Comment

...The nuclear arms race continues...

...When people feel empowered to make real choices on matters that affect their lives, they will be eager to take part in the process...

...Unfortunately, that left the case without a judge...

...For all the fustian noise about cracking down on Pentagon waste and chicanery, the same old contractors are gobbling up more and more of the taxpayers' dollars...

...Americans have become so inured to the CIA's dirty tricks that media disclosures of the latest covert plans provoke less reaction than the weather report...

...11 a national registration day to persuade more citizens to qualify to vote...

...the least they could do is shut up...

...But they won't be lured into pseudo-participation by making Election Day a holiday...

...At every briefing and press conference, U.S...

...In the first ten months of 1984, according to an article in The New York Times, General Dynamics increased its Pentagon booty by more than 100 per cent over a comparable period in 1983, devouring $6.6 billion in contracts...

...In the meantime, we may get to see and hear an address by Gorbachev on American network television, and Reagan may have a chance to talk directly to the people of the Soviet Union...

...The top seven among the initial contractors are Boeing ($112 million), TRW ($84.3 million), Hughes Aircraft ($60 million), MIT's Lincoln Laboratories ($59.7 million), Avco ($53.4 million), Lockheed ($45.7 million), and Rockwell ($32 million...

...That hunger will automatically diminish when food production increases is a common but naive assumption," writes hunger expert Susan George in /// Fares the Land...

...These days, the Government has a harder time keeping its secrets, but fortunately for the CIA it doesn't make much difference...

...schemes to overthrow or destabilize a foreign government were kept hush-hush...

...So much for participating in the planning...

...resources into private sectors is needed...

...The nuclear arms race continues...

...Fortunately, Reagan's panel has not yet made policy...

...Flick the dial and you get the ever-gruff James Schlesinger sucking thoughtfully on his unlit pipe...

...Once again, it is up to workers themselves—and their allies in the labor and women's movements— to make clear to OSH A, to Congress, and to hospital administrators that care for their patients' health must not come at the expense of their own...

...The protesters invoked the so-called necessity defense...

...In this country and abroad, some peace activists took comfort from the fact that Reagan and Gorbachev spent hours in face-to-face discourse, walked together, smiled at each other, chatted before an open fire...

...Now, if they could just get rid of those silly haircuts...

...If its advice were acted upon, however, it would do nothing for the poor and hungry—except make them poorer and hungrier...

...That incident rated about three inches in The New York Times...

...Flick again, and you find yourself blinking at the thick eyeglasses of Harold Brown...

...We've been warned before that evil can become banal...

...When party leaders talk about fairness, middle-class voters see it as a code word for giveaway.' All right, fairness is out...

...More direct movement of U.S...

...In fine Reagan fashion, the President appointed nineteen representatives from giant agribusiness firms, banks, and international oil companies—just the crew that has exacerbated the crisis of world hunger...

...Washington's Geneva delegation had not yet recovered from jet lag when Reagan's arms control director, Kenneth Adelman, announced that there was "no need" for the United States to modify its position in the continuing negotiations on strategic weapons, but that the Soviets should "come forward to bridge some of the gaps...

...These fatuous proposals completely miss the point...

...Eula Bingham, former chief of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, points out that hospital workers employed by municipalities are not covered by Federal law and that managers of other nonprofit hospitals and laboratories have argued that they, too, are exempt from OSHA's industry standards...

...But it is precisely the two-party monopoly that stifles creative politics in America and keeps scores of millions of citizens away from the polls...

...The superpowers will collaborate on research into fusion as a source of energy...

...Prominent among these has-beens-that-still-are is none other than Robert Strange McNamara, late of Ford, late of Vietnam, late of the World Bank, but not too late for "Nightline...

...The Times recognized it as "some of the worst violence since the Government imposed emergency restrictions in July"—in four paragraphs buried inside Sunday's "Week in Review...

...Ronald Reagan, the grand toastmaster, pressed the word into service last summer to win $27 million in "humanitarian" aid for the Nicaraguan contras...

...Nothing wrong with that, until you see who the consultants were...

...Nugent, who was taken off the case by his boss, later told The National Law Journal that he had developed "tremendous empathy" for the activists...

...And as for televised debates of Presidential candidates, reruns of "The Honey-mooners" will outdraw them every time...

...Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC...

...The story made page twenty-five of The Washington Post...

...Bourcier clearly felt the prosecution needed his help, and he rushed to provide it...

...Vote Early and Often For sheer out-and-out inanity, it's hard to beat the report issued recently by the Commission on National Elections, a bipartisan body of eminent politicos, academics, and media celebrities, who labored for nine months over a study of the Presidential election process...

...Whenever a toastmaster must pay tribute to an individual or organization of dubious merit, "humanitarian" reverberates around the hall...

...Who else makes the M-l tank...

...Gorbachev ventured the view that "the world has become a more secure place...

...They have endowed us with problems aplenty...

...The contractors need not have worried...

...But OPIC is a major part of the problem...

...The period of al: most daily clashes between protesting black crowds and government security forces is well into its second year, and almost 900 lives have been lost...

...The Government has pledged to stress small business in awarding contracts for Star Wars research and development...

...On Gandhi and Grenades Practitioners of civil disobedience, take heed: The Honorable John Bourcier thinks "your acts are the first-cousin to the bomb-throwers, grenade-throwers, and airplane hijackers...

...So much for logistics...

...But to have to listen perpetually to the man who spawned the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction, fighting to the end to defend MAD, is just too much...

...And some time in 1987, if all goes well, President Reagan will visit the Soviet Union...

...In November, The Washington Post reported that the Reagan Administration had approved of a covert CIA operation to weaken the regime of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi...

...Turn on the television set and what do you find but the familiar jowls of Henry Kissinger masticating his usual sonorous solemnities...

...Such "distinctive military items" as high-gloss shoes, flight watches, and military rings should not be worn, the Marine Corps said, nor should cowboy hats...

...It may become possible once again to fly directly from New York to Moscow without the inconvenience of changing planes...

...Retreads' Revenge There's nothing like a summit meeting to bring the termites out of the woodwork...

...and a fully deployed system could cost as much as $400 billion to $1.5 trillion, depending on whose estimates are believed...

...The Bolshoi Ballet may come here, and the Beach Boys may go there...

...The Reverend Jesse Jackson delivered a peace petition bearing a million signatures to the U.S...

...It's time to retire McNamara and his fellow Mandarins...

...for raising "powder-pufF objections" and trying to enter into a plea bargain with the defendants...

...According to an analysis by the Associated Press, the CIA is allowed to send unarmed planes, helicopters, ambulances, and trucks to the contras, who can use them as military transports...

...Only the great humanitarians in Congress would approve such aid...

...Middle-class voters all over the country read "fairness" as "not me but some other guy,"' Frank O'Brien, direct mail whiz for the Democratic National Committee, told the winter meeting of the Association of State Democratic Chairs...

...Bad News Is No News Before the current spate of unrest in South Africa, when that nation's twenty-three million blacks were no less oppressed, but more passive, than they are today, no incident of racial violence was too trivial to make the evening news and the next morning's headlines all across America...

...The nuclear arms race continues...

...High-Risk TLC Each day, it seems, brings a new report of hazards in the workplace, and a recent edition of the New England Journal of Medicine adds female nurses to the list of endangered workers...

...Things no longer quiet down...

...Two weeks later, President Reagan said he favored funneling "covert" aid through the CIA to rebels seeking the overthrow of the Angolan government...

...But it doesn't fill empty stomachs...

...Bourcier, a superior court judge in Providence, Rhode Island, presided over the recent trial of five antinuclear activists who damaged missile tubes at the Electric Boat shipyard...

...The events that will eventually topple white rule have already been set in motion...

...In Lima, Peru's foreign ministry protested to the U.S...

...The battle cry around here is diversity and competition, but the realities are different...

...And that's a key to peace...

...Under the joint direction of former Republican Congressman and Defense Secretary Melvin Laird and former Democratic National Chairman Robert Strauss, the Commission inevitably tilted its proposals toward tightening the stranglehold of the two major parties...

...The nuclear arms race continues...

...Government from financing "activities that amount to participation in the planning or execution of military or paramilitary operations in Nicaragua or to participation in logistics activities integral to such operations...

...Indeed, an editorial that accompanies the Finnish study, written by Dr...

...The judge then blasted prosecutor J. Joseph Nugent Jr...

...I can't claim we had a meeting of the minds on such fundamentals as ideology and national purpose," Reagan said, "but we understand each other better...

...Higher productivity—and higher profits—actually mean more hungry people when they bring evictions, foreclosures on debts so owners can control more land, more labor-saving machinery, higher rents, higher prices for land, lower wages____When governments neither subsidize nor protect small cultivators and market forces are left free play, the weak will lack access to the 'modernization package.' They will be eliminated when agriculture becomes more a way of making profits than of feeding people...

...how about selfishness...

...To speed this movement, the consultants urge the Administration to gut the role of the U.S...

...At the same time, the law lets the CIA transmit intelligence reports to contra camps—indeed, it provides the rebels with fancy radio transceivers...

...Comes now the predictable recommendation from Reagan's panel: "Not enough is being done to move resources into the private sector," Carol Brookins, head of the panel, told The Washington Post...

...The panel suggests shifting AID'S functions over to the U.S...

...Contra Dance Humanitarian" is a well-worn banquet word, as familiar as the chicken and peas...

...Who else makes the Trident submarine...

...And what does that mean...

...the nuclear arms race continues...

...The 1986 intelligence authorization bill, passed by Congress in November, finally clears up the confusion...

...Nobody here but us little guys...

...Corporations and the banks that finance them discourage policies aimed at meeting the basic needs of hungry people in the Third World...

...President Reagan expressed profound satisfaction with the outcome of the summit...

...Now what was that about bringing suspected terrorists to justice...

...As Reagan begins his summit with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev," Michael Weisskopf reported in The Washington Post on November 19, "many U.S...

...Just ask your friendly neighborhood weapons supplier...

...When Ronald Reagan , pressed Mikhail Gorbachev for agreement to an exchange of TV appearances, Daniel Schorr reported from Geneva, Gorbachev said he was in no position to make any commitments on behalf of Soviet television...

...What is revealing about these worst-kept secrets is not the arrogance of the Government's international meddlers but the somnolence of the American public...

...Four died, including a thirteen-year-old girl and two other teen-agers...

...Agency for International Development, which dispenses some $2 billion in food aid to Third World governments...

...According to The New York Times, the Marines have advised Corps members traveling abroad to obtain civilian passports, hide military identification cards, cover tattoos, wear nondescript clothes, and take other "prudent, common-sense actions...

...Government's Overseas Private Investment Corporation supplies loans and political risk insurance to agribusiness companies in the Third World," George notes, "generally for export or for the monied elites of poor countries...

...It seems to be time to take heed again...

...All told that week, such incidents claimed thirty-three lives...

...Waste, What Waste...

...The U.S...

...But just when the news media ought to be paying attention, they seem to be losing interest...

...When things quieted down, South Africa would disappear from American view for a while...

...A study of seventeen Finnish hospitals found that women who administer several common cancer drugs are at increased risk of having a miscarriage...

...There was talk of a new era in Soviet-American relations...

...The Few, the Unproud To shield its troops from wanton terrorists, the United States Marine Corps has taken the radical move of relaxing its dress code...

...delegation in Geneva and to Gorbachev himself...

...Profit Pangs Ayear-and-a-half ago, President Reagan established a panel of consultants to study the problem of world hunger...

...Many a racketeer has been feted for his "humanitarian" achievements...

...The American embassy guards were swiftly transferred after being accused of raping four Peruvian women they met at a disco...

...contractors fear that weapons they have researched and developed for years will become objects of superpower bartering before entering the lucrative stage of full production...

...Their star witness, former Attorney General Ramsey Clark, tried to explain the urgency of civil disobedience, but Bourcier dismissed Clark's testimony as "twenty-seven carloads of immaterial and irrelevant comments...

...On the contrary: Registration and voting procedures have been substantially liberalized and simplified in recent decades with no visible effect on rates of participation, and the national "debates" sponsored by the League of Women Voters have only helped underscore the prevailing suspicion that the leading candidates have little of substance to say to each other or to the rest of us...

...Look what General Dynamics makes," one anonymous official told The Times...

...The Soviets will open a consulate in New York City and the United States will open one in Kiev...

...The nuclear arms race continues...

...But the nuclear arms race continues...

...embassy over the departure from the country of five Marines suspected of rape...

...11 a regular system of debates by Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates under the sponsorship and control of the Republican and Democratic national committees...

...It was scary enough two years ago to watch McNamara deflate "The Day After" with his instant, dispassionate discussion of when and how a nuclear war might occur...

...Widespread public disaffection from the process of electoral politics in the United States stems not from a lack of opportunities to register and vote, nor from a lack of exposure to the pieties uttered by major-party candidates...

...Though some Administration officials and members of Congress were dismayed when these stories appeared in the press, they needn't have worried: The disclosures hardly made a ripple...

...One day in November, South African police shot and killed six "persons and injured hundreds more in a black township near Pretoria...

...It prohibits the U.S...

...But what exactly constitutes "humanitarian" aid Comment for killers...

...General Dynamics, suspended from receiving Navy contracts for almost three months last year, must have cried whole swamps of crocodile tears...

...Then the analysts would chime in with their analyses and the commentators with their comments...

...Open Season Back in the days when the CIA was sending exploding cigars to Fidel Castro, U.S...

...Instead of promoting self-sufficiency in food, they push export production to the fluctuating markets of the West...

...In Moscow, a statement by Tass, the Soviet news agency, accused Adelman of being "preoccupied with compiling falsehoods for the Congress and the press...

...The Commission's members, understandably upset about the fact that only half of the eligible electorate goes to the polls to help elect the nation's highest officials, came up with such recommendations as: 11 a national holiday on Election Day, 1988, to encourage a greater turnout of voters...

...A new prosecutor was brought in, and this one asked Bourcier to go easy on one distressed defendant...

...We have taken the first step on the road to understanding, to mutual respect...

...And The New York Times reported—also on November 19—that even as the debate over Star Wars goes on, "the Pentagon has already spent more than $2 billion on space defense research, spread over more than 1,500 contracts...

...Hospital administrators have never been overly concerned about providing decent working conditions for their employees, and in the current era of competition and cost containment we can expect them to resist the imposition of any health and safety regulations that will add to labor costs...

...and Soviet speakers had kind words for peace...

...The study adds a new piece of evidence to indications that patients are not alone in suffering the side effects of a wide range of health technologies, from cancer drugs to x-rays and anesthetics...

...Another day that week, police opened fire with shotguns on a crowd in a small East Transvaal town, one of the few with no prior history of racial violence...

...Instead, the judge imposed the maximum sentence—one year in prison and a $500 fine—on all five...

...Using high-tech equipment and the latest brands of pesticides, agribusiness may actually increase Third World production in the short run...