CNN

The recent firing of Scott Pelli and several other well-known staff connected to Sixty Minutes is chilling. Paramount under David Ellison is playing up to Trump to secure the Warner Brothers merger. Add to that the demise of Colbert. The network cited earnings but that was a sorry excuse--the kind that's made when you don't care or simply want to destroy something that's in the way. The creation of a hugely wealthy class of American oligarchs with unregulated power, parallels the rise of Silicon Valley. Larry Ellison founded Oracle. There were robber barons at the end of the l9th Century. Their power was enormous, but the current cabal simply has exponentially more. Will CNN fire Wolf Spitzer or Christiane Amanpour? Will CNN go dark during a strike of employees? Or will there always be someone willing to pass the buck or take the baton. Power comes in all forms. People tell themselves all kinds of things. Undoubtedly there are members of congress who shook hands with the devil under the theory, better them than someone worse. Secretly they would rise up against Satan. The current Big Brother is more nefarious than Orwell's. He can be bought.

read "Double Reverse Midas Touch" by Francis Levy, The East Hampton Star