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Ivan W.
Parkins |
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©Ivan W. Parkins 2008, 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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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 Failure
of the People’s House The
Republic in Danger |
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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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BETTER
THAN GROWING MONEY ON TREES? Given an Internal Revenue Code that
already defies the intellectual grasp of almost everyone, why not add to it
one huge delusional graft? Most people
recognize that growing money on trees takes a good deal of skill and a lot of
hard work, but how many know that it is not easy to do it with the Internal
Revenue Code? Indeed, it does seem to
be possible for at least a few to do just that. THE WALL STREET JOURNAL this morning,
October 13, 2008, provides what may be THE legendary October surprise, an
editorial “Obama’s 95% Illusion.” The
illusory part, according to the Journal’s account, is that much of what Obama
calls “tax cuts” is actually just welfare or transfer payments made via
changes in the tax code. The “money tree” part of this is my
translation. It is the unlikely
prospect that, even disguised as a mere change in our tax code, a grand move
toward socialism will produce a major improvement in the economic well-being
of most Americans. I.W. Parkins 10/08 |
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MY
EYES HAVE SEEN THE GLORY OF . . . .? Only a few years late, a New Century,
promised by the 1960s and ‘70s, is blossoming in America. Thanks to the Association of Community
Organizations for Reform Now and its former officer Obama, its many
congressional funders, and the generous oversight, or overlook, provided by
traditional mass media, this nation will be free again! The millennia of human struggle against
moldering ethical and legal concepts is nearing victory. Someday is here, and we have overcome! No mere “City on a Hill,” America, the
truly humane, will usher in a lasting and world-wide era of peace. Equality and justice will prevail. A new miracle of chemistry will lift the
toll of death from malaria for millions of black babies. (We’ve
already saved millions of birds.)
Dirty and degrading technologies will fade away—succeeded by tall and
attractive windmills. (The cost may be a moderate number splattered of
birds.) Everyone will have a home, and live in
the sunshine. A new Age of Enlightenment is dawning! The requisite voting of the 2008
elections has already begun in the United States of America.
I.W. Parkins 10/08 |
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VOTER REGISTRATION FRAUD? Although, I always thought my dog …?
I wonder how Bastiat is
voting, or haven’t the ACORN people added him to the roles yet? Bastiat is known for the
statement: government is that great
farce by which everyone contrives to live at the expense of everybody else. My retort would be:
government is an institution created by man to facilitate the sharing of
knowledge and skills, and to require respect of persons for one another. I.W. Parkins 1008 |
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THE 2008 ELECTION The following series of articles
concern voter fraud, deception and disinformation. Trademarks of the Democrat Party? |
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Letter to: THE WALL STREET
JOURNAL, September 6, 2008 (not published) Professor Alan Brinkley’s THE
PARTY’S OVER, featured in WEEKEND JOURNAL, September 6-7, deserves a high
grade for the facts and trends summarized and a poor mark for the related
facts and trends neglected. Among the neglected are: In 1956 President Eisenhower,
reelected in a landslide, became the first President in American history to
have won office with a popular majority and to face a new Congress controlled
by the other party. The traditional partisan unity
of the three elected branches continued after that for Democrat Presidents
who won popular majorities, but for none of the several Republicans
(including landslide winners Nixon ‘72 and Reagan’ 84) – until George W. Bush
in 2004. Democrat Carter, winner by
50.1% in ’76, got larger congressional majorities, both houses, than any
Republican President has ever had.
Clinton, winner in ’92 with 43% of the popular vote, got larger
congressional majorities (’93-94) than any Republican President has had since
the 1920s. Clinton was also
distinguished by becoming the third President, since popular election of
Electors became common, to win two terms without a popular majority either
time. Since Franklin Roosevelt
entered the Presidency, Congress has shared the party of Republican
Presidents in only six years, and all of those were by narrow margins. My conclusions: without great
and somewhat balanced attention to both sides, as in most presidential races,
the party favored by the media of information, academic as well as
journalistic, dominates. Thus, the
House is now practically a Democrat precinct; the Senate leans Democrat;
Presidents, especially popular ones, are soon greatly diminished in office. I.W. Parkins, 90608 |
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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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VERY DANGEROUS PERSONS By Ivan W. Parkins Hitler was a very dangerous
person. He was an outspoken racist and
militarist; he was clearly responsible for death camps and military
operations that killed several tens of millions. And, he is not credited with any sign of
regretting those outcomes. So, how
would he feel if he could know that others, mostly anti-racist and
anti-militarist, have rivaled, perhaps exceeded, his genocides? And, their “accomplishment” is not even
widely noticed. That’s history. Our problem is do we now want people who
appear to be similar to those who secured the ban on DDT to control the
World’s largest economy and most powerful government? Certainly they will not emulate
Hitler. But, as the horrendous toll
from the DDT ban should warn us, the “good deeds” born of amateurish
enthusiasms are not guaranteed to have beautiful consequences. I fear Obama and his enthusiastic
following, for much the same reason that I insist we should remember to
compare Rachel Carson and her following with Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot as
Very Dangerous. Hitler promised and
produced change, much of it what he intended.
Carson’s most significant result was no doubt unintended. One reason for favoring leaders with
substantial records of service is that they are seldom Very Dangerous. They try to base changes upon the best of
what we have already. I spent the 1960s-“70s on college campuses in Florida,
North Carolina, and Michigan. I began
as a “liberal” Democrat and ended as a Republican, mostly because I began to
see many of my colleagues and students as dangerous people. In that period, there was an obvious
shift of political opinions from an historical basis to great emphasis upon
“relevance.” The latter being mostly a
matter of matching with the mass media, especially television. And, when that sort of emphasis is combined
with events by which white people, who pride themselves on their hatred of
racism, can then fail to acknowledge clearly, acts that contributed heavily
to the malaria deaths of millions of black babies, there is reason to fear
for our republic. It is too late for my life to be greatly
affected by the coming elections, but I will leave progeny. And I deeply
desire that they and their America will serve one another at least as well as
I and my America have. I will vote for John McCain and
Republicans. |