European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - March 25, 1989, Darmstadt, Hesse Page 10 the stars and stripes columns William Safire lesson of Apple panic ski makes Good sense consider these wildly exaggerated scenarios. Somewhere in a rotting Apple or Chardin Washington state sits an embittered youth his College plans destroyed his family farm inheritance snatched away and a life of ignorance and crime in store All because his family s hard earned livelihood was shattered by. Meryl str cup Marie Hemingway and the economic fallout from the organic food lobby s Apple somewhere on the hardscrabble Mountain slopes of Chile sits a hungry Little girl eyes red and burning with hatred of America fated to grow up to be a dedicated communist because some nervous Washington bureaucrat mindful of the organic food lobby s just demonstrated Power to mobilize nation Al fear crippled tree Enterprise in our latin neighbor Over two possibly Poison Ous grapes because he Felt ii better to be Safe than sorry.". The risk of turning Apple growers into anarchists or chilean children into lifelong America haters is Smalt. The talented actresses and models recruited As temporary Lopicolo girls Are not Likely to Send Manychildren into lives of crime nor should the head of the food and drug adminis Lvalion be accused of anything More than Over reacting to a nut s Hrycai. But similarly dramatic scenarios of impending environmental doom Are presented routinely by. The clean living Industry. V. In inc Apple scare minimal risks were inflated into imminent threats with no unintended consequences a solemn 272-Page report. Boasting sup port was contributed y Tom and mar Garitta Brokaw was hyped Ori lbs "60 minutes and a panicked Public Rea Tedas tit scribed centuries ago in popular delusions and the madness of crowds few paused to ask about the source of the allegations of alarm. The non profit National resources defense Council sounds selflessly offi Cial and 1 assume its motives Are As purees its goals. I spoke once to a company Wilh a crop to Lection subsidiary such disclosure makes us All pure Anthony Lewis we should identify the rdc As the anti pesticide lobby or High priced or Ganic food lobby Wilh an til million yearly budget half. From tax exempt foundations. .".". The group has just bought a 12-Story building in new York ostensibly to demonstrate the Energy Coffi Evency. Of it offices. From this new nerve Center America s greens will continue to undermine the Trust laymen have had in the scientists at the Fra Epa and surgeon general s office. Government scientists have no monopoly on the Ruth and it healthy for them to be challenged provided the alarm s coverage is accompanied by reassuring rebuttals but that s no longer the nature of our society. We Are prone to be terrified frisk any risk and malleable Media amplify the alarmists cries. Forbidden fruit week proves How prone to panic we have become and How we now permit such panic to set Public policy. Let us apply that lesson to a panic scheduled for the 1990s, --.-. Some dictator is going to Call in the world press to take pictures of his inter Continental missile and its atomic War head. He will then ill the . To Lake its Fleet out of the Mediterranean or refrain for aiding some beleaguered ally or de liver up some author or free some terrorist or else that missile will Fly an hang the consequences. This would not be some vague threat about a bomb hidden somewhere in a . City which might be taken As a Bluff this would be a demonstrable Dan Ger inc weapon there for All to Sec on International television. What would be our reaction a Public that overnight will Slop Cai ing apples on the Remote Chance that 4 percent of them contain what might pos Sibly be a Carcinogen and will Cut off a billion dollars of fruit imports on suspicious evidence in two grapes is nut Public thai will Back its government in resisting nuclear blackmail " a such a threat is hot the stuff of fiction this is a fact just around the Comer. We see the technology everywhere and last week we fell the panic psychology in place. The possibility of surrender to blackmail is Rushing toward certainty. Would t it be Good when that threat is made for inc president 16 be Able today we have the Basic strategic defense system on station to shoot Down such a missile no impenetrable Star wars Barrier against an All out superpower attack is required Only enough to answer any foreseeable state terrorism or accidental launch. Avert the panic next Lime. Re Ducc your risk. Enjoy your Apple pie and deploy your rudimentary space shield. Gospel of Thatcher seems to be wearing thin London in the London subway s Mem much deep underground nearly a third of the escalators arc not working. recent commuter train crash skilled More than Jaq people Many of the country s hospitals Are Ina dickensian slate a. 4ose. Arc examples of a condition that is nagging at Britain s political consciousness. Public Good s arc1 in decay. People Are increasingly aware , and they do it =5 v after 10 years of the gospel according to Margaret Thatcher people arc disco Cring tha Markci economics and. Individual acquisitiveness have their limits a Good life also requires healthy pub Lic institutions it requires services that Only inc Community the government can provide. None of this indicates that Thatcher ingoing to lose the new election. She still has Many advantages Over a divided opposition Bulin the politics of ideas that she has dominated for so Long her ideas Are fad ing. Government intervention is once again discussed As a necessity of Mode society not As an evil and she knows it. One of Thatcher s most arriving performances has been her sudden Emer gence As a Green-1 u politician div died to saving the environment. Nothing in the. Last 10 years suggested that she would favor tight government controls to pre vent destruction of inc Earth but that two weeks ago she presided Over an International conference on Sav ing the Ozone layer. Then her Chancellor of the exchequer Nigel Lawson. Introduced tax measures to discourage the use of leaded gasoline which is still scandalously dominant in sales Here wit dangerous effects on the air. Pollution is a subject of real Public concern. People talk about the devastation of their beaches and their air As the British never used to Thatcher has responded and won the Praise of Environ mentalists. The most sensitive subject politically is probably health the conservative government. Bas proposed a Reform of the National health service to make it More efficient. The Reform does not follow Thatcher ideological polls show a hostile Public re action apparently indicating fear that Thatcher is basically antagonistic to the idea of Fth health service. Thatcher is giving her opponents an advantage Al the moment by taking a extreme ideological line on one front. She is pushing a Pel scheme to Priva Liz the water Supply in inc country. Since the result would Only be to Exchange Public for private monopolies not for a free Market even some of her friends consider this political Tolly. The broader opposition argument is that Britain desperately needs More Public investment " in schools and roads and hospitals and the like it is increasingly in professor . , a land of private affluence and Public squalor. The Thatcher government has squeezed Britain s universities so hardhat dozens offloading academics have moved to America. Much praised artistic institutions Are under pressure from cutbacks in govern ment support. Thatcher is trying to upset the broadcasting system Llinat is generally regarded As the Best in the world. In Short there Are plenty of reason for political discontent. To them can be added the simple fact that Thatcher has been in office for so Long lately she has seemed 10 take almost regal View of her position using the Royal we on a television program after the birth of her first grandchild she said we have become a the sentence did not go Down Well in a coun try that cherishes its real Queen. The Leader of the labor party Neil Kinlock has improved his position he is slowly but surely shedding the policies of the extreme left thai did the party so much damage moving it Back toward the Center. He has performed Wellin the House of commons. Current polls show labor drawing Al most even with the tories. But Kinlock still has Lough problems one is the pro Thatcher tilt of the press. Rupert Murdoch owns newspapers with 34 percent of the National circulation including the Sun and the news of the world inc largest Selling daily and sunday papers. Murdoch admires Thatcher Ana is not shy about that the formidable fact is the division of the opposition. In addition to labor there Are now two Small Center parties. In Brilain s electoral system the party Wilh the most votes in each parliamentary constituency wins so the tories May take Many a seat As the largest minority As Long As the opponents Are split
