Portrait of Vigdor in blue 2001
Cornelia P. Atchley, artist
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Biography of Vigdor Schreibman
Vigdor Schreibman is Editor and Publisher of the
Federal Information News Syndicate (FINS),
inaugurated January 11, 1993, one of the first news organs published in electronic
format over the Internet, with the first civil society weblog ("blog"). He was accredited in
1993, and again in 1994 and 1995 as a correspondent by the Periodical
Press Galleries of the United States Senate and House of
Representatives.
In 1996, without explanation, the Executive Committee of
Correspondents denied Schreibman renewal of his membership in the
Press Galleries. FINS then unsuccessfully attempted to overturn
that decision, first through Congressional channels, the Speaker of the
House and Senate Committee on Rules and Administration, and later
through the federal courts. The Executive Committee was charged with
violating "freedom of the press," guaranteed by the First Amendment
to the United States Constitution. However, the United States Courts
arbitrarily refused to consider the grave constitutional issues presented
by Schreibman. in order to protect the capitalist choke hold on access to
Congressional news of "vital consequence to the public.".
In the one rare federal case involving the Periodical
Press Gallery that squarely addressed such issues, US District Court for the
District of Columbia,
Judge Gerhard Gesell (1910–1993), explained how this situation came about:
Under a broad, generalized congressional
delegation, authority has been given certain
newsmen to prevent other newsmen from having
access to news of vital consequence to the public.
As a result, a group of established periodical
correspondents have undertaken to implement
arbitrary and unnecessary regulations with a view
to excluding from news sources representatives of
publications whose ownership or ideas they
consider objectionable. Responsible officials of
the House and Senate have not forestalled such
discrimination by promulgating clear eligibility
requirements [citations omitted] nor apparently
have they developed any other means of checking
abuse of the Association’s delegated authority.Consumers Union of United States, Inc., v.
Periodical Correspondents’ Association, 365 F.Supp.
18, 26 (D DC 1973), reversed on other groundsConsumers
Union of United States, Inc., v. Periodical
Correspondents’ Association, 515 F.2d 1341 (DC Cir. 1975),
quoted, In the Supreme Court of the United States
Schreibman v. Holmes, et al., No. 99-7779
Petition for writ of certiorari
Filed January 12, and docketed January 13, 2000.
Schreibman is a journalist and constitutional scholar, who has his
own independent world-view, committed irrevocably to sustaining and
enhancing the democratic mission. He has no ties--financial,
professional, or ideological--with any existing organization or interest
group, public or private. This venture is completely self financed. The
website was constructed as a public service upon invitation by the
University of Tennessee at Knoxville, which hosts the site without any charge.
Schreibman holds a Master's Degree in Legal Studies, with a specialty
in Telecommunications Law (Antioch, 1985). He first gained extensive
practical knowledge and experience in the law as a non-lawyer advocate,
winning a number of precedent setting Federal court decisions. These
were reported during the 1970s, recognizing Schreibman's "extraordinary
legal ability" as a non-lawyer advocate. SeeIn Re Victor Publishers,
Inc. 545 F.2d 285, 286, n.* (1st Cir. 1976) (citing cases). The US Courts
later repudiated this precedent in a series of decisions, which are described in,
The Controversy Over Las Colinas Properties. That controversy began
with an epic struggle between Schreibman and various financial institutions for
control of prime ocean-front real estate holdings of Las Colinas Development
Corporation. Schreibman owns the controlling stock interest (more than 90%)
in that corporation. In those cases senior officials of the American Bar
Association (ABA) served as counsel for the lenders, both to provide
political influence within the US Court system to block the democratic
principle of justice sustaining corporate self-representation, as well as
to deprive the corporation of its valuable properties. As the cited document
reveals in a carefully detailed constitutional analysis, the decisions of the
US Courts in those cases were bereft of legitimacy.
In Jan 2003 Schreibman and Las Colinas Development Corporation
were named as "essential parties" in
a new lawsuit to resolve The Controversy Over Las Colinas Properties
brought by two hundred families who are now residents of a part of the
property against Banco Popular de Puerto Rico and a dozen other banks,
mortgage lending companies, and construction companies involving Las Colinas
Properties. Harold Santiago Martell, et al., v. Marina Las Gaviotas, et
al, Civ. No. NSCI-2001-0378, Estado Libre Associado de Puerto Rico,
Tribunal de Primera Instancia, Sala Superior de Fajardo. This latest lawsuit
brings into view the
Courts of Robbery, and the despotism controlling the Judiciary, a horror
story greatly feared by two of the greatest early American leaders:
Thomas Jefferson,
the first Democrat, and Abraham Lincoln, the first
Republican
Schreibman also contributed significantly during the 1970s and
1980s to new thinking in community development planning, and in the
literature of law and society. This included an exploration of
prototype community development structures, to advance the appropriate
mix of economic and humanistic incentives, for building the
City for Human Development - the "Anthropopolis" of C.A. Doxiadis (1975). His
sociolegal research and published works, apply the knowledge of systems
sciences to reconsideration of the formative character of America's most
important sociolegal systems. V. SCHREIBMAN, ESSAYS ON THE IMPACT OF THE
CONSTITUTION AND LEGAL SYSTEM ON AMERICAN LIFE AND GOVERNMENT (Amicas
1987-1990) CIP LC 87-6206 & 89-18362 ISBN 0-942539-14-1 (6-Volume Set).
Mr. Schreibman's project for the first decade of the 21st-Century,
concerns the need to identify the self-imposed constraints of finance capitalism
and species-based limitations, which have paralyzed participatory democracy,
and to support removal of these constraints. It is anticipated, as a
consequence, that the people may thus secure the triumph of democracy.
The need to transcend marketplace morality under the authority of universal
ideals has been recognized in
The Global Compact, endorsed by many world leaders in the public,
private, and civic sectors under sponsorship of the United Nations. The
Global Compact has identified 10-principles "to help build the social and
environmental pilars required to sustain the new global economy and make
gloabization work for all the worlds people." Translating that espoused goal
into tangible forms has admittedly yet to be realized, however.
One cannot foreclose the possibility of world leaders motivated by
"enlightened self-interest" making a significant improvment in world affairs,
particularly, with United Nations management of The Global Compact
ready to transcend the old mode of global relationships. Nevertheless, all
of history teaches that elite leadership will most likely guarantee
continuation of the appalling status quo. Indeed, new modes of
communications and global trade have "opened new avenues to express
infectious greed" which seems to have "gripped much of the business community"
and "grown enormously," according to Congressional testimony of Federal
Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan (July 17, 2002).
Chris Argyris, professor of education and organizational behavior
at Harvard University has observed after decades of research that people often
find themselves unable to produce transformative action, "even if they espouse
it, wish to learn it, and practice it." The basic assumption in transformative
learning is that, "people require others to help them discover, invent, and
especially produce new actions." Chris Argyris, Reasoning, Learning, and
Action, pp. 23, 101, 182-183 (1982).
The Global Compact espouses 10-principles in the
areas of human rights, labour, the environment and anti-corruption that enjoy
universal consensus. Speaking the language of human transformation, the
formidable challenge is one of translating espoused universal principles into a
viable set of values-in-use guiding human actions. This challenge concerns the
Setting for decisions in the Information-age that can most likely lead
toward peaceful transformation of the development character of human civilization
from capitalist decadence to democratic sustainability.
What must be discovered is the strategy that can most likely
lead from a civilization dominated by the infectious greed of one narrow sector,
finance capitalism, toward a civilization founded upon the principles of democratic
sustainability. In such a civilization it is not the wealthy few who possess
strategic instrumental powers but citizens-at-large -- the source of all power
in a democracy -- who must take the central role in governance under an inclusive
vision of capital that is called
OmniCapital.
The elementary cellular structure of any transformation from
capitalism to OmniCapital that can empower citizens obviously must start
with citizens, one group at a time, where the governing values in a democracy
can guide transformation. Americans are ready for this challenge. The crucial
source code for this transformation is the long sought, and now available
Technology of Democracy.
