Leid Stories - Michael Ruppert: Remembering A Fiery and Tireless Crusader - 04/24/14

Leid Stories pays humble tribute to Michael Ruppert, a former LAPD narcotics detective who first publicly exposed a CIA-run drug-trafficking operation that flooded communities of color in Los Angeles with cocaine and used the profits from drug sales to buy guns for the Nicaraguan Contras, a rebel group sponsored by the CIA. Ruppert’s exposé would lead to major investigative articles, most notably by reporter Gary Webb of the San Jose Mercury News, and congressional hearings that would confirm what many in these communities had been saying for years.

Ruppert then directed his attention full blast to a number of issues, including climate change and environmentalism, economic theory, human rights and governmental corruption. He wrote several prize-winning books and articles on his interests --among them Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil, A Presidential Energy Policy, and Confronting Collapse: The Crisis of Energy and Money in a Post Peak Oil World—and was a leading authority on Peak Oil.

Ruppert hosted The Lifeboat Hour on PRN. On April 13, shortly after his broadcast, he took his own life.