{Above Title refers to The Week that...i.e. fall '90}
It warms Z heart of a Cavalier (class of '76) to see my old school cresting the gridiron wave this week without having sacrificed it's INTEGRITY to do it, as was threatened back in my day, to make the program just another farm league team for the pro's with players who masquerade as "students" (to their honor, the whole senior squad quit in protest, back then... WHO Wa HOO!)
Another conflagration taking place in the middle seventies which ultimately reaffirmed America's commitment to integrity and Jeffersonian ideals was Watergate. Not the sordid affair exposing treason and tyranny in the White House, but the constitutional process which removed it and restored faith to the people that the system worked! If an administration abused power, tumbling down the abyss towards a Dictatorship, the countervailing parts of a TRI-PART-ITE government would enforce constitutional restraints and expose high crimes & misdemeanors to the scrutiny of the public through an un-fettered "Press".
That faith engendered the confidence in our system of government which allowed the presumption that the country was in "good hands" and could be left to advance America and the world towards a just, humane system in as short order as possible. I, for instance concentrated on more subtle sources of misery and woe through a B.S. degree in Chemistry and subsequent graduate work in spectroscopy, hoping to advance understanding of medical maladies (including, perhaps eventually an understanding of why people become insane enough to kill unnecessarily, where as the major funding of late has concentrated on how to do it more efficiently, eg. armaments research).
The country has of late again found the validity of it's government called into question. The Iran/Contra affair bears some similarity to the last elected Republican administration's foibles, and may in fact obscure many more, but this time the process seems stymied and caricatured. The beginning of problems may have occurred in the late seventies when the Television networks and some major newspapers (notably the New York Times) changed hands to more corporate leaning interests, which demoted the importance of news integrity and claimed that INFORMATION (on which democracy depends to make competent decisions) had no more inherent value than any other "commodity" which might be promoted to sell the paper/network ratings!
The drift away from responsible journalism was given a quantum kick with the ascendancy of the Reagan-Casey Bush league in 1981. in that year two sea changes occurred in the American Information Industry. The anti intellectual bent and apparent lack of trust in the people which Nixon's most classified administration in history had exhibited, returned with a vengeance. Under cover of "deregulation" of the networks the licensing procedure was fundamentally altered. Where as, since the issue-ence of access to airwaves, television stations had been required to accede to a code promulgating some attempt to report news "in the public interest", this was now completely dropped. In other words, the assumption that our newscasts would present both sides of a (say political) story in order to convey the whole truth was from that point on, History! (Most people know that propaganda can deceive without telling any BIG LIES - merely emphasizing select facts while ignoring others works an efficiently subtle fiction.)
The concern lies not only in blatant manipulation through biased management reflecting multi-national corporate interests over the common good, but the transformation of America's information base into a "ratings slave"! The problem here, of course is the psychological tendency to associate bad news with the bearer of such! We subsequently saw the level of reporting take a nose dive, particularly in areas which might "depress" the viewer, and therefore the ratings! For instance, we applauded the "free lunch" program of cutting taxes while doubling Defence spending believing this would balance the budget! The gullibility made easy since all we had to do to ignore troublesome warnings from responsible economists was turn the channel! This insured that in short order all one could see was the laffer-able curve Voodoo brand (remember how George Bush at first criticized, but then sold out to such fiscal irresponsibility ? Thus demonstrating the anything for power tendency of the Republican right).
The second major factor which subverted truth not palatable to the "powers that be" in 1981 was the level of Intelligence involvement. Now, there probably is a certain minimum role for surveillance of information channels, say for weeding out foreign propaganda or "blow-back" from our own (some screening of true security matters is legitimate); however, given the traditional zealous nature of these services, any informed person presumes that the level is already adequate without any official presence. The Casey type mentality of "ends justifying means" was given too free a reign when they were formally allowed into the networks to "safeguard american security". The insidious nature of the change consists in the emphasis possible when a very small number of observers of the process is enabled through increased numbers and official sanction to manipulate the expression of information. It seems highly improbable for instance, that the pre - 1981 media would have overlooked the amazing timing of our sudden need to save the island state of Grenada (as opposed to merely evacuating the Medical students) from it's internal havoc, given our previous lack of concern and subsequent acquiescence in the more significant troubles in Haiti, which "just by happenstance" was required within 36 hours of 241 Marines being blown to bits in Beirut!! The truly deserved Public Relations damage to the administration was never fully assessed and assimilated through this "sleight of hand" policy. The fruits of sweeping problems under the rug are now surfacing in the budget mess and Saddam's empowerment through lack of any peace process in the Middle East (one might note that when one ignores moderates, one empowers radicals).
A definite dampening occurs on the checks and balances dynamic of democracy when the loyal opposition's objections no longer reverberate beyond the beltway through political abuse of executive power.
Another mysterious aspect of the "80's Media" (which hasn't recovered much since January) seems to be the truth - numbing quest for mediocrity and avoidance of any controversial matters, verging on duplicity with administration corruption (alleged, of course). As opposed to the presumed journalistic function of not just regurgitating any pablum the administration presents as the "line of the day" (conveniently packaged for sound bite management), but first investigating the validity of stated claims; they have usually presented anything mouthed as if it had come down from Mt. Sinai! This "Profile in Gutlessness" has allowed extreme partisan hacks like Lee Atwater to character assassinate any potential threat to the status quo mythology as so shamelessly demonstrated against Mr. Mondale and Mr. Dukakis. In fact the "Duke of Integrity"'s major "blunder" (if you consider it such) was that he presumed the National Press/Media was going to point up the lies, exaggerations and mis-representations heaved at him, but it never happened! One of many victims of putting too much faith in the political process/ functionings projected up to the national level in the 80's.
The major failure of the '88 election, however was not the Party of Jefferson's reluctance to lower itself to the G.O.P. (Greed Oiled Party?) level of deception so much as the failure of our system of government (unlike in the seventies) to abide by constitutional processes (made ever so much easier given the afore mentioned muzzling tactics). This failure seems centered in the lack of oversight and counter balance to any administration which can pack the federal benches to it's liking and, more insidiously, which presumes the right to abuse the "JUSTICE" department so as to squelch any investigations which reach too close to partisan crimes and cover ups! The Ed Meese era set this tone. Amongst the plethora of questionable actions taken, or not taken by this caricature of a JUST JUSTICE Minister, the most obvious miscarriage of his duties known yet was the three (3) day hiatus from F.B.I. scrutiny which any truthful investigation of potential Impeachment matters would not have allowed ("hurry up now Ollie! We have to assemble a believable deception in 72 hours!"). The fact of the matter seems to be, not that Reagan (and his script-writers, the real presidency for eight years) was guiltless in Iran/Contra, but that the process has been sidetracked and "spooked" into a blanket of "security secrets". The investigations by a true Patriot, Mr. Walsh have dragged on over the election season (partly because of immunity grant complications necessitated by the Democratic Congress attempting to get at some truth in a timely manner), as legal maneuvering of the most expensive order can delay, demonstrating too succinctly that justice delayed IS justice denied (one wonders how the voting might have gone if all that has and will come out were available before decisions had to be made cf. 1972!). The goading factor in Watergate after all wasn't so much the slow wheels of justice as a "press/media" which actively searched for explanations instead of ignoring them!
I do not claim to know what this most classified regime since Nixon's refuses to tell us; however, I know that what truly restored FAITH in the American System wasn't slippery Dick's last Helicopter ride out of town, but consisted in the Constitutional house cleaning of tyrannical operations like the "plumbers" and other "extra constitutional" abuses of power, like Casey's "off-the-shelf" private SS - type group envisioned to pull "end runs" around the country's Government of Laws! This was accomplished by the Frank Church commission, a group of men above reproach who performed their task with Integrity and left the less gullible satisfied that they could strive to do their best for an America which valued fairness over power-lust avarice (to coin a vice?).
Such a commission seems necessary to any who've noticed that every lead the special prosecutor uncovers (such as Mr. Gomez who seems to want to speak la verdad) ends up at the blank wall erected through GOP "Intelligence"/GOP "Justice" duplicity in claiming that a defendant's right to justify his actions would release document "secrets" and that therefore all such cases must be dropped forthwith, before they lead to the political heads which may certainly be guilty! This most problematical Catch-22 is patterned in Ollie (I'd follow that fuhrer up any treasonous mountain) North's trial; which, seems to get so little attention from the current "Don't think, Be happy" network promulgated news "philosophy".
Another disturbing and most hypocritical example of media duplicity surrounds the allegations of Senator John Kerry in his drug corruption hearings which should have set off investigations in any free press/media of major proportions. During Iran/Contra and before the elections I concentrated on the matters at hand, presuming there must not have been much to such "wild accusations" (since the media didn't report big on it, I still had some faith in the networks). Later, I was able to take time for reading a book filled with amazing "coincidences" between Bush's CIA liaison, Dewey Clarridge and an apparent operative in Central America, John Hull which seem to imply a trade involving Contra Guns heading south in return for COCAINE flowing north! This book, Out of Control by Leslie Cockburn (formerly of CBS news) was quite fully documented and left this reader with some grave doubts as to the extent that all skeletons have been exposed in regard to how far Reagan - Casey - Bush went to deceive the American People into thinking that the Nicaraguans funded their own Death Squads !(When an organization kills more civilians than combatants, can they honestly be considered "freedom fighters"?)
To acknowledge another major source and recommend a deeper comprehension of the shortcomings in our media I hereby plug Mark Hertzgaard's On Bended Knee. I point out these troubling facts not to tear down, but in the spirit of the Gadfly, to sting an overly complacent society beast towards a direction in front of it (ie. to make PROGRESS)! I fervently hope that our national purpose can overcome the illusionary nostalgia for the "simpler america" and world which simple does not exist! May the detour from National Honor beginning with the un - prosecuted murders of the Four Nuns in El Salvador end with our re-commitment to the rule of law through a bipartisan commission and Justice for the Bush's era variation!
(Are Eight Fathers/Priests butchered fulfillment
of "kinder, gentler" Death Squads?...........
...........................................Lord Forbid.)