An Unfortunate Alliance: Senator Gravel Moves on to "Capitalize" on Occupy Wall Street

by Scott Creighton

What is listed below is my reply to Senator Gravel’s response to an article I wrote about the way in which he handled his departure from 911CC, an organization that he founded and campaigned for looking to get a initiative on the ballot for the formation of a  citizens commission to re-investigate the events of 9/11. I did not find his comment to be completely forthright nor do I appreciate his apparent flippancy regarding the harm he ultimately caused those who invested in his efforts. I post this reluctantly because as Gravel himself put it, he is preparing “to capitalize on the OWS spring offensive”. Given the timing and the way he handled both his departure and the funds donated by Truth advocates, I am left wondering if he wasn’t “capitalizing” on the 911CC effort from the beginning. Below my reply is Sen. Gravel’s comment.

UPDATE: Mike Gravel claims that someone else wrote the article I found that contradicts what he told the Truth movement about what he believed happened on 9/11. Unfortunately for the senator, he wrote other articles for the Huffington Post. One of which says this:

“Despite what the Bush administration claims, Iran was a great enemy of the perpetrators of 9/11 long before 2001. In the 1990s Iran waged a covert war against the Taliban and Wahabi-Sunni terrorist networks like Al-Qaeda.

… So why not let Ahmadinejad pay his respects at Ground Zero? Why not let him send a message to the Muslim world that 9/11 was an atrocity that everyone, including fundamentalist Muslims, should mourn?”  Mike Gravel

Were both of these articles written by someone else? Are we to believe that the Huffington Post is just writing these things themselves or posting articles submitted by a third party without checking with the person who’s name is attributed to the work? Or is something else happening here?

———

Sen Gravel:

Let me see if I understand this:

You’re suggesting that the Huffington Post, a large website with about a million hits a day (back in  late 2007 during the election campaign) and obviously a legal team on staff or retainer, published an article under your name without checking with you or even your campaign staff about the legitimacy of said article, during your PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN?  That’s your answer?  Wouldn’t that be… illegal… for them to do that? Could they be sued for slander or libel?

Hmmm

As to my “assumptions”: no, I didn’t assume you should have checked my Facebook footprint because I don’t have one. I signed up for Facebook years ago and I have not updated it in 6 months or so and even then it was sporadic at best. But what I did ask you to do was to check the comment section from one of the articles I posted here on my website, which I linked to, in which JD and I briefly discussed what he knew about the situation involving the 911CC project.

As to the other “assumption”, I don’t “assume” that you should have taken more time to explain the situation surrounding your leaving the 911CC project to the donors (donors of time, effort, passion, and money) earlier than you did… I KNOW you should have. It’s common courtesy for one thing and there’s probably a law in there somewhere that also governs the dissolution of not-for-profit organizations for the other. Whether or not you had the “time” (your words) is a secondary consideration which I did not even attempt to factor into the equation. You make the time.

You see, the people whom you let down are committed to this effort every much as you are to your other project (“I am somewhat driven by the cause I believe in: empowering citizens to make laws...”). Perhaps you should have let the others know that their cause, the one you were working with them on, was a secondary consideration to you because, you see, they are somewhat driven as well.

This quote bothers me: “I have wasted more time on this negative subject than I care to admit.” – and who’s fault is it that it ended in this way and turned “negative”? It certainly wasn’t the donors fault nor was it the fault of all those Truth advocates who put their trust in you. Whether or not you complete the project is irrelevant, the way you handled the end of the project, that is relevant.

Now, all that said, this quote of yours is what concerns me most and gives me an even clearer insight into the way you seem to think Senator…

“I am preparing to relaunch the National Initiative into the National Citizens Initiative (NCI) by April to capitalize on the OWS spring offensive. I don’t have the time to argue the past.” Mike Gravel

Will you be using the funds donated by Truth advocates for the 911CC in order to “relaunch” your NCI project, senator? Will you be doing that without asking them if that is their wish or will you just do it, as you said before, without asking them?

And what exactly do you mean by “capitaliz(ing) on the OWS spring offensive”? Did you capitalize on the Truth movement in order to obtain the funds to “relaunch” NCI? You have a very funny way of looking at things Mike. Perhaps you were in D.C. for a bit too long.

(The Occupy Movement is not about direct democracy. They have enough sense to know that without a fundamental change in the electronic voting machine system, there’s no way to accurately register the will of the people via the current voting process. They also understand that the system has to be fundamentally changed from the core out. Simply putting up new laws to the people to decide on means little in a society where they are constantly lied to everyday by their corporate controlled media and the corporations are free to spend as much money as they want to influence their decisions. Then of course there’s Diebold counting the votes in a completely opaque manner. seems to me that what the outcome of that would be if these aspects are not corrected first, would not be an honest direct democracy, but rather the artificial rubber stamp of public “consensus” for various unpopular laws and or constitutional reforms.)

In conclusion senator, after reading and rereading your response several times, I have come to the conclusion that you certainly could have handled your departure from the 911CC project in a more professional manner and the attitude that you have assumed since that time is a bit on the offensive side.

You inferred that I and others were CIA stooges for simply asking about the way in which you handled your departure…

You blamed everyone but yourself for the unsatisfactory progress of the 911CC project…

You seem to be jumping ship at a crucial time in order to “relaunch” another project of yours in time to “capitalize” on yet another group’s efforts…

And all of this hinges on whether or not I believe that the Huffington Post is publishing fraudulent articles by presidential candidates without their knowledge or consent.

I have to say, I am extremely disappointed in the way you handled your exit from the 911CC project and am especially disappointed in the way you chose to handle my inquiry.

I will now contact the Huffington Post and ask them if they are in the practice of writing articles for presidential candidates or publishing unverified statements from such persons as that is rather disturbing when you think about the possibilities of such unprofessional journalistic standards. What kind of response do you think I’ll get?

In short, I don’t buy it. Your flippant attitude regarding the 911CC project in this reply, the timing of your “relaunch” of your NCI project, your plans to “capitalize” on yet another movement, as well as your rather unbelievable explanation of the Huffington Post article which appeared under your name leaves me to conclude that I was correct in my original evaluation of the situation. Unfortunately.

I will leave you with this one last quote of yours which is apt in this case because unlike you, I actually take the time to write what is attributed to my name in the public sphere and, again, unlike you, I care deeply about this cause…

“I have wasted more time on this negative subject than I care to admit.”  Mike Gravel

As far as I am concerned, the “negative subject” of your involvement in the Truth movement is over and I am done with it.

Given these new insights, the people who supported you are better off without you, in my opinion.

I can only hope someone at OWS takes the time to see how this little collaboration of yours worked out before they invest themselves in you and trust in you the way the Truth movement did.

And no, I will not reply to your email address. I attempted that once and found that you had put my email address on your spam list.

scott creighton
willyloman
American Everyman

———

Scott: I am sorry that you were offended by my remarks to your article. However, I am sure that you can appreciate that there were some grounds for offense on my part.

With respect to the Post on Huffington: I did not write it and had I seen it I would have made sure it was corrected or scotched it. It was posted during my presidential campaign by a supporter who felt he or she was doing something helpful. I have learned long ago that when your name is attached to something, with or without your permission, it lives on forever and is part of your biography whether you like it or not.

You assume that I should have done more investigation of what you were doing and saying on Facebook before responding to you in anger. You are probably right if I was as adept at using facebook as you are. I am not. I find facebook and twitter too complicated to use even though I have accounts with both and supporter post sometimes in my name. I don’t mind being used as long as it is a good cause.

You make some assumptions that I should have done things to establish greater clarity. I did the best I could given the time I have. I try to work seven days a week. I am somewhat driven by the cause I believe in: empowering citizens to make laws–changing the paradigm of human governance. The only document I have our there that explains in great details what happened is my Report to Donors. That’s it. I think you have a copy. If it does not satisfy all your quires, so be it. I have wasted more time on this negative subject than I care to admit.

I am preparing to relaunch the National Initiative into the National Citizens Initiative (NCI) by April to capitalize on the OWS spring offensive. I don’t have the time to argue the past. I’ll let those who have the time do that. I don’t know how to include a zip file in this post. However, if you send me an email at ********* (a tech area I understand better) I will be happy to send information on NCI but I don’t want to pursue the 911CC dispute further.

Mike

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