The Nation's Pulse
Heywood, Alton
"The Nation's Pulse" - "Humanitarian" Boondoggle A hon Heywood The trouble with conservatives is their belief that 1984 must come, as Mao promised, out of the barrel of a...
...Time Life, Newsweek...
...use of child advocates to assist children and parents in securing full access to other services: and other activities...
...r-1 Problem Perspiration In case you haven't noticed, Ted Is closing in on Frantic Fd...
...training in the fundamentals of child development for family members and prospective parents...
...The talk shows will be brimful of child development "experts...
...They're all going to wake up one morning to discover that Big Brother moved in during the night, bag, baggage, and relatives, and that there's absolutely nothing that anyone, anywhere can do about it...
...and at least seven corporations whose business is chiefly concerned with child development books, services, machinery and the like will join Fortune's 500...
...And so it was that as S. 2007 wended its way from subcommittee through parent committee to Senate floor, all manner of goodies got themselves tacked onto the OEO extension bill, including, but not limited to: (a) comprehensive child care...
...The "poverty-education complex" (as Congresswoman Edith Green likes to call it) has been working toward this goal for years, and now that they are on the verge of success they can hardly contain themselves...
...In the matter of bridges, dams, and highways, this is known as the old porkbarrel...
...special activities for physically, mentally, and emotionally handicapped children and children with special learning disabilities...
...And it will all begin with the passage of Title V of S. 2007...
...And with the slightest of plugs by the media, who knows but what it won't acquire the applause of a working majority of the public...
...specially designed programs (including after school, sammer, weekend, and overnight programs...
...All this will be done with the approval of the Executive Branch and with the advice and consent of Congress...
...They will have armed themselves to the teeth and kept guarded watch from the battlements only to discover, when the crunch comes, that someone's gone and poisoned the water supply...
...c) a new employment and job-training program for young men and women...
...It is only a matter of time, surely, before that potential jurisdiction becomes actual...
...and (d) a new community economic development package...
...It will be done on the professional recommendation of experts who will claim to have proved beyond the peradventure of a doubt that the laws of nature and of nature's God are no longer operative in these United States...
...food and nutritional services (including family consultation): soecial programs for minority groups, Indians, and bilingual children...
...Those wonderful folks who gave us the War on Poverty, however, never want for new frontiers...
...For those of you who haven't been "developing" your children very well lately, or who yourselves may have been "underdeveloped" children, it should be pointed out that Title V would put the federal government fully and finally into the business of caring for children - - for the children of the "disadvantaged" at first, to be sure...
...In the rtiatter of social welfare legislation, it's called humanitarian progress and statesmanlike compromise...
...The A l t e r n a t i v e October, 1971 9 A "Humanitarian" Boondoggle A hon Heywood The trouble with conservatives is their belief that 1984 must come, as Mao promised, out of the barrel of a gun...
...And as things stand now, it may do so yet...
...He won't say no in Sherman style...
...Anyone giving odds to the contrary...
...The item that is, or should be, of gravest concern is Title V, which deals with "Comprehensive Child Development...
...and Look will all discover a "crisis" in child development programs, thus necessitating newer and bigger (and less voluntary) federal programs...
...But I remember all the stops He made beJore he called the cops...
...OEO is by common agreement the most notorious boondoggle in the long and jaded history of governmental boondoggles...
...It would provide them with the only important tool they need for the Final Solution to the Individual Freedom Problem...
...It will all begin on a voluntary basis...
...Title V is, without the slightest exaggeration, the greatest Trojan Horse Caper ever attempted by the Liberals...
...They have undertaken to save OEO by adding onto the extension bill a number of items calculated to secure a self-interested majority for the whole works - - the theory being that no one will vote against an entire package even if he dislikes parts of it so long as there's at least one major part that can be worked to his constituency's advantage...
...b) a new and distinct legal services corporation for the poor...
...Right before our very eyes, the federal government is about to acquire potential jurisdiction over each and every aspect of each and every life that's born into the United States of America...
...identification and treatment of physical, mental, and emotional problems, including problems of emotionally disturbed children...
...On the basis of what the federal government has already undertaken in the past twenty years, this massive new venture is as inevitable as the rising sun and as inexorable as its setting...
...Experience would suggest, however, that nothing proximately or remotely connected with OEO could ever be simple...
...but, most assuredly, one day, for your children, my-children, everyone's children...
...A case in point is S. 2007, a catch-ali social welfare bill that, but for the grace of God and an already scheduled summer recess, might have breezed through the Senate without so much as a whimper from the Right...
...W. H. von Dreele...
...And they will not rest content until they have each and every one of us declared mentally incompetent from the moment of our conception...
...Though Teddy says he will not tile...
...Now, it can hardly be said that this proposed undertaking takes knowledgeable men by surprise...
...All of it will be done, course, with the very best of intentions...
...prenatal services to reduce malnutrition, infant, and maternal mortality, and the incidence of mental retardation...
...I know Jew memories are ~.irm As feedback ]rom a pachyderm...
...It has enemies even on the Left, and its extension by Congress is by no means a sure bet...
...For they realize that "child development" is about to become for the '70's what "progressive education" was to the '20's and '30's: books will be written, symposia conducted, foundations funded, courses taught, whole departments - - perhaps colleges - - created virtually overnight...
...That's why I tend to sweat a lot When pollsters ringer Camelot...
...S. 2007 started out as a simple two-year extension of the Office of Economic Opportunity...
...It seldom occurs to them that it is far more likely to creep in, like Sandburg's fog, on little cat feet...
...In more precise terms, Title V would authorize the federal government to provide (quoting from the Report of the Committee on Labor and Public Welfare): "comprehensive physical and mental health, social and cognitive developmental services...
Vol. 5 • October 1971 • No. 1
