had looked upon the retirement health care benefits as a compensation they had accepted in lieu of higher wages. In a recent settlement between AT&T and its unions, health care liabilities to its retirees was more than halved. {B198} These are but the beginning symptoms of a massive health care crisis looming for America's aging baby boomers who will be forced to accept a decreasing standard of health care during their retirement years.

The alternative to a "preferred provider organization" (PPO), is to choose a "health maintenance organization" (HMO) plan. Under this arrangement, the employee would go to the company's health clinic and see a doctor or a nurse practitioner who effectively serves as a "gatekeeper" to the rest of the health care benefits. If the "gatekeeper" refuses to recommend a procedure or a specialist that you feel is required, your only alternative is to get the work done at your own expense outside of the HMO system. {B199}

Moreover, HMOs are increasingly hiring nurse practitioners to do the bulk of the work that normally has been done by doctors. This is mentioned not to slander the nation's hard working nurse practitioners, but simply to point out that a two tier system of health benefits is clearly emerging.

The nation's doctors and specialists will cater to the needs of the wealthy, while the nation's wage earners will receive the bulk of their medical care from nurse practitioners in health maintenance organizations.

What kind of health care will the rich enjoy? The article in the Jan 8 1990 issue of BusinessWeek entitled "Hospitals you may hate to leave", tells of the other growing trend in health care: luxury hospital rooms. To quote briefly from the article:

"When the visitor entered his room, a fruit basket was there to greet him. The room which boasted a river view, was decorated with oak furniture and Oriental rugs. At dusk, room service brought his order of lobster and white wine. He watched a movie from the in-house library and then went to bed."

Variations of this scenario are now offered by at least 200 facilities around the U.S.!! {B200}

Intense lobbying recently killed a tax provision that would have forced companies to offer the same health benefits to workers as to executives! {B201}

Let's not forget too, that of the 35 million Americans who entered 1990 without health care coverage, over half were employed! And so, for the bottom 90%, the conditions and terms of conventional company health care plans are slowly being either discarded or altered by Japanese-style methods which shackle employees to health care plans which give employers additional control over their employees. The growing trend of bonding workers to employers through financial indenture, is a topic that most Americans should be more concerned about. It is the basis upon which 21st century slavery is being built.


Media Consolidation

In order to stop this regressive slide back into the political and economic Middle Ages, we must have an informed public. However, under present conditions, this is practically an impossibility. As was already outlined, a handful of media owners like Robert Murdoch already own and operate the components of a global communications network (potentially a Big Brother style media system). {B202}

Takeovers and mergers will put the finishing touches on a global "thought conditioning network" that will effectively provide coordinated news and information manipulation throughout the emerging corporate empire. The media's role, as always, will be to use 5th Avenue marketing techniques to sell whatever social changes best suit their plans. It was no accident at all that within days of the Communist party ceasing to be the dominant party in certain Eastern European countries like Hungary and Czechoslovakia, Rupert Murdoch was already making serious efforts to buy up their media. What a perfect opportunity to launch a divide and conquer campaign!

Even book publishing companies are being bought up and merged into huge multinational corporations. The ability to be price competitive is hardly the issue. What is at stake is freedom of the press. Rupert Murdoch has, for example, recently consolidated his various book publishing companies in all parts of the world into one global publishing operation called "Harper and Collins Publishers". In other words, it will become increasingly more difficult to publish material that speaks out against the elite, and easier to market and promote material supportive of the aims of corporate Feudalism. (Incidentally, this book was originally written in the late 80's but remained unpublished despite considerable effort on the part of the author to find a publisher.)

Furthermore, the increased coordination and cooperation between the economic elite of Japan, Western Europe, and America, is manifesting in many ominous ways.


Big Brother in American homes ...soon!!

New high-tech devices for monitoring people's reactions to the programming they are watching on TV will soon be entering the first American homes. The Nielsen polling people, who have so often provided administrations with the "evidence" of general public support for controversial foreign and domestic policy, are now working on a joint project at Princeton with members of the David Sarnoff Research Center (a subsidiary of SRI International from Stanford, California) to develop a device called a "passive people-meter".

The device, modeled on the human eye, would be able to identify the various members of a family by their unique facial features. It could sit on a TV, and monitor viewers reactions to the content of TV commercials or to Presidential speeches, etc., etc..

Needless to say, the potential for abuse is truly frightening. Can you just imagine the buyer rebates that might some day be offered to individuals who purchase a TV with this people watcher device built in? The power of consolidated ownership of the media must no longer be taken lightly. {B203}


Propaganda for Schoolchildren

As far as mind control techniques are concerned, there is a new trend being introduced into American public schools that has an equally serious potential for abuse. Closed circuit television networks are NOW being supplied free to schools that show specially selected accounts of news events complete with product commercials aimed specifically at the particular age groups for whom the shows have been prepared.

Some schools felt so ingratiated for the equipment that they even allowed the suppliers of the equipment to hang their commercial product advertisements up in the school hallways. The potential for mind control abuse is simply staggering. The degree to which the suppliers of the equipment are prepared to go is perhaps best evidenced by the fact that the wall-mounted ads for the younger (physically smaller) schoolchildren have been mounted "at their eye level" for greater impact.

Are you paying school taxes so that your schoolchildren can be held as captive audiences and subjected to specially prepared thought controlling information and commercials during their school hours?

What's more, parents would be totally unaware of what visual conditioning their children were being subjected to. Remember, one of George Bush's primary election campaign planks was his intention of forcing schoolchildren to repeatedly swear their allegiance to the existing socioeconomic system based on Feudal principles. Warp those little minds early, while they are still easy to mould. In fact, when minds have been suitably prepared and conditioned, lies are easily passed off as truth.


{B198} "Passing the buck" The Economist (Jan 6 1990): p66
{B199} "What you need to know about "Enhanced Benefits" BusinessWeek (Nov 20 1989): p122
{B200} "Hospitals you may hate to leave" BusinessWeek (Oct 8 1990): p146
{B201} "Passing the buck" The Economist (Jan 6 1990): p66
{B202} ""I can think of more important things than being loved by everybody"" Forbes (Nov 27 1989): p102
{B203} "Eye hopes" The Economist (Jun 17 1989): p98