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Ivan W.
Parkins |
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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 Disassemble
the House The
Political Long View Media
Bias Book
Reviews War
and Their Costs Broken
Congress Dividing
America Dividing
America, Part two Disinformation,
Liberal Ideology The
Supreme Court and Judiciary Environmentalism
The
Presidency, Part One The
Presidency, Part Two |
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The attached letter to the editor was
written 37 years ago in response to an article regarding prospects for
revolution. LETTER TO THE EDITOR, University of Chicago Magazine, Nov/Dec 1971: To The Editor: Has
the rebellion of youth really been revolutionary in nature? My question
is not meant to discredit Ralph W. Conant, whose article [“The Prospects for
Revolution,” May/June ‘71] appears to be a competent and rational summary of
events from the prevailing academic viewpoint. I aim to challenge the
rationale, which my colleagues have made conventional. Their interpretation
of youth’s rebellion is, I contend, narrow, self-serving, and
inadequate. Among other things, calling the rebellion revolutionary
suggests that it moves with the current of history. Does it? May
it not be counterrevolutionary? The counter posing
of youthful protesters and the greater part of America’s institutional
leadership need not imply that youth is free of parochial attitudes.
When Conant refers to what “youth saw” he seems to imply that the vision of
youth was especially clear, but the youths in question were much too old to
be untouched by social affectations. Thus it may have been the specific
nature of their biases, which distinguished them. Since rebellion has
been centered in our most prestigious institutions and departments of higher
learning, it is convenient for academics to believe that the rebels have been
especially perceptive. A contrary view would almost certainly raise
questions about the quality of higher education. Are protesting
students speaking with incisive candor, or do they mouth the cant of a
divergent subculture? Do they speak primarily for a movement of their
own, or as “nouveaux savants” anxious to proclaim their membership in a
privileged class whose mature members are more discrete? Are they
actually opposing conspicuous consumption, or is their education itself a
socially accepted waste? Is the depth of their concern for the rights
of disadvantaged minorities to be measured by their own testimony, or by
their inclination to mix defense of those rights with such trivia as long
hair and pot? Does the appeal of the McCarthy and Lindsay type of
leader rest upon records of service, or upon reasonable anticipation of
performance, or is it chiefly a matter of style? Questions about
student life styles and curriculum requirements, as well as those about
Communists on campus, strike me as being peripheral in significance.
The key questions have to do with the nature and role of liberal education in
a society where leisure and information are abundant. Should we
anticipate that thinking of the most creative and humane sort will “trickle
down” only from a few cultivated minds, or have the numerous and varied
people who occupy the remainder of society major contributions to make? Generation gaps and alienation are commonly
used to describe the division between youths, especially those educated in
the liberal arts departments of our leading colleges and universities, and
the political leaders and private citizens who are sometimes identified as
the silent majority. It is a crucial part of my case that, while the
latter group have made numerous concessions to reconcile protesting youth,
the protesters have utilized everything from outlandish dress and obnoxious
language to planned insults and acts of destruction to assure that the gap
remained, a gap they view as the result of an intellectual and moral lag in
the rest of society. To compromise would therefore be degrading. In March of 1968,
Senator Fulbright interrupted Secretary of State Rusk with the admonition
that the senators needed no lectures on patriotism but that they were
concerned about the “pigheadedness” which seemed to guide American policy.
Usually, men of Fulbright’s standing manage, as befits their advanced
achievements in intellectual style, to be more circumspect. The
Senator’s outburst was significant. From the protest viewpoint, the
division in America has been between the pig heads who react to conventional
symbols of patriotism and piety and those discerning individuals who perceive
and pursue humane values. That estimate of America’s social division is
now dramatized in the CBS program “All in the Family.” Television
deserves far more attention in explanations of the youth rebellion than
Conant gave to it in his article. How else could a burgeoning youth
movement have learned so quickly to identify its leaders, its issues, and its
most effective tactics? Where else have persons of liberal learning
expressed themselves so freely to such wide audiences as they have in the
news and public affairs programs of television? Freedom, especially freedom of verbal
expression, has been a major issue of the rebellion. Is a laissez faire
approach to verbal expression inherently more valid than a similar approach
to business enterprise? May not both have acquired their aura of
sanctity as political objectives of privileged groups? Does unlimited
freedom for intellectuals to attack the symbols by means of which less
articulate people communicate contribute to knowledge and communication, or
does it amount to a unilateral privilege of aggression? I suggest that
the readiness with which the more articulate professions deny that social
harm and personal injuries result from unbridled use of language is as crass
a bit of hypocrisy as any elite has ever advanced in rationalizing its own
privileges…. |
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CONGRESS IS THE CRISIS By Ivan W. Parkins The inability of Congress to resolve
itself into a body that can distinguish quickly between photo ops and a
crisis, and to respond to the latter appropriately, should produce a public
demand for an end to Congress, as we have known it. The world-wide reach and velocity of
communications, economic transactions, and violent attacks now requires
political responses that are many times faster than those of two centuries
ago. Unfortunately, the authors of our
Constitution, in their foresight regarding its change, seem not to have
contemplated that the very structure of Congress itself might be what most
required overhaul. The amending
process is unduly, but not totally, dependent upon Congress. More than half a century ago, when I
first suggested to young college students a reconstruction of Congress, some
of them questioned the difficulty of any such change. I replied, then, that I did not expect it
to become possible soon, but thought that by the end of the twentieth century
we would face a situation in which either the American people would force a
reconstitution of Congress or Congress would destroy the nation as we had
known it. Obviously, I was impatient,
but recent events lead me to believe that I erred by only a decade. Few things were more clear in 1787-9 than that the ‘Framers’ expected the
Representatives to live in active association with their constituents. Now, Representatives live, mostly, in
Washington and contact their constituents chiefly thru aides and commercial
media. In that, they are much like
Senators and Presidents. Furthermore, all three are chosen by similar
processes of election. Regarding the
original Constitution’s provisions for separation and balance, little except
confusion remains. And, Presidents,
being much more in the media/public eye, are arguably closer to the people
than Representatives are. What our Founding Fathers borrowed and
invented has been allowed to become a musty monument to some distinguished
ideas. It now serves neither the ideal
of a People’s Government nor the more urgent needs of a Great Nation. . |
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……...More on the Bailout A Congressperson has referred to the “Bailout” as a bag of dung left on
the peoples' steps. In fact, the
federal government (all elective branches) has promoted sub-prime mortgages
since at least 1977, often by popular means.
Clearly, there have been abuses. Fed Chairman Greenspan warned of the
danger publicly several years ago.
Now the American and World economies are in danger. All Members of Congress are part of the
crew; it does not become them to seek to be first in the life-boats. |
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MUST OUR POLITICAL PROCESSES BE SO
COMPLEX? More on the Bailout Assuming that all of
the more than four hundred pages (400 pages) that Congress added to the
bailout are worthwhile, was there a real need to add them to the President’s
three-page (3 page) emergency request?
Why not halt the meltdown quickly and get to the other items later? I know, many Members were
certain that their best opportunity for getting their favorite ideas into law
was to hold the entire economy at risk.
What that delay will cost us will take a long time to calculate, but
it could easily outdo any benefits.
It’s a little like extortion, and the technique helps to produce many
of our worst laws. Furthermore, it is
so confusing that it makes any accurate assessment of credits or blame almost
impossible. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Being a first-time home owner
involves quite a bit of responsibility beyond the mortgage, as one of my
daughters is discovering. - - - - - - - - - - Regulation and deregulation
are results of laws enacted by Congress.
Since FDR the Democrats have had far more and larger majorities in
Congress than Republicans have had. At
no time while he was Speaker did Newt Gingrich have as large a partisan
majority in the House as Nancy Pelosi now has. - - - - - - - - It is too little noticed that,
besides the many universities, hospitals, and libraries, contributed by past
“plutocrats,” they have contributed heavily to the preservation of natural
areas prior to their public acquisition. The Great Smokey Mountain National
Park, The Pisgah National Forest
(including Linville Gorge Wilderness), and Grand Teton National Park are a
few that I have enjoyed. |
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MESSY POLITICS Parallels to the Nazi Regime? Germany in the early 1930s was in deep economic
trouble and political turmoil. Hitler,
by his own account, had learned from the failed coup of 1923 that only by a
slower and (almost) legal approach was he likely to gain control. Increasing following by extensive youth
programs and by appeals to a variety of the disaffected became the Nazi
approach. Professor Herman Finer wrote
that “The Middle class,” including “alienated
intellectuals- teachers, journalists, artists” were the backbone of Hitler’s
following. The large Nazi vote (There was
no majority.) prompted President Hindenberg to invite Hitler into the
cabinet. Hitler refused anything except the Chancellorship. He got that
in1933. Most, and the worst, of his
crimes came later. -I.W. Parkins 1008 |
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WHAT IS HAPPENING TO
AMERICA? By Ivan W. Parkins America is facing a revolution, by
mostly legal and peaceful means. By
revolution I mean a replacement of the old elite by a new one. To accomplish that, the old elite must be
discredited and driven from power. Actually, America’s old
industrial/financial elite, powerful in the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries, has been yielding ground for a century. The New Deal weakened it substantially at
first, but WWII and the successes of our huge armament production won it a
reprieve. That was followed by the
rebuilding of most of our former allies and enemies. Several decades of success in competition
with the Soviet Union, plus our own growing prosperity, further inoculated
the old elite against change. Meanwhile however, an old element of
American society was benefiting from huge investments of both public and
private money. Communication, once a
hireling and servant of larger social organs, was gaining vast influence in
its own right. Tens of thousands of
prosperous writers, broadcasters, professors, and actors, plus even greater
numbers of college students and new grads were increasingly able to
communicate with one another. Added to unionized public school teachers and
government bureaucrats, they were becoming a political phalanx to which
industry and finance related more as client or tenant than as master. Only the American Presidency retained
enough of its traditional popular following and vigor to defy the new elite,
an elite with more legal immunities than the old one ever had. And, the Presidents who have recently won
by the largest popular margins have had to face particularly bitter and
damaging mass media assaults upon their persons and their powers. If the intellectual elite can now
capture this nation’s chief executive office with a candidate little
encumbered by past public commitments, America’s future may indeed take a new
turn—to what? |
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THE REPUBLIC IN DANGER Can the
“information Elite” succeed in it’s disinformation plan to gain power? |