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December
1971
and sicken, in spite of dramatic at–
tempts
to
restore its health.
There was no dramatic "crash" io the
grand 1929 style. Just an undignified
retreat into national bankruptcy. The af–
fiuent and easy life of the sixties was
soon forgotten with the return of hard
times in the late seventies.
And then there was the drought. The
one that started in Texas and Oklahoma
back in the spring of
'71. At
the time,
nobody was really very worried about it,
even though meteorologists
were
call ing
it the worst since the dust bowl of the
thirties.
It
didn't go away like people ex–
pected. Although of fluctuating inten–
sity, over the long haul it just kept
growing drier and drier, forcing more
and more fa rmers to sell out or be faced
with a nonexistent crop and dead
Jivcstock.
A shortage of vital foodstuffs soon
made people painfully aware that the
idea of the great American storage
sur–
plus was just a myth. Serious rationing
occurred for the first time since World
War
JI.
In
1977
water became scarce. It
became even more difficult to maintain
high standards of sanitation and
hygiene.
In the cities, tension was growing.
¡:aced with outrigbt financia! break–
clown in the middle years of the 70's,
increased poverty and the abandonment
of many of the governmental programs
designed to aid minority groups and
eliminate ghetto conditions, the inevi–
table explosions began to occur. Ther
made the great self-inAicted riot wounds
of the sixties seem trivial by com–
parison. Cool, planned and deliberate
attempts by experienced revolutionaries
to disrupt the flow of society brought
many big cities to the very edge of
complete interna! collapse.
One thing was certain. The pro–
longed power failures played an im–
portant part. After severa! "brown–
outs," Los Angeles was faced with a
majot power failure that completely dis–
rupted the city. Officials blarned
ü
on
the drought in the Pacific Northwest
resulting in decreased hydroelectric
output. Southern CaJ;fomia had been
"borrowing" power for quite a while.
No new nuclear power production
The
PLAIN TRUTH
plants had been built after the furor
over environmental poll ution in the
eady 70's when the entire nation,
it
seems, was on an ecology binge.
L.A.'s problem was not unique. Strict
power rationing became commonplace.
But people were beginning to adjust to
that sort of thing by then. An increas–
ing fuel oil and natural gas shortage be–
came commonplace as Venezuela and
other nations refused to export to the
U.
S. Winters were hard without fuel ,
especially in the East.
l5
Everyone noticed them.
They
had
been aourishing in the mounds of gar–
bage left when the sanitation services
had broken clown. Now, there were
dead rats everywhere. And many squir–
rels . Something was wrong.
And then it started - a plague soon
out of control.
The
first two days, on1y
76
cases were
reported. Some were diagnosed as
pneumonia. But as the word got around
the ugly truth became apparent. After a
week the epidemic was out of control.
8cftmonn
Archives
THEN AND NOW
-
The terror that struck London's dank, unsanitary
streets in the Middle Ages is far removed from the careful control mon now
exercises over many insect-spread epidemics. Yet, the newspaper dippings
(see page 33) testify that while man may
control
certain d iseases, he has not
eliminated them by any means.
In the late 1970's a new burden was
added to these mounting problems.
lt
all began in New Odeans. The Depart–
ment of Health there had quite enough
on its hands just trying to maintain
some semblance of order during those
hard years, without becorning alarmed
over every little danger signa! of sorne
new epidemic. But this new phenom–
enon was indeed strange.
For sorne reason, the rats were all
dying.
Black Plague, the terror of the
Middle Ages, had spread over the conti–
nent more rapidly than anyone could
have thought possible. And in spite of
frantic precautions, the plague threat–
ened to spread to the rest of the wodd.
The great pandemic of the 1980's had
begun.
A Rerun
of
History?
Thankfully,
no Sttch
history
has yet
been written. Yet, only the orgaoization