Date: Thu, 27 Jun 2002
Yaron Brook on PBS TV, and on Dallas TV
Thomas M. Miovas, Jr.
ARI sent out the following announcement:
> Dr. Yaron Brook, executive director of the Ayn
> Rand Institute, will appear on Tony Brown's
> Journal on PBS TV, discussing the controversial
> issue of America paying slavery reparations to
> African-Americans--"Slavery Reparations: Racism
> Or Justice?" The program will air on most PBS
> stations the week of 6/14/02-6/20/02.
>
>Dr. Brook will also appear twice on another program, "The
>McCuistion Program" on KERA TV in Dallas TX. The first
>program, "From Israel's Founding to the Situation Today" will
>air in Dallas June 16, and the second program, "Solutions to the
>Israel-Arab Conflict" will air June 23rd.
I thought both these programs were good press coverage type issues for ARI
to tackle in a debate forum, and I was very happy to see that the rational
side of the issues was handled superlatively. Yaron was able to remain calm
and in focus even though both issues are emotionally charged. During both
debates, Yaron came across as a man of unyielding justice. I was also happy
to see that both hosts were very cordial, despite Tony Brown seeming to be
on the side of slave reparations of some type; and the other side of both
debates was fairly cordial, aside from some interjections in the
Israel-Arab debate from the head of the Arab Anti-defamation League.
Here's something interesting to consider. During the Israel-Arab debate on
the McCuistion program, the head of the Arab Anti-defamation League stated
that there is no such thing as "militant Islam," but rather that it is
*all* Islam. In other words, he was claiming that suicide bombings and
Islamic initiation of force against non-believers is part and parcel to
Islam. Now, no one pressed him on this point, so maybe it was a Freudian
slip on his part or maybe that isn't exactly what he meant (since he said
it during one of his outbursts), but I don't remember him stressing that
Islam was a peaceful religion either.
McCuistion always ends his programs with a little summary and a quotation.
At the end of this program, he called for his viewers to listen to the
voice of reason. Whether this has any direct reference to Ayn Rand's _The
Voice of Reason_ or not, I don't know, but McCuistion seemed to rely more
heavily on Yaron for historic and philosophic guidance than any of the
other guests.
