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ASHES and DIAMONDS
by Alexander Cockburn
Unfairness Doctrine
The unanimous decision of the Fed
eral Communications Commission to
overturn the Fairness Doctrine after
38 years will have a major impact on
public discussion in this country. The
doctrine required television and radio
stations to give contrasting viewpoints
on issues of public importance and the
requirement has been a mainstay of
dissident political opinion in the
United States.
As all viewers know well, network
newscasts have been compelled to air,
for three hours prime time each week,
controversial and heterodox views
about- such matters as—in recent
weeks—contra aid, the true story un
folding in the Iran-contra hearings,
consumer information, radical poli
tical analysis of the operations of the
major banks and the federal reserve
system, political developments in the
99.9 percent of the world regularly
misrepresented on the networks, and
“public” (i.e., corporate) television.
All this has now been swept away
and the airwaves, originally public
property, will increasingly be the pre
serve of money-addicted corporations
bent on increasing advertising reve
nues and diminishing energetic and
democratic discussion of issues of
major importance. Television and
radio will never be the same again.
Business As Usual
The Iran-contra hearings have trick
led into the sand—a tragi-comic opera
of missed opportunities, misapplied
priorities, muffed questions and
chicken hearted congress persons. On
May 23 Randolph Ryan, one of the
best mainstream editorial writers in
the country, wrote in the Boston
Globe that the hearings were not do
ing their job and that “the question
to spend time on is not whether Ollie
North paid for his snow tires, nor
whether Secord was a patriot, nor even
‘what President Reagan knew.’ It is
how an elaborate world-wide special
operations system was constructed in
the years after 1979, and what it con
sists of today, not just how it applies
to Nicaragua but around the world.
If that system is not targeted, it will
never be uprooted. North may do six
months for lingerie and snow-tire pur
chases, but the clandestine threat to
democracy will remain.”
The only thing Ryan was wrong
about—at least so far—was Ollie do
ing time.
Just consider that since the Iran
contra scandal broke and the hearings
began, the U.S. government has
almost beyond a doubt sponsored a
coup in Fiji (see JoAnn Wypijewski’s
marshalling of the evidence in the
August 9-16 issue of The Nation-, pro
moted the organization of death
squads in the Philippines; continued
supply of Savimbi's UNITA in Angola
and stepped up arming and supply of
the Nicaraguan contras.
This is a list composed after only
a brief moment’s reflection. More as
siduous citation would have to include
cooperation with South Africa in the
supply of the Renamo movement in
Mozambique, lately responsible for
one of the most ghastly massacres in
recent African history with its
slaughter of more than 250 Mozam
bicans, many of them women and
children.
In other words, it has been business
as usual for secret government even
while the hearings were going on.
Hang Them High
TV Guide's two-part series on
public television has thus far produced
some striking statistics: In fiscal 1983
the British government spent $18 per
capita on public broadcasting; Japan,
$10; Canada, $22. In 1985 per capita
federal spending in the U.S. on public
broadcasting was 57 cents. As TV
Guide's John Weisman crisply demon
strated, public television has degen
erated into a gigantic and self-serving
bureaucracy. Of the $173 million the
Corporation for Public Broadcasting
got from all sources in 1985, only $29
million went directly into program
ming; the average PBS station spends
only three to six percent of its budget
buying programs from PBS’s Station
Program Cooperative.
With Friends Like These
A retired colonel from the U.S.
Marine Corps prepares a report
labelled OPLAN arguing that the con
tras cannot win but that a full scale
U.S. invasion with a force of 50,000
would gain effective control of
Nicaragua within a month with the
loss of about 600 men and 4,000
wounded. He notes that “even though
U.S. forces will endeavor to minimize
civilian casualties,” death of
Nicaraguan civilians will be very
high, along with 5,350 military
casualties.
Who is this retired marine? Not, as
you might imagine, some associate of
Oliver North, working under contract
to the National Security Council, but
Lt. Col. John H. Buchanan, a mem
ber of the reserach staff of the Center
for Defense Information. Now the
CDI, 15 years old and headed by Rear
Admiral Gene La Rocque, is a well
known component of the “Public In
terest” community in Washington. It
is underwritten by Stuart Mott and has
become respected for its factual
ly-grounded analyses of the military
balance, of arms reduction proposals,
of U.S. weapons systems and kindred
effusions of the war economy. Its
regular reports, put out in the Defense
Monitor, are to be seen on many a
dovish desk and are usually sensible
and well documented.
The issue of the Defense Monitor
devoted to “U.S. Invasion of Nicara
gua” and prepared under Buchanan’s
supervision, exhibits with pitiless ac- '
curacy the limitations both of the
military mind (at least as possessed
by USMC officers) and of public
interest liberalism, since no one at
CDI saw fit to question the amazing
document going forth under its impri
matur. Quite aside from the military
assumptions of the scenario which ex
hibit a confidence in easy victory for
the invading forces that might embar
rass even Lt. Col. Oliver North, the
political assumptions are grotesque.
For example, the report suggests
that following the initial month-long
blitzkrieg, there would be “small
scale resistance and low-level sabo
tage” for three months, during which
time “there is a strong possibility that
the U.S. Commander could find the
Contras running amuck in operations
against civilians. In such an event he
would have to take time out from the
war to forcibly sideline them.” A per
son who believes this will believe any
thing.
Then again the report suggests that
in the next phase—lasting two years—
“the United States will establish and
try to legitimize a Nicaraguan govern
ment more to its liking. The first step
will be to get rid of those ruthless
military and political leaders in the
contra ranks who would restore Ni
caragua to the Somoza days. Hopes
of any democratic process will soon
be dashed if they remain.” The report
points a lyrical picture of Nicaraguan
reconstruction lubricated by U.S.
dollars. “Many Nicaraguans will ex
perience real prosperity for the first
time in their lives.” Ironically, the
U.S. will end up paying for everything
the contras are now destroying as we
finally provide the economic re
sources desperately needed to pro
duce a stable nation. If we must ulti
mately buy Nicaragua, would it not
be wise to do it at much less cost now
instead of after a brutal war?
Colonel Buchanan’s final conclu
sion? “The U.S. should employ its
substantial political influence and
economic power to promote construc
tive change in Nicaragua and Central
America rather than resorting to war.”
With friends like these. . . . The
folks at the Center for Defense In
formation should boot out Buchanan
and learn to conduct arguments
against intervention in a principled
fashion. Let them study some anti-im
perialist rhetoric from the turn of the
century. Here’s what the Republican
Senator George F. Hoar said in the
U.S. Senate on the occasion of the
annexation of Hawaii in 1898:
“If this be the first step in the ac
quisition of dominion over barbarous
archipelagos in distant seas; if we are
to enter into competition with the
great powers of Europe in the plun
dering of China, in the division of
Africa; if we are to quit our own to
stand on foreign lands; if our com
merce is hereafter to be forced upon
unwilling peoples at the cannon’s
mouth; if we are ourselves to be gov
erned in part by peoples to whom the
Declaration of Independence is a
stranger; or, worse still, if we are to
govern subjects and vassal states,
trampling as we do it on our own great
Charter which recognizes alike the
liberty and the dignity of individual
manhood, then let us resist this thing
in the beginning, and let us resist it
to the death.”
Try to imagine if you will Senator
Joseph Biden or Senator Paul Simon
or Governor Mike Dukakis or any
candidate for the presidential nomi
nation of the Democratic Party say
ing these words. Jesse Jackson, yes;
the rest, no way.
Coming UP:
Three-Week Issue
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issue and will include events information from August
27-September 16.
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close the What’s Happening office from Friday, August 28 to Wednes
day, September 9.
The office will re-open Thursday, September 10 at 9 am, and the
Calendar and Classifieds deadline for the September 17 issue is 4 pm,
September 10.
The display advertising deadline for the September 17 issue is Mon
day, September 14 at noon.
Future Features
September 17: Pacifica, What’s Happening’s first Literary Supple
ment, is four pages of prose and poetry chosen by
jurors of the First Annual Lane Literary Awards,
sponsored by Lane Literary Guild, Lane Regional
Arts Council and What’s Happening.
September 25: Eugene Celebration issue—comprehensive coverage
Mid-October:
of Eugene’s biggest party!
Special Fifth Anniversary Issue. What’s Happen
ing looks back and looks ahead: How have we con
tributed to the specialness of Eugene? What is our
future role?
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