A Matter of Life and Death
By Catherine Austin Fitts
The real deal on corporate media
In 1990, a New York Times reporter writing about my work implementing finan-
cial transparency and controls as an Assistant Secretary in the first Bush
administration resigned to prevent the Times’ Washington Bureau Chief from
intentionally falsifying the story. The bureau chief kept his job, a first rate inves-
tigative reporter left the news profession, and the story was buried. This
manipulation protected 1980s black budget fraud at the US Department of
Housing and Urban Development (“HUD”). It was one of my many lessons on
the economic interests and political loyalties of corporate media.
Indeed, during the 1980s, the savings and loan industry and government insur-
ance programs were stripped of an estimated $500 billion by syndicates of
military, intelligence, and private financial interests. The profits were used to buy
up banking, industrial, and media companies and to finance political campaigns.
From a greater position of political, judicial, and economic power in the 1990s,
these same syndicates then stripped an estimated $6 trillion of investors’ value in
pump and dump stock market and mortgage market schemes and an estimated $4
trillion of taxpayer money from the US federal government.
In 1997, the Washington Post killed a cover story on my efforts to help HUD
insure the integrity of its mortgage programs, thus making possible the subsequent
disappearance of $59 billion from HUD as a part of this orgy of “piratization” of
government assets by private interests. Soon thereafter, when I attended a private
invitation-only reception with colleagues at her home, Katherine Graham, the
owner of the Washington Post, snubbed me by refusing to greet me in her receiv-
ing line.
Washington Post corporate interests profited from HUD programs used to gen-
trify Washington, DC neighborhoods. Check out the last few pages in Graham’s
autobiography — it’s there in black and white. What’s not to be found in the pages
of the Washington Post or Graham’s book is the “real deal” on who has profited
from insider real estate development or narcotics trafficking in these same
Washington neighborhoods — or from reinvestment of the resulting profits in
stocks of local corporations like the Washington Post.
I do not mean to single out the New York Times or the Washington Post. I have
had similar experiences with the Washington Times, the Wall Street Journal, US
News and World Report and Dow Jones Newswire, to name a few. Trusted friends
and colleagues have experienced similar situations with numerous newspapers,
magazines, and networks owned and operated by corporate media interests.
George Orwell once said that omission is the greatest form of lie. That’s the best
description I know of corporate media today.
The growing power of real media
The cost to you of supporting corporate media is not just the subscription prices
or the time lost to advertisements. It’s the cost of omission — failing to tell you
what you need to know. Consider that this cost includes:
— Your share of the $10 trillion that has been moved out of the US stock
market and government without your having been informed by an alert
and objective news media in time for you to take actions to protect
yourself and your family.
— The dilution of your Constitutional freedoms and the vesting of power
in a small group of individuals who defraud you (the public) of stag-
gering sums of money and then use that money to buy up media and
control your government and judiciary and to compromise your rights
and the rights of people around the world.
— The impact on you and your children of having your streets and schools
overwhelmed with dangerous narcotics and prescription drugs.
Our financial system depends on liquidity. In turn, liquidity depends on a pop-
ular faith in the system’s “rule of law.” Global leadership’s power depends on the
ability to combine criminal cash flows with liquid stock market and government
securities. This is why Mike Ruppert’s From The Wilderness and a growing global net-
work of Internet media are accomplishing so much as we shift our readership and
subscription dollars to them. The powers that be are highly motivated to protect the
legitimacy of their financial system. If a little bit of well-placed illumination exposes
some of this criminality, the criminals take notice. That little bit of illumination can
also embarrass them a lot in front of their families and neighbors. Who wants to go
to a PTA meeting after Mike Ruppert has explained that you are on the board of, or
a lead investor in, a company complicit in slave trafficking or the torture of children?
David can defeat Goliath if we provide the resources to finance the stones —
as you have helped to do by buying this book.
The record speaks for itself
The fact that America and many countries around the globe are being strip-mined
in a manner that results in the destruction and “piratization” of our infrastructure and natural resources, the reduction of the value of our personal assets and retire-
ment and health care benefits and the abrogation of our civil liberties is not
something that the corporate media has made clear to you. Mike Ruppert has.
Allegations that the CIA and Department of Justice were complicit in the flow
of cocaine into South Central LA; that the Clintons were partnered with George
H. W. Bush and Oliver North through the offices of the National Security Council
in a little Iran Contra arms and cocaine trafficking operation in Mena, Arkansas;
and that Hillary Clinton’s law firm was helping launder the local share of the profits
through state housing agency securities and investments were never addressed objec-
tively by the corporate media. Mike Ruppert covered these stories and broke the story
of the possible connection between these allegations and the Clinton impeachment.
It is highly unlikely that you read or heard in the corporate media that the price
of gold was being manipulated to turn off our financial “smoke alarm,” or to “pira-
tize” significant inventories of gold out of government and central banks globally
at suppressed values. It is highly unlikely that you read or heard that money was
allegedly being siphoned off from federal agencies using PROMIS-type software
programs and that important financial and securities investigation records were
destroyed in the Oklahoma City and 9/11 attacks. Mike Ruppert’s subscribers
have read these stories.
You did not read or hear in the corporate media that the events of 9/11 “just
happened” to resolve the stalemate in the defense appropriations subcommittee
created when, in the face of the “disappearance” of $3.3 trillion from the
Department of Defense and a five-year refusal to produce audited financial state-
ments, Congress was challenged with achieving a significant increase in defense
spending. Or that the events of 9/11 allowed the Federal Reserve to adopt highly
inflationary monetary policies that postponed dealing with serious financial sys-
tem flaws. Mike Ruppert covered these stories.
You did not read or hear in the corporate media that our lives and economy
are entirely dependent on fossil fuel, that world oil and gas production will soon
decline, and what these facts have to do with the events of 9/11 and the subse-
quent invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Mike Ruppert covered these stories.
All these facts and allegations have been made abundantly clear by Mike and
his publication, From The Wilderness. While corporate media refines the art of
profitable omission, Mike Ruppert has risked his name, his financial security, and
his life to warn us — again and again.
An info cop’s beat: Watching your back
Through his website, radio talk-show appearances, speeches, DVDs, monthly
newsletter, and e-mail updates, Mike has been telling us for years what he sees,
hears, and feels about “the real deal.”
Mike Ruppert had to leave the Los Angeles Police Department because he tried to
prevent government-protected narcotics trafficking. After learning that the corporate media would not tell the truth about this important story, Mike became a pub-
lisher. In the face of widespread public denial of the fact of our economic
dependence on “narco-dollars” and warfare, Mike persisted. Mike is determined to
help us face and recover from our financial addiction to an estimated $500 billion
– $ 1 trillion of annual US money laundering.
In one sense, Mike is still a cop. He’s publisher as “info-cop.” His “info-beat”
is the intelligence we need to protect ourselves — even if the lifting of the shades
of denial means exposing our own complicity in the enjoyment of the fruits of the
trickle down of dirty money.
Throughout the years, I have heard a lot of criticism of Mike and his work. For
example:
Mike is too aggressive.
It’s true that Mike is unbelievably aggressive. Mike’s aggression is one of the rea-
sons I am a subscriber to From The Wilderness. I want to hear about danger real
loud, real clear, and on a real-time basis. I want Mike shouting “fire!” while I still
have time to get out of the theater alive. It takes incredible aggression to stand up
to the military banking complex and the academics, think tanks, not-for-profits,
and corporate media they fund. All the money on the planet can, and does, buy a
lot of attack poodles. It is full-time entertainment just watching them nip at Mike’s
heels and piddle on the fire hydrants when he’s around.
Mike has a point of view.
It’s true. Mike always expresses an opinion on matters covered in his stories. He
is both commentator and activist in a new genre of what Al Giordano of Narco
News calls “authentic journalism.” This is another reason why I am a subscriber.
A point of view is worth a heap of analytical power. Mike’s job as “info-cop” is not
to have an objective point of view. His job is to make sure we are safe by sharing
the information we need. The only potential risk we can price, adjust for, or dis-
miss is the risk of which we are aware. If that kind of journalism comes with a
vision and a perspective from the writer, I want that too.
Mike is “in your face. ”
Mike is not shy. You disagree? You have a problem? You got a question? You can
take it to Mike, have it out with Mike, and speak your mind with Mike. Mike will
say it to your face loud and clear. You can do the same. The only thing you can’t
do is to get him to agree with you when he does not. Mike’s temper is big — but
not as big as his heart.
Mike’s courage and intelligence can save not just your time and your money, but
A map of south central Los Angeles
After a successful career on Wall Street, I moved to Washington, DC, to serve as
Assistant Secretary of Housing in the first Bush administration. After I left the
This one’s true, too. I’m a case in point. [PROBLEM HERE – CHECK]
administration, I was invited to join the Federal Reserve as a governor. I declined
the invitation in order to start my own investment bank, Hamilton Securities.
Cleaning up Iran-Contra period fraud had persuaded me that democracy and
markets depended on citizens having access to government financial disclosure
contiguous to the political jurisdictions in which they elected officials. Owners of
small businesses, farms, and real estate needed to finance privately with equity and
stop depending on government credit programs that created a negative-return-on-
investment economy in neighborhoods.
Hamilton was developing a software tool called “Community Wizard” that
would have provided communities with their own access to rich databases and soft-
ware tools that painted a clear picture of how government money works in each
community. The first step to reengineering a negative-return-on-investment econ-
omy is to “see” it. In addition, we were designing a suite of software tools that
would allow us to conform valuations of street-level land, housing, and real estate
equity with valuations of outstanding mortgage and real estate securities. Such
pricing data is essential for understanding how to reduce the harm done through
the political and financial manipulation of neighborhood land and housing mar-
kets.
In March 1998, congressional hearings were held on one of two CIA Inspector
General reports addressing allegations (especially those of Gary Webb in his sto-
ries for the San Jose Mercury News, which shaped his 1999 book Dark Alliance: The
CIA, The Contras, and the Crack-Cocaine Explosion) about the role of the CIA and
the Department of Justice in cocaine trafficking in South Central Los Angeles.
Immediately prior to those hearings, Judge Stanley Sporkin approved the transfer
of Hamilton’s records to the control of a court-appointed “special master.” As a
result, Hamilton’s offices were seized, our financial records manipulated in an
attempt to falsely frame us, our computer systems ripped apart, and our digital
records transferred to court control. During these same Congressional hearings, a
1 982 memorandum of understanding between the Department of Justice and the
CIA came to light. The memorandum effectively relieved the CIA of the legal obli-
gation to report narcotics trafficking. The CIA General Counsel when that
memorandum of understanding was negotiated and signed was Stanley Sporkin.
The transfer of control of Community Wizard and Hamilton’s other programs
and databases to the special master had the practical result of ensuring that the
development of our software tools and the potential for public and private access
to them came to an end. What was destroyed included the databases that sup-
ported maps of HUD mortgage defaults in South Central Los Angeles.
Hamilton had posted data maps on the Internet to show how the HUD money
worked in select cities, one of which was Los Angeles. We hadn’t understood all
the implications when we posted them. The data for the Los Angeles map —
specifically the South Central LA portion — show patterns of significant mortgage
defaults contiguous to narcotics trafficking activity described in the Dark Alliance
allegations. Such data has the potential to raise important questions regarding alle-
gations that HUD mortgage insurance programs were being used to launder
narcotics profits and that such profits were being magnified through the issuance
of mortgage securities backed by fraudulent HUD-insured mortgage loans. Mike
Ruppert had worked as a narcotics investigator for the Los Angeles Police
Department, and his first words when I showed him the maps were “Holy
Smokes!”
After the seizure of the Hamilton offices, I became for all intents and purpos-
es a prisoner in my own home — a beautiful carriage house located in the Dupont
Circle neighborhood of Washington, adjacent to the financial district and not far
from the seat of national power. I was living with physical harassment and sur-
veillance while various people around me were trying to persuade me that the dead
animals on my doorstep, the break-ins, the people following me on foot or by car,
and the clicking noises on my telephone were one ongoing coincidence. I deter-
mined that my life depended on learning as much as possible about who was really
in charge.
I called a distributor of videos on government corruption and asked him to rec-
ommend films documenting government-sponsored narcotics trafficking and
financial fraud. He sent me a copy of a tape of Mike Ruppert’s confrontation of
then-CIA Director John Deutsch at a town hall meeting. The confrontation was
soon made famous by inclusion in an online video, Crack the CIA, which was
made available on Guerrilla News Network and won an award at the Sundance
Film Festival. I took one look at Mike making mincemeat of a very savvy CIA
director on global TV and realized that this was a person who could help trans-
form my situation.
I will never forget one of the first things Mike wrote to me by e-mail. “If they
shoot at you [from the apartment building next to your house] , remember to run
toward the gunfire,” he said. It was at that moment that the anxiety that came
from living an Orwellian nightmare started to ease. The more I spoke with Mike,
the more my cognitive dissonance disappeared. There was logic to the world. I
could understand covert operations and narco-dollars. I was not alone. My pastor
once said, “If we can face it, God can fix it. ” Mike made it possible for me to face
what was happening, and as I faced it, God indeed went to work to fix it.
Early courage
Mike’s extraordinary courage also spared me from a frightening loneliness in the
darkest moments that descended upon those of us who tried to warn our loved
ones during the events of 9/1 1. The official lies and profiteering by our leadership
were met immediately and relentlessly by Mike Ruppert’s outraged howl as he
demanded answers to important questions. Thanks largely to Mike’s initial stand
and his ongoing support for key members in his media network — Michel
Chossudovsky of Global Research, Alastair Thompson of Scoop Media, Al Giordano
of Narco News, Tom Flocco ofTomFlocco.com, and others — the 9/11 Truth
Movement has staked out the moral high ground and is gathering strength every
day. Thanks to Mike’s courage, the questions regarding the possibility of insider
responsibility or involvement and criminal gross negligence have remained on the
table, right where they belong.
Since first meeting him in 1998, I have been “in cahoots” with Mike in vari-
ous ways. Before leaving Washington, I had Mike come and speak to a group of
Washington insiders at my home. Mike’s speech was interrupted briefly by the
appearance of two unmarked black helicopters hovering over my roof garden, an
occurrence that inspired one of the guests — an influential reporter — to remark
that Mike must be “the real deal” if he inspired such attention.
I have since published articles in From The Wilderness and had the opportuni-
ty to speak with Mike at public events and join him on radio talks shows. I enjoy
the rich flow of “real deal” intelligence and the support I have received from Mike
and the people I have met through him. I have emerged a more seasoned and
knowledgeable investment banker with membership in a new and evolving global
network. Litigation with the US government and its informant have helped me
develop the skills required to survive and thrive in the midst of growing lawless-
ness and economic warfare.
If Mike can say “no” to going along with criminality, I can, too. And so can you.
On your side
Here, in a nutshell, is what I have learned about your consumer media choices.
If you want a good crossword puzzle and something safe to talk about at
Sunday brunch, then subscribe and listen to the New York Times, the Wall Street
Journal, the Washington Post, and network news.
If, instead, you want to know who is stealing your money and your freedoms
and planning on drafting your children, and you’d like to find out in time to devel-
op strategies to make sure your family has the health, the freedom, and the
financial means necessary to enjoy a Sunday brunch, subscribe to From The
Wilderness and listen to Mike Ruppert.
Mike Ruppert is an “info cop” who takes sides.
Mike is on your side.
If you are like me, having Mike and his global network of real deal media on
your side could be a matter of life and death.
Catherine Austin Fitts
Former Assistant Secretary of Housing (Bush I)
Past Managing Director, Dillon Read.
August 19, 2004
Hickory Valley, Tennessee
