The Inside Dope

The Backward Bicentennial Budget

   No one disputes Oakland County Prosecutor L. Brooks Patterson's ability to get headlines. A past master of media manipulation, Patterson carefully chooses issues that will appeal to the backward political orientation of his well-heeled supporters issues like busing, welfare cheating, parole, and so-called "obscenity."

     In one of the richest counties in the country, and one which went tor Wallace in the 1972 Presidential primary, Patterson has styled himself as a maverick and a "reformer." His personal charisma and eloquence have charmed the pants off many a reporter, not to mention the growing popular following which he hopes to ride into higher office soon.

     While Patterson's constant activity and high visibility convince his people that he's keeping Oakland County "clean," there may well be more going on than meets the eye. Wherever there is rapid suburban expansion, there's a lot of money floating around, and areas undergoing this kind of development tend to foster a frontier atmosphere wide open to all kinds of wheeling and dealing. Organized crime, which has of course been investing heavily in legitimate businesses of late, finds such environments a fertile breeding ground, and there are many indications that Oakland County is no exception.

     Why, then, has its prosecutor maintained silence on the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa from a Bloomfield Township restaurant? Why hasn't he evinced any interest in the murder of Harvey Leach, the Teamster lawyer whose body was found in Southfield? Why hasn't Patterson acted on the list of Oakland County organized crime figures supplied him by James Piersante, head of the state Attorney General's Organized Crime Division? Why hasn't he used the $100,000 the county raised to investigate organized crime?

    Unless Patterson seriously believes that welfare cheaters and dirty flicks are more dangerous to our health than professional gangsters, he should stop wasting public funds on quick, spectacular show prosecutions against defenseless people and use his sources instead to begin the kind of methodical, tong-term investigation it would take to answer the persistent questions about organized crime in Oakland County no matter who's involved.

      A good place to start might be the incredible series of events that led to the construction of Pontiac Metropolitan Stadium, many of which are so suspicious it is amazing no one has questioned them. For example: Why were a Pontiac resident's allegations of irregularity in a crucial local bond election ignored? Where did the extra money for improving roads to the Stadium suddenly appear from? How did the Stadium people wangle a $24 million public subsidy for their private enterprise? And why was the most recent appropriation slipped through the state legislature at 4:40am?

    How about it. Brooks.?

    Salutations! It's been all I could do to sit on the followin' little tale for the past fortnight 'til I had the opportunity to share it with all my new friends, not to mention, o' course, those grizzled veterans who knew me when. My days at the Free Press, as old timers will recall, ended way back in '52, when I was fingered by Joe McCarthy for supposedly being in the pay of the KGB. Well, naturally, the boss called me on the carpet. explained how it was, and ol' lffy had to slip out of the public eye for a while, exceptin' an occasional communique from my clandestine sanctuary.

    Well, yon can imagine my surprise and indignation last week when the present-day pillars of journalism over at 321 W. Lafayette tried to tell me I couldn't ply my trade here in the SUN because they still had exclusive rights to my literary efforts! I could hardly restrain myself from marchin' right down to their executive offices and demandin' satisfaction on the spot. My present mentors, however, succeeded in calmin' me down and persuadin' me to pursue legal avenues of redress. Sure enough, it wasn't but a few days later that the Freep took it all back. Seems after takin' a closer look at the fine print, they decided I was free after all to continue peddlin' my wares wherever I see fit. And so I intend to do, followin" the Iffy credo- I calls 'em as I sees 'ero, and I don'l give a hang who gets their back up over it!

    While musin' over a copy of the Rollin' Stone the other day, I chanced upon the prominent byline of an old associate. Mr. Howard Kohn, tellin' all about the Perils of Patty - Miss Hearst, that is - and her adventures in the underground. Good ol' Howard always was one to get that story, regardless of the risks entailed. Won't soon forget how he nailed those cops and pushers right on the front page a few years back for our Judging from his administration's proposals for next year's federal budget. Gerald "Whitey" Ford, our first appointed chief executive, will have to use the occasion of the Bicentennial to declare himself our first king since George III if he wants to stick a round after next fall.

     His substantial tax-cut proposal notwithstanding. Ford's planned assault on essential social-service programs could remove what cushions the poor, working poor, and unemployed have left to shield them from the effects of incipient economic depression. Ford's ill-fated predecessor managed to mate most of the "Great Society" anti-poverty programs; now Ford apparently wants to go after social welfare legislation which originated in the last great capitalist economic crisis for the specific purpose of preventing outright revolution. If Jerry wants an excuse to call out the troops against hordes of broke and hungry Americans on his lawn next summer, he is headed in the right direction.

    The current talk about cutting back in areas like welfare, food stamps. Medicare and Medicaid, and housing subsidies, and of using the Presidential veto "100 times" if necessary, should Congress resist, raises a grim spectre indeed the the growing number of people in a marginal economic condition- especially when Jerry is determined not to create any jobs for them.

    If the President wants to save $28 billion, there is no shortage of other areas to cut back in. Unfortunately, most of them are star-spangled Republican sacred cows like the Defense Department, the intelligence agencies, and the huge corporations. The proposed $9 billion cut in defense, though substantial, could be multiplied many times if the Pentagon stopped paying for enormous cost overruns, creating expensive projects to bail out pet contractors, dreaming up Doomsday schemes like Project Seafarer, and paying for its own contractors to entertain Defense Department officials. The Pentagon's current darling, the B-l bomber, would cost $I billion alone for each shiny new engine of war.

    Despite recent guesses. body knows how much money the CIA has at its disposal to keep the world safe for capitalist investments. The corporations whose interests it defends, notably the oil companies, are experiencing windfall profits and paying a fraction of the taxes due from them. Many individuals in the top tax brackets also manage to pay little or nothing.

    But it is altogether fitting, as the international crisis of capitalism deepens that "free-enterpise" advocates like Ford continue to defend such interests while attempting to blame social programs for mushrooming federal deficits and calling for further personal sacrifices in order to prop up the failing order. We can hope that Congress will struggle as best it can against the present attempt to hold it together at the expense of those already hard put just to get by. If not, the citizenry may mark the nation's 200th birthday in ways undreamed of by the Bicentennial Commission, mutual ex-employer. When it come down to the crunch, though. they gave poor Howard his walkin' papers, and he walked straight to the city by the Bay, where he has evidently found better workin' conditions. Too bad, boys, ya let a good one get away there. Nice goin', Howard.

     As I sit here at my old Royal, fuelin' my imagination with a tad of Jamaican brown, watchin' the industrial soot eddy through the autumn air and settle on the skyscrapers of downtown Detroit, I am moved to speculate upon certain aspects of the human condition, in the manner of Joe H. Slroud, one of my favorite poets. When struck by these pensive moods, the ol' Iffster sometimes wonders just where we're goin' when the Feds are down there in the Caribbean doin' their best to cut off my supply of this good while on the other hand, they're over in the nation's capital puttin' out another report as to-how it's really not very neighborly to keep me f rom smokin' up at my pleasure, in the privacy of my own abode.

     Now I just wonder when those fellas are gonna face up to the inevitable futility of all this prevaricatin', go drink their beer, and leave the dopesters of this world in peace? You young'uns wouldn't remember, but I was around when ol' Harry Anslinger was tellin' everybody how this stuff made folks pop their corks and run around rapin', pillagin'. and murderin' everything in sight. Let' me tell you, that Harry had a poker up his ass if anybody ever did. Kinda reminds me of L. Brooks Patterson. Ain't it amazin' how that kind just keeps comin'? fortunately, things have loosened up these days to the point where at least some folks

    WRITERS WANTED: The SUN is looking for freelance writers who are hip to the Detroit area, especialIy the black community. Send a resume and a few samples of your work to Derek VanPelt, Editor, The SUN. Box 7217, Detroit 48202.

 have the intestinal fortitude to stand up for the good weed -like our intrepid State Representative, the Hon. Perry Bullard. In case ya didn't know, Perry is cosponsorin' a real meritorious proposition up in Lansing right now. If enough of his colleagues can be persuaded it's OK to vote for it, the sovereign state of Michigan might just stop puttin' folks in the pokey for simple possession or use of reefer, if you don't get caught with too much of it. They'd just write ya a ticket and slap a fine on ya - which is still an affront to the dignity of dopesters everywhere, to be sure, but a damn sight better than the present situation. It wouldn't get ya a rap sheet, either.

    So here's the scoop - ya gotta write to yer people in Lansing and tell 'em it's all right with you if they vote for the new proposition. Now, you folks up Flint way have got an especially important job, because ya see, three of your state legislators are on the Civil Rights Committee, where the bill is right now, and the fourth is the Speaker of the House. When ya write. ya got to ell 'em NOT to send the bill to the Judiciary Committee. 'cause they got a chairman over there that's promised to put the kibosh on it. Just tell 'em Iffy sent ya!

     Speakin' of dope, took due notice the other day that the latest fancy gummint report went so far as to say that the filet mignon of the dope world, cocaine, won't get ya hooked. I remember when those foamin" at the mouth cracker sheriffs used to say ya couldn't stop a Negro on cocaine with a .38 caliber bullet. Iffy wouldn't kid ya -- they went and upgraded all their animo to .45 caliber. It's the God's truth.

     Well, the typesetter here at the Shelby is houndin' me to get this out of my Royal so they can get it on the street, so I'll just lay one more item on ya. This one's from our Ann Arbor society correspondent, whose dispatch  here with reproduce hot off the telegraph:

    ANN ARBOR, Oct.17 The new Ann Arbor McDonald 's, squatting in the  square on the former site of the historic Nichols' House, was the scene to day for the first Food Fascism Show, or Puke-In for short. Twenty members of the Radical Vegeterian League came up with the latest in plastic delicacies and "blew lunch " for a stunned house of noon rush-hour burger fans and a disgusted management.

   Highlights of the show were Pinto Bean's lovely floor-length "Big Mac with Cheese, "with a touch of se ere sauce that went beautifully with it. and Gin Seng's "Strawberry Shake, "which caused a big splash in the gallery front the second floor balcony. Also of note was Red .

Zinger's "Large Coke, " which iced that category (and the judges' table). The significance of the show, sadly, was sidestepped by the audience, most of whom went right on eating their french fries.

    With that, this is Iffy the Dopester sayin ', "Yippie! "and see ya later.