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Ivan W.
Parkins |
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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
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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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A SLOBBERING LOVE AFFAIR A
commentary on the book by Bernard Goldberg By Ivan W. Parkins The
above book title nearly drove me away, but the authorship of Bernard Goldberg
and the picture of President Obama on the jacket had the reverse effect.
Journalist Goldberg, previously a CBS correspondent for 28 years, also
the author of BIAS, is for me well worth reading.
As usual Goldberg is quite direct and substantive. He is not averse to harsh judgments, but
seems to let them follow from his evidence, rather than reversing that order
as too many writers do. His account of
the Obama-Ayres (terrorist) link was more informative than the others that I
have seen.
Like Goldberg, I believe that what we are witnessing is not a
conspiracy but the logical consequence of people (for Goldberg journalists,
for me a broader range of information providers) who live like fish in the
ocean. Fish, Goldberg says, know only
“wet.” To them, all else is alien and
dangerous. Many journalists (and some
other information providers) know only their environments. Of media liberals,
Goldberg says, “To them, conservatives are not simply wrong—they are
repulsive.” I
would add to the above that a huge and heavily one-sided media is not at all
what was anticipated by the authors of our First Amendment. In the late eighteenth century there were
keen memories of two institutions that had contested the power of the nation
state. They were the army and the
church. The Framers limited the roles
of both in our Constitution.
What we have now is the emergence of
a communication elite, especially in large institutions of journalism
and higher education. And that elite,
largely united with the Democrat Party, seeks to make the nation
“theirs.” President Obama has emerged
as the vehicle. |
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Notes
and Comments; RECENT BOOKS AND MEMORIES OF BOOKS By Ivan W. Parkins Books can provide a
person with some perspectives not readily available from the more
technologically advanced media, For
instance SPIES, by John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr, and Alexander Vassiliev and
published by Yale U. P. SPIES is
mainly the product of extensive notes smuggled from KGB archives by
Vassiliev, a former officer who worked there.
It is tedious reading, but contains many new and interesting details.
An example: Moscow Center sent to
Valentin Markin, chief of its newly created station in this country, the
following explanation of why he was
here: “In the system of states, the
USA is the deciding factor in questions of world politics.” The year was
1934, see page 196. Early in our
marriage, before we had television, my wife and I read books to one another
in the evenings. I rely upon my memory
rather than any copy at hand for this summary from a chapter in THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF LINCOLN STEFFENS. Steffens, perhaps the most famous of the journalists who
President Theodore Roosevelt labeled “Muckrakers” was visiting the recently
elected mayor of Philadelphia. Why?,
he asked the mayor, were so many crooked deals being pushed at the same time;
did he not hope to be reelected? The
mayor replied that it was all part of an agreement with the local party
machine. He would crowd as much “business”
as he could into one term. The press
and the public would be unable to keep up and to organize effective
interference. And reelection was not
part of the plan. Now, I sometimes
wonder if our President has read Lincoln Steffens. |
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WHAT HAVE THE PEOPLE NOTICED? This is a rerun from Feb. of 2008 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? I.W.
Parkins-February 2008 |
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THE POLITICS OF THE MEDIA ELITE The following articles some of which are reprints
illustrate the powerful role of the media in our society. |
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The following article is a reprint
from November, 2008 It illustrates the role of the media
elite. ELECTION 2008 Intellectuals are
keys to the troubles By Ivan W. Parkins First: I have long thought
that a President who was black could help unite the nation. Second: I cannot be happy
with President-elect Obama, because the political exposure and performance
that he has demonstrated are mostly opposite to what I believe is needed. Our economy is in trouble, and because
it is so large a part of the World’s economy, the World is in economic
trouble. People, I think, who are much like Obama—no, not blacks—dynamic,
well schooled, ambitious, and socially conscious intellectuals are keys to
that trouble. The critical division in America, and
perhaps in the Western World, is more an intellectual division than one of
either race or wealth. That is not to
deny that divisions of the latter types exist. But, the fundamental problem is how we
regard capitalism. And, having once
been mainly a critic of capitalism, I am now mainly a supporter of it. Unfortunately, too many people on both
sides of this division have permitted the issue to become one of quasi-religious orthodoxy. Some favor almost no government regulation,
while others strive to apply regulation of capitalistic markets to accomplish
ill-considered, but emotionally attractive, goals. The clash has become central to our
politics largely because of the huge growth and extension of our education
and information systems. Whereas those
were once largely subordinates to, if not supporters of, capitalism; they
have now become self-consciously independent and aggressive in trying to
displace the industrial/financial sector as the primary political force in
American society. That would be less of a problem if our
system of government had a greater capacity for identifying and serving a
majority of Americans, and were less responsive to the demands of
particularly well-organized and aggressive minorities. In short, I think that the present
economic crisis is equally a political crisis. If I am wrong about President-elect Obama,
and he proves capable of moving us towards solutions to both, he could rank
with Washington and Lincoln as architects of America. |
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Letter
to the editor; Morning Sun, 11/20/2004 Parker had correct assessment of what's wrong with
Democrats Kathleen Parker was "right on" with her
column in the Sunday, Nov. 14, edition, "Voters want sincerity, not fake
values." In 1968, a year that I voted for the Democrat
presidential candidate (my seventh and last instance of doing that), the
party split badly over the war in Vietnam. After losing that election,
party leaders chose Senator McGovern to head a reformation of their
"unfair" nominating process. Shortly before the next
nominating convention, THE U.S. NEWS on 6/12/72 reported a Gallup poll
disclosing some results of the changes. Of 13 categories (by region,
race, job, education and age), Senator McGovern was the choice of Democrat
voters in only one, those with more than four years of college.
Humphrey won 11 and tied with Wallace for the 13th. But the reformed
nominating process chose McGovern, who was an ex-professor and a Ph.D.
Nixon won that election by the largest popular plurality and one of the
largest majorities in our history. Since 1972, Democrat presidential successes have been
Carter, with 50.1 percent of the vote, and Clinton, the third man in our
history to win twice without a majority either time. (The other two
were also Democrats, Cleveland and Wilson.) Shouldn't that history offer to America's
self-anointed intellectual elite an alternative to blaming
"mindless" followers of traditional values for election failures? A foot note: Hubert Humphrey, whose nomination for
President in 1968, some people thought was so “unfair,” had led most opinion polls of Democrats in that
year . Most showed him getting about
two-thirds of those who identified with the party, about the same as his
initial delegate count in the Chicago Convention. I.W. Parkins 5/08 |