Dear Editor
DEAR EDITOR KITMAN While admitiing that Marshall McLuhan's theories are controversial, I still believe that they deserve a much more serious consideration than the flippant, cute treatment given...
...he is closer to the truth, if McLuhan is right, than he realizes...
...Washington, D.C...
...He fails to realize that this observation supports McLuhan's thesis...
...The modern draft system began in 19th-century Prussia...
...We monitor tv????while we eat, drink, talk or beat the children...
...The men who dedicate their lives to military service will have greater knowledge of military operations than the dilettante and will inevitably control the services...
...The most vociferous supporters of the draft at the present time are The New Leader welcomes comment and criticism on any of its features, but letters should not exceed 300 words...
...De Gaulle's move can only hurt the Assembly...
...The draft, obviously, has not averted the widening of military influence either...
...Lee reports that the focus of the Alliance for Progress has shifted to economic development' in the hope of building up an agrarian and industrial middle class that will eventually revise the "semi-feudal" structure of Latin American society: It-seems to me that the present gap between top and bottom in Latin America, plus the greater expectancies aroused by modern communications and modern ideologies, are fast lowering the poorer class' level of tolerance: They are being taught to want more, and they want more now...
...Portsmouth, N.H...
...The anarchy in the mountains is certainly not a movement created by hotheads out of a vacuum...
...NL...
...His analogy demonstrates the high degree to which his perceptual habits have been molded by the print technology...
...When Kitman says, "I'm just thinking linearly...
...In the light of these recent events, Philip's exhortation, "In coming years the Assembly should take on new life and regain much of its importance," seems to be farther from fulfillment than ever...
...Los Angeles, Calif...
...On the other hand, if the Assembly manages to defeat the bill, it seems unlikely, given the passions inflamed by the President's request, that new turmoil and divisions among the deputies can be avoided...
...No sooner did the new Assembly meet than old enemies started shouting invectives at one another across the hall and pounding on their desks to drown out opponents' speeches...
...Surely Philip is positing the theoretical, not the actual, relationship between the French President and the National Assembly...
...Eugene...
...In fact, it may have helped him...
...Harold Koretz, M.D...
...Instead of discussing the need for cooperation in the Assembly or posing constructive social reforms, he launched an attack on the Government's alleged rigging of the elections and ils neglect of social problems throughout its nine years in power...
...Perhaps we may understand this if we note that, as Tyler admits, the influence of the military is greatest at the present time, draft army notwithstanding...
...Kitman's medium is the give-away...
...Moreover agitation for a draft army was by no means confined to Socialists and liberals, as Tyler implies...
...A. I. Parker...
...A Martian reading Tyler might suppose that we are now engaging the Confederates or Hitler, and not, as is actually the case, the National Liberation Front...
...Throughout most of its history the United States relied mainly upon draft armies, and this may be said to be the American tradition on the subject...
...All male Germans were required to serve three years under the colors...
...Avoca, N.Y...
...the heads of the military services...
...We want, primarily, to end the war, and not be so-called "responsible critics...
...McLuhan's ideas are new, perhaps revolutionary, and sometimes hard to get at...
...Kitman does not appear congenial to the Marshall Plan to exterminate rationality...
...As Bruce Chapman notes, in Wrong Man in Uniform, we rely upon professionals for just about everything in life, simply because they know more...
...Evidently the draft did not avert Hitler...
...The Chamber was virtually reduced to a three-ring circus when Gaullist Deputy Rene Ribiere, humiliated at being called an "idiot" by Gaston Deffere, challenged him to a duel...
...If military men cannot be educated to accept the norms of American democracy before they enter the services I don't think anything more can be done about it...
...Always holding the Assembly in contempt, it is not surprising that he requested that body to relinquish its right to debate and vote on important social and economic issues for six months, empowering the government to carry out needed reforms instead...
...April 24, 1967): "The Assembly balances the President's power of action through ~ its day-to-day control of the administration by interpellation, and through the right to challenge governmental responsibility by a motion of censure...
...DEAR EDITOR KITMAN While admitiing that Marshall McLuhan's theories are controversial, I still believe that they deserve a much more serious consideration than the flippant, cute treatment given them by Marvin Kitman ("McLuhan ihe Medium," NL...
...For judging from the verbal pyrotechnics carried forth this last April, the new Assembly is still its old ineffectual self...
...I see no evidence that the presence of non-professionals in the army has had any effect on the military ethos...
...Tyler notes correctly that "an officer corps with an army of declasses at its command can topple governments and constitutions...
...Moreover, as Lee points out, economic development needs the impetus of regional economic integration...
...Who knows, perhaps there is hope for the human race...
...By eating and drinking before tv we invite Huntley and Brinkley to sit at the dining table with us...
...Of course, it was the veterans of the German draft armies who formed the nucleus of the SA and also of the Rotterbund (the League of Red ex-Servicemen, the German Communist private army...
...Claude Soulier punta del este After reading Henry Lee's report on the Punta del Este conference ("Action Plan for Latin America," NL, April 24), I can only agree that it remains to be seen whether the governments will ever implement the "Declaration of the Presidents...
...Perhaps it has helped...
...The German example, of which Tyler is so fond, is concrete evidence that the opposite may be true...
...Even Francois Mitterand, the spokesman of the Leftist Federation, contributed to the bedlam...
...William Taper draft Gus Tyler's article "Dangers of a Professional Army" (NL, April 24) is yet another depressing instance of the current trend among liberals to rush to the defence of conservative institutions...
...This does not make the prospects for the Declaration program look promising...
...The current struggle against the draft cannot be discussed without reference to what is going on now, namely the struggle against the war in Vietnam...
...Charles Deemer Graduate Assistant University of Oregon A word of appreciation for Marvin Kitman who is not easily manipulated by the Great Masseur...
...Could these countries actually build a middle class fast enough...
...markets for traditional exports than in their own common market," and the traditional exports favor the wealthy classes...
...The perpetual fracas in the legislative branch must have convinced President de Gaulle that the Assembly was unregenerate...
...April 10...
...Indeed the prospects for cooperation will be very dim...
...If it passively accepts special executive power it will relegate itself once again to the rubber stamp role it has played since 1958...
...and indeed, would a middle class growing out of the Latin American tradition be willing to shoulder responsibility for social reform...
...Yet, as he also points out, "most oas members are still more interested in access to the big U.S...
...by talking, we converse with them...
...Jaures and the French Socialists urged the institution of the Prussian system not only because they feared the professional officer class, but because they feared the Germans...
...This is closely demonstrated when Kitman uses McLuhan's statement that "the invention of television makes books obsolete as an educational tool" analogously to suggest a series of fanciful and juvenile attempts at humor...
...c'est la vie I was amused then saddened to read Andre Philip's statement in "France's New Politic...
...Those of us who are opposed to this war are also opposed to the institutions which make it possible, including the draft...
...While the shift in the Alliance for Progress policy may bolster the national economies, it does not seem action enough to quell the unrest and avoid popular frustration...
...Kitman gives no evidence that he understands the rudiments of McLuhan's message or that he has bothered to find out the full significance of the seminal idea, "the medium is the message," which McLuhan considers at length in Understanding Media...
...his analogy, like the syllogism, depends on the perceptual specialization that followed when the eye became top dog in the hierarchy of senses...
...Kitman writes, "Nobody in America listens to tv...
...Kitman's attempt to dismiss McLuhan with a child's wit only increases that numbness and, if anything, gives empirical reason to side with McLuhan...
...and when we beat the kids, I rather think it is because they've been interrupting us adults...
...But McLuhan is aware of being handicapped, both by being a product of and necessarily working in a print-conditioned environment that is perceptually numb...
...Unfortunately he fails to mention that an officer corps with any kind of army at its command can topple governments and constitutions...
Vol. 50 • May 1967 • No. 10
