Michael Ruppert Has Left The Building: Venezuela Is The New Cuba - 2:48 p.m.

There was a book written in 1985 by Neil Postman called Amusing Ourselves to Death, it took a look at the lopsided nature of the media. Lots of sweets and cakes on the plate and not much else. On another level it was about how technology changes the information that flows through the medium that it's transmitted and the increase of 'electronic' media had changed the game in a big way.. "It is my intention in this book to show that a great media-metaphor shift has taken place in America, with the result that the content of much of our public discourse has become dangerous nonsense."

He went on to say that he loves 'nonsense' as much as anyone else, but the culture of a country and it's direction is determined by what it sees as being important. What's in the headlines today?.. John Karr clinking his glass of champagne, Britney Spears, or whoever else is posted on celebrity blogs across the internet.

All those things are well and good, entertaining to talk about.. I mix and match myself.. and no harm is done by doing so. At the same time it's the way that the 'powers that be' like things - keep em laughing and even protesting, as long as they don't go any further than that.

One guy that has put in 30 years work in the interest of encouraging people to move forward and challenge the system is Michael Ruppert.

When 9/11 came around I discovered his site From the Wilderness looking for alternate and more in depth information. Believe what he said or not, you couldn't deny that he had a lot of facts and named sources - as opposed to unnamed - to go along with his opinions.

Somewhere along the line he lost me though.. Peak Oil. That's it. Maybe one day I'll wrap my head around the idea that there is a dwindling supply of oil that is behind the moves we've made in Iraq and those we'll make in the future, and how despite any of those moves, life in America is going to change substantially in the near future - 20-30 years.

Deep stuff. Some would say crazy talk.

The thing is, despite the fact that I stopped visiting - who am I? - people were checking on him even more than usual. Michael Ruppert's house/office was burglarized, through his own estimation, by someone in the government. He said he's had to deal with suspicious, unexplained things in the past, but the recent burglary along with other nonsense before and after it, convinced him that if he didn't want to die a martyr, that it would be best to leave the country while he can.

On July 18th he pulled some banana in the tailpipe maneuvers and left the country for good.

"I looked at the smashed computers and realized that I had humiliated the government one too many times, I understood two things. I was too old to go on fighting these increasingly ugly and dangerous battles. And there was nothing left in the United States worth fighting for...
I recall the words spoken to me by a senior FBI agent in Los Angeles in 1986: "Mike, the world doesn't want to be saved." "

"In this world, a protest which is allowed and encouraged, corralled into free-speech areas, and then policed by the ruling government only to be ignored by the media is, by definition, meaningless."

"Ironically, the disappearing American middle class will still cheer at each new millionaire success story, even if they quietly understand that a hundred or a thousand of their kind had to disappear to create it. They chase illusions of hope rather than the real possibility of justice and change like lottery players with a one-in-a-billion chance of winning."

"They prefer that to hard work and sacrifice with much better odds where almost everybody can win something."

"A different world is possible. A better world is possible. It took the imminent threat of my own death at the hands of my government to make me fully admit to my innermost self what I have known for years. Having failed to change my country's direction after 30 years of effort, I had to stop living in the problem and start living in the solution. If I did not, my soul would have died just as surely as my body would have died.."

"I do not know where I will spend the rest of my days. Maybe in Venezuela.. because Venezuela has become the singular world leader in resisting US domination under the courageous, intelligent, and inspired leadership of Hugo Chavez, I want to begin the rest of my days here. Being freer to speak, to learn, to experience and to witness real solutions being discovered and implemented by peoples willing to take risks and who understand the challenges, I will be better able to report usefully to FTW readers and the world in future books and articles."

"I am currently in a country where the people have changed and are changing their government; where the elected head of state has won six elections while George W. Bush has stolen two. Is it any wonder I feel better already?"

"I am also under no illusions about the increased danger this will bring. Even though life is very difficult now as I live on the cheap and struggle to become halfway fluent in Spanish, I wake up each morning with something I haven't felt in a long time - hope, real hope."

"I promise to send some home."

Here's the full post - By The Light Of A Burning Bridge: A Permanent Goodbye to America