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QUIPS and QUIRKS |

With all the whooping and hollering things get a little confused,
so let’s see if we can straighten them out.

Our country’s economy is owned and operated by the capitalist
monopolies. and the workers have no say about that. Right?

The capitalists run the economy to make profits and they rake
in billions of dollars that way every year, and that’s the divine law
or something and the workers have no say about it. Right?

The capitalists hire workers—when they need them—to produce
the goods from the sale of which they (the capitalists) make those
profits, paving those workers as little as they possibly can, so that
it's a constant battle for the workers to make ends meet. Right?

Those capitalist monopolies raise prices in order to reduce the
real wages of the workers, to better compete with other capitalist
monopolies on the world market, to produce arms and kill people
all over the world (yum, yum, that’s a lucrative business!). Right?

That makes for galloping inflation and leads to the tottering of
the whole economy. Right? :

Therefore, the workers. must let their wages be rolled back and
frozen to beat the dragon of inflation for the monopolies . . . What
makes that right? Z

—o0o—

Trudea and his bosses blaming workers’ wages for inflation is
like the lady who offered the following grounds for divorce: “Judge,
I have reason to believe that my husband is not the father of my
last child!”

—oO0o— .

_Lo and behold, 135 pious pilots, who handle vessels sailing the
St. Lawrence between Montreal and Quebec, gathered together at
Trois Rivieres for a prayer session, at which they devoutedly—
calling on God’s name many a time—discussed the attempt to put
them back under the control of the godless shipping companies, lay
a number of them off work and wreak various other injuries unto
them. And behold, while the pilots thus prayed each other for guid-
ance. the boats stood still, at which the shipping moguls cried, “It’s
a strike!” :

“Shhh,” the pilots shooshed, “do not disturb our prayers.”

And they prayed: “Give us this day our daily bread . . . with but-
ter too, if you please . . . and deliver us from those evil shipping
bosses . . .and generally let the establishment stop trying to force
its damned austerity program on us or not a boat will sail along
the river named for the saintly Lawrence, so help us our Pilots
Association!”

—o0o—

Joe Wallace, has sent us a several months old clipping from the
Montreal Star consisting of a Reuters review of a book supposedly
written by a Soviet engineer named Anataly Marchenko, which
contains the following gem:

“In it Marchenko also describes six years he spent in labor camps
—in one of which, he said, prisoners starved for months organized
a ‘feast’ by stewing strips of flesh cut from their own stomachs.”

What other portions of their person did they have to go with
that savory meal? Marchenko (or his Western sponsors, editors and
publishers) doesn’t tell us, but we can venture a guess: Tripe sea-
soned with lots of gall.

Marchenko wasn’t in a work camp, if you ask us—he was in a
loony house! (His publishers are crazy too—like a fox.)

—o0o—

In the same letter J. S. Wallace comments on former Prime Min-
ister Diefenbaker’s recent outburst against those who have dared
to suggest Canada really doesn’t need to be a monarchy and that
the portrait of the Queen isn’t absolutely essential on our postage
stamps. Joe headed his comment (in verse) with quiet dignity, “In
honor of John Diefenbaker, Privy Councillor”:

He was an old-line tory,

So felt a glow of glory

And a touch-of loyal fear

To think that when he licked a stamp

He licked a Royal rear. :
—o0o—

Judge Saul Epton up in Chicago shed a tear of rejoicing when
he welcomed home from Vietnam bemedalled Sgt. James Hobson,
whom he had sent to jail 43 times in the old days for various crimes.
He always knew Hobson had leadership qualities, said the judge,
“just'in the wrong direction.”

The right direction, evidently, is killing, burning, robbing and
raping Vietnamese . . . As a matter of fact, Sgt. Hobson will find
Chicago almost like Saigon if he joins up with the Panther-killing
cops. Or goes back to his gang of hoods with the leadership ex-
perience he acquired Over there. ...

—o0o—

Notice how the Bleeding Brotherhood (to borrow Mel Colby’s
phrase) is simply heartbroken about “Biafra?” Isn’t it peculiar how
you find blood and tears wherever there’s oil?

—o0o— :

In forecasting developments in 1970 the U.S. News & World Re-
port (the “horse’s mouth” so far as U.S. billionaires and hawks are
concerned) tells its readers not to expect a halt in price increases.
It casually mentions the hike in transit fares that’s now under way,
the rise in university tuition charges, President Nixon’s plan to up
postage and other government service fees, increased taxes and
general rise in prices of consumer’s goods. And it concludes that
“inflation simultaneous with recession is far from unusual.”

Well, that’s the “menu for today” those chefs are cooking up
for the American people. On the other hand, the workers just might
cook up a peppery dish of their own and make the U.S. big shots
eat it. We hope.

—o0o—

Here we had thought Playboy Trudeau thought up that “auster-
nee oo . a and profits, deflation of jobs and pork-
chops) all by himself, a t transpires it was o “hi
clos” ihe Aik Pp nly “his master’s

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JANUARY 23, 1970—Page 10

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ROFITS

“Don’t you realize that your wage claims could wipe out all the economic gains that have
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made over the last few years .

Money spent on Vietnam wat
most inflationary-Reuther

By WILLIAM ALLAN

President Walter Reuther of
United Auto Workers Union
told newsmen in Detroit that
ending the war in Vietnam
would be one of the chief ways
to avert a depression the coun-
try was swiftly heading for.
Reuther said 100,000 UAW
members in General Motors
were On*short work weeks and

‘7,000 were laid off indefinitely

in Chrysler with thousands
more on short work schedules,
and he didn’t see how the Ford
Motor Company could escape.

He said the policies of the
Nixon Administration  “anti-
inflation’ moves were the
wrong ones and that extensive
credits must be granted to build
housing, schools, hospitals. He
said the spending of billions of
dollars for the war and arms
was the most inflationary thing
in the nation, not the workers’
demands for more wages to try
to keep up with soaring prices.

Make Workers Pay

“All this money spent on the
war and arms won't ~build a
single new _ house, hospital,
school, aid education,” he said.
He said the anti-inflation pro-
gram of Nixon was making the
workers pay and not those re-
sponsible for the inflation, the
giant corporations.

Asked what he thought about
the Teamsters’ demand for $3
spread over a three-year con-
tract, Reuther hedged and said
he didn’t want to discuss an-
other union’s demand, — but
“everything that happens affects
us also.”

About the UAW’s demands
for 1970 with General Motors,
Ford, Chrysler, all he would say
was, ‘“‘We will seek our equity
from these corporations because
of the rise of productivity.”

Asked. about “profit-sharing
being part of his bag in 1970,”
he replied with a vague answer
that some day there has to be
“equity sharing at the bargain-
ing tables.”

Asked if GM _ will be the
UAW’s target this year, he said,
“GM is not too big for us to
take on, and the size of our
strike fund ($100 million) won’t
be the deciding factor.” .

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ar ene e

Police Terror

He angrily attacked the mass-
ing of Detroit cops against the
UAW white collar strikers at
the Fruehauf Trailer plant here.
“When the police department
sends 200 police who get out of
cars with shotguns, tear gas and
clubs to face a picket line of
office girls, then that’s over-
reacting and we will see the
heads of the police and tell
them so,” said Reuther. One
hundred and fifty UAW produc-
tion workers went on the picket
line recently backing up the
clerical workers and a struggle
took place to keep out scabs
who were protected by Detroit
cops. Eleven UAW’ers were ar-
rested. The union has demanded
a hearing on police brutality be-
fore the City Council. Reuther
may appear there.

He said the UAW will get rid
of the cap on the cost-of-living
escalator which kept raises
down to eight cents an hour in
1968 and 1969. About 30 cents
an hour of the three year con-
tract was not paid out because
of the cap and is due the work-
ers at the end of the contract
Sept. 14, 1970. Reuther didn’t
elaborate on how this money
would be collected, but it is due
the workers and could mean
$1,000 each for 750,000 in the
Big Three plants. .

What's in store for us . .:

What is in the books for us if
capitalism continues to go its
way in North America during
the 1970's? For one aspect of the
future here is the picture of
urban life drawn by the Na-
tional Commission on the Causes
and Prevention of Violence:

“Central business districts
will be largely deserted except
for police patrols during the
night-time hours. High-rise apart-
ment buildings and residential
compounds protected by private
guards and security devices will
be fortified cells. Ownership of
guns will be almost universal in
the suburbs, homes will be forti-
fied by an array of devices from

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Will Seek Accord

Reuther said the auto
ers were not seeking a
in answer to a question
whether the Big Three might
a lockout due to the 1%
lion cars unsold and possible
pression by summer, “We
do everything we can to pre
an erosion of wages and to!
our equity from these co
tions; but if they refuse
demands then there will
strike,” he said.

He said the country ne
price-wage review board a5)
means, along with easing
its for social needs and e
the war, to really stop infla
Asked if this does not ope
door to wage controls, he}
plied, ‘‘No, and curbs on Pp
could be handled by cul?
price ncreases.” §

Asked would negotiation)
into compulsory arbitratio?
event of a deadlock, Reuthe!
plied, “Compulsory arbitr?
destroys collective bargaini

He said the UAW will
to the 1970 bargaining ta?!
proposal for corporations t0
trol pollution. He deplore®.
murder of Joseph Yabl0
United Mine Workers 1é
and said all government 4
cies should be put to wor
ing the assassins. ;

window grills to electronic *)
eillance equipment. . .

“Private automobiles, ta¥!
and commercial vehicles W!)
routinely equipped with |
breakable glass, light arm0!”
other security features. SY
and residential neighborho%,
the central city will be uns#)
differing degrees, and the 8
slum neighborhoods will be!
es of terror with widest
crime, perhaps ‘entirely ou
police control during night”
hours.”

Poland’s population has pe
32,500,000. Warsaw now
1,279,000 inhabitants.