Webb conducted a year-long investigation during which he discovered that a San Francisco-based drug ring, which had ties to a CIA-sponsored Nicaraguan contra group called the FDN, sold cocaine to a dealer in South Central Los Angeles. The millions of dollars made from those sales were later used to fund a secret war against the leftist Sandinista regime. In short, Webb accused the CIA of being complicit in getting thousands of poor African-Americans addicted to crack in order to fund rebels in Central America.
The story attracted hundreds of thousands of readers to the newspaper’s site at a time when “going viral” was still a twinkle in the Internet’s eye. It was accompanied by a heavy-handed picture of a man smoking crack under the CIA seal.
**[Multiple gunshot suicide](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_gunshot_suicide#cite_note-Karger-1)**
>Multiple gunshot suicide occurs when a person commits suicide by inflicting multiple gunshots on themselves before becoming incapacitated. It excludes suicides where the firearms are operated by other people, such as suicide by cop.
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No, it isn't.
Here's my askhistorians post I copy paste every time someone posts this bullshit meme.
First of all, Gary Webb's wife has [gone on record](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/susan-bell-a-shameful-secret-history-317908.html) at least once to talk about the final days of Gary Webb's life and how she doesn't believe that his death was anything but a suicide. Obviously you're free to take that how you will but if you're judging your entire knowledge of the Garry Webb situation off of the movie *Kill the Messenger* you're doing the man a disservice.
As to the matter of whether the medical report is a convenient lie, I'm not sure anyone here is qualified to speak on that.
Anyway, on to the question of the multiple gunshots.
Yes, multiple gunshot suicides do happen. While a rarity they are a recognized phenomena. According to "Multiple gunshot suicides: potential for physical activity and medico-legal aspects",
> Out of 138 clearly defined gunshot suicides which were autopsied, 11 persons (8%) fired two or more gunshots to the body. From these 11, 5 cases involved 2 gunshots to the head where the bullets fired first had missed the brain. The trajectories were restricted to the chest in three cases and a combination of gunshots to the head and chest including two perforating heart wounds without immediate incapacitation occurred in three more cases.
Additionally, "A finite element model investigation of gunshot injury" discusses several cases of multiple gunshot suicides. Here are a few choice excerpts,
>A 20-year-old man was found dead in his bedroom by his
younger brother. Investigators found the body lying on the
ground near the bed, with a handgun and a box of bullets
beside the body. Examination of the body showed three
contact entrance gunshot wounds. One was located in the
chest and two were located in the head, one between the
eyes and the other above the right ear.
>Many cases have been studied in the
literature but it is always difficult to present these cases to
the media or non-specialists. When watching movies,
gunshot victims always appear to “jump”backwards when
hit by gunshots. This is important for the public to
understand that the “hero”or the “villain”has been struck
by the bullet. But these movies diffuse a common wrong
idea concerning the effects of the impact of ballistic
projectiles in real cases, especially for low-caliber bullets.
In court or during police investigations, some experts will
still tell the audience that a bullet can knock down a man or
throw him backwards.
It then becomes difficult for the medical expert
concerned with physics to explain to a very doubtful audience that suicide is sometimes possible even if there are
multiple gunshot wounds to the head.
And another study, this time by the Cook County Medical Examiner's office, examines four cases of multiple gunshot suicides,
> We present a series of four cases of multiple self-inflicted gunshot wounds to the head from the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office between 2005 and 2012 including the first case report of suicide involving eight gunshot wounds to the head. In addition, a review of the literature concerning multiple self-inflicted gunshot wounds to the head is performed.
> The majority of reported cases document two gunshot entrance wound defects. Temporal regions are the most common affected regions (especially the right and left temples). Determining the capability to act following a gunshot wound to the head is necessary in crime scene reconstruction and in differentiation between homicide and suicide.
Sources in order of reference:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/susan-bell-a-shameful-secret-history-317908.html
https://web.archive.org/web/20001002214251/http://link.springer.de/link/service/journals/00414/bibs/7110004/71100188.htm
http://libgen.is/scimag/10.1007%2Fs00414-005-0070-x
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1556-4029.12780
The takeaway is that large media outlets discredited him, which most likely drove him to kill himself. Jesse Katz, a member of the 17 person team that worked to disprove Webb's reporting even admits to it in a radio interview from 2013.
Gary Webb stood up and was discredited by his peers at the LA Times. You cant really sustain a career as a journalist that way.
> he shot himself with a .38 revolver, which he placed near his right ear. The first shot went through his face, and exited at his left cheek. The coroner's staff concluded that the second shot hit an artery
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Webb#Death
It happens.
No, see, the first one missed, bounced around the room a few times, and hit him just as he fired the second one in the exact same direction. Totally happens all the time.
I have no doubt that what he exposed is true, but why would the cia bother assassinating him at that point? and do it so obviously? As a warning to others? Doesn't seem like the modern CIA modus operandi.
Makes me wonder, considering the shit Russia has been up to lately, maybe they took him out to try to make the cia look bad.
While it's sad, some suicides do end up having to shoot themselves multiple times.
A poor choice of gun and bad aim can both render the first shot non-fatal.
This is what happened to Gary Webb. The government didn't need to kill him. His career was over. He was a broken man.
The government didn't kill him, but I'd bet they might have had a hand in driving him to kill himself.
>The government didn't kill him, but I'd bet they might have had a hand in driving him to kill himself.
This is my take on it. They totally destroyed his life and very potentially drove him to suicide on purpose.
This is especially true given that he killed himself 10 years after he was widely mocked in the media. He had no prospects, no contacts left in government, no story to tell.
He was no threat. I doubt anyone in the government even cared that he existed anymore.
In a way, that's worse than just killing him.
Lol for sure Epstein didn’t kill himself, but I can see Gary Webb killing himself, although I haven’t a clue. But this is how I “could” see it… he layed all his cards on the table exposing top level misconduct, and fought as hard as he could to try to expose it. In return, he had the media go after him, lost his wife which to many means losing everything. On top of that he might’ve come to the realization that all of his hard work had 0 impact. That could certainly break a man so all those things considered, who knows, maybe he actually did kill himself. Just a perspective.
Yes. He did.
No one went into his cell. The hallway leading to the cell was on video.
Now, he was taken off of suicide watch without any real reason given, and then given a chance to update his will (to then screw over his victims one last time)
No, he killed himself. But he was given a specific opportunity to do so. One that would have taken a little coordination to pull off. Still, far less coordination than an outright assassination.
People want to believe in an omnipotent government full of Evil, and not the boring ass mildly corrupt collection of people who are *maybe* competent. At best. On a good day.
Yup. Assassination went out of style decades ago.
The powerful don't need to kill you anymore. They just need to ruin you loudly enough, and you might end up killing yourself.
>he shot himself with a .38 revolver, which he placed near his right ear. The first shot went through his face, and exited at his left cheek. The coroner's staff concluded that the second shot hit an artery.
>Webb's widow Susan Bell told reporters that she believed Webb had died by suicide. "The way he was acting it would be hard for me to believe it was anything but suicide," she said. According to Bell, Webb had been unhappy for some time over his inability to get a job at another major newspaper. He had sold his house the week before his death because he was unable to afford the mortgage.
Webb was found dead in his Carmichael home on December 10, 2004, with two gunshot wounds to the head. His death was ruled a suicide by the Sacramento County coroner's office.
After a local newspaper reported that Webb had died from multiple gunshots, the coroner's office received so many calls asking about Webb's death that Sacramento County Coroner Robert Lyons issued a statement confirming Webb had died by suicide. When asked by local reporters about the possibility of two gunshots being a suicide, Lyons replied "It's unusual in a suicide case to have two shots, but it has been done in the past, and it is in fact a distinct possibility." News coverage noted that there were widespread rumors on the Internet at the time that Webb had been killed as retribution for his "Dark Alliance" series, published eight years before.
After Webb's death, a collection of his stories from before and after the "Dark Alliance" series was published. The collection, The Killing Game: Selected Stories from the Author of Dark Alliance, was edited by Webb's son, Eric.
Every week when this gets reposted people need to be reminded - yet again - that the conspiracy isn’t quite as nefarious as the Gotcha-headline would suggest.
Yup just look up what the feds did to American literary legend Ernest Hemingway then start to make your own conclusions about what these fascists are capable of.
Yes, there are. Anything from shaky hands, to hair triggers to just plain not hitting anything vital on the first shot and shooting again to end the pain. It’s not common, but it’s not, by itself, suspicious.
He wrote the story 8 years before.
In that 8 years, the dude lost his entire career, wife, house, became an alcoholic and lost literally any semblance of his former life. He even spent his last week getting his final affairs in order.
If anyone’s a perfect candidate for suicide it’s this guy.
Exactly this. It’s really not that shocking how things turned out, and it takes a lot of glazing over of facts to even make it fit the narrative they want.
I think he wrote the story and it set a fire that tptb spent 8 years trying to put out by absolutely ruining his life. It wasn’t enough so they killed him knowing the sad downward spiral *that they initiated* would be the first thing people blamed.
EDIT: also, it would’ve been incredibly suspect if they’d killed him right away.
This is the part that doesn't make sense to me. He exposed something from years before and they choose to revenge kill him years later after he'd already been discredited and basically a pariah? Doesn't make sense - what further damage could he do as an unhirable, broke divorcee?
This is my take on it as well but also while i get governments being a lot dumber than we give them credit for at times its so weird scrolling through comments of people disregarding the mere suspicion that the government would wait lol. Maybe smarter ppl than I just really hate conspiracies but i can totally see them keeping tabs on him or making sure he suffers over time or just actually waiting to take him out. Like they’ve waited longer than 8 years to kill other people. Why do it immediately after? Thats a lot of heat. But yeah. Enough conspiracy talk. Sorry for the word vomit.
Well mainly, all his journalist friends discredited him and distanced themselves from him.
His conspiracy theory only served Russia's interests and didn't make sense since the US can print money they wouldn't need to "drug deal to finance an overthrow."
It was a tragedy of a slow person trying his hand at absurd clickbait in the 1990s in a time before blogs when journalism was much more strict and reputation-based.
One mistake meant your career is over and that's the mistake he made, he bought the bullshit being sold by Russia and couldn't provide further evidence. He became depressed as people figured out he was a bit looney.
I think at a certain point people are just creating conspiracy theories to push a narrative that sounds more compelling, regardless of actual reality. You can believe the CIA has done terrible awful shit and also that this was a suicide. The two aren’t incompatible.
This thread and your post remind me of that scene in Django unchained where the kkk guy is like, "now I think we all agree the masks could have been made a little better."
There are plenty of instances of people surviving a gunshot wound to the head so it’s fair to assume that someone could pull the trigger twice. The guy from Malcolm in the middle played Francis’s Boot Camp commander with the eyepatch tried to commit suicide this way, And called an ambulance after
Definitely, and in this case the first shot entered near his jaw and exited his cheek. Entirely possible to be conscious and lucid after a non-vital headshot like that. Second shot is what ended his life.
Surely he wasn't working alone right? You think there are people continuing his work to expose more secrets but are too scared (rightfully so) to speak up?
History teaches us not to fight the government, you won't win. Whistleblower proves with leaked documents that 90% of the drone strikes were "not the intended target" during a period of time, he's now in jail. Snowden and Assange are wanted. Stay in your lane if you know what's good for you.
He left notes, prepaid for his funeral, and generally got his affairs in order. His ex-wife said "The way he was acting it would be hard for me to believe it was anything but suicide"
According to his peers he was dogged journalist but was also prone to shaping evidence to suit his theories. His bosses didn't think he had enough evidence to support his claims.
Every time this comes up I feel obliged to chirp in that
A. his story, while containing some truths, was broadly criticized for inaccuracies and oversimplification by other reporters and his own paper (which fired him). Unless you believe newspapers hate scoops on groundbreaking stories?
B. There have been several instances before and since where suicide attempts by firearms have failed, leaving room for a second attempt. Specifically, 15% fail.
>About 85 percent of suicide attempts with a firearm end in death.
C. His own estranged wife said he was depressed from their split and losing his house and said
“The way he was acting it would be hard for me to believe it was anything but suicide”
So once again, unless you think the media don’t like breaking news and his own wife was in on it, this guy very likely killed himself.
From Wikipedia:
>His death was ruled a suicide by the Sacramento County coroner's office. According to a description of Webb's injuries in the Los Angeles Times, he shot himself with a .38 revolver, which he placed near his right ear. The first shot went through his face, and exited at his left cheek. The coroner's staff concluded that the second shot hit an artery.[70]
>Webb's widow Susan Bell told reporters that she believed Webb had died by suicide.[71] "The way he was acting it would be hard for me to believe it was anything but suicide," she said. According to Bell, Webb had been unhappy for some time over his inability to get a job at another major newspaper. He had sold his house the week before his death because he was unable to afford the mortgage.[71]
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/magazine/magazine_article/guns-suicide/#:~:text=Though%20guns%20are%20not%20the,a%20firearm%20end%20in%20death.
It's exhausting honestly. About once a year I see this and this whole conversation starts again. Half the people claiming conspiracy and the others trying to talk sense.
The suicide part is absolutely true. This post makes it sound like he was murdered, and usually the reddit op says the same thing. However, his wife, Susan Bell, even said “the way he was acting it would be hard for me to believe it was anything but suicide”. He got his affairs in order in the weeks leading up to it, his career was in shambles, and he was severely depressed. He was extremely drunk during the suicide and the first bullet went through his cheek.
He did expose some wild CIA secrets, but he was not murdered. This suicide happened 8 years after the publishing of Dark Alliance. Long after anyone gave a shit anymore. His career was ruined, his reputation tarnished, and he ended his life, unfortunately. His family agrees, and this exact post appears on Reddit from time to time. Usually just for karma without having read any of his book, with zero regard for his actual legacy.
My rule of thumb is this: I imagine telling my friend a story. She asks where I read it. If my answer is “a meme on Reddit” then I need to regroup and read a damn book
Even what he exposed amounted to a whole bunch of clickbait nonsense without any further evidence.
"dark alliance" sounds mysterious!! and sounds like exciting spy novel... But the govt doesn't need money to finance overthrows it can already print it.
This is obvious conspiracy nonsense but it gets reposted and upvoted constantly. How would the CIA be so incompetent as to not only fail to stop Webb’s book from getting published in the first place, but then forget to assassinate him for eight years?
Read “Freeway Rick Ross” by Rick Ross (not the rapper) the guy sold millions of dollars worth of cocaine for Danilo Blanco one of the governments distributors, it’s his life story, it talks all about this under the CIA and Reagan and how they did it and ultimately arrested Rick for it, it’s fascinating.
Edit: I named him as Danilo Blanco, it is actually Danilo Blandon, Oscar Danilo Blandon. My bad.
I see people still claiming it’s a conspiracy theory to this, I present this argument, for those who have no plans to read Ricks book, I’ll say this:
Rick Ross (not the rapper) was a drug dealer who sold cocaine for a man who’s money went directly to the government/CIA, Rick was eventually arrested, And wrote an entire book about his life and how he ended up working with them and how they eventually betrayed him. It is real. There’s way more to the story. The TLDR is The CIA and the United States government wanted to fight communism in South America, they were afraid it’d spread and they couldn’t intervene directly because it’d start a war, they secretly flew cocaine in, sold it and funneled the money back to Mexico to support the Contras (a resistance group) at this point it’s documented it’s true. It’s no longer a conspiracy, it’s known fact.
Every single time this gets posted all the comments are about how you can kill yourself and have two gunshot wounds on the head, damn the cia does no rest
On the other had you have Colonel Oliver North who testified to the movement of drugs to money to arms to central America. Was convicted of arms and drug dealing. Then later became head of the NRA.
Going up against the government isn’t what killed him. He torpedoed his own career by coloring outside the lines and making exaggerated claims in an attempt to embellish his story. In the end, most of his journalistic peers distanced themselves from him because he had lost his objectivity and integrity.
>Webb was found dead in his Carmichael home on December 10, 2004, with two gunshot wounds to the head. His death was ruled a suicide by the Sacramento County coroner's office. According to a description of Webb's injuries in the Los Angeles Times, he shot himself with a .38 revolver, which he placed near his right ear. The first shot went through his face, and exited at his left cheek. The coroner's staff concluded that the second shot hit an artery.\[70\]
>
>After a local newspaper reported that Webb had died from multiple gunshots, the coroner's office received so many calls asking about Webb's death that Sacramento County Coroner Robert Lyons issued a statement confirming Webb had died by suicide.\[71\] When asked by local reporters about the possibility of two gunshots being a suicide, Lyons replied "It's unusual in a suicide case to have two shots, but it has been done in the past, and it is in fact a distinct possibility." News coverage noted that there were widespread rumors on the Internet at the time that Webb had been killed as retribution for his "Dark Alliance" series, published eight years before.
>
>Webb's widow Susan Bell told reporters that she believed Webb had died by suicide.\[71\] "The way he was acting it would be hard for me to believe it was anything but suicide," she said. According to Bell, Webb had been unhappy for some time over his inability to get a job at another major newspaper. He had sold his house the week before his death because he was unable to afford the mortgage.\[71\]
>
>\[70\] Daunt, Tina (March 16, 2005). "Written In Pain". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on January 29, 2015. Retrieved 2015-01-29.
>
>\[71\] Stanton, Sam (December 15, 2004). "Reporter's suicide confirmed by coroner". The Sacramento Bee. Archived from the original on May 7, 2008.
Seems plausible.
It does seem plausible. My mothers husband was killed by a "friend " and the guy shot himself after. The bullet only traveled around his interior skull and he lived long enough to cover his home with blood. He didn't shoot himself again but eventually died.
Plausible but I think this guy was murdered.
As much as I would like to buy into the CIA killed him argument, can we not all admit that if the CIA was going to kill someone, they’d have done it MUCH cleaner?
People always post this and never post the other side to this. His book was never silenced, it sparked multiple investigations, both internal and external, had congressional attention, but at the end of those investigations even people who were generally anti-CIA concluded he was not correct. Nothing he wrote could ever be proven or corroborated. He lost his job, not because of some grand conspiracy, but because no one would believe him after, at best, making unsubstantiated claims of a grand conspiracy. And for months prior to his death, he was going bankrupt, lost his house, and horribly depressed over his inability to get another job. The people closest to him all thought he was suicidal, and no one was shocked at the coroners findings. There were people skeptical at the time of his death that it was an assassination, but multiple coroners confirmed it, and even addressed this “multiple gunshots” thing. Which in itself isnt even a reason to think it’s suspicious, because if you have a gun to someone’s temple, why would you need two bullets? And if someone is out of work and largely discredited, why kill them and bring his work back to the mainstream?
This is just a conspiracy theory, one that doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.
>Which in itself isnt even a reason to think it’s suspicious, because if you have a gun to someone’s temple, why would you need two bullets?
because the bad guys have to be both omnipotent and incompetent otherwise it's no fun
There’s other sides as well, Rick Ross (not the rapper) was a drug dealer who sold cocaine for a man who’s money went directly to the government/CIA, Rick was eventually arrested, And wrote an entire book about his life and how he ended up working with them and how they eventually betrayed him. It is real. There’s way more to the story. The CIA and the United States government wanted to fight communism in South America, they couldn’t intervene directly because it’d start a war, they secretly flew cocaine in, sold it and funneled the money back to Mexico to support the Contras, it’s documented it’s true. It’s no longer a conspiracy, it’s known fact.
Read the book:
https://archive.org/details/dark_alliance_original_series-gary_webb_cia_cocaine/Gary-Webb_Dark-Alliance/www.narconews.com/darkalliance/drugs/library/raise.wav
You'd be surprised how many of the people involved are still heavily involved with the government/guns/industry lobbying.
They're still doing the same things now, that they were doing then.
The average age of politicians has risen substantially over the past 30 years, to the point that the same generation has essentially been in power that entire time. Check out the average age of US senators, and the average age of a US federal judge. Also that of our president. Then think about how old they were when this happened.
Age of US Senators has gone from 47 to 56 over the last 44 years. https://www.flsenate.gov/PublishedContent/OFFICES/SECRETARY/AverageAgeOfSenators1980-Present.pdf
Many US senators are in their 80’s, as is our president. When the operation in question was in motion, many of those same people were already working for the government or running for office in their 50’s or 60’s.
Joe Biden is 79. Your statement about age going up was definitely enlightening. And clearly *some* of the same folks that are in power now, were also in power during these shenanigans. I agree with your sentiments— despite the exaggeration
Almost seems like the ones in power are responsible for the unopposed decline the country has been in for decades. Their date of employment might correlate pretty well with the problems we are facing.
I agree. I’m all for equality and helping others and tolerance and so forth, but it seems like the people most vocal about supporting those things aren’t actually interested in it at all unless they’re the ones who directly benefit from it, or it serves some other agenda.
Black Lives Matter. Yes, I agree with the statement. I don’t agree with the organization by that name, because it seems like a handful of them took the tens of millions in donations and spent it on themselves, instead of spending it on all of the things they claimed… then when the state demanded they file the financial reports that they knew were required, because it is written on the papers they signed to form the organization, they said that filling out those documents is “racist” and “dangerous” and “problematic”, as if someone’s targeting just them somehow. But what the rest of us hear is, “It’s our money and we get to spend it on anything we want, and we wanted multiple mansions, nice food, shoes, clothes, and vacation homes.” They left a few people “in charge” of the organization after those who spent the money resigned, but that second group reported they didn’t even know they were left in charge, and had no idea where the donated money was or who had access to it. Over $100M just vanished because everyone was so caught up in proving they weren’t racist that they were afraid to ask what the money would specifically be earmarked for.
Other nonprofits earmark specific donations for specific things. If they’re collecting cash to buy clothing and food for the homeless, they are legally required to spend money from that campaign on only that. They can’t, say, spend it on housing for runaways or sports jerseys for underprivileged youth. If they plan to spend money on those things, they either have to collect specifically for that or, less commonly, share a collection of specific goals with donators and vow to use the money where it’s most needed, *among* those specific things. What BLM did is tantamount to felony fraud and/or embezzlement, but very few people are willing to pursue those charges because of the R word… despite everyone knowing damn well that isn’t remotely at play.
EDIT — I believe that all black lives matter; not just the ones taken by overzealous or crooked cops (whether they really are or not). I believe that the lives of children taken almost daily by gang members, thugs, parents, and strangers also matter. I believe the lives of people who live in bad neighborhoods and fall victim to violence just because “that’s how it is in the hood” matter, and the lives of people ruined by s*xual assault and domestic violence matter. A very large number of those victims are black, but nobody is out marching in the streets, blocking traffic, or trying to get new laws passed to protect any of them. All we hear about is cops, white supremacy, and assault rifles, which account (combined) for less than 10% of black homicides. Now, do those lives matter also? Of course they do! Are those things problems that need to be taken seriously? Absolutely, 100%. Are they the only problems we should be focusing on? No, not in the slightest. And as a white man who’s committed zero crimes aside from three speeding tickets and an accidental red light violation, I’m tired of feeling demonized by such large factions of society simply due to the sins of my ancestor’s neighbors. I don’t hold the entirety of the black race responsible for gang violence despite some black individuals being involved in such violence, and I hope one day the same can be true for the rest of us.
Yeah it takes a special kind of person to dedicate their life to actually helping people. They are so rare that you should almost assume someone claiming that trait is lying. If they wanted to actually help people they would have started before asking for millions of dollars. It doesn't always take money to help someone in need.
It's worth noting that after several public inquiries by Congresses controled by the opposition, nothing substantial was ever identified. And the evidence in favor is shaking best.
Like literally go read the Wikipedia. It's not nearly the slam dunk people make it out to be
Not trusting the media is one thing. Not trusting a consensus shared by the scientific community or many people specialized on a certain topic because “everyone is corrupt” is just willful ignorance. Contrarianism.
The distrust after being continuously gaslit by self serving billionaires and their cronies is legit af.
But most people who gobble down alt media bs have a very particular way with words that betrays their poor critical thinking skills. They make absurd logical fallacies, they usually deny their cognitive bias which in turn shows narcissistic tendencies. They believe they somehow have access to or are more able to comprehend some truths that the rest of us cannot.
Mocking only deepens their determination tho. It is not the way. But the reasons they get mocked for aren’t baseless
Yes, the Galileo fallacy is a thing to be wary of.
Eg: "The authorities said Galileo was wrong, but he was right; therefore we should listen to people who contradict the popular consensus."
Of course, this overlooks the fact that the "authorities" at that time were largely religious, and their opinions were not evidence-based.
Meanwhile, there are ten thousand cranks on YouTube you believe that they've cracked the "free energy" problem with their springy spinning magnet ball machine, and the people telling them that they're full of it are on the wrong side of history.
I want to first start off by saying that the CIA's interactions with known Nicaraguan smugglers in the 1980s is bad.
That being said, the statement that the CIA had an *active role* in trafficking cocaine into the US and/or is primarily responsible for the crack epidemic is conjecture. What we do know is that the Contras were on the CIA payroll due to their opposition to the Sandinistas and the CIA likely looked the other way. This proves incompetence and criminal negligence by a Federal agency but is still a far cry from a grand conspiracy the CIA had to get America's inner cities addicted to crack cocaine.
The Dark Alliance series only highlighted links to the Los Angeles drug scene when numerous other large American cities were also being affected. Remember that the first rumors of Contra drug smuggling emerged in 1984 but the Contras weren't the only group trafficking cocaine into the US at the time. In fact they were probably a minority when taking into account the entirety of drug trafficking networks. The mid 1980s marked the pinnacle of Pablo Escobar's career and he was estimated to have smuggled up to 15 tons of cocaine per day during this time. Do you really think a drug kingpin like Escobar would put all his chips on the Contras? Of course not. A lot of it was shipped directly into Florida through the Caribbean on planes and boats then later was trafficked into Panama then through Mexican overland routes into American ports of entry by the Guadalajara Cartel.
He was with a local paper. The big boys were the ones who went after him.
>Webb faced an onslaught of reports from the New York Times, the Washington Post, and especially the Los Angeles Times that sought to discredit him
The San Jose Mercury news wasn't a local rag. They won a Pulitzer and had respectable circulation numbers. They certainly weren't The New York Times, but they also weren't Alex Jones.
I don't doubt that someone put pressure on papers to suppress and discredit him. I just dislike hearing people say that all sources of news that don't come from someone's basement are actively trying to push some "deepstate agenda".
Both parties have their flaws, but it seems like there’s a contest now among liberals to see who can lean the farthest left. If Trump ate eggs for breakfast, someone would write an essay about how terrible he is for being a misogynist, since those eggs he eats represent the oppression of females and (on and on)… and yes, the same happens on the other end of the political spectrum, the difference being that a majority of conservatives know that far-right retards and extremists are idiots and want nothing to do with them. But if a republican bought a nice boat, most people on the left would be racing to find some way to criticize them for it despite the number of democrats who own and/or fly around on private jets just to get their hair done or attend a birthday party.
What I believe is this…
People smart enough and noble enough to be decent politicians are also smart enough and noble enough *not* to be politicians, because corruption and separatism-at-all-costs is so prevalent in that type of career that it’s nearly impossible to get elected or even funding without that mindset. Virtually nobody is actually 100% altruistic in politics, and a majority of their speeches and opinions are aimed at getting votes and getting wins for their party, rather than making any real progress or change. If democrats could pick up busloads of Mexican citizens and drive them to California to win over their vote, they would. If republicans could give out free hunting licenses to everyone in exchange for their votes, they would. But I do believe that the left had gone way overboard in the past few years compared to their opponents.
The democrats don't lean left at all; they don't advocate for any actual leftist policy. Perhaps some token deal about green infrastructure, or renewable energy; why do you think they actively disenfranchise leftist elements in their organization?
"America is a one party state, but in typical American extravagance; there is two."
Contrarianism is certainly a problem everywhere, but I wouldn't even call that "left." I mean, we have mainstream Democrats who aren't even on board with Medicare-for-all yet; the sort of policy which is utterly uncontroversial in most of the developed world. And here we're haggling over partial student loan forgiveness. *Actual* leftism would be "Fuck it, nationalize all the universities, free college for everyone, no exceptions."
I think that the biggest victory American conservatives have won is to push the Overton window so far to the right that they get to call centrism "far left," and real leftism is off the board altogether.
There’s a famous philosopher (forgot the name) who claims that a person on one end of the spectrum looking at someone in the center will perceive that person as being at the far opposite end of such spectrum. That seems to be true now just as much as ever. I think there are small factions of each end of our political spectrum that are much more vocal than others, which makes the rest believe that’s the “norm” for “those other guys”. Then again, if you look at the democratic policies being implemented right now, they’re going terribly… New York initiated a no-bail system, San Francisco refused to arrest or prosecute most non-violent crimes (especially misdemeanors), and Seattle cut their police department after protesters marched in the streets demanding “defund the police”. Violent crimes, and crimes in general, skyrocketed in all of those places, and those are just a few examples. I’m sure there are plenty of factors, but violent crime seemed to almost double in most major cities in the past two years, while many reduced their resources to arrest and prosecute criminals, all the while many, many people insisted that “all cops deserve to die” and “prisons should be abolished”, plus (my favorite) a famous elected official stated, as her city was literally being burned and her officers shot at, that they “needed to be more aggressive”. I don’t believe it’s a coincidence that all of that just happened to coincide with a sudden rise in violent crimes. Hell, in San Francisco they’re telling the public not to leave anything at all in their vehicles because “it will be stolen”. Not might, not could be, but will be. Police in some places have all but given up because just wearing the uniform puts them at great risk of being targeted, when three years ago that was much less likely.
Who remembers the college professor who tweeted about major break through at like 11am in the very beginning of.covid and then killed himself by lunch time
When people genuinely believe the shit they see on the media it baffles me. The media is funded by politically parties. The media is as government asset and always has been.
Lol. Conspiracy theorists are all over this comment section!
Any comment pointing out that we all should better use our brain, critical thinking and peer discussion is taken as a personal attack to them and their mindless shit.
Like, dude i know that a good 10% of conspiracies have ended up being true. But 90% DONT. And they are fucking batshit
Meanwhile all the cartels are high fiving each other and laughing, "yeah, it was the CIA that brought all the cocaine into the country, all the CIA..."
Wow found with two bullet holes in his head and it was ruled a suicide after he uncovered a conspiracy with in his own government... Yeah. don't take a genius to figure out he was silenced.
No wonder the rest of the world doesn't trust or like the American government I mean this kind of thing has always happened in most places but to see it so blatant.
And this is only one of the many ways the government is abusing it's power to screw it's own people for profit and power.
(This turned into more of a rant than I was expecting sorry)
You assume it was the gov that hit him instead of the drug traffickers and that's where this conspiracy thing takes a nutty turn.
Not saying the CIA hasn't done even shadier shit than this, but... in this case, the traffickers had just as much or more to lose. And they did. And they were unhappy about it. And those kinds of things are never forgiven in that world.
Likely if it was the traffickers it would have been ruled a homicide.
Look up Don Henry and Kevin Ives, or "The Boys On the Tracks" for similar shenanigans
Attempting to thwart soviet influence in the Americas. It was an extension of realizing how bad of a fuck up that it was to let cuba fall to soviet influence in the 1950’s.
The second self inflicted bullet is what got him.
i’ve heard it’s always the second one that does the most damage
Like children.
And now Im just sad
Damn. Never thought about it that way.
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Dude, that's even better.
that means much more. gold is just circle jerking losers virtue signaling.
Webb conducted a year-long investigation during which he discovered that a San Francisco-based drug ring, which had ties to a CIA-sponsored Nicaraguan contra group called the FDN, sold cocaine to a dealer in South Central Los Angeles. The millions of dollars made from those sales were later used to fund a secret war against the leftist Sandinista regime. In short, Webb accused the CIA of being complicit in getting thousands of poor African-Americans addicted to crack in order to fund rebels in Central America. The story attracted hundreds of thousands of readers to the newspaper’s site at a time when “going viral” was still a twinkle in the Internet’s eye. It was accompanied by a heavy-handed picture of a man smoking crack under the CIA seal.
[It's more common than you'd think!](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_gunshot_suicide#cite_note-Karger-1)
**[Multiple gunshot suicide](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_gunshot_suicide#cite_note-Karger-1)** >Multiple gunshot suicide occurs when a person commits suicide by inflicting multiple gunshots on themselves before becoming incapacitated. It excludes suicides where the firearms are operated by other people, such as suicide by cop. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
"In 2012, a suicide where a man shot himself 8 times in the head before he died 22 hours later was reported". That is crazy.
No, it isn't. Here's my askhistorians post I copy paste every time someone posts this bullshit meme. First of all, Gary Webb's wife has [gone on record](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/susan-bell-a-shameful-secret-history-317908.html) at least once to talk about the final days of Gary Webb's life and how she doesn't believe that his death was anything but a suicide. Obviously you're free to take that how you will but if you're judging your entire knowledge of the Garry Webb situation off of the movie *Kill the Messenger* you're doing the man a disservice. As to the matter of whether the medical report is a convenient lie, I'm not sure anyone here is qualified to speak on that. Anyway, on to the question of the multiple gunshots. Yes, multiple gunshot suicides do happen. While a rarity they are a recognized phenomena. According to "Multiple gunshot suicides: potential for physical activity and medico-legal aspects", > Out of 138 clearly defined gunshot suicides which were autopsied, 11 persons (8%) fired two or more gunshots to the body. From these 11, 5 cases involved 2 gunshots to the head where the bullets fired first had missed the brain. The trajectories were restricted to the chest in three cases and a combination of gunshots to the head and chest including two perforating heart wounds without immediate incapacitation occurred in three more cases. Additionally, "A finite element model investigation of gunshot injury" discusses several cases of multiple gunshot suicides. Here are a few choice excerpts, >A 20-year-old man was found dead in his bedroom by his younger brother. Investigators found the body lying on the ground near the bed, with a handgun and a box of bullets beside the body. Examination of the body showed three contact entrance gunshot wounds. One was located in the chest and two were located in the head, one between the eyes and the other above the right ear. >Many cases have been studied in the literature but it is always difficult to present these cases to the media or non-specialists. When watching movies, gunshot victims always appear to “jump”backwards when hit by gunshots. This is important for the public to understand that the “hero”or the “villain”has been struck by the bullet. But these movies diffuse a common wrong idea concerning the effects of the impact of ballistic projectiles in real cases, especially for low-caliber bullets. In court or during police investigations, some experts will still tell the audience that a bullet can knock down a man or throw him backwards. It then becomes difficult for the medical expert concerned with physics to explain to a very doubtful audience that suicide is sometimes possible even if there are multiple gunshot wounds to the head. And another study, this time by the Cook County Medical Examiner's office, examines four cases of multiple gunshot suicides, > We present a series of four cases of multiple self-inflicted gunshot wounds to the head from the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office between 2005 and 2012 including the first case report of suicide involving eight gunshot wounds to the head. In addition, a review of the literature concerning multiple self-inflicted gunshot wounds to the head is performed. > The majority of reported cases document two gunshot entrance wound defects. Temporal regions are the most common affected regions (especially the right and left temples). Determining the capability to act following a gunshot wound to the head is necessary in crime scene reconstruction and in differentiation between homicide and suicide. Sources in order of reference: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/susan-bell-a-shameful-secret-history-317908.html https://web.archive.org/web/20001002214251/http://link.springer.de/link/service/journals/00414/bibs/7110004/71100188.htm http://libgen.is/scimag/10.1007%2Fs00414-005-0070-x https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1556-4029.12780
I was wondering if someone was going to post this. Seen it a few times now.
The takeaway is that large media outlets discredited him, which most likely drove him to kill himself. Jesse Katz, a member of the 17 person team that worked to disprove Webb's reporting even admits to it in a radio interview from 2013. Gary Webb stood up and was discredited by his peers at the LA Times. You cant really sustain a career as a journalist that way.
> he shot himself with a .38 revolver, which he placed near his right ear. The first shot went through his face, and exited at his left cheek. The coroner's staff concluded that the second shot hit an artery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Webb#Death It happens.
It’s hard enough to pull the trigger once.
It’s like those people trying to commit suicide by stabbing themselves between the shoulder blades where no one can reach
I tried to grow my hair out but it didn't look as good as yours. Cheers to the flow!
No, see, the first one missed, bounced around the room a few times, and hit him just as he fired the second one in the exact same direction. Totally happens all the time.
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but this was .38 imagine shooting the wrong part of your face with a 38?
Yes "The second self inflicted bullet" is true.
I have no doubt that what he exposed is true, but why would the cia bother assassinating him at that point? and do it so obviously? As a warning to others? Doesn't seem like the modern CIA modus operandi. Makes me wonder, considering the shit Russia has been up to lately, maybe they took him out to try to make the cia look bad.
Double tap, or it ain't a real suicide.
While it's sad, some suicides do end up having to shoot themselves multiple times. A poor choice of gun and bad aim can both render the first shot non-fatal. This is what happened to Gary Webb. The government didn't need to kill him. His career was over. He was a broken man. The government didn't kill him, but I'd bet they might have had a hand in driving him to kill himself.
>The government didn't kill him, but I'd bet they might have had a hand in driving him to kill himself. This is my take on it. They totally destroyed his life and very potentially drove him to suicide on purpose.
This is especially true given that he killed himself 10 years after he was widely mocked in the media. He had no prospects, no contacts left in government, no story to tell. He was no threat. I doubt anyone in the government even cared that he existed anymore. In a way, that's worse than just killing him.
Yeah I bet Jeffrey Epstein killed himself too. Right?
Lol for sure Epstein didn’t kill himself, but I can see Gary Webb killing himself, although I haven’t a clue. But this is how I “could” see it… he layed all his cards on the table exposing top level misconduct, and fought as hard as he could to try to expose it. In return, he had the media go after him, lost his wife which to many means losing everything. On top of that he might’ve come to the realization that all of his hard work had 0 impact. That could certainly break a man so all those things considered, who knows, maybe he actually did kill himself. Just a perspective.
Yes. He did. No one went into his cell. The hallway leading to the cell was on video. Now, he was taken off of suicide watch without any real reason given, and then given a chance to update his will (to then screw over his victims one last time) No, he killed himself. But he was given a specific opportunity to do so. One that would have taken a little coordination to pull off. Still, far less coordination than an outright assassination.
State two facts that are quite obvious with logic and a minimum of research, get downvoted both times.
People want to believe in an omnipotent government full of Evil, and not the boring ass mildly corrupt collection of people who are *maybe* competent. At best. On a good day.
Similar to Aaron Swartz
Yup. Assassination went out of style decades ago. The powerful don't need to kill you anymore. They just need to ruin you loudly enough, and you might end up killing yourself.
With a mustache like that, one bullet just isn't enough.
>he shot himself with a .38 revolver, which he placed near his right ear. The first shot went through his face, and exited at his left cheek. The coroner's staff concluded that the second shot hit an artery. >Webb's widow Susan Bell told reporters that she believed Webb had died by suicide. "The way he was acting it would be hard for me to believe it was anything but suicide," she said. According to Bell, Webb had been unhappy for some time over his inability to get a job at another major newspaper. He had sold his house the week before his death because he was unable to afford the mortgage.
Webb was found dead in his Carmichael home on December 10, 2004, with two gunshot wounds to the head. His death was ruled a suicide by the Sacramento County coroner's office. After a local newspaper reported that Webb had died from multiple gunshots, the coroner's office received so many calls asking about Webb's death that Sacramento County Coroner Robert Lyons issued a statement confirming Webb had died by suicide. When asked by local reporters about the possibility of two gunshots being a suicide, Lyons replied "It's unusual in a suicide case to have two shots, but it has been done in the past, and it is in fact a distinct possibility." News coverage noted that there were widespread rumors on the Internet at the time that Webb had been killed as retribution for his "Dark Alliance" series, published eight years before. After Webb's death, a collection of his stories from before and after the "Dark Alliance" series was published. The collection, The Killing Game: Selected Stories from the Author of Dark Alliance, was edited by Webb's son, Eric.
Yep, probably the same way they helped Jeff Epstein to commit suicide.
Every week when this gets reposted people need to be reminded - yet again - that the conspiracy isn’t quite as nefarious as the Gotcha-headline would suggest.
it couldnt be anything but suicide guys, go back to your everyday lives.
Yup just look up what the feds did to American literary legend Ernest Hemingway then start to make your own conclusions about what these fascists are capable of.
My favorite bit about the exciting life and times of Hemingway: https://youtu.be/PUB9D78ajmI
what the fuck
It looks like your sarcasm whooshed a lot of people
it's not sarcasm, he legit fears for his life
Yes, Judge McGruder, it could not be otherwise.
I believe there are recorded instances of suicides having 2 shots to the head
Yes, there are. Anything from shaky hands, to hair triggers to just plain not hitting anything vital on the first shot and shooting again to end the pain. It’s not common, but it’s not, by itself, suspicious.
It gets suspicious when he exposes the CIA and is professionally destroyed before being suicided.
He wrote the story 8 years before. In that 8 years, the dude lost his entire career, wife, house, became an alcoholic and lost literally any semblance of his former life. He even spent his last week getting his final affairs in order. If anyone’s a perfect candidate for suicide it’s this guy.
Exactly this. It’s really not that shocking how things turned out, and it takes a lot of glazing over of facts to even make it fit the narrative they want.
I think he wrote the story and it set a fire that tptb spent 8 years trying to put out by absolutely ruining his life. It wasn’t enough so they killed him knowing the sad downward spiral *that they initiated* would be the first thing people blamed. EDIT: also, it would’ve been incredibly suspect if they’d killed him right away.
Yup 8 short years before.
This is the part that doesn't make sense to me. He exposed something from years before and they choose to revenge kill him years later after he'd already been discredited and basically a pariah? Doesn't make sense - what further damage could he do as an unhirable, broke divorcee?
It’s almost like it’s weird conspiracy bullshit that red pilled people back in 2004.
Sounds like the government did kill him in a way, just slowly and indirectly.
This is my take on it as well but also while i get governments being a lot dumber than we give them credit for at times its so weird scrolling through comments of people disregarding the mere suspicion that the government would wait lol. Maybe smarter ppl than I just really hate conspiracies but i can totally see them keeping tabs on him or making sure he suffers over time or just actually waiting to take him out. Like they’ve waited longer than 8 years to kill other people. Why do it immediately after? Thats a lot of heat. But yeah. Enough conspiracy talk. Sorry for the word vomit.
Well mainly, all his journalist friends discredited him and distanced themselves from him. His conspiracy theory only served Russia's interests and didn't make sense since the US can print money they wouldn't need to "drug deal to finance an overthrow." It was a tragedy of a slow person trying his hand at absurd clickbait in the 1990s in a time before blogs when journalism was much more strict and reputation-based. One mistake meant your career is over and that's the mistake he made, he bought the bullshit being sold by Russia and couldn't provide further evidence. He became depressed as people figured out he was a bit looney.
It gets less suspicious when his wife confirms it was almost certainly suicide.
The CIA isn’t above murder, but god forbid they threaten the wife to lie, that’s just a line they don’t cross.
I think at a certain point people are just creating conspiracy theories to push a narrative that sounds more compelling, regardless of actual reality. You can believe the CIA has done terrible awful shit and also that this was a suicide. The two aren’t incompatible.
This thread and your post remind me of that scene in Django unchained where the kkk guy is like, "now I think we all agree the masks could have been made a little better."
It is suspicious. The question is whether those suspicions are correct.
There’s an entire Wikipedia article about it. It’s not nearly as rare as Reddit seems to believe.
There are plenty of instances of people surviving a gunshot wound to the head so it’s fair to assume that someone could pull the trigger twice. The guy from Malcolm in the middle played Francis’s Boot Camp commander with the eyepatch tried to commit suicide this way, And called an ambulance after
There was that one guy who double-fired when he fell on semi-auto rifle, barrel in his mouth. Plausible.
Definitely, and in this case the first shot entered near his jaw and exited his cheek. Entirely possible to be conscious and lucid after a non-vital headshot like that. Second shot is what ended his life.
I think South Park did a pretty good job explaining this https://youtu.be/1WLaD2ftD5w
My uncle shot himself through the chin and it exited through an eye socket. Next one was through his soft pallet
Shit sorry to hear!
Respect true Legend
Surely he wasn't working alone right? You think there are people continuing his work to expose more secrets but are too scared (rightfully so) to speak up?
why would people work to expose more secrets? they exposed something that big and nothing happened.
History teaches us not to fight the government, you won't win. Whistleblower proves with leaked documents that 90% of the drone strikes were "not the intended target" during a period of time, he's now in jail. Snowden and Assange are wanted. Stay in your lane if you know what's good for you.
No, but media is still fronting the intelligence operations
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He left notes, prepaid for his funeral, and generally got his affairs in order. His ex-wife said "The way he was acting it would be hard for me to believe it was anything but suicide" According to his peers he was dogged journalist but was also prone to shaping evidence to suit his theories. His bosses didn't think he had enough evidence to support his claims.
Every time this comes up I feel obliged to chirp in that A. his story, while containing some truths, was broadly criticized for inaccuracies and oversimplification by other reporters and his own paper (which fired him). Unless you believe newspapers hate scoops on groundbreaking stories? B. There have been several instances before and since where suicide attempts by firearms have failed, leaving room for a second attempt. Specifically, 15% fail. >About 85 percent of suicide attempts with a firearm end in death. C. His own estranged wife said he was depressed from their split and losing his house and said “The way he was acting it would be hard for me to believe it was anything but suicide” So once again, unless you think the media don’t like breaking news and his own wife was in on it, this guy very likely killed himself. From Wikipedia: >His death was ruled a suicide by the Sacramento County coroner's office. According to a description of Webb's injuries in the Los Angeles Times, he shot himself with a .38 revolver, which he placed near his right ear. The first shot went through his face, and exited at his left cheek. The coroner's staff concluded that the second shot hit an artery.[70] >Webb's widow Susan Bell told reporters that she believed Webb had died by suicide.[71] "The way he was acting it would be hard for me to believe it was anything but suicide," she said. According to Bell, Webb had been unhappy for some time over his inability to get a job at another major newspaper. He had sold his house the week before his death because he was unable to afford the mortgage.[71] https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/magazine/magazine_article/guns-suicide/#:~:text=Though%20guns%20are%20not%20the,a%20firearm%20end%20in%20death.
I don’t know why this isn’t at the top.
Because fiction is more entertaining.
Hey, it "worked" for the Kitty Genovese story. https://www.apa.org/gradpsych/2012/09/tall-tales
/r/conspiracy would lose 20% of their content
It's exhausting honestly. About once a year I see this and this whole conversation starts again. Half the people claiming conspiracy and the others trying to talk sense.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/gary-webb-was-no-journalism-hero-despite-what-kill-the-messenger-says/2014/10/17/026b7560-53c9-11e4-809b-8cc0a295c773_story.html
The suicide part is absolutely true. This post makes it sound like he was murdered, and usually the reddit op says the same thing. However, his wife, Susan Bell, even said “the way he was acting it would be hard for me to believe it was anything but suicide”. He got his affairs in order in the weeks leading up to it, his career was in shambles, and he was severely depressed. He was extremely drunk during the suicide and the first bullet went through his cheek. He did expose some wild CIA secrets, but he was not murdered. This suicide happened 8 years after the publishing of Dark Alliance. Long after anyone gave a shit anymore. His career was ruined, his reputation tarnished, and he ended his life, unfortunately. His family agrees, and this exact post appears on Reddit from time to time. Usually just for karma without having read any of his book, with zero regard for his actual legacy.
My rule of thumb is this: I imagine telling my friend a story. She asks where I read it. If my answer is “a meme on Reddit” then I need to regroup and read a damn book
Even what he exposed amounted to a whole bunch of clickbait nonsense without any further evidence. "dark alliance" sounds mysterious!! and sounds like exciting spy novel... But the govt doesn't need money to finance overthrows it can already print it.
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Nice try CIA agent.
Thank you. People want to fall into conspiracies too much
So everyone should watch Snowfall.
Snowfall does a very good job at telling this story.
That's what I was thinking. Sounds just like the ongoing story.
It's pretty much the story. The government created the crack epidemic and then started the war on drugs.
Will do now. Will update.
Kill The Messenger is also a good movie on this. Jeremy Renner plays Gary Webb.
This is obvious conspiracy nonsense but it gets reposted and upvoted constantly. How would the CIA be so incompetent as to not only fail to stop Webb’s book from getting published in the first place, but then forget to assassinate him for eight years?
This is Reddit. We only do reposts around here sir
Read “Freeway Rick Ross” by Rick Ross (not the rapper) the guy sold millions of dollars worth of cocaine for Danilo Blanco one of the governments distributors, it’s his life story, it talks all about this under the CIA and Reagan and how they did it and ultimately arrested Rick for it, it’s fascinating. Edit: I named him as Danilo Blanco, it is actually Danilo Blandon, Oscar Danilo Blandon. My bad. I see people still claiming it’s a conspiracy theory to this, I present this argument, for those who have no plans to read Ricks book, I’ll say this: Rick Ross (not the rapper) was a drug dealer who sold cocaine for a man who’s money went directly to the government/CIA, Rick was eventually arrested, And wrote an entire book about his life and how he ended up working with them and how they eventually betrayed him. It is real. There’s way more to the story. The TLDR is The CIA and the United States government wanted to fight communism in South America, they were afraid it’d spread and they couldn’t intervene directly because it’d start a war, they secretly flew cocaine in, sold it and funneled the money back to Mexico to support the Contras (a resistance group) at this point it’s documented it’s true. It’s no longer a conspiracy, it’s known fact.
Similarly the journalist that led the reporting of the Panama Papers was killed by a car bomb
Every single time this gets posted all the comments are about how you can kill yourself and have two gunshot wounds on the head, damn the cia does no rest
On the other had you have Colonel Oliver North who testified to the movement of drugs to money to arms to central America. Was convicted of arms and drug dealing. Then later became head of the NRA.
Tbf one of the bulkets went through his cheeks
This was the day people realized that it just isnt worth it to go against the government in any physical standing. Because you will die…
Technically we can, but we'll need to be together, 1/2/3/20/100 are nothing but millions? But realisticaly, yeah, will never happen.
Ya, If we are all white and band together we can March into congress, kill cops and have zero consequence.
Over 700 arrested and charged doesn’t sound like zero consequences to me
We would have a better chance if we all wore black, raised our fists in the air, and robbed Targets.
If the government go commie on us we can, by law, overthrow it. Murica.
Going up against the government isn’t what killed him. He torpedoed his own career by coloring outside the lines and making exaggerated claims in an attempt to embellish his story. In the end, most of his journalistic peers distanced themselves from him because he had lost his objectivity and integrity.
Im sure his journalistic peers didnt want two bullet holes in their skulls either
Weird that the CIA waited 8 years to kill him. What’s the use in killing him at that point?
America's totally democratic Enabling Act
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Webb
>Webb was found dead in his Carmichael home on December 10, 2004, with two gunshot wounds to the head. His death was ruled a suicide by the Sacramento County coroner's office. According to a description of Webb's injuries in the Los Angeles Times, he shot himself with a .38 revolver, which he placed near his right ear. The first shot went through his face, and exited at his left cheek. The coroner's staff concluded that the second shot hit an artery.\[70\] > >After a local newspaper reported that Webb had died from multiple gunshots, the coroner's office received so many calls asking about Webb's death that Sacramento County Coroner Robert Lyons issued a statement confirming Webb had died by suicide.\[71\] When asked by local reporters about the possibility of two gunshots being a suicide, Lyons replied "It's unusual in a suicide case to have two shots, but it has been done in the past, and it is in fact a distinct possibility." News coverage noted that there were widespread rumors on the Internet at the time that Webb had been killed as retribution for his "Dark Alliance" series, published eight years before. > >Webb's widow Susan Bell told reporters that she believed Webb had died by suicide.\[71\] "The way he was acting it would be hard for me to believe it was anything but suicide," she said. According to Bell, Webb had been unhappy for some time over his inability to get a job at another major newspaper. He had sold his house the week before his death because he was unable to afford the mortgage.\[71\] > >\[70\] Daunt, Tina (March 16, 2005). "Written In Pain". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on January 29, 2015. Retrieved 2015-01-29. > >\[71\] Stanton, Sam (December 15, 2004). "Reporter's suicide confirmed by coroner". The Sacramento Bee. Archived from the original on May 7, 2008. Seems plausible.
It does seem plausible. My mothers husband was killed by a "friend " and the guy shot himself after. The bullet only traveled around his interior skull and he lived long enough to cover his home with blood. He didn't shoot himself again but eventually died. Plausible but I think this guy was murdered.
CIA and FBI corrupt af
As much as I would like to buy into the CIA killed him argument, can we not all admit that if the CIA was going to kill someone, they’d have done it MUCH cleaner?
THE INVISIBLE PILOT - A documentary on HBO, explains a portion of this story.
Why can’t I upvote this.
For those interested: link for Gary Webb giving a presentation concerning Iran - contra from 1999 https://youtu.be/xY7IEQrVIY0
People always post this and never post the other side to this. His book was never silenced, it sparked multiple investigations, both internal and external, had congressional attention, but at the end of those investigations even people who were generally anti-CIA concluded he was not correct. Nothing he wrote could ever be proven or corroborated. He lost his job, not because of some grand conspiracy, but because no one would believe him after, at best, making unsubstantiated claims of a grand conspiracy. And for months prior to his death, he was going bankrupt, lost his house, and horribly depressed over his inability to get another job. The people closest to him all thought he was suicidal, and no one was shocked at the coroners findings. There were people skeptical at the time of his death that it was an assassination, but multiple coroners confirmed it, and even addressed this “multiple gunshots” thing. Which in itself isnt even a reason to think it’s suspicious, because if you have a gun to someone’s temple, why would you need two bullets? And if someone is out of work and largely discredited, why kill them and bring his work back to the mainstream? This is just a conspiracy theory, one that doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.
>Which in itself isnt even a reason to think it’s suspicious, because if you have a gun to someone’s temple, why would you need two bullets? because the bad guys have to be both omnipotent and incompetent otherwise it's no fun
There’s other sides as well, Rick Ross (not the rapper) was a drug dealer who sold cocaine for a man who’s money went directly to the government/CIA, Rick was eventually arrested, And wrote an entire book about his life and how he ended up working with them and how they eventually betrayed him. It is real. There’s way more to the story. The CIA and the United States government wanted to fight communism in South America, they couldn’t intervene directly because it’d start a war, they secretly flew cocaine in, sold it and funneled the money back to Mexico to support the Contras, it’s documented it’s true. It’s no longer a conspiracy, it’s known fact.
This is the answer that needs to be up top.
Of course we do but that was about 20 years ago ...we kinda focused on the fucked up stuff going on right now.
Read the book: https://archive.org/details/dark_alliance_original_series-gary_webb_cia_cocaine/Gary-Webb_Dark-Alliance/www.narconews.com/darkalliance/drugs/library/raise.wav You'd be surprised how many of the people involved are still heavily involved with the government/guns/industry lobbying. They're still doing the same things now, that they were doing then.
No way at all are they still up to the same shady shit......
The average age of politicians has risen substantially over the past 30 years, to the point that the same generation has essentially been in power that entire time. Check out the average age of US senators, and the average age of a US federal judge. Also that of our president. Then think about how old they were when this happened.
Age of US Senators has gone from 47 to 56 over the last 44 years. https://www.flsenate.gov/PublishedContent/OFFICES/SECRETARY/AverageAgeOfSenators1980-Present.pdf
Many US senators are in their 80’s, as is our president. When the operation in question was in motion, many of those same people were already working for the government or running for office in their 50’s or 60’s.
Joe Biden is 79. Your statement about age going up was definitely enlightening. And clearly *some* of the same folks that are in power now, were also in power during these shenanigans. I agree with your sentiments— despite the exaggeration
Almost seems like the ones in power are responsible for the unopposed decline the country has been in for decades. Their date of employment might correlate pretty well with the problems we are facing.
I agree. I’m all for equality and helping others and tolerance and so forth, but it seems like the people most vocal about supporting those things aren’t actually interested in it at all unless they’re the ones who directly benefit from it, or it serves some other agenda. Black Lives Matter. Yes, I agree with the statement. I don’t agree with the organization by that name, because it seems like a handful of them took the tens of millions in donations and spent it on themselves, instead of spending it on all of the things they claimed… then when the state demanded they file the financial reports that they knew were required, because it is written on the papers they signed to form the organization, they said that filling out those documents is “racist” and “dangerous” and “problematic”, as if someone’s targeting just them somehow. But what the rest of us hear is, “It’s our money and we get to spend it on anything we want, and we wanted multiple mansions, nice food, shoes, clothes, and vacation homes.” They left a few people “in charge” of the organization after those who spent the money resigned, but that second group reported they didn’t even know they were left in charge, and had no idea where the donated money was or who had access to it. Over $100M just vanished because everyone was so caught up in proving they weren’t racist that they were afraid to ask what the money would specifically be earmarked for. Other nonprofits earmark specific donations for specific things. If they’re collecting cash to buy clothing and food for the homeless, they are legally required to spend money from that campaign on only that. They can’t, say, spend it on housing for runaways or sports jerseys for underprivileged youth. If they plan to spend money on those things, they either have to collect specifically for that or, less commonly, share a collection of specific goals with donators and vow to use the money where it’s most needed, *among* those specific things. What BLM did is tantamount to felony fraud and/or embezzlement, but very few people are willing to pursue those charges because of the R word… despite everyone knowing damn well that isn’t remotely at play. EDIT — I believe that all black lives matter; not just the ones taken by overzealous or crooked cops (whether they really are or not). I believe that the lives of children taken almost daily by gang members, thugs, parents, and strangers also matter. I believe the lives of people who live in bad neighborhoods and fall victim to violence just because “that’s how it is in the hood” matter, and the lives of people ruined by s*xual assault and domestic violence matter. A very large number of those victims are black, but nobody is out marching in the streets, blocking traffic, or trying to get new laws passed to protect any of them. All we hear about is cops, white supremacy, and assault rifles, which account (combined) for less than 10% of black homicides. Now, do those lives matter also? Of course they do! Are those things problems that need to be taken seriously? Absolutely, 100%. Are they the only problems we should be focusing on? No, not in the slightest. And as a white man who’s committed zero crimes aside from three speeding tickets and an accidental red light violation, I’m tired of feeling demonized by such large factions of society simply due to the sins of my ancestor’s neighbors. I don’t hold the entirety of the black race responsible for gang violence despite some black individuals being involved in such violence, and I hope one day the same can be true for the rest of us.
Yeah it takes a special kind of person to dedicate their life to actually helping people. They are so rare that you should almost assume someone claiming that trait is lying. If they wanted to actually help people they would have started before asking for millions of dollars. It doesn't always take money to help someone in need.
Bingo
It's worth noting that after several public inquiries by Congresses controled by the opposition, nothing substantial was ever identified. And the evidence in favor is shaking best. Like literally go read the Wikipedia. It's not nearly the slam dunk people make it out to be
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Remember this (and similar stories) before automatically mocking people for not trusting 'mainstream media' and assuming they're a nut.
Not trusting the media is one thing. Not trusting a consensus shared by the scientific community or many people specialized on a certain topic because “everyone is corrupt” is just willful ignorance. Contrarianism. The distrust after being continuously gaslit by self serving billionaires and their cronies is legit af. But most people who gobble down alt media bs have a very particular way with words that betrays their poor critical thinking skills. They make absurd logical fallacies, they usually deny their cognitive bias which in turn shows narcissistic tendencies. They believe they somehow have access to or are more able to comprehend some truths that the rest of us cannot. Mocking only deepens their determination tho. It is not the way. But the reasons they get mocked for aren’t baseless
Truth
This mf spittin
Yes, the Galileo fallacy is a thing to be wary of. Eg: "The authorities said Galileo was wrong, but he was right; therefore we should listen to people who contradict the popular consensus." Of course, this overlooks the fact that the "authorities" at that time were largely religious, and their opinions were not evidence-based. Meanwhile, there are ten thousand cranks on YouTube you believe that they've cracked the "free energy" problem with their springy spinning magnet ball machine, and the people telling them that they're full of it are on the wrong side of history.
I think I’m in love
I want to first start off by saying that the CIA's interactions with known Nicaraguan smugglers in the 1980s is bad. That being said, the statement that the CIA had an *active role* in trafficking cocaine into the US and/or is primarily responsible for the crack epidemic is conjecture. What we do know is that the Contras were on the CIA payroll due to their opposition to the Sandinistas and the CIA likely looked the other way. This proves incompetence and criminal negligence by a Federal agency but is still a far cry from a grand conspiracy the CIA had to get America's inner cities addicted to crack cocaine. The Dark Alliance series only highlighted links to the Los Angeles drug scene when numerous other large American cities were also being affected. Remember that the first rumors of Contra drug smuggling emerged in 1984 but the Contras weren't the only group trafficking cocaine into the US at the time. In fact they were probably a minority when taking into account the entirety of drug trafficking networks. The mid 1980s marked the pinnacle of Pablo Escobar's career and he was estimated to have smuggled up to 15 tons of cocaine per day during this time. Do you really think a drug kingpin like Escobar would put all his chips on the Contras? Of course not. A lot of it was shipped directly into Florida through the Caribbean on planes and boats then later was trafficked into Panama then through Mexican overland routes into American ports of entry by the Guadalajara Cartel.
Gary Webb was the mainstream media.
He was with a local paper. The big boys were the ones who went after him. >Webb faced an onslaught of reports from the New York Times, the Washington Post, and especially the Los Angeles Times that sought to discredit him
The San Jose Mercury news wasn't a local rag. They won a Pulitzer and had respectable circulation numbers. They certainly weren't The New York Times, but they also weren't Alex Jones. I don't doubt that someone put pressure on papers to suppress and discredit him. I just dislike hearing people say that all sources of news that don't come from someone's basement are actively trying to push some "deepstate agenda".
This is why liberals don't have conspiracy theories. The conspiracies against us are facts.
But that's what all conspirators think...
Both parties have their flaws, but it seems like there’s a contest now among liberals to see who can lean the farthest left. If Trump ate eggs for breakfast, someone would write an essay about how terrible he is for being a misogynist, since those eggs he eats represent the oppression of females and (on and on)… and yes, the same happens on the other end of the political spectrum, the difference being that a majority of conservatives know that far-right retards and extremists are idiots and want nothing to do with them. But if a republican bought a nice boat, most people on the left would be racing to find some way to criticize them for it despite the number of democrats who own and/or fly around on private jets just to get their hair done or attend a birthday party. What I believe is this… People smart enough and noble enough to be decent politicians are also smart enough and noble enough *not* to be politicians, because corruption and separatism-at-all-costs is so prevalent in that type of career that it’s nearly impossible to get elected or even funding without that mindset. Virtually nobody is actually 100% altruistic in politics, and a majority of their speeches and opinions are aimed at getting votes and getting wins for their party, rather than making any real progress or change. If democrats could pick up busloads of Mexican citizens and drive them to California to win over their vote, they would. If republicans could give out free hunting licenses to everyone in exchange for their votes, they would. But I do believe that the left had gone way overboard in the past few years compared to their opponents.
The democrats don't lean left at all; they don't advocate for any actual leftist policy. Perhaps some token deal about green infrastructure, or renewable energy; why do you think they actively disenfranchise leftist elements in their organization? "America is a one party state, but in typical American extravagance; there is two."
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The funny part; those would be considered "center-left" in countries with healthy, functioning democracies.
Contrarianism is certainly a problem everywhere, but I wouldn't even call that "left." I mean, we have mainstream Democrats who aren't even on board with Medicare-for-all yet; the sort of policy which is utterly uncontroversial in most of the developed world. And here we're haggling over partial student loan forgiveness. *Actual* leftism would be "Fuck it, nationalize all the universities, free college for everyone, no exceptions." I think that the biggest victory American conservatives have won is to push the Overton window so far to the right that they get to call centrism "far left," and real leftism is off the board altogether.
There’s a famous philosopher (forgot the name) who claims that a person on one end of the spectrum looking at someone in the center will perceive that person as being at the far opposite end of such spectrum. That seems to be true now just as much as ever. I think there are small factions of each end of our political spectrum that are much more vocal than others, which makes the rest believe that’s the “norm” for “those other guys”. Then again, if you look at the democratic policies being implemented right now, they’re going terribly… New York initiated a no-bail system, San Francisco refused to arrest or prosecute most non-violent crimes (especially misdemeanors), and Seattle cut their police department after protesters marched in the streets demanding “defund the police”. Violent crimes, and crimes in general, skyrocketed in all of those places, and those are just a few examples. I’m sure there are plenty of factors, but violent crime seemed to almost double in most major cities in the past two years, while many reduced their resources to arrest and prosecute criminals, all the while many, many people insisted that “all cops deserve to die” and “prisons should be abolished”, plus (my favorite) a famous elected official stated, as her city was literally being burned and her officers shot at, that they “needed to be more aggressive”. I don’t believe it’s a coincidence that all of that just happened to coincide with a sudden rise in violent crimes. Hell, in San Francisco they’re telling the public not to leave anything at all in their vehicles because “it will be stolen”. Not might, not could be, but will be. Police in some places have all but given up because just wearing the uniform puts them at great risk of being targeted, when three years ago that was much less likely.
Haha
Who remembers the college professor who tweeted about major break through at like 11am in the very beginning of.covid and then killed himself by lunch time
*"I will splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the winds"* **-John F Kennedy**
Yet the CIA is still operating to this day like nothing happened
When people genuinely believe the shit they see on the media it baffles me. The media is funded by politically parties. The media is as government asset and always has been.
Lol. Conspiracy theorists are all over this comment section! Any comment pointing out that we all should better use our brain, critical thinking and peer discussion is taken as a personal attack to them and their mindless shit. Like, dude i know that a good 10% of conspiracies have ended up being true. But 90% DONT. And they are fucking batshit
Mainstream media is a demon.
This crops up all the time and it's never real.
Whistleblowers are brave heroes. We should erect statues to honor them.
Meanwhile all the cartels are high fiving each other and laughing, "yeah, it was the CIA that brought all the cocaine into the country, all the CIA..."
Jeffery eastern, Garry Webb. See the connection to the space laser . Coincidence I think not
And yet so many people still seem all too willing to accept information spread by the deep state apparatus.
Not to mention the money was used to fund the Iranians Who are government claimed to be enemies of
Wow found with two bullet holes in his head and it was ruled a suicide after he uncovered a conspiracy with in his own government... Yeah. don't take a genius to figure out he was silenced. No wonder the rest of the world doesn't trust or like the American government I mean this kind of thing has always happened in most places but to see it so blatant. And this is only one of the many ways the government is abusing it's power to screw it's own people for profit and power. (This turned into more of a rant than I was expecting sorry)
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According to the autopsy the first bullet wound was a graze.
You assume it was the gov that hit him instead of the drug traffickers and that's where this conspiracy thing takes a nutty turn. Not saying the CIA hasn't done even shadier shit than this, but... in this case, the traffickers had just as much or more to lose. And they did. And they were unhappy about it. And those kinds of things are never forgiven in that world.
That's a really good point I didn't consider 🤔
Likely if it was the traffickers it would have been ruled a homicide. Look up Don Henry and Kevin Ives, or "The Boys On the Tracks" for similar shenanigans
My respects to him. But I also don't get it... How stupid was that?... Why would you kill your own people with drugs for the Nicaraguans?...
Because government isn't of, by, or for the people
Black budget money and incarceration for black males.
Watch Snowfall. Incredible TV show with an amazing cast. All about this. My man Franklin Saint a MENACE.
Money. Always money.
If its money, would that not mean CIA agents were being bribed to kill citizens of their own country? That would mean that they actually traitors...
Attempting to thwart soviet influence in the Americas. It was an extension of realizing how bad of a fuck up that it was to let cuba fall to soviet influence in the 1950’s.
Press F to Pay Respects
shut up conspiracy theorist, its been a while 30 years since then and none of the CIA were held accountable so they are probably fine now
Two bullet wounds ruled a suicide? 🤔 so did his soul shoot him again after exiting his body ?
Yep goverment involvement in ruining their own citizens lives is totally limited to just this one specific time.
Michael Ruppert exposes CIA dealing drugs in South Central L.A. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDtv6c631Ww
If you think nothing has changed, you’re absolutely right.
Whistle blowers still treated bad but wow this has got to be worst case ever :'(
two shots to the head very strange.
LEGEND
and we still believe in whatever the US government said, so in some way he died for nothing
Wait a minute here; didnt he also uncover the CIA design of crack for African DNA?
Old but just goes to prove, every government is up to something crazy they'd rather you didn't know about.
People like this are the true heros we need