COMMENT
COMMENT Reaganism with a Human Face When George Bush gave his budget speech before Congress in February, some Democrats opined that it could have been delivered by Michael Dukakis—that it was, in...
...ambassador to South Korea...
...Our local farm-supply catalog contains page after page of protective clothes, masks, helmets, boot covers, chemical-resistant aprons, and other gear designed to protect agriculture workers from the stuff they put on the food we eat...
...ambassador to Mexico...
...Forbidden Fruit Just a few months ago, the makers of Beechnut baby foods were in a heap of trouble for selling flavored, colored water and calling it apple juice...
...He did, however, endorse cutting the capital-gains tax...
...They have nothing to offer by way of alternatives on the two great economic issues of the moment—the budget deficit and rising interest rates...
...He turned that country into a sanctuary for the contras and an armed base for U.S...
...Placing the burden of budget-cutting on the backs of the poor and the middle class will push the economy into a tailspin...
...Further disinflation would restore financial market values and the wealth-holders' interest at the expense of everybody else...
...Such a view nicely illustrates how little the Democrats have to say on economic matters...
...I want to put my foot on the head of the Christie serpent and see it crushed...
...The chairman of the Fed is maniacally determined to bring down inflation rates, which stand at about 4.5 per cent to 5 per cent a year...
...In explaining his views, the Fed chairman has resorted to some disingenuous talk...
...Iran-contra has come full circle...
...Don't buy anything blue...
...The potential of the cards is almost limitless," says Frank Turek, vice president of sales for a card-marketing firm in Manasquan, New Jersey...
...the costs of new loans will be simply too high for many...
...fake apple juice could be healthier than the real thing...
...But Bush left the essence of Reaganism firmly intact...
...But the threat of a recession does not seem to bother Greenspan...
...If we know that someone is married and has five children," says Turek, "but has never spent more than $80 a week in a store, we know that person is a secondary customer...
...What makes the picture even more alarming is the concerted effort of Alan Greenspan and the Federal Reserve to increase interest rates...
...Food containing legal levels of pesticide revenues is safe for people of all ages," says John Moore, the EPA's acting deputy administrator...
...Don't buy anything borrowed...
...Bush has rewarded Pickering by appointing him U.S...
...The most dangerous of the chemicals is daminozide, also known as Alar, which is sprayed on apples to delay ripening...
...Or perhaps new food-and-drug laws could call for greater dilution of processed food with ordinary water—provided, of course, that any water can be found that hasn't been poisoned yet...
...Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), a progressive media watchdog, examined all Night-line transcripts from January 1, 1985, to April 30, 1988—a period spanning 865 programs with a total of 2,498 guests...
...They have a right to be outraged and to put pressure on the Government.' —NRDC scientist Lawrie Mott crease, is not acceptable, and our policies are designed to reduce inflation in coming years," Greenspan told the Senate shortly before tightening credit...
...What's more, the basic costs of doing business will escalate as corporations find it more difficult to finance expansion...
...some would be slashed outright...
...But the NRDC study warns, "Our nation's children are being harmed by the very fruits and vegetables we tell them will make them grow up healthy and strong...
...That's nothing knew for a Fed chairman...
...Current regulation of pesticides fails to protect the preschooler...
...It is, after all, their constitutional duty...
...Shortly after the suit was dismissed, Hull was arrested in Costa Rica as a spy and a drug trafficker...
...About 5,000 walked out and stayed out...
...The Bush Administration is right to be alarmed by Greenspan's obsession, for when the recession comes, it will inevitably be blamed on the President and the Republicans...
...We're really just touching the surface of bar-code tracking...
...He was one of the pro-contra defendants in the Christie Institute lawsuit filed on behalf of journalist Tony Avirgan, who was injured at the La Penca bombing in Costa Rica...
...Inflation particularly benefited the broad middle class of families that owned their own homes, that depended on wages for their income, not on interest and dividends from financial assets...
...Only measured against Ronald Reagan's budgets could Bush's be considered an improvement...
...Scabs Preferred Mardly anyone has paid attention, but the U.S...
...what threatens the economy is a rise in interest rates...
...But Gregg was not alone...
...This is Reaganism with a human face...
...What he is saying, in effect, is that he is prepared to raise interest rates and cause a recession in order to fight inflation...
...But the Democrats are in no position to gloat: They share the blame for skewing budget priorities and for failing to offer a compelling alternative to Reaganism, no matter the complexion...
...Suppose that card has its own UPC code or other computer symbol...
...Supreme Court in late February removed several more bricks from the foundations supporting what's left of organized labor...
...Bush's budget would cut $13 billion out of the Medicare program, even as it would permit a reduction in the capital-gains tax for the wealthy...
...Such a budget could even reduce the deficit: The Pentagon cuts and the additional tax revenues could more than pay for the additional programs...
...ambassador to Honduras from 1981 to 1985...
...No, what really upset them was Bush's decision to leave the slashing to Congress...
...It examines Night-line's coverage of a range of foreign and domestic issues, and finds it heavily tilted toward elite opinion...
...Meanwhile, the Christie Institute, which did much to expose the Iran-contra scandal, was ordered to pay $ 1 million in attorneys' fees and costs to the Iran-contra defendants...
...Inflation [in the 1970s] actually improved the financial status of large classes of ordinary Americans, probably the majority of them," Greider wrote...
...As a result, the wealthy put pressure on the Government to fight inflation...
...Fine and dandy, say O'Connor and five colleagues...
...But it's about time Senators and Representatives took some initiative in the budget process...
...But that isn't all...
...Millions of people were thrown out of work and the power of unions was crushed...
...This will surely depress the housing market...
...But the fight against inflation, as William Grei-der has ably demonstrated in his Secrets of the Temple, is not an impartial one...
...troops had been installed there, according to Covert Action Information Bulletin...
...Unjust Rewards While the trial of Oliver North dragged on, some of North's cohorts were being rewarded with prize appointments from President George Bush...
...Recessions don't just happen...
...Bush's budget would have the opposite effect...
...Big Database Is Watching The Universal Product Code (UPC) that appears on the front cover of this magazine and on almost everything else you purchase these days is one of the small conveniences (or, depending on your point of view, the small annoyances) of the computer age...
...But FAIR does not confine itself merely to scrutinizing Nightline's guest list...
...Right-wing California Congressman Robert Dornan recognizes the political goal involved...
...a tax increase on the wealthy, and more Federal spending on social programs and the public sector (mass transit, as well as bridges, roads, and other public byways that fall under the dreadful name of "infrastructure...
...ambassador to the United Nations...
...The interest investors collected from the Government was less than what they lost to inflation" in the 1970s, Greider notes...
...John Hull is an American rancher in Costa Rica...
...A progressive budget would have three basic components: A real reduction in Pentagon spending...
...Don't buy anything...
...Turns out they may have been doing a good turn to their young, unsupecting consumers...
...Last month in these pages, we discussed the contra connections of Donald Gregg, whom Bush nominated to be U.S...
...embassy in Costa Rica, the Bush Administration, and at least nineteen legislators—including Lee Hamilton, who chaired the House Iran-contra committee—have petitioned Costa Rican President Oscar Arias to release Hull...
...Electronic sensors can scan the coded bars—unique to each product—to ring up cash-register sales, or keep track of inventories, or prepare invoices...
...If inflation worsens," he told Congress, "a recession will move up on us more quickly than you can imagine, and it will be prolonged...
...He proposed keeping military spending sacrosanct, allowing expenditures on missiles and munitions to keep pace with inflation this year and to rise after inflation for the remainder of his term...
...a series of calculated Government policies bring them about...
...The U.S...
...FAIR has done an excellent job of unmasking the much-praised Koppell...
...Don't buy anything new...
...ambassador to El Salvador from 1983 to 1985...
...Nightline's Bias There is nothing quite so frustrating as watching Ted Koppel preside over the national debate as though the Left simply did not exist...
...The current rate of inflation, let alone an inFederal Reserve Board chairman Alan Greenspan told Congress he opposed an increase in the minimum wage because it would be inflationary...
...Because of their vacuity and the reign of conventional wisdom, the economy is likely to sputter and spin into recession...
...But for the wealthy, inflation is a threat to their investments...
...The Christie Institute has to be crushed," he said...
...In fact, the plague of pesticides increasingly puts all of us—from young children to farm workers—at risk...
...The decision, written by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, ruled against flight attendants who maintained a seventy-two-day strike against Trans World Airlines three years ago...
...For the best protection against agrichemicals and other caustics, use neoprene gloves," says one catalog squib...
...The steadily rising rates, coupled with Bush's budget cuts, could slam the economy into a recession...
...We think parents have a right to know that not only is there a risk out there but that Government programs are failing to protect [children...
...Thomas Pickering was U.S...
...For a copy of its forty-five-page Nightline study, send $7 to FAIR, 130 W. 25th Street, New York, NY 10001...
...By the time he left Tegucigalpa, 300 CIA operatives and 2,500 U.S...
...The ability to create an in-depth customer profile on every customer presents some staggering possibilities for marketers of every type.' —Card-marketing executive Frank Turek...
...Twenty years ago, the late Milton Mayer had sound advice for readers of The Progressive: "Stay out of the market...
...forces...
...Pickering didn't bother to tell then-Secretary of State George Shultz about the communication...
...Comes now a study that demonstrates the biases behind Night-line...
...COMMENT Reaganism with a Human Face When George Bush gave his budget speech before Congress in February, some Democrats opined that it could have been delivered by Michael Dukakis—that it was, in essence, a Democratic budget...
...It was a legal strike, but theairline refused, when it ended, to put most of the attendants back to work, giving preference to union members who crossed the picket lines and scabs, hired and trained as replacements...
...But the face is not a pretty one...
...Bush has rewarded Negroponte by appointing him U.S...
...They have sent a message to the members of all unions in the transportation industry who, across the board, face industry demands for major pay cuts and give-backs—even as the airlines pretend they aren't making windfall profits in the deregulated marketplace...
...Most social programs, on the other hand, would not keep pace with inflation...
...The message: Unless you're willing to risk permanent loss of your job, knuckle under and forget your right to strike, the only weapon you thought you had left...
...To put things very crudely, the austerity crowd wants the real economy to again take a bath," Greider says...
...And if you feel you must buy something, bear in mind that Database Marketing Central has probably persuaded you that you need it—and has big plans to persuade you that you need more...
...The Environmental Protection Agency is untroubled...
...To soften his image, Bush tacked on a few modest spending proposals for education, the environment, child care, and the campaign against drug abuse...
...The clearest way to induce a recession, as Greenspan knows, is to raise interest rates...
...Don't buy anything retail and don't buy anything wholesale...
...The aftermath of Iran-contra has taken other perverse turns...
...This kind of deficit reduction would help the poor and the middle class, while strengthening the foundations of the economy...
...Twice in February, the Fed tightened credit, causing major banks to raise their interest rates...
...The UPC codes can also be put to use in the latest Orwellian assault on privacy...
...During that time, he secretly delivered a request from a Central American official to North at the White House for $1 million in aid to the contras...
...Paul Volcker perfected the maneuver in 1982...
...John Negroponte was U.S...
...It works this way: Suppose you shop at a supermarket which issues a "courtesy card" that permits you to pay by check...
...But the current inflation rate does not threaten the economy...
...Essentially absent from the guest list are representatives of civic organizations, popular social movements, minority communities, and others who might challenge the status quo," FAIR notes...
...Perhaps the manufacturer could develop a neoprene lining for infant stomachs...
...Don't buy anything pink...
...This passive construction—"will move up on us"—is a marvelous deceit...
...So we learn from a recent issue of Target Marketingr, a trade publication for direct-mail specialists, which reports that bar codes are "providing marketers with unprecedented access to consumer purchasing habits...
...What upset Democrats was not Bush's misplaced priorities for the Pentagon and the wealthy, and not even the cuts in social programs...
...What troubles him is inflation...
...Suppose that the computer then links your bar-coded purchases to your name and address, producing an instant analysis of your purchasing patterns...
...nearly 4,000 are still out...
...Demand for goods will decline, corporations will lay off workers, and the huge private debt in the economy could lead to massive failures in the banking and manufacturing sectors...
...On a broad range of regulatory issues (Super-fund, FDA, OSHA) and social programs (maternal and child health care, aid to women, infants, and children, funding for community health and the Centers for Disease Control), Bush punted: He specified a reduced budget and told Congress to allocate as it saw fit—a shrewd political move to shift the blame...
...The four guests who appeared the most were Henry Kissinger (fourteen times), Alexander Haig (fourteen), Elliott Abrams (twelve), and Jerry Fal-well (twelve...
...By requiring applicants for courtesy cards (or credit cards) to furnish personal data, the marketers can considerably expand their operations...
...We can then work to turn him into a primary customer...
...According to the NRDC report, Alar can cause an additional case of cancer for every 1,100 children who consume large quantities of applesauce or apple juice—a level 910 times the accepted Federal safety standard...
...It is carried out to defend the interests of the rich against everyone else's...
...If the Democrats had any sense of functioning as an opposition party, they would draft their own budget top to bottom...
...Already, mortgage rates are approaching the highest level in two-and-a-half years...
...If someone goes into a store and spends $63, but doesn't spend a dime in the deli department, that store may want to target him with a promotion for that department...
...One component of inflation is wages, and Greenspan is determined to see that they don't rise...
...Greenspan is simply doing his job: He's defending the wealthy...
...It's the latest wrinkle in what the magazine calls the "database marketing environment...
...In a report entitled Intolerable Risk: Pesticides in Our Children's Food, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) reports that at least three million American preschool children are being threatened by cancer because of eight pesticides widely used on fruits and vegetables...
Vol. 53 • April 1989 • No. 4
