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Ivan W.
Parkins |
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To order Dr. Parkins book, Perspectives For
American Society Contact |
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©Ivan W. Parkins 2009, 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,
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About Ivan W. Parkins: Dr. Parkins is a retired professor of
Political Science from Central Michigan University. He received his PhD from the University of
Chicago and is a graduate of the United States Naval Academy. Dr. Parkins served as a naval officer
during WWII aboard the battleship Alabama.
He is a recent widower with three daughters, 3 grand children and 2
great grand children. Dr. Parkins has
written extensively, having authored 3 books and a newspaper opinion column
for many years. |
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Front Page |
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Editors Note: Dr. Parkins’s Grandson, Breton W. Hinkle, passed
away unexpectedly on Feb. 14, 2009. He
leaves his wife Jen, parents Ray and Susan Hinkle, sister, Gretchen Hinkle,
Richard and Kathy Bourque, Father and Mother in law, brother in laws Kevin
and Brian and sister in law, Kelly. He
was a graduate of Michigan State University.
Bret was a United States Marine and had faithfully served his country
with honor and distinction. He will
be terribly missed by family and
friends. He was loved by all who knew
him. He was buried with military honors in Holland,
MI. See Bret’s life story at
http://www.lifestorynet.com/memories/45526/ |
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ONE HUNDRED DAYS OLDER AND WHAT HAVE WE GOT? By Ivan W. Parkins Apparently, the panic is subsiding, as
panics do. Did TARP and the subsequent
actions of our government help?
Perhaps: it is not the kind of thing for which there is a clear and
factual answer. The usual answers are
ideologically based, and apply facts selected ideologically. They are just another example of politics
of the less constructive and more dangerous kind. What were the roots of the panic? One, the tap root I think, was the
ideological view that poverty, and more especially the lack of a family home,
resulted mainly from the undue severity of financial institutions’ judgments
regarding whom to trust with their depositors’ money. To remedy that, a “liberal” Democrat
Congress and President enacted the Communities Reinvestment Act of 1977. Encouraged by a growing economy,
increasingly lax lending practices were promoted by Executive pressures on
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac during the Clinton Administration. One small matter that was neglected was
that in the booming economy additional capital was needed by financial
institutions if they were to continue lending money. Increasingly they relied upon home
mortgages, long a stable form of commercial paper, as capital to back their
lending. Meanwhile, ARMs (Adjustable Rate Mortgages) were being issued and
rising house prices were encouraging ever more speculative forms of finance. What was finally achieved was little more
than a sophisticated form of counterfeiting. Hopefully, we can now pay the piper by
surviving through a painfully slow, but growing, economy. More regulation? Actually, a poor quality of regulation,
plus political leadership that failed to heed the best regulatory advice,
provided us with much of the problem. I.W. Parkins 042609 |
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PARTISANSHIP AND REAL
CHANGE Since WWII, which of our major parties has
had the greatest opportunity to provide us with sound long-term economic,
social, and immigration policies? Keep
in mind creating sound long-term policies requires the cooperation of
Presidents and Congresses. Since WWII: Even the least favored of five Democrat
Presidents had, Clinton in 1993-4, two years with larger partisan majorities
in both Houses of Congress than the most favored Republican President, Bush
in 2005-6. Also, while all Democrat Presidents had
opportunities to work with Congresses in which both Houses were controlled by
their own party, Eisenhower’s very slim majority in 1953-4 was the only
Republican advantage other than Bush’s. Two of the Democrats, Johnson and
Carter, had huge majorities in both Houses of Congress, larger than any
majorities enjoyed by a Republican President, ever in our history. Shouldn’t those facts enter into our
calculations of how to achieve real change? July/08 |
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SO, WHAT’S AHEAD? By Ivan W. Parkins President Obama faces and exceptionally
difficult dilemma. If he has the
political acumen and foresight to comprehend the situation ahead, he must
jettison a large portion of the political elements that have put him into the
Presidency. They are his “toxic
assets.” David Sanger’s new book THE INHERITANCE,
is a clue to one such “asset.” Both
Sanger’s book and his employer, THE NEW YORK TIMES, epitomize much of Obama’s
support, and burden. Sanger warns that
Obama must not be Bush. To that I
would add three things. First, in one
sense it may be impossible for him to become Bush; his most vital supporters
will not permit it. Second, he may
soon suspect that he is becoming Bush; Presidents of all stripes are, today,
celebrities. And celebrities are,
largely, media creations. They serve
the media as means of finding easy and cheap stories that will attract enough
audience to justify the sale of advertising space or time. Any presidential slip of tongue or
self-contradiction, real or imagined, is likely to be sufficient for a story;
quiet and efficient conduct in office is not. My third observation is that most of our media
have, for several decades, been obviously biased on behalf of “liberal”
Democrats. And, Obama must hope that
they will continue to be so. What is my evidence to support that
third item? What is more news worthy
than a massive genocide—still continuing after several decades? And what, if not bias, would prevent media
that are not restricted by government, from assuring that nearly all of the
public is aware of that story and some of its implications. Apart from the economic crisis that we
now hope is bottoming out, our new President has unprecedented hurdles to
clear if he is to accomplish real change, and a far greater abyss to face if
he turns away. Imagine if you can, a group of American
trial lawyers linking with African plaintiffs, and their cases tried in world
courts, whose jurisdiction would be upheld by our Judiciary. How much of America might then be owned by
remote African tribesmen? Would that
not make for a “more just world”? But trial lawyers and quasi-religious
environmentalists are only a few of the political elements closest to
Obama. He, apparently, will not be
able to extend, perhaps even to preserve, charter schools and other
independent schooling from the grasp of our nationally unionized system. President Obama had little part in
creating most of the above problems, but many of the people who contributed
most heavily in money and work to his election did play major roles in
creating them. Unless the Obama
Administration makes an almost 180% turn from its present aims, the recent
panic may be a small foretaste of what’s to come. |
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WHAT HAVE THE
PEOPLE NOTICED? The following article is a reprint
from Feb. 2008 By Ivan W. 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 believe 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 has
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. Feb/08 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 newer publications, and a few web sites 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? |
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WE HAVE A NEW ADMINISTRATION President Obama has survived his first
100 days in the Presidency for which his experience had prepared him so
meagerly. Even the “empty suit” that
Democrats nominated four years earlier had had more “real world”
experience. As a community organizer
and advocate Obama had served effectively in one significant, but quite
limited, sector of America’s public life.
He broader public service was exceptionally brief and undistinguished
for a presidential candidate. For a national leader faced with
economic panic, charisma, action, and hope are especially important. Obama has excelled handsomely in all of
those. But now, as panic subsides,
where do we go from here? The Obama
Administration’s approach is “Don’t waste the panic.” To me, that appears to be nearly the
opposite of what is needed. For instance, the idea that we can
enhance America’s international reputation by curbing our military is likely
to become one of the great historical jokes of future world history. It will almost certainly be juxtaposed at
some point to the widely known, but largely unpublicized, facts that
“benevolent” America had been mainly responsible for denying a life
protecting chemical to millions of the world’s poorest people, mostly
blacks. That America’s First Black
President would permit the resulting genocide to continue will astound even
our critics. That carnage may already
have exceeded the total fatalities that can be attributed to our military
throughout American history. Of course, restraining President Obama
is the fact that some of the political elements to which he is most indebted,
quasi-religious people and organizations, are the prime originators and
supporters of the genocide. Is it to
obscure the lethality of ill-considered “liberalism” that so many of our self
designated paladins concentrate their demands for more disclosures upon our
intelligence and military operations? Extreme domestic experiments, and
programs initiated quickly on a grand scale without much experimental basis,
plus the huge costs of new “entitlements,” are not likely to speed our
economic recovery. They may relieve
some of the pent up frustrations of “liberal” political elements. (Note: I
place the term liberal in quotes to suggest that I think it is usually
misapplied, as a designation for what are really reactionary, i.e. left-wing
and ideologically based, politics.) |