295 lines
15 KiB
Plaintext
295 lines
15 KiB
Plaintext
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Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 8 Num. 01
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======================================
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("Quid coniuratio est?")
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Sherman Skolnick discusses
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"The Einsteins of Conspiracy Theory"
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(Interview from July 18, 1995)
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(Preliminary note: Mr. Skolnick's phone, due to bureaucratic
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bungling, had recently been disconnected. When we spoke on the
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evening of July 18th, his phone service had just been restored.)
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CONSPIRACY NATION: Let me run this by you: this is my theory.
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You've got this Einstein connection that, where you had been
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taught by this protege of Einstein, at Spaulding High School.
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And Einstein was a brilliant theorist...
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SHERMAN SKOLNICK: Yeah. But he was hounded all his life, until
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his death in 1956, by the FBI who thought he was some kind of
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spy. It didn't come out, until years later, that they thought he
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was subversive. He was... He invented things that... The
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atomic bomb was used to, supposedly, terminate the war and save a
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lot of American lives. Not everybody agrees 50 years later, but
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the people at the time agreed. And he did a lot for this
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country.
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CONSPIRACY NATION: Yeah. But see, what I'm sayin' is, the way
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that Einstein -- because he had to theorize, because there was
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just so much in the area of physics that was not accessible, that
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he couldn't access...
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SHERMAN SKOLNICK: I'm glad you brought up his name. Because
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(not everybody's gonna agree with the next thing I say)... But
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Michael Riconosciuto -- because I spent 4-and-a-half months
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interviewing him in the federal jail in Chicago in the fall of
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'92 -- I call him "Albert Einstein in jail". He is absolutely
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brilliant. In finance, in computers: he's a wiz! A wizard.
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CONSPIRACY NATION: Okay, but Ted Koppel, for example, he's
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knocking "conspiracy theorists", this is my analogy: that you've
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got, again you've got information that is unknown. Like with
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Einstein, there was information unknown, so he had to theorize.
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All right? And with these, what they call "conspiracy
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theorists", they've got information that's unknown; the
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government is not letting them access the information; so they've
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got to be theorists! That's the only way... It's the same
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thing, just like Einstein.
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SHERMAN SKOLNICK: Yeah, we could be documentors if the
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government will release the stuff! I mean, the government knows.
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Doesn't... Isn't there an agency, a unit in the government, that
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really knows, the bottom line, who killed John F. Kennedy, which
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way the bullets really went in Dealey Plaza; who exactly was the
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second gunman with Bobby Kennedy; and how exactly did this guy,
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Raoul, frame James Earl Ray.
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Somebody in the government would know. But what they do is,
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they protect. So that, when the rest of us come along with
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theories, they says, "You lie! You're a 'conspiracy crackpot'."
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CONSPIRACY NATION: Yeah! And if they would release the
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information, then we wouldn't need to theorize!
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SHERMAN SKOLNICK: Yes. We're not allowed to see the real stuff.
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CONSPIRACY NATION: Yeah. And I was just thinking in terms of,
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you had been taught by Einstein's protege at Spaulding High
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School, and I just kind of thought that there's an "Einstein
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connection".
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SHERMAN SKOLNICK: Yeah, but now that you've mentioned: what
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happened is, his politics were "wrong". He taught for a
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"crippled" childrens' high school, he taught for the jail. He
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was a brilliant math teacher, but he had the "wrong" politics.
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CONSPIRACY NATION: It's just an idea that occurred to me: that
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you could be viewed as, like "The Einstein of Conspiracy
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Theorists".
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SHERMAN SKOLNICK: Yeah but the ultimate thing is, you want me to
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create the "atomic bomb of conspiracies"?! [laughs]
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There is an "atomic bomb of conspiracies": the mother of
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all conspiracies, the one that's gonna "blow up" the White House!
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[laughs]
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Well.... I tell ya somethin': an early "Einstein of
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conspiracies" was the late Danny Casolaro with his theory about
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"The Octopus". Someday they're gonna prove it, just like
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Einstein's theory of relativity, there's gonna be Casolaro's
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theory of the mother of all conspiracies. He's gonna have a
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formula how to work it, too!
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The man was put in his grave by a vast conspiracy, made to
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look like a suicide. And apparently [Vince] Foster, too!
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And so now, Ted Koppel, who's apparently getting a CIA
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subsidy instead of CBS, he wants to put us all down: we're all
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"conspiracy peddlers". The thing is, us "conspiracy peddlers" I
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don't think are getting well-off with it. Whereas these other
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guys are trying to sell newspapers and TV ads putting the
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conspiracy theorists down. And we could be conspiracy
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documentors if the government will just let loose of the real
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stuff! And turn off all the shredding machines.
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CONSPIRACY NATION: Speaking of the "Einsteins of conspiracy
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theory", you mentioned once Mae Brussell. Had you known her
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before?
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SHERMAN SKOLNICK: Oh I knew her for a good 15 years. She was a
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brilliant woman. And her great dream as she was dying (I was
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among the last to interview her, while she was still coherent;
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she was dying of uterus cancer.) And her dream was to use some
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money that she inherited to set up a library for assassination
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researchers. But her family (she's part of the Magnin department
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store fortune), they wanted the money. And they weren't
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interested in setting up any libraries in her honor. So all of
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her records that she gathered, from the time of the death of
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President Kennedy until she died in October of '88, are
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languishing, I believe, in a garage someplace in Vancouver,
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Canada.
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CONSPIRACY NATION: Yeah. That's sad.
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SHERMAN SKOLNICK: Well... It's, you know what it is? It's not
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as popular as the latest "gangsta rap" or whatever they call it.
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Digging out the truth to the world is not always popular. It
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became popular just briefly when the JFK movie came out. And
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then some of these counter-conspiracies, that is, the put-down of
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those that dig into things -- Chip Berlet and others -- came
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along to harass and hound the rest of us as, what [Ted] Koppel I
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understand is gonna call "a cottage industry". In other words,
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we're busy in the secret basements of the world, investigating
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plots.
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The idea that there are no plots is itself a plot.
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CONSPIRACY NATION: Yeah. That's what I was gonna say, that it
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sounds like Koppel is getting paranoid.
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SHERMAN SKOLNICK: Well anyone that makes $2.5 million a year and
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drives in a limousine is not gonna believe that there are any
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plots -- except those that are plotted by the ones that he works
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for.
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The idea that a clever person can force a massive group of
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liars to tell the truth is a wrong view of the world. You cannot
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force big-time liars like the New York Times, the Washington
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Post, and Time magazine and others to tell the truth. The top
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brass of those magazines go to these secret society meetings and
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don't report what went on there. And so why should anybody say,
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"Well, we're clever. We're gonna force them to tell the truth."
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You cannot force a massive liar to tell the truth. It is *not*
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*possible*.
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CONSPIRACY NATION: All right, but here is my theory, okay?
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There's a point where everybody already knows the story. I mean,
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as far as, say, Waco. All right? The mass media really tried to
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dismiss that and to demonize the Branch Davidians. But the
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public was so insistent and began producing their own videos and
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telling about what happened there that it became... Everybody
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already knew it already, anyway. And it became a point where...
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SHERMAN SKOLNICK: Okay what would they do to the rest of us who
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documented and detailed and demonized the media? What would they
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do to us?
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CONSPIRACY NATION: But see, what I'm sayin' is, that there comes
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a point where everybody already knows the story anyway. So the
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media, at that point, to "save face" is gonna have to tell what
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it knows. Or offer a "limited hangout". And I can notice that
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with the Branch Davidian massacre, that, at first, all they
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showed was this one short clip of Koresh -- constantly. It was
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as if that was the only clip that was available of him. And they
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didn't mention any kind of alternative view. These were "crazed
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cultists". And they put out that movie almost right away; it was
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one of these made-for-TV movies. They really propagandized
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against these people.
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SHERMAN SKOLNICK: You should continue telling subscribers that
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one of the most wonderful things in our time is Internet. That's
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why the media is attacking it from all sides. Why? Because the
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rest of us, when some big liar of the press, when we talk to 'em,
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what is the one magic word that we whisper into their ear and
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they go completely nuts? We whisper [whispers], "Internet!!"
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And they go nuts! Why? Because, in effect, if we're really
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loud-mouthed we can say, "The hell with you, Washington Post!
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I'm puttin' this on Internet and people all over the world --
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clever people, intellectuals -- are gonna know the truth and know
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that you, Washington Post, are liars!"
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And so all you've got to do is whisper [whispers],
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"Internet!"
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And it's powerful. Because the Washington Post, on July
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4th, referred to your category there, "Conspiracy Nation".
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Listen. When an ant is able to make the elephant or horse move,
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hey: that's Internet.
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CONSPIRACY NATION: Yeah, well they're struggling to find ways to
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shut things down. I mean, their way with, where it's just a
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place filled with child pornographers and it's gotta be shut down
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or whatever -- that hasn't worked I don't think.
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SHERMAN SKOLNICK: What are you talkin' about? That the networks
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are loaded with child pornographers??
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CONSPIRACY NATION: Well in the newspapers, for awhile there it
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was like...
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SHERMAN SKOLNICK: Well we put on the air recently a cable TV
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show about two terrorist organizations. Can you imagine which
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two that we put on? They weren't Abu-Nidal and some other group.
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They were the IRS and a group in Illinois, a state agency that
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terrorizes sole practitioner lawyers, trying to chew 'em up. We
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described them as "terrorist groups" [laughs].
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The picture of their leaders should hang rightfully in the
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post office.
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One of the stories I did, which has been 20-some odd years
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in the making was, the reasons why the CIA and other federal
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agencies will not squelch the Chinese secret police that are
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operating in the United States.
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I told a short version of the story. Actually it would take
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a good book to go into it. I happen to have been a long-time
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friend, over a period of 20 years, to a retired "spook" who was
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an expert on the Chinese secret police. He'd been a parachute
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spy for the O.S.S. during the second war. And when he got back
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here, in the '50s, they more or less put him to work, part time,
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to track the Chinese secret police that the government, the U.S.
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government, never did anything to stop them. In other words, the
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Vietnam war came along, they didn't want to stop them -- for a
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little-known reason: historically and traditionally China was a
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long-time enemy of Vietnam. In fact when the Vietnam war ended,
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they had a border conflict! Remember that?
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CONSPIRACY NATION: No, no.
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SHERMAN SKOLNICK: So the Chinese secret police are functioning.
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Although a friend of one Chinese scientist called up and
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bitterly berated me. I says, "Friend, what are you hollering
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about? I'm not talking about your man. Why is your man telling
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you to scream at me?"
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Maybe he is with the secret police. I wasn't even thinking
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about him at all! And he says, "Why do I..." I mentioned about
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a sneaky scientist being the head of the Chinese secret police in
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the United States. And somebody called up and says, "Will you
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stop condemning my friend?" I says, "I wasn't even thinking
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about your friend! Is your friend feeling guilty about
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something, that he told you to heckle me?" I says, "The one I
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was thinkin' about isn't your friend at all!" [laughs]
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(But now that he mentioned him, I'm gonna put him on the
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list.) [laughs]
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CONSPIRACY NATION: Is your phone workin' now? 5741, is that
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back?
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SHERMAN SKOLNICK: Yeah, right. It is.
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All political activists curse the phone company. I mean,
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they're the great boogeyman of the world. And it's justified.
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Because during the anti-war period, whenever there was a big
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rally, they would try to stop the rally by sabotaging people's
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phones. When you'd pick up the phone, you'd want to call
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somebody. You says, "Hey, you goin' down to this peace rally?"
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And all of a sudden, your phone is dead, your pal's phone is
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dead. And then when you'd get to a pay phone, to call the phone
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company, they said, "What?! I don't know what you're talkin'
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about."
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Well how was it that all these guys that were organizing a
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peace rally, that their phones all went dead about the same time?
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Now that sounds beyond coincidence.
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There was a movie about there was a vast conspiracy in the
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world, and at the end of the movie it turned out to be the phone
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company. "The President's Analyst" I think it was called. And
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actually, the whole conspiracy was conducted from a phone booth!!
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[laughs]
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Maybe the movie was correct. [laughs]
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For information on how to receive the improved Conspiracy
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Nation Newsletter, send an e-mail message to bigred@shout.net
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Want to know more about Whitewater, Oklahoma City bombing, etc?
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(1) telnet prairienet.org (2) logon as "visitor" (3) go citcom
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See also: http://www.europa.com/~johnlf/cn.html
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See also: ftp.shout.net pub/users/bigred
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Aperi os tuum muto, et causis omnium filiorum qui pertranseunt.
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Aperi os tuum, decerne quod justum est, et judica inopem et
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pauperem. -- Liber Proverbiorum XXXI: 8-9
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