Short Bursts: Volume 06-01

Ballot access, wacko TV news, techno-racism, the real “MLK”

By Tom Kovach

The kind readers who have followed my columns for a few years know that I occasionally fire a series of Short Bursts. (Here's a link to the very first one.) My usual approach to fighting Leftist lies is the sniper approach: firing a high-powered round of truth in a straight line at the head of a single topic. Then, seeking another opportune target at some later point. (For example, three days after this column was published, General Wesley Clark quit the presidential race! Then, I fired a Short Burst at John Kerry.) On occasion, though, the lies come in so fast, from so many different directions, that I must grab my "M-60 keyboard" and spray truth "full-auto in all directions." Today is one such occasion.

ballot access

A recent news story seems to portend the political wave of the future. Political parties that have widely disparate views are working together for ballot-access reform. Smaller political parties are often, and wrongly, called "third parties." In reality, there are more than 400 political parties in the United States. They can't all be "third."

I have requested membership statistics from the Federal Election Commission, but have yet to receive them. By several accounts, though, the Constitution Party is the third-largest political party in America. (In the interests of full disclosure, I'm the state PR coordinator for the Constitution Party of Tennessee.) The mere fact that an item has been quoted many times, though, does not guarantee that it is true. (Two examples from the "mainstream" media: 1] homosexuals comprise ten percent of the population, 2] Bill Clinton is a moderate. Anyone that believes either of those points needs to have their brain washed out with some facts.) So, as evidence, I point to the strong showing of Michael Peroutka in the 2004 presidential race. By reason of the numbers that he gathered, his name was reported along with MSM darling Ralph Nader. You might recall that Nader was the candidate of the Green Party in 2000, and a so-called "independent" in 2004. Despite all of the MSM coverage of Nader for the past 30 years, I never once heard a news report mention the Green Party's connections to the Baader-Meinhof terrorist gang of Germany. (Back when I was "on the job," more than 20 years ago, the original Green Party of Germany was itself considered a terrorist organization, because of the connections to B-M and the later Red Army Faction.) And, the MSM never mentions that "Independent Media" (which touted Nader) is connected to the Socialist Party. (Hmmmmm. I wonder why.) So, only by producing overwhelming numbers could Peroutka have forced the hand of the MSM, and thus gotten the network news coverage. For me, unless I see some conflicting numbers from the FEC, that is proof that the Constitution Party really is the "third party" in America. All others: take a number — higher than three, please.

But, back to ballot access. Smaller parties are beginning to form coalitions. One such attempt occurred about this time last year, on the steps of the State Capitol here in Nashville. (I was there, by invitation from ... the Green Party.) As is usually the case with Socialist projects, the real agenda of the rally was kept secret until the TV cameras started taping. Representatives, such as me, were invited under the pretext that the topic was ballot access for the smaller parties. But, once the cameras were on, the Greens began a pre-scripted, drum-banging (literally!) chant about "election fraud," and bashing the War in Iraq. It turns out that the "ballot-access coalition" was merely a ploy to get more faces on screen in support of the Greens, who claimed that the 2004 presidential election was "stolen." (And, if they believe that, fine. But, that's not what the topic said on the invitation.) So, if you are an official with any other political party, beware of Greens bearing gifts.

Ballot access is an important topic, though, and needs to be pursued vigorously by the smaller parties. The debate, however, must center on developing a level playing field, and not upon issue-oriented camera opportunities. I might have to hold my nose while I do it, but I'd go into any state legislature and support the right of opposing parties to be on the ballot — right along with the Big Two. I'd encourage other conservatives — from the America First Party to the Veterans' Party of America, and everyone in between — to get on board a genuine ballot-access reform movement. I'd be happy to help, but my resources are limited. Ballot access is for everyone; but, it will only happen when the political Right becomes as motivated as the Left.

wacko TV news

Other commentators have mentioned this before, but it bears repeating until the problem is fixed. I'm a detail guy. And, during my military career, that fact sometimes made me the point man. And, having been a point man, I notice things that others seem to miss. Here is one of the things that TV news directors seem to miss.

Have you watched the TV footage coming from the War in Iraq? The cameras get some great angles, don't they? The pictures make you feel like you're right there, "in the zone," with the troops. And, the problem is, the cameramen are right there.

I remember some "embedded" news footage back when our troops were still "on the road to Baghdad." The TV reporter was at the top of a sand dune, interviewing a young Marine, who was lying prone and taking up a fighting position against a lone Iraqi about 250 meters away on another sand dune. The idiotic reporter was pelting the Marine with questions, and sticking the microphone in his face, while the Marine was trying to take aim! In fact, the reporter even asked, "Are you going to shoot that man over there?" (Then, the camera panned across the desert, and showed the enemy looking back at them.) I could see the Marine, trying to be cooperative while biting his lip, looking confusedly at the reporter, as if to say, "Why do you think I'm here, Dumbo?"

Worse yet, in order to get the best camera angle (which, of course, must always include the reporter's face ...), it was obvious that the camera was at a slightly higher elevation. Yes, you read right. The Marine was lying prone on top of a sand dune, in open desert, and the camera was higher than the Marine. That would be a TV camera — you know, with lots of shiny metal, and a big, reflective, glass lens. (Famed USMC sniper Carlos Hathcock is reported to have shot a North Vietnamese sniper — they stalked each other in the jungle for days — right through the lens of his rifle scope.) Perhaps, if the Marine had been higher than a Private First Class, he would've told the reporter and the cameraman to get back down the dune, and stop trying to break his concentration. Perhaps, if the Marine had been of higher rank, he would've turned his rifle at the cameraman, and said, "If you don't stop giving away my position, I'm going to give you an opportunity for an interview with the first Iraqi casualty of this war!" Of course, the young Marine's low rank is probably how he got stuck with that TV crew in the first place ... for that very reason.

Unfortunately, this sort of technique continues today. Watch the troops on the TV news from the war zone. Watch the camera angles. And, when you do, try to think like a point man. Look at where the weapons are pointed, and look at the eyes of the troops. After a while, it becomes painfully obvious that — repeatedly, as a matter of routine — the TV news crews are out in front of the troops, potentially giving away both their current position and their planned movements! By contrast, reports by Fox News correspondents Oliver North and Greg Kelly (both former Marines), were always done with "clean" shots. They reported the front line action, but without endangering the troops. North (for whom I almost worked on Fat Lady missions) knew the ropes; he had been an infantry commander in Vietnam. Kelly (a personal acquaintance) had been a fighter pilot over Iraq, enforcing the no-fly zone after Desert Storm. But, he admitted on-air that being embedded with the US Army's infantry showed him combat from a much different angle.

So, I'm calling on TV news directors to rein in their people. Tell them to get the news, but without "making news" by potentially bringing hostile fire down upon our troops. (And, for any GIs reading this from the war zone, please e-mail me with details — including photos, if you can — of reporters that put your lives in danger. Use the mailform on my Web site.) And, I'm calling on people that read my columns to call the TV network news departments to voice your concern over this problem. (And, while your at it, call Rita Cosby, and tell her to stop interviewing porn "industry" people, and to get back to the kind of reporting that made her famous in the first place. Grrrrrrrrr. I'd better change topics now.)

techno-racism

By a strange quirk of Net surfing, I stumbled upon an irritating article yesterday. Despite the fact that some parts of the article make sense, the author of "Politics and Military Recruiting" also wrote that "whites are more likely to sign up for combat jobs." Oh, really?! The author has written several books on military studies, so I'd find it hard to believe that he has not heard of the 92nd Infantry Division "Buffalo Soldiers," one of the most decorated units of World War Two, or the 370th Infantry Regiment. (The only Black man to be awarded the Medal of Honor from either of the World Wars came from that unit. And, he was awarded it retroactively, because the unfair treatment of Blacks at that time let his heroics go unreported.) Prior to desegregation in 1948, Black soldiers were often given the most dangerous combat assignments, in hopes that they would be killed. One decorated Black American soldier said, "We had to fight two enemies...."

I would hope that the author knows that all members of Airborne units must volunteer. So, despite the fact that the 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion was never deployed to combat, the all-Black unit was made up of 100 percent combat volunteers, because the unit was constituted in the middle of World War Two. (By the way, if any movie producers are reading this, I've been working for almost a year on the research for a historically-accurate script that involves another little-known, all-Black unit of the American military. And, any agent or producer that would like to read my two-part sample script for the now-defunct TV series JAG is welcome to contact me. I wrote it back when "Harm" was still with the CIA. Oliver North is in the script, along with a "surprise guest.") Despite not seeing combat overseas, the "Triple Nickels" fought forest fires on the West Coast during the war, and helped to pioneer the concept of "smoke jumpers." (Having made 44 jumps myself, I still wince at some of the techniques that are unique to smoke jumping.) And, interestingly, it was the Air Force that published this documentary of the military history of Black Americans. That is because the Tuskegee Airmen proved that Blacks were not technologically inferior to Whites. (As if the scientific discoveries of George Washington Carver, or the inventions of Elijah "the real" McCoy, had not already done that decades before World War Two.)

Perhaps the author had not considered the fact that our Special Operations Forces actively recruit Black soldiers. (When conducting advance operations in Somalia or Haiti, or surveillance in Guyana or Senegal, it sure comes in handy to blend in with the population.) I could excuse the author for not knowing about a particular person though.

So, let me tell you about one of the men that put the polish on my skills — long after I had graduated from combat training. Chief Master Sergeant Willie Vaughn was one of those men that was born to be a soldier. He resembled Carl Weathers, the Black actor that has played so many movie tough guys, and he had a similarly distinguished baritone voice. And, when one of the airmen assigned under me caused a problem, and got sent to Chief Vaughn's office, the people in the building across the street called to ask what all that noise was. (On that occasion, the Chief put a hole in the wall behind his desk with the back of his chair, simply because he stood up so fast to get in the airman's face.) When he was in Vietnam, Willie Vaughn had been a member of both Project Tough Tiger and Operation Safeside (both all-volunteer special units). After more than 20 years, I can still hear Chief Vaughn reminding us, during ABGD combat drills, "The mind forgets, but the muscles remember. Do it again!" We did. So, although some of author James Dunnigan's other writings seem credible, I hope he doesn't show that article to Chief Willie Vaughn, because "the muscles remember."

The idea that Blacks are less likely to sign up for combat is about as myopic as saying that White women are less likely be terrorists; therefore, they don't need to be put under surveillance. Oops, I forgot, our government said that.

the real "MLK"

I had begun to write this column over the weekend. But, here it is, Monday morning on MLK Day, and I'm not finished yet. That's one nice thing about online publishing: it can still get out in time.

But, I'm not sure that it can make a difference. Trying to tell the truth about "the man popularly known as The Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr." (that wasn't his name at birth) is like shouting in a hurricane. Thankfully, I'm not the only one shouting.

Memphis talk-radio slugger James Edwards has compiled a list of documented information about "Doctor" King. It turns out that the things I researched for "Shouting in a Hurricane" were only the tip of the iceberg. I won't steal all his thunder, but let me give you a point or two from his list. King was caught plagiarizing on several occasions. The example that stunned me was that the famous paragraph, "... from every mountainside, ... let freedom ring," was actually from a speech by Archibald Carey, a Black pastor from Chicago. (Fascinatingly, that speech was given to the 1952 Republican National Convention. So, why do most Blacks join the Democrats?)

There have been many Black people that fought hard, intellectually and physically, to gain equal freedoms in America. Others have reasonably presented that racial equality was on its way, long before the KGB funded certain operatives (including King) within that movement. The funding was not because the Soviets wanted to promote racial equality, but because they wanted to destabilize America during time of war. The Soviets miscalculated the compassionate heart that lies beneath the tough American exterior. They thought that King's movement would cause such internal strife that the United States would cease its "containment of Communism" doctrine — as applied in Vietnam, the Korean Peninsula, and Europe. The Communists thought that, by presenting Blacks as mere "cannon fodder for The Man," they could stop Black people from volunteering for military service. King was a willing cog in the KGB machine against America, and its high time that we stopped honoring him for being a Judas goat.

When I was stationed at Maxwell AFB, in Montgomery, I saw an interview with Rosa Parks on the 40th anniversary of her famous bus incident. With her own mouth, I heard her say that it was not a pre-planned event. (Many people that swallow the King myth also think that King had helped to plan the incident.) She said that she was simply "too tired to move," being on the way home from a hard day's work. Her recent death, at the age of 80, has reminded many young people just how far we've come in a fairly short time. It seems to me that, rather than honor a woman-beating KGB operative, our country could much better celebrate advances in racial equality on Rosa Parks Day. Whether it was the anniversary of her birth, her death, or the day that she didn't get to ride the bus, the name of Rosa Parks is far more deserving of honor than that of Michael — oops, I meant "The Reverend Doctor Martin Luther" — King.

Perhaps, in a future column, I'll not restrain my passions quite this much.

Bring more ammo!

© Tom Kovach