"Gary Webb: Do what he did" by Al Giordano

[Minstrel Boy]

Good God, what a tribute this is, and what writing. It's a lengthy piece, and deserves to be read in whole.

...

I ask the compañeros here in Chiapas – they loved Gary, too - what I should do now: What can be done? I can’t bring Gary back and neither can you. Not even the compañeros, with all the revolutionary magic and ancient knowledge they can muster, can bring back Gary Webb: although they could have, as they brought me back seven years ago, if only we and I had cared enough about Gary to drag him by the hand to them, to have been alert that when he lost his job he was at risk, to have paid enough attention to have seen him sinking toward the grave, to have supported anybody who still loved him intimately to be able to stick with him, to have raised him the money so that he would not have lost his sense of place.

The compañeros gave me the answer to my question. What to do about the early death of Gary Webb? Their answer was so simple, so clear, that I kick myself for not having realized it immediately.

The answer: “Do what he did. Do what Gary would have done today if he were still alive.”

...

Gary Webb is gone, poof! Nothin's gonna bring him back. I can’t fucking take it. But I have to take it. And in order to keep from blowing my own brains out, I’m going to make some changes around here. I may have to cut some of you from the roster: If you’ve betrayed me or this project, if you’ve accepted our camaraderie and generosity, and have promised but not delivered, or if I have caught you in a big lie, self-proclaimed truth-teller, either wise up and explain to me why I should ever trust you again, or start packing your bags and stay far away from me and from this project. I repeat: a network based on honesty is only as strong as its most dishonest link. I’m not going to play with colleagues who don’t give and keep their word anymore. Most of you have nothing to worry about. Those who do – you probably know who you are – have precious few days left to change course or be left behind.

I’m going back into the jungle now, where I have a sense of place, where I am loved as I wish to be loved, and when I return it will be with the beginnings of a plan for how the Authentic Journalism renaissance can continue without Gary, but also with Gary more present, through his memory, than we were able to have him present before.

http://narcosphere.narconews.com/story/2004/12/15/184725/08

[rainbow4321]

1. Coroner report: Twice w/ a .38..poor man..so sad.

http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2004/12/1707575.php



The Sacramento coroner's office, which has been deluged with phone calls about the incident, issued a statement Tuesday confirming that Webb had been shot two times in the head. In an article published today (12/15/04) in the Sacramento Bee, county coroner Robert Lyons said, "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."

Webb's ex-wife Sue Bell said in the article that Webb had been despondent over his inability to get a job with a major newspaper. The Bee reported that Webb paid for his own cremation earlier this year, had just sold his house because he was unable to meet mortgage payments, and shot himself with his father's .38 calibre gun. Ed Smith, spokesperson for the Sacramento coroner's office, said by telephone that the office would release no further information until the case is closed, in perhaps two months' time. Smith would not say where the bullets pierced Mr. Webb or if his fingerprints were found on the weapon. According to Smith, no sheriff's investigator has been assigned to the case and it was a Sacramento patrol officer who reported Mr. Webb's death to the coroner.


Webb was most recently employed by the Sacramento News and Review as a reporter for their Chico weekly. Chillingly, Webb's last article for that paper was a cover story that ran on October 21, 2004 titled "The Killing Game." It was an expose of the US Army's development of video games that simulate warfare and its use of them to recruit young warriors.

Webb reported that when the video game American's Army was released, Miami attorney Jack Thompson went on ABC News and threatened to seek an injunction against it. " was deluged with angry e-mail and allegedly received death threats," the article states.

[Minstrel Boy]

2. yeah, that's something, eh?

This thread raises some other suspicions regarding his death, like recent death threats and chasing away "government men" from his house:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x2829033

One of the many goddamn shames about this is that his death could come to overshadow his life and work. While we need to seek the truth about his death, what I like about Giordano's piece is that the truth of Webb's life remains more important.

[Carl Brennan]

3. "All over the world he was mourned today"

All over the world he is mourned today. The compañeros here in Chiapas came to me last night. “You knew him. He worked for you. Did he ever come here? Did he know about us?” As they peppered me with questions I retreated far into myself. Time and space stopped, as it has before in this deep green tropical jungle. I could see it – the bullet (two bullets say the coroner: Gary was nothing if not thorough and persistent; imagine for a moment what strength it took to get off the second round) off in the distance somewhere over California, those bullets, the first one fired by that traitor-to-journalism-and-truth Jerry Ceppos in San Jose, those bullets that came out the other side of Gary’s cranium in Sacramento last week and took a southern turn toward me. And when they are done with me they will come for you. I could see and hear them heading my way last night and so today I type these words in a hurry so as to shoot back before my brains, too, are splattered on the page of history.

To be an Authentic Journalist in 2004 is to be a soldier at war. When a hero dies in battle first we must drape the coffin, sound the slow, sad bugle song of Taps, and remember this great man who died fighting for all of us. Among the soldiers I have known in my foxhole, there were none finer, more effective in a firefight, than Gary. He was a god among insects, and a particularly important god among gods (shortly before his death, Gary told our colleague Bill Conroy that he had applied for a reporter’s job at the San Antonio Express-News and that the newspaper never even acknowledged his application: In the immortal words of Jonathan Swift, “When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that all the dunces are in confederacy against him.”)

In our own network of Authentic Journalists Gary was the leader of a certain tendency: those who believe that a journalist reports the facts, only the facts, and lets the chips fall where they may. The last time I saw him face-to-face, alive, was on a rooftop in Isla Mujeres, Mexico, in February 2003, when he held the late (and also suicided) Abbie Hoffman’s cane in hand and his words rang out over the Caribbean and into the ears of our original group of 50 journalists. His voice thundered: “A journalist is, by definition, a revolutionary.”


I never knew he was so well known!!

I am not assuming for a minute that Gary shot himself. Gary Webb loved life and never flinched in the fight for the truth.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1072355

[Name removed]

4. Deleted message

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[number6]

5. Suicide my ass

:kick: kick

2 gun shot wounds ????

[RBHam]

6. Suicide is a common side effect for taking on the Bush Crime Syndicate...

hey should have warning labels...