‘Remaking the Revolution’
The recent series of articles on the Soviet Union in the Los Angeles Times was quite interesting (Part I, Oct 25-Nov. 7). What I found of greatest interest was the drag of the military on the economy. It’s obvious that Gorbachev’s eagerness for an arms control deal with the United States is a recognition of the uselessness of an ever greater arms spiral.
I would like to point out that we too could benefit from a respite. We have a national debt under President Reagan of close to $3 trillion, a tripling of the debt in the last seven years. This debt has been used to build a military we are incapable of supporting.
The gyrations of the stock market are a warning that all is not well here. Reagan has short-changed us on the number of air-traffic controllers, on the modernization of their equipment, on collision avoidance equipment, etc., so that plane travel is a riskier enterprise than need be.
Our infrastructure--bridges, highways--is so neglected it rates, as The Times quoted an authority, a C-plus. The government doesn’t spend all the monies appropriated by Congress in order to make our finances look better.
Our militaristic policy has opened up our domestic markets to the West Germans and the Japanese in order to gain their military cooperation, even though the Japanese, for example, do not open their markets to us.
I am certain that the crimes against the American economy Reagan has perpetrated will take us many a year to get over.
SAMUEL GENDELMAN
Los Angeles
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