Comment
A Call for Justice After a Presidential election campaign de-pressingly bereft of substantive debate about fundamental economic issues, the Catholic bishops' latest pastoral letter constitutes a...
...today, there are twenty-one...
...Lord's outspokenness is nothing new...
...The law, she found, attempted to "suppress speech" and therefore violated the First Amendment: "To deny free speech in order to engineer social change in the name of accomplishing a greater good for one sector of our society erodes the freedoms of all and, as such, threatens tyranny and injustice for those subjected to the rule of such laws," she wrote...
...How has his old buddy, the United States Government, responded to these blatant abuses of human rights...
...The contract also contains a 14 per cent pay raise and a guarantee that the company will not obstruct future union activities by hiring anti-union management consultants...
...There is an almost inexorable pull toward violence in any resistance movement, especially when the war has dragged on for years and is mired in stalemate...
...it should permit persons to fulfill their material needs through adequate remuneration, and it should make possible the enhancement of unity and solidarity within the family, the nation, and the world community...
...The consumerist mentality cannot be curbed by moral suasion alone—even if the attempt at suasion comes from so influential a body as the Catholic bishops...
...The preposterous notion that a small cadre can know what's best for a billion Chinese lives on, despite the acknowledgment that centralized industrial planning has fallen short...
...Concentration of ownership has intensified at a rapid pace, stifling independent outlets and homogenizing the perspectives available to media consumers...
...establishes a right for pregnant employees to request transfer from work at video display terminals, and changes the company's performance evaluation system, which used computers to monitor employee speed and accuracy...
...It would appear that much of our national effort is being devoted to helping with the process...
...The contract provides for extra rest breaks away from video display terminals...
...If you read The New York Times, you may have missed this latest U.S...
...A Call for Justice After a Presidential election campaign de-pressingly bereft of substantive debate about fundamental economic issues, the Catholic bishops' latest pastoral letter constitutes a welcome attempt to address questions that simply cannot be ignored...
...The bishops' letter opposes "collectivist and statist economic approaches," but it provides no guidance on how workers and citizens can begin to assert control over their jobs, their communities, their economic lives...
...Just days after that announcement, the NRC's own staff reported that reactor "mishaps" are occurring with alarming frequency...
...foreign policy to a question of whose ox is being gored—or who is doing the goring...
...Or if not everything, at least the NRC and the Department of Energy...
...What is so sacred about a bomb...
...foreign policy: It is enough to say, and to say unflinchingly, that the United States has no right whatever to intervene in the affairs of another nation, that U.S...
...Pressing the Suits Like a movie about the life of a Hollywood star, a news story about a libel suit against the media is a form of narcissism...
...The Times carried its account of the largest loan—worth $135 million—on its advertising page, tucked in the back of the business section...
...In a separate disclosure, the Department of Energy revealed that the crippled reactor at Three Mile Island came closer to melting down in March 1979 than had previously been acknowledged...
...District Judge Miles Lord was denouncing weapons manufacturers and U.S...
...What is that fatal fascination which attracts us to the thought of mass destruction of our brethren in another country...
...Time magazine has reportedly spent more than $1 million to defend itself against a libel suit filed by Israel's former defense minister, Ariel Sharon...
...Rejecting the long-held Soviet model of economic planning, the Chinese Central Committee vowed to let Adam Smith's invisible hand (rather than Mao's ghost) guide producers...
...In war you have to do these things...
...Capitalism requires competition...
...it understands that economic considerations play a definitive role in shaping social ties and human relationships...
...This is disappointing in a self-proclaimed socialist society, but even more disturbing is the possibility that inflation and unemployment, until now insignificant problems in China, will begin squeezing the population...
...There are, in fact, studies demonstrating that the constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech and press are espoused less than fervently by many Americans...
...They said war is like this...
...The agreement gives fifty-four clerical workers, most of them women, some important controls over their computerized environment...
...And so people conclude—quite correctly—that the dominant news organizations are interested not in informing the public but in turning a buck...
...Prometheus Bound The disquieting pictures confront us almost every evening on the television screen: Hundreds of thousands of people are starving in Ethiopia...
...The bishops place much blame for our difficulties on individual materialist urges— "a consumerist mentality which encourages immediate gratification...
...The introduction and aggressive marketing of such consumer products and services as autos, personal computers, or airplane travel eventually turn these items, which start out as luxuries for the rich, into necessities for all of us...
...The recourse to repression contrasts with Pinochet's easing of political restrictions last year...
...Pornography is vile, but the purveyors of vile ideas have a right to spew their venom—the same right Nazis have to denounce Jews or Jews have to insult Palestinians...
...To reverse that trend, our society will have to devise broader, more diversified, and much more accessible forms of communication than are available to us today...
...even saying what they did raised a storm of controversy...
...In twenty-seven incidents, a key safety system "was lost or degraded" because reactor operators didn't find or understand the problem...
...A report in The New York Times of November 4 raises disturbing questions about the actions of the Salvadoran rebels who have won the sympathy of most progressives in this country...
...In today's atavistic social climate, that statement itself marks a radical position...
...with little understanding of local needs and customs, they disrupt self-help efforts already in progress and introduce inappropriate food, clothing, and housing...
...In an excellent new paperpack, Natural Disasters: Acts of God or Acts of Man?, they challenge long-held assumptions about what produces this "nonstop disaster...
...The persistence of poverty in our affluent nation, the bishops note, does not just impose financial hardship, it also denies the poor "full participation in the economic, social, and political life of the society...
...Again, the point is rather simple: If one group can be silenced, every group can...
...Porn, they say, violates the civil rights of women...
...What the media find particularly disturbing about the wave of libel litigation is that the public appears, by and large, to sympathize with the plaintifFs...
...Maybe, but it would sure be nice to hear from the people firsthand...
...Once the Government has the authority to stifle unpopular ideas, it has license to muzzle any idea...
...More than ninety unions had removed their pension funds from the company...
...The difference between the wages of various trades and jobs should be widened," the Central Committee proclaimed, "so as to apply fully the principle of rewarding the diligent and good and punishing the lazy and bad...
...conservation of farmland...
...whomever the United States opposes, we're for...
...By then, maybe the root causes—and adequate responses—will be better understood...
...According to the new study, uranium pellets inside the reactor core had begun to disintegrate during the accident...
...If the labor movement takes heed of 925's victory—based on old-fashioned grass-roots organizing and modern pension leverage—it may be able to recoup some of its recent losses...
...Still, the present structure of the news media and the power they are perceived to wield make it likely that the political and judicial climate will continue to favor the plaintiffs in libel suits...
...But the bishops have already provided a penetrating critique of the economy, and one that is bound to lend weight to radical proposals for refashioning it...
...COMMENT A Setback for Censors It takes more than good intentions to achieve justice...
...But it was not a defendant protesting or an attorney objecting: U.S...
...Killing replaces political conversion in recalcitrant villages...
...In half a dozen cities, these self-appointed defenders of decency are trying to outlaw what they consider to be degrading books, magazines, and movies...
...construction of low-income housing...
...Realizing now that such moves failed to quell protest, Pinochet has come down heavy with the iron fist...
...Nevertheless, the report from Ca-caopera contains an object lesson for critics of U.S...
...Emphasis on single cash crops at the expense of subsistence, multi-crop agriculture has undermined the capacity of peasants to cope with the inevitable hazards of climate...
...Many conventional relief efforts fail miserably...
...Obviously, libel litigation is no solution—though it may offer some psychological relief to aggrieved consumers who derive vicarious satisfaction from seeing the media giants take it on the chin...
...Ironically, growing recourse to libel law may simply accelerate the trend toward media concentration...
...support for brutal regimes is unconscionable...
...Business Week reports that jury verdicts in libel suits run against the defendants by a margin of almost 2-to-l...
...Economy," is by no means the last word, even from the bishops' point of view...
...It is, in effect (as some of the bishops' critics have charged) a warmed-over New Deal strategy or, at best, an attempt to apply the practices of West European social democracy...
...Around the world, more than fifteen million children die each year of malnutrition, according to the Swedish Red Cross and Earthscan, an environmental news service...
...They recommend an extensive public works program—repair of bridges, highways, and other neglected elements of the infrastructure...
...This is the inevitable trend of history," intoned the Committee, "and the wish of the people...
...That simple proposition seems to elude America's new censors, those who want to ban pornography...
...requires safety devices for those machines...
...The reaction to a large award against, say, Time, Inc., or CBS seems to be, "Well, they can afford it...
...Her decision will disappoint the forces that want to dictate what Americans can and cannot read...
...It's a form we are increasingly likely to encounter on the front pages and the evening newscasts...
...It's a simple formula: Whomever the U.S...
...Lord recently delivered these remarks before passing sentence on two peace activists who had hammered on and poured blood over computers for Trident II missile systems...
...The just society they envision will come into being only when stringent social controls have been imposed on unbridled economic power...
...We asked them why they had done this since they had never done anything like this before," she recalled...
...In sentencing the pair to six months' probation, Lord accepted a version of the "necessity defense," the argument that a crime should be pardoned because it was committed to prevent a greater crime...
...The three-paragraph dispatch, Second Loan Given to Chile, ran right below the blockbuster story, Tomy Toys Business to West Coast Agency...
...Capital-intensive economic development—with its stress on heavy industrial products and cash crops for export—has exacerbated class divisions, driven landless peasants to jobless cities, and devastated the ecosystems of Third World nations...
...But the fundamental problems persist...
...Why do we condemn and hang individual killers while extolling the virtues of warmongers...
...demanded Lord...
...Facing growing opposition from labor leaders, students, the young, the Church, and even his old shills in the middle-class, Pinochet did what he does best: He reim-posed a state of siege on November 6, the day Ronald Reagan won his reelection victory...
...In exchange for the settlement, the union is calling off an AFL-CIO boycott of Equitable...
...Each of these "mega-verdicts" is still on appeal, but the costs of defending the media have, in some instances, exceeded the potential damage awards...
...But it protects them, as well as the rest of us...
...A Star on the Bench The usually sterile, ponderous air of a Minneapolis courtroom was broken by an expression of anger...
...Perhaps public ignorance of or indifference to the First Amendment is partially to blame...
...Whose Ox Is Gored...
...INX I FRANCIS jf TT[» New conceptions of economic development are needed to sustain the grassroots strength of indigenous people and respect their natural environment...
...Only occasionally does the focus shift to the corrupt or inefficient policies of government...
...But the economy of the United States falls far short of that goal...
...In the next decade, another Ethiopia will surely fill our television screens and tug at our consciences...
...The dramatic shift in economic policy was, like all major decisions, imposed from the top...
...Development of this kind cannot be imposed from without, even with a benevolent hand...
...In combating racists or sexists, Nazis or pornographers, Judge Barker's conclusion applies: "Free speech, rather than being the enemy, is a long-tested and worthy ally...
...Occasionally, critics of American foreign policy glorify those who are fighting U.S.-backed repressive regimes in the Third World...
...Government supports, we're against...
...Bankrolling the Siege Chile's President Augusto Pinochet, a dear and loyal friend of the United States, knows where to turn when the chips are down...
...Their first, and perhaps most significant, contribution is the recognition that the economy is more than a vehicle for delivering goods and services to individuals...
...But by saying what they did, they opened a national discussion that may ultimately lead far beyond their earnest but modest agenda...
...But such a mentality is an inherent attribute of our capitalist order...
...The pastoral letter measures economic health by standards other than dollars spent or dollars earned...
...We believe," the bishops assert, "that the level of inequality in income and wealth in our society and even more the inequality on the world scale today must be judged morally unacceptable...
...Noble aspirations and naive expectations gradually give way to impatience and anger...
...it is a preliminary draft, subject to revisions after extensive discussion and debate...
...The article, by James LeMoyne, states that guerrillas entered the rural Salvadoran village of Ca-caopera last summer and abducted and subsequently executed seven of its leading residents, including the mayor...
...Since 1980, twenty judgments of $1 million or more have been entered against media defendants...
...There are those in high places that believe Armageddon is soon to be upon us," Lord said...
...After a protracted struggle, District 925 of the Service Employees International Union won a three-year contract with the Syracuse, New York, branch of the Equitable Life Assurance company, the nation's third-largest insurer...
...typically, the mass media harp in Biblical tones on droughts or floods...
...Translation: The welfare of workers will take a back seat to efficiency in the race to catch up with the West...
...Small, independent media, on the other hand, may simply be forced out of business by the threat or reality of libel litigation...
...While the State Department mumbled its "growing concern," the Treasury Department gave the green light for funneling two massive loans to Chile through the Inter-American Development Bank...
...District Judge Sarah Evans Barker was not deceived by the "sleight of hand"—her phrase—that would equate words and pictures with actual subordination of women...
...When all of the most basic decisions are based on the simple principle of profit maximization, an appeal to individual altruism is noble, uplifting, and futile...
...But the loosening of the economy was not accompanied by an opening of the political system...
...The number of well-publicized libel suits filed by celebrities and politicians against newspapers, magazines, and broadcasters is rising rapidly, and so is the size of the damage awards to plaintifFs...
...It merely reduces the debate over U.S...
...The Chinese leadership has also opened the way for more pronounced class divisions...
...Last November, the NRC announced it may reduce the size of evacuation zones surrounding reactors...
...vote of confidence in Pinochet's splendid leadership...
...He has consistently stood up for the powerless, despite rebukes by court overseers who say he goes beyond "the proper role of a judge...
...Economic development, as it is practiced in both "Marxist" and "capitalist" countries, is itself largely at fault...
...In turn, the complex systems of sharing among extended families and tribes have unraveled...
...This was often the case during the Iranian revolution and the Vietnam war, and it applies now, perhaps, to El Salvador...
...The letter, "On Catholic Social Teaching and the U.S...
...He doesn't let legal etiquette obscure his vision of truth and justice...
...Henceforth, only such major industries as steel and coal will be coordinated from Peking...
...News coverage tends to portray starvation as a random, tragic occurrence that defies human comprehension or action...
...They suggest that funding for such a program be derived from savings and from higher taxes on the well-to-do...
...The new economics seems, in fact, to delegate authority merely to the next link in the chain of command—to plant managers, not to the workers themselves...
...Even the Reagan Administration will now authorize food assistance to this "Marxist" government, and private donations from Americans pour in...
...A total loss of a safety system is not a rare event," the analysts found...
...Some efforts do, of course, bring needed immediate relief to such areas as Ethiopia...
...The Salvadoran guerrillas, to be sure, have not approached the number of atrocities committed by the Salvadoran military, which has murdered some 40,000 people...
...But the causes of drought in the Third World are complex...
...For understandable reasons, the bishops' specific proposals do not quite match the lofty vision of their goal...
...In the harshest crackdown since he took power in 1973, the sixty-eight-year-old general banned political meetings, suspended opposition publications, required all foreigners to sign an oath of obedience to Chile's constitution, canceled all foreign press credentials, and rounded up hundreds of people from the politically active slums of Santiago...
...Under New Management The epithet "capitalist roader" no longer carries much sting in China—not since that nation's leadership decided last fall to let COMMENT market forces play a large role in the economy...
...Drawn faces, distended bellies, and skeletal figures will once again claim public attention...
...Drawing on Catholic tradition that reaches back to Thomas Aquinas, the bishops urge us to rediscover the humanizing virtue of useful work within our communities: A moral economy, they state, "should enable persons to find a significant measure of self-realization in their labor...
...military policy...
...If cooling water had been diverted for a few minutes more, massive amounts of radiation would have been released into the Pennsylvania environment...
...If they don't respect human rights, they are like the army," Rita Eli Rivera de Flo-res, widow of the mayor, told LeMoyne...
...But to blink at the abuses committed by guerrillas fighting U.S...
...But U.S...
...The nuclear industry keeps telling us not to worry, it has everything under control...
...COMMENT Riding for a Fall The left hand of the Government sometimes doesn't know what the right hand is doing, but here's a case in which the left hand would like to chop the right one off: While Federal investigators discover more and more dangers at the nation's eighty operating atomic power plants, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) keeps watering down the safety rules...
...But while the European models have succeeded in controlling unemployment levels and spreading a more reliable social safety net than the tattered remnant that is supposed to protect our poor, they continue to manifest problems of the kind the bishops deplore: bureaucratic strictures that pinch the quality of life...
...Small wonder that the bishops' draft letter came under carefully orchestrated attack even before its text had been released...
...In seven cases, the engineers turned their attention to the wrong reactor...
...At a time when much of organized religion has chosen to cast its lot either with the regressive Right or with the quiescent majority, the Catholic bishops have taken the bold step of articulating a Christian stance—and in so doing have enraged conservatives within the Church and outside its fold...
...Twenty years ago, nine media corporations were on the Fortune 500 list...
...To redress these inequities, the bishops call for an "American experiment" in "economic democracy: the creation of an order that guarantees the minimum conditions of human dignity in the economic sphere for every person...
...The news reports and advertisements trumpet the need for U.S...
...These provisions subordinate the new electronic technologies—the health effects of which are not completely understood— to the rights of workers...
...the NRC is considering a 1.5- or two-mile area...
...The bishops could not say that...
...Deforestation and removal of natural vegetation along river banks have resulted in cycles of flooding and drought...
...puppets, to be blindly uncritical or downright apologetic, does not help the cause...
...The prevalence of libel suits is likely to compound the problem of poor media performance: Under the threat of major damage awards, large publishers and broadcasters will tend to be even more timid than they already are about challenging established ideas, individuals, and groups...
...Last February, he called three top officials of the A.H...
...Judge Lord has stepped out of line, and more power to him...
...An Equitable Settlement Though the labor movement has been slipping badly of late, one forward-looking union recently established a foothold in a field ripe for organizing: the financial services industry, where less than 4 per cent of the work force is unionized...
...Current guidelines call for the evacuation of everyone within ten miles in the event of a serious accident...
...Robins Company before him and chastised them for their part in the manufacture of the deadly Dalkon Shield contraceptive device...
...But the media have brought on much of their own hardship...
...Barker recently declared unconstitutional the nation's first antiporn "civil rights" ordinance, passed last spring in Indianapolis...
...Much of what passes for aid—both long-term and emergency—only deepens the crisis that brings starvation to much of the world's poor, the Red Cross and Earthscan report...
Vol. 49 • January 1985 • No. 1
