COMMENT

...In Switzerland, voters have outlawed the cruel but profitable practice of mass-producing chickens in wire cages which keep the poultry from obeying their natural instinct to scratch in the ground...

...In recent weeks it has served as a convenient weapon in the Reagan Administration's frontal assault on organized labor...

...COMMENT In Minnesota, animal rights supporters have proposed legislation that would set minimum space requirements for the raising of livestock, thereby eliminating the present practice of housing animals in close and often suffocating confinement...

...The Plowshares Eight hardly could have expected their defiant prophecy of peace to receive official blessing...

...But given the inordinate power of conglomerates to manipulate and maintain prices, even substantial unemployment and declining demand have only a marginal effect on price levels...

...Having embarked on its union-busting course, the Administration is unlikely to be swayed by evidence that its policy is doing more harm than good...

...But more trouble may follow...

...The national leadership of the AFL-CIO has given PATCO nothing more than lip-service...

...What gives the animal rights movement its impetus is neither vegetarianism nor sentimentality but a simple human revulsion against cruelty—the mindless, heedless, unnecessary cruelty inflicted on animals by modern food processors in the name of efficiency...

...But today's timid practitioners of business unionism clearly have much to learn about solidarity—and until they learn it, they will be no match for those who are determined to cut back on jobs, justice, and social progress...

...In fact, these alien workers pay more to Federal, state, and local governments in taxes than they receive in public welfare benefits...

...The closed-off area is an eyesore and easy prey for vandals, O'Laughlin says...

...The Administration's program will keep those workers coming, simultaneously preserving the illusion that hordes of foreign workers swarming across U.S...

...It has been a long time in coming, but Americans and Europeans are beginning at last to ask questions about the conditions under which animals are raised and slaughtered in today's mechanized food industry...

...They think they've got to work somewhere, so what the heck...

...7 oj Pence "Given corporate capitalism's appetite for war, given the Bomb as diplomatic bargaining chip, what is the meaning and price of discipleship...

...In justification of the contemptuous treatment of the air traffic controllers, the Reagan Administration and its sycophants in the mass media cite no less an authority than Calvin Coolidge: "There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anytime, anywhere...

...The air traffic controllers are but a small segment of an elaborate system of public subsidies to a multi-billion-dollar industry...

...September 19 has been proclaimed as Solidarity Day, and organized labor plans to march and rally in Washington for "jobs, justice, and social progress...

...tension between the United States and its European allies (Who are themselves confronted by a rapidly growing peace movement) over the U.S...

...Former residents of the dump area, who have had an uncomfortable ringside seat on state and Federal efforts to juggle the chemical and financial mess all along, now cast doubtful eyes on the EPA study...

...We fought for three years to get our families out of those houses...

...By leaving the air traffic controllers in the lurch, other unions merely deferred their own showdowns with the Reagan Administration, and left themselves in a weaker position when the showdowns come...

...Part of the problem is that PATCO members are among the highest-paid of unionized workers...

...What the Administration proposes is to admit 50,000 alien "guest workers" every year for employment in industries that have been designated as having a labor shortage...

...Montgomery County Judge Samuel Sa-lus answered the question in July: three to ten years in prison...

...Let Americans hear the full story of how and why they get their daily meat, let them hear it often enough, and the problem of cruelty to animals will begin to take care of itself...

...After all, how long has it been since a Vegetarian Party candidate carried even Massachusetts, let alone Minnesota...

...The interests of American labor are ill-served by jingoist campaigns to curb immigration...

...Such scare talk seems a little far-fetched...

...On the contrary—making martyrs is almost sure to increase the distance between the keepers of nuclear weapons and the people of the world...

...Only the fact that there's no profit to be made from raising and slaughtering dogs and cats for a mass market...

...A solid front of support for the embattled air traffic controllers would have meant more than a dozen rallies in Washington...

...moreover, the city needs to return the homes to its tax rolls...

...COMMENT Those Alien Monies Niccolo Machiavelli argued, centuries ago, that in politics appearance is often more important than reality...

...They didn't begin effectively to tell their story of on-the-job tension and stress until it was too late...

...When public employes go out on strike in the United States, they can count on being fired from their jobs...

...Money may be part of the prospective buyers' rationale...

...missiles in Europe and the neutron warheads being readied for them...

...By the time they are a few grades along, the pupils will no longer want to eat any animals," a Farm Bureau representative, Hollis Hatfield, told a recent meeting of the Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation...

...But there is no question that the American meat and dairy industries have good reason to be nervous about growing public concern over their treatment of animals...

...Finally, former residents point out, the EPA used different methods when it conducted earlier tests, making comparison with current findings difficult...

...industries of a continuing supply of cheap, easily exploited labor...

...The Reagan Administration has taken Machiavelli's advice to heart in devising its immigration program...

...While their concern is as commendable as it is unexpected, the real reason the proposals were turned down is the Administration's desire to keep the flood of immigrants coming...

...The Reagan proposals are designed to reassure those Americans who are troubled by the "flood" of immigrants that we have regained "control of our borders," while assuring U.S...

...homeowners were initially trapped in their dwellings as the values plunged and ultimately had to sell them to the state at lowered prices to flee the mess...

...As an internal Administration document acknowledged, guest worker programs would not be politically acceptable unless accompanied by "an appropriate enforcement strategy" which would "restore an image of control...

...Judge Salus insisted that "the bottom line is that the defendants violated criminal law...

...And they are also questioning the treatment to which rabbits, mice, and rats are frequently subjected in the huge commercial laboratories specializing in food and drug experimentation...

...Hollis Hatfield of the Farm Bureau says his agency is going to produce a film "to show why veal is raised the way it is," thus hoping, we suppose, to justify the industry's treatment of those pitiable creatures...

...Nor is it necessary that we bestow the Magna Carta, the Declaration of Independence, and the Bill of Rights on chickens, pigs, goats, calves, and other denizens of the barnyard...

...That the Reagan Administration has already been plunged into disarray on military spending is not attributable in any significant way to the protests of Mormons, NATO members, or peace activists here or abroad...

...The illegal status of foreign workers gives employers great leverage over attempts to organize...

...For generations, civilized societies have been arresting and convicting good citizens for mistreating cats, dogs, and horses...

...COMMENT Ho-Win Proposition There was peculiar timing, to say the least, in President Reagan's warning to the Russians that unless they agreed to significant weapons reductions they would find themselves in an arms race they could not possibly win...

...President William Winpisinger of the International Association of Machinists, the most outspoken and militant of today's top labor leaders, ran away from the fight, contenting himself with the token statement that machinists should act like good trade unionists...

...That's all a vegetarian or an animal-lover or anyone else could ask...

...military budget...

...In the difficult times ahead, solidarity will have to be more than a nostalgic slogan for American labor...

...Nor do we expect that the attempt to silence them will succeed in intimidating other protesters...

...it was delivered—as these momentous statements have a way of being delivered—to a Republican fund-raising dinner in Illinois...

...Thousands of airline employes will lose their jobs, and workers in travel-related fields will lose both jobs and bargaining power...

...At the urging of Niagara Falls Mayor Michael O'Laughlin, a group called the Love Canal Revitalization Agency is planning to resell the outer Canal area homes, which now stand boarded and vacant...

...And no one should doubt that the Administration's target is far broader than the air controllers' union: As Business Week observed in an approving comment, "The Administration cannot yield to [PATCO's] demands without setting a precedent for postal workers, policemen, firemen, and teachers all over the country...

...That dictum, prompted by a Boston police strike early in the century, was dubious then and is untenable now: it has no bearing on the reality of today's public-sector employment...

...to hold otherwise would have amounted to a radical challenge to the Government's commitment to nuclear terror...

...it is a no-win proposition for the United States, as well—and ours is the consumer-oriented economy that is likely to go broke first...

...Danger: Animal Lovers We're told that in Minnesota there's a Federally funded school project that teaches kindergarten pupils about "feeling love for animals...

...The Administration's harsh response to the strike of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) is the opening salvo in a drive to demolish the public-sector labor unions, which have enjoyed unprecedented growth in recent years, and in doing so to discipline the entire American labor movement...

...There's nothing new about the principle of prevention of cruelty to animals...

...At least twelve were known to cause cancer...

...Winpisinger and other labor chiefs said they were deterred by fear of legal reprisals— but their unions were founded and built on willingness to defy unfair anti-labor laws...

...bickering between the President and his good friends in Utah and Nevada who would rather not have the MX missile in their back yards, thank you...

...Anti-nuclear protesters have, of course, often paid for their commitments by doing time...

...And that, of course, is exactly the purpose of the people promoting such projects: "These people are basically vegetarians and want to do away with meat and dairy products...

...Some of Reagan's advisers understand, though it is doubtful that the President himself does, that an unlimited arms race is not only a no-win proposition for the Soviets...

...Some officials have argued publicly that more stringent proposals for a national identification card were rejected because of the threat such documentation would pose to civil liberties...

...While the controllers have contributed to their own difficulties, however, they have had to contend with a response by other unions that can only be described as shortsighted and counterproductive...

...Actually, the warning was not delivered to the Russians at all...

...Rarely, though, has the law asked for so much...

...What is it that gives a household pet more protection than other animals...

...At this writing, there is confusion and conflict between the Pentagon and the White House staff over the projected size of the military budget...

...Such incentives can be attractive when housing choices are few and costly, and especially when seemingly endless reports of other industrial hazards cloud the picture...

...borders offer the only effective means of countering the policies of multinational concerns which have displaced foreign workers and depressed their wages once they arrive on U.S...

...The airline pilots, who have recently been involved in their own conflicts with industry and government over such safety issues as crew size and layover time, denounced PATCO even as pilots were being laid off in a shrinking airline system...

...For one thing, they say, it did not include testing of the homes near underground streambeds— the homes likeliest to be contaminated...

...All they are waiting for is a long-overdue report from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) which will determine whether the homes are really safe for occupancy...

...This would be accompanied by a ban on the hiring of illegal aliens by American business—a ban that would be "enforced" by requiring employers to ask job applicants for a Social Security card or driver's license—documents easily forged...

...They endorsed Reagan's Presidential candidacy last year, and thought that would help them achieve their demands at the bargaining table...

...like major league baseball players, they find it difficult to enlist broad public support...

...Many businesses in the South and Southwest, including agribusiness concerns with which Ronald Reagan has long been closely aligned, have counted on the flow of illegal aliens to depress wages in their industry...

...As the economic outlook continues to deteriorate, the Administration is likely to intensify its efforts to impose labor "discipline"—for political as well as economic reasons...

...Breaking labor unions is, in fact, the Administration's real anti-inflation strategy, and it is a strategy that will be energetically pursued despite the fact that it is bound to fail...

...Furthermore, efforts to organize labor on both sides of U.S...

...The dismissal of the striking air controllers means, for example, years of curtailed airline service and increased risk in the skies...

...soil...

...The Berrigans and company will appeal their sentences, but their incontrovertible reasoning—that their "crime" was necessitated by the "greater danger" of nuclear weapons—is almost certainly doomed to defeat by the quite different logic of the legal system...

...No one argues seriously that animals should receive equal treatment with humans, or that animal slaughter is the equivalent of homicide...

...borders are the cause of our economic distress...

...In addition, they say, in tests that were conducted, samples were taken in August and September of last year, during the area's dry season—but the worst of the problems associated with Love Canal have emerged during the rainy months of year...

...Like other government employes at the Federal, state, and local levels, be they letter carriers or agricultural chemists or meat inspectors, the controllers provide services that enhance the profits of major enterprises...

...But swearing off meat-eating is not required as a solution to this problem...

...There is an opportunity here for those who are committed to the cause of disarmament: As more and more Americans feel the inevitable squeeze of Reaganomics, we can enlist them in an effort to turn the President's words to the Russians back on him: Reduce the military budget by a significant amount or face an arms race you can't possibly win...

...And in Hollywood, actress Loretta Swit, appearing recently on a television show, decried the common practice of raising veal calves in darkened crates in order to keep the flesh soft and tender: "The calves are often sick, but the profits to dairymen are healthy...

...It will have to become, once again, a way of life...

...Study or no study, these people have little confidence in the safety of their former homes...

...But it was presumably intended for the Russians, and what was peculiar about it was that the same day Reagan spoke, his Administration was caught up in frantic internal dissension over the size of the U.S...

...It is instructive that even in the Reagan Administration, with its total commitment to militarism and machismo, it has not taken long for the essential lunacy of the nuclear arms race to come to the fore...

...babies were born deformed...

...Nonetheless, the public has, by and large, backed the President's draconian retaliation against PATCO members, and the house of labor, dispirited and divided against itself, has failed to give the air traffic controllers any meaningful support...

...Employer fines for noncompliance would amount to only a tiny fraction of the profits gained by hiring undocumented workers...

...I wouldn't even be interested in reading it," she says...

...We know it's a lot more serious than the EPA is saying at this point," says one former resident, Jo Ann Kott...

...A similar price will be exacted from Daniel Berrigan and the rest of the Plowshares Eight...

...If you find it hard to imagine anything wrong with that, you haven't been listening to the American Farm Bureau Federation, which sees animal love as a threat to the American way of life...

...In fact, if the machinists and other airline workers had acted like good trade unionists, they would have tied the air transportation system in knots, assuring a virtually instant victory for PATCO...

...Philip Berrigan posed this question in The Progressive last May, while he awaited sentencing for damaging nuclear warhead nose cones at a General Electric plant in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania...

...But the myth which holds that strikes by public employes are immoral as well as illegal is well entrenched...

...Americans would undoubtedly do themselves and the food-starved world a favor if they were less carnivorous...

...Modern government plays no mere neutral arbiter's role in our economic affairs...

...Former residents of the neighborhood came down with serious ailments...

...Residents had barred investigators from these homes after the Agency would not guarantee them early access to the test results...

...The people here don't feel there is any danger," says Kott...

...The spokeswoman for the Revitalization Agency says members hope the EPA report will be completed in October...

...That the President's aides, or at least some of them, are now willing to contemplate the possibility of military cutbacks shows how desperate their view of the economic outlook must be...

...And they are also consumers, helping to create jobs...

...They may then find out that burying the current Love Canal woes, like burying toxic chemicals decades ago, does not make them go away...

...Another part is that in their elitist eagerness to view themselves as "professionals," the controllers have been inept and worse in projecting their image to the public and fellow unionists...

...Suddenly, the Administration finds itself rethinking some of its zany bombs-away notions—refitting ancient battleships, for example, or building the white-elephant B-1 bomber...

...The business community is extremely skeptical of the Administration's claims that inflation will be checked by its current budget and tax cuts—as witness recent sharp declines in the stock market...

...More Trouble in Store for love Canal It is difficult to imagine anything that could make the situation any worse at Love Canal, the notorious chemical dumpsite at Niagara Falls, New York...

...Some major airlines may, indeed, reap greater profits from reduced flight schedules, but other carriers will founder, and smaller communities will suffer severe service cutbacks...

...When it comes to relations between employes and employers—including the right to strike—any distinction between the public and private sectors is essentially mythological...

...All told, eighty-two chemicals were found in the air, water, and soil of the area...

...Fair enough...

...It is the result, primarily, of the growing' realization that supply-side economics, with all the attendant hocus-pocus, will not address the ills of our irrational economy...

...Although plans have not yet been completed, O'Laughlin has stated that the Agency may sell the homes at discount prices or offer low interest rates on mortgages...

...Kott expects the report to play down chemical hazards when it is released...

...Labor unions would be better advised to campaign for a truly open border and to mount a vigorous effort at organizing wr^/kers of all nationalities...

...I can't see why anyone in their right mind would want to move back in...

...A spokeswoman for the Agency says that about 100 people have already signed up to buy homes when they become available...

...Some of these homes are beautiful and people do want to live in them," she says...

...several women-suffered miscarriages...

...And like other employers, government strives to provide its services at the lowest labor cost possible...

...The area has chemical factories, and people figure it's no worse here than anywhere else...