
              Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 6  Num. 87
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                    ("Quid coniuratio est?")
 
 
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SURVIVING BRICKBATS
-- While Crusading Ahead of the Parade
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       By Sherman H. Skolnick
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One of the most dangerous of Life's voyages is to set sail, at an 
early age, as a crusader against the nation's injustices and the 
Establishment. By the time you are forty, you most likely will be 
a burned-out hulk, cynical to the extreme, mouthing off to 
yourself and your few surviving friends the darkest humor you can 
think of. The rarest of tilters against windmills keep going to a 
ripe old age, having learned how to survive the negatives.
 
Franklin D. Roosevelt, as an example, had some extreme negatives. 
He had great political ambitions, *but*, he became disabled, as 
an adult, from polio. With full-length heavy steel leg braces, he 
could drag himself along for a few feet on his crutches. He most 
often travelled in a wheelchair. Being a rich man, he had an 
entourage of press agents and advisors -- to avoid being seen as 
disabled. As President, elected for four terms, he had the Secret 
Service to break the head, and the cameras, of anyone who tried 
to get a picture of him in his wheelchair. For political affairs, 
he travelled in an open car, his leg braces not visible. When 
giving a public speech, he was rolled in with the curtains drawn, 
and his leg braces hidden behind furniture and floral 
arrangements.
 
Why all this dealing with negatives? Because there apparently is 
a widespread perception that someone in a wheelchair is also 
mentally infirm, or a "nut" or a "crackpot", not qualified to 
lead or to be publicly heard from.
 
The Chicago Tribune, the world's greatest hate sheet, delighted 
in railing against FDR, as "that cripple in the White House."
 
This writer became disabled, from polio, much like FDR, except as 
a child. Because of a series of events, he became a crusader 
since 1958. Every week or so, he would be on the evening TV, for 
40 seconds or so. This as a result of his role in public 
commotions resulting from his court campaigns for "one man, one 
vote", re-districting lop-sided election districts.
 
The mass media tried to emphasize, however, the negatives. No 
aides, advisors, or press agents were there. So the TV liked to 
film him with the cameras and lights way up high, viewing him as 
a bug in a wheelchair. Friends finally admonished him -- "stop 
letting the press bastards photograph you in your wheelchair."
 
Another negative is the so-called demonstrating of "proof". The 
mainstream press considers crusaders, free lance journalists, and 
such, as inferior beings. Hence, as such you are supposedly 
obligated to turn over your sources, your witnesses, your 
confidants, to them. The pressfakers, however, would not do that 
for you.
 
In well over three decades of being on the cutting edge of major 
scandals and commotions, with few exceptions, I have never had a 
source, witness, or confidant identified and terrorized; none of 
my sources, and such, have been found murdered or mysteriously 
fallen off buildings or bridges due to anything I leaked out 
about them.
 
A crusader has to learn to survive on a shoe-string and take the 
heat. Those not on the cutting edge of major controversies, or 
otherwise poorly informed, are inclined to be skeptical of 
crusaders. Few ever point to purveyors of the "Big Lie" like the 
New York Times or Time Magazine and say, "where is your proof". 
So-called documented books have footnotes or chapter notes, 
referring to yet other books. And, of course, even so-called 
court "evidence" or "testimony" might be perjured.
 
To crusade, you have to survive and endure brickbats.
 
As the head of a crusading group, Citizens' Committee to Clean Up 
the Courts, I have learned to survive. A few examples:
 
(1) In 1969, I accused Illinois' highest Court of being riddled 
with corruption. The Judges on the Illinois Supreme Court ordered 
me to tell them how I knew of what I claimed as their bribery. I 
refused to identify my sources, and so, they had me dragged away 
to jail for contempt of court, wheelchair and all. After a great 
public commotion, three of the high court judges went to the wall 
and I was vindicated.
 
(2) Six months ahead of the mainstream press, at public speeches 
at colleges, I accused Vice President Spiro Agnew of bribery. 
College newspaper editors called me a "liar" -- I refused to 
reveal my sources. I was called a "liar" right down to October, 
1973, when Agnew resigned, while facing bribery charges.
 
(3) I publicly accused Chicago Federal Appeals Judge Otto Kerner, 
Jr. of bribery, 1969. For some 4 years, most every establishment 
press organ -- newspaper, radio, TV -- in Chicago carried 
Kerner's statements calling me a "liar". He became the highest 
level federal judge in the nation's history to be sent to jail 
for bribery while still a sitting judge.
 
(4) I was the first to accuse the Chief Judge of the Traffic 
Court in Chicago of corruption. In a taped interview in his 
office, 1977, he said I was imagining things; there was, he said, 
no corruption in his court division. The work of our group 
triggered off the Justice Department's "Operation Greylord"; from 
1983 to 1993 some 20 local judges, including that chief judge, 
and 40 lawyers, were sent to jail for bribery. The pressfakers 
never bothered to mention the role of our group in the whole 
mess.
 
 
Though certainly not infallible, we as a group have never 
knowingly falsely accused anyone. Going soon on our fourth 
decade, we have again and again been vindicated on our 
accusations. We make no idle charges -- we have no political or 
financial benefit to gain.
 
A case in point is our accusation that the Oklahoma City bombing 
could be considered the American Hiroshima because of undisclosed 
radiation. That, of course, nullifies the official government 
version of what happened. Others that dissented from the 
government version could not, in our view, go all the way and 
tell what we believe happened. Either they do not truly know, or 
are restrained by government links. For example, a former top FBI 
official says a different sort of bomb was used, not the one the 
pressfakers say. But he has close links with those currently in 
the FBI -- does he get consulting fees in some way recommended by 
them? Another critic of the official version of the bombing is a 
retired general. Is he restrained by national security 
considerations? As a military officer, is he pledged not to 
violate "national security"? Assuming he knows about the 
radiation, would the former FBI official and/or the general, 
nevertheless, stay shut on this question?
 
Those who do know about the radiation talk in whispers, 
emphasizing that it is damned dangerous to say or know anything 
about this. Question: Why was the building site covered over with 
concrete? A mere oversight, or to cover up dangerous 
radioactivity which may last for many, many years? How many 
months, or years, will it take until details "come out"? Who will 
risk their neck bringing out such details?
 
Our group has for all these years been involved in some of the 
most profound commotions centered in some way or another in 
Chicago. I have rejected the idea of writing an autobiography, 
since those not involved in such doings would not be inclined to 
believe that one group could get so involved and have key sources 
worldwide. We don't mind being considered as "having no 
credibility", "having no proof", or even worse, being "liars" -- 
it has happened to us again and again. There is a danger to one's 
ego to be "ahead of the parade" -- until others catch up, there 
is a great danger of being misunderstood.
 
We have compiled thousands and thousands of files and data about 
our work. Would it be wise for us to divulge such a mass of 
material, just because someone, not as well informed as us, 
thinks we do not know what we are talking about?
 
To us, protecting our witnesses, sources, and confidants, is a 
deadly serious work, more important than "proving" that we are 
right. Some of the greatest scandals in American history were 
triggered off without so-called "documents" or signed 
"affidavits" by anyone involved or knowing about it.
 
Not being financial animals, it is of no concern to us that 
getting vindicated in the Oklahoma bombing, as somehow involving 
radioactive materials, may take months, if not years -- meanwhile 
we would suffer heckling by critics.
 
To be a crusader, you have to carefully consider the voyage. You 
have to not fold up because you are ahead of the parade and are 
the target of brickbats. Otherwise, involve yourself in something 
less hazardous.
 
 +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +  +
 
I neither necessarily agree nor disagree with either all or parts 
of the preceding. Persons mentioned are invited to send their 
rebuttals, of reasonable length, to bigred@shout.net for probable 
distribution.
                         -- Brian Francis Redman, Editor-in-Chief
 
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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 

