page 4
daily nebraskan
tuesday, april 7, 1981
The poor pay price of Reagan legal service cuts
The proposal to eliminate the Legal Services
Corporation is another sad example of the Rea
gan administration's willingness to kick the
nation's poor and destitute while they're down.
Describing this intention as a "willingness"
may be a gross understatement. This desire to
slash social programs seems to have evolved
into a favorite pastime among the country's
conservative forces.
Therefore, it should not come as any real sur
prise that the president's budget-cutters see
no obligation to ensure a voice in the court sys
tem will be heard to represent and defend the
rights of needy members of American society.
Critics of the corporation assert that federally
subsidized lawyers have not concentrated their
valuable time and efforts on representing poverty
stricken clients. Instead, as these people who ad
vocate abolishing the corporation contend,
the lawyers have been concerned with playing
politics through the judicial system and wasting
precious tax dollars.
Legal aid for civil court proceedings is very
expensive and necessary if citizens from all
economic classes hope to be treated fairly and
justly in the areas of housing, welfare and family
law. If poor people are denied legal counsel in
civil matters because they don't have the nece
ssary financial resources, this can only lead to
oppression and create a breeding ground for in
justice. According to the Reagan administration's
proposed funding cutbacks, money for providing
legal aid to the poor would be included in federal
grants. In this plan, these legal services would
compete for state support with a myriad of other
services-many of them also being threatened by
the president's budgetary ax.
Another remedy being proposed is to encour
age volunteer legal counseling, perhaps providing
tax incentives.
But it just doesn't seem fair to leave legal rep
resentation of the nation's poor people at the
mercy of private lawyers. After all, those are
the same people who have established and now
are charging exhorbitant legal fees for their
services.
It is imperative equal justice under the law
be ensured for all members of American society,
including poor people.
If the Legal Services Corporation is abolished,
the scales of justice will tip over farther toward
large industries, influential corporations and
those who are inherently wealthy, which would
be a sad travesty of a noble principle.
Brezhnev seeks kidnapper
And now we present another grip
ping adventure from The Casebook of
Inspector Brezhnev. Tonight, the Eastern
European Theater presents "The Case of
the Crumbling Union," live on the KGB
television network.
(The scene: A small house in down
town Warsaw, Poland. A limousine pulls
up to the house, and an aging man in a
dark suit gets out. He walks gingerly to
the house and knocks on the door.)
An elderly lady opens the door, and
stands back when she sees the stern visage
with the bushy eyebrows staring at her.
"Good evening," the man says. "I'm
Inspector Brezhnev of Moscow Yard. I
hope you won't mind if I look around your
charming little house."
"May I ask if there is something going
on, you know, something criminal that I
should know about?" says the lady.
Inspector Brezhnev smiles a sinister
smile. "Let's just call this a, uh, heh-heh.
routine ir ection. There's been a bit of
neighborhood disturbance. . ." he says,
his voice trailing off into a series of three
black dots.
The inspector steps into the kitchen.
He opens the pantry door and starts
taking loaves of bread from the shelves.
"What are you doing?" asks the lady.
"You seem to have an overstock of
bread here," says the inspector. "Are you,
perhaps, expecting guests?"
"Uh, no," says the lady, unsure what
the kindly inspector is looking for. "I had
noticed some talk of shortages at the
store lately, so I decided to stock up one
day when I had the chance."
Inspector Brezhnev starts lobbing the
bread out the front door of the house.
"You won't be needing these any more.
At least not until the upcoming trial."
"Trial? Who are you trying?"
"C'mon lady, you're not fooling any
body with that innocent routine," says
the inspector. "You are an agent with
Solidarity, and I am here to arrest you
for the kidnapping of Poland."
The old lady grows stern. "Where's
your proof?"
"I laugh," says the inspector, not laugh
ing. "The facts of this case are all on my
side. Fact: One week ago Poland is report
ed missing. Fact: I am sent by Moscow
Yard to find the kidnappers. Fact: I enter
this area with 10,000 crack inspection
troops, who ransack every building stand
ing between here and Moscow, and we
find notlung."
"Your facts add up to notlung," says
the old lady. "That is because there is
nothing here to find. No crime has been
committed."
"I am not here to find a crime," says
the inspector. "I am here to kill criminals."
"You can't have one without the
other." says the old lady. "Poland is fine.
No crime has been committed."
"So you think." says Inspector Brezh
nev. "But at Moscow Yard we use the most
up-to-date investigation method to uncover
criminals where no crime has occurred.
Over the years we have been able to con
vict thousands of people without any
shred of evidence of wrongdoing. It has
revolutionized the criminal investigation
methods of our country, and now we
have come to bestow it on you. Believe
me, I have all the facts I need."
Join us again next time you want to be
left without a clue for another episode
of The Casebook of Inspector Brezhnev
wsp-- earn
I 111. '"jT SjgS
S. Africa offers use of naval base
Washington-What did Jeanne Kirk
patrick know and when did she know it?
This is the inconsequential contretemps
now convulsing a city which feeds upon
such nonsense. The question relates to
whether or not our U.N. Ambassador was
aware the South Africans with whom she
chatted three weeks ago were representa
tives of their military intelligence.
r
J 0 J . U1
Overlooked in this silly spat is the
urgent message the South Africans were
bringing to the United States-intelligence
information contained in documents still
marked "secret."
The "team" which came to the United
States at the invitation of the defense
minded American Security Council consist
ed of four men: Major-General Pieter van
der Westhuizen, Vice Admiral Naude du
Plessis, a defense intelligence brigadier, and
a major.
Here is the information they brought:
Since passage of the Clark Amendment.
tying U.S. hands in Angola, the Soviet
Union has moved 250 MiG fighters and
600 tanks into Angola, Zambia and Moz
ambique. More ominous, these planes and
armor are not serviced, operated or con
trolled by Africans, but by East German,
Czech, Slovak and Hungarian pilots, mili
tary advisers and technicians whose
nunber in southern Africa rose from 500 to
3,000 during the Carter years.
In addition to the fighter aircraft, a
dozen radar sites have been established in
Zambia, Mozambique and Angola, compli
mented by Soviet surface-to-air missiles,
again manned by the Warsaw Pactk's Afri
ka Corps, not Africans, not Cubans.
With the most powerful army on the
continent, the South Africans do not see
these weapons directed at them. The Soviet
Empire, they contend, is providing insur
ance that its African satellites of Mozambi
que and Angola are not overthrown by the
indigenous rebellions operating in both
countries.
Second, along with the naval base being
established in Agnola and Mozambique -on
the east and west coasts of southern
Africa - the MiGs give the Soviet Bloc the
capacity to interdict the sea traffic that
passes around the Cape of Good Hope and
carries 70 percent of Europe's strategic
minerals and 90 percent of Europe's oil.
What the South Africans are willing to
provide is access to the great naval base at
Simonstown, which has the finest docking
facilities between Gibralter and Singapore
and can handle almost all American war
ships. (Vessels too large for Simonstown
can dock at Durban and Cape Town.)
Also near Simonstown is the under
ground communications and survcyMance
center at Silverstone. a facility capable of
tracking Soviet vessels, aircraft and submar
ines in a vast area enclosed by the southern
cone of South America, the Antarctic and
the Indian Ocean.
What the United States is being offered,
then, is military cooperation with the most
powerful country in Africa, a country
which considers its survival intertwined
with the United States' remaining a world
power. Meanwhile, what is being debated is
whether or not our envoys should even
chat with the military officers of a country
whose society retains some of the aspects
of segregation that were commonplace in
Washington, D.C., 25 years ago.
(c) 1931 By PJB Enterprises, Inc.
J CI.
u
nebraskan
UPSP 144-080
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