("Quid coniuratio est?")
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.)
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CONSPIRACY NATION [continues]:
A lot of people from the "left", they hear this thing about "The
New World Order" and it sounds really weird to them.
SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Well it's not "new", it's... President Franklin D. Roosevelt put
the Latin terms for "The New World Order"...
CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah: "Novus ordo seclorum".
SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
...on the back of the dollar bill.
CONSPIRACY NATION:
He put that on there, huh?
SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Uh, apparently that started with the, about 1933, when they
changed the money. I could be wrong, but that's what some
scholars, who claim they know about it, said.
CONSPIRACY NATION:
"Novus ordo seclorum". "New World Order" is a translation. I
would translate it, literally, as "New Order of the Ages".
SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Well, what's wrong with it is, it's really not "The New World
Order". The very wealthy, the ultra rich, what they do is, they
put up retainers... What it is is, "Change -- That There Be No
Change At All". They don't want the status quo to be changed,
so they give the impression that there is change. It's really
"The Old World Order". It's not "The New World Order" at all.
CONSPIRACY NATION:
Well, all right. But see, my perspective... This is what
convinced me that there is, indeed, a plan for a "New World
Order", is based on -- whether or not you agree with Chomsky;
sometimes I agree with him, and I agree with him that, when he
says that governments tend to coalesce around the economic power.
And then you've got the economic power, that's going global.
What's gonna follow from that is a globalization of the
government.
SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Well, if that's what they had in mind when they started
Internet... But once they let the genie out of the bottle, they
found out that there's some clever people out there are gonna use
this to get around the mainstream liars.
Because people like Ben Bagdikian, an expert on media monopoly, in his books and so on {4}, says that by the middle of the last decade of the 20th century there will be only six multinational companies that will own the entire communications establishment: the radio, the TV, the print media, the books, communications -- all of it. On that basis, it gets to be a monopoly.
So part of the globalization was to set up Internet, figuring that that same thing is gonna help! But instead of that, a lot of clever people are getting a lot of truth, that's been bottled up by the three TV networks and the rest of 'em, on Internet, to the point where Clinton and others feel threatened by it. And they'd like to shut down Internet, if they could find one wire, with a big snippers to snip that one wire. That's assuming that it's a wire! It might be wireless! [laughs]
In other words, the genie has gotten out of the bottle, and they would like to restore their monopoly to the situation.
CONSPIRACY NATION:
Okay.
But anyway, see, a lot of my readers are coming from the "right", so-called. But there's others that are coming from the "left". And a lot of 'em hear about this idea of "The New World Order" and, you know, it sounds just too nuts to them.
SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Well I'm against putting labels on people. Because, in other
words, if they say you're "left", they says, "Oh! I can't talk to
you." And then "left wing" says, "Oh! You're a 'right-wing'. I
can't talk to you."
The ones that encourage that are the mainstream, monopoly-minded types, that want to control everything. And it's a mistake to put labels on people. It's a very great mistake.
And the best thing for people is to look at their idea. And look at their, the way they analyze the facts and history of the world, and go on that basis -- instead of putting a label.
They like to call me a "conspiracy theorist" and I grievously hate that. Because... Well, I explain it this way: I says, "First of all, the way things are: so nuts that, if you're not nuts, if you're not paranoid, you're crazy." That's number one. And number two is, you've gotta understand what's going on in the world and... and the ultra rich are running everything. So, I mean, they're only one percent of the people -- we outnumber them -- why are we so worried about them? In any case, we outnumber them.
CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah, the general distinction of so-called "left" versus so-
called "right" was pointed to by an article by Chip Berlet, where
he warned of "Right Woos Left". He was all over, "sounding the
alarm"...
SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Well Z Magazine, his enterprise there, I have reason to believe
is just another CIA front.
You see, that's another thing that's wrong in the country: there's too many foundations that control the "left" press. The right-wing press is financed by right-wing books and such. The left-wing press -- The Nation, In These Times (headquartered in Chicago) -- are all tied in with foundations -- alleged liberal foundations -- fronting for the CIA! And when you're on that kind of a ball and chain with the espionage people, how the hell can you tell the truth!?
CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah. But going back to Berlet, I don't know how to put this: I
don't know that he's somebody that's disinformation, or working
for the establishment or whatever...
SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Well he put out a story, all over, that I'm one of the leading
Nazis in the United States. And it is a plain lie! And it's a
lie that bothers me no end, because I started the campaign to
expose the Nazi war criminals in the United States. My friends
hired a big ballroom of one of the older hotels in 1976. And I
conducted the first major seminar in the United States
identifying the Nazi war criminals that live amongst us. And a
lot of 'em were still alive in 1976. Now, by 1995, some have
died off and so on. But in 1976, former gestapo types and so on
were all over the place in the United States.
So for Chip Berlet to say that Sherman Skolnick is a leading Nazi, is far from the truth! Directly opposite to the truth.
CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah, he has really been spreading things that I -- I don't know
how to put it -- that disgust me.
SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Well, he claims that Oswald did it alone [laughs]. Okay.
CONSPIRACY NATION:
Okay, but where he's saying in this essay of his, where he's
warning people of, you know, the thing was "Right Woos Left",
that the "right" is trying to form a coalition, in other words.
To me, we're used to saying this thing about the "left" versus
the "right". I think that's how they prevent a coalition from
being formed.
SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Yeah. In other words, what he's trying to do is prevent people
from coming together over common issues.
CONSPIRACY NATION:
Yeah! "Divide and conquer."
SHERMAN SKOLNICK:
Look. The rest of us, that are not the ultra rich (that's only
one percent of the people), uh... we have a lot of things in
common with the rest of the bulk of the people. And what's the
point of putting labels on 'em?
The major issue, which we ask every candidate during the election period that comes on our cable TV show -- what is the one question we ask 'em? (And none of the candidates, for Governor or whatever other, ever answer.) And that is, I make the statement: "The ultra rich, generally, pay no taxes (through corruption and other means). And, that is the major problem in America. What are you gonna do, 'candidate' (whether a man or a woman), what are you gonna do to tax the ultra rich?"
And this one question ties them in such a knot. Because the basic question in the United States, generally is not dealt with -- certainly not by the magazines and the radio talk shows -- and that is, the absolute failure to tax the ultra rich. They're like kings and queens, or sacred cows. They are not taxed. And that has been true since the federal income tax was put in.
And so, when they point to "The country's going bankrupt," "We've got no money for fixing railroads, the roads, street signs, street lights, running hospitals, libraries, schools" -- there is really only one answer. And that is, the failure to tax the ultra rich. If that one percent of the people, that owns and operates most of America, paid a proper percentage on their assets and wealth, there wouldn't be any problem in America.
I mean, the Rockefellers, the Mellons, and the Morgans and the others, generally pay no tax at all. And this came out when Nelson Rockefeller was put up as Vice-President under the 25th amendment in 1975. (Not by election but by appointment.) And he testified that he and his family had not paid, the Rockefeller family, had not paid any taxes. The richest man in America had not paid any taxes in the previous eleven years.
[...to be continued...]
---------------------------<< Notes >>--------------------------- {4} The Media Monopoly by Ben Bagdikian. Boston: Beacon Press, 1990. ISBN 0-8070-6159-X
I encourage distribution of "Conspiracy Nation."
Coming to you from Illinois -- "The Land of Skolnick"