funneled cocaine into Los Angeles, where it helped fuel the early crack epidemic. Unlike our AP stories a decade earlier — which focused on the Contras helping to ship cocaine from Central America into the United States — Webb said his series would examine what happened to the Contra cocaine after it reached the streets of Los Angeles and other cities.

Besides asking about my recollections of the Contras and their cocaine smuggling, Webb wanted to know why the scandal never gained any real traction in the U.S. national news media. I explained that the ugly facts of the drug trafficking ran up against a determined U.S government campaign to protect the Contras’ image. In the face of that resistance, I said, the major publications — the likes of the New York Times and the Washington Post — had chosen to attack the revelations and those behind them rather than to dig up more evidence.

Webb sounded confused by my account, as if I were telling him something that was foreign to his personal experience, something that just didn’t compute. I had a sense of his unstated questions: Why would the prestige newspapers of American journalism behave that way? Why wouldn’t they jump all over a story that important and that sexy, about the CIA working with drug traffickers?

I took a deep breath, sensing that he had no idea of the personal danger he was about to confront. Well, he would have to learn that for himself, I thought. It surely wasn’t my place to warn a journalist away from a significant story just because it carried risks.

So, I simply asked Webb if he had the strong support of his editors. He assured me that he did. I said their backing would be crucial once his story was out. He sounded perplexed, again, as if he didn’t know what to make of my cautionary tone. I wished him the best of luck, thinking that he would need it.

The Safe Route

When I hung up, I wasn’t sure that the Mercury News would really press ahead with the story, considering how the big national news outlets had dismissed and ridiculed the notion that President Reagan’s beloved Contras had included a large number of drug traffickers.

It never seemed to matter how much evidence there was. It was much easier — and safer, career-wise — for Washington journalists to reject incriminating testimony against the Contras, especially when it came from other drug traffickers and from disgruntled Contras. Even U.S. law-enforcement officials who discovered evidence were disparaged as overzealous and congressional investigators were painted as partisan.

In 1985, as we were preparing our first AP story on this topic, Barger and I knew that the evidence of Contra-cocaine involvement was overwhelming. We had a broad range of sources both inside the Contra movement and within the U.S. government, people with no apparent ax to grind who had described the cocaine-smuggling problem.

One source was a field agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA); another was a senior official on Reagan’s National Security Council (NSC) who told me that he had read a CIA report about how a Contra unit based in Costa Rica had used cocaine profits to buy a helicopter.

However, after our AP story was published in December 1985, we came under attack from the right-wing Washington Times. That was followed by dismissive stories in the New York Timesand the Washington Post. The notion that the Contras, whom President Reagan had likened to America’s Founding Fathers, could be implicated in the drug trade was simply unthinkable.

Yet, it was always odd to me that many of the same newspapers had no problem accepting the fact that the CIA-backed Afghan mujahedeen were involved in the heroin trade, but bristled at the thought that the CIA-backed Nicaraguan Contras might be cut from the same cloth.

A key difference, which I learned both from personal experience and from documents that surfaced during the Iran-Contra scandal, was that Reagan had assigned a young group of ambitious intellectuals such as Elliott Abrams and Robert Kagan to oversee the Contra war.

These neoconservatives worked with old-line anticommunists from the Cuban-American community, such as Otto Reich, and CIA propagandists, such as Walter Raymond Jr., to aggressively protect the Contras’ image. And the Contras were always on the edge between getting congressional funding or having it cut off.

So, that combination — the propaganda skills of Reagan’s Contra-support team and the fragile consensus for continuing Reagan’s pet Contra war — meant that any negative publicity about the Contras would be met with a fierce counterattack.

Going to Editors

The neoconservatives were also bright, well-schooled, and skilled in their manipulation of language and information, a process they privately called “perception management.” They proved adept, too, at ingratiating themselves with senior editors at major news outlets.

By the mid-1980s, these patterns had become well-worn in Washington. If a journalist dug up a story that put the Contras in a negative light, he or she could expect the Reagan administration’s propaganda team to make contact with a senior editor or bureau chief and lodge a complaint, apply some pressure, and often offer up some dirt about the offending journalist.

Also, many news executives in that time frame were sympathetic toward Reagan’s hard-line foreign policy, especially after the humiliations of the Vietnam War and the Iranian revolution. Supporting U.S. initiatives abroad — or at least not allowing your reporters to undercut those policies — was seen as patriotic.

At the New York Times, executive editor Abe Rosenthal was one of the news media’s most influential neoconservatives, declaring that he was determined to steer the newspaper back to “the center,” by which he meant to the right.

At AP, general manager Keith Fuller was known to be a strong Reagan supporter and his preferences were sometimes expressed forcefully to AP’s Washington bureau where I worked. At the Washington Post and Newsweek (where I went to work in 1987), there was also a strong sense that Reagan-era scandals should not reach the president, that it would not be “good for the country.”

In other words, on the issue of Contra drug trafficking, there was a confluence of interests between the Reagan administration, which was determined to protect the Contras’ public image, and senior news executives, who wanted to adopt a “patriotic” posture after convincing themselves that the country shouldn’t endure another wrenching battle over wrongdoing by a Republican president.

The popular image of courageous editors standing up for their reporters in the face of government pressure was not the reality, especially not where the Contras were concerned.

White Privilege and Remembering Gary Webb's FATAL Wake-Up Call to Reality....

Am I really supposed to be shocked or surprised that Whites DO NOT ACCEPT THEIR OWN WHITE PRIVILEGE? Of course not. I have already typed about the fact that I've PERSONALLY SEEN HOW POORLY WHITES DEAL WITH BEING STRIPPED OF THIS AND THEN HAVING TO GO THROUGH THE SAME TYPE OF TREATMENTS AND EXPECTATIONS THAT THEY HEAP ON US, AS BLACK PEOPLE. The worse part is that the moment the screws were put to them, THEY TENDED TO TRY TO LASH OUT FIRST! PHYSICALLY! They turned
"just as violent" as they claim we are as Black People, the moment they felt as though myself or any other Blacks were IMPEDING THEM.

But when confronted with THE FACT THAT, lashing out isn't going to gain them anything. Just about ALL OF THEM SHUTDOWN. They couldn't cope. Couldn't function. Became despondent and ultimately curled into either a physical or psychological fetal-position and laid there and stayed there.

Again, like I've typed before, nobody wants to be shown that their so-called accomplishments. Had VERY LITTLE TO DO WITH ANY SKILL ON THEIR PART. Even Gary Webb famously said that he thought he was this great INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER. Till he walked into;

Webb himself honestly believed he was making a difference as a reporter till it came time for him to experience what we as Black Americans live on a daily basis. Trying to find some line of not becoming a bloodthirsty, bitter human-being. While ACTIVELY BEING TARGETED IN A HOST OF HORRIFIC WAYS BY WHITES OVERTLY AND COVERTLY. Yet every time any kind of attempt to talk and reason the issues out, it ends up being a mocking-joke on the part of Whites. Who simply dismiss the whole thing as some sort of Black Paranoia and bullshit. Well? When Webb uncovered all of the shit that MOST BLACK AMERICANS WERE ALREADY UP IN ARMS ABOUT. Regarding the Crack-Epidemic, he too was talking that White shit AT FIRST. That all we do is sit around and talk crazy conspiracy shit and make up false-claims of victimhood of Whites "trying to get us".

Where of course, we all know that the same bullshit was said about Native American Indians claiming Whites were "out to get them" and we see how shit worked out for them, RIGHT!

I've said it before and I'll say it again! Nobody in their right-mind wants to hear that they come from or are, DIRT-BAGS! And just like We as Black People reject the White Notion that we're nothing but niggers. I am expect nothing less for them to reject White Privilege. This is why producing tangible results in the world is what matters most. But it is also why so many on all sides will stoop to any level to do it!

With that said, HERE IS THE ARTICLE, and for me? I don't waste my time proving White Privilege, because I don't need to. Because of the massive changes in technology and such, many Whites are finding out the hard way and on their own that it exists and when they cannot cash-in, they turn into the Dylan Roof's of the world. My task, is to spend MY ENERGY, TEACHING MY OWN PEOPLE TO NOT GET FRUSTRATED AND DISCOURAGED. By working TOGETHER, FINDING LIKE-MINDED BLACK-PEOPLE IN YOUR AREA AND ONLINE? NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE TO OVERCOME AND ACHIEVE TANGIBLE, REAL WORLD RESULTS;

White people reject claims of white privilege, study finds

By David K. Li

September 30, 2015 | 10:31am

Modal Trigger

The cast of the HBO show "Girls": from left, Allison Williams, Jemima Kirke, Lena Dunham and Zosia Mamet.Photo: HBO

White people are quick to cite personal hardships instead of acknowledging that they are privileged because of their skin color, according to a new study.

Stanford University’s L. Taylor Phillips and Brian S. Lowery, writing in November’s Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, split test subjects into two groups — with one given more evidence of white privilege in American culture.

Those given more information about privilege cited greater examples of personal hardship than the control group, according to the researchers.

“Whites may claim increased hardships to maintain not only a positive sense of self, but also the material benefits associated with racial privilege. Whites’ claims of hardship might also serve to legitimize the racial advantages they enjoy, and thereby justify a system that benefits their group,” the researchers wrote.

Citing personal struggles helped test subjects acknowledge white privilege — while rationalizing that they’re not directly gaining from it, the study said.

As a remedy, the researchers suggest “privilege reduction efforts” focus on convincing or educating advantaged group members about privilege, and also on “reducing the feelings of self-threat this information induces.”

9-29-15 The Corey Holcomb 5150 Show - Why Can't You Keep a Man, Lady?

Here is the LATEST 5150 SHOW EPISODE WITH COREY HOLCOMB AND THE CREW!

The Business of Building-Up an Ebusiness

The following article from off of Dr. Boyce Watkins website, Financial Juneteenth.com, highlights exactly what I have been saying. Here we have Mrs. Kim Springer who had to build up her ebusiness and stick with it even though she didn't earn a dime for an ENTIRE YEAR! But she built up her purchasing-base of buyers by staying on it and not quitting or getting discouraged by the lack of revenue being generated by her ebusiness. And in the end!? It paid off!

BIG TIME!
Here is the article, read it and weep, quitters. What? Don't like weeping? Then don't be a quitter, it's as simple as that;

How One Woman Quit Her Job and is Now Making $250K a Year

By Robert Stitt

Black people and money

September 30, 2015

Kim Springer may not be heralded as a hero to many, but she certainly should be. In her 40’s, the mother of three decided to quit her day job to stay home with her youngest child. Not wanting to sit idle (as if mothers ever just sit idle), she decided to try her hand at making some money from home.
According to Yahoo Finance, Springer started by building websites, creating online communities, and blogging. She also studied online marketing to help her understand how to run and operate an online business. In an unexpected turn of events her husband lost his job, leaving the family to rely on her growing income which, at that time, was not enough to sustain the family of five. The Springers soon had over $40,000 worth of debt on their credit cards.

Desperate for ideas, Springer tried her hand at a site called “Teespring” where she could design and sell her own T-shirts. Last year, she started to market her shirts to a group of Christian women and soon had over 100,000 fans, many of whom purchased shirts. It doesn’t take a math whiz to see that this was going to become a money making endeavor.

The money did not come instantly however. Springer says that during the first year she worked hard every day for little to no pay. She was up early every morning and jumped right on the computer. At first, her time was spent building her community. She would often work well into the night. While she started with just a few sales, she kept building upon what worked and learning from what did not.
She also wants everyone to know that you have to stick with it. If you want to make your business work, you have to work at it. “When I launched the first shirt it was January 2013, and not until March did I see any return on investment.”

Everybody needs a hero. Kim Springer, you are one of mine.

CONGRATS AND GREAT JOB MRS. SPRINGER! Do Your Thing, BLACKWOMAN!

HAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH! And Still I Rise......!

I am continuing to push myself where others I knew had quit! One job isn't enough for what I need, so now it is time to find something bigger and better to put more money in my pocket while I continue to build-up my website ebook-purchasers and readership! Job interview at 9am tomorrow.

Heh. Heh. Heh.
My momentum...? 
Is building....
HAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!
And I laugh like a loon, because only a few months ago a couple of fools swore they could undercut me at the KNEE-CAPS!
>_<
Nothing.
And NO ONE.
Will stop me from continuing to win victory after VICTORY! In clearing my name and finally being able to stand in front of My Son and show him THIS IS HOW IT'S DONE, SON! Determination. Persistence! An HONEST ASSESSMENT OF YOUR SITUATION. YOURSELF. And then a plan based on that assessment. And then YOU GET TO WORK! DO NOT LET ANYONE SMEAR YOUR REPUTATION AND THINK THEY CAN SKIP OFF INTO THE SUNSET WITHOUT BEING HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR THEIR ACTIONS AGAINST YOU!
Accountable?

Accountable in accordance to the Laws of Moral. Public. And Collective, Conscience!

Even if this job interview somehow fails, I've already submitted a number of other applications for new employment, MORE EMPLOYMENT! While I continue to work on and build-up My Website. I have already begun to scout domestic court lawyers so I can regain my stolen Parental Rights. I'm another step closer to finally being able to celebrate My Son's Life again the way we used to enjoy life when he was just a baby trying to figure out what does these toes and feet do!? There is nothing like it in the world to be able to lay out a plan, regardless of situation and circumstances. Then follow it through step by step, with its twists and turns and random curve-balls of life. And see it through to the end result of accomplishment. I am 95% of the way there now. Time to sprint it out to the finish so I can honestly spend the onrushing holiday season with My Son!

Honorary Degrees, This is why I NEVER liked them......

Honorary Degrees?
I remember my sophomore year of college and I was talking with some friends and the subject of honorary degrees came up and I said flat out "If I ever reach any point of any kind, I'll never accept an honorary degree." and of course I was asked why and I immediately replied "They're not real and I didn't earn it. It's not mine. So if something happens that the school who gave me one, disagrees with, they can just snatch it back and I have an even bigger PR-problem than when I started."

One of my friends asked me "But you really think they'd do that?"
And I told him "Yes, pending on whatever the situation is." and at this time the Mike Tyson trial was going on and I told him "Look at what is going on with Mike Tyson. This woman has a history of claiming rape and then being exposed as a fraud. But Whites have come up with another one of their intentional-fail laws, where now that THEY'VE done whatever the fuck they've wanted when it was all about THEM. They come back and pass some lazy-ass law that OMITS a woman's sexual history or previous cases and claims of rape. As if a woman can't or won't lie about rape. The reality is, to pass shield-laws like these are standard-tactics for lazy-ass Whites who honestly don't want to be bothered with shit. So they create a law or laws that make matters worse and intentionally create problems, while they claim they did it with "the best interest" of whomever this law is actually designed to create animosity for or against, the initial person/people, target. It's scummy."

So another one asked me "What does that have to do with honorary degrees, man? You're all over the place."

And of course I laughed at him and told him "If Mike Tyson had any honorary degrees, do you think whomever school that gave it to him would want their name tied to his dumb-ass? Where His Lawyers are using the Grimlock-Defense of Mike Tyson is Mike Tyson, she knew what she was getting into when she went with him to his room?"

So finally Milford told the Other-2 "Uhhhhhh, yeah! Williams is seeing the battlefield clearly, and you two idiots are future White-casualties of stupidity!" they got mad, but Milford continued "First off, an honorary degree can be taken just as quickly as its given. With all the supposed bullshit help Whites give us, you'd think we'd be sick to our stomachs from anymore White generosity. Or at least smart enough to know that Whites don't GIVE anything away for free. So you get an honorary degree, its a PR move, nothing more. Nothing less. You generate BAD PR, guess what!? They snatch the shit, cuz now, you're not a good image. Meanwhile? Tyson's lawyers are making him look like shit. Stealing his money and settin him up to go to jail. By portraying him AS A CRIMINAL-BRUTE, instead of a man who wanted some pussy. Has sex with this woman and then told her to leave when she wanted to stay and cuddle and sleepover."

Here is the article;

Brown revokes Bill Cosby's honorary degree

USA Today

Andrea Mandell1 day ago

Universities continue to distance themselves from Bill Cosby.

On Monday, Brown University rescinded the comedian's honorary degree, which was awarded to him in 1985.

In a letter to students, university president Christina Paxson said Cosby's conduct met the criteria of being "grossly inconsistent" with Brown's values.

"It has become clear, by his own admission in legal depositions that became public this summer, that Mr. Cosby has engaged in conduct with women that is contrary to the values of Brown and the qualities for which he was honored by the University in 1985," wrote Paxson in an email to the Brown community Monday night.

Paxson added: "The conduct that Mr. Cosby has acknowledged is wholly inconsistent with the behavior we expect of any individual associated with Brown."

Fordham University and Marquette University also rescinded Cosby's honorary degrees last week.

"By his own admission, Mr. Cosby's sexual exploitation of women was premeditated and ongoing. Equally appalling is his longtime strategy of denigrating the reputations of women who accused him of such actions," read a statement issued by Fordham president Joseph M. McShane.

Cosby's lawyer, John P. Schmitt, had particularly strong words for Fordham's handling of the action, calling the university's statement "so irresponsible as to shock the conscience" adding that it "grossly mischaracterizes both Mr. Cosby's actions and his deposition testimony, in language more befitting a tabloid journal rather than a respected institution of higher learning."

Other universities severing ties with the entertainer include Spelman College, which ended a Cosby professorship in July, despite Bill Cosby and his wife Camille's history of donating $20 million to the school.

On September 11, Central State University in Ohio renamed their Camille O. & William H. Cosby Communications Center the CSU Communications Center, despite a $2 million history in gifts from the Cosby family.

To date, more than 50 women who have accused Cosby of drugging and/or sexually assaulting them in episodes dating back to the mid-1960s. Cosby has denied all wrongdoing via his lawyers and publicists.

A representative for Cosby did not immediately return a request for comment.

Contributing: The Associated Press

Don't get caught up in the PR-game, no matter whether it's a Black College or not. If you didn't EARN THE DEGREE, then kindly DECLINE the attempted PR-move....

1st trial in Freddie Gray case set for Nov. 30

© Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images A small and peacful group of 

demonstrators gather to protest in front of the Baltimore City Circuit 

Courthouse East where pre-trial hearings will be held for six police 

officers charged in the death of Freddie Gray…

Associated Press

By JULIET LINDERMAN, Associated Press21 hrs ago

BALTIMORE (AP) — The first trial for six Baltimore police officers charged in the death of Freddie Gray will be held Nov. 30, and the other trials are set for early next year.

Judge Barry Williams decided Tuesday that Officer William Porter will go on trial first. He is accused of failing to provide or request medical care for Gray and not securing him safely in a van. Porter faces charges of manslaughter, assault, reckless endangerment and misconduct in office in the death of Gray, a black man who died after being injured in police custody.

Prosecutors said they intend to call Porter as a witness against at least two other officers.

The judge ruled earlier this month that each officer will get his or her own trial and that they will be held in the city.

Gray died April 19, a week after he was injured. His death led to protests and rioting in Baltimore, and came to symbolize the treatment of black men by police in America. It also shed light on long-standing and systemic disenfranchisement of African-Americans in the city.

Attorneys for the six officers asked Williams to move the trials outside of Baltimore, citing pre-trial media coverage they say could prejudice a jury. The judge kept the door open to re-evaluate his decision should the state and defense run into problems seating a jury.

Prosecutors have suggested in a letter to the judge that the state intends to call Porter to testify against Sgt. Alicia White, who faces the same charges he does, and Officer Caesar Goodson, who faces an additional "depraved-heart" murder charge.

Goodson will be tried Jan. 6 and White's trial will begin Jan. 25.

Officers Garrett Miller and Edward Nero face misdemeanor assault, misconduct in office and reckless endangerment charges, as does Lt. Brian Rice, who also faces a manslaughter charge. Their trials will be held in February and March.