From the Easy Chair

The Media; The Fourth Estate

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Conversations, Panels and Sermons

Lesson: 186-214

Genre: Speech

Track:

Dictation Name: RR161K20

Year: 1980s and 1990s

Dr. R. J. Rushdoony, RR161K20, The Media; The Fourth Estate, from the Easy Chair, excellent colloquies on various subjects.

[ Rushdoony ] This is R. J. Rushdoony, Easy Chair number 85, November 24, 1984.

Today I have with me two of our men, Otto Scott and John Saunders, aka, in his forthcoming role in Hill Street Blues is it Sal {?} or...

[ Saunders ] No, Sal {?}.

[ Rushdoony ] Sal {?}. Well, the three of us are going to discuss the media, the fourth estate.

To begin with I want to make a few generalizations. We assume that freedom of the press gives us a good press which is a false assumption. Most of the world does not have freedom of the press so they have no hope of a good press, by and large. Some of the European countries have a licensed press or in different ways a thoroughly controlled press. We tend to assume that freedom of the press is an automatic guarantee of a good media. What freedom of the press does is to give us the opportunity to have a good media. It does not automatically give us one.

Then let me say, next, that the history of the press and of the media, by and large, is not a good one. Before I go further let me say that the history of almost anything is not a particularly good one. We cannot idealize the past. The history of civil government is a very ugly history. The history of the Church has all kinds of ugly episodes and eras. The history of the arts, the history of almost anything. It is a history of struggle, of painful development towards something better. We have had good moments in the history of the press in this country, but, on the other hand, we have a great deal of evil in that history. In the last century it was not uncommon for newspapers—some of the big New York papers, for example—to manufacture stories in order to gain sales and publicity.

One of the more prominent western newspapers began its life as a blackmail sheet. It hasn’t improved too greatly over the years. In fact, 30 years or so ago Otto applied of a job there and they took one look at him and refused him, because it was obvious he was not gay.

Now this has been the press. This has been the media. This, too, has been a great deal of human history. So as we approach the media critically today, we want you to realize that it is not because we are idealizing anything in the past or assuming that the media is or always has been the lone bad apple in an otherwise marvelous society. We simply want to draw attention to some serious problems in the media.

Well, with that, do either of you want to take off on some aspect of the question of the media?

[ Scott ] Well, the media ... the media really began what I would consider its revolutionary role during the Enlightenment. And at that point broke out from what had been private newsletters and reportage into the kind of invention that you mentioned. Almost all of the arguments, certainly not all, but many of the arguments against the clergy and against the aristocracy of France in the 1770s and 1780s was invented. The accusation that Marie Antoinette said, “Let them eat cake,” was invented when, as a matter of fact, the queen at that time was running soup kitchens in Paris for the poor. And the history of the French Revolution as depicted in these various... they call them journals, will take you from extreme to the other. The only consistent factor in the whole area is that none of them can be believed.

Now after Napoleon, the press in France began to behave itself and, in fact, ran in clear and present danger of prison and suppression if it didn’t. It began to get bold again under the Bourbons, but only against the past. And I recall there was a famous episode when Napoleon got out of Elba where the Monitor in Paris printed with a headline saying, “The Monster has Escaped.” And as the days progressed and he got closer the headlines became increasingly more respectful until the day before he entered Paris it said, “His Majesty the Emperor has Returned.”

[ Rushdoony ] Good objectivity. Well, Otto, I think you very wisely started us off on the Enlightenment and the fact that the press then began its campaign of Humanism and anti Christianity. At times this campaign has been dropped or held in abeyance, but it is very much in abeyance in evidence today and we see a very extensive and often militant anti Christianity in the press.

[ Saunders ] I think ... I think there is a... a very significant tie in between the use of the press as an instrument of ... of propaganda by the left that Otto says... says began quite correctly during the Enlightenment. And I think the only difference between the Enlightenment’s use of the press and the modern use of the press is that the modern media has developed its market place to accept a particular kind, excuse me, a particular kind of press and they are making a lot of money as a result of that. One of the... one of the major elements of hypocrisy in the press is that they are constantly criticizing major corporations for making hundreds of millions or billions of dollars in terms of their profit and loss sheets. Ands they were very, very ... they came down extremely heavy on the oil companies during the oil crisis in publishing their profit figures. But one of the things that was never published was the fact that all of the major networks and the major press syndicates made more money than these oil companies did during the same calendar years when the oil companies were supposedly exploiting the oil crunch.

I think the ... I think it is fairly self evident that anyone printing from the left or publishing from the left is going to have an extreme difficulty in ever presenting the truth. There is kind of three factors, I think, that are key to understanding how we got in this mess and what can be done to turn it around. I think one of the factors is we have to realize that it is a person’s world view which determines, first, what is printed. Secondly, how it is presented. And then, third, what should be the response to it. And those three factors, I think, if we don’t understand those three essential factors, then we can’t even understand the modern media.

In the first place, what is ... is... is printed is extremely important, because you can take a newspaper and they can present all kinds of ... of perspectives solely the ... the perspective of the left and they can never talk about... the never talk about things like abortion except in a negative light, for example. They never talk about how local legislators or national legislators continually vote for higher and higher taxes. They always... they usually blame the amorphous Congress or the President of the United States. But the local media never names names. You know, for example, they don't say, “Senator so and so voted to support the increase in the budget.” You see, they never get that specific, because that is too conservative an agenda fiscal responsibility.

And you look at how it is presented. You can... there is a world of difference between presenting a particular article on the front page of a newspaper and presenting the same article in... buried somewhere in the back of the press. It is... it happens time and time again with many, many stories. I can... I can list dozens of examples in the last year in which a story without any basis in fact whatsoever, simply because it is propagated by a particularly adept political figure or media figure makes the front pages whereas a heavily documented story that is negative towards the liberal or the left wing perspective gets buried in ... in three or four column inches in the back of the newspaper.

[ Scott ] I ... I think that brings up the question of what sort of person is apt to be a journalist. I heard Peter Bystrup talk about that once at a dinner. Peter Bystrup is the journalist... I believe he was bureau chief for the Washington Post and he also was with the New York Times in Vietnam during the war. Later on he did a recap, a very scholarly recap on how the press here handled the Tet offensive and reversed it in the minds of the people from a military defeat by the North Vietnamese into a defeat by .... a ... a victory by them against the United States in South Vietnam.

And Bystrup was asked—and this was a private dinner—why the press when it was in Vietnam, our press was so acid about General Westmoreland and the other high ranking officers on our side. He said, “Well, you have to remember the sort of person that becomes a journalist in the first place. He is in the middle of his class. He is not a jock. He doesn’t get the girls. He wears glasses. He is not very athletic. And he comes out,” he said, “and then he gets a job and he becomes one of the boys and this is the only place where he is going to be one of the boys is in the city room with others like himself.” And he said, “He then sees somebody like Westie, Westmoreland coming down the aisle, six foot, radiating Jack Armstrong type with a chest covered with medals.” And he said, “You know, you would have to be less than human not to want to bring that down.”

Now that was a very honest explanation of envy.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes. I would add another factor here. Cowardice, the cowardice of a bully. Now I have here a small portion of the material. This is a very thick file of a two, three inches at least.

[ Saunders ] I was going to say. Small?

[ Rushdoony ] Articles about Mrs. Ferraro, the recent vice presidential candidate. Now these articles are of very great interest. Let me cite one example. The Wall Street Journal, Thursday, September 13, 1984 in an article titled by... titled “Representative Ferraro and a Painful Legacy,” by Jonathan Quidney and Anthony M. De Stefano deals with the underworld connections of Zaccaro and Ferraro, husband and wife. Only the Los Angeles Herald Examiner reprinted this article. No where else except in small newsletter type papers was anything like this printed.

Now here was a significant fact. If these charges were true it was important for Americans to know about or they might well be electing someone who was mafia connected. On the other hand, if we did not know about it, we were being deprived of very important knowledge that was basic to making a decision in the election. It would be fatal if this country had someone in high office so obviously mafia connected, if these stories were true.

Now the Washington Times carried such material, the Washington Enquirer a small tabloid monthly and a few other periodicals like that. But, by and large, the public was kept in ignorance about these facts.

Now either the media was cowardly, afraid or else it had strong liberal propensities that made it want to protect its side. Or a third possibility—and I have no evidence for this—but what if the media has been infiltrated, like so many other things, by the mafia? It does not present us with a very happy picture. Cowardice, bias, or mafia infiltration.

[ Saunders ] I think there is one more... one more fact to consider, too. The media is aware of such things as the Lichter and Rothman report. They are aware of a lot of recent surveys which have shown that the respect for journalism and the press in America is... has been declining markedly, especially in the last seven, eight years, almost even their own surveys are showing that now because when a network executive starts mentioning the fact that they are getting this kind of results on a poll, then you know it is a lot more serious than what he is willing to tell you. And I think one of the factor is the press is worried about its own image and which adds to the cowardice that you were talking about. I think its own self image is suffering a great deal. I think the Westmoreland case that is up now suing it which is the second such case against the same network in less than a year, because we had the ... the... the suit against Dan Rather and... and by the doctor in southern California last year. We have got this year we have got another major suit. We have seen a reporter at the Washington Post That was given a prize who was later discredited. We have seen a number of incidents in the last two to three, four years which have lent a lot of ... which have damaged, I think, the... the image of the press and I think that one of the other underlying factors is the press, I think, is getting a little nervous about its own image in the American people’s eyes, because if that image suffers too much more they are not going to sell newspapers. They are not going to be able to exploit the people they way they have been.

[ Rushdoony ] A major news magazine is being taken to court by a General Sharon of Israel who claims that they radically distorted and misrepresented his conduct in Lebanon.

[ Scott ] Well I think we are getting into an interesting area. Now I brought up the whole interest of the caliber, the human caliber of journalists deliberately because I recall when I was a journalist how cowardly the average fellow on the staff was regarding... visa vie the city desk. He was never bold with his boss. And I brought that up on the Napoleon thing, too. They are never bold when the authorities are strong. But they are very bold when authorities are weak.

Now the press of China was against Chiang Kai Shek, but the press of China vanished as a voice when Mao Tse Tung and the Communists took over. The press of Batista Cuba was vehement against the administration and against that culture, you might call it. And the press of Castro is muted. The press of Nicaragua was very vociferous against Somoza, that is La Princa was. And La Princa now doesn’t enjoy the strong government of the Sandinistas. They got the revolution that they asked for and they usually do, but it is the end of the voice.

However, if you want to ascribe feelings of envy to this particular clutch of people, the envious doesn’t... don’t care if they lose. They just want you to lose. Now we have a strange phenomenon in the United States where the press does not like the people or the government and the government, as far as the press is concerned, is weak. We have, of course, a constitutional amendment which enables the press to express itself, but the Supreme Court in going along with the liberal press removed the laws of libel and slander and has so hedged them about with qualifications that only God would be a credible witness in a slander case in an American court, because only God can tell you what you motivations were.

[ Saunders ] Yes.

[ Rushdoony ] I think you have put your finger on a very serious problem, Otto. The press has out of envy and a distaste for those in authority lashed out at person after person. Now ever since I began voting I haven’t seen a president that I have been happy with. But I have felt sorry for these presidents because of the genuinely vicious kind of attack they have been subjected to by cartoonists in the press. I don’t ... didn’t like the past four years being in sympathy with Reagan because of the character of the attack or Carter before him or Ford or Nixon or Johnson and so on. Johnson, for example, was one of the more... most sordid men in American politics. But the attack on him was vicious and irrelevant.

If the attack had been to the point, it would be something else.

[ Scott ] Then it would be criticism.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes. It has been just plane spitefulness, hatred. And I used to hate to look at the editorial page and see the editorial cartoon, for example, and feel sympathetic toward LBJ. But the level of the cartoons and some of the editorials was so bad that I would feel sorry for Johnson.

[ Saunders ] Well, look at what Doonesbury has been doing.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Saunders ] I mean...

[ Rushdoony ] And he is loved for it.

[ Saunders ] Yes. And you... you see, I think one of the things that one of the ways in which that manifest itself in the last three or four years under the Reagan administration is the fact that the president’s personal popularity intimidated the press to the point of where they never really went after him when they should have gone after him, right, on certain things. But what they did attack were all those around the president. For example, James Watt, among others. They went after James Watt every time he opened his mouth, you see. And the whole ... if James Watt’s history in the Reagan administration proves anything else, it proves that there is no such thing as freedom of the press, because the press... or freedom of speech, because Watt could not say anything without the press... once they had established the precedent that Watt could shoot himself in the foot, you see, once they could establish... then they could exploit it, you see. And they did everything they could to attack not only James Watt, but anyone else and {?} is another example of... in which a case is blown all out of proportion to the real facts of the... in a situation.

Ands you look at down... right down the line in the last four years of the Reagan administration. They couldn’t attack the president. They were afraid of him. He was too strong and that might backfire against a press who is already in trouble anyway in the public’s mind. But they could attack those people around the president.

[ Scott ] Well, there is a ... there is a formula, a formula for left wing revolutions. If we take the French Revolution as a prototype and the rest... the rest as... as imitations, the usual thing is an unbridled press attacks the unifying symbol of the culture, which, in that case was the crown and in our case is the president. Now once you reduce that symbol from a symbol of respectability and dignity to something that anyone can defile, you have done a culture an almost irreparable injury, because the thing that holds us together is made to seem despicable and unworthy and a target for the lowest individuals. The next step is the courts. Now in the case of the ... of the French in the great prototype revolution, the courts joined the attack on the crown. And in our instance—and I am assuming that we are agreed on the reality of the fact that we are living in a revolutionary period.

[ Saunders ] Yes.

[ Scott ] The courts have joined in the attack on the president and its power as they did with Nixon. The courts of the United States ruled that the president’s private papers could be open to the public, to be opened to the Congress under... under the Nixon administration. Now there is nothing to say, of course, that the same thing should not be true of the working papers of every representative and Senator, but the courts, by joining the revolutionary trend have unwittingly laid themselves open to the third stage which is the people’s courts or the argument that groups of people should override the rules of our society. Now that stage hasn’t quite arrived, but you can see its shadow on the horizon.

As the courts bend to revolutionary arguments and make increasingly bizarre rulings, you can see the people almost ... you can almost hear them saying, “Why should we listen to that?”

[ Saunders ] Now you... and what this relates back to something that we were talking about two or three years ago in terms of ultimate categories. When the ultimate categories in thinking. I am speaking now of a philosophic and theological sense. You know, the Chalcedon... the Chalcedon creed and the formulation, then, which established the... clarified the confusion and the ultimate categories and the godhead, finished the work of the Council of Nicea. And what... what we were talking about two or three years ago is the fact that there always has to be a balance between unity and diversity in any system or any society and what you are saying is that... and then what happens is that when one of those gets dominant, when the unity becomes dominant you end up with the all powerful state. When diversity becomes dominant you end up with anarchy through a series of stages. And what you are saying, Otto, is that the press is being used as the voice or the... the sword to attack the unity which ... which cuts off the diversity and diversity becomes, then, the dominant thing. Individualism, individual self expression, thing of that nature and anarchy results, which is exactly the same thing that happened in the French Revolution.

[ Scott ] Well, the press here was credited with bringing on the Civil War.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes. Well, when you destroy all respect for the forms of authority by putting everything on the level of personalities and envy for those in power...

[ Scott ] ... in business or anywhere else.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes, anyone with wealth, anyone with prestige or position.

[ Saunders ] Which works very nicely.

[ Rushdoony ] You create a revolutionary temper in society, a readiness to see everything that makes for order destroyed. It is not a temper for reform, but for destruction. Envy is a destructive force.

[ Scott ] That is it.

[ Saunders ] Yeah and you can see... you can see it works with how nicely that works out in terms of the press’ motive in its.... its... its own envy is ... is the basis for exploiting the envy in other parts of society and that is how if they can play the rich off against the poor they can play the businessman off against the consumer...

[ Scott ] All right.

[ Saunders ] ... the environment off against developer, et cetera. Fragmentation and destruction.

[ Scott ] The camera crew focuses on the handful of demonstrators and ignores 99 percent of those...

[ Saunders ] Exactly.

[ Scott ] ... who are not concerned.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] And this explains, also the paradox of the press in which it is owned by very wealthy businessmen. And ... but it is staffed by the envious and one of the odd things about the envious is that the fact that they have goods of their own does not keep them from being envious of other people.

Although Dan Rather and others are extremely wealthy men, they want to speak for the poor.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Saunders ] That is like the wealthy politician that runs for political office because he wants to do something for the poor. And wouldn’t he be better off by taking... by tithing and by taking personal responsibility. He would just as soon take your money as a political figure and... and write the... the check book… use the check book of compassion, you know, same kind of envy.

[ Rushdoony ] Let me shift the discussion, briefly, to throw in something that it think is very, very interesting. About 10 years ago I read a book on criminal brotherhoods, mafias of history. The interesting thing is that they have a relatively recent origin in the western world. They come in when authority ceases to be religious, when the state began to have only a formal connection with Christianity, when the aristocracy, when writers, when various groups began to have only a nominal Christianity, then you developed a brotherhood, a force, a power that dispensed entirely with the faith and said, “We are going to exercise power in society without any respect for Christian law and order.”

[ Scott ] That is very interesting, because I consider the essence of criminality to be a total denial of the dignity of others.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] Therefore, they are not entitled to keep their possessions. They are not entitled to be free of physical abuse and so forth and so on.

[ Rushdoony ] Now one Soviet émigré has ... when he was asked, “Is there a mafia in the Soviet Union,” said, “ Yes. It’s name is the Communist party.”’

[ Scott ] All right, because their attitude is the attitude of a criminal group.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes. So what we have to say is that when the western world began to break with the Christian faith in the late Middle Ages and then again with the Enlightenment, that was the key point. The birth of ... of a variety of organizations which we can term forms of mafia began to develop. The state, the schools, the media, every area began to develop the kind of mentality which finds its best expression in the mafia.

[ Scott ] That is very acute because the similarity, the group then becomes larger than the culture. This is true of modern day Scientism. Now we are seeing it, for instance, in the experiment on the baboon heart into the infant.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] Ellen Goodman, a columnist had today in today’s paper said something to the effect that not sufficient attention is being paid to experimentation upon the terminally ill into which category that particular experiment fits and which, therefore, should be regarded very seriously and much more seriously than it has been.

[ Rushdoony ] And doctors are becoming a form of mafia.

[ Scott ] That is what I was getting to, that the doctor’s attitude toward the patient has transferred from that of a healing servant to a scientific experimenting master. And we have the same sort of attitude in the media which feels that it has an existence apart from the government and apart from the people and that it expresses what Robespierre called the people’s will which only the media can define.

[ Saunders ] Out of which comes ... comes summer... summarized in one word, Elitism.

[ Scott ] Yes.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes, Elitism.

[ Scott ] But it is criminal.

[ Rushdoony ] And... and the abortion mafia is a very powerful force in this country.

[ Saunders ] Well, see, it is like... it is ... now maybe there is a key here because the mafia only gets a foothold when the individuals in the local community cooperate with it either through a code of silence or by looking the other way or I don't want to get involved or it is none of my business. Now what ever form that argument may manifest itself in, whereas the strong Christian individual would say, “No,” to that sort of thing and say it is wrong and it should be exposed as it says in the Scriptures for we are to expose, you know, to the light of day, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And ... and with the decline of Christianity and the strength of the Christian position in the individual, then that opens the door in communities and we might tie in the witchcraft situations here in the medieval era where the covens were actually nothing more than... than mafia ... forms of mafia that extorted, et cetera. That is why the laws against participation in witchcraft were passed, to abolish that.

There is... when the individual breaks down then the whole community opens itself up to that... that same kind of extortion.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] That is very good, because the Solzhenitsyn made the observation about the American or the western press. He said they are not afraid of anything in the West. They will attack, criticize anybody. But, he said, “Get them behind the iron curtain and the law of the smallest man in the uniform who comes along and says, ‘You there, shut up and move along,’ and they shut up and they move along.”

Now if the people realize that liberty is a matter of self defense, that nobody else can guarantee your liberties, you have to guarantee your own. Then, of course, the press would not long continue in its present pattern.

[ Saunders ] That is very true, very true. I think... I think one of the things since... and it think that the majority of us here would classify ourselves as... as conservative, one of the things that the conservatives have been complaining about for many, many years is the bias in the press. And... and I think one of the... the things that the conservatives ought to have been doing and haven’t been doing is that the conservatives ought to have been putting their money where their mouth is. The conservatives believe very strongly in... in a competitive free market, et cetera. And ... but that apparently seems limited to only certain specific kinds of obvious forms of business because the media they don’t believe, apparently in competing in the media and they don't start a conservative organization and put the kind of money and capital and talent into it with the exception of like The Washington Times and one or two other organs around the country. You don’t see any conservative television networks at all anywhere, not even the much vaunted thing of... of... of the what, the Cable News Network.

[ Scott ] Ted Turner.

[ Saunders ] Ted Turner.

[ Rushdoony ] Oh, yes.

[ Saunders ] Ted Turner, you know, it is obvious now what Turner’s motive has been all along.

[ Scott ] Same old diet.

[ Saunders ] Yeah. It is the same old diet and he is building it up now and he is trying to make a deal with CBS. Apparently from the news articles that have come out in... in recent months there is a possibility that he may either sell out to our by CBS.

[ Scott ] Well, of course, don't forget that there has been a long standing, although tacit assumption on the part, for instance, of the Christian community that we should not respond in kind. And that is ... has insensibly led to the assumption that we should not respond.

[ Saunders ] Yes. Now all in the guise of turn the other cheek syndrome. We should roll over and play dead as they interpret it.

[ Rushdoony ] Now if I may change the direction a bit to another aspect of the media. What has happened because of the general distrust of the media and the recent election was a major defeat for the media...

[ Saunders ] Yes.

[ Rushdoony ] ... is that in recent years the past 20 years, approximately, especially, a tremendous number of newsletters, journals and the like have arisen which give us information of a radically different sort so that today there are tens of thousands of mimeographed to printed periodicals of a very modest sort. Some are more successful than others which provide us with news that you do not get elsewhere.

For example, to cite an example of a journal, The Human Life Review. I have in my hand the fall 1984 number. It is published by the Human Life Foundation, 150 East 35th Street, New York 10016. And I believe it is 15 dollars a year, four issues.

Now this particular number has some invaluable material that you will not find elsewhere. Foundations, for example, give enormous amounts towards abortion and population control. And one article lists how well financed the population control groups are through not only state funds. This has been documented previously, but through private funds. The Pugh Memorial Trust, a very conservative group.

Or consider this type of thing which indicates the temper we find in the courts. I quote. “This gentleman developed a terminal disease, later sclerosis whereupon his wife filed for divorce. She openly refused to comply with judicial instructions to honor the visitation portion of the divorce order, left the jurisdiction of the original court and moved out of state. The dying and immobile man spent thousands of dollars in unsuccessful attempts to see his children. The courts of two states refused to enforce their own orders against the fugitive mother. A Kansas judge declared that it would be best for all if the man would hurry up and die,” unquote.

Now this is the kind of news you only get in these periodicals. Let me cite another. The Washington Enquirer PO Box 28526, Washington, DC 20005. The Washington Enquirer had exceptionally telling news on Ferraro and other aspects of the election.

Then let me cite The Daily News Digest which is published at PO Box, 39027, Phoenix, Arizona 85069 for 177 dollars a year. The issue I have in hand of the 10th of October... the 31st of October, very interesting. One of the articles deals with the Italian law situation, how there the police today are sent to prison, hundreds of them are in prison. Why? Because some criminal claims they used excessive force in arresting them. The very men who rescued the American General Dozier who was about to be killed are now in prison because the terrorists filed charges against them.

[ Scott ] Well, doesn't that resemble our court behavior toward criminals?

[ Rushdoony ] Yes. Right. And the result is in Rome alone there are nearly 1000 serious crimes every day, because you dare not do anything to a criminal who has invaded your home. If he charges you with being harsh towards him, you pay.

Well, this kind of news you get there or Antony Sutton’s exceptional Phoenix Letter, P H O E N I X, published at Box 39850, Phoenix, Arizona 85069 for 87 dollars a year, exceptional in its contents.

Then, of course, I don't think it would be right to forget our own material, Chalcedon Report which deals not with the news, but perspectives. We are a part of the media.

[ Scott ] That is right.

[ Rushdoony ] We are in existence precisely because the kind of thing the established media should be doing it is not doing, because people like ourselves cannot have a voice in the established media. We have to create our own voice. And the results are amazing.

For example, Otto’s recent paper on money gained notice all over the world, was reprinted in various parts of the world. One businessman in the Bay Area made 1000 copies to give to business friends and to customers.

So we are functioning as the media and I believe this is going to be an increasing area of media strength, the independent voices.

[ Saunders ] No question about it. I think that the new fortunes in media are going to be made as ... as the result of individuals who got their feet wet in precisely these kinds of ... of situations. See, one of the things the media does... the major media does constantly is ... is whenever there is an opportunity they criticize the underground newspapers, the newsletter routines, the... because most of them are, of course, conservative. And the... the whole point is ... is that this ties back to what I was saying earlier about conservatives putting their money where their mouth is in a major way in the media. These people wouldn’t even exist if there wasn’t an abundance of information.

[ Scott ] ...being withheld.

[ Saunders ] ...being withheld. In other words, if there wasn’t a need they wouldn’t be there, you see? And if there wasn’t a lot more people becoming aware of the fact that there was information being withheld from them, they wouldn’t be able to sell newsletters at anywhere from 50 to 500 dollars a year.

[ Scott ] That is true. And I don’t think we should forget that the press includes books.

[ Saunders ] Yes.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] Now the problem with periodicals including even our own is that they can only cover a small part of what is happening. And even though our get a great number of periodicals, as I do and as you do, it is like watching the reports of 500 chess games in separate places one move at a time. You don’t get the whole picture unless you get a book. And the world of publishing, book publishing is even more tilted than the newspapers or than the networks, because they have to throw in a few sops to survive. But books can be very highly specialized and pointed. So we have volumes of diatribes against corporate life, against business and industry and against particular groups. The religious right, for instance, has been the subject of many defame... defamatory books and hardly any in support are given general circulation.

So I think when we get into his area that we should also consider books as part of the press and Ross House books...

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] ... in particular as a venture that I consider highly important, highly significant.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Saunders ] Well, then I think that... with the basic...

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Saunders ] ... with the basic difference being that a book is more of a long term effect...

[ Scott ] More comprehensive.

[ Saunders ] And more comprehensive where as the... the popular media is strictly a short term immediate kind of... of ...

[ Scott ] What is new.

[ Saunders ] Yes.

[ Rushdoony ] Let me throw in a commercial at this point for...

[ Saunders ] What? Chalcedon becoming commercial?

[ Rushdoony ] Chalcedon and Ross House books...

[ Saunders ] Right.

[ Rushdoony ] ... do exist. We have to have donations.

[ Saunders ] Yes.

[ Rushdoony ] And the importance of a publishing arm today is increasing. Some years ago... I believe it was in 1940 I bought the political and religious writings, a large one volume edition of James I of England. It as published by the Harvard University Press in 1918. Now 22 years late they were still carrying it, the original printing. They carried it until it sold out. But with the advent of the inventory tax, commercial publishers...

[ Saunders ] Oh, oh.

[ Rushdoony ] ... which used to carry books 10, 15 years until a book was sold out, now must remainder them. This means their philosophy has changed.

I finished reading yesterday a ... an historical study. The author found it very difficult to get a publisher. And the reason was it was the Depression. No one figured the subject would be of any great moment, but one publisher finally{?} said, “There is no one else who has done such a study. The material is ephemeral. It will be gone tomorrow. I say let’s do it.”

So he overruled everyone else to publish it. Unhappily the book appeared on the very day when Roosevelt closed the banks. So nobody had any money to buy it.

[ Scott ] That is {?}.

[ Rushdoony ] And the book died.

[ Saunders ] He is the... he is the classic... an author can...

[ Scott ] Not really.

[ Saunders ] Yeah.

[ Rushdoony ] But...

[ Scott ] It is about what would happen to me if I got a lot of money. Money would be outlawed.

[ Saunders ] Which may not be too far off as a matter of fact.

[ Rushdoony ] At any rate, the inventory tax has meant that publishers must remainder books. It is very hard for journals to review books, because by the time they publish the review, the books are no longer available.

[ Saunders ] And... and keeping... keeping in mind what we said ... what I said a while ago about long term and short term, the differences between the two. You have to look at the... at the... the book publishing end of it as being almost totally short term oriented, you know, because if ...if the book doesn’t get out there and start selling 1000 copies a week right off the bat, they have got to yank it.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Scott ] Commercial publishers give you 30 days.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes and...

[ Scott ] That is worse than a television series.

[ Rushdoony ] And what has happened is that we don't think of taxes on publishers as an infringement on the freedom of press, but that is exactly what they are.

[ Saunders ] Yeah.

[ Scott ] It is hard not to believe that that is deliberate.

[ Saunders ] Yeah, well, I think... I think what happens is that those kinds of taxes come about in many, many areas and it is only after the tax has been in effect for a year or two years or five years that those in the political mainstream begin to see how it can really be used. At first it may be propagated for any one of a number of reasons, but it think later on down the road everyone can see that there are certain advantages to certain groups of people by keeping that particular tax. And I think... I think one of the things that we look at the graduated income tax and what it has done to the middle class and... and what ... and... and how it, you know, it doesn't live up to its billing, has never lived up to its billing. It is supposed to make the wealthy pay their fair share, whatever that amounts to. And if that doesn’t smell like envy, I don’t know what it is, which goes back to the very beginning of... of... of this session.

But you look at... at... at... at these graduated taxes and they become totally arbitrary where you are being used and manipulate people. One group you can play off against another. Again, the fragmentation of society.

[ Scott ] Well, if you want to go back to the media on this, the media... the ... an ordinary day to day press does not like books unless the books fit the latest campaign of the press.

[ Saunders ] Yes, very true.

[ Scott ] And they kill books and they kill writers. That is very interesting to me that with all the arguments about freedom of the press nobody has picked up on what Rush said about using taxes as a means of controlling literature and that the conservatives have never done anything about that situation, although they know about it.

[ Rushdoony ] Well, our tax situation is so far gone into immorality that the moral issue is not considered. It is only how can we get more revenue? When a society, when a state begins to put an inheritance tax into effect it means that it is violating a fundamental premise of Scripture. It is robbing widows and orphans. That is monstrous. We passed that stage a long time ago. So we should not be surprised at what kind of tax we have now. And, remember, not too many years ago the IRS went after prostitutes—it is legal in Nevada, you know—and fined them for back taxes. It estimated the number of customers they had by the number of towels the laundry had handled.

[ Scott ] Well that puts them in the category of pimps, doesn’t it?

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Saunders ] It is interesting. When you stop and think and you look at the past history, the last 100 years, 125 years of American history how it has taken almost 125 years of American history to do what occurred in France in only about 50 to 60 years. It has taken longer. I think that if... I mean, correct me on this, Otto, if I am wrong. But it seems to me like that the Enlightenment took hold at a much deeper and broader level in France than it did... than the same ideas transplanted to America did.

[ Scott ] That is true. It was... the ... the progress of the revolution has been retarded in the United States by the religiosity of the American people, the Christianity in the American people. However, the revolution has come to that same realization and has made deeper inroads into the religious community of the United States. And just a few years ago the left in the United States owned the official Christian establishment. It had the Berrigan brothers. It had a number of other figures whom it held aloft as ... as modern day saints, William Sloan Coffin of Yale and so on.

More recently, because of the reaction that has come about, the right wing reaction politically and the conservative reaction at religiosity, there are now some contrary voice and even some contrary press and contrary media. Jerry Falwell has a publication. Chalcedon has a publication. Many other church groups are getting into the act. I think that thanks to the computer we are going to see what we have all discussed before, the modern equivalent of the old correspondent’s clubs of the pre War of Independence period where the Christian community is going to start communicating with itself in a very large way across the country at which time I would say the networks will really have some decent competition and I mean it in both sense of the word.

[ Saunders ] Well, you know, it is ... it is interesting. You know, you mentioned Berrigan and William Sloan Coffin, et cetera. And what that did with the media was it established a historical precedent in the minds of the media as to what Christian involvement in social and public issues should be like.

[ Scott ] Right.

[ Saunders ] See. And then a long ...

[ Scott ] They will select our saints for us.

[ Saunders ] Yes. See, and... and... and they selected all these saints for us and made them all media figures and powers and make them all very powerful, influential people. And it was propagated in America the idea that ... as far as the media was concerned, this is what the media accepts as the Christian response and solution.

[ Scott ] And... and any other response is not Christian.

[ Saunders ] Well, then along with ... when along came the conservatives, you see, and started saying, “Wait a minute. We have a voice here, too.” That did not fit the preconceived idea that the media had... had built up or thought it had built up. And so they began to discredit it and notice the connections that they made, some of the very cute and very subtle and very deliberate connections that were made in the media.

For example, the Ayatollah Khomeini and Jerry Falwell. Not the slightest bit of connection between these two men in either their theology or their... their actually outworkings of their ideas in... in government and anywhere else. But what was the common term that the media utilized to tie them together? What do they call Ayatollah Khomeini? They call him a fundamentalist Moslem. What do they call Jerry Falwell? We all know, a fundamentalist Baptist. You see?

And they deliberately used a common term even though Fundamentalism has absolutely nothing to do with the brand of Moslem faith that the Ayatollah Khomeini has to do with, you see. The Fundamentalists are an extreme minority in the Moslem faith, you see. And the Ayatollah Khomeini does not represent them and would, in fact, stamp them out if he could, you see. But the media exploited the common term of Fundamentalism in order to associate the Ayatollah Khomeini and Jerry Falwell in the same idea in the mind of the American people.

[ Rushdoony ] Our time is almost over. Is there a last word that each of you would like to add to what has been said? Otto?

[ Scott ] Well, I... I think that is terribly interesting and for a long time, of course, Christians in the United States have listened to a variety of voices telling them what they are supposed to do and what they are supposed to say and especially what they are not supposed to do and say. And some of the observers certainly give us much less freedom than God. And if we are foolish enough to listen to secular voices in that area, God will be very irritated with us.

[ Saunders ] To say the least.

[ Scott ] And I think foremost among those voices would... we would have to count the fourth estate.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Saunders ] I think... I think that the mere fact that there is such an immense amount of underground literature from the right, from the conservative and from the Christian I think demonstrates that there is a much broader need for a conservative... for a voice for the conservative position in America and I think that that should ring some bells in the minds of many entrepreneurs and bright boys out there who have the willingness to make the commitment in terms of funds and personnel to do something more than what the... what The Washington Times and what Chalcedon and what several other newspapers and organizations are doing. And really go after an aggressive and vigorous campaign to found and propagate the alternative, because I think it can be not only extremely successful philosophical an theologically and otherwise, but I think... I think the first man that does it is going to make an... make a ton of money.

[ Rushdoony ] Well, thank you and thank you all for listening. It has been a pleasure to be with you again. We hope you enjoyed our discussion. Until next time, God bless you.

[ Voice ] Authorized by the Chalcedon Foundation. Archived by the Mount Olive Tape Library. Digitized by ChristRules.com.