In the Public Interest

Genesee Township assessor Steve Nagy said: “Roger Smith just wants to stomp Us [into] the ground. Gil is shifting the burden from large industrial taxpayers to local people, individuals, who are already up to their necks in taxes.” To achieve this objective, GM has hired a large Detroit law firm with incentive payments in proportion…

Before and after the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) was established with Congressional funding in the late Sixties, right wing ideologues were on the attack. PBS was, in their view, a radical, leftist television network. Reaction: PBS took on a weekly discussion show hosted by William F. Buckley which continues to this day. There is still…

Back in 1890 a Republican Congress passed the first federal anti-monopoly law and called it the Sherman Anti-trust Act. Today the Republicans in the White House and the Congress seemed to have forgotten that this law and the Clayton Anti-trust act of 1914 are the principal defenders of competition in interstate commerce. The tidal wave…

To most people the town of Gabrovo, Bulgaria does not exactly induce intimations of hilarity. But the jovial Gabrovians would say that’s because you have not been there. Gabrovo? Bulgaria? When? From May 18 to May 25, 1965 opens the Third International Festival of Comedy and Satirical Films during the Seventh International Biennial of Humor…

Judging by the growing convergence of influential conservative and liberal forces, the bottom has about fallen out of the corporate tax loophole industry. From the Treasury Department to Cong. Jack Kemp (R-NY) to right wing columnist James J. Kilpatrick, the calls are mounting for making corporations pay their fair share of taxes. There is more…

A few days ago I called up a journalist in Vermont who has interviewed William Jennings Bryan, Teddy Roosevelt, Lenin and Mussolini, among others. George Seldes, age 94, is working on his umpteenth book to be called “Adventures with People: The Noted, the Notorious and the three S.O.B’s.” Next month his magnum opus, “The Great…

It has been said that the young have few heroes today, but that may be so because many of the heroes there are in America remain unsung and unsuitable for the required antics that attract mass media attention. Two such stalwarts in the modern history of of motor vehicle safety were Dr. William Haddon, Jr.,…

It was a dramatic display of corporate power over political obeisance. The subject on the Phil Donahue Show recently was General Motor’s (GM) new Saturn plant, featuring GM Chairman, Roger Smith, and six Governors who have been furiously bidding to have the company locate the plant in their state. Roger Smith came on first with…

Every year around his birthday, business firms seem bent on giving George Washington more careers. In Boston recently our first President was seen on television repeatedly selling Datsuns. In New York City, he was pushing carpets. Around the nation’s capital, he was seen telling readers of the Washington Post that “Leasing is a revolutionary New…

General Motors, with the backing of “government off your backs” Ronald Reagan, is lobbying to enact mandatory seat belt use laws in dozens of states. Using his own agents and working through front groups, GM’s Chairman, Roger Smith, whose company once opposed mandatory three point seat belt installation in the late Sixties, privately boasts that…