The 'Village Voice' Alternative Media Monopoly's Hidden History--Part 3

(Most of the following article originally appeared in the October 9, 1996 issue of Downtown/Aquarian Weekly. See below for parts 1-2.)

Even in its early days, the Voice was not considered hip enough by some people in Manhattan. Initially, Voice co-founder Mailer wrote a column for the newspaper which he owned. But, as J. Kirk Sale noted in a December 1969 article in the now-defunct counter-cultural Evergreen Review magazine:

“Norman Mailer quit after 13 columns because `the Voice was square, not hip.’…Mailer was…right. The Voice was square, patriotic, safe, liberal, and middle class. Still is…”

The Voice’s initial news editor, John Wilcock, also told Evergreen Review the following in 1969:

“The Voice was never far out. I was on to things before they heard of them, and they wouldn’t touch them till they became legitimized somehow, someone else picked them up and said they were OK…It’s become really, a part of the `establishment.’”

(Downtown/Aquarian Weekly 10/9/96)

Next: The Village Voice Alternative Media Monopoly’s Hidden History—Part 4

The `Village Voice' Alternative Media Monopoly's Hidden History--Part 2

(Most of the following article originally appeared in the October 9, 1996 issue of Downtown/Aquarian Weekly. See below for part 1.)

Voice co-founder Wolf was the husband of a social worker. After his involvement in the world of Manhattan alternative journalism enabled him to become a millionaire by the early 1970s, Wolf turned neoconservative and eventually moved into a City Hall office in 1977 to be an aide and close adviser to then-New York City Mayor Ed Koch.

Voice co-founder Fancher was a Lake Placid, New York prep school graduate who had become a Manhattan doctor. He had also inherited $30,000 (in 1950s money) worth of Orange County Telephone Company stock from his grandfather.

Fancher used part of his inherited utility company stock to come up with the $5,000 that he initially contributed to launch the Voice. [Now-deceased] Best-selling Novelist Mailer also put up $5,000. In exchange for his $5,000 investment, Mailer and his lawyer received 40 percent of the Voice’s stock. In exchange for his $5,000 investment, Fancher and his close friend, Dan Wolf, received 60 percent of the Voice’s stock.

The idea of naming their Manhattan alternative newspaper, “The Village Voice,” however, was apparently not thought up by either Mailer, Wolf or Fancher, but by a woman named Patricia Woods, who worked as an English teacher during the 1950s. Wolf took the title of Voice editor-in-chief, but a hip guy named John Wilcock was named the Voice’s first news editor. Other editorial employees initially included Florence Ellerbert and Jerry Tallmer, who was a former editor of Dartmouth College’s student newspaper. Although Wolf was approaching his 40th birthday when the Voice was first published, “in the first issue he would lie and say he was only 33,” according to The Great American Newspaper: The Rise and Fall of the `Village Voice’ by Kevin McAuliffe.

Before the 1962 newspaper strike by local union people shut down all of Manhattan’s daily major newspapers for 114 days, the Voice was not much of a success, financially. In 1955, it only had a circulation of about 3,000, sold for 5 cents and lost up to $1,000 a week in 1950s money. It didn’t publish many classified ads, though, in those days and, therefore, consisted of only 12 pages.

To keep the Voice from going bankrupt in 1956, Mailer had to pour in about $10,000 more from his literary profits and Fancher had to shovel in another $10,000 from his utility company stock inheritance. But the Voice still had difficulty making money until the 1962 newspaper strike. Between October 1955 and the start of this strike, about $60,000 was lost by the then-alternative newspaper and then-Voice editor-in-chief Wolf had to be “supported by the income brought in by his wife, Rhoda, a social worker,” according to The Great American Newspaper: The Rise and Fall of the `Village Voice’. The Voice’s circulation, though, had risen to about 17,000 on the eve of the big Manhattan daily newspaper strike.

(Downtown/Aquarian Weekly 10/9/96)

Next: The Village Voice Alternative Media Monopoly’s Hidden History—Part 3

The `Village Voice' Alternative Media Monopoly's Hidden History--Part 1

(Most of the following article originally appeared in the October 9, 1996 issue of Downtown/Aquarian Weekly)

“The Village Voice became not something there because of the need for it, to give a voice to voiceless people, but a prize of booty on the battlefield of venture capitalism, something to be looked at and fought over, put into the portfolio of a corporation, used by one individual on the make after another…As of 1977, it had become part of a super-empire…”

--Kevin McAuliffe in The Great American Newspaper: The Rise and Fall of the `Village Voice’ in 1978

Denver’s “alternative” weekly newspaper, the Denver Westword, may not be publicizing on a regular basis the current efforts of local antiwar activists to protest against the Democratic Party-controlled Congress’s failure to end the U.S. military occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan and impeach Bush and Cheney, by mobilizing antiwar Denver residents to demonstrate outside the 2008 Democratic National Convention.

One reason might be because the Denver Westword is owned by the Phoenix-based Village Voice/New Times “alternative” weekly newspaper chain that also owns the Village Voice, the LA Weekly, the Seattle Weekly, the San Francisco Weekly, the Minneapolis City Pages, the Phoenix New Times, the Dallas Observer, the Orange County Weekly, the Houston Press, the Cleveland Scene, the Nashville Scene, the St. Louis Riverfront Times, the Broward-Palm Beach New Times, the Miami New Times and the Kansas City Patch. In fact, the free circulation of the “alternative” weekly newspapers which the Denver Westword 's out-of-state parent company owns represents 25 percent of the free weekly circulation of all U.S. “alternative” weekly newspapers.

But prior to the 2005 merger between the Wall Street bankers who had purchased the Village Voice from former Voice owner Leonard Stern for $170 million in 2000 and New Times media company owner Michael Lacey, the Voice was also not controlled by its original owners. For--like current Voice/Westword owner Michael Lacey--the Wall Street bankers, former Voice owner Leonard Stern and former Voice owner Rupert Murdoch did not provide the initial money or initial labor that was needed to launch the Village Voice on October 26, 1955. The Voice was actually started by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher and Norman Mailer—using money from Mailer’s bank account and from Fancher’s inheritance.

(Downtown/Aquarian Weekly 10/9/96)

Next: The Village Voice Alternative Media Monopoly’s Hidden History—Part 2

`Ballad of Harvey Milk'

(chorus)
He knew the straights would kill him
And many people sobbed
His murderer walked the street
But Harvey Milk lives on!

(verses)
He came from the East out to San Francisco
He hung with the people on a street they called Castro
He rapped with all the youth who marched against their War
He spread his love around, he mingled with the poor. (chorus)

He fought to be himself, he fought for the right to love
He linked arms with the people and sensed their vibration
He fought the Establishment, he went to City Hall
He united all his brothers and sisters and the poor. (chorus)

But the straights are all sore losers and their right-wing thugs have guns
And there are many men like Dan White who do not know how to love
And they want to push the people back into closets and off the streets
For they want us to be passive slaves and mask our deep feelings. (chorus)

So Dan White snuck into City Hall and gunned Harvey Milk right down
And although Harvey was not armed, his killer freely walked around
And the people then hit the streets, but the media made the jury blind
And Dan White got just 5 short years for taking Harvey’s life. (chorus)

He symbolized liberation, he symbolized equality
He symbolized the powerless and all those not yet free
They cut him down like cowards to stop the march of history
But the spirit of Harvey Milk still lives in you and me. (chorus)

The Ballad of Harvey Milk was written during the 1980s after seeing a documentary film about Harvey Milk’s life and his assassination during the 1970s.

To listen to the Ballad of Harvey Milk protest folk song, click on either of the following links:

http://www.last.fm/music/Bob+A.+Feldman/Biographical+Folk+Songs/Ballad+of+Harvey+Milk

http://www.mp3.com/artist/bobafeldman/summary/

For more information about Harvey Milk’s life and death, you can check out the following sites:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-U_owSvbn00

http://thecastro.net/milkpage.html

To listen to some other biographical protest folk songs, you can check out the “Columbia Songs for a Democratic Society” site at the following link:

http://www.myspace.com/bobafeldman68music

Next: The Village Voice Alternative Media Monopoly’s Hidden History—Part 1

`Indonesiagate': Obama's Historic U.S. Embassy Family Connection--Conclusion

(See below for parts 1-4)

Even before the U.S. Embassy-supported right-wing Suharto dictatorship invaded East Timor during the 1970s and massacred many, many civilians in East Timor, many, many Indonesian civilians had previously been massacred during the 1960s by the U.S. Embassy-supported Suharto regime. According to the preface to the 1999 edition of East Timor: Genocide In Paradise by Matthew Jardine, “in 1965, under General Suharto, the army—and civilian death squads affiliated with it—slaughtered more than a million alleged enemies of the state (including women and children) in just a few months.” Noam Chomsky also wrote in the introduction to this same book:

“…Suharto came to power in 1965 with a `boiling bloodbath,’…a `staggering mass slaughter of Communists and pro-Communists,’ mostly landless peasants…(New York Times)…

“…Not only did the…bloodbath destroy the only mass-based political party in Indonesia, but it opened the rich resources of the country to Western exploitation…”

According to the East Timor: Genocide In Paradise book:

“…Worried that the area might move beyond U.S. control, Washington began (in the 1950s) to curry favor with the Indonesian army, through military assistance and training programs.

“The US soon reaped the benefits of this policy. In 1965, using an alleged Communist plot to overthrow the government as an excuse, pro-U.S. General Suharto assumed control of the military and launched one of the great slaughters of our time. Hundreds of thousands of Indonesians were killed, mostly landless peasants and members of the Communist Party of Indonesia (many of whose names had been supplied to the army by the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta)…

“Suharto’s government repealed the previous regime’s `extremely restrictive’ investment laws and paved the way for large-scale foreign investment. By the 1970s, the US was investing more in Indonesia than in any other Southeast Asian country…U.S. companies supplied about 90 percent of the weapons used during the invasion of East Timor.

“…The minimum wage is less than $2 a day…Extensive mining, logging and oil extraction takes place there, as well as manufacturing by and for a wide variety of US companies, including Nike, Levi Strauss, Toys R Us, General Motors, DuPont, Liz Claiborne and Tommy Hilfiger…”

Next: Ballad of Harvey Milk lyrics

`Indonesiagate': Obama's Historic U.S. Embassy Family Connection--Part 4

(See below for parts 1-3)

Prior to the U.S. Embassy-backed right-wing Indonesian army coup in 1965, the most popular Indonesian political party was the PKI [the Communist Party of Indonesia]. As Pretext For Mass Murder by John Roosa recalled in 2006:

“Imagine the following scene in Jakarta on May 23, 1965. The main stadium, which is not far from the presidential palace and the legislature, is overflowing with people. Tens of thousands are in the stands that circle the field, while thousands more stand in the field below. Outside in the parking lot and nearby streets more than 100,000 are milling about…The occasion is the forty-fifth anniversary of the founding of the PKI…This May 23 celebration is almost a replay of the May Day celebration held in the same stadium only three weeks earlier…The PKI has demonstrated…that it is the largest and best-organized political party in the country…

“All observers believed at the time that the [Indonesian] Communist Party would win the plurality of votes if elections were held again…For the anti-PKI elements Sukarno’s handpicked national legislature was better than a democratically elected one controlled by the PKI…”

But the U.S. Embassy-supported right-wing Indonesian army generals still controlled more than 300,000 armed soldiers in the Fall of 1965, while most of the Indonesian civilians who were PKI members or PKI supporters were unarmed.

So following a failed September 30, 1965 mutiny by mostly junior Indonesian army officers against the U.S. Embassy-supported right-wing Indonesian generals, the right-wing Indonesian army generals “began fabricating evidence against the PKI in early October 1965” (which falsely claimed that all civilian PKI leaders, PKI members and PKI supporters were responsible for the September 30, 1965 events) to create a pretext for exterminating PKI members and supporters in Indonesia, according to the Pretext For Mass Murder book. The same book also observed in 2006:

“The tragedy of modern Indonesian history lies not just in the army-organized mass killings of 1965-66, but also in the rise to power of the killers…No monument marks any of the mass graves that hold the hundreds of thousands of people killed…”

Next: “Indonesiagate”: Obama’s Historic U.S. Embassy Family Connection—Conclusion

`Indonesiagate': Obama's Historic U.S. Embassy Family Connection--Part 3

(See below for parts 1-2)

The U.S. Embassy in Indonesia that employed Barack Obama’s mother in the late 1960s apparently played an historically significant role in supporting the 1965 right-wing military coup in Indonesia. As Pretext For Mass Murder by John Roosa recalled in 2006:

“An NSC [National Security Council] committee approved a proposal in March 1965 for covert actions such as `support to existing anti-Communist groups,’ `black letter operations,’ and `media operations.’…

“U.S. officials repeatedly informed the [Indonesian] army generals that the United States would support them if they moved against the PKI [Communist Party of Indonesia]…

“As the death squads fanned out across the country to hunt down PKI members, the embassy was delighted. [U.S.] Ambassador Green observed in early November [1965] that even the `smaller fry’ in the PKI were `being systematically arrested and jailed or executed.’ In Central Java the army was mobilizing and arming militias of Muslim youth to `keep them out in front against PKI.’

“Green noted in the same memo that the embassy had `made clear’ to a contact in the [Indonesian] army `that Embassy and USG (U.S. Government) generally sympathetic with and admiring of what army doing.’…Green assured Washington that the army was…`working hard at destroying PKI and I, for one, have increasing respect for its determination and organization in carrying out this crucial assignment.’

“The United States backed up its words of encouragement with material aid. The army needed communications equipment to link its various headquarters around the country so it could better coordinate the drive against the PKI. Sometime in late 1965 the United States flew in state-of-the-art mobile radios from Clark Air Base in the Philippines…The United States…had a blow-by-blow account of the army’s assault on the PKI, overhearing for instance, `commands from Suharto’s intelligence unit to kill particular person at given locations.’ A member of the embassy’s political affairs section, Robert Martens, helped the army by providing lists of the names of PKI members. Martens admitted in a letter to the Washington Post that he handed over the names of `a few thousand’ members, whom he disingenuously termed `leaders and senior cadre’—as if a list of that many names could include only the hard-core leadership.

“The embassy also transferred a large sum of money to the army-created civilian front called the Action Front for Crushing the September 30th Movement (Kap-Gestapu). The actions of this organization were, as Ambassador Green noted, `fully consonant with and coordinated by the army.’ To help this front hold demonstrations and carry out its `current repressive efforts targeted against PKI,’ Green authorized in early December [1965] the granting of 50 million rupiah to the front’s representative, Adam Malik…”

Next: “Indonesiagate”: Obama’s Historic U.S. Embassy Family Connection—Part 4