‘Intellectuals: Mute Voice’

Davis’ column skipped over an important point. There are thousands of voices speaking out at any moment about the problems facing America, but once an individual states the need for sweeping change he is likely to be denied access to the media. Intellectuals such as Noam Chomsky or Gore Vidal may get mention as personalities, but to get access to their ideas one has to know their names and look for them in a bookstore. There has been a campaign for the last several months to get a progressive counterpart to William Buckley et al on PBS, but with no results I’ve ever seen.

Individuals such as Edward Abbey, Abbie Hoffman, or I.F. Stone have to die or be arrested to get into the mainstream media. Perhaps if they had been given an open hearing for their ideas, the former two would not have had to engage in or advocate outrageous behavior to give us a faint hope for change. Then we could have thought they were intellectuals too. I’m afraid even to mention the host of New Age thinkers because they’ve all been branded as weird and flaky.

As recommended reading, Riane Eisler, Michael Parenti and Robert Anton Wilson all suggest interesting reasons why the public does not get exposed to ideas that shake up the system. Their books may be available in one of the few remaining independent bookstores.

TOM PLISKA

Long Beach