Word: shyster
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Many of the undocumented aliens live in a shadowy netherworld, fearful that anyone could betray them to the INS. They are preyed upon by coyote racketeers who take their fee and then skip out on the smuggling assignment; by shyster notaries who have made fortunes providing them with worthless documents; and by employers who call the INS to round up the illegals just before payday...
...illegal immigrants often have more to fear from exploiters, or "coyotes," as they are called, than they do from American authorities. They are fair game for every kind of shyster lawyer and racketeer, many of their own ethnic background. The victims of the fleecing can scarcely complain to the police, lest they give themselves away...
...almost all of the routines have been seen before on American TV. Fortunately, they are unkillably hilarious even in repetition. Since the performers understandably need to catch their breath, film clips share equal billing with the live players' stage antics. When John Cleese delivers a diatribe to a shyster pet-shop owner while flogging the dead parrot that has been sold to him, the funning is lethally potent. So is the spoof on TV wrestling, in which the solo performer, Graham Chapman, is finger-jabbed and pretzel-twisted by an invisible opponent...
...description of the press's mishandling of rumors that the FBI conspired to wipe out the Black Panthers is convincing. So is his examination of the coverage given the multinational empire of Bernie Cornfield, whom the press presented to the American public as a financial wizard rather than the shyster he's been exposed as. An essay on ABC's successful attempt to increase its newstime Nielsen ratings by tailoring its news to fit its viewers is also persuasive; his evidence makes it clear the network views news as an item to be sold rather than simply and fairly presented...
What if all the great people of this world...are simply the sort of crude, cynical shyster businessmen and degenerate hustlers that you find on Broadway, the New Jersey shingle business or out on the road pushing baby pictures...What if we get behind the scenes in the White House or St. Patrick's or the Vatican at Rome, we were to find precisely the same mixture of crass exploitation and petty cunning that you find when you walk into a theatrical agent's office in the Brill Building or 1590 Broadway...