August 25, 2009

Editorial: Why Ignoring Does Not Work

This is no time for men who oppose Senator McCarthy’s methods to keep silent, or for those who approve. We can deny our heritage and our history, but we cannot escape responsibility for the result. There is no way for a citizen of a republic to abdicate his responsibilities. As a nation we have come into our full inheritance at a tender age. We proclaim ourselves, as indeed we are, the defenders of freedom, wherever it continues to exist in the world, but we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.

The actions of the junior Senator from Wisconsin have caused alarm and dismay amongst our allies abroad, and given considerable comfort to our enemies. And whose fault is that? Not really his. He didn’t create this situation of fear; he merely exploited it — and rather successfully. Cassius was right. “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.”

Good night, and good luck.

~ Edward R. Murrow,
A Report on Senator Joseph R. McCarthy,
See it Now (CBS-TV, March 9, 1954).

Recent events, once again, have brought us to this point. How sad. But necessary, I’m afraid.

Few of you, of course, were old enough to have lived through the McCarthy years. For those that thankfully missed them, let me just briefly share that Senator Joe McCarthy and his associates saw Communists throughout the forests of the government, when it was clear, very few were actually there, behind all those trees where McCarthy said he saw them.

What does this have to do with the affairs of Bigfoot? How does this align with those who see evidence of Bigfoot being killed at Bluff Creek in 1967 in every piece of film and beneath every bush? The true analogy between McCarthy and M. K. Davis is not about them, but us. You see, unfortunately McCarthy created a climate of fear, blacklists, witch hunts, and terror, among civil servants, Hollywood writers, and common citizens, beyond belief in the 1950s. How the general population reacted, in some ways, may have been the saddest part of the story.

For years, silence was how the bizarre but frightening McCarthy years were dealt with, including President Eisenhower feeling that ignoring McCarthy was the best method.

Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator. You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?
~ Attorney Joseph Welch’s response to
Senator McCarthy’s continued verbal beating
of a young lawyer, during the Army-McCarthy hearings,
June 9, 1954.

But it was only when people began to stand up to Senator McCarthy, after Edward R. Murrow’s report, after Joseph Welch’s famous remark, and then finally with Kirk Douglas’s breaking of the Hollywood blacklist by openly crediting Dalton Trumbo’s screenplay for Spartacus (1960), that the long shift from fear could truly occur.

Ask yourself, what has the Bigfoot community done in response to the M. K. Davis claims of the last few years? Place yourself in the living shoes of Bob Gimlin and John Green, who are being accused of killing or covering up the killing of Bigfoot. Think about the families and friends of Roger Patterson, Rene Dahinden, and Bob Titmus, who occupy the strange position of having to defend against accusations that those men were involved with a massacre of a band of Sasquatch or the destroying of evidence of such an event.

Read the minority but vocal opinion of three comment makers regarding this news of the latest from M. K. Davis:

“By keeping the ‘story’ going, more attention is given to something that does not deserve scrutiny. And gives it an extended ‘shelf life.'”

“People like Davis are [getting] attention…that they simply shouldn’t be getting. This stuff doesn’t need to be analyzed. It needs to be laughed at, or better yet, ignored.”

“I wonder if this subject deserves the amount of your time that is being put into it.”

Neglecting to speak up about these claims do not make them go away. This massacre business keeps coming back into our community.

Anyone who has watched M. K. Davis and his “digger Indian,” “Bigfoot topknot,” “shooting of Bigfoot,” and “massacre theory” material appear, disappear and then reappear, must realize that his net is getting bigger and bigger. More and more people are being dragged into a witch hunt about a non-existent killing field and coverup. What if you were the person being spotlighted? What if the slide shows talked about you? What if the sinister whispers were directed at your life or your relative’s legacy?

Roger Patterson is not alive to defend himself. Bob Gimlin is a quiet man. Bob Titmus is dead. Rene Dahinden is no longer with us. But John Green is very much alive, and standing up for himself. Davis’s and his associates’ accusations and verdicts-by-browbeating must be addressed, once and for all, by all and not ignored.

I am tired of people justifying an interest in Davis’s claims in the guise of a thorough investigation of the film. Sometimes we have to confront the dysfunctional operatives among us, whether in politics, cryptozoology, or hominology.

There is a famous scene in the Kirk Douglas movie mentioned above, which is an obvious metaphor about speaking in unison against repression. One after another, the assembled stood and said “I am Spartacus,” to the Romans looking for Spartacus.

This is a call to arms, for direct statements from across the Bigfoot community, against the tyranny and stupidity contained in the essence of this “massacre theory” and all of the alleged shocking “evidence” that are merely the products of one man’s thinking.

It is time for everyone to stand up, shoulder to shoulder with John Green and Bob Gimlin.

The moment has arrived to say to M. K. Davis and his friends, “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?”

Enough is enough.

Filed under Bigfoot, Breaking News, Conspiracies, Cryptomundo Exclusive, CryptoZoo News, Men in Cryptozoology, Public Forum, Sasquatch, Women in Cryptozoology