Professor Emeritus Bruce Merrill, from the Arizona State University Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, gave a wide-ranging commentary about the looming American watershed to the Humanist Society of Greater Phoenix this past Sunday, 2 November, 2008. What follows are my recollections, grouped under several broad topics.
Politics
Professor Merrill noted that he had been a naval officer, and had known Senator McCain for a long time. Merrill had been McCain’s consultant and pollster for the first McCain run for the House of Representatives in 1982. Merrill has great respect for McCain’s service and referred to him as an American hero.
He then launched into the topic on everybody’s mind – the election. He noted that at this point there were only seven states in play, and that McCain would have to win all of them in order to win the election. Merrill started out west with Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico. He concluded with Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Florida. He expects Obama to win the election.
The election of Barack Obama would represent a watershed event, conceivably ushering in a 30 to 40 year realignment of the political landscape. Since 1968, the Republicans have successfully mobilized the Christian evangelicals and fundamentalists to win elections. What is important about the Obama campaign, is that the media has completely missed the importance of the internet to the Obama campaign.
Merrill notes that in 2006 he was asked frequently if the Internet would have an effect on the electoral process in America. He said, that like a lot of the pundits, he would reply that yes, the Internet would eventually become a significant factor. Well, he said to us, "I was wrong. It is NOW."
Then he backed up a bit. The traditional way to political office has been to work your way up. You start at the precinct level, move to district and state office and eventually, to the national stage. And at every level, you depend on the party regulars for support and financial contributions. That is the way the Clintons came to national prominence. Obama has done this, but Obama has succeeded much more because of his startling use of the Internet.
The Obama campaign has over a million donors that gave $200 or less. His grassroots organization is completely dependent on the Internet.
Professor Merrill also discussed the international interest in the American election. Earlier, he had given an interview to a Canadian news organization and was delighted at the knowledge expressed in the questions that were asked. He has traveled and consulted all over the world. He observed that if the rest of the world could vote in the election, they would favor Obama 90% to 10%. He asked his foreign hosts why. The replay was unambiguous. They were tired of the American bully telling them how they were to behave, invading countries that they didn’t like and threatening to "blow you up" if you didn’t do what America wanted. They are all convinced that Obama will bring a kinder, gentler, and more rational relationship to the rest of the world.
The Media
Much has been made by the Republicans concerning "The Liberal Media". There is no Liberal Conspiracy as far as the media is concerned. The Media is owned by America’s largest corporations. As such, their concern is to return as much as possible to their shareholders. They are not interested in educating American voters. They study very hard to give you what you want. The Sweeps are run every three months, and the media outlets compete for the most viewers because the higher the rating in this artificial contest, the more they can charge for advertising.
As an example of the problem of media as an educational force in America, Merrill relates the story of NBC’s 1968 decision to do a series of informational programs. They spent $200,000 on a thirty minute program about the American Wheat harvest. This was a substantial investment in 1968. NBC planned to do four or five more programs if this one was successful. Unfortunately, they ran the show opposite a program costing $40,000 per episode and lost the viewer ratings by 10 to 1. The show was "Mr. Ed, the Talking Horse." The media gives us what we want, not what we might need.
Finally, as a cautionary tale, Merrill described his year teaching at Moscow University the year before the Berlin Wall fell. It was the most depressing year of his life. He saw what total control of the media meant. No one in Moscow knew that the Soviet Union was engaged in a war in Afghanistan. That it was a war as large as the American war in Vietnam. Only when soldiers began to rotate home after two years of fighting, and they were able to tell Mom and Dad, "Guess where I have been? Fighting in Afghanistan", were the citizens of the Soviet Union allowed to glimpse the reality out there.
Here in America, we face the problem of media control of reality in a different fashion. A recent study shows that on the nightly news, any given issue of importance to the future of America is allocated, on average, an 11 second sound bite.
One of Merrill’s friends observed that their son had returned from a tour of duty in Iraq, and had been part of the campaign in Faluja. His comment, after watching the media, was that what Americans see on TV bears no relationship to what he knew goes in Iraq. The media needs to make America look good. And the media needs to sell advertising. There are no other considerations.
Education
Historically, as education levels go up, the proportion of voters favoring Republicans has gone up. In 2008, this is no longer true. The Republican Party is now anti-science and anti-education. It is the home of Joe Six-Pack and the religious fundamentalists.
The education system in America is broken. It was created to serve a rural agrarian society that no longer exists. There was no school in summer because the children were working in the fields. How many of your children spent this summer working in the fields? In Europe and Asia, kids are in school all day, and for more days than in America.
The Economy
One of the primary facts of the current order is that America has the largest difference between the rich and the poor than any industrial country, and the difference is growing faster than any industrial country.
Merrill is currently working on a paper about wealth disparity in America. He recently had one of his graduate students look at the sale of homes above $400,000 in Arizona. Almost every one was in a walled, gated "community". This cannot be a good thing. These people have no contact with the majority of American citizens.
Concerning the Republican mantra of "Trickle Down Economics", Merrill observed that we know it doesn’t work, and the middle class and the poor feel like they are being peed on.
On a different topic, Professor Merrill said, "I have great confidence in Yankee Ingenuity". We have the ability to continue to be the technological and scientific innovation engine of the world. Other countries use our inventions to compete with us, but we are the creators. If, for example, we create a cure for diabetes, hundreds of billions of dollars will flow into America.
Here in Arizona, we cannot get a Technology Transfer law. The Arizona constitution forbids public institutions from creating relationships with private companies. If a researcher at ASU, UA or NAU invents something, it must be given away in the public domain. On the other hand, Stanford University currently receives $135 million a year from Google, because Google was created by a Stanford professor and one of his graduate students. The University of Florida gets $50 million a year because one of their professors invented Gatoraide.
Recently, ASU President Michael Crow tried to get a Technology Transfer measure on the Arizona ballot. He approached Professor Merrill and asked him to head up the effort. Polling immediately showed that if the voters were educated about technology transfer, 90% would favor it. However, one week after starting the project, Merrill received a call from President Crow ordering a stop. Asked why, Crow said that the Arizona Legislature feared this would lead to Stem Cell Research. Further, if Crow continued, the Legislature would cut off funding to the University.
So this is the legacy of anti-science fundamentalism in Arizona. We cannot use the free market to fund our education system.
Government
America was established to give white, wealthy male Europeans control of the country. Gradually this has been changing.
In 1950, less than 10% of Americans were non-white. Today, 43% of Americans are non-white. In ten years, more than 50% will be non-white. We are now a pluralistic nation, and we will have to figure out how to accommodate ourselves to this reality.
Barry Goldwater, a long time friend of Merrill, late in life, was appalled by the Republican capitulation to the religious right. Goldwater was pro-choice and pro-gay-rights. He said, what right does the government have to invade our home and tell us what to do?
On "Socialism", Merrill notes that 90% or more of Americans would not give up Social Security. But what is Social Security but a socialist program.
Likewise, one can ask what the $700 Billion bailout of bankrupt financial institutions is but a socialist intervention in the free market economy.
As Merrill observes, socialism is what a government does when the free market is unable or unwilling to do what the people of a country needs.
Families
In 1950, if a woman worked outside the home, everyone knew something was wrong with her. Today, 50% of women work full time, 20% work part time, and 20% are retired. Only 5% conform to the model from 1950.
Why is this? It now takes two incomes to support a family. In 1950, America was 5% of the world’s population and consumed 50% of the world’s resources. Why? Because we were the only manufacturing country in the world after World War II. If you wanted to buy a toaster, you bought it from America.
Hundreds of Billions of dollars flowed into America for two decades. Then the rest of the world began to catch up.
Today, we are 4% of the world’s population and consume 25% of the resources. This is why it takes two incomes to pay for the house, support two cars, and try to keep up with the Jones.
But the consequences extend far beyond the parents of these families trying to keep things going.
The children go to school and come home to a lack of supervision. They can roam HBO and other adult television material if their parents lack the foresight to lock out and otherwise supervise their children. Merrill recently was part of legal proceedings involving parents whose five year old son had sex with their four year old daughter because the son had seen the enactment between adults on an HBO program.
Finally, these exhausted parents, having fed, bathed and put their kids to bed, turn on the television and learn about their country and the world, in all of its great complexity, from the 11 second sound bites provided by companies vying for advertising dollars.
These people then go to the polls and vote for our leaders.