Reports                        

CONTENTS

1- Who Is The Liberal Media?
WHAT-TV digs into the vast left wing conspiracy.

2- At the Circus: Swimming With The Big Fish At The Blagojevich Fry.                                                     WHAT-TV reports from the defence table during Blago hearing.

3- "B" Team- Short novelette.                                                                                                                      High school jerks turn gym class ball game into nightmare.

---

 WHAT-TV: Special Report

WHO IS THE LIBERAL MEDIA?
WHAT-TVs Jack Hammond digs into the people and companies behind 
the 'vast left wing conspiracy'.

 

 

  Who Is The Liberal Media? 
by. Jack Hammond, WHAT-TV

     “You get on your little 21 inch screen and howl about America and Democracy.  There is no America. There is no Democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT,  and AT&T. And Dow and DuPont, Union Carbide and Exxon. These are the nations of the world today. ”  -Ned Beatty (as Arthur Jensen) “Network” 1976

Everybody quotes the wrong line from “Network”, Sydney Lumets prescient 1976 film (based on Paddy Cheyevski book)  about  corporate/ media synergy. Howard Beales (Peter Finche) plaintive “I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it any more!” has certainly become a rallying cry of unfocused anger,  but few people have apparently actually seen the whole movie. 

It’s well worth watching again.......When Beale uses his populist TV show to stop a huge international business deal from going thru, a deal in the interests of the company that owns his show, we are shown where the true limits of journalism lie. Beales moralistic rants against the powers that be are amusing and useful as long as they brought in listeners and sold product, but become much less useful when they actually touch on something that affects the real world agenda and goals of the company he works for. 

That is the reality. Media, in the end, serves the interests of the people that own them. When those interests are challenged or threatened, ideas like free press, democracy, America, or  journalistic integrity become naive pretensions that are easily discarded. 

  Here is Jensons complete speech, delivered masterfully by Beatty, who apparently had to go thru a lot (Deliverance!) to get this part!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ny6nILzDiEo&feature=related

 

The Corporate Keyboard

     “Think of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play.” -Joseph Goebels

In 1983, Author Ben Bagdikian predicted in his book The Media Monopoly.  that as media control consolidated into the hands of fewer and fewer companies, increasing corporate and thus government control of the news, would result. Bagdikian posited a future where less then half a dozen corporations, owned by industries dependent on and in control of the government, controlled all media in America. Back then, about 50 corporations controlled the vast majority of American media. The media, huge surprise, called Bagdikian an alarmist, and a conspiracy nut.. 

  When the 6th revised edition of “The Media Monopoly” came out in 2000, Bagdikians predictions had proved accurate. The Big Six: Time Warner, Disney, Murdoch's News Corporation, Bertelsmann (BMG) of Germany, Viacom (formerly CBS)  and General Electric's NBC --  had swallowed the other 44, and now controlled almost all media in the U.S. 
       These six corporations  and their subsidiaries reach in to and profit from every aspect of our lives, from information access to shampoo, from military defence systems and disaster recovery to theme parks and sports teams. Washers, dryers,  prescription drugs, automobiles, medical care and equipment, hair color, TV, Radio, Cable, Print, movies ...  between them they control nearly all access to information: consequently, and more importantly, they control information content itself.
      Each employs huge armies of “K” street lobbyists, (who argue for huge tax breaks and incentives, brand and monopoly protection), finance election and ‘issues’ campaigns via shadowy action committees, and create think tanks and consortiums that spend huge wads of cash influencing the press, the news and who is elected,  (now, without even having to disclose who they are!). Just as importantly, they work to insure that those elected continue to support their multilayered interests. .., which are so woven into the fabric of American society, that their continued profitability is considered a matter of national security. And inversely and symbiotically, the government has grown dependent on them.

    “Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it” - Adolph Hitler


   ...and, according to the liberal media, the liberal media has a strong liberal bias.  We know this because the liberal media tells us so. We know how liberal talk shows dominate the airwaves (five to ten per market!), liberal well-selling authors such as Coulter, Beck, Hannity ...Bill O’Rielly and Rush Limbaugh, they all tell us. The conventional wisdom has it that the liberal media are a liberal propaganda machine, working tirelessly to subvert American values by promoting liberal causes such as radical environmentalism, the gay agenda, socialism, and secular humanism. We all know this right?  
      Tea Partiers are sure convinced. And the liberal media rewards them by showering them with coverage. The Tea Party demonstrations have seen puny crowds compared to the antiwar rallies before and during the early years of the Iraq war, or even the Stewart /Colbert rallies recently. Yet the liberal media continues to tell us about their vague agenda (socialist causes like ‘lower my bosses taxes) and what an important movement it is.     Anti globalisation demonstrations, focused, world-wide in scope, and consistent over the years, are almost always more passionate and with much larger numbers. You can usually find the story on page 14, of your liberal newspaper, a 100 word summary, if at all. There are few round table discussions of what ‘meaning’  the anti globalism movement has for the country, or of anti globalism arguments.  
      Sure am digging watching Sarah Palin round the clock, tho, on the ol’ liberal media. Instead of having to pay for campaign advertising, she is actually paid for it, in her folksy eight part campaign commercial on liberal TLC. (in partnership with News Corp.), in her books, (published by Harper-Collins, a division of  News Corp.) her not yet announced presidential campaign (with it’s own liberal TV station and publicity empire,News Corp.), No news coverage has been spared to make sure we know every thought and opinion that her handlers have worked so hard to give her:  the most irrelevant tweet, the most most banal observation. Looks good in shorts, tho, or gutting an elk for democracy.
Who, then, are these people, the subversive practitioners that subsidise the undermining of our traditional values, and attack our American way of life.  Who are the fellow travellers and doctrinaire Marxists who’s propaganda pervades our every moment, and poisons the minds of our young people. Who is ‘The Liberal Media”?

Naming Names
GENERAL ELECTRiC is the owner of NBC, Universal, Telemundo,  MSNBC (in partnership w/Microsoft), CNN,  Sci-Fi, and hundreds of cable and broadcast channels, TV and radio stations across the country. It is the 6th largest media company in the United States. (Important: Since this writing Comcast has purchased a 51% interest in NBC/Universal See GE/Comcast addendum.)

   It is also the nations first largest defence contractor,and literally profits from a state of war. GE Infrastructure, it’s construction and manufacturing division, builds highways and dams and, for example, the canals and water management that prevent the southwest from reverting back to desert. (That’s right, the “Don’t raise our taxes” western rural states get much more government money per capita then the states with large urban populations!) GEI also rebuilds areas destroyed by disaster or wars (around the world) that they themselves supply the armament for. (Nice arrangement, huh!) In these endeavors they work closely with companies such as Halliburton and The Carlyle Group, exhibits “A” and “B”  as examples of the “corporation/nation” Jenson referred to. GE (and Halliburton and Carlyle!) get lots of government money to do this.

        GE Finance, an extensive (some would say pervasive) network of  banks and financing organisations finances our purchases, GE Healthcare supplies the medical equipment industry, GE Consumers appliances line our kitchens. Each, also, get lots of government money in the form of subsidies and tax breaks. (Many  directly subsidise the closing of American plants and the relocation of them to China!)

It is also a leading member in dozens of international trade and business enabling groups, which work closely together to manipulate the world economy (again, along with our friends at Halliburton and Carlyle, etc.). These companies and the American peoples interests are not the same. GE is a global nation unto itself.

Don’t even want to get into Jack Welch...

The profits from it’s huge US media holdings are puny compared to GEs global enterprises,(NBC is perennially the last place network.) and news divisions traditionally  lose money, anyway.. yet GE continues to pour money into a marginally profitable industry.  Why? 

GE’s continued success depends on the support, consent and participation of the American populace, it’s consent to go to war, it’s consent to live in a oligarchic system, it’s consent to continue in an unsustainable lifestye. GE’s

media arm enables all of it’s other operations.   

"The essence of democratic society is the engineering of consent.”    

          -Edward Bernays, advisor to the Creel commission.

 

Militaristic, internationalist, oligarchic monopoly, the definition of American capitaism...NOT LIBERAL.

Lee Atwaters Ghost

Rupert Murdochs News Corp. as touched on above, is not even under discussion. Any cursory examination of its mercurial owner, or its corporate hierarchy and creative talent will reveal an all star roster straight from the ranks of the ‘vast right wing conspiracy’. From long time GOP mediameister and FOX news chairman Roger Ailes, who has brilliantly turned the whole idea of journalistic integrity on it’s head, thru a ‘news’ staff and on air personalities (Beck, O’Reilly, Palin, Huckabee, Gingrich, Bachman, Kachich, etc...) that interchanges readily with operatives and candidates of the Republican party. In addition, News Corps. donates millions of dollars to The US Chamber of Commerce, American Crossroads, and other Corporate/GOP affiliated groups, organisations which had a huge influence on the 2010 elections. Calling it  anything less then a media arm of the conservative movement transcends reality. .

One little known tidbit, tho. News Corp. is heavily financed from  Saudi Oil interests, including Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, who owns seven percent of the company, while simultaneously sponsoring the ‘Ground Zero’  mosque FOX has been railing about for the last half year. The Saudi royals and that wing of the American conservative movement have extremely close oil based ties that go back decades. (Google  ‘The Carlyle Group’ for some infuriating reading!!) That amazing story of corporate two-facedness is worth it’s own book. NOT LIBERAL! Duh!

CLEARCHANNEL is the largest owner of radio stations in the United States (over 1200 stations at last reading) and has 240+ stations overseas. It is the producer and owner of the Rush Limbaugh show, Dr. Laura, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck, and most of the other conservative and reactionary corporate mouthpieces we all know and love. 

It works in close conjunction with News Corps (FOX), and GE in promotion and advertising synergies. Its broadcasts are relentlessly core conservative, and because of the gutting of the Fairness In Broadcasting Act, publicly owned and taxpayer financed airwaves are now being used to air well financed right wing corporate propaganda. 

In the largest media markets, Clearchannel owns ‘clusters’, four or five stations, each programmed with competing right wing gasbags. Occasionally, a half liberal imbecile such as Geraldo Revera or Greta Van Sustern is thrown to the wolves under the pretence of fairness, but even this thin veneer is not even bothered with much anymore. This was enabled by the last Bush administrations (under the FCCs Michael Powell,)  gutting the rules and regs concerning monopoly ownership of media in markets. Clear Channel can own all the major radio in a market now, and does in several major cities. 

In that same ruling, restrictions on companies owning more then 35% of nationwide TV stations were also struck down, after a joint suit brought by all the Big Six, (working together!) This was done, believe it or not, under the banner of ‘Free Speech”, and “Creating Opportunitys for Smaller Companies”.

Ideological Brothers

Henry R. Luce and Walt Disney were at the forefront of the corporate/governments early interest in the use of mass media to manipulate American culture, political opinion, and buying habits, in the period before, during and after WWII. Building on the work of The Creel Commission ( a  WWI government /Hollywood partnership, and likely Americas first corporate/government propaganda arm.) Freud and Pavlov, the use of propaganda in the controlling of human behaviour was just coming into its’ own. Both were early admirers of Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebels, as were many in the US in the mid ‘30s. These three men were to take the manufacture of consent to new levels.

  Skull and Bones alumn Luce was the founder and editor of  Time, Inc., a media empire which included not only it’s namesake magazine, but also LIFE,LOOK, FORTUNE, Sports Illustrated, and dozens of other ubiquitous magazines and newspapers, back when magazines and newspapers meant something, and were the main source of news and information for most people. A rabid anti-communist, he wrote the blueprint for American expansionism, ‘An American Century” for LIFE magazine,  a toast to American exceptionalism, the principles of which (US military hegemony around the globe, US cultural superiority, US ‘Manifest Destiny”,) he promoted ardently with his media empire.  

Times coverage and editorials supported Sen. Joe MaCarthy during the House Un-American Activities era, and supported Central and South American (Cordoba, Noreaga, Allende, Pinochet, just a few from a long, long list) and Asian (Cambodian butcher Pol Pot) right-wing dictatorships under the guise of fighting communism during the 70s and 80s. 

  Luce remained editor-in-chief of all his publications until 1964, but even then maintained a position as an influential member of the Republican Party., and was once considered as a possible Secretary of State. His name still crowns the masthead of Time Magazine. 

The much more well known Walt Disney made a media juggernaut out of Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, Scrooge McDuck and dozens of other characters,most of whom he neither created or drew, (Carl Barks, anyone?) Disneys record of  supporting right wing causes and doing propaganda work for the US government is long and well documente http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Disney%27s_World_War_II_propaganda_pro duction)">(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Disney%27s_World_War_II_propaganda_pro duction) 

  At minimum, a fierce anti unionist, he testified before the House un-American Activities Committee, declaring the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) to be a front for the communist party. In the mid to late thirties, Disney, along with Luce and many, many other well known politicians and public figures, industrialists, and media moguls (such as Hitler be-medaled auto maker Henry Ford, aviator Charles Lindbergh, actor Errol Flynn, and Montana Senator Burton Wheeler), were early supporters of Adolph Hitler for his tough stand against communism and labor unions.   These positions changed after America declared war on Germany, and Disney made dozens of anti nazi propaganda films for the US government
Disney was a founding member of the ‘Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals’, a notoriously anti-semitic group, though there is disagreement as to whether Disney himself was anti-semitic. He and other media giants were members of the Writers War Board, a government funded consortium of privately held corporations, organised to manufacture opinion during the second world war. (Modelled again after the Creel Commission.)

As “Uncle Walt” was fond of saying, he wished to use the media to “mould the minds of young Americans”. This vision, as was Luces and the rest, has been relentlessly white, Christian based, and conservative, from American exceptionalism, to racial and gender placement. (lilly white princesses and Steppin Fetchit black 

characters) From  extensive propaganda work for the government and industry like ‘Our Friend the Atom’, “Der Fuhrers Moustache”, and “Victory Thru Air Power!” to the appallingly xenophobic “Aladdin’, released at the beginning of the Gulf War.             

“Oh, I come from a land 

From a faraway place 

Where the caravan camels roam. 

Where they cut off your ear 

If they don’t like your face 

                       It’s barbaric, but hey, it’s home.”

-copyright  2003 Walt Disney Corp.

Well, good comrades Walt and Henrys little socialist media ‘collectives’ now have their hand in an approximate 50 to 60 percent of all broadcast, news, print, film and music media in the United States. 

Luces Time-Warner, thru myriad purchases and mergers, is now the largest media corporation in the world, and it is pure media up your skirt and down your pants. CNN, Turner, the CW (a joint venture with CBS), HBO, Cinemax, Cartoon Network, TBS, TNT, MapQuest (!), Moviefone, Warner Bros., Castle Rock and New Line Cinema, and more than 150 magazines including Time, Sports Illustrated, Fortune, Marie Claire and People. It merged with AOL in 2003, where 25% of Americans log on. It and the Walt Disney Co. were two of 53 groups that donated the maximum $250,000. to the George Bush II presidential campaign in 2004, while lobbying for the massive gutting of media monopoly laws. (See Clearchannel, above)

...and the Walt Disney Corporation is possibly the most pernicious of all. (Well, except for FOX) The list of  it’s media, programming, and merchandise enterprises pervades every aspect of our daily lives  and it’s holdings are way to extensive to list here. Aside from ABC and all it’s hundreds of network and cable affiliates,(The History Channel (!!) ), Disney dominates sports programming thru ESPN. It’s vision and its 226 affiliated companies reach into 99 per cent of US Households. It lobbies constantly for tax credits and subsidies for producing its toys and merchandise in 3rd world countries, where it can employ children and pay atrocious wages, ...the list is sad and long...(for a complete list of Disney's media holdings and those of the other Big Six go to                                                  http://www.freepress.net/ownership/chart/main)
  Big. Predatory. Core capitalist. Anti Union. American internationalist. - NOT LIBERAL!

Big In Europe

Other then in the music industry, where it has at one time or another merged or partnered with most of the record houses, (notably Sony, RCA, and Arista), and in trade publishing (Random House, Doubleday,) Bertelsmann Group (BMG), based in Gutersloh, Germany, doesn’t do much in the US, but they’re “big in Europe” ( a near complete monopoly in magazines and broadcasting)

It is wholly owned since 1835 by generational members of the Mohn family, through the Bertelsmann Foundation, a conservative think tank and political organisation. 

Two Mohns were commanders in the SS during the second world war, when BMG was the graphic designer of choice for Nazi propaganda, (Goebels, again!...all those killer brown and red banners!) and published Nazi authors like Hans Grimm and Will Vesper. BG was forcefully disbanded after the war (for illegal trading, collaborating with the Nazis, and using Jewish slave labor), then refounded shortly after by former SS officer Reinhard Mohn, who controlled the company till his death in 2009.  Great story, and not that influential in this country, but decidedly  NOT LIBERAL.

Perhaps you’ve noted a certain Aryan theme running thru some of this. That’s because most of the great media dynasties were founded during the early thirties, during Hitlers rise to power, and when his ideas were popular, and even advocated, throughout the highest echelons of American government and business. And ALL factions, whether government or corporate, liberal or conservative, were interested in the developing science of opinion engineering, not only for the marketing of product, but for the marketing of ideas. Goebels, certainly the father of modern mass media, was universally admired as a groundbreaking genius in that capacity, as indeed he was, yet in the long run he paled compared to Disney, and every Marketing 101 student now learns the basic behavioural psychology that was developed during this time period by these men. More accurately, by these men utilising the insights of Freud, Pavlov, Jung, and Skinner,  et al.

Sumner Reruns

CBS and  VIACOM, while technically separate entities, are actually both under the umbrella  of National Amusements, and National Amusements is Sumner Redstone, who owns an 80% controlling interest in it. While nominally a Democrat, he is a conservative business man, who vocally  supported George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004.  The only legitimately progressive news perspective, Jon Stewarts, “The Daily Show” and Stephen Colberts, “The Colbert Report” can be found buried on Viacoms “Comedy Central”. Fortunately, these two shows have gotten bigger then the network they’re on, and have their own channels and distribution systems in place. Neither really needs Viacom  anymore.

Together, however, both Viacoms and CBSs  share (less then 27 billion) doesn’t even compare with News Corps, Disney, or Time-Warner, and are dwarfed by  GE  ($157 billion).  NOT LIBERAL, but at least not rabid, doctrinal right wingers either. For this they are often held up as an example by the right. When CBS News is inaccurate, it is national story (on the liberal media!) FOXs enormous error rate, calculated by the minute, cannot even be kept up with, and so overwhelms coverage that it isn’t even news anymore. This is glossed over by calling FOXs news shows, “opinion” shows. If it’s represented as fact, it is news, not opinion.

When the Redstone family inevitably does sell to the giants, (it is currently willed to his grand children, thru unbreakable covenants. Not a one of ‘em is a Sumner Redstone!) who will be the buyer? Big Six becomes Big Five.

And it gets worse. Each of these companies participates in constantly shifting  “multiple joint ventures”, partnerships with the other 5 in special projects or ongoing efforts. In all practicality, they function as a single entity. Indeed, according to Robert J. MaChesny and John Nichols, in 2002s, “Our Media, Not Theirs” “...this is a tight community of owners, dominated by some of the wealthiest individuals in the world. Indeed, thirteen of the hundred wealthiest individuals in the world are Big Six media magnates.”

XTRA!! XTRA!!...Read All About It!

In print, the Tribune Co., and the Hearst Co. have long histories under their illustrious patriarchs, “Colonel” Robert MacCormick, who fought tooth and nail with Franklin Roosevelt over the New Deal, and American expansionist William Randolph Hearst, who famously used his papers to agitate for a war of his own convenience. His long history of ‘liberalism’ are probably what caused home grown communist guerillas to target his daughter in a politically motivated kidnapping in 1974.

The Trib is now of the more business oriented type of conservatism, while the Hearsts , like the Luces and other remnants of ‘legacy print’, generally support       MacCormick   American expansionism. (recently,  Trib management has been infiltrated by Clear Channel radio professionals, and has drifted even more to the faux populist right. We’ll see who stays on after the recent Abrams/Michaels dustup. Zell apparently DID pressure the editors to go after    Hearst

Blagojevich over Wrigley Field! All’s well that ends well.)   

In addition, the Tribune owns the LA Times, the Miami Herald, and dozens of big city newspapers nationally, as well as nationwide broadcast giant WGN. The HearstCo., in addition to it’s vast print media holdings, is hooked up with GE, and Time-Warner at CNN.  

International arch conservative Rev. Sung Yung Moon also has an extensive media presence in the US, including several American news papers (Washington Post), and historic close ties to the Bush family, and other politicians, both Democrat and Republican. He also is a major financier of the Teaparty Express, and other Teaparty organisations 

These are of course not counting the book publishers, magazines and newspapers owned by one of the Big Six covered above.  The Wall Street Journal, Harper-Collins books, the DowJones (!), Forbes. even Marvel AND DC, and over 400 additional newspapers and magazines are owned by one or more of the Big Six. 

NOT LIBERAL, every one.

The Gannett Co. main outlet is USA Today, certainly the blandest, most non committal news coverage ever devised. USA Today certainly doesn’t advocate for any causes stronger then cooking tips or  cute animals..NOT LIBERAL. Not anything. 

One could make an argument, as the right tirelessly does,  for the liberalness of the New York Times Co. (owned by the Ochs-Sulzberger family), I’m not willing to grant that. It doesn’t pander to the right, that’s for sure, (well, it did during the lead up to the Iraq invasion) and I could point out many other cases, writers, columnists and editorials where a strong business conservative position is espoused. And, really, it still has few peers in accuracy and coverage.  If this is as liberal as it gets, it more proves my point then defeats it. But for the sake of moving the discussion forward I’ll concede, reluctantly. 

Even so, the Times is a regional paper (albeit in an important region), and unlike the Trib, or Hearst Co., has few other media and communication holdings, reaching into a paltry amount of US households compared with any of the Big 6, or even the other 20 for that matter. 

...and now, A Message From Our Sponsors!

But media companies make their money mostly from advertising, right? Don’t advertisers put pressure on broadcasters as to content? They know best  what promotes and sells their product, yes? 

Newspapers get 80% of their income from advertisers, magazines 50% and television nearly 100%. It is  reasonable to assume that those who pay the bills have some influence over their business and advertising partners. Could it be the advertisers, then, who are pressuring our good American conservative media companies to protect   ‘homosexual, atheist tree huggers, illegally crossing our borders to take our guns.”? 

Here is a top ten list and short bio of these devious socialist moneymen... 

     The top ten advertisers, Jan-Jun 2010 in millions of dollars. (for half year-double for yearly)

 1- Procter and Gamble      $1,501.2  
      ...squeaky clean Cincinnati based household goods company is a leading member of the Global Leadership Commission, an organisation of more the 400 companies, military leaders, and politicians that lobby for increased funding for International Affairs, and projection of  US business and political interests overseas.
 
2-AT&T $1,108.2
  Phone giant and communications reconstituted monopoly made up of 11 of the 22 Baby Bells ‘broken up’ in 1972 antitrust legislation. Big donations to GOP, and George W. Bush II, millions spent yearly in lobbying congress for continued monopoly of American telephony. Between AT&T and other Baby Bell spinoff Verizon control most of american broadband, cable and satellite communications. 

3-General Motors $1,043.0

     Auto Giant, long-standing symbol of free market capitalism, except when in trouble.... 

 

 

4-Verizon Communication $1,020.2  
      More reconsolidated Baby Bell AT&T spinoffs, GTE partners and owners of MCI (see AT&T, above)

 

 

5-Johnson and Johnson   $708.9  
      Big Pharma, like Pfizer, maintains a huge army of government lobbyists concerning price support and patent issues..one reason why  a drug in Cuba (Cuba!) costs less then half what it costs in the USA. The 3 Johnson Brothers family estate is one of the worlds great fortunes. The New Brunswick, New Jersey, company founded in 1886,  makes a diverse range of products. Besides pharmaceuticals, it make a wide array of medical supplies, soaps, shampoos and health and beauty. Because of pressure from environmentalists about phosphates, J&J now has cultivated a somewhat ‘green’ reputation, maintaining the largest solar power plant in Pennsylvania, and pioneering use of environmentally friendly packaging and ingredients. (See below, Pfizer)

6-News Corp   $700.9
  Rupert Murdochs blatantly right wing media giant, owner of FOX-News. ‘Nuff said. Not only are they one of the biggest content providers, they are one of the biggest content financiers. (See above)

 

 7-Pfizer   $649.4     
      More Big Pharma,  21 million in lobbying expenses through a crew of former republican politicians, (Paxon, Deconcini, baby Hatch, etc.) mostly lobbying for continued government price supports that keep drug prices in America artificially high, and tough patent laws that keep copyrights in Pfizers hands, and generics from reaching the shelves. It’s partner company, Pharmacia, added 13 million more. (See Johnson and Johnson, above) 

8-Time-Warner   $571.1       Henry Luce founded Media giant, ABC, (see above history) Again, ike FOX, both content provider and financier.

9-Toyota   $527.7

   Japanese automaker. Japanese conservative culture hooks up with bffs in American industry. 

 

10-Ford Motor Company   $524.1
  Auto giant with huge antiunion agenda, Ford family history of anti semitism and fascism is briefly explained above .

 

Source: Kantar Media, Business Wire

...not a Ben & Jerrys or George Soros in the bunch! Once again, the point here is not to charge these corporations with being blood sucking parasites that manipulate the populace with incredible lies and sophisticated mind control techniques into staying docile as these companies continue to play what Vonnegut called "Idiots Delight": turning power into money back into power back into power....(They may be all fine, altruistic people, far as I know!) 

Only to show that as liberals go, they are surely not in the hills with Che...   

Bread And Circuses

 

“Entertainment today constantly emphasises the message that things are wonderful the way they are.” -Wim Wenders

“Give them bread and circuses.” Juvenal, (Roman poet, surely the first spin doctor.) 

  Well, what about content, then? How can I argue that there hasn’t been an erosion of traditional values, a decline in religion, and the promotion of non-traditional lifestyles in the media?

I don’t argue it. Through a combination of capitalist reality, and the evolution of human development  those changes are indeed occurring. But The Six care little about the morality in TV, Radio, and Film content . They really only care if it works. And the publics choices with their entertainment dollar is what determines what works. And, since it also pulls in pretty good money in some circles to rail against our moral decline, The Six have that covered, too. They are quite experienced at profiting from all sides of an argument. Indeed, it is their lifeblood. There is nothing value based about it. 

In a lot of ways, you could say this is democracy and capitalism at it’s purest. If sex, violence and immoral behaviour is what the public wants to see, as the evidence shows, then that is what they should see, right? 

It sometimes takes decades for the mainstream media to catch up to societal changes. As public attitudes and demographics change, say, as more old  school, racially or sexually ‘uncomfortable’ people die off,  society and the media eventually changes too. Young people are universally more accepting of people of different races, lifestyles, and choices then the generations before them. 

And to profit, both financially and ideologically, the media needs to cater to both ends of the spectrum: the one waning, and the one waxing. 

I would also argue that it is the recognition of many different cultures and life styles we are seeing, not the promotion of them. Spanish, Asian, and Muslim culture have existed for thousands of years, predating Christianity .There have always been gays, and gay culture, probably in similar proportion as now.  The transition lies in the fact that in an increasingly smaller, more connected world, the traditional White Christian American population, (descended from Europeans who had not yet learned to coexist with people who believed differently.) has had to confront these differences, and some just plain don’t want to. 

It took a long time for the media to start including gays in their programming, decades behind where society has been. Now every TV show has a non threatening gay characature. It’s has taken much longer with blacks. Very few black characters populate our TV screens, ‘cept when the game is on. Even the execrable BET, white owned since 2003, (Viacom) is constantly  dissected by serious black thinkers such as Aaron MaGruder, Keith Boykin, Spike Lee  (and many others)  as plain minstralism. 

The erosion of religions place in society?  This is not the forum for a huge discussion of religion itself. I’ll just point out that the natural progression of science and  human development, revulsion at extremist elements within all faiths,  self inflicted scandals, all coupled with the decidedly unspiritual nature of naked capitalism has led to a more practical world based tropism. This has contributed to the supposed spiritual decline in public life way more then anything a “godless” media could ever do. 

In addition, religion does not bring cash into The Sixes coffers, so it is often not a valuable commodity as far as programming. Although some faith based, traditional values shows and broadcasts have found small niches, they are generally not very successful .(That’s why there are so few of them).  Sex, violence, trashy human conflict, ...these are the necessary ingredients of a well run circus. Shakespeare knew it, and modern writers and entertainers haven’t forgotten.

  Religion (and it’s enabler, fear) does bring in millions of tax free dollars into the conservative movement in the form of donations to churches themselves, though. There are all kinds of things wrong with the tax -exempt status of by definition conservative religious institutions, and issues of church and state. Those inspiring “Come home to the Catholic Church” TV adds are taxpayer subsidized. and religious organisations funnel those tax free dollars into voters guides, promotion of religious positions, etc.  Religion is a huge factor when it comes to electing officials and moulding public opinion in a manner that protects corporate interests.

    Again how convenient that the media that profits from  the erosion of cultural values is the same that promotes the doom sayers of Christian cultural decline. That’s why FOX,  for example, can broadcast  nakedly degrading (any reality show, TMZ,), misogynistic, (“Married W/ Children”, “Marry A Millionaire”)  ultraviolent torture porn (“24”), while simultaneously promoting family values and Christian based politicians who campaign against these same types of shows.. The only reason the right wing media cares about sex on TV is that agitating against it is as good a sell as the sex itself. Violence, of course being all-Amuhrican, is rarely in the discussion. (Disclaimer: I LIKE many FOX shows, and have no problem at all with sex and violence. My problem is with the other half of the equation, and the fact that The Six controls both halves.) 

Not Easy Being Green

The Green agenda? You better believe you’re gonna start seeing more and more messages about environmental issues! Big Oil has scientists too!  For now, it’s in their interest to resist the transition from oil, by casting doubt on current evidence while getting new technology into place. But they know the facts of global warming and the reality of peak oil as well as environmentalists do. (They also have mathematicians who understand about multiples, as they pertain to population growth!) 

At some point that benefits them most, marketing will begin to reflect that reality. Already has, really. Ethanol is being groomed to take oils place in the future, a shame because ethanol is NOT very green, it’s just the resource that has proven most convenient and accessible as oils replacement. ..and GM didn’t build the Volt not to sell them. They just needed a little taxpayer ‘boost’ to get it going. Kinda like taxpayers footing the bill for sports stadiums.

Shooting The Messenger

One of the most tiresome red herrings thrown up by corporate media propagandists is the fact that journalists heavily vote Democratic. This is not always true by the way. Using FOX news own estimates, 2/3 of journalists voted Democratic in the 2008 election where 54% of the populace voted that way, which means the journalists numbers are only somewhat different then the general population, and about what you’d expect from a group that is much more informed then the average voter is. In Florida this year (2010), journalists gave  17,800 bucks to Republican candidates, 4,800 bucks to Democrats, and $500 to independent Charlie Christ. 

Besides the disparity, you may also have noticed the paltriness of the numbers. That’s right, nationally in this past election cycle, journalists all told have donated less then a million bucks to political candidates. (Journalists have to file reports of their campaign donations with their companies. Keith Olberman was suspended not because he donated to Democrats, but because he did it without MSNBC (Microsoft/General Electric's) clearance.)

I’m going to take it one step further and reluctantly concede that more educated, creative, and informed people generally vote Democratic, too, and probably by about the same margins. 

Yes, journalists have opinions, but like most of us, they work for companies and have bosses and editors. The glaringly obvious examples of News Corps. and ClearChannel, where the programming is blatantly guided by  a political philosophy, are only separated by small degree from the better hidden, but well documented agendas of GE, Time Warner and Disney.  Journalists can write any story they want but companies decide who is hired, whose stories are bought, distributed or broadcast....and they are not in the business of promoting ideas that are against their own interests. Ask Howard Beale.

Journalists eventually learn this lesson and tailor their commentary to please corporate, or to get hired in the first place. If I was looking for a job in journalism, I would brush up on my  Glen Beck, be even more ridiculous then he is, hold my nose, and write what would get me hired by corporate media. I might vote differently, tho, in the privacy of the voting booth. 

We’ve seen who controls distribution. Does anyone think they are in the market for articles disparaging corporate monopoly ownership of the media?  A few authors, Chomski, Nobles, for example, publish on this subject, but publishing of this viewpoint is limited to tiny independent publishing houses, or college press and does not get the distribution that would go with Big Six backing. As a matter of fact, you would have to go a long way to find any large organisation publishing or distributing  actual ‘left wing’ material, and these writings are very difficult to find in bookstores. ALL the major publishing houses are Big Six owned.

When the media complains about the liberal media, it is actually an attempt to further marginalise those few remaining progressive outlets that still remain. The constant bashing of smart people as ‘liberal’ or ‘academic elites’ , the intentional vilification of even the word ‘liberal’ is part of this propaganda effort. Few successful societies treat their smartest people, scientists, educators, researchers, writers, with such open contempt as this one is encouraged to do. This trend is accelerating, and it is not an accident. Rational discourse and intelligent positions from people who know what they’re talking about is antithetical to the engineering of consent. 

“Intellectual activity is a danger to the building of character.”

-Joseph Goebels

 

Corporations are people, too!

“Corporations have neither bodies to be punished, nor souls to Damn." -Edward Thurlow (often attributed to Andrew   Jackson, who used it regularly)

In addition to the gutting of the various media anti trust acts in 2005 that allowed a single company to own nearly all media in a single market discussed above (see Clearchannel) and the earlier destruction of the Fairness in Broadcasting Act, the recent supreme court ruling ( Citizens United vs. The US) granting unlimited , undisclosed, campaign spending by anonymous corporations is the single most destructive and corrupting decision handed down in a hundred years. It completes the gradual march to person status being granted to corporations. 

Already in the recent election, floods of ad money from right wing action groups such as Karl Roves  ‘American Crossroads’,  funded by anonymous, unaccounted for  corporate donors certainly swung many elections across the country. While there are of course left wing groups like that, (Moveon.org), they generally do not represent corporate interests, and must relay on small private donations or the few like minded billionaires (Soros)

 Unions, too, can function under this protection, but again their dwindling influence, (caused by both political design and internal excess and corruption), limits the amount of money they contribute. These amounts pale compared to right wing PACs, who by conservative estimates outspent liberal PACS and organisations more then 2-1 in 2010. Obama, who has largely shunned such donations, and very publicly blasted the Supremes in his State of the Union speech is now under considerable pressure from Democrat operatives across the country to start fighting fire with fire. This accounts for much more of the last election then some manufactured conservative groundswell. Where is the news coverage of this huge, vital, issue?  See Page 26, of “News Roundup”.

Vox Populi

 “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics.”

        -Mark Twain

Most polls suggest that people don’t trust polls. They don’t know the half of it. Most polls, of course, are conducted by newspaper, print, or television affiliates or consortiums of the Big Six.  There are a few somewhat independent polling services, (Gallup, for one, though it’s accuracy record is poor.) , but if you have ever participated in a survey, you know the trick is in how you phrase the question.

A great case in point is the recent debate over health care. Poll after poll after poll early on showed about 70% support for a single payer system, similar to Canada's. That’s because almost every one (especially in the border states) knows somebody who has experienced the Canadian system, by any measure a success (it constantly  rates 90 plus % popular support.) Even the dingbat from Alaska has said her family often crossed the border to take advantage. (Canada's immigration problem?... a booming border business in fake IDs for Americans sneaking in for the health services and cheap meds!)   

Then the media stopped asking the question that way. Instead of “Do you support a single payer system”, the question became “Do you support the current Democratic health care bill before congress”. This bill, a mishmash of compromises and cave ins with the medical and insurance industries, included their demand of requiring people to purchase their product. There are many good things in the bill, but of course people didn’t support it: they understood and wanted single payer. In the polls, that was no longer an option. The single-payer question had disappeared entirely from polling surveys and data! 

And if the new congress is successful in ‘fixing’  the health care bill, be assured the requirement to buy health insurance will remain (2.5 million new customers!), but insurance company responsibilities (the good things) will shrink or disappear altogether.

In Our Expert Opinion...

“Opinions are like assholes. Everybody has one.”

           -The Dead Pool

But some are apparently worth more then others. The positions and opinions of ‘think tanks’ are often cited by news sources in order to show that the reporter has done at least some homework for his article. Opinions are published copiously as position papers by these consortiums and made easily and regularly available to the news media. This makes it easy for reporters to avoid doing any real journalism and simply regurgitate what is e-mailed to them. 

And according to a 2005 study done by FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting, www.fair.org), of the top twenty five think tanks positions that were quoted as expert sources, half were from conservative organisations, and 16% were from liberal groups, and the rest were from centrist, or apolitical organisations. These ratios have remained consistent since that time. 

Duty Now, For The Future.

“The American government and media exists almost exclusively to serve the interests of corporate business.”                                              -unattrib.

I’ma keep hearing how the internet and social networking offers hope of bypassing the Big Six, and counteracting right wing corporate control and bias in the media. I’m not so sure. It’s powerful, all right, and has it’s place, especially in extraordinary situations where traditional media either has broken down, or is not yet on scene. It speeds the news up. When someone is posting Facebook pictures from his cellphone down in the collapsed mine shaft, or co-ordinating  a community disaster response over Twitter, when authorities are not on scene, or someone with first hand knowledge of otherwise inaccessible information discloses it on line, yeh, that bypasses the mainstream media and corporate/governmental filters and is compelling and vital...Wikileaks would be great if Assange would focus more on corporate records instead of just the US government. ...and...does this mean corporate information security is better then our national security?

But most of what I see are distorted remixes and rehashes of the already severely compromised material presented by the Big Six in the first place, exchanged between people whose opinions have already crystallised, and who use the internet merely to reinforce each others biases, rather then expand their information. 

Worse, the bits of misinformation they share are not challenged or corrected in such closed circles, (echo chambers) and so morph into unbending, indisputable truth. When accurate information is later encountered, the bad information has long been internalised: any thing else is now wrong on a visceral level, and has hardened into something more describable as faith, then opinion. Thus, to millions of (voting!) people, Obama is a Muslim non-citizen who raised our taxes, all three certifiably untrue. 

Then, there comes the question of who controls the internet itself. Of the largest internet companies, AOL and Time -Warner are already joined at the hip, now having the advantage of both internet access to millions of accounts and the rights to millions of hours of content . Microsoft already partners with GE in News coverage. Google already has partnerships in place with Time Warner and News Corporation (which owns MySpace and has just made a grab at Facebook.)  Comcasts recent merger with GE at  NBC/Universal at CNN, also partnering with Hearst)) allows them to partner with (Take a breath!) GE, Disney, Time-Warner, Newscorps, Microsoft, Viacom  and Microsoft, at Hulu.com, the working model and stalking horse for tru corporate internet television. See NBC/Comcast addendum.

The Facebook engine ingeniously provides it’s own content, but relies entirely on it’s partner Microsofts advertising inventory for income. It has only last year turned a positive cash flow for the first time, and while hugely popular and indispensable, not very profitable, yet. Facebook is a prime target for take-over, as the recent Google attempt shows.  

Amazon.com, the worlds largest online retailer, is, ...well, the worlds largest online retailer! It by definition partners with all the content providers to sell CD’s, Books, News and product. Amazon is profitable all right, but it’s still just a content delivery mechanism and is also an obvious target. Likewise, other internet content providers such as Netflix have by their nature deep relationships with the Big Six. They, too, are services, and likely to be absorbed.

These companies are still sorting themselves out: staking out positions, forming alliances. Online companies partnerships with the Big Six are still evolving. In the end, though, most internet companies are services, not producers, and services need something to serve. And in that reality, content is king. And the Big Six control content.

When large corporations are so completely intertwined with each other in pursuing common purposes, they  can no longer be considered as separate entities. For all practical purposes, they have morphed into one single company. The fact that ownership and control is divided under separate corporate banners only matters in the division of the spoils.

  By the time of this writing, the arrangements and partnerships described above will have changed, but not toward the smaller. Arthur Jensen hadn’t seen anything yet. There is no democracy, there is no America. There is only GE/FOX,/ Clearchannel/Time-Warner/ Disney/Viacom. And they are united in presenting this first and most important  piece of information: We are not long established capitalist conglomerates, military industrialists and right wing agendists: We are the liberal media.

 

 

NBC/Comcast addendum:
        Comcast has recently completed the purchase of a 51% ownership stake in NBC/ Universal from GE.  GE continues to hold a 49% share.  This falls under the category of  expanding GEs access to US households thru Comcasts vast network of communications technology, and increasing Comcasts access to, (and control of )  internet media content. As discussed above the internet panorama is new and still sorting itself out. This merger was a big step toward incorporating traditional media monopolies with newer internet media access controllers. ..and as an added benifit, it will be harder  to associate  GE with NBC, blunting the arguments of media monopoly activists, The intersts of GE and Comcasts are now the same. They have become a much larger corporate/nation.

A 'hot spot' to watch:  HULU.COM , the internet movie/TV provider. It is the 'chosen one' as far as internet entertainment delivery systems  among the giants, and almost every company discussed in this article has their hand in it, (see short list)  most prominently, FOX and NBC (Only HULU holdout amoung the Big 6? Sumner Redstones CBS/Viacom). Hulu was surely a large factor in Comcasts interest in NBC. 
       Hulu, once free, has recently debuted its HULU Plus subscription program, providing access to hundreds of thousands of FOX, NBC, and now Disney and Time Warner, librarys of shows and films. Everybody working together. Nice.

                                                                            

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 Ettinger, Soroski, the other Blagojevich, Meineke...

(WHAT-TV pix, Cartoon by Stantiis, Chicago Tribune)

 

 

 

 

 

AT THE CIRCUS:

Swimming with the Big Fish at the Blagojevich Fry.  

by Jack Hammond -WHAT-TV

 

1- Two Pissers 

There’re only two urinals in the men's room on the twenty fifth floor of the Dirksen Federal Building, two urinals and one stall. These are the only facilities available for the guys visiting courtroom 2503, the courtroom where the “Family Secrets” guys, the Calabreses, Joey the Clown, etc. were tried and sentenced, where George Ryan went down. And today it would be where Rod Blagojevich and his high powered legal team would be asking the Honourable Judge James B. Zagel to subpoena the president of the United States, Barack Obama, along with Rahm Emanual, Dick Durbin, and who knows, Ron “Woo” Wickers, maybe, to testify on his behalf. 

Oh, and also appearing in Judge Zagels’ courtroom today would be my kid, “Johnny”, who happens to be scheduled for a parole revocation hearing, in the same court room, at the exact same time, as Blago and the gang. I know, huh!?

You have to pass two checkpoints to even be up on the twenty fifth floor,  and only credentialed press, or party's to a particular case are allowed. The elevator lets you off at the end of a long hallway lined with seven other elevators, four to a side. At one end is the US Marshalls service, where defendants have their own special elevator if they won’t be using the public ones. 

The other end opens into a spacious waiting room with a great window view 25 floors down to Federal Plaza below, where Alexander Calders sculpture, “Flamingo”, scowls across the square.  Across Adams street, you can see Dirksens twin sister , the Kluzsinski Federal Building, both designed by Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe. Together they house the federal apparatus for the Northern District of Illinois. 

Two large corridors branch off right and left, the right one leading to a small complex of offices: the court secretaries, the court reporters, a conference room, Judge Zagels chambers (there’s a security ante room and an office before you get to them) and the solid hardwood doors of the “Hubert S. Will Memorial Courtroom.”, room 2503. 

I checked the posted docket.

 

 

1:06-cr-00380   USA v. Hammond                         12:00   Preliminary Revocation Hearing

1:08-cr-00888   USA v. Blagojevich                     12:00   Notice of Motion            

1:08-cr-00888   USA v. Blagojevich                 12:00   Status Hearing

 

  That’s my boy. Show’s on. 

(I’m avoiding a more detailed explanation of the reason for “Johnny’s” appearance today, because the cases are still pending.  Short version, the charges are highly political in nature and involves Chicago's bid for the Olympics, Nazis, Daley, hacker culture, the Picasso, civil disobedience, and  holocaust denier David Irving hiding in a closet. Yeh.) 

Though the lobby is spacious, there’s room for at best thirty people. I’m there early and stake out a chair in the middle of the room, so that whatever camp someone was in, somebody important would have to sit within earshot of me. Plus, most people won’t violate the one seat spacing rule, and I was not dressed in my Armani best  that day, (I did have on my dark green camel hair ‘Bill Blass’, bought for three bucks at Good Will!)  So at quarter to showtime, there were only two seats left: those on either side of me. Blago would have to sit there, right?

Instead, an old lion of the press, (still working out who it was) sits down next to me, and begins noisily dining on take out chicken stirfry. In between mouthfuls he asks about why I’m here, and I tell him. He seems to be getting angrier at every word, and occasionally barks “That’s bullshit.” and “... then that’s no crime.” We both talk about how tough Judge Zagel is until he finishes his lunch, wishes me luck, and deposits the styrofoam in one of the discreetly concealed trash containers, meticulously scraped clean of every spot of teriyaki sauce.

  More players are arriving now. Here’s my kids prosecutor Assistant US States Attorney Brandon Fox, the FBI arresting officer, Special FBI Agent Brian Brasaukas and “Johnny’s” P.O. “Johnny” and his lawyer, who have been conferring downstairs, arrive and join the group. We all talk amicably, and double check each others information.  G-man Brian and I know each other pretty well, and he asks me how’s business. “Good,” I say. “How ‘bout for you guys”. He laughs. “In this economy? ..Booming!.” 

  Every time the elevator bell rings, everyone turns to see if it’s him, Blago. A few press straggle in, and Childers, who looks absolutely amazing (in a tailored summer floral outfit with a daring slit skirt), is speaking to another woman, late 20s, who is dressed like a secretary, but has a serious aura of confidence and purpose. This is a young, quietly powerful, behind the scenes woman, a producer maybe, who means business and is in total control. I would love to have a drink with her. They discuss projects they are each working on.

Then most of the press and hangers-on, who have been chillin in the lobby downstairs, arrive in a pack. Jeff Goldblatt (FOX News-Chicago) is the center of attention, as he tells some story about Rostenkowski and a helicopter. He can’t remember Rostys opponents name, and Kass, who happens to be walking by, shouts out ‘Flannigan”. He catches my eye and we nod. I knew that! Some woman asks “How do you remember all that?” and Kass shrugs, “It’s all part of the...” His voice is lost as Goldblatt interrupts and starts in again. 

The place is filling up pretty good now. I’ve been there awhile, and now I find myself thinking again about those two urinals. But what if I’m in there, at one of the only two pissers for the whole floor, right? ...and up sidles the Rod the Mod himself, nodding at me as he unzips to take a wizz. I mean, is it ‘fuckin’ golden’?

The disgraced former governor of Illinois, one of the most recognisable people in America, outside a federal courtroom, angles up to the urinal next to you. What do you say? Go!!

(Me, nodding back:) “So, uh...what are you doing here?” 

Good one, Jack. Fortunately, that didn’t happen, and everything came out O.K.

 

2- The Paper Industry Subsidy and Paralegal Employment Act (Sheldon Soroski Shakes his Money-maker)

The first thing you notice upon entering courtroom 2503 is the immense stack of black, labelled, folders on the right, the notorious thousands of hours of recorded phone calls, transcripts thereof, and tens of thousands of pages of testimony, stacked on two long folding tables triple high. Each folder is at least four inches thick, and there are at least 200 of them, all at the ready, should someone need to refer to some arcane wording or detail. You can almost sympathise with the high fees that are charged to process and sort through this minutiae. Almost. 

The cost of producing the pile of folders, counting investigation, research, processing, salaries of the dozens of agents assigned to the case, is well in the  

-illions of dollars. The prosecution better have it nailed, or the taxpayer is really on the ass end  They won’t need any of the folders today, though, so it’ll all have to be packed up again and removed to storage until Blagos’ next court check in, sometime in late May, where it’ll all have to be  reassembled again in case anyone wants to use it. A simple dedicated laptop computer could do all this and save a lot of trees. 

The press has been relegated to the jury box. I recognise Kass, Paul Meincke, Childers, Goldblatt, several who I should know but I can’t match faces with names. Judge Zagel speaks very softly, so during the hearing, you can see the journalists all straining forward to catch his words. Kass even comments on it the next day in his column. Me, I’ma  sitting at the back of the defence table, twenty feet away from the bench, , openly taking notes, and I can hear every word.

The court room audience is wall to wall with Gucci and Hugo Boss, the Chicago glitteratti, you know them all, schmoozing and finding seats for themselves to watch the circus. It is at this point that a crowd of “Johnnys’” colorfully dressed supporters, good street anarchists, all, who really know how to do circuses, enter loudly from the rear, and begin looking for seating among the bourgeoisie. 

Many handshakes and highfives ensue, friends reunite, as the cream of Chicago media and legal look on, some in horror, most in amusement. Many have already looked up “USA vs. HAMMOND” when they saw it listed on the docket, and well remember the Olympic/Picasso incident and it’s dramatic TV footage.  (After, there is even some mingling between the groups... .See! Blagojevich is  able to bring dispirit groups together!) 

At noon precisely, “All Rise!” is heard and Judge Zagel enters. He is not a tall person, but it is soon evident that he is the biggest man in the room . 

Judge James Block Zagel is an extremely impressive man, with

a formidable intellect. His resume is basically that of a cop and a prosecutor (the Speck murders). Recommended by Henry Hyde(!), and nominated to the bench by Ronald Reagan (!!), he was assistant attorney general and prosecuting attorney  in Illinois  and Arizona(!!!), and director of the Illinois State Police, and the Illinois Dept. of Revenue, among many other Illinois based things. (They say you want a judge who was a prosecutor: He always frets about the innocent guys he might have sent away, while a former defence attorney knows that they’re all guilty liars!) He is an author, (“Money To Burn”, a big heist caper, about a federal judge and a plot to loot th

e treasury. I read it,... excellent!), has acted in several films, and has a reputation as a cerebral jurist, and for not tolerating a lot of nonsense in his courtroom. 

Blagojevich is all nonsense, of course, so you’d expect some good fireworks, but Judge Zagel listens carefully as Sheldon Soroski ( one of four Blago attorneys here today)  outlines his reasons for subpoenaing the president and the others. You can tell Zagels’ already decided no, but he pretends the nonsense isn’t nonsense long enough to listen attentively, then to patiently explain that were any of these indictments to contain testimony that actually involves any of the named parties, he would hold the door open for further information. As it stands, those parties are not relevant to these specific charges. Soroskis’ motion is denied. 

Then he refers to another  motion filed by Sam Adam Sr. asking for the dismissal of the ‘Honest Services’ charges. Everyone laughs when Zagel thanks Adam for keeping the motion to one page. 

This is a charge based on the idea that voters have a right to expect honest services from their elected representatives. While seemingly obvious, it’s a touchy legal nuance, because it’s hard to describe the difference between  criminal negligence, or honest mistake, and the US Supreme Court is grappling with that very definition right now. Consequently, it is difficult for prosecutors to bring accurate charges that may survive a supreme court ruling, and they might have to revise or reword the charges later on (as they already have,  twice). Because of this ambiguousness, Adam wants this charge thrown out, on the grounds that it is difficult for the defence to respond to constantly shifting charges, much less make a cogent opening statement.

Zagel shuts them down again. This is not an unreasonable accommodation, and the Supreme Court’s decision is expected in June, coinciding with the start of the trial. There is plenty of time to redefine the charges, and for the defence to respond. Zagel questions lead prosecutor Reid Schar (one of three) about how the case is proceeding, and then it’s over. Blagos team goes home empty. 

 

3-The Doorkeeper at the Cavalcade of Media Stars.

Speaking of holding the door open, as Blagos hearing concluded, Judge Zagel exited momentarily, so I followed the crowd out into the lobby. AUSA Brandon Fox, my kids prosecutor, held the door for me and as part of my niceness assault, I gave him a big, smiling “Thank you!” and grabbed the door, holding it open as I waited for my folk to exit...and faced a single file procession of Chicago's press elite, with no break in sight that would enable me to abandon my new post any time soon. Some mumbled polite thank yous, some were officious and aloof, the serious girl averted (God, who is she), Childers, engaged, cool... Only Kass spoke to me more then a murmured thanks. 

    “You got stuck with the door, huh.”

  Kass is a fine writer, and damn smart, though truly deluded on some things. I read him every day. He knows what his readers want to hear, I guess. I say:

“Yeh, you have to be selective.  Hey,  look, FOX news...(door slam)”

  ...in Jeff Goldblatts superior-ass face.

Because we actually have business with Judge Zagel today, too, we get out of Dirksen too late to catch much of the media zoo outside, but Soroski and Ettinger are still holding court with whoever will listen. Mienke and several others are still there with cameras. We hang around for a few, to see if anybody had anything interesting left to say. Nada.

Oh, and I got to watch the lady that draws those courtroom pictures at work. That was pretty cool. She’s really fast..

Blagojevich himself never did show up, nor Fitzgerald, all the gunfighter allegory aside. He ll have to show up eventually, tho.

Judge Zagel likes my kid, and his hearing was continued.... Jury selection for Blago starts June 3rd.

 

                                                                           -jack

 

 Blago/Nixon photo-WTTW/Time Out Chicago

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"B"TEAM

Short Novelette by Jack Hammond

 

Up soon!!

 

  So anyway, on this particular day in hell, I had just seen Alex Seratella having his books dumped clear across the science wing hallway by Jim Laplante, head goof ball of the football team. Alex never bothered anybody, but he was frail, and walked with a pronounced mince. He wasn't a fag or anything, (god forbid in those days) or it would have been worse for him, but it was plenty bad enough. He was tortured mercilously, and it must have been hell for him to get up and go to school each day. 

          LaPlante had put a little sideways spin in his book dump, and every piece of paper, every page of todays homework, notes, Alex's lunch and all his books were thoroughly scattered for fifty feet in all directions. It was a masterpiece, as fat as book dumping goes, and LaPlante and his friends stood to the side to admire their work. Alex stoically began to gather his stuff, as if this was just a regular part of the day. Which for him, it was.

          i was just entering the concourse from the east wing when it happened, just as Jablonski put his foot in Alex's rear end as he was bent over, sending him sprawling on the floor and rescattering everything he had just picked up. Just entering from the west end was Mortier, the vice principal, a grade-a asshole. He was also coach of the football team. 

          Mortier surveyed the carnage: papers strewn like confetti, Alex on the floor, Jablonski poised above him foot still in the air. He scratched his crewcut, then turned to all the kids who were standing around watching.

          "Well? You all have classes to go to, I s'pose..."

          As if to prove his point, the bell rang. Several kids milled around before they shuffled off. Jablonski and LaPlante could be seen laughing as they got out of earshot.

          Mortier scanned the scene, then turned to go, leaving Alex to try to find his stuff between the feet of all the people walking to and fro. Some kicked at his books on purpose, scattering them further, laughing as they walked away. I called after Mortier. 

          "Hey!"

          He stopped, kind of half-turned.

          "Are you raising your voice to me, Boy? Why don't you help him? What the hell is wrong with you? You saw LaPlante and Jablonski do it!"

          Mortier finished his turn and walked a couple of steps toward me.

          "You need to get to your class, like I said."

          Mortier knew me well, I was a troublemaker and a stoner, and worse, I was a loudmouth, trouble making stoner. I was smart enough to challenge teachers in class, but not smart enough to challenge teachers in class, but not smart enough to know when to shut up about it. I'd start stupid arguments with the smart kids, and I liked to show up the administration in public whenever I got the chance. To tell the truth, by that time I was so sick of the teachers, the students and everything about this hick school that I truly didn't give a fuck. To the yahoos, the feeling was definitely mutual, and I withstood an occasional book dump. Or public beating just like anyone else. Two things saved me from the same fate as Alex and others like him. Although I didn't play for any school team, I'm a big guy, and good at most sports. I also had a reputation of being fucked-up crazy, so they were a little wary of me. Still, whenever I was outnumbered, or in a crowd of jocks, I was red meat.

          "This place is miserable enough without those guys making it worse. Why don't you do your job?"

          the few students and teachers left in the hall slowed down or stopped altogether to watch the show, then hurried on when Mortier shot them all a black look. He struck his face right down in mine and almost hissed:

          "You know. this looks like a great day for random locker searches. I wonder what kinda thing would turn up?

          I give myself credit. I did not blink and I stood staring straight into his face with what  I thought was a pretty good tough guy look, and held it until he smiled, checked his watch, and slithered back into the east wing.

 

          So I definitely had an attitude on by the time I got to 4th period gym. LaPlante and Jablonski, as well as half the football team were in my class, as was Alex (who arrived late) and of course, Mortier was the instructor. 

          We were just starting the spring session on baseball, and today we were picking teams. As I say, I was good at sports, and baseball was my game. I was an all-star in American Legion and had just quit  baseball two years ago when I  (a) didn't make the high school team, and (b) discovered girls, cars, and pot. (it might have been in reverse order.) The jocks knew me from then, and generally put aside their problems with me when it came to playing ball. I was generally picked pretty quick, and often was a team captain, like today.

          LaPlante was another captain, and he picked his pal, Jablonski, first thing. It was easy to see how the teams would sort out. Tom O'Connor was the student council president, and he played basketball. He was a decent sort, but he sure as hell didn't ever get in the way of the rampaging jockocracy. He picked Wade Miller, who was the best baseball player in the school. I picked third, so I had my choice of the best players. I picked Alex Sarratella.

         There was a brief silence as it registered with everybody what had happened. Alex didn't even know what was going on till everyone laughed and pushed him to the front. He had turned out the draft, figuring he wouldn't get picked till the very end. Mortier glared, as Alex stumbled up in a daze and stood next to me. He didn't say a word, like usual, just stared blankly. He must have figured it was another joke on him or something, and all he could do was play along. Nobody spoke for a full minute, then the next captain, Klingbiel, picked Steve Lee, the baseball teams shortstop.

          As the picks went down the line the captains picked all the best athletes in the class, two ballplayers, a wrestler...LaPlante picked another football buddy Mahorn, and the pick came to me again.

          "Erwin Korov," said I.

     Erwin was a violin player in the school orchestra. He walked on his toes, and his arms reached almost to his knees, giving him a lurching stride that was accented by him carrying that violin case around. He had never played a sport in his life, not only that, his folks were so over protective of him that any physical contact sent him into spasms. He had several times curled himself into a fetal ball during gym, refusing to get up until carted away by the interns. All this, and the fact that he was horribly towheaded, as if he had been pulled from the womb over a period of days, guaranteed that he couldn't walk down a hall without some jamoke taking a shot at him.

          Everybody had to yell to get him to realize he'd been picked. As Erwin lurched to the front, Alex leaned over totally freaked out and whispered to me the first words I had ever heard him say.

          "What are you doing?"

          "I'm picking my team. Our team."

          "We're going to get killed."

          "We'll see."

     Mortier came up behind me and snarled.

          "Can't take a hint, huh, smart ass? Knock it off!"

          "Sure, Coach."

     When my pick came up again I took Larry White. Larry wasn't odd, per se, he was just little, about 4'5'', and 90 pounds. If he put all his weight into it and connected solidly, he might/could hit one weakly to the shortstop. He too, was always picked near the bottom. Larry appreciated the irony, and laughed out loud as he walked up next to me, Alex, and Erwin. Mortier spit. 

          "All right, all right, very funny. Sit down, asshole. Now we gotta pick over. Who wantsta be captain?"

     No one volunteered. The smart guys thought the whole thing was hilarious. The jocks laughed too, but for different reasons. Some kids must of thought that if I wanted to have a team that gets its brains beat out everyday, that was my business. Some just liked to piss off Mortier. For whatever reason, everybody wanted to see how it all played out.  

     Mortier looked around the gym, then at me.

          "Fine. Your pick, Klingbeil."

     By this time, every misfit and loser was getting nervous. They could see what I was doing, and were afraid of me picking them next, and weren't sure how to handle it if I did. When my turn came around again, I picked Henry. Henry was a polish kid who had big frame glasses and a suit that his parents made him wear to school every day. Worse, he was covered with these huge pus-filled  boils the size of walnuts. Or, if it was acne, it was the worst case of acne I had ever seen. People stayed well away from him. He'd been caught numerous times beating off at various places throughout the school, and even I thought he was an asshole. He looked at me as if he was gonna bawl any minute. I told him to quit feeling sorry for himself and get his ass up here, which he did, none to happily blowing his nose into his gym shirt.

     As the picks were going around again, I looked at my best friends and fellow stoner, Greg Spears and flashed him an evil smile. He looked at me in horror and shook his head that he wanted no part of it. Too bad. I picked him next, and he cursed as he walked to the front, well pissed off.

          "You're a fucking asshole. Why do you gotta involve me in you crazy shit?"

     By the end of the draft I had myself a complete roster of the schools worst misfits, weaklings, outcasts and re-tards. I had drafted fat boy Drew, the fattest kid in the class, two guys from the theater group (every one said they were fags) and even Bill the barfer Skinnel, which explains itself.

     Since I had taken all the weak players, the other five teams were solid with jocks, each one having got my point, and anxious to do something about it. LaPlante had loaded up with guys from the football team, all meat and no brains. As we jogged out to the fields, LaPlante caught up to me.

          "You think you're pretty funny, huh dickhead? ...Well we're gonna kick your ass all over the field, and then later on, it'll be your personel turn..."

     Yeah. It was like that.

 

          Mortier paired the teams off for todays games, and he put us against LaPlante. As he announced the match-ups, he smiled at me, and I could see LaPlante and his team watching us hungrily, grinning and nodding, too. Worse, the guys on my team saw it. I cleared some gunk out of the corner of my eyes with my middle finger, just to get a rise out of them. Jablonski pulled his finger across his throat and mouthed 'You're dead, fuck head!' I shrugged.

          "All right, you geeks, let's go."

     I put Larry white at shortstop...he could at least catch and throw the ball, and the fat kid, Drew Larson, I put at first...big target. Greg played a deep short center, so he could catch anything in the air. I pitched. Henry and the theater fags played the rest of the outfield, with the understanding that Greg or Larry would chase down all fly balls.

     They used an intern, Vilsic, as umpire. He was a college kid who wanted to be a gym teacher. Since he was part of the gym dept., and not the football team, He wasn't as beholden to Mortier, who stood to the first base side with LaPlante's team, arms folded across his chest. A girls class was playing kickball on the next field, and two classes were doing calisthenics nearby, so there were several teachers around. They wouldn't be able to just kick our asses our in the open, anyway, and the game would be played at least somewhat by the rules.

     The first incident came in our first at bat. I was on second when Skinnell, "the barfer", who could actually hit some, blooped a single into left over Jablonski's head. I was already on third when the left fielder threw the ball in high, and Jablonski caught it and swung his mitt around, catching me full in the face. Vilsic had all ready called me safe, so it was definitely a bullshit play. As I spit blood from my mouth, I could hear Mahorn at first calling for the ball. Everybody looked around to see Skinnell lying in the dirt halfway between first and second screaming in pain and holding his leg bent at un unnatural angle with Mahorn standing over him. Skinnell pleaded with Vilsic.

          "He tripped me! He fucking tripped me when you weren't looking!"

     Jablonski threw the ball to Mahorn who tagged Skinnell out. Since Vilsic had his back turned to the play he wasn't sure what to call. Mortier, who was standing right behind first base, walked a few steps onto the field.

          "The kid slipped and fell as he was rounding the base. I was looking right at it."

     Everybody stood with their mouths open. If Skinnell wasn't in such pain, he probably wouldn't have said what he then said:

          "That's bullshit, you asshole! You were right there! He nearly broke my fucking leg!"

     Everybody went silent. Mortier slowly walked out onto the field and picked the terrified Skinnell up by his shirt.

          "An asshole, boy?... a liar? I'll be god damned if I let some little shit..."

     And he reached back...

     By this time, other teachers had begun to notice what was going on, so Mortier must have realized he couldn't cuff Skinnell around like he wanted to. Instead, he dragged him off the field by his collar and into the school building.

     Some of the teachers, and a lot of kids, had seen the trip, and knew Mortier was lying. They were all shaking their heads. Vilsic, who had no idea what he had got himself into, tried to restore order.

          "o.k., the runner at first is out..."

     Then he turned to me.

          "...and the runner at third is..."

     I had already taken home during the confusion, and stood there grinning my smart ass and suicidal grin. We were one run up, but we were down one fat lip, a probably broken leg, and whatever Martier had in mind for poor Skinnell.

 

          Their half of the inning went by pretty easily. Mahorn hit one hard straight back, which hit me in the chest and fell right in front of me. I underhanded it easy to fat boy drew at first for the out. As I turned around he said "Hey! I'm not a baby! Throw it normal!" 

     I smiled as I walked back to the mound. The second batter was over anxious, so he hit a can of corn which Greg didn't even have to move three steps to get to. I struck out Jablonski on three pitches, mostly 'cause I hated his guts.

     In our half of the inning, Greg singled. Our next batter was Alex, who had to be walked out to the plate and shown how to hold the bat. LaPlante put one in his ribs, first thing, and he went down. As we helped him to first base, we could see he was bawling. I was coaching first, and as Alex came up he whimpered under his breath.

          "I don't want to play anymore."

          "C'mon, ya big baby. We can lick these guys. Take your base." Then, to LaPlante:

          "Yeah, you're a real tough guy."

          "You'll see how tough when this is over."

     So when LaPlante batted next inning, I threw one right at his fucking head as hard as I could. There was no pretending it was unintentional. He fell down trying to get out of the way, and came up screaming bloody murder at me. 

          "Keep it up, asshole! School's out soon enough!"

     The next pitch, I caught him full in the chops, plenty hard. LaPlante got up and started toward me, bat in hand, with all the guys on his team yelling and cheering, anticipating a fight. LaPlante could have kicked my ass, but I didn't care. I dropped my glove and went towards him, ready to take a beating.

     It never came. Larry White took a flying leap and hit him at the knees, knocking him over. Before LaPlante could get up, fat boy drew, all 250 pounds of him, had landed square on top of him, knocking his wind out. LaPlante's teammates, who had all gotten up off the bench to watch, now started to swarm onto the field. Mortier and some of the other teachers kept them back while Vilsic pulled Drew off LaPlante.

     LaPlante took his base, limping a little and glaring daggers at me and Larry, as everybody went back to their positions. I spit, and turned to the plate to face Mahorn. On the third pitch, he hit a weak ground ball to the second base side. Larry took the throw and stood waiting. LaPlante, easily 100 pounds heavier, knocked him back about 15 feet into short center. Larry didn't get up for a minute, but when he did, the ball was in his glove, and he showed it to the ump, spitting out a tooth, and smiling at LaPlante through his bloody mouth. LaPlante walked back through the infield, close enough for us all to hear:

          "Dead...you're all dead...you...White,...Spears, fat boy...all fucking dead!"

     You could see his teammates nodding in enthusiastic assent. He was right, of course. There were a lot of teachers watching the game right now, but they wouldn't be around after school, or in the neighborhoods. We were digging our own graves.

 

          The game went along about like that for three innings. We were in all the way now, so there was nothing to lose. We were the living dead. 

     Unbelievably, we were playing them about even, and they were getting more and more pissed off with every play. When the fourth inning started we were only down by one run, and Spears lead off with a solid double to left on the first pitch. Our next batter was Alex. LaPlante's team laughed, and the infielders moved up to about fifteen feet in front of home plate. The outfielders sat down.

     Like before, LaPlante's first pitch was right at him, Alex just barely falling down in time to avoid it. He looked at me, eyes pleading get me out of here. I looked away.

     And then, on the next pitch, an amazing thing happened. Alex hit the ball. Or, rather, LaPlante's pitch hit Alex's bat. He didn't hit it hard, and he didn't hit it far, but it dribbled up the first base line fair, and far enough that Greg broke for third and was headed home by the time the catcher half-assed retrieved the ball up the line. He turned to tag out Alex, but Alex hadn't run. Either he thought it was foul, or more likely, he didn't know what he was supposed to do. Whatever, he was still standing in the batters box, bat in hand, as LaPlante came in from the mound to take the throw to get Spears. He knocked Alex on his ass so hard that you could hear bones crunch, and Alex's glasses went flying three feet behind home plate.

          "Get outta the way, you fucking geek!"

     Greg was sprinting to the plate, and LaPlante yelled "Ball!" to the catcher, who was still standing with the first baseman, trying to figure out what was going on.

     And as the catcher threw the ball to LaPlante, and LaPlante raised his mitt to catch it, Alex picked himself slowly up off the ground, wiped the sand from his face, assumed an absolutely perfect batters stance, swung, and connected, right on the sweet spot of the bat with LaPlante's skull. LaPlante went down like a ton of bricks. Greg, who was coming full speed up the third base line, stopped cold ten feet from home plate and stared. And as everybody... players, teachers, girls kickball teams... watched in horror, Alex raised the bat and brought it down on LaPlante's head again. And then again, and again. It was like watching those apes in '2001' pound away with the jawbone. He kept making these weird little high pitched yelps with each blow, and every time the bat came up, it dripped blood or bits of flesh, or brain, or all three.

     Spears was the first to recover, but Alex must have got five or six good whacks in before Greg finally tackled him, grabbing the bloody bat and tossing it away. The girls kickball teams started screaming, and people were running in all directions, either trying to help LaPlante, or Alex, or trying to start/prevent about a dozen other fights. Several kids and a few kids and a few teachers who had seen LaPlante's skull were throwing up. There was a huge scrum near home plate, above which Mortier could be seen barking orders that no one paid any attention to. On top of all this, some Einstein teacher thought to pull the school's fire alarm and the building was emptying onto the fields, with everyone getting a ring side seat to the carnage. Sirens wailed in the distance as the school nurse arrived, but LaPlante was well beyond her, or anyone else's help.

     There's a lot of ideas about why Alex did what he did. Some say that he was off his meds, or that he was so scared, he couldn't handle the adrenaline rush. Me, I think he was just sick of the abuse and met LaPlante, man-up, on LaPlante's own terms. And won.

     Lots of people, Mortier especially, blamed me, because I was the instigator of the whole thing. That was difficult to make stick at the hearing, because, by all accounts, I had nothing to do with the melee at the end. I was watching from the coaches box at first base as everybody tried to kill each other. Two seconds before the bat hit LaPlante's skull I had been screaming at Alex to run, god dammit, run.

     Whatever, nobody'll ever know, because Alex was pulled off the field by two teachers and hustled away into the building, fast. He could be heard asking where his glasses were as the police and ambulance arrived. The papers said he had been put in a psychiatric hospital for observation, but nobody I know has ever seen or heard about him again. His parents moved out of the neighborhood soon after, and their house still has a for sale sign in front of it. LaPlante lived, if you call sucking your meals through a tube and having your mom wipe the drool off your face every day living.

     During the investigation, everybody, including teachers said what a dick Mortier was, and the school board fired him. other then that, a year later every thing is pretty much back like it was, the one difference being that there hasn't been a good book dumping in a long, long time.