Letters: from Jerry Gerde, Liz Kristol, "The Brotherhood," "A Reader," D.J. Fitzgerald and Mother
Letters To the Editor : It is with pleasure that we have been unable to locate evidence of the "Reflex Defense Syndrome" in the issues of The Alternative. Speaking specifically of the mass media,...
...And there were the blind followers who backed out when things seemed to get out of hand then, too...
...It is certainly not because on 3 November the good causes of Metzenbaum and One-Term Lowenstein went down in flames...
...And their next goal...
...Subsequently, under fire from President Nixon, Vice President Ag-new and some allegedly right-of-center spokesman, the news media reacted with screams of "freedom of the press" and "press censorship...
...of course news reports abounded with inaccuracy and bias, but this generally derived from the uniformly primitive condition of American reportage...
...Now the average gringo is too smart for them, and he brushes them aside like dandruff off a collar...
...A British judge released Allen Farrant, the brilliant English student activist, who had been arrested in a cemetery with a flashlight, crucifix and cross...
...Our media seem to have originally enjoyed (and prospered from) glorifying Manson and associating his conduct with that of some ill-defined but oppressed "youth " group...
...Very truly yours, Jerry W. Gerde Panama City, Florida To the Editor: It may appear brash to you, but as I am used to making my feelings known, I feel it my duty to make you aware of my position...
...The jeers, interruptions and stoning of politicians and other speakers were as common a tactic then as they are today...
...Actually the new Senate will be far more conservative with an only slightly less conservative House...
...This is exemplified by acceptance without protest by the bulk of Americans of the use of a New Criteria for the selection of Supreme Court Justices...
...Regards, D. J. Fitzgerald Miami, Florida Dear Bobby: I buy you fine clothes...
...King Lear If, like me, you are a habitue of the trendy Liberal press you will remember, from your readings throughout the summer, that in this past election the irenic students were going to give "the system one last chance...
...C) that something the media calls "the southern strategy" failed...
...Though huge crowds assembled they inevitably chose to'watch twenty-two athletes battle for a "pig skin" rather than participate in the typically more violent "peace" demonstrations...
...And even at Princeton The Movement for a New Congress (The New Republic's favorite peace organization) estimated that only fifteen percent of the students were campaigning...
...For myself, I shall have a difficult time adjudging but one dissembling candidate as supreme, for several first-rate perjurers commend themselves...
...Prankish students wore Timothy Leary masks...
...E) campaign rhetoric set an American record for vilification...
...And in the feudal state of Massachusetts where the watery-eyed citizenry skip and dance behind the banners of a family of immigrant potato farmers, the Hero of Chappaquiddick seemed to be casting about for the endorsement of Barry Goldwater and the American Conservative Union...
...Much before election day, The New York Times reported the former chairman of Yale's Black Student Alliance as saying "I'm laying off politics for a while....I'm going to the football game," -his remark was characteristic...
...Certainly it takes a multiplicity of factors to cause any social movement to fail to move after The New Republic has given the cue...
...tory...
...No, our interest surges right up to the assemblee of the fabled Saturday Evening Club when all our jolly boys congregate, uncork a jug, compare memoranda and ascertain which campaigning clown was indeed the biggest liar...
...In Hunt-ingberg, West Virginia students protested police drug raids...
...As every perceptive follower of the campaign knows, the election changed hardly anything...
...As one Senator-elect said: "We've got more college kids coming in here than we know what to do with...
...And our awards banquet might have to recognize a new category of liar, for as the "news analyses" accumulate it becomes apparent that the fishy politicians are receiving superb competition from the yarn-spinning media...
...You bring home this rag...
...On 3 November he was overwhelmingly re-elected...
...Every intelligent American devoured the feast realizing that nothing sensible would ever come of it, although fearing the very real possibility that the new batch of elected messiahs might actually deepen our vail of tears...
...But in our society there are congeries of very anxious simpletons who are positively ravenous for praise and attention...
...This, in turn, will undoubtedly insure enforced social revolution...
...Further the majority of college-age persons still have the good sense not to attend college...
...Why nothing less than the salvation of America itself, but "this does not mean that students will be flooding the country in one election district after another this fall...
...George Natban more dramatic and alluring liars...
...On the campus of Oakland University police discovered a lavish dynamite cache...
...What has happened is that the magnificoes of the media have fabricated a wonder student and rewarded any student conforming to their wonder world with instant fame and admiration...
...But connoiseurs of nonsense are not the only persons enthusiastic for American elections...
...In California Mr...
...It was May, the cherry blossoms were exploding and an ocean of fresh young faces washed onto Capitol Hill...
...It seems that "the young thousands" never did exist and that "the young" is a group far different from what the media and the certified intellectuals would have us believe...
...All these men are weavers of words who reinforce their truisms with the highest quality elastic...
...That is to say that "the young" were going to concentrate on "...close contests such as Howard Metzenbaum's run for the Senate in Ohio, and Allard Lowenstein's re-election bid in New York...
...Anyone attempting to characterize the young is adrift in a most dubious venture, and it surprises me not at all that those so given to such ventures are invariably intellectuals and gossips...
...But the media should not expect their creations to get out of bed before noon, deodorize and unpretentiously go about the inglorious business of stuffing envelopes, disseminating literature and talking to unadoring voters-they are too idealistic...
...the repression builds...
...Bernadine Dohrn, perhaps the most comely member of the Weatherman faction of SDS, declared a "fall offensive" exhorting "families and tribes" to bomb and otherwise busy themselves with the politics of peace...
...as a journalist I stand above such mean partisanship...
...I wonder, is this just conincidence or does history really repeat itself...
...And it is the trendy Liberal press that seems to have lost them...
...I send you to a fine school...
...But by the same token, I have never seen a television program, read a study or heard a public discussion on youth which did not fawn on the politically hypersensitive...
...Surely Bagehot's mind had fixed on the American politician when he arrestingly described the constitutional statesman: "a nature at once active and facile, easily acquiring opinions from without, not easily devising them from within, a large placid adaptive intellect...
...It is my strong feeling that this treatment of the Manson matter is simply one more in a long string of distorted emphases by the media upon events of relatively short-term importance...
...But then when we studied the election returns we saw a snake...
...for their diligence students will be rewarded with one credit...
...Speaking specifically of the mass media, vis-a-vis,the Charles Manson trial, we have been deluged with "justifications" by the oral, visual and printed press of their coverage to date of (he grisly but somewhat daled events in that Southern California courtroom...
...Rupert Vance Hartke, Edward (Teddy) Kennedy, Pug Tunney and Congressman Passwater from Louisiana...
...From where I sit, while the unfortunate deaths in California were dramatic manifestations of basic weaknesses in our contemporary socio-morality, there are certainly today other manifestations which are far more serious and of much greater range in their effects...
...The peace movement ran aground when 31 October was declared as the day for demonstrations against Mr...
...Kimo McCormick, youth research man for Pug Tunney, expressed difficulty in attracting youthful campaigners because today young leftists will work only for what they consider "an ideal candidate...
...Lamentably in spite of the acres of editorials written in praise and exhortation of "the young thousands," in spite of the Princeton Plan releasing many of "the young thousands" from academic assignments two weeks prior to elections, in spite of many faculties rescheduling tests or dismissing classes for "the young thousands," "the young thousands" never put in an appearance at campaign headquarters...
...His name is Buckley, and his young supporters...
...Continue your fight and good luck...
...They never utter a syllable without first enjoining teams of psychologists to assay the constituency and its present state of gullibility...
...This "story" concerning the fundamental change in procedure of selecting members of the Supreme Court was given little attention by the press, once its screams of "anti-labor" and "anti-Negro" had faded into obscurity...
...Of those young who are over twenty-two and under thirty many have exposed themselves to the ignominy of taking gainful employment...
...These pop students are of course the new conformists and they are often as mindless as they are victimized and as lazy as they are prostituted...
...Some high-flown fictions I have encountered of late are the following: A) the one about Republicans dumping their leading inspriation and fund raiser, Mr...
...For it demands a mysterious kind of imagination to create the above fantasy and then to assert that "an invisible cord stretches from the polling booth to the marble walls of Congress and a good many of the country's politicians can already feel the weight of the young (sic) upon the line...
...Nixon will still be a strong presidential contestant in 1972.Today even with his loss of governorships he is far stronger than he was in November 1968, and in 1960 he won Iwenty-six states though Republicans held but eleven governorships...
...The student was berated loudly by the Yale official for his conservative political philosophy...
...And, in an editorial I found utterly treasurable, they rhapsodized on "the young's" benevolent invasion of Washington...
...He even hired a liar by the name of R. Sargent Shriver to beguile voters with the tale that "Democrats traditionally hold down federal spending...
...The governor of Texas 'was prevented from speaking at the University of Houston...
...Every statistic I have ever seen indicates that the aspirations and life styles of the majority of young persons are similar to those of their parents...
...rivals...
...A Reader To the Editor: Analyzing the antics of today's "youthful dissenters," I'm struck by the similarity between them and another group of "youthful dissenters" who were making headlines and wreaking destruction in another part of the world some thirty years ago...
...but Bagehol was too serious...
...Yet this overwhelmingly significant development has been largely ignored by the media in favor of their treatment of items such as the apparent murders in Southern California...
...But at The Alternative the merriment of democratic America does not end with Walter Cronkite's fall spectacular on election night...
...The media can expect pop students to adhere to the media's standards only so long as these standards dictate no more than a simple style of dress, an easily regurgitated rhetoric and mischief...
...they were gassed...
...A young oracle can be Schickelgruber reincarnated and so long as he threatens businessmen rather than ethnics and demands Utopia rather than reality he is bound to be a headliner...
...And a reporter for the Gannett Newspapers was at the Yale undergraduate admissions office to report that "...a prospective student responding to a Yale interviewer's questions expressed his support of the Nixon Administration, of Vietnam, the ABM, the space program...
...The Nation's fabulists were more dramatic and no less instructive...
...Those Buckleys...
...Those Buckleys...
...In an editorial that must have ruined Mr...
...The veracity of my claim is easily documented...
...What chained them to their beds of apathy...
...Our aspiring Churchills are merely amusing gasbags made the more entertaining when their arcanums bring together--as in this last election-the pedestrian and the peculiar, the esteemable and the abominable...
...The University of Oregon curriculum offered "Frisbee Techniques and Special Application, 407...
...It was reassuring to find The Alternative advancing no positions on "sensational" issues which would have spurred it to expose a "Reflex Defense Syndrome...
...And as for the high school and grammar school student, it is only the odd fish who ever shows any interest whatsoever in the mysteries of youthful idealism or politics...
...Hardly an election year has gone by in which the liberal ADA's congressional poll did not indicate America's return to the Robber Barons, and at the conservative ACU pollsters nearly short circuit themselves in joy...
...George Natban CONTINUING CRISIS (continued from page 2) As the school year progressed the symbiosis of these two offices (mental health and education) appeared more natural...
...And how do you show your appreciation...
...It happened to be an autumnal Saturday...
...Permissiveness, free love and disapproval of the "system" were strong factors in the growth of that ugly element then, also...
...He had been "hunting vampires...
...New York University promised to "protest" the decision...
...They are the conservatives and the moderates...
...Then from California Pug Tunney kept appearing before the tee vee cameras, imploring voters to remember the virtues of the pugilist, lecturing on the heroism required to face Jack Dempsey and all the while grinning down a daintily contructed China-like nose, exposing exquisite rows of pearly protruding teeth and...lying...
...I feel it would be a shameful loss for a unique magazine like yours to follow the trend of other popular literature by introducing a "Letters to the Editor" department, a commercial, irrelevant and totally useless column...
...Purest tommyrot...
...Tsk, tsk, such a sad ending to an otherwise glorious season...
...B) the tale that Senators Buckley and Byrd are G.O.P...
...Every political conservative I know cherishes election time as his favorite time of year, for during the electoral season America is transformed into the most conservative nation on earth...
...And finally the Buckley family inflicted on New Yorkers, the most waggish practical joke in recent political history...
...The young thousands" were in a funk...
...To the Editor: If you'd cut out the cursing and the name-calling, you'd have an excellent magazine...
...During the election things were not so bad...
...one that both Republicans and Democrats would be proud to spread...
...They intend to be selective and mass their strength where it will do the most good...
...Judge Patrick J. Picariello ordered New York University to repay part of a student's tuition because "college administrators have yielded too easily to the demands of campus dissidents and have thereby ushered in an era of physical and intellectual intimidation...
...Specifically, in the nominations and subsequent rejections of Judges Clement Haynesworth and Harold Car swell, we saw the abandonment of judicial expertise and individual independence as selection touchstones, and the substitution of "social philosophy" and "pressure group sensitivity" as new guidelines for weighing the caliber of Supreme court nominess...
...Nixon's Vietnam policy...
...Hence 3 November was to be the dawn of a magnificent era, and from the American incursion into Cambodia an operation which our press reported as if they were reporting the Wehrmach's Juggernaut across Poland-to the waning days of summer, The New Republic served as a weekly bulletin board for every imaginable new anti-administration organization...
...It is the kind of blessed phenomenon that would have sent staccato smirks across Calvin Coolidge's mask...
...And what is more, its pursuit is serious business...
...All were champions in the traditional American pastime of fabricating tall tales...
...Nevertheless, the rejection of these two eminently qualified jurists represents the adoption of standards for selecting Supreme Court nominees that will insure that only men partial to enforced socio-governmental change sit on the Supreme Court...
...Contrary to all the canards and falsehoods of the media Mr...
...The present administration will be even stronger in 1972 if it learns from this election A) that at least in the Midwest you cannot beat nothing with nothing, B) that Republicans must revive the economy without inflating it, C) that they must run more beautiful candidates, D) that they must face issues (like inflation) and not try to Madison Avenuize them, E) the Administration must get out of Vietnam without letting the Vietcong get in, and most importantly, F) the Republicans must formulate a program informed by the philosophy of their constiluency-thal is to say thai if their supporters are conservative, this Republican administration had better decide what that means...
...I wish you really believed what you wrote...
...Soon after their Cambodian trauma they cheerfully reported that "the young" (yes every single one of them) had "had it" Kent State was their very own Pearl Harbor...
...The politicians' speeches are an inspiration, and their voting records are a relief...
...Why could not more of the young thousands bestir themselves to usher in The New Republic's Brave New World...
...One week a list of peace candidates was featured, and the next week they editorialized on a couple of youthful swindlers' recent ventures into the peace industry-organizing groups at Princeton and Yale to pick the pockets of fellow students...
...keep up the good work...
...Thus the most ideological flights of fancy and the most violent action attract the media's sympathetic affections...
...It was in their post-election anagogues that the pundits' deceit began to press politicoes...
...Yet my friends engaged in the traffic of ardent spirits inform me that-though during election campaigns American saloons are always crowded-sales are inevitably down, for no man wishes to befog himself and miss one blundering moment of the politicoes' performance...
...Likewise the Democrats are in a strong position, and they will enhance that position by: A) developing effective alternative policies, B) acquiring spokesmen who are somewhat more competent than their present gaggle of parade leaders, C) continuing to immobilize Congress...
...For instance the Rt...
...At one point Mr...
...Considering the vast number of newspapers, syndicates (both AP and UPI carried the line) and broadcasting companies who reported the "news analysis" it becomes obvious that we are being treated to a first-rate lie...
...But above all, both parties must promote more dramatic and alluring liars...
...Nixon has transmuted into a dangerous conservative of the John C. Calhoun genre...
...But this year mendacious politicians are finding their status jeopardized by the media...
...Mother CAMPAIGN '70 (continued from page 2) same reasons Italians pinch women: it is exciting, amusing and instructive...
...The densest concentrations of these psychic gluttons are among the young, and America's wowsers feast on them...
...THE BROTHERHOOD" Lambda Chi Marietta, Ohio Editor's note: The above was received on a folded, spindled and mutilated IBM card...
...Agnew...
...D) Mr...
...George Natban Pop Students I will do such things,/ What they are, yet I know not, but they shall be/ The terrors of the earth...
...Though The New Republic and The Nation dutifully informed their readers that the revolution was upon us, on the day of that revolution no one could quite roll out of bed...
...now-weathermen...
...The first goal of these young lobbyists is to win enough votes in the legislature to secure passage of what is known as the Amendment to End the War" - it lost...
...Rather, The Alternative is to be commended for its perspective and courage . in focusing its articles on matters of genuine concern to our citizenry...
...The reaction by the press appeared to me-as a lay-psy-chologist-to be an over reaction based on its own awareness of its improper exposure of an attitude towards the Manson case...
...Certainly Pug Tunney was as much a champion as were his colleagues...
...I feel that to introduce a "Letters to the Editor" column into The Alternative would strongly degrade the once fine quality of the magazine...
...The virtuoso American politician has always managed to present a noble visage as a cover for great vacuity and sincerity as the brand name for a kind of stupidity that is perfection itself...
...When-before the elections-reporters warned that administrations almost inevitably lose congressional strength in off-year elections and-after the elections-expressed utter dismay that Mr...
...Why don't you get a job like other boys your age...
...Yet, the most ironic comparison can be made with the names chosen by both elements: then-storm troopers...
...Senator Hartke's performance in the Hoosier state gave me the distinct feeling that he saw himself to be the candidate hand-picked by Robert Welch to deliver the Republic from Bolshevism...
...Sincerely yours, Elizabeth Kristol New York, New York As a recipient of the Philip Freneau Award, I would like to thank you for an excellent magazine...
...And have you yet guessed why I placed this little editorial under my pillow...
...Their resulting performances convey-to intelligent observers-a good idea of the world of the acid head...
...Obviously the medias' portrayal of youth is an idiotic distortion...
...This is not to say that all young people neglected the elections...
...Nixon's afternoon at the ball park, they speculated on the ominous consequences that "The New Constituency" (voters eighteen to twenty years old) would have on the American Epic...
...Nixon did lose support we all suspected a worm...
...Yet I will mention one fairly obvious cause...
...The column is totally useless, and does not succeed in fulfilling its purpose, which is to present intelligent criticisms condemning the magazine...
...In America there are almost eight million college students training for a wide variety of vocational pursuits...
...This year the competition has been furious...
...Crude peace symbols painted on building walls and street surfaces awaken memories of ugly swastikas adorning walls and doors in Germany...
...What these wowsers have done is obvious...
...But guess that would be "censorship," huh...
...and of course F) Republicans used "fear tactics" and Democrats were more sporting...
...They hold a highly ideologized vision of how the world should turn, and they never neglect an opportunity to inr fluence others towards viewing the world in their terms...
...But it was too late, for the cancer had already taken root and the consequences were soon to be felt throughout the world...
...Destruction of university buildings and hordes of wild-eyed youth pillaging stores and running amok in the streets remind one of the early days of Hitler's youth, and the horrible acts of destruction they wrought...
...At Yale students took time from their studies for a rally honoring the Black Panthers...
...Erik Jannson of the renowned Association of Students for Voter Registration informed us of the conspiracy to disfranchize students in Orono, Maine, and at another point the editors listed "approved" candidates especially in need of those flashes of enlightenment which emanate from the immaculate bosoms of "the young...
...They are this decade's Lost Generation...
...Ending the interview on a Socratic theme, Kingman Brews ter'swarrior remarked to the student "I'd like to see you go to Vietnam and come home in a box and then see how strong your support for Vietnam is...
...I suspect a melange of dark powers at work...
...But one masterpiece was not enough and now the magnificoes of the media are unlimbering their forked tongues and laying such a barrage of humbug on the nation that politicians may come to be considered paragons of truth by comparison...
...Rather it is because this editorial proves that The Nation still employs creative writers, perhaps even alcoholics...
...The national Unidex poll found that only fourteen percent of America's students intended to "actively participate" in political campaigns...
...There just aren't any straight people left in the world...
Vol. 4 • December 1970 • No. 2
