LOOKING FOR BURKE June 9, 2010
The 1960s were bleak years for anyone interested in individual
freedom, although many of us in the libertarian movement got off to a
serious start in that decade of Lyndon Baines Johnson and his “Great
Society”.
One of the few bright spots in the dark and terrible wilderness of
television was a series of lectures given by an individual who seemed
to stand with one foot on the libertarian side of a divide that was
considerably narrower back then, and the other on the conservative
side.
His name was Burke; that’s all I remember of it. He appeared tall,
well-built, handsome, and wore nice suits and ties. He seemed to be in his
forties (about the same age as my dad) and his hair was a bit long for
that generation — “actor long” my dad would have said — combed back in
dramatic waves. His voice was deep and he had excellent diction and
elocution.
Burke’s lectures were syndicated, I guess, filmed, as it turned
out, in the library of his home, which I believe was in Vermont or New
Hampshire. What he lectured on was the history of American politics
and economics, the kinds of things Ron Paul is fond of speaking about
today. It was from Burke that I learned how few Americans actually
owned their homes, but only rented them, in effect, from some lending
institution.
The last I recall is that shortly after Burke’s lecture series was
completed, his house burned to the ground along with the library I had
come to know so well. Some effort was made by fans to replace his
books.
If anyone else remembers more about this splendid educator than I
do, I’d very greatly appreciate being brought up to date. I’d like
even better to see and hear all of his marvelous lecture series once
again. I never heard their equal until I encountered the great Robert
LeFevre.
Now: does anybody remember Gordon Barnwall?
- Posted in : Politics
- Author :Administrator
Comments»
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Neil, I’m afraid not. I even managed to miss the Friedmans’ *Free to Choose* series when it was broadcast.
What little of a libertarian - or even free market conservative - nature to have appeared on broadcast television during the ’60s and ’70s went past me like the proverbial ships in the night.
Funny thing. In retrospect, I realize that my father was reading Friedman’s columns in *Newsweek*. He collected certain back issues and kept them on a shelf in the basement, and I never thought to ask him why. He surely never thought to bring it up.
Though my dad was formally educated in economics by way of his undergraduate and Masters’ degrees (I remember him taking evening courses in that latter program back in the ’50s, and sitting in the balcony at the Civic Center with my mother and infant sister when he was awarded his MBE), we didn’t begin to discuss matters praxeological until I was in med school and then during the years of the Carter Malaise.
Recall how the Keynsians (especially those educated out of Samuelson’s textbooks, like my dad) were so flummoxed by “stagflation”?
I guess I didn’t get pointedly interested in libertarianism until I was actually out getting myself a living, despite having spent a good deal of time at the first Noreascon speaking with Samuel Edward Konkin III (SEK3).
Took a car trip with a fellow wargamer - a politically active conservative from North Jersey - to get my consciousness raised.
I described to him my growing discontent with conservative thought leaders, particularly as regards the “social” aspects of right-wingers and their pushy, overcontrolling attitude toward what I considered unimportant personal peccadilloes - “sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll,” if you know what I mean.
What really mattered to me was governmental dicking-around with the economy. The rest was a diversion, a useless fixation, a waste of effort. “Why should anybody give a damn about what people drink, smoke, or shove up their asses?”
“Hell,” he said, “you’re not a conservative. You’re a libertarian.”
So I guess my Road to Damascus was routed over the Tappan Zee Bridge, and I didn’t start kicking in for gas and tolls until Jimmy Carter inflicted that massive highway horror in the late ’70s.
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Richard said, “‘Hell,’ he said, ‘you’re not a conservative. You’re a libertarian.’”
That’s about how it came to me, back during the Goldwater campaign, when a bunch of Birchers I was hanging with heard what I believed and very amiably told me what I was (and am). Despite our many and significant differences, I’ve had a soft spot in my head for them ever since. Good people, for the most part, and straight dealers.
Sorry, Neil. In the sixties, I was only interested in Saturday morning cartoons (Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Hour was the best), then in going out to play before Mom looked in my bedroom and ordered a clean-up day. My introduction to Libertarianism was from Heinlein’s TMIAHM, Which addresssed some of my problems with the way the world seemed to work. Then some clown from Colorado showed me what I really was. The fial nail in the coffin was after I moved to Colorado and actually MET the clown that I actually found out I had a bunch of people who thought my way to talk to.
I thought I was a conservative (due to being told that’s what I was because I hated government) until I read a subversive book titled “Lever Action”. The whole time I was reading the book, I kept thinking “YES!! Exactly! THIS is me!”, and life has never been the same since. Thanks to a small, somewhat unflattering review of “Lever Action” in the back of an NRA magazine back in 2000 or 2001 I learned what I am.
Wow! I never knew about that review. It’s true that if they spell your name (or the name of your book) right, you’ve won. And to the extent that I helped you, Kent, I’m happy to have been of service.
I cut that review out and had saved it for months before I had the money to order the book. I wish I could find it now to send you a scan of the review. But, that was many dramatic escapes ago, and if I do still have it, there is no telling where it might be.
I remember it was only a couple of paragraphs long, and that the writer was completely bewildered by the “bizarre cover art” of the dead elephant and donkey. But I “got it” immediately.
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Websearched *American Rifleman* for “L. Neil Smith” and got nothing, of course. Dunno any other National Rifle Association publications, but you’d figure a review on a book published as recently as 2001 and uttered in a widely circulated magazine would show up *someplace* online.
Grumble. PIxies, maybe. Or termites.
Making a long arm to grab my battered copy of *Lever Action* from one of the many piles of books in my office, I run through it to confirm my memories (particularly of the essay “Am I the NRA?”).
Yeah, those turkeys HAD to review that book negatively, didn’t they?
Didn’t take a single one of those twelve policy recommendations seriously, did they?
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“Worse than thieves, murderers or cannibals, those who offer compromise slow you and sap your vitality while pretending to be your friends. They are not your friends. Compromisers are the enemies of all humanity, the enemies of life itself. Compromisers are the enemies of everything important, sacred and true.”
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Hm. If that’s not on Neil’s Wikiquotes page, it oughta be.
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Don’t remember a lot of libertarian stuff on tv back in Sixties,
However, John Stossel is broadcasting on Fox Business every Thursday at 8 pm eastern, Also will provide libertarian dvd’s for free to schools.
W/dollhouse finished there is a drought of libertarian oriented popular tv out there.
At best you get left wingers criticizing tyrannical acts by the right and vice versa. The Best show was when Kennedy came out a week before Heller. It was fun listening to the right and left howl about the court giving the other side too big a win.
One of these days people will realize that freedom is neither conservative or liberal but a value unto itself.
Shortly thereafter the horse will sing and a whistling pig will fly by.
I think I was subscribed to their “America’s First Freedom” mag at the time, but I have been subscribed to both “American Rifleman” and American Hunter” at various times.
For back issues of magazines check your local library.
My local library has an entire wall of shelves that hold, in some cases, decades worth of back issues. Every issue of Mother Earth News, Pop Sci back to the 70’s, Car & Driver to the 80’s and so on.
Mine has not ever subscribed to any NRA publication but a library near you might.
Check their online catalog before heading down there, and if they have it you can probably run a copy off for about 10 cents.
I generally thought of myself as a conservative, despite disagreeing strongly with many “conservative” positions (sex, drugs and the like) until I ran across a used copy of _Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal._ Finding more of Rand’s nonfiction in a small town in Iowa in the late 1970s wasn’t easy, believe me—and finding Libertarian stuff was even more difficult, but I’ve managed.
This ring any bells: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0121583/ ?
Thanks, John, but this isn’t the guy. I vaguely remember Alan Burke, as a rude, insulting asshole of the Alan Berg school, despite the difference in politics. Remember Joe Pyne? The Burke I’m asking after didn’t do talk radio, but filmed lectures, and he had a calm demeanor and a patrician bearing.
Thanks again, though.
I know who you’re talking about Neil, although I can’t remember his first name either. It was an interesting program.
Here he is:
Dr. Albert E. Burke, Yale University’s former Director of Graduate Studies in Conservation and Resource Use, was the first to effectively use the media of television to convey the close relationship between the environment, natural resources and their importance to our well-being and freedom. In 1961 his series was recognized with an Emmy nomination.
His clarity and foresight still provide guidance on developing solutions that still elude our nation’s ability to to resolve environmental, economic and national security challenges.
And here’s the website:
http://dralberteburke.com/default.aspx
Have no cash to buy a house? Do not worry, because it’s available to get the business loans to solve such problems. Thus take a bank loan to buy everything you require.
Dregging spammers are everywhere!
Where the hell is Bun-Bun when you need him??
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Ka-CLICK!
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Listen up, Nerd-Boy….. WHO THE HELL CANCELLED BAYWATCH?
let me check my notes
Neil,
Myself along with Helen Burke Weber are responsible for the Albert E. Burke website that Ken sent on o you. I watched him beginning in 1950’s until I went off to college in1964. We plan to digitally republish his book Enough Good Men in November on the web site and possibly a second book he planned to publish. To even attempt to categorize him as adhering strictly to one ideology or another is nigh on impossible but he was, as you noted, a staunch defender of freedom–with all the responsibilities that come with it.
Sincerely,
Joel N. Gordes
jgordes@earthlink.net
Hi there. I loved your article, and my father, Dr. Albert E. Burke, would have chuckled at the title. “His name was Burke” was great.
Thanks very much for remembering him. Yes, the house was burned to the ground on Jan. 30, 1964 — there were a few people who didn’t care for some of his topics, unfortunately. I was just 9 years old at the time it happened.
His show had been on NBC affiliates since 1950, but only went nationwide in 1961.. up until the house fire. That was when he pretty much went off the air. My mother, also from Yale, died in a car accident a few years later and so he left Connecticut and instead did 15-minute daily “shorts” on KBTV (then Channel 9) in Denver for a few years.
It is truly amazing that the things he spoke of (solar energy, toxins, how the Dust Bowl was created by the settlers) all came true. He had a huge soft spot for American Indians and included many stories about them in his broadcasts. Most of all, he urged everyone to think responsibly.
Anyway, yes.. he was so remarkable. He died in 1999. He would very much appreciate your memories. By the way, he introduced the entire concept of educational television: his show started out because, as a teacher at Yale, he wanted to teach his class on television & reach families at the dinner hour. Back then, it was called “Public Service” television and he was proud to be a part of it.
Joel Gordes has been working very hard on the new website. Looks like you have it already, so my email is a big “Thank you”..
Best wishes,
Helen Burke Weber
Many thanks to Ken Valentine for his help ~
Helen
Helen- It is nice to hear that Neil caused a bright spot in your day.
You’re certainly welcome Helen.
I remember seeing your father’s program when I was in high school — I was living north of Denver at the time, and vaguely remember that some of his programs were broadcast from Denver.
I found his lectures fascinating and made a point of watching every one I could.
Best,
Ken