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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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Inside This Issue
Front Page
Archive 2008
Archive 2009 Page
2, Disassemble the House Page
3, Media Bias Page
4, Book Reviews Page
5, War and Their Costs Page
6, Broken Congress Page
7, Dividing America Page
8, Dividing America, Part two COMMENTS |
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Front Page |
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Truth?…. Justice?…The American Way?… Or How Disinformation in the
Biased Media Changes Public Perception By Ivan W. Parkins June 24, 2008, 2pm EDT, I have just seen
on the National Geographic Channel (NGC) a particularly interesting, and
especially timely, example of disinformation.
It was a carefully selected account of events and proceedings leading
to President Clinton’s impeachment and acquittal. Little, if anything included was false;
much that was not included was true and more significant. That severe judgment is prompted mainly
by my having recently discovered and read David Schippers’ book, SELL OUT , published in 2000. former Chief Investigative Counsel for the
House Judiciary Committee, Schippers did appear in the NGC documentary, but
only very briefly. Originally, he had
been reluctant to take the investigative job.
He was, after all, a Democrat, a former head of the FBI’s Organized
Crime and Racketeering Unit, under Attorney General Robert Kennedy. But, Committee Chairman Henry Hyde, an
acquaintance, said that was why he wanted Schippers. Of course Schippers’ party links and
the fact that he worked satisfactorily with an “extreme right-winger” like
Ken Starr did not fit well into a picture of events as having been engineered
by a “vast right-wing conspiracy.” One incident that Schippers relates in
his book has Starr replying to Clinton lawyer David Kendell’s charge that too
much information was being leaked to the media… “ Mr. Kendell, the only
information that has never leaked was that unavailable to the White House.”
(page 151) But, the great injustice was not the
Lewinsky Case, most of which did become public in lurid detail. More grave, and clearly related to
Clinton’s performance in office were matters such as illegal citizenship
grants and campaign gifts from the Chinese.
About those, the White House was able to stall with legal challenges
and slow yields of documents until just before the 1996 elections. Members of Congress, many Republicans along
with most Democrats, saw those issues as threats to their reelection, and
opposed the whole impeachment process. Clinton’s problems would have been much
greater if he had had to respond in public to charges that he had demanded
quick citizenship for 75,000 persons with arrest records, 115,000 with
unclassifiable fingerprints, and 61,000 who had filed no fingerprints at all
(page 45). But those and the questions
about illegal campaign contributions were left to Janet Reno and other
Clinton subordinates. Of course, Clinton’s great victory over
impeachment is now what most casual observers now remember. What Mr. Schippers calls the “flat-out
rigged ballgame” (page 7) have never been transformed by our information
system into a part of the public’s political memory. I am reminded of recent diatribes by
candidates about the need for change.
Yes, we do need change, but I am troubled by what changes.
I.W.Parkins 62908 |
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(The following is a “letter to the editor” published in The Detroit News, 12/30/2005) Presidential Abuses Ignored? Tony Snow’s Dec. 12 column, “Knollenberg
aids Clinton report cover up”,
illuminates questions that have bothered me regarding President
Clinton’s Lewinsky scandal. Did that
extravagant media event actually benefit Clinton and his supporters? Did it overshadow and obscure greater
abuses of presidential power and possible charges of the kind that brought
down President Nixon?- I.W. Parkins 12/30/2005 |
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In Response To Fr. Goodrow Column, Daily Times-News, Mt. Pleasant, MI 10/29/69 An unparalleled burden of communication
has fallen upon contemporary man. It
is the most critical problem of these times.
Never before have people been faced with the need for communicating
with all of their fellows. Never
before has every race, social class, and society in the world contended with
all others for shares in the fruits and the freedoms of human endeavor. Never before have provincial and parochial
views been so inadequate. It is a
situation which offers, at one time, the most terrifying and the most magnificent
prospects in all of human experience. I must object to Father Goodrow’s
treatment of conformity and morality.
I believe that he has failed to grasp both the magnitude of the
contemporary problem and the nature of aggravating and ameliorating
forces. Fr. Goodrow sees the problem
as one of accepting “ever-multiplying sub-cultures”, a challenge which he
addresses especially to conformist Midwesterners. In fact, the problem, or at least the
most significant part of it, is that previously submerged people now insist
upon participating in the hopes and rewards of their societies and of world
civilization. Technological and
institutional advances in the fields of communication, education, and
politics have brought us suddenly to this critical point of mutual
awareness. What the outcome is to be
depends largely upon our human capacity to accept others of differing
appearance, behavior, and conviction.
The mutual survival of cultures and sub-cultures is at issue. But there is nothing in this situation
which implies a multiplication of sub-cultures. Fr. Goodrow, in defending proliferating
sub-cultures, e.g., the hippies, calls attention to what I believe is a
largely unnecessary and an extremely unfortunate complication of the basic
problem. In a time when unprecedented
burdens upon our capacity to communicate stem from new racial, class, and
international relationships, some privileged groups insist upon adding their
particularistic and disruptive demands for special attention. Usually, they proclaim their concern for
the less privileged races classes, and nations. Do they really believe that such things as
long hair, obscenity, and pot are aides or necessary concomitants to peace
and social justice? And if, as I
believe, those things are no better than trivial and personal affectations,
should not they be deferred in the interest of more fundamental changes? Some conformity, I insist, is one of the
essentials of communication. There is
no way to communicate between those who defy and distract one another. Violence, a remaining alternative, is not
so much a way of communicating as it is a means of exhausting will and
emotion-perhaps, in the hope that communication will follow. Language it self is a convention to which
increasing numbers of men have conformed more and more extensively in the
interest of communication. And he who
would have his words heeded often finds it necessary to dress and behave in
such a way as not to distract his
audience from his message. It behooves
those of us who recognize that the need for communication is critical to so
conform in our personal manners that no significant portion of attention is
wasted upon our affectations. Tolerance seems to be Fr. Goodrow’s
answer to the communication problem and , indeed, tolerance is
essential. The demands which the
present situation makes upon our tolerance are greater than any such number
of people has previously been expected to bear. But, if in my quarter-century of higher
education I have observed any trends regarding tolerance, I would identify
these: The bulk of Americans
(including Midwesterners) has advanced considerably towards acceptance of
people of different birth and behavior, while the cacophony of charges which
an educated minority level against their more provincial countrymen has grown
steadily. I doubt that the latter
development aids communication, yet it is a major preoccupation of those from
whom the society has a right to expect something less parochial. So much for communication and
conformity; where does the creative individual enter? Often it is observed that such individuals
differ from the general run of men. As
much might be claimed for individuals who are particularly destructive. Add to that observation all of the trivial
differences, plus all of those differences which we hope that men will learn
to overlook, and surely he is deluded who cultivates mere difference as a
mark of creativity. The delusion
prospers, but few of its victims contribute to improved communication. If man is to avoid a holocaust, the
answer lies not in any proliferation of differences for difference’s sake,
nor in sanctimonious lectures by some of us to others allegedly less tolerant
than ourselves. Each of us needs to
muster as much tolerance as he can; at the same time, each should so conform
as to demand no more tolerance of others than, for the survival of his
essential self, he must. |
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Democrat Credibility? (The following commentary was published in the The Suncoast News ,
Feb. 4, 1998. It is related to the accompanying article on media
disinformation regarding President Clinton on a National Geographic Program.) Gross, relevant and easily documented
facts are being ignored by many persons commenting upon the
constitutional-severity and partisan-bias aspects of charges against
President Clinton. The President’s defenders make the point
that he was elected after the public had heard many of the charges against
him. Some of them insist that unlike
President Nixon’s Watergate crisis, this one does not warrant interfering
with a sitting President. Iran-Contra,
in the second Reagan Administration, is also being cited by Clinton’s
supporters. But, regarding the popular choice
argument, Clinton has not won a majority of votes cast, and his re-election
was no landslide. One the other hand,
Nixon won by nearly 18 million votes, still the largest plurality in our
history. Reagan, in 1984, won by a
plurality approaching 17 million, the second largest. Running third in this comparison was Lyndon
Johnson with a plurality of more than 15 million. All three were also majorities of the
vote cast, and by landslide proportions.
Yet our three top presidential winners were all soon driven from
office or seriously threatened, and all, including Democrat Johnson, due
mainly to Democrat Congresses. How much credibility do Democrats
deserve, now, when they contend that attacks upon Clinton are
constitutionally irresponsible and partisan, i.e. Republican, motivated
interferences with American’s choice of leaders? I.W. Parkins-7/4/98 |
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MAN: A LONG VIEW The species Homo
Sapiens is
engaged in the most grand of adventures.
Other species also seek to survive and to thrive. We alone, are able to refine and extend our
comprehension of the universe and to consciously enhance our survival
capacity. Among our greatest problems
is how to enable more of our species to participate meaningfully and
cooperatively in this grand adventure. The varied ethnic and cultural groups of
our species are both an advantage and a problem. It is advantageous that we are not all
equally dependent upon the same resources and the same climatic
conditions. It is burdensome and
dangerous that some portions of our species feel a need to contend
destructively against others. Our history, from the earliest evidences
to the present, is essentially one of extending our cooperation over space
and the increasing numbers of humans who inhabit it. Although many basic features of individual
and family lives remain much the same, the extent and structures of our
larger groups have changed radically,
And, all-in-all, we have progressed and prospered in both our total
numbers and the security of our individual lives.- I.W. Parkins, 6/2008 |
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Once Upon A Time When Americans were divided and
confused, especially about their role in the world, there appeared a man of
great eloquence and passion. He
traveled the length and breadth of our land, arousing and inspiring people as
he went. He promised change, hope, and
new ways of doing things. Heaping disdain, especially upon
America’s foreign policy, he threatened even to supplant the inept
President. And, yes, this story does
have a happy ending. Somehow, President George Washington did
survive his second term-and not as a total failure. The government of France changed,
again. Citizen Edmond Charles Genet
was recalled, but decided not to risk his neck under untried leadership. Instead, he married the daughter of a
prominent New Yorker, and spent the rest of his life as a solid American citizen. Some of us “old guys” get confused about
who and what is really new. -I.W.Parkins
6/2008 |
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OUR CONSTITUTION The Constitution of the United States
was drafted, primarily, to establish greater order among people and states
that had recently won increased freedoms.
Some of those freedoms were recognized by the Framers in the document
itself and by the First Congress in the Bill of Rights. But the primary purpose of the effort was
to bring greater order to the people and states, without which most new
liberties appeared unlikely to survive. Representation and an independent
judiciary, but few of their details, were presumptions of nearly all American
factions of that time. The key
innovation was the nature and powers of the Executive Branch. Thanks largely to the character and
performance of George Washington, both in promoting the Constitution and in
filling the chief executive office, we got a single and vigorous, but temporary
Presidency. In short, greater public order was the
chief purpose, and a strong but temporary executive was the foremost
innovation, of the Constitution.
Unfortunately, neither of those facts is adequately recognized by
Americans today. –I.W.Parkins, 6/2008 |
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Purposeful Disinformation |