Posted on 06/11/2002 3:35:03 PM PDT by vannrox
What You Omit Says a Lot
David C. Stolinsky
Monday, June 10, 2002
In one of his most famous cases, Sherlock Holmes noted that a dog didn't bark in the night. Holmes concluded that the dog knew the intruder and thus solved the case. "The dog that didn't bark" became a cliché for something that should have happened but didn't.
If the great detective were here today, he would have many similar cases to solve.
The Case of the Altered Speech
In the recent film "Pearl Harbor," Jon Voigt gives an outstanding performance as President Roosevelt asking Congress for a declaration of war against Japan in the "Day of Infamy" speech. The screen version follows the actual speech closely, but with one major omission.
Roosevelt declared, "With confidence in our armed forces, with the unbounded determination of our people, we will gain the inevitable triumph – so help us God." (See http://www.law.ou.edu/hist/infamy.html)
The film version omitted "so help us God." Why? Did it detract from the drama of the moment? No, it was very dramatic. Was it out of place? No, it was entirely appropriate for a respected leader to ask for God's help in an hour of danger.
So what was the problem with those four words? Or to be specific, what was the problem with that one word? When people are frightened of dying, or of their loved ones dying, many of them call upon God. The screenwriters apparently would not do so themselves. Fine. But why pretend that others wouldn't?
Why try to construct an artificial world where nobody is religious? Why not depict the real world as dramatically as possible? Is an agenda more important than an accurate and dramatic film? Apparently it was.
The Case of the Stolen Guns
The film "Schindler's List" depicts a womanizing, hard-drinking German who was a Nazi Party member. Yet during World War II, he saved hundreds of Jews from extermination by putting them to work in his factory. The film won numerous awards.
Schindler escaped the clutches of the Gestapo by claiming that "his" Jews were doing essential war work. But Schindler was even braver that that. He did one thing that could not have been explained away. Had it been discovered, it would surely have meant his death, probably accompanied by torture.
He stole guns and gave them to "his" Jews, so that if they were discovered, they could have defended themselves. The film ran 3 hours and 15 minutes, yet somehow there was no time to include this incident, which would have taken a minute or two.
Was the incident boring? No, it would have been dramatic. Was it too violent? No, the film depicted awful violence. So what was the problem? The problem was that an anti-gun agenda was more important to the filmmakers than an accurate depiction of a dramatic and revealing incident.
To believe that today's Americans shouldn't have guns is illogical, especially after 9-11. But to believe that Jews during the Holocaust shouldn't have had guns is delusional, and borders on being genocidal.
The guns were stolen twice – by Schindler to help the Jews, and by the filmmakers to help their agenda.
The Case of the Unrecognized Hero
Recently, a respected TV newscaster died in Los Angeles at age 81. He had worked until a week before his death. His colleagues, openly grieving, gave him an extensive tribute. The TV program included details of his lengthy and distinguished career in journalism.
Also noted was that during World War II, he had served in the Army Air Force and participated in 29 combat missions, for which he received the Distinguished Flying Cross. Photos of him and his youthful buddies were shown.
A major newspaper ran a lengthy obituary, which included many details of his TV career, but his military service was omitted entirely. When I asked why, a spokesman replied that if it had been included, there might not have been room for other details I found interesting.
The spokesman failed to see that the problem was not what I personally found interesting, but what was important for our nation. Obviously, the editors thought it of no importance that this man had risked his life 29 times to defend our country.
Equally obviously, they didn't care that many readers would find their omission offensive. Though the paper is reportedly losing readers, the editors apparently believe that their anti-military agenda is even more important than their paper making a profit.
The Case of the Missing Corpses
Whether Americans should make reparations for slavery is the subject of frequent comment. But the question itself is improper. It implies something untrue – that no reparations have yet been made.
The total death toll for both sides in the Civil War was 624,511. About one-third of a million white men and boys died fighting for the Union. This does not include African-American soldiers who died, nor does it include Confederate deaths. (See http://www.ehistory.com/uscw/features/medicine/cwsurgeon/statistics.cfm)
Approximately one in four of all Union soldiers who served died in the war. The total population of the Union was about 20 million. One-third of a million deaths represented an enormous loss of life.
In addition, all serious arm or leg wounds were treated by amputation. At least 30,000 limbs were lost. Veterans on crutches or with pinned-up sleeves were a common sight on American streets for many years after the war ended. (See http://www.ehistory.com/uscw/features/medicine/cwsurgeon/amputations.cfm)
If all those severed limbs and all the blood that soaked into the earth from the dead do not constitute reparations, nothing ever could.
Yet these facts are rarely mentioned when the subject of reparations is raised. Why? Are the dead and maimed unimportant? Or are they merely inconvenient?
The Case of the Fraudulent Quotations
New York students must take a statewide exam to graduate from high school. The English portion of the exam asks students to explain quotations from noted authors.
The New York Times recently reported that many of these quotations have been altered to remove "offensive" language. For example, the words "fat," "skinny," "Polish," "Jewish," "wine" and (horror!) "God" were removed. Even the politically correct Times thought this "… bordered on the absurd."
Bordered?
That is, high school students, who have attended sex and drug education classes from an early age, are somehow so fragile that they would be injured by reading the word "wine." Kids who are allowed to curse in the hallways are too delicate to read "fat" or "skinny." And "God" is just too controversial. Really?
When I went to school, I was taught that it was a breach of trust and a violation of scholarship to put words into someone's mouth that he never said, or to alter a quotation without stating that you had done so.
Things have changed. Now an agenda is more important than the truth. Indeed, an agenda has replaced the truth.
People judge us by what we say. But it is equally logical to judge us by what we don't say. What we choose to omit is as revealing as what we select to include. It tells a great deal about us and about our values.
If the dog fails to bark, intruders can enter. If educators, journalists and media moguls tamper with the facts, fraud and bias can creep in.
Perhaps we have watched too many televised trials. Perhaps we have seen too many famous, high-priced lawyers make mountains of evidence "disappear" to get their clients acquitted.
Perhaps we have watched too many politicians posturing for the media. Perhaps we have heard them whining that 9-11 should have been prevented, while "forgetting" to mention their own efforts to block effective anti-terrorist measures.
Perhaps we have watched too much TV and seen mousse-haired "talking heads" shamelessly slanting the news, while omitting inconvenient facts.
We may have gotten the impression that the truth is something we can fabricate to suit ourselves.
The truth isn't valuable because it serves an agenda. The truth isn't a tool to be used to further some objective. The truth is precious just because it is the truth. We used to know that. It's time we relearned it.
Dr. Stolinsky is retired after 25 years of teaching in medical school. He writes from Los Angeles on political and social issues. He may be contacted at dcstolinsky@prodigy.net.
The anti-Christ said he didn't like it. He finds it "offensive." It hurts his "self esteem."
Was the incident boring? No, it would have been dramatic. Was it too violent? No, the film depicted awful violence. So what was the problem? The problem was that an anti-gun agenda was more important
But...how can a socialist dictator take over the country while it's armed? Had the 9/11 been on schedule....darn Muslims were late, they used the wrong calendar!
Obviously, the editors thought it of no importance that this man had risked his life 29 times to defend our country.
Hey, he might have hurt someone! What's a few Americans when whales are dying?
Yet these facts are rarely mentioned when the subject of reparations is raised. Why? Are the dead and maimed unimportant? Or are they merely inconvenient?
Liberals don't like fact. Facts hurt their brains.
Things have changed. Now an agenda is more important than the truth. Indeed, an agenda has replaced the truth.
"They ( Satans followers) will come to exchange truth for a lie" - Politically incorrect Holy Bible.
If educators, journalists and media moguls tamper with the facts, fraud and bias can creep in.
To some extent this Hollywood bias has always been the case. I think it was 1960 before TV showed a man and a woman in double bed -- together. Before 1960 all TV programs had marrieds sleeping in twin beds.
The stories now seem to be more critical because the left has won the media and there isn't much we conservatives can do about it.
Facts really stopped mattering to Hollywood and the media a very, very long time ago. The universities we lost in the 1970's. The press went to the liberals in the 1960's.
Obviously, you haven't been dealing with our nation's yout' recently. Also blue, purple and a really suspicious shade of chestnut!
I thought he was wood, like Poncho, and that's why the tree huggers loved him. Gosh, I never pictured him as alive.
Except you're better off talking to the tree. You have at least as much chance of being understood,and you don't have to chase the tree around the room while you're doing the explaining. The trees are also much better mannered,and they can be relied on to produce valuable things like edible seeds,lumber,and other useful substances. The lefties,on the other hand...
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