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Ruppert stuffs an 'Onion'
FTW Editor's Most
Recent Lecture Draws Capacity Crowd in Southern
Cal
FTW, February 12, 2002 [Posted February
15, 2002] -- A standing-room-only crowd turned out Tuesday
at the Sepulveda, Ca. Unitarian Universalist Society's sanctuary
to hear FTW publisher/editor Mike Ruppert's
latest installment of his ongoing 911 Lecture Series.
The February 12 event featured a nearly
three-hour talk by Ruppert. A number of late comers had
to be turned away due to the lack of elbow room inside the
packed, onion-shaped hall, appropriately nicknamed "the
Onion."
A key highlight of the lecture was Ruppert's
thorough presentation of a timeline (which dates back to
1997, and includes September's terrorist attacks and subsequent
developments) that clearly demonstrates US
government knowledge of, and complicity in, the destruction
of the World Trade
Center.
The vast majority of the estimated 325
people in the audience stayed from the beginning to the
very end of Ruppert's lengthy discourse, which at times
had the audience roaring with applause -- as well as laughter.
Ruppert's comedic use of a faux-German accent to quote Zbigniew
Brzezinski especially tickled the captivated audience's
funny bones. Brzezinski is the author of the 1997
book, "The Grand Chessboard - American Primacy and Strategic
imperatives," which contains ominous and chilling forewarnings
of the September 11th attacks.
Allan Taylor, the Onion's representative
who coordinated the event, said the building had never held
that many people at one time in its  38-year
existence. "We had to bring in a bunch of extra chairs and
even sofas, which we've never had to do before," said Taylor,
who was pleasantly surprised at the overwhelmingly large
turnout to an event that was not promoted in advance with
advertising.
"The only larger event that took place
here was when William Kunstler, who was a defense attorney
for the 'Chicago Seven,' gave a speech in 1970 to about
5,000 people." said Katherine Geeslin, the Onion's office
administrator. In that case the Onion had installed
loud speakers on the church grounds and the overflow crowd
sat on the grass outside.
"Mike normally gets $1,000 for a lecture,"
Taylor said.
"But he did this one for free because in the early days,
the Onion helped him out with food and money for gas by
inviting him to speak."
The "early days" Taylor
mentioned refers to a turning point of Ruppert's 24-year
public crusade to expose CIA involvement in the drug trade,
which the former LAPD narcotics investigator recalls was
late-1996 and early-1997. At that time, the CIA-drugs issue
really heated up primarily as a result of investigative
journalist Gary Webb's newspaper series, which linked CIA
assets from Nicaragua
to the Los Angeles
crack cocaine boom of the 1980s.
"I have never forgotten the people who
were kindest to me when times were darkest," said Ruppert.
"In '96 and '97 after my confrontation with then-CIA Director
John Deutch at Locke
High School in
Los Angeles,
I had no car and was trying to recover from an injury that
left me out of work for several months. In the truest form
of spiritual behavior, the people at the Onion extended
aid and comfort to me, and I have not forgotten that."
Ruppert's next speaking engagement is scheduled
to take place February 20 at the Crest Theatre in Sacramento.
--FTW staff
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