the Soviet Union and China, ending
years of hostility and culminating in
long-awaited reciprocal trade agree-
ments.
At the same time American G.I.s
were taking a drubbing in the Viet-
namese jungles, other world forces
came into play to thrust the new global
realities upon us. The most notable of
these was the rise of terrorism as the
potent political force of the 70s,
legitimized by the Palestine Liberation
Organization that succeeded in
bringing the Palestinean people's plight
to the world's conscience.
In 1972, in the most dramatic display of
terrorism's power to capture world at-
tention, Arab terrorists of the "Black
September" unit disrupted the Munich
Olympic games and took 11 Israeli
athletes hostage. The drama ended in
death for the hostages and five gunmen,
focusing the eyes of the world for the
first time, on the Palestinian, struggle.
BY 1976, Yassir Arafat, who
engineered the PLO campaign of
terror, was the recognized spokesman
for Palestinian people and was stating
his case in more respectable forums
like the assembly hal of the United
Nations and in interviews with Barbara
Walters. But the success of the PLO's
tactics sparked a wave of terror for
dissident groups from Tokyo to
Berkeley who viewed terrorism as the
best way to put their political platforms
before the public.
AT THE SAME time, the 70s saw a
new militancy on the part of the so-called

"Third World," which had just shaken
off the colonial yoke of imperialism and
was ready to challenge the cold war
alliances that dominated the 1960s.
This new resiliency on the part of the
world we neglected was demonstrated
markedly in 1973, when the oil
producing states of the Mideast an-
nounced an oil boycott of Israel's
weapons supplier, sending prices in the
West spiraling, causing long lines at
gasoline pumps, and highlighting
America's energy dependence on
- foreign imported oil. An old cartel was
given new life-and new respect-and
sent Americans reeling from the
realization that the "most powerful
nation on earth" was being challenged
on another front, the energy front.
The West was taking a beating
economically. The Europeans grouped
together in an economic community for
a united affront on global inflation. The
Japanese enacted protectionist trade
legislation. The dollar sank to new dep-
ths in relation to the German mark (the
dollar bought four marks in 1970, and
today buys less than two), the French
franc and the Javanese Yen.
ALL THIS COMBINED led to a
realization, after a decade, of .
America's )diminished importance in
the world. It really was, as some have
suggested, an age of limits. We learned
the limits of military and economic
power, and the limits of our own impor-
tance. But if the West suffered during
the 1970s, it was not at the hands of the
East. In fact, the Soviets had similar

misfortunes over the decade. Crop and
grain harvests were lower than predic-
ted, oil is beginning to dry (the CIA
estimates that the USSR, now an oil ex-
porter, will be importing oil in the next
decade), and productivity, which has
been rising at its slowest rate, is expec-
ted to reach zero.
Politically, too, the Soviets were
taking a beating. Their initiatives in
Africa met with little enthusiasm from
African states not wanting to trade
colonial imperialism for Soviet satellite
status. In the Middle East, the Soviets
found themselves left out of the peace
negotiations after the 1973 Yom Kippur

war. And th-
only to deal
chief rival f
denly found
ring of anti-
states on the
In the 60s
characteriz
tation-in
Mideast. Bu
was "deten
we might as
Jimmy Car
new relation
with compe

Communication comes of

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We're all artists as boundarie

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"Confusion is the current enemy of
revolution."--Stokely Carmichael, "Pan Africanism."
"The 60s ended in a sea of warm puke delicate
enough to be called art."--Patti Smith
THE DECADE of the celebrity is over. Andy
Warhol's celebrated maxim that everybody would
be famous for 10 minutes, has really lost its punch.
The 70s made everyone the star, the artist-all the
time. In the 70s, we can talk via computer technology to our
television, we can reassemble, blow up, knock over, and
otherwise "interact" with sculpture in museums, we can
have technology that allows us to make quality films like
never before. And all of it-the whole brambly mess-is con-
sidered ART. Because art in this decade is about the boun--

daries being erased beween tho
who experience it.
"Vertebrate competition d
than the opposition, monopo
with territory, hoarding sign
Science is based on transmith
accelerating the process of ir
entropy. The final war may be
Dag and Schrodinger's Cat
from an interview in Science Fici
"Simple phrases and plain
understand. This reduces the
are made, and minimizes the
necessary. "--Ameco's Commerc
cense Guide for Elements 1, 2, & 1,

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