	id AA13307; Wed, 22 Mar 95 20:13:25 CST
Subject: Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 4 Num. 39


              Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 4  Num. 39
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                    ("Quid coniuratio est?")
 
 
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INTERVIEW WITH SHERMAN SKOLNICK -- MARCH 20, 1995
 
On March 20, 1995, I interviewed Mr. Sherman Skolnick of the 
Citizens' Committee to Clean-up the Courts [CCCC] by telephone. 
The following is my transcription of that interview. Note that in 
this interview I neither necessarily agree nor disagree with 
either all or some of the statements of Mr. Skolnick.
   -- Brian Francis Redman, Editor-in-chief, Conspiracy Nation
 
 +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +
 
[...continued...]
 
CONSPIRACY NATION:
O.K. And this would be the reason why, perhaps, you find it 
difficult to get published. You know, say, I would think that 
*The Nation* magazine would be doing some stories on you or by 
you.
 
 
SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Well they've always rejected my stories.
 
The only ones that would run it verbatim were the ultra right 
wing, whose politics I don't approve of. But I'm left with very 
few choices because the *only* *one* that takes a more balanced 
view and is more progressive is *Steamshovel* magazine. Until I 
ran into Kenn Thomas, there was no one, really, that wanted to 
publish my stuff without butchering it up.
 
 
CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah I also... I subscribe to the *Steamshovel* magazine. And as 
a matter of fact, Kenn Thomas is on the mailing list. So I'm sure 
he'll be glad to hear that you appreciate his work, as do I.
 
 
SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
He's aware of it. But other than him (he's a rarity), most of the 
so-called "left wing" press are, are whores. They work for some 
devious financial source that they do not openly or publicly 
divulge. And as a result, they have almost as many hang-ups as 
the mass media.
 
And that includes the Communist Party paper, *The People's Weekly 
World*, *The Nation*, *Progressive* magazine... They can't... 
Let's put it this way: people that are independent, like myself, 
that speak out on a *variety* of subjects, are not welcome in 
that direction at all.
 
National Public Radio, although some of their very small stations 
are more open-minded, they generally will not let on the air (and 
I've tried) discussions that I and people associated with me talk 
about. We are *not* permitted.
 
 
CONSPIRACY NATION:
Let me tell ya somethin' that happened with me, okay?
 
I heard, over the Internet, there was a (this past summer), a DEA 
agent who quit the DEA, named Celerino Castillo, who's written a 
book called *Powderburns* [*Powderburns: Cocaine, Contras, and 
the Drug War*] where he goes into all this stuff. I heard, on the 
Internet, that he was gonna be available for downloading or 
whatever [downlinking] on the Virtual Radio Network. And I called 
up the local PBS radio station here, WILL-AM. And I said, "Look, 
this might be a good interview, you know?" I mean, if you've got 
a guy sayin' that the U.S. government is complicit in bringin' 
drugs into the country, I would say that if you're really serious 
about winning a "War on Drugs" that you might want to bring 
*that* out a little bit.
 
So, to his credit, the guy listened to it, okay? But he decided 
he wasn't gonna play it. One guy! All right?
 
 
SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
And the same thing, I think, goes for (I may be mistaken, but I 
think I'm right) Michael Levine, *The Big White Lie*, where he 
tells what happened to him in the DEA and how they promote dope 
rather than regulate it.
 
 
CONSPIRACY NATION:
He spoke at my *alma mater*, Northern Illinois University, back 
around 1990, 1991. I was very impressed by him. I've read both of 
his books [*Deep Cover* and *The Big White Lie* by Michael 
Levine].
 
 
SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
But I don't think they're reviewed or discussed on National 
Public Radio or on PBS.
 
 
CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah! It's not allowed in the, the equation, to solve the so- 
called "War on Drugs". There's two things allowed: either you're 
really gonna get tough on these people and lock 'em up, or else 
you're gonna treat it as a health problem. And somethin' that's 
*never* let in is, you know, the government -- Terry Reed in 
*Compromised*, in that book? -- the government, they're bringin' 
in the drugs, *they're* *part* *of* *it*. That's not allowed in!
 
 
SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
All right, the one that has done *more* about it is, the mass 
media, the *60 Minutes* program -- when was it? Last year or 
somethin', they did about... Or was it more than a year?
 
 
CONSPIRACY NATION:
Naw. It's been about within the past year.
 
 
SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
They did a thing about the CIA brought in *tons* of cocaine at a 
time from Venezuela.
 
But *60 Minutes* doesn't put it in a proper overall context, the 
way Levine or Terry Reed or others would. And I think they have 
not adequately allowed a discussion of Professor Alfred McCoy's 
more recent book. He first came out with it, *The Politics of 
Heroin in Southeast Asia*, in '72. But in the last couple years 
he came with an updated book [McCoy, Alfred. *The Politics of 
Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade* (Chicago Review 
Press, 1991)]. And I don't think that there was adequate 
discussion of him and his book.
 
 
CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah that's somethin', I just figured I'd touch on that, that I 
have run into. In trying to...
 
 
SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
The reason for that is the number of foundations, that we can 
show are conduits for CIA, that are interlocked with the 
management of PBS and National Public Radio.
 
 
CONSPIRACY NATION:
You know, my theory on this is that, it's like Chomsky is like a 
line of defense, okay? That it's like a "limited hangout" {2}.
 
 
SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Absolutely the correct term. That's the correct espionage 
parlance that you're using. "Limited hangout".
 
 
CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah. I mean, for people who get past the first perimeter of 
thought control, they'll come up against Chomsky. And it'll be 
like, "Ah! Here is the truth!" But, you know, with me I began to 
say, you know, "Well what about this Kennedy assassination? And 
what about conspiracies, and things like that?" And it's like, 
they give you this thing like, that... It's like a pose, you 
know? Like that "they're so sophisticated," and "what do *you* 
know," and...
 
 
SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Absolutely. And not only that, but they will not allow any 
discussion about these different secret societies that -- for 
whatever reason -- the ultra right wing likes to expose: the 
Trilateral Commission, the Bilderberg group, the Council on 
Foreign Relations, and so on. Or the federal reserve and things 
like that. Those are all forbidden subjects.
 
Well but you can see why. For a long while, the head of, PBS, I 
believe it was, was Sharon Percy Rockefeller, the wife of Jay 
Rockefeller. So I mean, how would you expect, since they are in 
with the, that they are the ones that conduct the Bilderberg 
meetings, naturally, that is a subject that they wouldn't allow 
discussed!
 
They purport to be liberal, but really not.
 
 
CONSPIRACY NATION:
And another problem that I've noticed with PBS is that they 
didn't used to accept corporate funding. Or at least, say, back 
in the mid-70s, there was no "Archer Daniels Midland" or 
anything, where you turn on MacNeil-Lehrer and you get a mini- 
commercial about "the good people at Archer Daniels Midland". The 
corporations didn't have their foot in the door. But they *got* 
their foot in the door. And Studs Terkel, a Chicago writer, has 
said this also. When this first happened, that PBS began 
accepting corporate funding, as I recall he said something like, 
"Watch out! They've got their foot in the door now."
 
That's my take on it, that that's another reason that they're 
kind of limited in who they'll go after.
 
 
SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Yeah. And they generally will not allow independents -- not just 
me, but others like me -- to be heard on any of their facilities 
at any time. In other words, we're completely forbidden.
 
 
CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah that kind of happened... I made minor efforts in that 
direction, you know, like I say, with the local WILL-AM here.
 
 
SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Somebody could write a lengthy piece on how the right wing and 
left wing are carefully controlled. The left wing, as I said, is 
financed principally by foundations, acting for CIA. So that 
somebody at CIA headquarters is having a big laugh on a lot of 
other people, in that they're like a giant Wurlitzer organ {3}. 
They're directing what, if anything, can be discussed.
 
And the right wing, because they get into things that are 
obnoxious to a lot of sensible people, in some ways discredit 
themselves. In other words, they promote ideas that "the 
Holocaust didn't occur", that "this didn't happen", that "there's 
a Jewish banking conspiracy", and things like that, that affront 
more sensible people.
 
 
CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah.
 
 
SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
For a simple reason. Martin Meyer, in his book *The Bankers*, 
showed that there was only one Jewish-named bank official in a 
bank house in the United States. There *are* people with Jewish 
names running investment banking on Wall Street, but they have 
not been actual Jews for three or four generations. But the right 
wing keeps going like there's a Jewish banking conspiracy. So 
they, in some ways, discredit themselves. The left wing is, too 
much of their press is owned by the CIA through foundations. So 
you can see there's no [laughs], there's no free press, even for 
the so-called "extremists" [laughs].
 
 
CONSPIRACY NATION:
O.K. I want to move on to one final thing here, and then I'll 
hang around here for awhile, if you want to call back with 
anything else.
 
This is kind of switching gears here, but it seems to me you've 
got a pretty good familiarity with the history of Chicago. And I 
took a course at Northern Illinois University on the history of 
Chicago. And they talked about some of these turn-of-the-century 
characters in Chicago politics. These names may ring a bell with 
you, or they may not:
 
People like "Bathhouse John" Coughlin, "Hinky Dink", "Pushcart 
Tony" -- "Pushcart Tony" supposedly was a politician from around 
the turn-of-the-century that, when he would walk by, the Italian 
immigrant women would bless themselves, you know, like as if, 
"This is the anti-Christ" or somethin'.
 
And you've also, like another colorful character that you've kind 
of mentioned a lot is uh, I heard your story about Nicholas J. 
Bua, where you had, you know, he had tried to talk to you and 
you're callin' him "Judge". And he's over there, "Call me 
'Nick'!"
 
 
SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
I was about the only journalist that has succeeded to get lengthy 
interviews with him. I've known him for more than 30 years. And 
he does try to be friendly with me, figuring that he can persuade 
me to his view. Although I continue to believe that he's the head 
of P-2 in North America -- *Propaganda Due*.
 
                   [...to be continued...]
 
-------------------------<< Notes >>-----------------------------
{2} "Limited hangout". I can't find a precise definition for this 
term at the moment, so here is how I explain it. "Limited 
hangout" means telling *some* of the truth so that seekers will 
be deflected from the whole truth. For example, when Clinton was 
asked if he had ever smoked marijuana he replied that he had 
puffed but had never inhaled. Clinton was offering a limited 
hangout, in which he told only *some* of the truth. In relation 
to Chomsky one again finds a limited hangout: Chomsky tells 
*some* of the truth and many seekers are deflected from the whole 
truth of conspiracies, assassinations, etc.
 
{3} For a good introduction to this concept of the CIA's control 
of the media being like someone playing a Wurlitzer organ, see 
*The CIA's Greatest Hits* by Mark Zepezauer (Tucson: Odonian 
Press, 1994).
 
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Aperi os tuum muto, et causis omnium filiorum qui pertranseunt.
Aperi os tuum, decerne quod justum est, et judica inopem et 
  pauperem.                    -- Liber Proverbiorum  XXXI: 8-9 

 Brian Francis Redman    bigxc@prairienet.org    "The Big C"
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    Coming to you from Illinois -- "The Land of Skolnick"        
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