In the Supreme Court of the United States Schreibman v. Holmes, et al., N0. 99-7779 Petition for writ of certiorari Filed January 12, and docketed January 13, 2000 [Front matter omitted] PART II II. THE DECISION BELOW, IF PERMITTED TO STAND, WOULD REINFORCE THE HISTORICAL PATTERN OF DISCRIMINATORY CONDUCT AND ABUSE OF THE ESTABLISHED PRESS AND FRUSTRATE PROSPECTS MADE POSSIBLE BY THE INTERNET FOR THE DISSEMINATION OF NEWS BY INFORMED CITIZENS WHOSE INTERESTS ARE ALIGNED WITH THE PUBLIC GOOD. The information role of Congress is derived, in part, from the First Amendment command to protect the rights and privileges of the press, "guaranteeing that the Government will be watched by independent, informed citizens, whose interests are aligned with the public good" [94]. Nevertheless, until 1979, when nonprofit organizations were granted the right to obtain access to the Congressional press galleries [95], the civic interests of the American people had no direct access to Congressional "arrangements" for the news media because such access was dedicated exclusively to news published "for profit" [96]. n94. Report of the House Majority Staff, Joint Comm. on Printing and Joint Comm. on the Library, to Hon. Charlie Rose, Chairman, Comm. on House Administration, 103d Cong., 1st Sess., A Study of the Roles and Purposes of the Joint Comm. on Printing and the Joint Comm. on the Library (Oct 5, 1993): p. 27 "Conclusion," online: n95. Congressional Directory, infra note 30. n96. Consumers Union, 515 F.2d at 1343. With the authority to accredit civic nonprofit organizations for use of the periodical press galleries and wide spread use of the Internet, the possibilities never looked better for Congressional news reporting by "independent, informed citizens, whose interests are aligned with the public good." This has not happened, however, because the "media aristocracy" continues to hold an iron lock on adjudicating press credentials. Millions of citizens now can communicate "many-to-many" via Internet, but access to news sources at the U.S. Capital of vital consequences to the public have remained closed to all but the established media groups. Out of the multitude of possibilities, only three Internet-based news publishers have been granted membership in the periodical press galleries, Slate, Salon, and APB NEWS [97]. n97. See authority infra note 68. Limitation of access to the press galleries to private "for profit" corporations, whether by gallery rules or due to biased adjudication of applications for membership in the galleries, is an inversion of constitutional values. This practice, in which private media interests seek to maximize their profit under "free market" theory, facilitates the pursuit of economic transactions between individuals, independent of social and ecological factors, which are disregarded by the market as mere "externalities" [98]. n98. The "free market" theory that individual transactions aggregate to social levels has been described as "a broadly perpetrated fiction" by American sociologist James S. Coleman, in Foundations of Social Theory 300-305 (1990). The attempt to derive social meaning by aggregating individual and subjective "importance voting" [which is the way market theory operates] "leads to spurious priorities and ineffective actions." This is the "law of erroneous priorities" recently discovered by systems research conducted at the FDA, as reported to FINS by Dr. Alexander N. Christakis, a renown practitioner of transformation leadership process . The inequity that occurs under cover of such market fictions is a moral and political issue driven not by technology or education, as commonly explained, but by the social principles and related public policies, which elevate greed over the public's well being. see e.g., James K. Galbraith, Created Unequal ch 16 "The Fate of the Market" (1998). Granting control over the Congressional press galleries to private news media interests, which disregard social and ecological aspects of reality while the civic interests of the nation are locked out, cannot possibly fulfill the First Amendment guarantee that "the Government will be watched by independent, informed citizens, whose interests are aligned with the public good." On the contrary, the conduct of the mass media owned by big business evidence their lack of credibility and destructive impact on American democracy [99], their prejudice against workers [100], and their propaganda model devoted to materialism and the privileged elite [101]. n99. N. Solomon, The habits of highly deceptive media : decoding spin and lies in mainstream news (1999); J. Fallows, Breaking the news: how media undermine American democracy (1996); David Grossman, Trained to Kill, Christianity Online (August 10, 1998)(A military expert on the psychology of killing explains how today's media condition kids to pull the trigger), online: n100. P.C. Sexton, The war on labor and the left ch 16 (1991); Molly Ivins, "It was WTO (Wasn't That Obtuse?) coverage" Fort Worth, Star-Telegram, (Dec. 6, 1999), online: n101. T. Ferguson, Golden Rule: The Investment Theory of Party Competition & the Logic of Money-Driven Political Systems (1995); E. Herman, and N. Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent: the political economy of the mass media (1988); FAIR, ABC NEWS GIVES UP ON ACCURACY? (Sept. 28, 1999), online: This media conduct has supported development of an information infrastructure that benefits the telecom industry's big incumbent players and their big-business customers. This was designed in the U.S. Congress where special interests get a seat at the table, but consumers, in whose name bills are advanced, do not [102]. According to Senator John McCain (R-AZ), Chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, To believe that the [Telecommunications Reform] Act is working in the interests of consumers, rather than big businesses, you have to agree with its perverse logic: that is, that the Act must raise prices in order to lower them; overregulate in order to deregulate; plow up the proverbial playing field in order to level it; and increase concentration in order to increase competition [103]. n102. Remarks by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), “Telecom Ownership Needs to Be Diversified” (Op-ed) "The Hill" (October 20, 1999), online: ; Vigdor Schreibman, "A Balance of Corporate Interests," FINS (June 19, 1995), online: n103. Remarks by Sen. McCain infra note 102. Constrained by big business money that gets in the way of the major channels of political dialogue between citizens and their representatives [104], seven out of ten Americans no longer trust their government [105]. As presidential candidate Bill Bradley (former Senator from New Jersey) aptly put the issue in perspective, "It's like a great stone wall that comes between the people and their representatives" [106]. n104. T. Ferguson, infra note 101. n105. Remarks by Bill Bradley at the Campaign Finance Reform Handshake with Sen. John McCain sent via Internet(16 Dec 1999), online: n106. Remarks by Bill Bradley infra note 105. These constraints imposed upon the American political system are not consistent with the democratic theory or ideology invoked to justify the existing system. Moreover, the legal tyranny evidenced here by which continuation of the status quo is sought cripples constitutional government. The existing situation is designed to impose "Core beliefs [that] are the product of a rigged, lopsided competition of ideas," as Yale professor of political economy Charles E. Lindblom, observed more than two decades ago [107]. n107. C.E. Lindblom, Politics and markets 211-212 (1977). With an Orwellian technological infrastructure, "rigged, lopsided" core beliefs, the political system paralyzed by "a great stone wall," and a crippled constitutional foundation, this situation will likely fail by a much larger magnitude in the emerging years of the 21st-century, in the absence of self-restraint by individuals and groups in society and return to fundamental standards of the First Amendment. The role of civic organizations is essential to the republican form of government and the goals of a Free Press. Responsible government and big business can be secured only by the constructive power of the main body of citizenship, as Mary Parker Follett observed early last century, by "the living democracy of a united, responsible people" [108]. n108. Mary Parker Follett, The New State ch XX (Pennsylvania State University Press ed. 1998), online: Follett’s wisdom has been celebrated by contemporary educators and management scholars, including the renown management guru, Peter F. Drucker, who called Follett the, "Prophet of Management" in a new collection of her works [109]. The movement of "united, responsible people" into full democratic citizenship is now a pragmatic response to the needs of post-capitalist society, as Drucker suggests: (T)he greatest contribution that the autonomous community organization makes is as a new center of citizenship. The Megastate has all but destroyed citizenship. To restore it, the post-capitalist polity needs a "third sector," ... It needs an autonomous social sector [110]. n109. Mary Parker Follett, Prophet of Management, introduction by Peter F. Drucker (Harvard Business School Classic, 1996). n110. P.F. Drucker, Post-Capitalist Society 171. The democratic movement comprised of the three interdependent sectors -- public, private, civic -- still remains a revolutionary force that is realizable beyond present accomplishment. This case provides a transcending opportunity to sustain the constitutional role in the news media of "independent, informed citizens, whose interests are aligned with the public good," which can strengthen the information role of Congress in the "Information Age"! CONCLUSION This petition for writ of certiorari should be granted. Respectfully submitted, Vigdor Schreibman, pro se 18 - 9th Street NE #206 Washington, DC 20002-6042 Phone:202-547-8715 Date: January 12, 2000