In the Public Interest

I’ve been reading through Jimmy Carter’s pre-presidential statements on energy recently. They offer quite a contrast to his present unabashed endorsement of the craven power of big business in the past months. Here are some samples then and now: June 26, 1975–“At this time this nation has no comprehensive national energy policy for the benefit…

It’s springtime on the college campus. A few springs ago students streaking naked across the quadrangle received front page and TV network news coverage. The popularity of a recent movie, “Animal House,” further reinforced the public’s image of college students returning, after the turbulence of the ’60s, to the traditional folds of prolonged adolescence, beer…

“But what can people do?” cried the hand-wringing veteran radio talk show host in frustration. He had just been through a fast-paced give and take with his very upset listeners about high prices, dangerous products and the abject refusal of politicians to stand tall. The answer to that question is quite decentralized. Each person has…

In San Jose, Calif., three VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) workers helped organize a food co-op in a lower-income neighborhood. They also are developing a store on wheels to reach elderly and handicapped people. In the Harvey, Ill., VISTA, Joe Horan helped a community group form a consumer committee which reached an agreement with…

THE ACCIDENT at the nuclear plant on Three Mile Island suddenly has aroused the attention of millions to the possibility of an atomic power holocaust. Gone are the days when mass media such as Time and Fortune can glibly promote the atomic industry’s deceptions and ignore its dangers and enormous costs. I spent nearly an…

PHILADELPHIA–Philadelphians have a new epithet when encountering fraudulent or defective merchandise: “Throw it in Denenberg’s Dump,” they exclaim. It is astonishing but true! A major television station, WCAU-TV, is letting Herb Denenberg, Pennsylvania’s former insurance commissioner and consumer advocate extraordinaire, tell it like it is, complete with brand name denunciations. Dressed in the white coveralls…

TOKYO— He has the bounce and humor of a 25-year-old. At 72, Soichiro Honda, the retired founder of the Honda motorcycle and automobile company, remains pulsating with ideas and activities. Founders of substantial businesses that grow by selling to consumers in­stead of buying other companies are rare in these times of sprawling conglomerates. So it…

With its economic and technical base crumbling, the atomic power industry hardly needs another challenge in the burgeoning public controversy over the electric atom. This time the furrow on the brow of industry executives comes from a movie–“The China Syndrome,” produced by Columbia Pictures. People viewing a preview of the story about a nuclear reactor…

In a recent column, Sylvia Porter observed that “the consumer movement has strayed from the issues of greatest concern to you (the consumer).” She wrote that an independent consumer agency and other access-to-government measures do not directly affect consumers. “There is no obvious, immediately demonstrable and vivid way in which an independent consumer agency could…

The overwhelming (2-to-1) vote by Cleveland voters on Feb. 27 against the sale of their municipally owned light company was more than a rebuff to the arrogant ultimatums of the interlocked Cleveland Electric Co. and Cleveland Trust Co. It was a stunning declaration through direct urban democracy that elected governments, not the hidden unelected corporate…