* a0 OPINION Page 4 Wednesday, March 3, 1982 The Michigan Daily Kirkland, Jonestown, & Reagonomics By David Stewart Oh, I can hear the folks at the cocktail parties now. How they must have loved it ! "Jonestown dconomics," Lane Kirkland, president of the AFL-CIO, called the Reagan administration's budget. How witty, how evocative, how-just so-right! The liberals can now enjoy a new cliche with their Perrier or gin and tonics, and all the while can go on patting themselves on the back for being so enlightened as to have protected the great American welfare state all these years from Neanderthals like Ronald "Jim Jones" Reagan. And Kirkland-well, he'll hear com- pliments about his delightful turn of a phrase, his dry, mordant humor. HARDLY ANYONE will notice the real -problem with this ironically sickening phrase, "Jonestown economics." Kirkland was complaining that spending for the so-called social programs isn't being in- -creased enough. He and others talk about "vicious cuts in social spending," but mostly what is taking place is the paring down of in- "creases scheduled in Jimmy Carter's last, 'lame-duck, wish-list budget. 4 On another day, Kirkland might have been a "bit more frank about what he meant. He is ,omplaining that American socialism is being prevented from moving ahead more quickly, that Fabian welfarism is being slowed. From this perspective, his comment seems a bit ironic, to say the least. Let's extend the meaning of "Jonestown economics," by giving a bit of context to his words. MOST OF US will remember that the Reverend Jim Jones was head of the People's Temple. He took his flock to Jonestown, Guyana, where he dispatched them, in the end, with a cyanide Kool-aid cocktail, to meet their maker in the jungle. That, however, was not the first public event sponsored by Jim Jones. Jones had some very fashionable beliefs anal activities when he lived in California. There he was the darling of the sunshine liberals and progressives., Jones served as the director of urban housing in San Francisco, where he held wonderful public hearings. He would pack these hearings with his lambs, and the local progressives would be there too, and he would rail. JIM JONES was a full-fledged-socialist, who loved the welfare state, wanted a bigger one, and moreover, wanted us all to be communists. He claimed to be the reincarnation of not only Jesus, which again is not too unusual in California, but of Vladimir Lenin. And he had established, in the jungle near Jonestown his own model socialist community. socialist utopias seem to. And they solved them in classical socialist real-life fashion-dissen- ters or critics were killed, brutalized, or harassed. The community was mostly black, and the armed guards and supervisors formed a Stalinesque clique of whites. The work schedule was seven days a week, from dawn to late evening. One survivor recalled, "Those who didn't work didn't eat"-obviously, Jones had read Trotsky, who said, "Who does not obey shall not eat." ALL IN THE time-tested socialist tradition. How, then, can we explain Kirkland's com- parison of a popular socialist economic com- munity. with an economic plan that is almost universally agreed to be quintessentially capitalistic? Kirkland either doesn't know, or hopes we don't, what the reality of "Jonestown economics" is. It is a vision of a hugely expan- ded welfare state-lots of welfare, food stamps, rent control and subsidies, Social Security, Medicaid-all the things that Kirkland wants, all those good altruistic programs that Reagan is just not feeding fast enough for Kirkland. BUT LET'S NOT be too hasty here. We shouldn't just let Kirkland get off as altruistically deceptive or misinformed. Let's point out his selfish interest in keeping the welfare state big, too. There are lots of recipients of welfare, and Kirkland is on their side. That means the poor may never see the damage that the AFL-CIO intentionally doesto them in order to create an artificial labor shor- tage, and to force up union wages. The poor may never realize that they're being bought off and sold out, at taxpayer's ex,- pense, by a union that did all it could to keep minorities out of the country or down in tie economy-until it was politically unwise to do so openly, at which point expanding the welfare state offered a rhetorically humane way of doing the same things. Of course there are the welfare checks. And the decoy job-training programs. And all the other things that destroy incentives to work and get off government dependence. And the taxes that destroy job-creating capital. "Kool-aid to the poor," indeed. This, the great American welfare state, all the great social programs that Kirkland bleeds over and depends on for his job security-this is the economic equivalent of Kool-aid to the poor, a social cyanide cocktail. Four years ago, Kirkland would have probably admired Jones. And why not? They share the same principles of economics. Jonestown economics. Stewart graduated from the University in 1981 with a bachelor of arts in philosophy. Kirkland addresses steelworkers Jones provided a born-again Marxism that the late U.S. Rep. Leo Ryan (D,-Calif.)-killed by one of the Temple's lambs-could only describe as "a beautiful place." And Charles Garry, the Temple's attorney, pronounced the Jonestown colony "a little jewel that the whole world should see." Well, sure, the cult had problems, as all Uhke dsibdigan iaiIy Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan Sinclair TIME To -I. 4/ I ( 9 / Hl Vol. XCII, No. 118 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 Editorials represent a majority opinion of the Daily's Editorial Board Students send a message MESSAGE should be clear enough. When more than 5,000 students flock to Washington to protest the proposed actions of the federal government, the government must listen. One can't ignore the wishes of the populace, forever. Students from across the nation went to the. Capitol Monday to voice their discontent with the Reagan ad- ministration's proposals to drastically slash federal student financial aid fun- ds. The efforts of these students should be acknowledged and applauded, for it seems that they have finally done some good. House Republicans voiced extreme disapproval over Reagan's proposed b)udget yesterday - especially the budget's outlays for higher education. Politicians now seem to be realizing the effects of the proposed aid cuts with a surprising unanimity. Rep. Marge Roukema, (R-N.J.) said people in her district "are absolutely appalled at the depth of the proposed cuts for guaranteed student loans and Pell Grants." Rep. William Goodling, (R-Pa.) said, "We can't afford the defense budget at the expense of the education budget." Even Secretary of Education Terrel Bell seemed to reach the same con- clusion. When asked what effects these cuts will have on the quality of education received by the nation's disadvantaged youth, Bell replied, "When you reduce funding, you sacrifice as far as quality is concer- ned." Maybe even the administration is beginning to understand the danger of restricting funds for higher education. The students' march on Washington shows us that popular protest may ac- tually work. These crusading college students may help preserve the foun- dations of the educational system that the Reagan aid cuts threaten. One congressman made a prediction that should provide hope for those thousands rof students desperately grabbing for fleeting federal aid dollars. He told Bell and the Capitol's executive officers that "you're going to have to resign yourself to the fact that this budget is going to be rewritten." The message actually may have got- ten through. QF A LifflY 1Rb1V'CT FOR A Egi ,CA AGTAIN! f 0~ . .r ;. ... ;; . u w,,, . - \ . .. .. . .. :. 1_ Y >!] ,v^ ! ! t C Q O - 0 ' 'f' ° n .. f r ) /Fl V 0 0 0 U THE KAIY LETTERS TO THE DAILY: Publishing salaries invades pritvacy To the Daily: We were once again disgusted by your yearly ritual of exposing faculty salaries to the University community. In your headlong rush to expand readership by ex- ploiting privileged information, you have trampled on the privacy of others, without providing any significant service to anyone. While you may claim that "the public right to know" dominates any individual or collective right to privacy, don't forget that jour- nalists have vociferously defen- ded their "right" to keep their sources confidential. If the public had been able to find a legal technicality to force disclosure of journalist sources, we would probably not have had the recent travesties of the media, such as Janet Cooke's fictional, but Pulit- zer Prize-winning, story. Continuing in this hypocritical tradition, you have made public information on private in- dividuals' salaries, on the questionable grounds that because their employer received public funds their lives had somehow been "bought," and were no longer subject to either the constitutional protection of privacy or the societal norms of taste and discretion. Yet you stil claim that reporters' notes are- absolutely confidential, event while the news stories they are . based on enter the public domain. We hope that next year you will reconsider your decision to print such information, if not on legal grounds then at least on the basis of consideration for others. -Patrick Anderson Kenneth Jakubows February 17 0 i WAf -MAT A REBELI 0K AN ORDINARY CIVILNW? Technology vs. nature L-- BOTH... ; 4* To the Daily: I couldn't believe my eyes when I read about an agreement between the University and an Ann Arbor attorney/landowner to develop a "high tech park" on property off of Dixboro Road' across from the Botanical Gar- dens (Daily, Feb. 12). This property is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful, productive, natural areas left within hun- dreds of miles-the Botanical Gardens pale in comparison. There are few emotions to mat- ch the wonder one feels in spring at being surrounded by lovely, forested hills. Area nature lovers have spent many hours roaming these woods, searching for the varieties of wildflowers and birds that abound there. I find it incon- ceivable that the owner of such a glorious treasure could seek its destruction in the name of technology, with the en- couragement of the University. Must-we take paradise and put up a robotics park? -Nancy Scarbro February 12 To the Daily: Although I was pleased to see that the Tel-Med service was newsworthy (Daily, Feb. 6), I would like to correct the im- pression created by the headline "Dial-a-doctor." Tel-Med is a service offering basic health information. Some tapes offer specific suggestions for treatment or list symptoms indicating the need to consult. a physician, but the tapes are riot diagnostic and are not meant to replace a doctor. Tel-Med phone lines are open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday through Friday only. -Jo Rudelich Tel-Med coordinator February 10 Don 't dial a doctor h . : , f, : C . .; ..w ? k .... I Weasel By Robert Lence 6 - - - #& P f- I wimmill I EACH4 MORN IN6 THE SILENT MASS PLOVVP PITS WAY ACR.OSS CAMPUS... THEY FILtLET' THE C WAS10OMS t( THEY FILED THE. 10RARE5! THEY WENrTNRMY14 THE MO17aN.S! -rwF C nrTu~iP GAVES/.~ .THE- UNIVER.SITY OF TIAE- _ '"" i _ i S I I