Quote . . . Unquote (1972)

From issue number 2 (1972) of The Western Socialist

We couldn't have said it better 

"Look at it this way. America is run largely by and for about 5.000 people who are actively supported by 50,000 beavers eager to take their places. I arrive at the round figure this way: maybe 2.500 megacorporation executives, 500 politicians, lobbyists and Congressional committee chairmen. 500 investment bankers, 500 commercial bankers, 500 partners in major accounting firms, 500 labor brokers. If you don't like my figures, make up your own. We won’t be far apart in the context of a country with 210-million people. The 5.000 appoint their own successors, are responsible to nobody. They treat this nation as an exclusive whorehouse especially designed for their comfort and kicks. The President of these United States, in their private view, is head towel boy. They prefer clever flunkies who. like most of the present White House gang, are so slippery they can enter a telephone booth and leave by the side door.

For most of us, the 210-million, the result is a tearing frustration. Frustration with unemployment, inequity, taxes and prices, to be sure, but under it all a rage at the giant, impregnable, impenetrable, anonymous, unaccountable. irresponsible,  immoveable bastions of power. And now, through the Naderites, through the blizzard of shredded documents at I.T.T., we get our noses rubbed in the whole sick operation of decadent power blocks.

The time has come to have dreams, hopes as tangible as an A.P. dateline and not far off." 

Robert Townsend in New York Times Book Review Section, April 30. 1972