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A KILLER ISSUE by Ivan Parkins The New York Times story, January 13,
2008, (front page) “Across America, Deadly Echoes of Foreign Battles”, an
account of at least 121 killings in America by veterans of Afghanistan and
Iraq. As disinformation, it follows an
old style. Nearly, forty years ago, I
replied to a similar disinformation article that appeared in what was then
one of our top literary periodicals. “MORALS, MILITARY and the INTELLECTUAL”
Opinion column, Daily Times-News, 02/18/70, Mt. Pleasant, Michigan: The human toll of military combat is so great that only a brute
or a fool could fail to question the causes and excuses for war. It is not easy, however, to comprehend what
a specific military effort, such as that in Vietnam, costs and accomplishes,
apart from the combat itself. SATURDAY REVIEW,
February 14, 1970, carries an “essay review” by Father (Professor) Daniel
Berrigan, S.J., who admits to having destroyed draft records and other acts
of protest. The burden of the review
is an emotional charge of insensitivity and brutality aimed at the
military. It is illustrated with
references to a particularly nasty incident of rape and murder committed by
Americans in Vietnam. With monumental
self-righteousness, the reviewer juxtaposes his behavior to that of the
persons, “whose decisions make such crimes inevitable.” That numerous crimes,
unrelated to combat, have been committed by our troops in Vietnam is not to
be doubted. But the crime rate of
Americans is also regrettably high under other circumstances. If military leaders are personally
responsible for crimes of our troops, what responsibility do clergymen and
professors bear for the crimes of errant church members and students? Nowhere does Father
Berrigan assert, much less attempt to prove, that the crimes of our troops in
Vietnam are more numerous or more brutal than the crimes which similar
numbers of young Americans commit as civilians in the United States. Neither is any evidence offered that the
South Vietnamese would enjoy a more secure life in the absence of our
troops. In short, nothing more substantial
than the tone of the review would contradict even the extreme hypothesis that
our military presence in Vietnam is having a humane and salutary effect upon
both our own men and the South Vietnamese. Berrigan is
unabashedly eloquent in both his charges against those who support the
Vietnam War and the sanctimony of his claims for the protesters. But his
eloquence is an affectation of diction and style, utterly lacking in logic
and substance. Such a polemic
discloses much more about the character of the persons who write, publish,
and accept it than it does about the character of those it maligns. Logically, it is an expression of crude
prejudice against a superficially defined group of “others,” and does not
deserve to be treated with greater dignity than any other outburst of
bigotry. That a work so
lacking in the elements of logic and reason should be chosen for publication
in a magazine as prominent as SATURDAY REVIEW can only raise doubts about the
probity and integrity of the magazine’s editors. How much of the
intellectual establishment has committed itself so self-righteously against
the war in Vietnam that it feels no need to examine its own position and
arguments? And, since intellectuals
claim exemption from conventional demands of patriotism based on their
special role as thinkers, is not gross neglect of that endeavor evidence of
moral turpitude? And it continues today,
disinformation or the manipulation of information to support a point of view
may be accurate; it is simply not the most significant true information on
that subject. With the wide
availability of sources of information, it becomes more incumbent upon the
reader to validate the information.
Fortunately, others with more details than I, have already replied to the TIMES
article. Please note that my “Facts to
Ponder” suggest some other areas of disinformation now prevalent. I.
W. Parkins 1/20/2008 |
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THE BIG
CHANGE?
Ivan Parkins, February, 2008 |
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WHAT HAVE THE PEOPLE NOTICED? By Ivan
Parkins Democracy rests upon an assumption that the people are
well-informed. Or as Thomas Jefferson
put it, “Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with
their own government. Whenever things
get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they can be relied upon to set
them right.” A long life of studying, teaching, observing, and writing about American
government has left me with two main conclusions. First: that the public has generally been
right, and is so now in its belief that “the system” needs changing. Second: that the public is greatly confused
regarding what changes are needed. Authoritarians may deny their people some information, but mostly they
brainwash them with disinformation.
Old sayings about the pen being mightier than the sword can be
misleading. Often the sword has been
used first, to control most of the pens.
The pens are then used to “disinform”
the people in ways that permit most swords to remain sheathed. Once firmly established, authoritarians
control virtually all schools, publishing, news facilities, and other sources
of information. Today, that is becoming more difficult.
But, what if most of the pens, i.e. professional communicators, were
to unite in cooperation with one another and with one political party? That is the transformation that I have
witnessed in American society since World War II. Mass communication, especially television,
has invaded households to an unprecedented degree. Schools and teachers have been nationalized
by union and governmental actions.
Possible competitors such as families and churches have been harassed
and legally restricted. The one place in our national system where information has been most
extensive and public choice most informed has been presidential
elections. There, three recent
Presidents, (Johnson, Nixon, and Reagan ) won reelections by the largest
popular pluralities and by three of the largest majorities in our
history. Johnson was then discouraged
from seeking the additional term for which he was legally qualified. Nixon was promptly forced to resign. Reagan survived and in many respects
triumphed, but only by facing long and severe harassment. Since then, President Clinton survived two terms in office, in spite of
having been impeached by the House of Representatives and losing in the
courts on the several challenges that he brought there. He and his defenders claimed that it was
all over a “private sexual matter”.
Congress, unwilling to face media friendly to Clinton with another
election pending, left most other issues to Clinton’s own subordinates. Even so, the House indicted, and a secure
room filled with hundreds of documents showing evidence and testimony of
witnesses was provided for the Senate.
No Democrat Senator signed into that room before voting to
acquit. Coincidentally, Clinton was
the only President since Wilson, many years earlier to win the office twice
without winning a popular majority either time. Our current President, Bush, did win a popular majority in 2004, only a
slim one, but better than any Democrat since Johnson. He has faced what have probably been the
most voluminous and intense media attacks upon his Presidency and his person
endured by any President. Now, talk radio, cable television, some of the new publications, and a
few websites offer promise that the people may become better informed. But several decades of public brainwashing
by the media have left scars that threaten democracy in America. How can people choose a better course when
they know so little about the one that we have traveled recently? -February 2008 |
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Liberalism, an Aversion to
Facts For more than two decades I believed myself to be a “liberal”,
but that was four decades ago. Now,
the ideas and aversion to facts, of many people who claim to be liberals seem
not to have changed in those four decades.
In 1971, I clipped from my newspaper a cartoon by Bill Mauldin, of
WWII fame. It represented President
Nixon as overseeing a huge flow of funds into Indo-China and promising some
petty support for social programs.
Using budget figures from standard references, I discovered that the
Kennedy/Johnson Administrations had a higher average rate of military
expenditures and lower social spending than Nixon’s most recent year at the
time. I wrote a letter to Newsweek magazine in Feb. 1977, in response to Lester Thurow’s column
(2/14/77). Here are some excerpts.
“Lester Thurow’s column may serve better to illustrate than it does to
explain the
reasons for our lagging productivity.” “Productivity is
frequently, and meaningfully, related to the quantity and quality of machinery which a workman uses. Since 1950, the U.S. has lagged
behind the principal democracies of
Europe, and far behind Japan, in the portion of its product which it has
reinvested in new plants and
machinery. At the same time, and while
our military expenditures were
declining, we have more than doubled the portion of GNP which we
invested in education.” “Blaming moneyed and military elites for America’s economic and
social problems
would have appealed to me two or three decades ago. Today, it is far too popular,
and too carelessly done.” About a year later, I wrote a letter to the editor, U.S. News &
World Report (1/16/78) in response to Professor Thurow. “Professor Thurow says, ‘While no one is
against investment in physical assets, we also need to
invest more heavily in skills, education and other things that build earning capacity in
the future.’ Is he really talking
about the United States?” In 2008, the evidence and my views have not changed
greatly. Recently, I noticed that one
of America’s oldest great fortunes had been liquidated, for many
millions. I estimated that it was
about 250 times as large as I expect my estate to be. I also checked and found, as I had
expected, that the largest recent fortune, earned by a person much younger
than I is about 400 times as great as the older one was. Soaking the rich with taxation makes more sense as hate and
revenge than it does as economic policy. As long as voters believe “economic facts” quoted by celebrities
without checking them against THE STATISTICAL ABSTRACT OF THE UNITED STATES
or another reliable reference, our economy and our country will suffer. Ivan Parkins- February 24, 2008 |
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ONLY BREAK MY HEART “Sticks and stones will
break my bones, But words will . . .? One completion to that old bit of doggerel is
. . . . .only break my heart.” I
noted, in June 1971, that both a University of Michigan study and a National
Commission had reported on their findings regarding violence. Both had demonstrated a disagreement
between the more and the less “intellectual” portions of our public regarding
the extent of the term “violence.”
Surprisingly the less educated Americans applied a broader range of
meanings, and one more in keeping with major dictionaries, than that
preferred by “intellectuals.”
There has been, since World War II, a noticeable tendency among
academics and journalists to speak and write against violence, but to apply
the term only to physical assaults upon persons. Older and wider usage, plus many
dictionaries, apply “violence” also to destruction of property, to some kinds
of language, and to abuses of customs and institutions. By those broader meanings, quite a lot of
“intellectual” activity is violent.
Should the “breaking of hearts” pass without social or legal remedy
with only flesh and bones deserving protection? |
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INTENSE/EXTENSIVE?
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MEDIA BIAS The following
articles examine the media’s bias reporting. |
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©Ivan W. Parkins 2010, All articles, text, web pages property of
Ivan W. Parkins. Use of any material
requires permission of the author
and can be obtained by contacting,
info@americanpoliticalcommentary.com |