Bethpage-Tribune_1974-05-16

              1
BETHP/iGE
OLD BETHIKGE
4 7 POWELL *V
Kimiffro
v also *™ng ISLAND TREES
PLAINVI^W PLAINEDGE SEAFORD
VOL. 8 NO. 26
consider this...
Thursday, May 16,1974
The Tyranny Machine
by ann conroy
Parti
"As every man goes through life, he fills in a number of
forms for the record, each containing a number of
questions...There are thus hundreds of little threads
radiating from each man, millions of threads in all. If
these threads were suddenly to become visible, people
would lose all ability to move."
Alexander Solzhenitsyn
If there's any man who
knows how the om­nipresent
and probing eye
of total government can
affect the daily lives of its
citizens, it has to be
Solzhenitsyn, the dissident
writer who was recently
expelled from Mother
„ < 1 a v e r n m e n t. The
i*'threads" of which he
speaks are the trails we.
leave behind us as we
move from place to place,
as we live from day to day.
Every man leaves these
"threads", the tell-tale
signs of his existence. How
an individual decides to
weave the fabric of his life
is left in his own hands at
least in free America; the
pattern of his life of his
own choosing, and the
overall design a matter of
concern only to himself
and his loved ones.
But recently, the spectre
of man being traced and
spied-upon by government
in his daily life has been
raised. We are not
speaking here of tape-recorded
conversations or
wiretaps. We do not mean
a closed-circuit television
peering into every home,
office, and classroom in
the country. That would be
too obvious and 'would
result in an outraged cry of
protest from every civil
libertarian and political
group in the country. We
are speaking of the subtle
unobserved surveillance of
nearly every adult citizen
in the country through the
use of computers and data
banks which contain ; ex­tensive
information about
individuals. The universal
numerical identifier used
by the computer to track
people is the Social
Security number.
In the April 18th edition
of the BETHPAGE
TRIBUNE, we did an
article which briefly
outlined the ways in which
computers invade privacy.
We would like to expand on
that theme by introducing
our readers to the system
which has as its main
objective TOTAL SUR­VEILLANCE
over every
aspect of our lives utilizing
computers. The official
title of it is the PLAN-NING-
PROGRAMMING-BUDGET
SYSTEM called
PPBS. We think of it as the
Tyranny Machine.
The PPB System was
developed by the Rand
Corporation of Santa
Monica, California, with
'federal funds.' The
Plain vie w-OM Bethpage
Down School Budget
Plainview-Old Bethpage
residents turned down the 1974-75
proposed budget for the school
district. Of the total 5,220 votes,
2,980 voted no and 2,240 voted yes.
The $24,832,071 proposed budget
would have meant an increase of
88 cents per $100 of assessed
.valuation in the school district.
The Library budget was passed
with 2,828 yes vote and a 2,217 no
vote, in sharp contrast to the
school budget vote.
In a clean sweep the 3 in-
200 Teachers Storm Out ,
Plainedge Board Meetinq
bbyy RRiicchhaarrdd WWoooodd W
A massive teacher walk-out
took place at the Plainedge Board
o^ Education's May 9th meeting.
IA Massive teacher walk-out
topk place at the Plainedge Board
of Education's May 9th meeting.
With total attendance ap­proaching
300, the meeting had
been moved from the Plainedge
High School cafeteria to the
auditorium.
After Jerry Fiorenza, first vice
president of the Plainedge
Federation of Teachers (PFT),
tried unsuccessfully on a number
of occasions to raise the subject
of contract negotiations into an
agenda already loaded with
matters pertaining to the 1974-75
school year budget, two-hundred
teachers took Fiorenza's lead and
walked out of the meeting.
"They're violating' the law,
they're making the law unto
themselves," Fiorenza told' the
BETHPAGE TRIBUNE with
reference to the school board.
According to Mr. Fiorehza,
representatives of the PFT had
met with Mr. Richard Long,
contract negotiator for the school
district, on at least eight oc­casions
and no progress had been
made. In fact, said Mr. Fiorenza,
Mr. Long failed to show up at two
scheduled meetings with the
Federation. "They've been
pushing us around and we will not
be pushed," he said.
The most irksome matter -for
the teachers seemed to be the
approval 'of the 1974-75 school
calendar and the district's health
leave contract.
At the meeting the board ap­proved
a 182-day school calendar,
adding two additional days over
the previous year without a
corresponding adjustment in
salary for the teachers.
The teachers claimed that the
subject was a matter of
n'egotiation. School . Board
President Franklyn J. McGrath
and school board attorney LeRoy •
Van Nostrand countered by
implying that the calendar was
already in the contract, not a
matter for negotiation, and
therefore up to the perogatives of
the district, i.e., the superin­tendent.
"The calendar is not in the
contract," Mr. Fiorenza told the
BETHPAGE TRIBUNE. "Laws
were not cited, cpurt decisions
were not cited," said Fiorenza,
"and if you'll remember, Van
Nostrand failed to respond to the
(specific) question."
The teachers were indeed in­furiated.
They also cited the^
district's new health leave policy,
approved by the board a few
. months back, without the advice,
consent or even the consultation
Of the teachers.
McGrath had said that "(the
board) will not discuss (the
matter of negotiations) at this
time." McGrath said the board
would only entertain questions
relating.to items on the agenda
and advised the teachers that
they could bring up the subject at
the conclusion -of the meeting,
following the public debate on the
proposed budget.
But that apparently did not
satisfy the teachers. They said
that the subject was of such
grave importance that an in­terruption
of normal proceedings
was justified. Mr. Pauline
Weissman, Secretary of the PFT,
cited the Rinehart and Stein
affairs of past years as board
precedent in allowing an im­portant,
pressing subject to be
given the spotlight in a routine,
albeit pre-planned agenda.
«. "Can the board of education
treat teachers as if this was the
Middle Ages?" asked Len
Rogers, teacher, rhetorically of
the BETHPAGE TRIBUNE.
"Where does the board get the
authority to treat teachers in a
capricious and dictatorial way?"
Mr. Rogers went on to cite the
"inordinate" amount of time the
board had devoted to Mr. Con- «
very and his questions on the high
school hockey club. "Why,"
asked Rogers, "was the hockey
club discussedai such great
length (while we were
ignored)?"
"We're concerned," Irv
Friedman, high school building
representative for the PFT, told
the TRIBUNE. "We're not here
to give (the board) a hard time.
The calendar really isn't that
pressing (at this time), so why
(should^ the school board)
provoke the controversy "J We' re
vital, without us thta-<plaee
doesn't run;"
Mr. Friedman's use of the word
"vital" was intended, hensaift He
-wa»i referring to Dr. Blank's
statement in PLAINTALK that
teachers were simply "in­terested."
"We're a lot more than in­terested
about what goes on
here," said Friedman.
The fact that Dr. Blank, the
new Plainedge Superintendent of
Schools, sat silent through the
entire episode, said Mr.
Fiorenza, should also be pointed
out.
The teachers' contract with the
district expires this June 30th.
All they want, they say, is to
discuss the new contract in an
"harmonious setting.'.' They do
not believe that Mr. Long, the
district's negotiator, is acting in
good faith. They do not believe
the board is giving them a fair
shake.
"They're acting in an arbitrary
manner," said Mr. Fiorenza of
the board. "Just look at then-attitude,
the garbage they
handed out."
"It's not an original saying,"
said Fiorenza, "but we've only
just begun to fight."
cumbents board members were
voted out of office. Eileen Porta
won with 2,321 votes against
Incumbent Harvey Brickman
who received 2,300; Michael
Miller won with 2,602 votes, while
Incumbent Sidney Horn received
1,974 votes. Of the 2 independents
who ran for seat vacated by
Charles Mattingly, Jr., Louis
Natter won over Marvin Laster
with 2,433 against 2,150 votes.
Incumbent Mitchell Laub, was
defeated by Ben Taubenfeld with
.2,288 to 2,135 votes.
vanced as an improved
method of budgeting and
accounting. But, lurking in
the background is a
terrible threat to in­dividual
liberty, im­measurable
in its potential
for destruction of our
Constitutional freedoms..;
For in a government ruled
by computers, the people
are enslaved to machine
which in turn are
manipulated by a
programmer. That is
Tyranny, no matter how
many bureaucrats and
politicians vehemently
deny the possibility of it
actually happening.
The Rand Corporation
(Continued on Page 6/
CAREER DAY: Town Councilman Salvatore R. Mosca goes over the
Town Board calendar with Bethpage High School Senior James
Twombly, right, and Massapequa High School Senior Stanley
* Goldsmith during Career Day ceremonies held at Oyster Bay Town
Hall. The students were selected by their high schools to act as
' representatives of the 41st annual Career Day and Youth in Law
Day, USA program and to join in ceremonies which included at­tending
a Town Board meeting and following Town officials in their
daily routines.