From server@firefly.prairienet.org Thu May  4 08:51:29 1995
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Subject: Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 4 Num. 80
X-Comment:  Conspiracy Nation


              Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 4  Num. 80
             ======================================
                    ("Quid coniuratio est?")
 
 
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INTERVIEW WITH SHERMAN SKOLNICK -- MAY 1, 1995
 
On May 1, 1995, I interviewed, by telephone, Mr. Sherman 
Skolnick of the Citizens' Committee to Clean-up the Courts 
[CCCC]. The following is my summary of that interview. (Note that 
in the following, I neither necessarily agree nor disagree with 
either all or some of Mr. Skolnick's statements.)
 
 +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +
 
[...continued...]
 
CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah. Another thing about the so-called "reporting" by the mass 
media is that, two years ago during the Waco situation, the 
media, every morning at 10 in the morning they'd go to the FBI 
spokesman. And whatever the FBI spokesman *told* them, they would 
report that; that was their idea of "reporting" what was going 
on. {5}.
 
And the same thing's goin' on now, it seems to me. That the media 
is just going to the official sources, goin' to the FBI and all 
these people, being spoon-fed their version of things, and then 
"reporting" that.
 
 
SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Right. Why don't they go to the head of the ATF, in Washington -- 
the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms -- and ask him: "Can 
you explain why it is that none of your people were in the 
building at the time of the bombing? Can you explain why you had 
exotic weapons parked in your office? Missile launchers and 
things like that? Why was it necessary to have that *in* your 
office? And did any of those devices explode when the building 
blew up?"
 
 
CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah. And the thing is... Okay, I was gonna ask you about that: 
you're saying that there was *no* ATF present when the building 
blew up?
 
 
SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Right. That's been widely reported, and I think it is quite 
correct.
 
We also know, from federal sources, that there were original 
documents, not replicated elsewhere, in that office in Oklahoma 
City, that related to the role of Janet Reno and Clinton in the 
massacre in Waco.
 
Beyond that, we have known a great deal about the violent 
background of the ATF. Because some years ago, through a series 
of circumstances, we obtained -- well, it fell into our 
possession (put it that way) -- all of the spiral notebooks of 
the chief investigator of the ATF in Chicago, who arranged for 
violence directed against the peace movement, violence against 
the Black Panthers, violence against civil rights activists, 
through his office, through people that they trained and put out 
on the streets -- paid provocateurs -- which he, again and again 
in his *own* handwriting, in his notebooks, refers to as 
"militant activists" -- "M.A.'s". And with *that* *background* -- 
the whole thing about the ATF not being in the office in Oklahoma 
City, and the building being bombed -- the ATF has got a strange, 
violent past of promoting government policy with violence and 
bombings when, in fact, the ATF is supposed to regulate 
explosives! But on occasion, to carry out government policy, they 
*supply* explosives to their own bombers to bomb, for example, a 
church in a Chicago suburb which was the site of anti-war 
meetings. And I was the first speaker at the church after they 
re-built it, so I know a great deal about it.
 
And since we have thousands and thousands of pages from the top 
official's notebooks -- I also interviewed him on the phone and 
he was flabbergasted to find out that I somehow had all of his 
notebooks. I got that on tape, and I can play that tape, for 
anybody that's skeptical.
 
 
CONSPIRACY NATION:
All right. But gettin' back to this thing about how there was no 
ATF in the building when it blew up: number one, the explosion 
was at about 9:02 a.m., so by then there *should* have been 
*some* ATF. Ordinarily there should have been some ATF personnel 
in the building.
 
 
SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Right.
 
 
CONSPIRACY NATION:
And you say that that's been widely reported. I think the *Los 
Angeles Times* was gonna be lookin' into that.
 
 
SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Why didn't any of the media people pick up the phone and say, 
"Look. This is NBC, this is CBS -- ATF chief, how come none of 
your people were in the office? Explain." None of the media 
people have picked up the phone and asked for an explanation from 
the BATF! Why? What's stopping them? I mean, maybe lesser 
journalists like myself -- free-lance journalists -- maybe we 
don't have the clout to demand an answer from the head of the 
BATF. But hey: if Ted Koppell or somebody from ABC News calls up, 
the ATF is gonna have to answer. But the point is, none of those 
high muckity-muck media people are bothering to ask routine 
questions!
 
 
CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah.
 
Okay, I wanted to... I'm tryin' to cover some ground here, 'cuz I 
figured the best way to do this is, do it in half-hour 
installments, and keep gettin' back to you so -- partly because 
of the phone bill, and partly because of, it's just more 
manageable.
 
Okay. Going back to this *60 Minutes* appearance by Clinton 
where, it seemed to me he was trying to ignite a mass hysteria -- 
and to an extent, he succeeded. There seems to be an attempt to 
-- you know, whether or not you like the G. Gordon Liddy Show -- 
there seems to be an ongoing attempt to create a "bandwagon 
effect" of, for example: almost immediately after the bombing, 
they said that some station out in California had "decided that 
they were gonna pull the G. Gordon Liddy Show". But then, it 
comes out later that this same station had previously decided 
that they were gonna be changing their format. You know, that it 
had nothing to do with controversial comments by Liddy.
 
 
SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Well I think the attack on Liddy is because he came up with an 
apparent witness that was the first one to see [Vince] Foster's 
body laying there in the park. And the witness claimed that there 
was no gun in his [Foster's] hand. And since Liddy talked about 
it on his show, I think that they're using the bombing criticism 
as an excuse to try to squelch Liddy because he has caused the 
White House so much trouble with his stories about the strange 
death of White House aide Vincent Foster, jr.
 
 
CONSPIRACY NATION:
It's not only that. He's been *really* hammering on the Waco 
incident and Ruby Ridge.
 
 
SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Right.
 
 
CONSPIRACY NATION:
I mean, I listen to a lot of shows, you know, and I don't 
necessarily endorse everything that Liddy says. But if you listen 
to his show, he, it seems like every show, he goes into the ATF, 
the Waco Massacre, and all this stuff.
 
 
SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
He put on one *very* controversial show. He put on a probe -- he 
had a gun dealer on. And the ATF broke into [the gun dealer's 
house] and *wrecked* his house, killed his domestic pets, stole 
his medicine that he needed for a serious illness -- did all kind 
of horrors to him. And they now have some kind of civil action 
against the ATF.
 
But the press [a.k.a. Pravda], generally, has not mentioned this 
terrible incident. And Liddy spent a good portion of a program 
one day having the one that this happened to talk about it on the 
radio show. And so I think Liddy has greatly antagonized the ATF. 
And since the ATF might be part of this bombing, in some way -- 
Liddy is bothering 'em, so they're trying to squelch him.
 
 
CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah. That's what it kind of seems to me, too.
 
You know, I was thinking also that, in Germany, in the '30s, a 
citizen could see what was going on, possibly, and at some point 
could decide, "Well. I'm gonna flee the country. I can see where 
it's goin', and I'm gonna get out of here. I'm gonna go to 
England; I'm gonna go to the United States."
 
 
SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
I want you to know that that is *quietly* happening, by very 
wealthy people. I know people who have wealthy friends, and they 
are telling me that *that* is what's happening. But they're doing 
it very quietly. They're trying to get passports from another 
country, as if they're a resident of Germany or France or 
England. In other words, they, in effect, want to give up their 
U.S. citizenship in order to get their assets out of the United 
States.
 
And of course there's a movement in Congress to tax those that do 
that, that give up their U.S. citizenship, in order that their 
wealth not be subject to taxes.
 
But I think that move has escalated since the bombing. In other 
words, they sense that there's something -- a sinister trend in 
the United States. Some people that are experts on history 
immediately think about the event in 1933 when Hitler had his own 
people burn down the German Parliament, the Reichstag, and blame 
it onto left-wing and communists. And that seems to be... In 
other words, the Oklahoma bombing seems to be the "Reichstag" of 
the present White House. In other words, they may have bombed it 
themselves, or somebody *for* the White House, and they're 
blaming it on others.
 
 
CONSPIRACY NATION:
But gettin' back to this thing about fleein' the country: *I* 
even think like this. You know, I think like, at some point in 
time, I'm just gonna get myself out of this country because it 
just seems like... You know, I'm willin' to do what I *can*. But 
I'm not gonna hang around for the bitter end, you know. But I 
think: well where, what country do you go to? I'm tryin' to think 
-- like Finland? Or...
 
 
SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Well one of the things that you gotta consider is that America, 
as a major industrial power, is the only country that, 
historically, has *not* had a genuine revolution. They do call it 
"The American Revolutionary War", but it was mostly the 
mercantile class *here* against the King of England. But there's 
been no genuine revolution in the history of the United States. 
And the way things are shaping up, the way they're mis-treating 
middle-income people, the way they're causing a great anguish by 
ordinary people -- somewhere down the road, America is gonna face 
an armed revolution.
 
In other words, the militia is an indication of anguish, by 
ordinary people, many of 'em ex-soldiers, against the central 
government. And that anguish is gonna increase, because they now 
have a documented study, by McNamara, that we were led into a 
fraudulent war, causing the death of 56,000 ordinary Americans, 
for un-Constitutional purposes.
 
---------------------------<< Notes >>---------------------------
{5} This observation, as I recall, was originally made by Linda 
Thompson.
 
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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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