European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - July 29, 1988, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 10 columns the stars and stripes Friday july 29,1988 Carl Rowan Mexico needs Wise support not dumb meddling it should have been obvious to All of us mexi co watchers that a political explosion was inevitable bringing with it worries for the United states that could Dwarf concerns about Nicaragua Panama Al Salvador. Most of us knew that the institutional revolution Ary party the Pri was deceiving Mexico and the world when every six years it claimed the support of some 70 percent of the mexican people. It became a sort of joke to hear Pri leaders talk of democracy eve though they had not lost a presidential or gubernatorial contest in 59 years. In recent elections these Pri landslides became especially worrisome because when Petroleum deposits were discovered that promised to ease poverty in Mexico it became obvious that a lot of Pri officials were stealing that wealth. As Mexico s foreign debt soared to More than$105 billion the mexican people were forced time and again to make grim sacrifices in food rent and their Overall level of life to enable their country to meet the colossal annual Cost of servicing that debt. Conditions were so bad that millions of mexican were paying outrageous amounts and risking their lives to get into the United states. Others were beginning to resort to guerrilla warfare and other forms of insurgency. An epidemic of official corruption was being exploited by the drug cartels of Colombia and other nations. After almost six decades of Power the Pri was becoming proof of the line that Power corrupts and absolute Power corrupts  when i interviewed Carlos Salinas de Gortari a few years ago president Miguel de la Madrid had told me Salinas was a rising Star Salinas was Frank in saying that Mexico s economic problems carried the seeds of serious political problems. Now As the Pri s handpicked candidate to succeeded la Madrid Salinas has found that the political explosion is worse than he imagined. During his Campaign he gave lip service to real  last week he said Mexico was entering a new phase in the life of the nation with a majority party and very in tense Competition from the  now that opposition is saying that the Pri is no the majority party and that Salinas can claim the presidency Only As a beneficiary of the most vulgar sorts of vote  . Bankers who hold most of Mexico s huge debt and other great Yankee corporations have got to be concerned about this political earthquake. They were William f. Buckley scared out of their wits when some 15 years ago presi Dent Luis Echeverria unleashed a torrent of verbal attacks on the multinational corporations that he said were exploiting mexicans. Echeverria talked of barring foreign predator investors from  americans thought that Echeverria would bring on the Long feared explosion. But Echeverria s successor Jose Lopez Portillo put the lid Back on the boiling pot moved Mexico to the right and himself became accused of being one of the most corrupt of Mexico s presidents. Salinas became a favorite of Washington by pushing policies to privatize Mexico s Economy and by inviting in More foreign investors. The questions arising from Mexico s non election drama Are 1. If Mexico s Federal election commission certifies Salinas As the Winner can he really Lead when most of the nation will not believe it 2. If the mexican people somehow Swallow Evi Dence of vote fraud and accept another Pri president can Salinas prevent guerrilla and other uprisings if he does not resort to a stance at least As leftist and anti american As that voiced by Echeverria 3. Can Washington leaders resist the temptation to use the Cia big corporation influence paddlers Money sneaked to certain mexican politicians and the pressures of withholding . Loans and other Aid in order to determine the shape of mexican politics in the future a new Day has dawned in a neighbouring country of some 76 million people and the likelihood is that it will be More Stormy than sunny. How Stormy May depend on How much Wise support and How much dumb meddling is engaged in by the dominant and resented neighbor to the North. North America Syndicate looking of moral implications of the right to die i had at school a most provocative professor who liked mean questions meanly formulated because he liked to make his students think an agonizing alternative in your Case he might have said. One Day it was announced that medi Cal science had come through with a cur for i forget what it was some form of pneumonia. What the professor said Are we supposed to die of and indeed if it were All an abstract game and recounted 977 extant terminal diseases for each one of which medical science in due course came up with a cure that would leave us nothing to die from save just Plain decomposition of the flesh. It is generally agreed if i read science correctly that this is the one process that cannot be arrested. Inevitably human beings being rational animals thought is Given to such questions As Are there preferable ways to die than through biological decomposition a provocative Book was published last year. It is called setting limits wit the explanatory subtitle medical goals in an aging  its author Daniel Callahan is what one Calls a bioethicist a word that Means what one would expect it to mean namely someone who considers the ethical implications of biological developments. Callahan is the director of the Hastings Center which he founded and which inquires into such questions As Well setting the limits to viable lifetimes. Callahan tells us that at the current rate of increase in longevity the Cost of maintaining the most senior population in America will by the end of the Century which is not very far away come to $200 billion a year. Callahan is not Penny Pincher but his Point is that we May be engaged in subsidizing a great Deal of agony As the result of our preoccupation with keeping people alive at any Cost. Most americans Are familiar with the creeping availability of what the lawyers Call living  these Var from state to state but have in common their search for a Legal instrument by which an individual can with fore thought specify the conditions under which he desires to be permitted to die. What Callahan uniquely advances is the idea of a living will in effect generally accepted by society at Large and one that focuses on a particular age. For instance How would one Greet the proposal that no publicly funded nursing Home or Hospi Tal could finance a costly operation say a heart bypass for anyone Over the age of85? the Prospect of a corporate position on the right age to die is properly horrify ing. Callahan goes so far As to include Asan acceptable stratagem the removal of food and water from old people who Are insensate and would not feel the pain of their mortal deprivation. Such a proposal is shocking to moralist Nat Hentoff of the Village voice who comments Ifan old person is diagnosed As being in a chronic vegetative state some physician screw up this diagnosis the Callahan plan mandates that the feeding tube be denied or removed. No one is certain whether someone actually in a persistent vegetative state can feel what s going on while being starved to death. If therein sensation there is no More horrible Way to  and then medical experts Tell you that the Cost of feeding insensate people is about the most inexpensive thing in Medicine. True it costs $20,000 a year to maintain someone in a nursing Home. But to feed such a person through tubes costs Only $ 10 per Day. The Root question her Hentoff wins the argument i think is moral not empirical. If life is a divine gift As christians Are taught to believe it is then interruptions of it by acts of commission suicide or omission a refusal to accept medical Aid Are wrong. What the bioethicist search for is the ground in Between. And the influence Here of Pope Pius Xii s exhortation in 1957 is critical for Many catholics and non catholics. What he said was that Al though no one May collude in any act of suicide neither is the Christian required to take extraordinary measures to maintain life. In the famous Case of Karen Ann Quinlan in new Jersey the priest and the courts authorized the re Moval of the Respirator from the co Matose patient ironically she lived on for nine years. The whole business torments especially since More and More people have come into personal Contact with the dying patient who comes to look upon Medicine As a form of torture Given that its effect is to prolong life and to prolong life for some is to prolong pain. No doubt in the years to come a working formula of sorts will emerge. It is critically important that it accept the moral implications of the question. If a society is ready for euthanasia it has rejected the primary attribute of life namely that itis god Given. Universal press Syndicate