Health Care for the Elderly
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A Journal of Free Voices SERVERSeptember 13, 1985 One Dollar HEALTH CARE FOR THE ELDERLY O O a) U- Nursing Home Workers Strike in Beaumont C • O a) _c D C Medicare's Second-Class et. C 02) E O Treatment _ _O 0 t3' 0 7 -C o CL - \-- FOE ..- • EDITORIAL • ...=:::'- - \AI- HE PEOPL „ _ - $ ,_,_ , c- _-_- tP _ c---, P144C)RIE _ ____ a,m , — ion. p 1 ii , / _ The President's pivi ...„..._ ..,.._ ,___ . ...... 74e, ------- ------Z ---- -1.4 / n o __ , 1 i t — ----- 411 ' 1'11 ' III' 1 11111i1 -s----"--- ' — ' i lil l'il gli jr , Nose -1-_---- - ,:--- .1.-1 _..:.. ..._ 7, ___,.. - _ ...._ HEN, ON AUGUST 24, President Reagan told an Atlanta radio station that South Africa has "eliminated the segregation that we once had in TEXAS W sERvER our own country," a bemused national press began asking © The Texas Observer Publishing Co., 1985 what the President had meant. What was he saying when he said "the type of thing where hotels and restaurants and places Vol. 77, No. 18 7-42-. F September 13, 1985 of entertainment and so forth were segregated — that has all Incorporating the State Observer and the East Texas Democrat, been eliminated"? Surely this contradicted all empirical which in turn incorporated the Austin Forum-Advocate. evidence. Enter White House spokesperson, appropriately named PUBLISHER Ronnie Dugger Larry Speakes, to tell us what the President really meant — EDITOR Geoffrey Rips that in major cities there had been "a step in that direction ASSOCIATE EDITOR Dave Denison to remove barriers of apartheid." CALENDAR EDITOR Chula Sims This is not, of course, what the President had said, but EDITORIAL INTERNS: Dawn Albright, Hanno T. Beck, Richard Kallus this is what we are told he had meant to say. This sort of EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD: Frances Barton, Austin; Elroy Bode, Kerr- ville; Chandler Davidson, Houston; Bob Eckhardt. Washington. D.C.; Sissy thing has happened before, but coming on the heels of Reagan Farenthold, Houston; Ruperto Garcia, Austin; John Kenneth Galbraith, Cam- crony Jerry Falwell's "Tutu is a phony," it met with a press bridge, Mass.; Lawrence Goodwyn, Durham, N.C.; George Hendrick, Urbana. resistance unusual for the Reagan years. Once the press, III.; Molly Ivins, Dallas; Larry L. King. Washington, D.C.; Maury Maverick, Jr., San Antonio; Willie Morris, Oxford, Miss.: Kaye Northcott, Austin; James however, had pointed out the glaring discrepancies between Presley, Texarkana, Tx.; Susan Reid, Austin; A. R. (Babe) Schwartz, Galveston; the situation in South Africa and Reagan's assertions, even Fred Schmidt. Tehachapi, Cal., Robert Sherrill, Tallahassee, Fla. after doctored by Speakes, they never returned to consider CONTRIBUTING WRITERS: Warren Burnett, Nina Butts, Jo Clifton, Craig why Reagan had said what he'd said. Clifford, Louis Dubose, John Henry Faulk, Ed Garcia, Bill Helmer, James Harr- ington, Jack Hopper, Amy Johnson, Rick Piltz, Susan Raleigh, John Schwartz. Michael Ventura, Lawrence Walsh. CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS: Alan Pogue. Russell Lee, Scott Van The Administration apparently believes Osdol; Alicia Daniel. CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS: Mark Antonucci°, Eric Avery, Tom Ballenger. Reagan's ability to deliver a line will Jeff Danziger, Beth Epstein, Dan Hubig, Pat Johnson, Kevin Kreneck, Carlos Lowry, Miles Mathis, Joe McDermott, Ben Sargent, Dan Thibodeau. make almost any assertion palatable, A journal of free voices no matter how nonsensical. We will serve no group or party but will hew hard to the truth as we find it and the right as we see it. We are dedicated to the whole truth. to human values above all interests, to the rights of humankind as the foundation of democracy; we will take orders from none but our own conscience, and never Reagan's South Africa statements point out all too clearly will we overlook or misrepresent the truth to serve the interests of the power- that on most major issues the President knows not one iota ful or cater to the ignoble in the human spirit. whereof he speaks.. He begins with a simplistic worldview Writers are responsible for their own work, but not jr anything they have about Communist aggression (if there is trouble in the world not themselves written, and in publishing them we do not necessarily imply that we agree with them because this is a journal of free voices. it must be Communist inspired) and U.S. supremacy (which approaches a divine right), and into this near-vacuum dribbles Managing Publisher Cliff Olofson the kind of information probably received by Texas House Advertising & Development Director Dana Loy Speaker Gib Lewis in the country clubs of South Africa or Subscription Manager Stefan Wanstrom by Jerry Falwell while praying with the white leaders of Consultant Frances Barton Pretoria. Editorial and Business Office Reagan's "Ich bin ein Afrikaner" statements are clearly 600 West 7th Street, Austin, Texas 78701 the work of chief White House propagandist Pat Buchanan, (512) 477-0746 filtered through the dark recesses of Reagan's understanding. The Texas Observer (ISSN 00404519) is published biweekly except for a three-week inter- Apparently the belief in the Administration is that Reagan's val between issues in January and July (25 issues per year) by the Texas Observer Publishing ability to deliver a line will make almost any assertion Co.. 600 West 7th Street. Austin, Texas 78701, (512) 477-0746. Second class postage paid at Austin. Texas. palatable, no matter how nonsensical. This time, with so much Subscription rates, including 5 1/8% sales tax: one year $23. two years $42. three years media time and money already invested in the South Africa $59. One year rate for full-time students, $15. Back issues $2. prepaid. Airmail. foreign, group. and bulk rates on request. Microfilm editions available from University Microfilms Intl., 300 story, it didn't work. So Larry Speakes was rushed in for N. Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106. one last try to sell the Reagan position in its somewhat modified Copyright 1985 by Texas Observer Publishing Company. All rights reserved. Material may form and limit any damage. not be reproduced without permission. It was much the same situation with the President's nose, POSTMASTER: Send form 3579 to: 600 West 7th Street, Austin, Texas 78701. wherein Speakes initially said that a growth was removed with 2 SEPTEMBER 13, 1985 no basis in fact, and Reagan probably doesn't know that. But that doesn't matter. He can say these things with such conviction and with tangible, all-American details — dining rqom table, 6 feet high on a football field — that to question him would be a cynical act. Instead, the press waits for Speakes to come on to explain that Reagan has a very large dining room table. "In July 1980," Dugger writes, "Howell Raines of the New York Times asked Reagan incredulously: Had he really once said the progressive income tax was spawned by Karl Marx? 'Well it was,' Reagan replied. 'He was the first one who thought of it.' " Can the advocacy of so-called tax reform by a man believing this receive much credence from the media? It does. As governor of California, Reagan told wood producers, "A tree is a tree, how many more do you need to look at?" A lie, a distortion, a fabrication is a lie, distortion, fabrication. The media might be asked: How many more do you need to see before making informed disbelief the proper position from which to analyze the President's nose? G.R. from "Washingtoon"© 1985, Mark Alan Stamaty. Reprinted from The Village Voice with permission of the artist. CONTENTS no anaesthesia, then blamed the doctors for his inaccuracy and corrected his earlier statement, obviously intended to portray the operation as minor and the President as Rambo. HERE IS a loose cannon in the White House. It is FEATURES a propaganda machine with little concern for the truth. 2 The President's Nose Geoffrey Rips T It has always been present in that strange conjunction of the affairs of State and Ronald Reagan. The question is, 4 Observations Ronnie Dugger why does the press so rarely call Reagan's bluff? 6 Enjoined Endeavor Banning Lary The most cursory gambol through Ronnie Dugger's On Reagan (McGraw-Hill, 1983) reveals decades of Reagan 7 Invasion of the Classroom James Ridgeway bluster and no understanding. In 1968, upon the death of 8 Post-Industrial Texas Dave Denison Martin Luther King, Jr., Reagan said that King's death "was a great tragedy that began when we began compromising with 10 Beaumont Health Strike law and order and people started choosing which laws they'd Has Broad Implications Regina Segovia break." (Undoubtedly, had Larry Speakes been around, he 13 The Second-Class Care would have explained that Reagan meant that if King had Stephen Phillips stuck to weddings and funerals he would still be alive.) of Medicare and Jennifer Stoffel 17 The Sanctuary Movement How many more lies must the President tell Defense Richard Kallus before the press regards his every word with skepticism? DEPARTMENTS 5 Dialogue Following disturbances at the University of California at Santa Barbara in 1970, Reagan told a meeting of California 15 Political Intelligence growers that militants want to "prove this system of ours, 21 Social Cause Calendar faced with a crisis, will not work. If there's going to be a blood bath, let's get it over with." To which Speakes would have added: "The President wanted to show these young Books and the Culture: people that the system does work." 19 From Plantation Hollywood Michael King In 1979, Reagan said, "The waste from one nuclear plant in a year would take less storage space than a dining room table.