The Militant(logo) 
    Vol.62/No.45           December 14, 1998 
 
 
The Great Society  

BY HARRY RING
Malcontents - "On the day after soldiers killed at least eight demonstrators and wounded more than 100 others, tens of thousands of students and poor people filled a highway [November 14] in front of the [Indonesian] parliament building in what seemed an unfocused and unguided outpouring of discontent." - New York Times

Potemkin City - Giant U.S. investment bank Merrill Lynch ensured that there would be no unpleasant sights when the Queen of England visited their huge trading floor at the City, London's Wall Street, when it instructed other departments to fill the 400 empty desks of recently fired employees and "look busy."

Now if it were bombs to Iraq -In Los Angeles, with its large Central American community, relief for Hurricane Mitch victims piled up quickly. In fact, some 300 tons of food, clothing, and medicine is still piled up. The organizers of the collection don't have the bundle of cash required to ship it and the government, apparently, is too busy.

Thugs Inc. - Pinkerton's, assertedly the world's biggest private police agency, notorious for its union-busting record, signed an eight-year, $1.1 billion contract with General Motors. Which somehow reminds us that back in our neighborhood when someone said to be very well financially, the saying was, "He's making money like a cop."

Not garden variety capitalist politics? - The top man in Japan's defense agency quit and an investigation is under way of charges that the country's giant electronics company was permitted to inflate defense contract costs in exchange for cushy jobs for retiring bureaucrats.

The spirit lives - The British House of Lords voted that the Lord Chancellor, who presides over the Chamber, is no longer required to wear ceremonial garb, including britches, tights, and buckled shoes. Lord Irvine, the Labour Lord Chancellor, will not, however, preside in blue jeans. He's ordered trousers at 300 ($500) a pair. (He's the chap who made news with the bill he submitted for decorating his new London flat, including 650,000 for wallpaper.

It must have been dreadful -Beverly Center, a pricey Beverly Hills shopping center, has been running full-page ads declaring "Construction near Beverly Center is complete. Good thing. Those orange vests [worn by road construction workers] were hideous."

If they were people? - "A police force disgraced by the conviction of three officers for cruelty to dogs has suspended another for alleged brutality to horses. Essex Police is investigating an officer following allegations that he deliberately hurt a horse he was riding while on duty." - Daily News, London.

Of bulls and bears - Page 1 of a recent business section of the L.A. Times pointed to the Dow Jones industrial average "rocketing to a new high." Meanwhile, a note at the bottom of page 4, same issue, reported: "Dow Jones Inc. said it will cut costs by firing 118 employees...."

 
 
 
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