[After lecturing in seven cities (Sydney, Sacramento, Chico, Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver and Toronto) in less than four weeks Mike Ruppert remembers that his main role in life is writing.]

June 21, 2002 (FTW) -- COINTELPRO, or Counter-Intelligence Program, was a massive intelligence-based government operation turned loose on the citizens of the U.S. during the 1960s and '70s. In the late-'70s COINTELPRO operations, largely (but not exclusively) coordinated from within the FBI, were thoroughly exposed thanks to the work of the late Senator Frank Church and many others. Tens of thousands of pages of FBI records, as well as those from the CIA's sister operation, MH-CHAOS, were entered into the congressional record detailing the extent the power elites had gone to in order to control public opinion and fragment opposition. At one point the FBI alone had some 35,000 paid informants acting as spies, provocateurs and disinformation agents throughout the American left. Now, they're on both sides of that outdated intellectual construct.

Anyone wanting to understand the intensity, style and flavor of the government's post-9-11 efforts to silence questioners and critics must take the time to read "The COINTELPRO Papers" (South End Press) by AIM activist and Professor Ward Churchill. This is a basic primer to understand how dissent is controlled and neutralized from within dissident groups.

Also not to be overlooked are the records of the CIA's Operation Mockingbird which detail the agency's infiltration and control of the major media as well as its use of journalists to sometimes act as case officers in intelligence operations. It was the agency's control of the media that prompted CIA executive Frank Wisner to once boast, "I can play the media like a mighty Wurlitzer." Wisner's son, Frank, Jr. currently sits on the board of directors of the insurance giant AIG, which FTW has previously connected to the international drug trade.

The post-9-11 world, however, is vastly different from the '60s and '70s. One of the few bright spots emerging is that the U.S. government's explanation of the attacks has been rapidly and sometimes laughably losing credibility. Another is the fact that tried and true tactics of opinion control are proving ineffective in stemming the slide of the government's credibility index.

Publishing on May 29 at Indymedia.org, writer Dennis Shipman (www.eastnymanagement.net) tells us the tale of one of three current or former FBI agents revealing damning information suggesting U.S. government foreknowledge of the attacks and additional actions which indicate that the government allowed the attacks to happen. Shipman's story, "The Spook Who Sat Behind the Door" focuses on former FBI agent and now college professor Tyrone Powers. On May 19 Powers took to the radio airwaves in Maryland to state that he had credible evidence suggesting that the Bush Administration had allowed the attacks in order to further a hidden agenda. Powers' position is almost identical to that of FTW. In closing his account of the Powers interview, Shipman writes, "The alternative press has been relentless in its reporting on this subject"

It is important to note that the alternative press of today is not the same as the alternative press of yesterday. Once proud and defiant protectors of free thinking and direct challenges to government propaganda have become, as Jefferson might well have noted, entrenched financial powers that suffer not only from the weight of their own vested interests, but also from the placement within their ranks of intelligence "assets." In the wake of the attacks of last September they have trotted out their trusty cannons to debunk the likes of me and a dozen or so other "go for broke" journalists, and they have failed miserably.

Here's why.

First, they have failed to recognize that the Internet has given birth to a much more sophisticated core cadre of researchers who have access to and are trained to focus only on documented fact. These researchers, many with their own constituencies, operate from the premise that any rational explanation of 9-11 must conform to the facts that are known about 9-11.

Second, they have drawn attention to themselves by making their attacks on the basis of personality or irrelevant issues that actually erode their core support. They have avoided discussing facts that are now readily available to consumers.

Third, they have used '60s and '70s criteria to attempt to define the debate. For the most part, epithets like left/right wing, anti-Semitic and even the progressively clichéd "conspiracy theorist" have done little to arouse opposition for the work of these journalists. As I have said over and over again, since Sept. 12, 2001, we have been living in a new paradigm. That paradigm resonates in a different frequency and "consumers" of news and information know the difference between junk food, and food which nourishes them.

On this last speaking tour through Canada I was greeted in three cities by very nasty press stories linking me to lizards, Elvis and calling me a money-grubbing opportunist. All of these stories referred almost exclusively to the same two sources, who I consider to be government assets. Yet, in each of the three cities -- Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver -- I was faced with a sell-out and wildly enthusiastic crowd. I am especially grateful to the 600 people who braved the sweltering heat to stay for four hours and give me two standing ovations in Vancouver.

Nasty and apparently coordinated press attacks from a local radio station and a so-called "alternative" newspaper in L.A. have done nothing to weaken local support for FTW or our position. In fact, the attacks seem to have gone largely unnoticed. My speaking schedule throughout the fall is filling up, and the phone is still ringing off the hook.

The key to understanding all of this is the true and justified sense of urgency that now exists as never before. The U.S. government is being run as a criminal enterprise and that fact is becoming increasingly hard to hide. One of my great heroes, the late USAF Col. L. Fletcher Prouty, was paraphrased in the movie "JFK" as saying, "people are fundamentally suckers for the truth." With all due respect to the man who taught me how to think in many areas and how to see that a conspiracy on the order of 9-11 could have been carried out with only a few insiders' participation, I think a better way to say it is that people know, from the taste in their mouth and the feeling in their stomachs and the overall state of their health, when they are being fed B.S. and when they are being fed health food by someone who cares about their safety.

Throughout July and August FTW will be concentrating on bringing you many new hard and explosive news stories. Journalism is what we do, and I can hardly wait to get back to it.