Thursday, December 31, 2009
ESPECIALLY IRRITATING TV COMMERCIALS
A topic like “Irritating TV Commercials” certainly conjures up a lot of images in our heads. We think of those advertisements for remedies for hemorrhoid ailments, feminine hygiene, and erectile dysfunction to which we are repeatedly and unwillingly exposed, sometimes indelicately. But there are others that are irritating, yet bring a smile almost daily.
Those that may provoke a smile are some of those informative health information spots, and especially the scintillating lady doctor who enthusiastically and graphically describes symptoms and cures for various intimate and private diseases. These are placed during the noon newscast, of course. The incongruity of having lunch while watching and listening to these graphic descriptions and frank advice overwhelms one’s wry sense of humor.
There are many others, not so funny, which we might cite. Those repetitive and crazy car commercials are irritating. Some dramatizations become old rather quickly. The medicine ads with their required listings of side effects are bad, but become worse when we realize that sick people are paying for them. And, this brings us toward the point of this presentation. We are paying for most of those commercials that irritate us.
Somehow it is especially irritating to listen to commercials for which we are paying by taxes, fees, and charges.
Have you looked at your telephone bill lately? There are fees and charges there for all kinds of things. Some of these have to do with underserved population groups, emergency calling, rural services, poverty groups, and the like. We see television commercials time after time with companies advertising their offerings of telephone service, long distance, and all the works for something like $2. These are openly targeted for people who are on food stamps, school lunch aid, or other similar programs.
When we ask ourselves who is paying for those cheap services, we realize that we are. Not only are we paying for those cheap services, but for thousands of dollars in advertising to sell the cheapie package to poor people. Don’t forget company profits to manage and operate them. Perhaps we don’t mind assisting with just plain vanilla, basic services for the poor, but we do mind the silver-plating and all of the paid advertising to sell a give-away program.
As a Medicare premium payer and concerned citizen, one tends to be bothered with all the advertising of motorized wheel chairs for the elderly “at little or no expense to you.” Okay, most of us are in favor of enabling the elderly poor and the disabled with personal mobility problems, but this selling of our charity with expensive advertising and for profit by these companies is more than we can be expected to like.
All those advertisements inviting us to sue somebody are aggravating. Especially so, are those which appear to sell the idea of being aggrieved at some party or industry, such as nursing homes or pharmaceuticals. While one may believe in legitimate lawsuits for tort damages, it seems that many of these are selling the notion of being a victim. Some are class action lawsuits looking for people who will say that they have used a product five or ten years earlier. These just go too far.
Now, we come to a point about which there may be differences among us. But it is also bothering to some of us to see the paid TV advertising from our state insurance department advertising a give-away of state dollars to small businesses to help them to provide health insurance to employees at cheapo rates. This saves businesses bunches of money at our expense. Of course, the same people who voted this plan into law, and those who participate in it, are the very same ones who fight tooth and toe-nail against any national program for group health care.
Advertising the state tax give-away on electric golf carts was irritating. Fortunately, the courts set that straight, but only after a lot of people bought these with the idea they would be practically free at the expense of deeper state budget cuts.
There are a lot of individuals, businesses, and industries out here in the state enjoying huge tax breaks by taking away school books out of the hands of kids, medicine away from a mentally ill, homeless man, or food from the tables of elderly poor. This is terribly irritating, but at least they are not advertising those tax give-away gimmicks on TV with our money.
Dr. Edwin E. Vineyard, AKA The Militant Moderate
Those that may provoke a smile are some of those informative health information spots, and especially the scintillating lady doctor who enthusiastically and graphically describes symptoms and cures for various intimate and private diseases. These are placed during the noon newscast, of course. The incongruity of having lunch while watching and listening to these graphic descriptions and frank advice overwhelms one’s wry sense of humor.
There are many others, not so funny, which we might cite. Those repetitive and crazy car commercials are irritating. Some dramatizations become old rather quickly. The medicine ads with their required listings of side effects are bad, but become worse when we realize that sick people are paying for them. And, this brings us toward the point of this presentation. We are paying for most of those commercials that irritate us.
Somehow it is especially irritating to listen to commercials for which we are paying by taxes, fees, and charges.
Have you looked at your telephone bill lately? There are fees and charges there for all kinds of things. Some of these have to do with underserved population groups, emergency calling, rural services, poverty groups, and the like. We see television commercials time after time with companies advertising their offerings of telephone service, long distance, and all the works for something like $2. These are openly targeted for people who are on food stamps, school lunch aid, or other similar programs.
When we ask ourselves who is paying for those cheap services, we realize that we are. Not only are we paying for those cheap services, but for thousands of dollars in advertising to sell the cheapie package to poor people. Don’t forget company profits to manage and operate them. Perhaps we don’t mind assisting with just plain vanilla, basic services for the poor, but we do mind the silver-plating and all of the paid advertising to sell a give-away program.
As a Medicare premium payer and concerned citizen, one tends to be bothered with all the advertising of motorized wheel chairs for the elderly “at little or no expense to you.” Okay, most of us are in favor of enabling the elderly poor and the disabled with personal mobility problems, but this selling of our charity with expensive advertising and for profit by these companies is more than we can be expected to like.
All those advertisements inviting us to sue somebody are aggravating. Especially so, are those which appear to sell the idea of being aggrieved at some party or industry, such as nursing homes or pharmaceuticals. While one may believe in legitimate lawsuits for tort damages, it seems that many of these are selling the notion of being a victim. Some are class action lawsuits looking for people who will say that they have used a product five or ten years earlier. These just go too far.
Now, we come to a point about which there may be differences among us. But it is also bothering to some of us to see the paid TV advertising from our state insurance department advertising a give-away of state dollars to small businesses to help them to provide health insurance to employees at cheapo rates. This saves businesses bunches of money at our expense. Of course, the same people who voted this plan into law, and those who participate in it, are the very same ones who fight tooth and toe-nail against any national program for group health care.
Advertising the state tax give-away on electric golf carts was irritating. Fortunately, the courts set that straight, but only after a lot of people bought these with the idea they would be practically free at the expense of deeper state budget cuts.
There are a lot of individuals, businesses, and industries out here in the state enjoying huge tax breaks by taking away school books out of the hands of kids, medicine away from a mentally ill, homeless man, or food from the tables of elderly poor. This is terribly irritating, but at least they are not advertising those tax give-away gimmicks on TV with our money.
Dr. Edwin E. Vineyard, AKA The Militant Moderate
Sunday, December 20, 2009
WE DIDN'T KNOW WHO YOU WAS
*Sweet little Jesus boy,
Born a long time ago.
Sweet little Holy Child,
We didn’t know who you was.
*Written in 1934 after the style of an African-American spiritual.
**I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet,
The words repeat,
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
………………………
And in despair I bowed my head;
‘There is no peace on earth,’ I said;
‘For hate is strong
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!’
**Longfellow’s work before, then during the Civil War.
From that very first Christmas until today, we have puzzled over the apparent contradiction between the Christmas message and the realities of life. A coherent set of beliefs is difficult to attain or maintain through the course of history, or even through the course of one life.
Perhaps our dilemma comes from the truth imbedded in that simple, but beautiful spiritual – “We didn’t know who you was!” It seems less difficult to see contradictions in looking backwards into history. It is a shame that it is so difficult to see these in our own contemporary societal practices.
The followers of Christ have often found it difficult to understand who he was. Right up to the date of his crucifixion, most followers expected him to become an earthly ruler. When he did not free Israel from the Romans, the populace that had strewed palm branches in his path earlier then turned against him in anger.
The eight bloody Christian crusades (1096 to 1270) against the Moslems in the Holy Land are often viewed as misplaced ardor for the cause. But still some apparently see the need for another movement of this nature in our own time. They see it to be in God’s prophecy, and thus in time a fulfillment of God’s will. It is strange also that those other followers of “One God” have undertaken the Jihad, or Holy War, against Christians and Jews. Historically, religious ardor has tended to breed hatred and violence.
The Church itself has not been beyond using cruelty, torture, and killing to maintain what it thought to be purity in its doctrine, as they believed God would have willed. The period called the Spanish Inquisitions (roughly from 1450 to 1800) is perhaps the most noteworthy of what we think of as institutionalized evil, practiced in the name of keeping the church clean and pure before God. Surely that period must have been based upon a misinterpretation of the meaning of the Christmas advent.
In 1431 the 19-year old maiden called Joan of Arc was condemned by an ecclesiastical court and burned at the stake by the English. Shortly after, a pope reversed that decision for political reasons and declared her status as a martyr. She was beatified in 1902.
At the time of the Reformation, Martin Luther found the established church to be corrupt and out of order with the teachings of New Testament Christianity. He posted his tenets in 1517, and he then led a movement to reform religion and the church to bring back original principles. That effort unloosed a period of bloody strife throughout Europe, and the start of the Protestant movement.
William Tyndale, the “English Apostle” of the Reformation and translator of the first English Bible to be printed by a Guttenberg press, was burned at the stake by emissaries of the established Anglican Church, perhaps with encouragement of Henry VIII. Other accused heretics against the faith met that same end.
Our Puritans in early New England were not exempt from this hostility toward dissent, as shown by their driving out the Baptist, Roger Williams, who founded Rhode Island. Religious fanaticism, augmented by kindred superstition, led to the Salem witch trials and the cruel execution of several accused women.
With tremendous foresight, and as a result of apprehensions by various religious sects in different colonies, this nation incorporated into its basic constitutional law the principles of religious freedom and separation of church and state. The Puritans of Massachusetts, the Baptists of Rhode Island, the Quakers in Pennsylvania, the Catholics in Maryland, and the Hugenots in Georgia would not have had it any other way.
Although there may have been hostilities and conflicts through the years, until recently there has been little open, marked, and serious expressions of doctrinal hostility. The politicization of our churches has led to deep and emotional religious and political divisions among our people. In some instances armed conflict is threatened and violence has flared. Religion and politics do not mix well.
We have seen murders committed in our churches by religious zealots with a particular emotional belief, unfortunately with the support of thousands of fanatics with a similar belief. We have seen seemingly devout religious people zealously supporting militaristic, even hate-based political causes, and just as zealously opposing those societal causes which directly reflect the teachings of the Master, i.e. tending the sick and elderly, concern for prisoners, seeing to the welfare of widows and children, and helping the poor.
We wonder if a corollary to the Master’s teaching, “When you do it for the least of these, you do it for me,” might be “When you refuse to do it for the least of these, you are denying me.”
Faced with such confrontational dilemmas, maybe our best answer really is, “We didn’t know who you was!”
Dr. Edwin E. Vineyard, AKA The Militant Moderate
Born a long time ago.
Sweet little Holy Child,
We didn’t know who you was.
*Written in 1934 after the style of an African-American spiritual.
**I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet,
The words repeat,
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
………………………
And in despair I bowed my head;
‘There is no peace on earth,’ I said;
‘For hate is strong
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!’
**Longfellow’s work before, then during the Civil War.
From that very first Christmas until today, we have puzzled over the apparent contradiction between the Christmas message and the realities of life. A coherent set of beliefs is difficult to attain or maintain through the course of history, or even through the course of one life.
Perhaps our dilemma comes from the truth imbedded in that simple, but beautiful spiritual – “We didn’t know who you was!” It seems less difficult to see contradictions in looking backwards into history. It is a shame that it is so difficult to see these in our own contemporary societal practices.
The followers of Christ have often found it difficult to understand who he was. Right up to the date of his crucifixion, most followers expected him to become an earthly ruler. When he did not free Israel from the Romans, the populace that had strewed palm branches in his path earlier then turned against him in anger.
The eight bloody Christian crusades (1096 to 1270) against the Moslems in the Holy Land are often viewed as misplaced ardor for the cause. But still some apparently see the need for another movement of this nature in our own time. They see it to be in God’s prophecy, and thus in time a fulfillment of God’s will. It is strange also that those other followers of “One God” have undertaken the Jihad, or Holy War, against Christians and Jews. Historically, religious ardor has tended to breed hatred and violence.
The Church itself has not been beyond using cruelty, torture, and killing to maintain what it thought to be purity in its doctrine, as they believed God would have willed. The period called the Spanish Inquisitions (roughly from 1450 to 1800) is perhaps the most noteworthy of what we think of as institutionalized evil, practiced in the name of keeping the church clean and pure before God. Surely that period must have been based upon a misinterpretation of the meaning of the Christmas advent.
In 1431 the 19-year old maiden called Joan of Arc was condemned by an ecclesiastical court and burned at the stake by the English. Shortly after, a pope reversed that decision for political reasons and declared her status as a martyr. She was beatified in 1902.
At the time of the Reformation, Martin Luther found the established church to be corrupt and out of order with the teachings of New Testament Christianity. He posted his tenets in 1517, and he then led a movement to reform religion and the church to bring back original principles. That effort unloosed a period of bloody strife throughout Europe, and the start of the Protestant movement.
William Tyndale, the “English Apostle” of the Reformation and translator of the first English Bible to be printed by a Guttenberg press, was burned at the stake by emissaries of the established Anglican Church, perhaps with encouragement of Henry VIII. Other accused heretics against the faith met that same end.
Our Puritans in early New England were not exempt from this hostility toward dissent, as shown by their driving out the Baptist, Roger Williams, who founded Rhode Island. Religious fanaticism, augmented by kindred superstition, led to the Salem witch trials and the cruel execution of several accused women.
With tremendous foresight, and as a result of apprehensions by various religious sects in different colonies, this nation incorporated into its basic constitutional law the principles of religious freedom and separation of church and state. The Puritans of Massachusetts, the Baptists of Rhode Island, the Quakers in Pennsylvania, the Catholics in Maryland, and the Hugenots in Georgia would not have had it any other way.
Although there may have been hostilities and conflicts through the years, until recently there has been little open, marked, and serious expressions of doctrinal hostility. The politicization of our churches has led to deep and emotional religious and political divisions among our people. In some instances armed conflict is threatened and violence has flared. Religion and politics do not mix well.
We have seen murders committed in our churches by religious zealots with a particular emotional belief, unfortunately with the support of thousands of fanatics with a similar belief. We have seen seemingly devout religious people zealously supporting militaristic, even hate-based political causes, and just as zealously opposing those societal causes which directly reflect the teachings of the Master, i.e. tending the sick and elderly, concern for prisoners, seeing to the welfare of widows and children, and helping the poor.
We wonder if a corollary to the Master’s teaching, “When you do it for the least of these, you do it for me,” might be “When you refuse to do it for the least of these, you are denying me.”
Faced with such confrontational dilemmas, maybe our best answer really is, “We didn’t know who you was!”
Dr. Edwin E. Vineyard, AKA The Militant Moderate
Friday, December 18, 2009
THE ORAL ROBERTS I KNEW
Perhaps a better title for this would be: “The Oral Roberts I barely knew.” Certainly, I was not a close friend, and really not even a casual acquaintance. But I had contact with him, and I made observations and formed impressions from those contacts. Also, as with many, I knew his public persona.
My earliest impressions of Oral Roberts came in the late 1950’s when his television ministry had come into full swing with his programs being carried by major network stations throughout the country. (At that time there were only three networks plus PBS, each with large audiences.)
Our older son, Louie, whom we lost later, was at times a sickly child. Well do we recall the Oral Roberts program being on television in the den, and our three-year old son watching pretty much alone as we went in and out. We came in at the close of the program when Oral asked members of the television audience in need of healing to put their hand to his on the TV screen in faith to receive it. Louie complied.
That was a touching scene for us. Later, the child remarked that he did what the preacher said, but nothing happened. That bothered me.
Even as a teenager, I had a low regard for so-called “faith-healers,” considering most of them charlatans, although I had actually been to a couple of big tent revivals featuring these. As a young adult with an advanced education and devoted to the scientific method, I still tended to have little positive to say about healers.
Billy Graham broke the ice for me with radio and TV evangelists. The man was magnetic, and his voice was electrifying. We saw Billy Graham up close once – during Oral Roberts inauguration as president of his new university in Tulsa. The man had an unmatched ability to mesmerize and audience. His endorsement was significant.
But on closer contact, I found Oral Roberts to be a special person as well. There was an aura about him that was different.
My contacts with Oral Roberts were several through the years of his involvement with higher education. Like many, I was skeptical of his intentions to build a truly fine, independent liberal arts college. At first, my skepticism seemed justified with the Pentecostal religious requirements being made of faculty. But that changed.
As a conservative president, who was trying to keep a campus under control during a tumultuous period of student and faculty activism and disorder everywhere in higher education, I admired Oral Roberts’ open and upfront statements of what would and would not be tolerated at his college. I envied his position as a private college administrator to do just that and enforce it. Of course, he was taken to court a few times.
I was a visitor at his college several times, officially and unofficially. I represented other state colleges for evaluation and accrediting a time or two. I was very favorably impressed by what I saw. The university had the latest technology and some of the best conditions for teaching that I had seen at the time. It was a real college.
One of my favorite memories of Oral Roberts involved his affinity for our NOC basketball teams. In the late sixties and early seventies Oral Roberts University hosted our state junior college tournament each year in its gym, even prior to their Mabee Center. Oral liked to sit at the end of the bench with our NOC teams. Strangely, even weirdly, we won every game when he attended and sat on our bench. When he was away on other business, we lost.
My more personal contacts with Oral Roberts came at presidential inaugurations, particularly at the University of Oklahoma with Dr. Bill Banowsky and Dr. Paul Sharp. At that time period, Oral was trying to establish the legitimacy of his university on the state academic scene, and he attended such affairs where we were all invited.
If one has never had the personal experience of donning the formal academic regalia of a doctoral college president, then one has missed a puzzling, perplexing experience. After I had put on all my own regalia, with a little help from a friend, I noticed that Oral was struggling mightily with his and losing the battle. I went over and offered my help, which he gratefully accepted. We repeated that partnership arrangement on later occasions.
Among the presidents, Oral Roberts was a shy, unassuming man. One might guess that perhaps he felt like something of an interloper in the inner sanctum of higher education, not having the same academic credentials and arriving at his position in a nontraditional fashion. Two or three of us made a point of trying to include him and to make him feel comfortable. His manner showed his appreciation.
But, again, there was something special about Oral Roberts. I felt it. Not everybody did. He was a charmer speaking before larger groups, feeling much more at ease than with small groups. I saw him in both situations. I was impressed.
I thought that Oral Roberts had a certain essence that most of us lack. While I have sometimes been teased for speaking up for him, I do not regret doing so. While I may have thought it strange that God told him to build the university, or later the “City of Faith,” I would not want to argue that He did not. Certainly it was a new direction, appropriately recognizing the role of scientific medicine as well as religious faith. That latter project was a wonderful vision, thwarted by forces more at the human level. The university has now been saved from impending disaster.
Only a few have the kind of aura which men like Oral Roberts displayed, and not everyone is sensitive to such qualities. But he impressed me personally as being special.
Dr. Edwin E. Vineyard
My earliest impressions of Oral Roberts came in the late 1950’s when his television ministry had come into full swing with his programs being carried by major network stations throughout the country. (At that time there were only three networks plus PBS, each with large audiences.)
Our older son, Louie, whom we lost later, was at times a sickly child. Well do we recall the Oral Roberts program being on television in the den, and our three-year old son watching pretty much alone as we went in and out. We came in at the close of the program when Oral asked members of the television audience in need of healing to put their hand to his on the TV screen in faith to receive it. Louie complied.
That was a touching scene for us. Later, the child remarked that he did what the preacher said, but nothing happened. That bothered me.
Even as a teenager, I had a low regard for so-called “faith-healers,” considering most of them charlatans, although I had actually been to a couple of big tent revivals featuring these. As a young adult with an advanced education and devoted to the scientific method, I still tended to have little positive to say about healers.
Billy Graham broke the ice for me with radio and TV evangelists. The man was magnetic, and his voice was electrifying. We saw Billy Graham up close once – during Oral Roberts inauguration as president of his new university in Tulsa. The man had an unmatched ability to mesmerize and audience. His endorsement was significant.
But on closer contact, I found Oral Roberts to be a special person as well. There was an aura about him that was different.
My contacts with Oral Roberts were several through the years of his involvement with higher education. Like many, I was skeptical of his intentions to build a truly fine, independent liberal arts college. At first, my skepticism seemed justified with the Pentecostal religious requirements being made of faculty. But that changed.
As a conservative president, who was trying to keep a campus under control during a tumultuous period of student and faculty activism and disorder everywhere in higher education, I admired Oral Roberts’ open and upfront statements of what would and would not be tolerated at his college. I envied his position as a private college administrator to do just that and enforce it. Of course, he was taken to court a few times.
I was a visitor at his college several times, officially and unofficially. I represented other state colleges for evaluation and accrediting a time or two. I was very favorably impressed by what I saw. The university had the latest technology and some of the best conditions for teaching that I had seen at the time. It was a real college.
One of my favorite memories of Oral Roberts involved his affinity for our NOC basketball teams. In the late sixties and early seventies Oral Roberts University hosted our state junior college tournament each year in its gym, even prior to their Mabee Center. Oral liked to sit at the end of the bench with our NOC teams. Strangely, even weirdly, we won every game when he attended and sat on our bench. When he was away on other business, we lost.
My more personal contacts with Oral Roberts came at presidential inaugurations, particularly at the University of Oklahoma with Dr. Bill Banowsky and Dr. Paul Sharp. At that time period, Oral was trying to establish the legitimacy of his university on the state academic scene, and he attended such affairs where we were all invited.
If one has never had the personal experience of donning the formal academic regalia of a doctoral college president, then one has missed a puzzling, perplexing experience. After I had put on all my own regalia, with a little help from a friend, I noticed that Oral was struggling mightily with his and losing the battle. I went over and offered my help, which he gratefully accepted. We repeated that partnership arrangement on later occasions.
Among the presidents, Oral Roberts was a shy, unassuming man. One might guess that perhaps he felt like something of an interloper in the inner sanctum of higher education, not having the same academic credentials and arriving at his position in a nontraditional fashion. Two or three of us made a point of trying to include him and to make him feel comfortable. His manner showed his appreciation.
But, again, there was something special about Oral Roberts. I felt it. Not everybody did. He was a charmer speaking before larger groups, feeling much more at ease than with small groups. I saw him in both situations. I was impressed.
I thought that Oral Roberts had a certain essence that most of us lack. While I have sometimes been teased for speaking up for him, I do not regret doing so. While I may have thought it strange that God told him to build the university, or later the “City of Faith,” I would not want to argue that He did not. Certainly it was a new direction, appropriately recognizing the role of scientific medicine as well as religious faith. That latter project was a wonderful vision, thwarted by forces more at the human level. The university has now been saved from impending disaster.
Only a few have the kind of aura which men like Oral Roberts displayed, and not everyone is sensitive to such qualities. But he impressed me personally as being special.
Dr. Edwin E. Vineyard
Friday, December 11, 2009
MUSINGS ON FREE SPEECH
Hate Speech
“Hate speech” has been prohibited on many college campuses across the country. Such censorship is roundly criticized by conservatives, most of whom already see universities as a hot bed of liberalism. Conservatives tend to have a general mistrust of intellectualism – as per Spiro Agnew’s attack on “effete” intellectuals as “nattering nabobs of negativism.”
But free speech is indeed a precious right. Great caution should be exercised in regulating this right, and by the judiciary in permitting such regulation. However, it is acknowledged that there must be some regulation at times. That limitation has generally been referred to as “yelling ‘fire’ in a crowded auditorium.”
To most the use of insulting nicknames and derogatory language against minorities (racial, ethnic, religious, or sexual preference) is offensive. To some, however, such language may be inflammatory and provocative. In some situations, that is the equivalent of yelling “fire.”
However, universities also justify the limitation on grounds of an educational goal of promoting acceptance of diversity among people. Also, they foster the habit of non-violent, hate-free, civil discourse on issues and differences. Hate speech conflicts with these goals.
Courts have tended to be cautionary, but not totally prohibitive of such regulation. Would they could do something with the internet, placards, pulpits, and “tea parties.”
Freedom to Lie
Does free speech include the freedom to lie? It is apparent from experience that it does.
Individual, private citizens have some protection from lies by libel laws. However, these are limited in their coverage. In order to prove libel, one must prove the falsehood first. Then, one must prove that he/she has been harmed by acts of initiation and circulation of that falsehood.
That same principle generally applies to both lying by other citizens and in the media. Because most mainstream media are ethical in trying to report truth, most of their offenses are handled peacefully by retractions. Ethical media seek to do no harm, and most will quickly correct inadvertent errors. Not so for some scandal publications or partisan political cable channels.
Under certain conditions almost free rein is given to slander and libel. One of these is as applied to “public figures,” particularly government office holders and politicians. Running for office or holding office exposes one to all kinds of lies and unfair criticism, even about personal matters. Some college presidents and school superintendents have been surprised to find themselves included as “public figures,” thus allowing not only critical but dirty speech about them.
Ordinarily, truth is irrelevant, although some celebrities have sued scandal magazines successfully for personal slander. Clear speculation is rarely suppressed in any medium. Selective excerpting from information without context is practiced by all media, primarily due to time and space constraints, but public figures may be made to look worse by such.
Political Speech
Truth is no requirement in political speech. Liars may attack candidates with false accusations and false labels. Records are misrepresented. Candidates themselves are not obligated to abide by the truth when speaking of one another. Their followers are as free as the wind.
Associations or groups with high sounding, patriotic names may pillory a candidate’s or office holder’s personal character, fabricate false personal stories, and generally prevaricate and rail against him or her with legal impunity. Having no limitations of ethical newspapers that sometimes screen their ads, these liars take to the airwaves of money grabbing TV stations and cable networks.
These “issue advocacy” groups, from which we have seen and heard much, do not have to reveal their financiers or their controllers by name. So their lies are anonymous, but they cost big money. These groups are not to be aligned a candidate’s official campaign or political party, and therefore the candidate and the party claim no responsibility when their lies are revealed.
There is currently a move to “free” political speech from the campaign laws designed to keep candidates and parties from taking unlimited donations and doing freewheel spending and buying of elections by overwhelming advertising and related campaign activities. This would free corporations, as well as millionaire donors, to have all the “free speech” their money will buy, as they claim to be entitled in their lawsuits. Money corrupts politics.
Past Supreme Court decisions have upheld limitations placed by Congress, but it remains to see how the current court will rule on this issue. Of course, as many have suggested, the best remedy for the corruption by money is to prohibit it altogether in favor of public financing of election campaigns.
The internet has introduced a new dimension for false speech and distortions of truth. All with e-mail have fallen victims to the viciously false political material that is circulated as factual. Another one came this week with a picture, accusing President Obama of not saluting, claiming it was the national anthem on Veterans’ Day. It turns out that it was Memorial Day, the tune being played was “Hail to the Chief,” and others were saluting in his honor. People actually believe this propaganda, and they send it along.
Political advertising has become terribly offensive to a lot of us. It is so wild, so far out, and so repetitious of attack words -- preying upon the ignorant. There is no requirement for truth in any of it, and consequently much of it lacks truth. We need to find a remedy for this. Maybe some screening process like the Good Housekeeping Seal by some jointly formed non-partisan group would help, if it became known that ads not having such approval were likely irresponsible.
Until another occasion …………
Dr. Edwin E. Vineyard, AKA The Militant Moderate
“Hate speech” has been prohibited on many college campuses across the country. Such censorship is roundly criticized by conservatives, most of whom already see universities as a hot bed of liberalism. Conservatives tend to have a general mistrust of intellectualism – as per Spiro Agnew’s attack on “effete” intellectuals as “nattering nabobs of negativism.”
But free speech is indeed a precious right. Great caution should be exercised in regulating this right, and by the judiciary in permitting such regulation. However, it is acknowledged that there must be some regulation at times. That limitation has generally been referred to as “yelling ‘fire’ in a crowded auditorium.”
To most the use of insulting nicknames and derogatory language against minorities (racial, ethnic, religious, or sexual preference) is offensive. To some, however, such language may be inflammatory and provocative. In some situations, that is the equivalent of yelling “fire.”
However, universities also justify the limitation on grounds of an educational goal of promoting acceptance of diversity among people. Also, they foster the habit of non-violent, hate-free, civil discourse on issues and differences. Hate speech conflicts with these goals.
Courts have tended to be cautionary, but not totally prohibitive of such regulation. Would they could do something with the internet, placards, pulpits, and “tea parties.”
Freedom to Lie
Does free speech include the freedom to lie? It is apparent from experience that it does.
Individual, private citizens have some protection from lies by libel laws. However, these are limited in their coverage. In order to prove libel, one must prove the falsehood first. Then, one must prove that he/she has been harmed by acts of initiation and circulation of that falsehood.
That same principle generally applies to both lying by other citizens and in the media. Because most mainstream media are ethical in trying to report truth, most of their offenses are handled peacefully by retractions. Ethical media seek to do no harm, and most will quickly correct inadvertent errors. Not so for some scandal publications or partisan political cable channels.
Under certain conditions almost free rein is given to slander and libel. One of these is as applied to “public figures,” particularly government office holders and politicians. Running for office or holding office exposes one to all kinds of lies and unfair criticism, even about personal matters. Some college presidents and school superintendents have been surprised to find themselves included as “public figures,” thus allowing not only critical but dirty speech about them.
Ordinarily, truth is irrelevant, although some celebrities have sued scandal magazines successfully for personal slander. Clear speculation is rarely suppressed in any medium. Selective excerpting from information without context is practiced by all media, primarily due to time and space constraints, but public figures may be made to look worse by such.
Political Speech
Truth is no requirement in political speech. Liars may attack candidates with false accusations and false labels. Records are misrepresented. Candidates themselves are not obligated to abide by the truth when speaking of one another. Their followers are as free as the wind.
Associations or groups with high sounding, patriotic names may pillory a candidate’s or office holder’s personal character, fabricate false personal stories, and generally prevaricate and rail against him or her with legal impunity. Having no limitations of ethical newspapers that sometimes screen their ads, these liars take to the airwaves of money grabbing TV stations and cable networks.
These “issue advocacy” groups, from which we have seen and heard much, do not have to reveal their financiers or their controllers by name. So their lies are anonymous, but they cost big money. These groups are not to be aligned a candidate’s official campaign or political party, and therefore the candidate and the party claim no responsibility when their lies are revealed.
There is currently a move to “free” political speech from the campaign laws designed to keep candidates and parties from taking unlimited donations and doing freewheel spending and buying of elections by overwhelming advertising and related campaign activities. This would free corporations, as well as millionaire donors, to have all the “free speech” their money will buy, as they claim to be entitled in their lawsuits. Money corrupts politics.
Past Supreme Court decisions have upheld limitations placed by Congress, but it remains to see how the current court will rule on this issue. Of course, as many have suggested, the best remedy for the corruption by money is to prohibit it altogether in favor of public financing of election campaigns.
The internet has introduced a new dimension for false speech and distortions of truth. All with e-mail have fallen victims to the viciously false political material that is circulated as factual. Another one came this week with a picture, accusing President Obama of not saluting, claiming it was the national anthem on Veterans’ Day. It turns out that it was Memorial Day, the tune being played was “Hail to the Chief,” and others were saluting in his honor. People actually believe this propaganda, and they send it along.
Political advertising has become terribly offensive to a lot of us. It is so wild, so far out, and so repetitious of attack words -- preying upon the ignorant. There is no requirement for truth in any of it, and consequently much of it lacks truth. We need to find a remedy for this. Maybe some screening process like the Good Housekeeping Seal by some jointly formed non-partisan group would help, if it became known that ads not having such approval were likely irresponsible.
Until another occasion …………
Dr. Edwin E. Vineyard, AKA The Militant Moderate
Monday, December 07, 2009
REMEMBERING PEARL HARBOR
December 7, 1941, was indeed a day “which will live in infamy.” At least, it has always been so for one who was a lad of fifteen at the time in a small town in eastern Oklahoma. It has always been one of those few highlights in a life about which a generation asks one another, “Where were you when you first heard of the bombing of Pearl Harbor?” Or perhaps, for our generation, one might also ask, “What were you doing when you first heard the assassination of President Kennedy?
Those were the most memorable moments in the common lives of those of us who have reached the status of octogenarian. Our lives cover the better part of a century, and those events stand out above all others. Not that we were oblivious to 9/ll, to D-Day, or the dropping of the first atom bomb. But those two events are special among all those other significant events.
Emerging from the depths of the Great Depression, those of us in what Tom Brokaw has called (for want of a better term) “the greatest generation” went from ten years growing up in a period of overwhelming economic stress on our families into another period of five years of sacrifices involving life itself. Many of us lost family members in war, then spent the remainder of our parents’ lives feeling with them a continuing, never-ending process of grief. This writer lost a brother in a B-24 Liberator bomber in Italy on December 20, 1944.
On Sunday, December 7, 1941, this fifteen year old high school student in Wilburton, Oklahoma, was working at the local theatre. Hearing excited voices outside the door, he went out to encounter another young person, breathlessly shouting to our snack shop operator and everyone in sight, “The Japs attacked Pearl Harbor!”
This individual had come from the ice cream and “juke joint” a couple of doors east. He was followed by a couple more, one carrying a portable radio the size of a present day “boom box,” placing it on the concession counter. By this time people inside the theater heard the commotion and came streaming out excitedly wanting to know what was going on. Two or three would then shout, “The Japs bombed Pearl Harbor! We are in war!”
Most of us were glued to the radio in all our spare time for the next few days, anxious for news. At school, we listened to President Roosevelt’s “Day of Infamy” speech in which he called on Congress to recognize that a “state of hostilities exists” and declare war. Declaration of war against Germany and Italy followed, after they first declared an axis of alliance with Japan in war against us.
This writer’s older brother was already in the U. S. Air Force. The older brothers of others were soon joining or being called to service. A good friend had a brother captured on Bataan in the Philippines, and in the “Death March” when the Japanese brutally slaughtered thousands of our men. Bordered red and white posters with a blue star began appearing in the windows of homes in town. Not long after a few gold stars appeared.
At school many of us followed the progress of the war carefully. This writer was requisitioned from school as a “volunteer” worker in the issuance of hundreds of ration books to local families for items such as food and gasoline. He participated in a student panel formed by the school superintendent that appeared before civic clubs and others to discuss war movements and strategies (as if we knew). Perish the thought, but I was a teen-aged pundit.
For a number of us, our greatest concern was that we would not finish high school in time to get into the war before it was over. Several of our classmates volunteered while under age and went off to war. Two had been lost before our class graduated. Friends were moving with their families to California, or other hubs of industry, to work in the war effort. There were various shortages, with the common explanation, “It’s the war, you know.”
This writer, while a high school junior, worked nights in charge of the railroad station. He kept the depot open and met the night passenger, express, and mail train scheduled for a little after nine o’clock, but more commonly arriving around midnight or later. “It’s the war, you know.”
Not feeling particularly patriotic, but more out of a sense of long awaited duty, this writer joined the U.S. Navy at age 17 – the summer following graduation from high school. That was not unusual. Other friends delayed slightly, but were soon drafted not long after passing eighteen. It was a pleasure to welcome some new “boots” to the San Diego training station a few months later in the role of an “old salt.”
This generation emerged from the darkest, most dismal, stressful period of this nation’s economic history and with considerable bravado immediately took up the battle to save the world from fascism. Only our leaders at the time knew how bad the war looked after Pearl Harbor. The odds at that time were heavily against this nation. Next best to victory would have been an unacceptable result with America isolated and alone in a world dominated by the evil axis of Hitler, Mussolini, and Tojo, and their respective nations.
But this nation rallied militarily and industrially, and with an attitude of bravado best typified by Spike Jones’ music, “Right in the Fuehrer’s Face” and our carnival games of throwing the ball at images of Hitler or Tojo, we went off to save the world.
As Walter Cronkite used to say, “And, that’s the way it was.”
Dr. Edwin E. Vineyard
Those were the most memorable moments in the common lives of those of us who have reached the status of octogenarian. Our lives cover the better part of a century, and those events stand out above all others. Not that we were oblivious to 9/ll, to D-Day, or the dropping of the first atom bomb. But those two events are special among all those other significant events.
Emerging from the depths of the Great Depression, those of us in what Tom Brokaw has called (for want of a better term) “the greatest generation” went from ten years growing up in a period of overwhelming economic stress on our families into another period of five years of sacrifices involving life itself. Many of us lost family members in war, then spent the remainder of our parents’ lives feeling with them a continuing, never-ending process of grief. This writer lost a brother in a B-24 Liberator bomber in Italy on December 20, 1944.
On Sunday, December 7, 1941, this fifteen year old high school student in Wilburton, Oklahoma, was working at the local theatre. Hearing excited voices outside the door, he went out to encounter another young person, breathlessly shouting to our snack shop operator and everyone in sight, “The Japs attacked Pearl Harbor!”
This individual had come from the ice cream and “juke joint” a couple of doors east. He was followed by a couple more, one carrying a portable radio the size of a present day “boom box,” placing it on the concession counter. By this time people inside the theater heard the commotion and came streaming out excitedly wanting to know what was going on. Two or three would then shout, “The Japs bombed Pearl Harbor! We are in war!”
Most of us were glued to the radio in all our spare time for the next few days, anxious for news. At school, we listened to President Roosevelt’s “Day of Infamy” speech in which he called on Congress to recognize that a “state of hostilities exists” and declare war. Declaration of war against Germany and Italy followed, after they first declared an axis of alliance with Japan in war against us.
This writer’s older brother was already in the U. S. Air Force. The older brothers of others were soon joining or being called to service. A good friend had a brother captured on Bataan in the Philippines, and in the “Death March” when the Japanese brutally slaughtered thousands of our men. Bordered red and white posters with a blue star began appearing in the windows of homes in town. Not long after a few gold stars appeared.
At school many of us followed the progress of the war carefully. This writer was requisitioned from school as a “volunteer” worker in the issuance of hundreds of ration books to local families for items such as food and gasoline. He participated in a student panel formed by the school superintendent that appeared before civic clubs and others to discuss war movements and strategies (as if we knew). Perish the thought, but I was a teen-aged pundit.
For a number of us, our greatest concern was that we would not finish high school in time to get into the war before it was over. Several of our classmates volunteered while under age and went off to war. Two had been lost before our class graduated. Friends were moving with their families to California, or other hubs of industry, to work in the war effort. There were various shortages, with the common explanation, “It’s the war, you know.”
This writer, while a high school junior, worked nights in charge of the railroad station. He kept the depot open and met the night passenger, express, and mail train scheduled for a little after nine o’clock, but more commonly arriving around midnight or later. “It’s the war, you know.”
Not feeling particularly patriotic, but more out of a sense of long awaited duty, this writer joined the U.S. Navy at age 17 – the summer following graduation from high school. That was not unusual. Other friends delayed slightly, but were soon drafted not long after passing eighteen. It was a pleasure to welcome some new “boots” to the San Diego training station a few months later in the role of an “old salt.”
This generation emerged from the darkest, most dismal, stressful period of this nation’s economic history and with considerable bravado immediately took up the battle to save the world from fascism. Only our leaders at the time knew how bad the war looked after Pearl Harbor. The odds at that time were heavily against this nation. Next best to victory would have been an unacceptable result with America isolated and alone in a world dominated by the evil axis of Hitler, Mussolini, and Tojo, and their respective nations.
But this nation rallied militarily and industrially, and with an attitude of bravado best typified by Spike Jones’ music, “Right in the Fuehrer’s Face” and our carnival games of throwing the ball at images of Hitler or Tojo, we went off to save the world.
As Walter Cronkite used to say, “And, that’s the way it was.”
Dr. Edwin E. Vineyard
