From server@firefly.prairienet.org Thu May 18 10:34:11 1995
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Subject: Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 4 Num. 91
X-Comment:  Conspiracy Nation



              Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 4  Num. 91
             ======================================
                    ("Quid coniuratio est?")


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INTERVIEW WITH SHERMAN SKOLNICK -- MAY 17, 1995

On May 17, 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.)

 +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +

CONSPIRACY NATION:
What's going on these days with Whitewater?


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
What's happening is, there's a statute of limitations deadline, 
that's May 25th, '95, to do something about White House aide 
Bruce Lindsey. He's mentioned in different stories as having been 
fingered by uh -- Neal Ainsley, I think the name is? So, many 
expected that he was the next to be indicted. And he occupies the 
office, in the White House, between the oval office and Al Gore. 
So he's not a "nobody".

So, if between now and the 25th, Kenneth Starr causes Mr. Lindsey 
to be indicted, then, the way the dominoes are falling, the next 
one would fall on the oval office: Clinton himself.

And so, it may be that there's a great deal of nervousness now in 
the White House.


CONSPIRACY NATION:
One thing I've always noticed is, sometimes, on your recorded 
commentaries {1}, you'll say "Our chairman", okay? You'll say, 
"This person was interviewed by 'our chairman.'" Who's "The 
chairman"?


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Well, that's me. The point is, I don't like to talk in the first 
person, 'cuz I'm a spokesman for the group, and this isn't a 
personal commentary. I don't know if it would sound right if I 
said "me", "I", and stuff like that. I talk in the third person 
so that, irrespective of *who* is delivering the commentary to 
the recorded tape, it would sound more objective.


CONSPIRACY NATION:
Okay.

I wanted to get into this idea of "The New World Order". For 
somebody like me, that I, essentially, I come from the "left", as 
my background (although, recently, I've been reading a lot of 
different sources; not just from the "left") -- but I can 
understand where, somebody from the "left" would automatically 
respond to this idea of "The New World Order" as...


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Well, you know, when I used to give speeches in front of colleges 
several years ago, I had this favorite saying that some of the 
students understood. I says, "You know, they try very hard (the 
press does, and the FBI and the rest of 'em) to see to it that 
there's no genuine left wing in the United States. So that, if 
the United States was an airplane, it'd be the only airplane of 
its kind in the world, that flies with only one wing! -- and it 
ain't 'left.'"

That used to help the students try to understand that.


CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah.

But my idea for, say, some readers of... that maybe think that 
this, "The New World Order" is kind of a crazy thing: you know, 
one way of looking at it is (this is from something that Noam 
Chomsky wrote in a small booklet called *The Prosperous Few and 
the Restless Many* {2} ):

  Throughout history, the structures of government have tended 
  to coalesce around other forms of power -- in modern times, 
  primarily around economic power. So, when you have national 
  economies, you get national states. We now have an 
  international economy and we're moving towards an 
  international state. {3}

Okay? And that's right from Noam Chomsky!


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Yeah, but let me say something.


CONSPIRACY NATION:
I know that you're skeptical about Noam Chomsky.


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Well... Here's the problem. There's various commentators, some of 
'em right-wing, some of 'em mainstream, who talk that "Big 
Brother" is "leftist". And they even say that Ted Kennedy, the 
Senator from Massachusetts, is "liberal" and "leftist", and that 
"Big Brother" is... the right wing likes to call it "socialist".

What's wrong with it is, none of 'em ever bothered to check the 
definition. Socialism means the working people, the common 
people, the common folks, owning the instruments of production 
and communication. And it has nothing to do with these other 
interpretations that these right-wing radio announcers put on it, 
and so on.

I mean, one of the things that's little-known is, early in his 
career, J. Edgar Hoover, as the head of the FBI, saw to it that 
no "lefties" were allowed to own a radio broadcast license.

So when these other right-wingers and such that say that the news 
media is "left wing" and "liberal" -- I really don't know what 
they're talking about. If labor activists, trade union activists 
-- true "lefties" -- are, historically have not been allowed to 
own and operate radio and TV broadcast licenses in the United 
States, then what is this idea that the media, you know, 
headquartered in New York, is "left wing", "Big Brother", 
"socialist" agenda?


CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah! I agree with you. I think there's a real confusion in 
terms, as far as -- you know, they're calling people "from the 
left" like, as you say, East Coast liberal, ivy-league types. 
These are the same people that, they've never really *worked*. I 
mean, I've had *tons* of professors that, I've talked with them, 
and they've said that, basically, they just went to college and 
became professors. And they've got *no* *connection* with the 
average, working-class person.


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Yeah. And the media and others often describe "what the working 
people are all about," what... They use the word out of Orwell: 
"Big Brother". And basically, George Orwell (that's another thing 
that they don't go into) -- Orwell, in writing his book, *1984*, 
with all these names that he created -- "Big Brother" and all 
that -- he basically was trying to put down the left wing. And so 
right-wingers, and narrow-minded types, and rednecks, and all 
these other types that don't want to be sophisticated: whenever 
there's something that helps ordinary people, they right away 
say, "It's 'Big Brother'! We've gotta put an end to it."

It's like now, the current issue of *Time* magazine has got a 
hatchet on the cover, and "Cut The Budget". What do they want to 
do? I mean, they want to cut food stamps. And yet, they don't 
point out that the whole food stamp program wouldn't pay for one 
nuclear aircraft carrier.


CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah! That's somethin' else: that, whenever it comes to where 
people say, "Let's reduce the size of government," they *always* 
go after women with babies, or anybody that's...


SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Or they talk about "the welfare system" -- where it's mostly 
rural whites. They never like to put on the television the rural 
whites in the state of Maine that are absolutely *impoverished*. 
Or the rural whites in southern Illinois. But they point to the 
black population in the major cities as if all of *them* are on 
welfare!

And the other thing: you know, I like to, I like to get into 
these things. Because I'll tell ya why: the blacks are some of 
the hardest-working people in the world. And I live in an all- 
black neighborhood, myself. (And, you know, I'm livin' here, 
since the *neighborhood* is here and I didn't move away. Some of 
my other neighbors and such, they moved away to the prosperous 
northwest suburbs.) But the point is, 5 o'clock in the morning, 
all the lights go on; everybody is gettin' up, to go to work. 
This idea that blacks are all on welfare and are lazy and are not 
working is a terrible, terrible, *erroneous* stereotype. They do 
among the hardest work in the post office, and in the back 
departments of the hotels, together with the Hispanics. I like to 
tell this joke that, if they don't stop beating blacks on the 
head, their *mail* isn't gonna arrive! You know what I'm saying?

And who punches out most of the checks, the percentage of blacks 
that are working in the Social Security Administration. I mean, 
they're operatin' the machinery, they're doin' the hard work. I 
don't understand these people, that want to beat *these* people 
on the head!


CONSPIRACY NATION:
Well, you know what it is: it's because they're the least 
powerful.

                   [...to be continued...]

---------------------------<< Notes >>---------------------------
{1} Recorded commentaries from the Citizens Committee to Clean-up 
the Courts, Sherman H. Skolnick, chairman, can be heard by 
dialing (312) 731-1100 and (312) 731-1505.

{2} *The Prosperous Few and the Restless Many* by Noam Chomsky. 
Berkeley: Odonian Press, 1993. ISBN 1-878825-03-8

{3} Ibid., page 7, my copy.  

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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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