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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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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 Page
9, Disinformation, Liberal Ideology Page
10, The Supreme Court and Judiciary Page
11, Environmentalism COMMENTS |
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MY
ENVIRONMENTS: 1939-2008 By Ivan W. Parkins The tiny conservation organization that I
helped to establish, and headed, in my pre-WWII high school caused me no
grief. We were only cooperating with
an adult group to maintain game bird and fish populations in our part of
Indiana. Hungry “sportsmen” in the
1930s had decimated those populations. Following the war, my initiation into
college teaching was different. I came
to it with some background from Professor Rex Tugwell, who had been prominent
as a New Deal environmental planner.
Also, I read RESOURCES FOR THE FUTURE, the report of President
Truman’s commission on that subject.
It appeared to me that beginning students, as part of an introduction
to social sciences, should be made aware of how technological and industrial
advances had altered, but not eliminated, man’s dependence on his
environment. That produced no
complaints from students or administration.
But, in the small and informal faculty discussion group, to which I
had been admitted as the junior member, better established “intellectuals”
informed me that such stuff belonged in high school civics. As the university’s leading classicist put
it, “Nature leaves me cold.” By the time that I retreated from
teaching, I was unhappy with the growing “environmentalism movement.” It seemed to me that it was becoming,
primarily, another of those avenues by which higher education was “coaching”
college students, not how to be more thoughtful and responsible individuals,
but how to win over and direct the larger American public. In nearly every matter of great public
interest today the total information available is so complex and voluminous
as to require severe selection before any practical use can be made of it. That is what makes disinformation so
dangerous. And environmentalism has
become a frightening channel of disinformation. I.W.Parkins 7/2008 |
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GREAT AWAKENING? By Ivan W. Parkins Is environmentalism a third manifestation
of the Great Awakening phenomenon that American historians have
identified? The first, in the
eighteenth century, was mainly religious and educationally focused, a wave of
enthusiasm that contributed to America’s sense of identity and desire for
independence. The second, in the
nineteenth century, was religious and academic, and it contributed to the
anti-slavery movement. Now, Iain
Murray contends,” . . environmentalism [has] begun to replace liberal
Christianity as the Left’s motivating religious force.” He further asserts
that environmentalism, in the fashion of Martin Luther, values “faith” more
than good works. Murray’s book, “The Really Inconvenient
Truths,” carries the subtitle “Seven Environmental Catastrophes Liberals
Don’t Want You To Know About—Because They Helped Cause Them.” The first and most gross catastrophe is the
ban on DDT, with its huge, and continuing, toll of human lives, especially
among Earth’s poorest people. I had not remembered that a DDT ban was
enacted in Michigan the year that I moved here. That preceded the international ban by five
years. And, Dutch elm disease is a
continuing problem. Murray refers to research that shows
sexually mutilated and declining fish populations suffer far more from the
traces of birth-control chemicals in urban sewage than they do from
industrial wastes. Environmentalists
remain much more interested in attacking industry than in the real problem. One especially interesting passage in the
book describes the history of a natural wonder, identified, purchased, and
preserved (with public access) for more than two centuries. It is Natural Bridge in Virginia, and its
original “warden” was Thomas Jefferson. Not only is environmentalism now highly
organized, its top organizations pay their CEOs annual salaries ranging from
$125,000 to $700,000. Murray cites ten
such organizations with recently reported top salaries averaging just over
$200,000. Most significant of his criticisms is the
contention that environmentalist work and money is focused, not directly upon
protection of the environment, but indirectly, into lobbying and law suits
directing governments to behave in ways that the environmentalists favor,
largely towards socialism. Is environmentalism, today, a third Great
Awakening, or is it a larger edition of THE BIG SLEEP—confusing, corrupt, and
deadly? |
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ENVIRONMENTALISM THE NEW RELIGION OF THE LEFT The following series of articles
have been compiled to illustrate how the left has used environmentalism
through disinformation. Part Two |
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PARKINS POINTS TO PONDER: The First Amendment to our Constitution is
not what the First Congress proposed for that spot. Partisan divisions of Congress and the
Presidency in the second half of the twentieth century differed extremely
from those in the first half. Since 1930, no Republican President has
enjoyed a partisan congressional division as favorable as Clinton’s was in
1993-1994, but all other Democrat Presidents have fared better than Clinton. If the average Representative were to spend
1000 hours per year meeting face-to-face with individual constituents, it
would not be possible to spend 10 seconds with each constituent. In just 5 weeks of 2006, Israel lost
approximately twice (as a percentage of its population) as many soldiers in
Lebanon as our military fatalities in five years of the “War on Terror”. Just the increase of
violent deaths domestically, among American youths in the 1960’s and ‘70’s,
exceeded our combat fatalities in Vietnam. According to the World Health
Organization’s calculations of increased malaria deaths following the ban on
DDT, that policy has already been more deadly than Hitler’s “final solution”. The pension funds held by state and local
governments, and by corporations, for their employees exceed the “National
Debt”. None of the above is a secret, but none is
emphasized in the mass media. See
attached link for more
information.
American
Politics |
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ENERGY—DRILLING—CONGRESS By Ivan W. Parkins The price of energy is a secondary
problem, the real problem is how to assure an adequate supply. And, while prices may change suddenly and
substantially, due to reductions or increases of the supplies available in
the world, the supply upon which we can depend will only decline until we
produce more. Finally, there is no
painless and certain way to produce more and distribute it quickly. Meanwhile, and in spite of our great
national wealth, we cannot afford to continue sending hundreds of billions of
dollars abroad to pay for something vital to our economy that we could
produce at home. Other countries,
although they may value us as customers, are not unreasonable to resent
depleting their resources so that we can save ours. Conservation is necessary, and will help,
but our industries have been doing more with less energy for years; it’s
essential to their profitable operation.
The greatest conservation measures now available have to do with less
individual travel, and at lower speeds.
But less non-essential travel carries with it an implication of
reduced business for travel and tourist types of enterprise. And, population growth is also a factor. The chief way that we can get large
additional amounts of energy relatively quickly, using existing technology
and infrastructure, is additional drilling for gas and oil. For instance, the multi-billion dollar
Alaska pipeline is already being underused because of bans on additional
drilling. In this, as in other matters such as
school vouchers and various security issues, the positions that our
“liberals” take are actually reactionary.
They serve special interests
such as unions, predatory lawyers, and ideological cliques, rather
than the very evident and empirical interests of the United States. Such political factions are able to compete
in our politics, mostly as Democrats, because they have dominated our public
information system, academic and artistic as well as journalistic. They do not serve the justice, tranquility,
security, or economic welfare of America. The recent adjournment of Congress while
critical legislation is pending points to where in our government our phony
“liberals” have been especially successful.
And to why a major up-dating of our Constitution has become essential.
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LETTER TO THE EDITOR, The Morning Sun, 10/11/92 Much noise, but not much light, is being
focused upon the American economy. Slogans and epithets, such as
“trickle-down economics,” are more likely to mislead than to inform voters. Those who ridicule “trickle-down
economics” advocate that government tax the wealthy more heavily and
redistribute the money to likely consumers.
That approach has now had several trials in America, plus numerous and
more extreme applications abroad. Its chief beneficiaries have been the
politicians and bureaucrats who managed the redistribution systems. There is evidence that American wealth
is not moving rapidly enough into productive capital investments, i.e. that
it is not trickling down. But, that
seems to be due largely to government interferences, e.g. punitive threats
against lenders (sparked by the S & L crisis), taxes on capital gains,
and excessive environmental and product liabilities. The above impediments to productive
capital investments within the United States are the work (chiefly) of the
same political elements who ridicule “trickle-down economics.” The slack economic conditions abroad
also inhibit economic growth in America (Japan’s stock market hovers below 50
percent of its high, while ours is above 90 percent). But a lack of confidence, and reluctance to
spend the money they do have, among American consumers is probably the
largest contributor to stagnation in this country. Opinion polls show that most Americans
are more confident about their own futures than about America’s. Why?
How many of them know anything about national economic trends other
than what a few television celebrities and politicians tell them? The greatest trickle-down in our
economic system may be an information rather than a money problem. . |