Where Was The "Change" During The Clintons' First Two Terms?--Part 2

In their current campaign to secure a third term in the White House, in violation of the spirit of the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (which limits U.S. Establishment politicians who become the U.S. president to two terms in office), the Clintons are claiming that a third Clinton Administration in Washington, D.C. will bring democratic political “change” to U.S. society. Yet as the following column items from Downtown indicate, when Bill Clinton was the U.S. President during the 1990s the Clintons failed to bring democratic political change to U.S. society:

168 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

Last year [in 1992] around this time, the U.S. governing elite was preparing to come into Midtown Manhattan to nominate Bill Clinton as its 1992 Democratic presidential candidate, and rid itself of the 1992 political threat posed by Jerry Brown’s then-anti-Establishment candidacy. And Ross Perot was preparing to, temporarily, suspend his independent 1996 presidential campaign, once it was assured that Bill Clinton—not Jerry Brown—was to be nominated by the 1992 Democratic National Convention.

After 168 days of the Clintons’ Yuppie Democratic Administration, more members of the Love Generation now realize that Jerry Brown’s assertion that Bill Clinton and his yuppie Arkansas, Oxford and Yale cronies were not qualified to radically democratize the distribution of political and economic power in the U.S. was substantially true. Under the Clintons’ Yuppie Democratic Administration, the decline in living standards and the quality of life for members of the Love Generation continues. For Bill Clinton—despite his relatively young face [in 1993]—does not appear to reflect the political and cultural values—or the inner spirit—of the Love Generation.

(Downtown 7/7/93)

182 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

The apparent failure of the Yuppie Democratic Administration of The Clintons to really change U.S. society after 182 days in office probably doesn’t surprise many members of the Love Generation. Even during the 1960s, Bill Clinton did not participate in the 1967 anti-war march on the Pentagon and did not oppose U.S. military intervention in Vietnam on moral grounds. As Bill Clinton’s roommate for four years at Georgetown University—former U.S. Marine Corps 2nd Lt. Tom Campbell—recently recalled in The Clintons Of Arkansas: An Introduction By Those Who Know Them Best:

“A huge antiwar rally and march on the Pentagon occurred in October [1967] but none of us took part because we were aiming to be mainstream players and didn’t identify with the marchers…Bill was concerned about the Vietnam War. His objection was not that the United States was immoral but that we were making a big mistake…Those people on the streets and around the Pentagon were no friends of mine. I was going to the marines…”

Bill Clinton’s Georgetown University roommate also described what happened in the Spring of 1967 during Bill Clinton’s undergraduate years:

“The Georgetown Student Council was elected in the spring of 1967, our junior year, and Bill ran again…Bill’s opponent was Terry Modglin, a bookish nonpolitician who stuck Bill with an early version of `Slick Willie’…He tagged Bill as the politico and himself as the agent of change. We lost…”

After warming a seat in the White House oval office for 182 days, “Slick Willie” still appears to be more of a politico and an agent of special foreign corporate interests than an authentic agent of change for the Love Generation.

(Downtown 7/21/93)

196 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

As we approach the end of Clinton’s second 100 days, it’s still hard for members of the Free Love Generation to detect all that radical change we were promised by Bill Clinton last year [in 1992]. Perhaps Clinton is using the same technique to produce social change as he used to prepare for his Yale Law School exams? In The Clintons Of Arkansas book, former Clinton roommate William Coleman III recalled that “while law school absorbed every ounce of energy I had, I watched in amazement as September passed and October turned into November with Bill having attended few classes” but “magically, before examinations, he…disappeared for three weeks and performed quite well.”

(Downtown 8/4/93)

Next: Where Was The “Change” During The Clintons’ First Two Terms?—Part 3

Where Was The `Change' During The Clintons' First Two Terms?--Part 1

In their current campaign to secure a third term in the White House, in violation of the spirit of the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (which limits U.S. Establishment politicians who become the U.S. president to two terms in office), the Clintons are claiming that a third Clinton Administration in Washington, D.C. will bring democratic political “change” to U.S. society. Yet as the following column items from Downtown indicate, when Bill Clinton was the U.S. President during the 1990s the Clintons failed to bring democratic political change to U.S. society.

42 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

Although the Clintons talk about “change” and their “economic plan” to bring back prosperity, you’ve probably noticed that there are still a lot of homeless people walking the streets of the United States. If the Clintons’ “economic plan” is really going to use your tax money to change the United States for the better and restore affluence to the U.S., why has it taken their administration so long to provide apartments—or even hotel rooms—for the homeless? Don’t be surprised if in his next television speech, Bill Clinton tries to sell you on the idea that in order for his “economic plan” to start working effectively on Jan. 21, 1997, it is also required that you re-elect him as U.S. Establishment President first in November, 1996—because Clinton is the only one in the country capable of making his Goldman Sachs & Co. and Blackstone Group-conceived “economic plan” work.

Since President Kennedy was eliminated in 1963, people in the U.S. have been doing a lot of sacrificing while waiting for the times to change positively. But the times still haven’t changed enough.

(Downtown 3/3/93)

56 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

Although Bill Clinton promised the U.S. Baby-Boom Generation that he’d act as an agent of change and end our collective misery if he were elected, the times still don’t seem to be a-changing’ too much, as we begin to approach the end of Bill “Carter” Clinton’s first 100 days. Clinton has been spending a lot of your tax money campaigning around the country for re-election since his inauguration, but “The Permanent Campaigner” still doesn’t appear too interested in just relaxing in his White House office, slashing the Pentagon budget, providing homes for the homeless or reducing your work-week to 28 hours.

(Downtown 3/17/93)

70 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

With only 30 days left until his first 100 days in office are over, Bill “Carter” Clinton still hasn’t brought much “change” to the United States. He has, however, spent a lot of time jogging in Washington, D.C. and entertaining the leaders of foreign governments, as well as preparing himself to sing “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling” on St. Patrick’s Day, at the same time that Irish Lesbian Gay Organization [ILGO] marchers were being arrested.

(Downtown 3/31/93)

84 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

With only 16 days to go before the end of Bill “Carter” Clinton’s first 100 days, not much spare change has yet been provided for homeless people in the U.S. by the Clinton Administration. And not much democratic change has yet been brought about in the way political and economic decisions are made in the U.S. in the 1990s. U.S. Establishment President Clinton has, however, spent a lot of time rehearsing in the White House for a scheduled Hollywood appearance on the Cheers television comedy show.

(Downtown 4/14/93)

98 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

With only two days to go before the end of Bill “Carter” Clinton’s “First 100 Days,” it may be obvious to most people in the U.S. Baby-Boom Generation that the Clintons have no interest in working for the establishment of economic democracy in the United States. The Democratic Party which currently governs in Washington, D.C. also still appears unwilling to hold televised congressional hearings to investigate who was actually responsible for the elimination of President Kennedy in Democratic Party Establishment-controlled Texas on Nov. 22, 1963.

(Downtown 4/28/93)

126 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

Although the face in the White House was changed on Jan. 20, 1993, we still don’t seem much closer to peace and prosperity in the United States than we were 126 days ago.

(Downtown 5/26/93)

140 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

Last year at this time, Bill “Carter” Clinton was apparently paying about $200 for each haircut he received from his Hollywood hairstylist, at the same time he was promising rapid social change, a return to prosperity and no tax increases. Although he’s been warming his Oval Office seat in the White House on behalf of the Baby Boom Generation for 140 days (in-between 1996 Presidential campaign stops), it’s still hard to locate all that “change” Clinton promised us. But at least Clinton’s $200 haircut still photographs well on the TV screen and on the cover of Time magazine.

(Downtown 6/9/93)

154 Days After The Clintons’ Inauguration: Where’s The Change?

Although the Big Media pushed Bill “Carter” Clinton as its candidate for Democratic Party presidential nominee last year—especially after it began to look like the more anti-Establishment Jerry Brown was going to win the New York State Democratic Presidential Primary—even Big Media journalists are now starting to concede that Bill Clinton ain’t too great a political leader.

Between 1977 and 1991, Bill “The Permanent Campaigner” Clinton apparently spent so much time preparing for his 1992 presidential campaign that he evidently failed to think about what he would actually do once he got into the White House. After 154 days, the Yuppie Democratic Administration of Bill Clinton still doesn’t appear to have changed things enough for members of the Love Generation.

(Downtown 6/23/93)

Next: Where Was The “Change” During The Clintons’ First Two Terms?—Part 2

Remembering Philip Agee's 2003 Critique of CIA-Funded "NGOism"

Philip Agee, the former CIA operations officer who exposed many of the CIA’s undemocratic covert activities in his Inside The Company: CIA Diary book in 1975, died a few days ago, at the age of 72. Agee also wrote a 1987 book, On The Run, which described how the CIA attempted to prevent the publication of Inside The Company. In addition, in 2003 Agee indicated how the CIA has, historically, used Non-Government Organizations [NGOs] to achieve its anti-democratic political objectives around the globe. In an essay that appeared in the Summer-Fall 2003 issue of Socialism and Democracy, titled “Terrorism and Civil Society as Instruments of U.S. Policy in Cuba” http://www.sdonline.org/34/philip_agee.htm , Agee wrote:

“Going back to the Reagan administration of the early 1980s, the decision was taken that more than terrorist operations was needed to impose regime change…Now Cuba would be included in a new worldwide program to finance and develop non-governmental and voluntary organizations, what was to become known as civil society, within the context of U.S. global neoliberal policies. The CIA and the Agency for International Development (AID) would have key roles in this program as well as a new organization christened in 1983 The National Endowment for Democracy (NED).

“Actually the new program was not really new. Since its founding in 1947, the CIA had been deeply involved in secretly funding and manipulating foreign non-governmental voluntary organizations. These vast operations circled the globe and were targeted at political parties, trade unions and businessmen’s associations, youth and student organizations, women’s groups, civic organizations, religious communities, professional, intellectual and cultural societies, and the public information media. The network functioned at local, national, regional and global levels. Media operations, for example, were underway continuously in practically every country, wherein the CIA would pay journalists to publish its materials as if they were the journalists’ own. In the Directorate of Operations at CIA headquarters, these operations were coordinated with the regional operations division by the International Organizations Division (IOD), since many of the operations were regional or continental in scope, and some were even worldwide.

“Over the years the CIA exerted phenomenal influence behind the scenes in country after country, using these powerful elements of civil society to penetrate, divide, weaken and destroy corresponding enemy organizations on the left, and indeed to impose regime change by toppling unwanted governments. Such was the case, among many others, in Guyana where in 1964, culminating ten years of efforts, the Cheddi Jagan government was overthrown through strikes, terrorism, violence and arson perpetrated by CIA international trade union agents. About the same time, while I was assigned in Ecuador, our agents in civil society, through mass demonstrations and civil unrest, provoked two military coups in three years against elected, civilian governments. And in Brazil in the early 1960s, the same CIA trade union operations were brought together with other operations in civil society in opposition to the government, and these mass actions over time provoked the 1964 military coup against President Joao Goulart, ushering in 20 years of unspeakably brutal political repression.

“But on February 26, 1967, the sky crashed on IOD and its global civil society networks. At the time I was on a visit to Headquarters in Langley, Virginia, between assignments in Ecuador and Uruguay. That day the Washington Post published an extensive report revealing a grand stable of foundations, some bogus, some real, that the CIA was using to fund its global non-governmental networks. These financial arrangements were known as `funding conduits.’ Along with the foundations scores of recipient organizations were identified, including well-known intellectual journals, trade unions, and political think tanks. Soon journalists around the world completed the picture with reports on the names and operations of organizations in their countries affiliated with the network…

“President Johnson ordered an investigation and said such CIA operations would end, but in fact they never did. The proof is in the CIA’s successful operations in Chile to provoke the 1973 Pinochet coup against the elected government of Salvador Allende. Here they combined the forces of opposition political parties, trade unions, businessmen’s groups, civic organizations, housewife’s associations and the information media to create chaos and disorder, knowing that sooner or late the Chilean military, faithful to traditional fascist military doctrine in Latin America, would use such unrest to justify usurping governmental power to restore order and to stamp out the left. The operations were almost a carbon copy of the Brazilian destabilization and coup program ten years earlier…

“Fast forward to now. Anyone who has watched the civil society opposition to the Hugo Chavez government in Venezuela develop can be certain that U.S. government agencies, the CIA included, along with the Agency for International Development (AID) and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), are coordinating the destabilization and were behind the failed coup in April 2002 as well as the failed `civic strike’ of last December-January [2003]. The International Republican Institute (IRI) of the Republican Party even opened an office in Caracas…

“In order to understand how these civil society operations are run, let’s take a look at the bureaucratic side. When I entered the CIA’s training course, the first two words I learned were discipline and control. The U.S. government was not a charitable institution, they said, and all money must be spent for its exact, designated purpose. The CIA operations officer that I would become is responsible for ensuring this discipline through tight control of the money and of the agents down the line who spend it. Orders to the agents on their duties and obligations are to be clear and unambiguous, and the officer must prevent personal embezzlement of money by an agent, beyond the agent’s agreed salary, by requiring receipts for all expenses and for all payments to others. Exceptions to this rule needed special approvals.

“In the CIA, activities to penetrate and manipulate civil society are known as Covert Action operations, and they are governed by detailed regulations for their use. They require a request for money in a document known as a Project Outline, if the activity is new, or a Request for Project Renewal, if an on-going activity is to be continued. The document originates either in a field station or in Headquarters, and it describes a current situation; the activities to be undertaken to improve or change the situation vis-à-vis U.S. interests; a time-line for achieving intermediary and final goals; risks and the flap potential (damages if revealed); and a detailed budget with information on all participating organizations and individuals and the amounts of money to go to each. The document also contains a summary of the status of all agent personnel to be involved with references to their operational security clearance procedures and the history of their service to the Agency. All people involved are included, from the ostensible funding agencies like officers of a foundation, down to every intermediate and end recipient of the money.

“In addition to these budget specifics, a certain amount of money without designated recipients is included under the rubric D&TO, standing for Developmental and Targets of Opportunity. Money from this fund is used to finance new activities that come up during the project approval period, but of course detailed information and security clearances on all individuals who would receive such funding is always required. A statement is also required on the intelligence information by-product to be collected through the proposed operation. Thus financial support for a political party is expected to produce intelligence information on the internal politics of the host country.

“Project Outlines and Renewals go through an approval process by various offices such as the International Organizations Division and depending on their sensitivity and cost, they may require approval outside the CIA…When finally approved the CIA’s Finance Division allocates the money and the operation begins, or continues if being renewed. The period of approvals and renewals is usually one year.

“Both the Agency for International Development and the National Endowment for Democracy without doubt have documentation requirements and approval processes similar to the CIA’s for project funding in the civil societies of other countries. All the people involved must receive prior approval through an investigative process, and each person has clearly defined tasks. An inter-agency commission determines which of the three agencies, the CIA, AID or NED, or a combination of them, are to carry out specific tasks in the civil societies of specific countries and how much money each should give. All three have obviously been working to develop an opposition civil society in Cuba.

“One should note that the high-sounding National Endowment for Democracy has its origins in the CIA’s covert action operations and was first conceived in the wake of the disastrous revelations noted above that began on February 26, 1967…

“…The successes of revolutionary movements in Ethiopia, Angola, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Grenada, Nicaragua and elsewhere brought `cold warrior’ Democrats and `internationalist’ Republicans together to establish in 1979 the American Political Foundation (APF). The foundation’s task was to study the feasibility of establishing through legislation a government-financed foundation to subsidize foreign operations in civil society through U.S. non-governmental organizations.

“Within APF four task forces were set up to conduct the study, one for the Democrats, one for the Republicans, one for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and one for the American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO). Together their work became known as the Democracy Program. They consulted a vast array of domestic and foreign organizations, and what they found most interesting were the government-financed foundations of the main West German political parties: the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung of the Social Democrats and the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung of the Christian Democrats. When these foundations were first set up in the 1950s, their task was to build a…civil society based on the Western parliamentary model while lending their weight to repression of communist and other left political movements.

“From early on the CIA channeled money through these foundations for non-government organizations and groups in Germany. Then in the 1960s the foundations began supporting fraternal political parties and other organizations abroad, and they channeled CIA money for these purposes as well. By the 1980s the two foundations had programs going in some 60 countries and were spending about $150 million per year. And what was most interesting, they operated in near-total secrecy.

“One operation of the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung shows effective they could be. In 1974, when the fifty-year-old fascist regime was overthrown in Portugal (a NATO member), communists and left-wing military officers took charge of the government. At that time the Portuguese social democrats, known as the Socialist Party, could hardly have numbered enough for a poker game and they all lived in Paris and had no following in Portugal. Thanks to at least $10 million from the Ebert Stiftung, plus funds from the CIA, the social democrats came back to Portugal, built a party overnight, saw it mushroom, and within a few years the Socialist party became the governing party of Portugal. The left was relegated to the sidelines in disarray.

“…Even before Congress established the NED, Reagan set up what was called Project Democracy in the U.S. Information Agency…A secret Executive Order at the time, soon leaked to the press, provided for secret CIA participation in the program. An early grant was $170,000 for training media officials in El Salvador and other right-wing authoritarian regimes on how to deal with the U.S. press…

“In November 1983…Congress created the National Endowment for Democracy and gave it an initial $18.8 million for building civil society abroad during the fiscal year ending September 30, 1984…Whereas the CIA had previously funneled money through a complex network of `conduits,’ the NED would now become a `mega-conduit’ for getting U.S. government money to the same array of non-governmental organizations that the CIA had been funding secretly.

“…The NED…gives money directly to `groups abroad who are working for human rights, independent media, the rule of law, and a wide range of civil society initiatives.’ [Quoted from NED website May 2003]

“The NED’s non-governmental status provides the fiction that recipients of NED money are getting `private’ rather than U.S. government money…

“Reagan’s new programs in civil society started out with a huge success in Poland. During the 1980s the NED and the CIA, in joint operations with the Vatican, kept the Solidarity trade union alive…The program was agreed between Reagan and Pope John Paul II when Reagan visited the Vatican in June 1982. They did it with intelligence information, cash, fax machines, computers, printing and document copying equipment, records, TVs and VCRs, supplies and equipment of all kinds, even radio and television transmitters…Years later, in May 2001, Senator Jesse Helms introduced legislation to provide $100 million to duplicate in Cuba, he said, the successes of the CIA, NED and Vatican in Poland.

“One may wonder why the CIA would be needed in these programs. There were several reasons. One reason from the beginning was the CIA’s long experience and huge stable of agents and contacts in the civil societies of countries around the world. By joining with the CIA, NED and AID would come on board an on-going complex of operations whose funding they could take over while leaving the secret day-to-day direction on the ground to CIA officers. In addition someone had to monitor and report the effectiveness of the local recipients’ activities. NED would not have people in the field to do this, nor would their core foundations in normal conditions. And since NED money was ostensibly private, only the CIA had the people and techniques to carry our discreet control in order to avoid compromising the civil society recipients, especially if they were in opposition to their governments. Finally, the CIA had ample funds of its own to pass quietly when conditions required. In Cuba participation by CIA officers under cover in the U.S. Interests Section would be particularly useful, since NED and AID funding would go to U.S. NGOs that would have to find discreet ways, if possible, to get equipment and cash to recipients inside Cuba. The CIA could help with this quite well…”

Next: Where Was The “Change” During The Clintons’ First Two Terms?—Part 1

Wiretapping In Chicago Historically Under Illinois Dem Rule

An Illinois Democrat named Barack Obama looks like he still has a chance to be the 2008 Democratic Party presidential candidate (especially if white U.S. anti-war women voters and most African-American voters refuse to vote for former Democratic President Bill "Lewinsky/Yucaipagate" Clinton’s wife in the remaining 2008 Democratic presidential primaries) . But under Illinois Democratic Party rule in Chicago, the Chicago Police Department was allowed, historically, to use wiretapping methods to violate the democratic rights of U.S. anti-war activists. As Frank Donner noted in a chapter titled “Chicago: The National Capital Of Police Repression,” which appeared in his 1990 book Protectors Of Privilege: Red Squads And Police Repression In Urban America:

“…A Cook County Grand Jury convened to determine whether the police had violated the law.

“On Nov. 10, 1975, the grand jury issued a report, `Improper Police Intelligence Activities,’ strongly condemning the red squad: `The evidence has clearly shown that the Security Section of the Intelligence Division assaulted the…constitutional right to privacy.’ The panel heard considerable testimony from several police witnesses that they were aware that electronic surveillance was used to gather intelligence information. In addition to illegal electronic surveillance, police officers admittedly engaged in burglaries, thefts, incitements to violence, destruction of mailing lists, and other criminal acts, because `they believed it their duty.’”

(Downtown/Aquarian 8/14/96)

Next: Remembering Philip Agee’s 2003 Critique of CIA-Funded “NGOism”

Obama Purchased $1.6 Million Mansion After 2004 Election

Being elected to the U.S. Senate as the Illinois and Cook County Democratic Party Daley Machine's representative in the U.S. Senate can apparently be a pretty lucrative gig. As Chicago Tribune reporter David Mendell noted in his 2007 book Obama: From Promise To Power, following his election to the U.S. Senate in 2004, Democratic Party presidential candidate Barack "No Experience" Obama and his wife, then-University of Chicago Hospitals Vice-President Michelle Robinson Obama, purchased a mansion in 2005 for more than $1.6 million.

According to the Obama: From Promise To Power book:

"Purchasing a piece of property right next door, on the very same day, had been the wife of Antoin `Tony' Rezko, an old friend and financial contributor of Obama's who had been indicted just months before on federal fraud charges. Reporters for the Tribune, where the story broke, also found that Obama and Rezko's wife engaged in a series of financial transactions to redivide the properties and improve their parcels. The relationship between Rezko and Obama went back twenty years. Obama had met him when Obama was in law school and Rezko's development partners had tried to hire him. At his north suburban home, Rezko had hosted a fund-raiser for Obama in 2003 that helped fund early parts of his Senate candidacy. Since then, Rezko had been a regular contributor to Obama's campaigns. The two had also been social friends, with the Rezkos dining out a few times a year with the Obamas."

The wife of 2008 Democratic Party presidential candidate Obama, the daughter of a Cook County Democratic Party Precinct Captain and a former Assistant to the Democratic Mayor of Chicago, apparently was making a lot of money each year from Chicago's failing health care system. As the University of Chicago Hospitals Vice-President, Michelle Robinson Obama apparently took home an annual salary of over $250,000 per year during the early 21st-century.

Next: Wiretapping in Chicago Historically Under Illinois Dem Rule

Obama's $1.7 Million Book Contract

Most people in the United States don't believe it's democratic for a German media conglomerate like Bertelsmann AG to monopolize control over the U.S. book publishing industry. Yet 2008 Democratic Party presidential candidate Barack "No Experience" Obama apparently has no program for reducing foreign corporate control of the U.S. book publishing industry and other U.S. media industries.

One reason Obama might not want to propose that U.S. anti-trust laws be enforced against German media conglomerates like Bertelsmann AG is that between Election Day 2004 and his swearing in as a Senator, Obama was given a $1.7 million two-book contract by the Random House/Crown Publishers/Alfred Knopf subsidiary division of Bertelsmann AG. By signing his lucrative book contract with the German media conglomerate's U.S. subsidiary before taking office, Obama did not fall under various requirements for disclosure and reporting that applies to members of Congress who accept money from U.S. media conglomerates.

Like many U.S. Establishment politicians and U.S. television news correspondents and talk show hosts, Obama's 2004 book deal with the Bertelsmann AG subsidiary was arranged by Robert B. Barnett of the Washington, D.C. law firm, Williams & Connolly. Besides representing the special financial interests of U.S. Establishment politicians and U.S. television correspondents, Williams & Connolly lawyer Robert B. Barnett also represents the special interests of German corporations like Deutsche Bank and has coached Democratic Party presidential candidates before presidential debates since the 1980s.

As long ago as the 1990s, the Bertelsmann media conglomerate was the world's largest book publisher and the second-largest U.S. publisher. In 1981, Bertelsmann purchased Bantam Books and, in 1986, Bertelsmann took control of Doubleday and RCA Records. Its U.S. property by the early 1990s also included eight U.S. printing plants, Doubleday Book Shops in New York City and elsewhere, Dell Publishing, Arista Records and "Parents Magazine." During the early 1990s, the administration of New York City's first African-American Mayor, Columbia University Professor David Dinkins, http://www.sipa.columbia.edu/academics/directory/dd98-fac.html gave a $10.8 million special tax break to Bertelsmann AG when it purchased a 44-story Manhattan skyscraper for $119 million in March 1992
.
Bertelsmann AG was owned for many years by the family of Reinhard Mohn, who was a member of the Third Reich's Afrika Korps during World War II; and the same German firm published books for the Nazi regime in Germany between 1933 and 1945. During the early 1990s, the Mohn family still owned about 69 percent of the Bertelsmann/Doubleday/Bantam Books/Dell Publishers/Random House/Crown Publishers foreign-based media monopoly.

But don't hold your breath waiting for the stable of U.S. politicians who are represented by the Williams & Connolly corporate law firm to finally introduce some legislation to democratize power within the foreign-controlled U.S. book publishing industry in 2009 to insure that U.S. anti-trust laws are finally enforced within the U.S. mass media industry world.

For more information about Barack Obama's 2004 book deal, you might want to check out the following link on the Century Foundation web site:
http://www.tcf.org/list.asp?type=NC&pubid=1425

Next: Obama Purchased $1.6 Million Mansion After 2004 Election

Democratic Party Corruption In Illinois Historically

As The Lesser Evil: The Democrats by Lenni Brenner observed in 1988:

“The Illinois and Cook County Democratic Parties are, arguably, the most corrupt political bodies west of Gomorrah. Otto Kerner, governor from 1961 to 1968, did two years, in the mid-1970s. In 1987, Daniel Walker, governor from 1973 to 1977, pled guilty to bank fraud…Myriads of Chicago Democrats have run—some have even won—while on indictment…Ten ran at one time in 1973. Nine judges were convicted of bribery in 1987."

The Chicago Tribune also revealed in 1996 that “former Democratic Illinois State Sen. Jeremiah Joyce, one of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley’s top political operatives, and Grace Barry, a good friend of Daley’s wife, stand to reap millions of dollars from no-bid agreements to sell gifts, food and liquors at O’Hare International airport” and “contracts worth more than $100 million and benefiting friends and supporters of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley and his wife” were “expected to sail through the City Council” in 1996, under Democratic Party rule in Chicago (Chicago Tribune 2/8/96, 3/6/96).

Coincidentally, 2008 Democratic Party presidential candidate Barack “No Experience” Obama was apparently a member of the Illinois and Cook County Democratic Party before he and his Billionaire Crown Dynasty financial backers decided that the freshman U.S. Senator from Illinois should start running for President--before even completing the first three years of his term as the Illinois and Cook County Democratic Party Establishment’s representative in the U.S. Senate.

Next: Obama’s $1.7 Million Book Contract