Today the Albuquerque Journal devotes two full pages to "Letters to the Editor." It’s a trend, newspapers giving readers more space to express themselves.
Radio call in shows, too, have exploded in recent years.
Further, the home computer and Internet have combined to make it possible for the average Joe to record his opinion in cyberspace.
Is it possible that print, radio and the Internet are giving citizens greater opportunities to put in their "two cents" at exactly the same time citizens are losing real power over government to Big Money?
I would say "yes." And I fear the powers-that-be are offering self-expression as a substitute for democracy.
Today’s Associated Press story on the mishandling of the Koran by Americans quotes, relies upon, the Pentagon, including Brig. General Jay Hood, commander at Guantanamo. The Pentagon said it found five such instances, but could not substantiate a report that the Islamic holy book was thrown into a toilet.
What impresses me here is what the story does not include.
There is no mention of Secretary Rumsfeld’s obfuscations about why our soldiers in Iraq lacked proper armor on certain vehicles.
There is no mention that when supporters of the Iraq War, mind you, ask why he embarked on the adventure with insufficient troops, he routinely answers with a patently false story - that he gave the generals what they asked for. (Yes, he did, after firing those who said we would need more boots on the ground.)
There is no mention of the Pentagon’s lies to Pat Tillman’s family. He’s the professional football player who was killed in Afghanistan by friendly fire, something the Pentagon didn’t think the Tillmans or the nation deserved to know.
And, of course, ther is no suggestion that the Pentagon lies routinely.
Now you cannot blame the reporter for these omissions. He cannot nor can any reporter tell the whole story in every report. That would produce a daily newspaper as heavy as the Encyclopedia Britannica.
Lacking that background, however, the AP story in question probably leaves the average reader with the impression that the Pentagon is an authority here rather than a biased participant given to lying.
Which, come to think of it, is not just a weakness of journalism. A respect for authority is fundamental – which is to say, deeper than politics. Nor is it exclusive to the political right. No, much of the left doesn’t differ on authority; it merely substitutes left wing for right wing idols.
What follows is my Albuquerque Tribune column published today, Thursday, May 26, 2005:
SORE WINNER
My left arm gave me conniptions until I spurned a doc’s knife and found another healer.
By Arthur Alpert
Growing up Jewish, I learned – no, I knew - that doctors were gods and their medicine, beyond question. No more – in regaining my left arm, I have just lost that faith.
Two years ago, you see, the shoulder rebelled, perhaps because of decades of pitching softball. Whatever the cause, I suffered intermittent world-class pain. Even fitting my arm into the sleeve of a sport jacket made wince and I couldn’t wield the back brush in the tub.
A medical doctor helpfully ruled out rotator cuff. MRI was next, but the surgeon who scanned the pictures furrowed his brow and said he’d just need to "get in there."
As the operation neared, I worried. Natural-born cowardice, yes, but also because they said no local anesthesia. Gulp! They would deaden all of me.
Still, I wanted the pain gone.
With two days to go, I revisited the surgeon. Will I regain normal function? Not certain. Recuperation? Three months in a sling, minimally. Hmm. No guarantees. Dependency, too. I called it off.
Ever since, I’ve babied the arm, learning to don a blazer gingerly and to use my right to pick up the pitcher of apple juice and clean the mirror after shaving.
But I’m getting older and if I don’t use my body I’ll lose it. I need exercise. Unfortunately, I hate exercise. I love competition though. I could enjoy racquetball or basketball (only incidentally aerobic) if I had my arm back.
Enter buddy Mike Santullo of talk radio fame. St. Mike, as I’ll henceforth address him, sends me to his acupuncturist-chiropractor.
I find Dr. Der-Shyun Liu in a drab former residence on San Mateo near Constitution. His Taiwanese accent is thick but he’s friendly, smiles a lot, so I follow him into a dark room featuring electronic gadgets and wall charts. Lab décor by Boris Karloff?
Standing behind me, Dr. Liu wields a flame. Suddenly, my shoulder is wearing seven glasses suctioned on.
"First, we will get rid of the pain," he says. Well, somebody’s confident.
When he removes the beer steins my shoulder is warm. He next employs electrified acupuncture. Having inserted needles into my shoulder, Dr. Liu ties them to a machine so they rotate in a "massage." Twenty minutes later, he hands me the needles. "Souvenir." Finally, briefly, he uses ultrasound on the joint.
I stand and move my arm. Up, down, backward. There’s no pain. No pain!
Dr. Liu tells me to test the shoulder by playing ball. What? Play, he insists. If it hurts, he says, "you will tell me where and I’ll fix it."
I hit the gym. Accustomed to favoring the arm, I’m afraid but eventually shoot baskets. My ego writhes in pain – I cannot make a shot - but the shoulder holds up.
I’ve since had three identical treatments and shot around twice more. The arm’s weak but not painful. Dr. Liu says he reduced the inflammation of bursitis and tendonitis, sending blood and oxygen to the shoulder.
So why did I dilly-dally so long? That childhood reverence for Western medicine blinded me.
And why did my caring, skilled MDs think "knife" first? I guess their vision, too, is narrow.
Not Dr. Liu, not judging from the anatomical charts on his office walls – both Chinese and Western. He has a wide-angled lens.
Alpert is a semi-retired journalist in Albuquerque. Email him at: ArthurAlpert@swcp.com. His column runs the fourth Thursday of the month.
The New York Times’ daily email of its major stories comes organized by category - national, international, business, sports, arts, editorial and such.
Yesterday’s report that Genentech has come up with a promising drug to fight macular degeneration – the leading cause of blindness for older Americans - was classified under the "business" rubric.
Thus does the Times, innocently I suspect, reflect our society and comment on its values.
Gloria Borger, a sharp political reporter, has joined CBS News and is making the transition from print (and TV talk shows like Washington Week) to reporting for network TV. So she cannot be held totally responsible, I think, for the awful story she did on tonight's CBS Evening News. But awful it was.
Borger reported on a Washington dinner in support of Tom DeLay, telling us it was a sign that he would fight hard to survive his troubles. Fine.
The piece featured a rousing defense of DeLay, however, by lobbyist Bob Livingston. That Bob Livingston? Yes, the former Republican House member from Louisiana who quit under fire when it was revealed he was an adulterer. I'm not urging that Borger lead the story, "Adulterer defends DeLay," but viewers deserved to know he had his own ethical problems.
Borger's story also included a soundbite in which DeLay took credit for, among other things, balancing the budget. I kid you not. That fantasy was broadcast in all its virginal purity; no context and no correction.
Those are details. Here's what's more important - Borger used the word "conservative" more than once to describe the assembled forces. I don't doubt there were some conservatives in the room, but she would have done better to say "DeLay supporters." For if the issue was DeLay's "conservative" political positions, there would be no need for the dinner; he's under the gun because there's evidence suggesting he's a slime - he's twice been slapped on his wrist on ethics issues by fellow Republicans, remember - or a criminal.
Which brings us to the real failure - what the story didn't say. DeLay and his friends put on this dinner to change the subject, to move the focus from ethics and possible criminality to ideology and politics. (Smart politics, I give them that.)
Borger never got close to that fair and accurate evaluation, thereby missing an
opportunity to educate the electorate.
Let me shelve journalism today to tell you about last week's "GI Jive" show at the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque. Described as "a musical tribute to our war veterans. it featured the New MexiChords and guest singers performing a host of World War II songs. They were fine. The only problem was the patriotism.
After intermission, you see, they played and sang the anthems of the military branches. US Army, Navy and Air Force veterans in the audience were asked to stand for "our" music. I stood. Then, "This is Our Country" and finally, inevitably, "God Bless America."
Younger readers may not understand the emotions I felt, that everybody my age and older must have felt. Pride. Respect for those who sacrificed their lives and sorrow, too, of course. I was on the verge of tears, but I fought hard against them and everything I felt, because my mind warned that they were manipulating me.
What’s my problem? The White House is using patriotism, the World War II brand, to cover a murderous foreign policy that should shame Americans and using that foreign policy to distract from domestic policy that serves to make the powerful more so. And I fear the New MexiChords innocently served that nefarious purpose.
Most of them would disagree, though, which leads to a tough question – what’s patriotism? The majority would answer that it’s love of country and flag, a love best expressed by those who give their lives.
I do not totally disagree, but I figure there’s a higher expression of patriotism. It involves fighting for what makes our nation special, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and the potential they offer of a just society. Which means - when the nation embarks on wars of aggression, domestic policies that subvert democracy and the freedoms spelled out in the Bill of Rights – dissent.
That’s a minority definition of patriotism, no doubt. I wonder how they teach it in the public schools.
For what it is worth:
I will appear, briefly, on Chnanel 5's "In Focus" program, hosted by Kate Nelson, this Friday, May 13, at 8:30 PM.
The program, I am told, will be about how technology - including blogs, I gather, is affecting Americans' views of the news.
Abu Ghraib is playing out as we might have expected. A few non-coms, at the bottom of the hierarchy, are going to jail or will. The only high-ranking officer demoted is a woman from the National Guard. The White House attorney who scorned the Geneva Accords was promoted to the Justice Department. The Secretary of Defense and his top Pentagon aides, who encouraged the outrages in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, continue to man their posts.
As an American, I shake my head sadly at this terrible evidence that we, too, can torture. Can rationalize torture. Can find reasons of state to justify our inhumanity to other men.
I’m sure many Americans share my disappointment, but hardly all.
A lot of Americans believe Abu Ghraib is OK because of 9/11. Many blame the "liberal press" for reporting it.
I react as I do because I'm a skeptic, burdened by History’s huge, repeated cruelties in the name of God and truth and the good. And worse yet, the knowledge I am capable of it, too.
They react as people of faith. Their faith goes to the nation, the flag, the armed forces, their morality, sometimes their religion.
I offer this as something to ponder the next time the Pope or John Leo or an idiot neighbor explains that "relativism" is a great danger.
PS Journalism is born of 18th century rationalism, which honors skepticism.
That is the source of some of the distrust of the press these days – in this age of faith, believers are reacting against stories based on skepticism. Not the only reason, of course.
In cataloguing the sins of the press, I tend to overlook laziness. Laziness is why reporters and editors use shorthand rather than seek the exact word or phrase.
In today’s New York Times, for example, there is a story headlined,"
Ad War Heats Up in the Maneuvering on Judicial Picks."
Reporter David Kirkpatrick tells us in his lead:
"A conservative advocacy group began broadcasting
commercials Monday supporting two of President Bush's blocked judicial
nominees, and drew an immediate rebuttal from liberal opponents."
Conservative? Liberal? OK, you will justify those descriptions lower down, won’t you?
Kirkpatrick never does that with "Progress for America," the so-called conservative group. Like, who’s the boss? Who belongs? Where does the dough come from?
He describes the other group, People for the American Way, as liberal. True, if a bit terse.
Does this make Kirkpatrick a right-winger? No. A bad person? No. A bad reporter? Well, that would be jumping to a big conclusion on too little evidence.
But I do not know the organization "Progress for America." Is it political or judicial, conservative, neo-con or libertarian? (Once again, everything to the right of center is "conservative" in the impoverished intellecutal world of Establishment journalism.) Is it a real organization or a front, like the "senior" organizations founded by Richard Viguerie.
If he does know, he should have shared the information. If not, he’s a bit lazy. And so was the editor who did not question the shorthand.
The Albuquerque Journal has found another right-wing think tank guy to add to its Op-Ed pages. He's Victor David Hanson of the Hoover Institution.
Hanson's column today defends President Bush's nomination of John Bolton as US ambassador to the UN. His defense is 1) that Bolton's lack of couresy should be no disqualifcation and 2) that Democrats opposing Bolton (Sens. Boxer, Biden and Dodd are cited) are hypocritical.
This tells me that he is intellectually dishonest.
First, because the oppostion to Bolton does not arise becvause he is a boor. Rather, it's because of reports that he tried to scare intelligence professionals into changing their recommendations to accord with his political desires.
Secondly, the reason the nomination is in trouble is not Democrats, hypocritical or not. It's Republicans on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, where they have a majority, remember?
Op-Ed editors need conservatives and neos and all kinds of right-wing views, no doubt. I don't think they need more partisans pretneding otherwise, though.
When I write my newspaper columns, I question myself - am I searching for the truth of a situation or to score points for left-wing Democrats?
Based on today's column, Hanson doesn't waste time that way.
The Sunday morning talk shows included more discussion of President Bush's proposals for Social Security.
As I read and listen to the debate, what strikes me most powerfully is neither ideology nor politics. Perhaps because I grew up in decades heavily influenced by Freud, Bush's desire to destroy Social Security leads me to consider him psychologically.
I don't think Bush is cynical, you see, but truly believes it's sensible to replace the existing "collective" or "societal" program with a do-it-yourself "ownership society" approach.
Now if I were he, thinking along those lines, I would hesitate. After all, I would say to myself, I was born rich. Should I push everybody else to risk their dough in the markets, when I grew up prvileged, risk-free?
But W. doesn't hestitate. Meaning, I think, that he doesn't doubt. Why not? Because he found God. However, the W. who lucked out that way was an immature, ignorant and neurotic (e.g. his big love-hate relationship with Dad) young man.
Conclusion? He never had to grow up, thanks to being born again.
OK. This is an admittedly amateur analysis, but it helps explain Iraq and lots of other elements in his Presidency. I think of it not as a substitute for analysis of
his political ideology, but as what underlies that - what enables him to think and act with such strength and so childishly.