ward@hao.UUCP (Mike Ward) (02/18/85)
[]
I got this from a friend, and thought it should be shared.
For what it's worth.
<I got this letter in the mail from "Public Citizen.">
Public Citizen
Congress Watch*Critical Mass Energy Project*Health Research Group*
Litigation Group*Tax Reform Research Group
Public Citizen*2000 P Street, NW* Washington DC 20036
Abracadabra. That toxic waste dump in your backyard is
Suddenly pronounced safe.
Presto-chango. Those Reagan tax cuts--which actually resulted
in HIGHER taxes for anyone earning less than
$75,000.00 a year--are now "the people's tax cut."
Poof. Government data on defective cars, polluted air,
dangerous workplaces, and pesticide-poisoned food
disappear. Do the hazards go up in smoke, too?
Dear Friend,
Watch closely. There's a magic show going on and we, the American
people, are about to be manipulated by another four years of tricks.
The master of ceremonies, Ronald Reagan, is back. And if his first
show is any indication of what's up his sleeve for the next four years, the
Reagan troupe of magicians will be trying to fool us with the same illusions:
... that it's fair to let telephone rates, natural gas prices and
hospital costs spiral higher and higher.
... that it's fair to hand out more than $100 billion each year to
big business in corporate tax breaks, price supports, loan
guarantees, and other subsidies.
... that it won't endanger our environment to slash the budget of
the Environmental Protection Agency.
... that sweeping censorship and secrecy regulations are consistent
with a democratic government.
With a sleight-of-hand and twist-of-word, Mr. Reagan's "ABRACADABRA
ADMINISTRATION" IS RUNNING A NATIONAL SHELL GAME: DIVERTING ATTENTION FROM
WHAT'S *REALLY* GOING ON.
You've seen the techniques: The "photo opportunities" in the Rose
Garden. The staged press conferences. The stacked memberships of so-
called bi-partisan commisions.
I'm sure you've also noticed the Orwellian newspeak--the MX missile
is called the "Peacekeeper" and catsup becomes a "vegetable" for the school
lunch program. During the recent campaign, Mr. Reagan invoked Harry
Truman, John F. Kennedy and even Bruce Springsteen in an attempt to get
some of their popular magic to rub off on him!
BUT DECPTIVE RHETORIC AND CLEVER MEDIA MANIPULATION CANNOT DISGUISE THE
RAW REALITIES OF THE PAST FOUR YEARS. Let me review some of the flimflams that
Mr. Reagan has tried on us--deceptions that even the press hasn't told you about:
CANCER CHICANERY: Scientists tell us that 60-80% of all cancers are
environmentally caused. But the Reagan Administration has attacked fedral
regulations controlling cancer-causing pesticides, air pollutants, toxic
wastes and contrminated drinking water.
Then, with a wave of his wand, Mr. Reagan tried to disguise this
shameful record by appointing a special commision on cancer. He named its
head Armand Hammer, chairman of Occidental Petroleum, WHICH OWNED THE
COMPANY RESPONSIBLE FOR THE LOVE CANAL TRAGEDY!
Next came the Grace Commission on Cost Control which called for slashing
the Environmental Protection Agency budget by virtually ELEMINATING ITS
FUNCTION OF ASSURING COMPLIANCE WITH FEDRAL ENVIRONMENTAL LAWS. You have to
marvel at the Commision's magical way with numbers. It announced a savings
of $4.7 million per year by consolidating three EPA offices. But the combined
budget of these three offices RIGHT NOW is only $3.3 million!
With this kind of arithmetic, it's no trick at all to save money. And
it's no surprise at all that SEVERAL OF THE MEMBERS OF THE GRACE COMMISION
ARE THEMSELVES ENVIRONMENTAL POLLUTERS, SUBJECT TO EPA REGULATIONS.
Playing with children's health: that nice fellow in the White House
who arranges special surgery for Korean orphans? The media can't resist
stories like that. But let's look behind the flash bulbs at Mr. Reagan's
actual NEGLECT of American children:
* The Reagan Administration cut the school lunch program by 29%. That
cut IS DEPRIVING 3 MILLION NEEDY CHILDREN OF THEIR ONLY NUTRITIOUS
MEAL EVERY DAY.
* Mr. Reagan's EPA is refusing to enforce a law passed by Congress
mere than four years ago to fund the removal of asbestos from
schools throughout the country. as a result, an estimated 15
million children are being exposed to this potent cancer hazard.
* The calculated delays in regulations to insure that baby formula is
safe and nutritious, not defective, are exposion infants to such
dangers as learning disabilities and brain damage.
ECONOMIC JUSTICE--NOW YOU SEE IT, NOW YOU DON'T: The past four years
have seen a massive redistribution of wealth--from the pockets of average
citizens to the tax-free bond portfolios of the rich and powerful. tax and
budget cuts for 1983-85 will take $1,100 away from families earning less than
$10,000 a year--and shower more than $24,000 on families that already earn
$100,000 a year!
Magicians mesmerize their audiences with familiar, everyday objects--
while trick wires and trapdoors work their "magic." So it is that Wizard Reagan
flourishes the rhetoric of "free enterprise"... While big business runs wild.
So a distracted audience fails to notice that NINE OF THE TEN LARGEST
CORPORATE MERGERS IN HISTORY HAVE OCCURED DURING THE PAST FOUR YEARS--
hardly "free enterprise."
And while the president extols free enterprise, he is also backing
CORPORATE WELFARE SCHEMES TO THE TUNE OF $80 BILLION A YEAR--including $18
billion in payments in kind to agribusiness (while small farmers go bankrupt)
and $4.5 billion to bail out the mismanaged Continental Illinois Bank.
And now, the second term will bring new and flashier stunts and
shenanigans, we can be sure. That's because Mr. Reagan doesn't have to worry
about reelection any more. He can afford to be more audacious. He knows,
too, that the RESURGENT FAR RIGHT--"his kind of folks"--IS IN FULL COMMAND
OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, so he doesn't have to keep up the pretense of
appealing to Republican moderates.
Mr. Reagan himself warned us what to expect when he boasted: "YOU
AIN'T SEEN NOTHING YET!"
Any good conjurer knows that your bag of tricks works best when you dim
the lights and KEEP THE AUDIENCE IN THE DARK. That's why Mr. Reagan wants
anti-information policies that will cloak government decision-making in secrecy.
He wants to make the priceless Freedom of Information Act disappear.
Without this law-- which guarantees citizen access to public information in
government files--dozens of unsafe products, illegal acts and instances of
official corruption and mismanagement would go undiscovered and uncorrected.
But Mr. Reagan doesn't want to just hide wrongdoing by his political
cronies, he wants to ELIMINATE THE VERY CREATION OF EMBARRASSING DATA.
Currently, the government can control many hazards only because it has the
power to acquire corporate data on automobile defects, toxic waste disposal,
adverse reactions to drugs and other information that affects the safety and
health of all of us.
Under the guise of the so-called Paperwork Reduction Act, Mr. Reagan
proposes to hand over vast powers of information control to David Stockman.
Mr. Stockman alone would decide to prohibit its collection or suppress its release.
Here again, Mr. Reagan shows us that he is a master illusionist:
Divert attention to "paperwork reduction" and "bureaucratic red tape" while
trashing the guts out of important health programs.
Ronald Reagan's reelection showed that he still has a large following
for his political make-believe. But the rest of us need not participate in
this mass hypnosis or become an acquiescent audience for the Far Right Wing
Follies.
That's where Public Citizen comes in. Public Citizen is the watchdog
consumer group founded by Ralph Nader in 1971. We don't belive that in
the face of adversity, Americans have to sit around wringing their hands
and doing nothing. We don't belive in getting fooled by political smoke
and mirror tricks, no matter how slick they are.
AND WE DON'T THINK YOU WANT TO BE FOOLED, EITHER.
Public Citizen has proved what it can do. Our lawyers and lobbyists
aren't taken in. We LOBBY against harmful Reagan bills in Congress. We
LITIGATE anti-consumer programs in court. We CHALLENGE Reagan
misrepresentations in the press and other public forums.
With the support of people like you, Public Citizen has won some
STUNNING TRIUMPHS. We exposed the administration's cover-up of brake defects in
General Motors' X cars. We revealed the truth about Oraflex, the dangerous
arthritis drug, and about Bendectin, a morning sickness drug linked to a serious
birth defect. And those are just a few examples out of many notable victories.
Right now, our citizen lobbyists are fighting the shocking increases in
telephone rates and the "legalized bribery" of the campaign financing system.
Compared to the bulging treasuries of our corporate adversaries, Public
Citizen's financial resources are pitifully small. BUT WITH YOUR HELP, WE
CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE. No, we can't win every fight. But we can hold back
those Reagan programs that will do irreversible harm--to our democratic form
of government--to our environment--to the health and safety of our children
and the generations still to come.
We can achieve much because we have THE ENERGY, THE STRENGTH OF
PURPOSE, THE EXPERTISE AND THE PERSEVEVERANCE to do the job. I can tell you
flatly that Public Citizen is the most broad-guaged, successful and economically
run public interest program in the country.
Now all we need is your help.
Our success depends solely on individual contributions from people like you
--people who reject the Reagan magic show, but are still searching for the most
potent, effective response. We know that our members cannot match the war
chests of corporate and industrial giants, but you CAN help us even up the odds.
And as you help Public Citizen, Public Citizen will help you to penetrate
the razzle-dazzle deceptions of the next four years. As a Public Citizen
member, you will receive PUBLIC CITIZEN magazine, our lively quaterly journal
that will keep you up to date on all consumer issues.
You will also have access to reports, testimony, position papers,
newsletters, and books that will give you an insider's look at the Reagan
Administration's actions--and suggest ways for you to counter them.
We all know that real democracy isn't achieved by magic. It takes hard
work and financial support of active citizens like you. And in times like
these, it also takes the courage to stand against the prevailing political winds.
We hope you count yourself as a doer and fighter, and that because you
are, you'll join Public Citizen today.
Sincerely,
Joan Claybrook
President
<I have no affiliation with Public Citizen, but I thought it would be nice
to put the letter up on the net anyway>
--
Michael Ward, NCAR/SCD
UUCP: {hplabs,nbires,brl-bmd,seismo,menlo70,stcvax}!hao!ward
ARPA: hplabs!hao!ward@Berkeley
BELL: 303-497-1252
USPS: POB 3000, Boulder, CO 80307ashby@uiucdcsp.UUCP (02/21/85)
I stopped reading at the 11% mark; at that point I had fill of sour grapes bullshit.