Word: groups
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Dates: during 1980-1980
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...year existence, the Republic of Liberia had never experienced a coup d'état, a remarkable record given the turbulent politics of West Africa. Last weekend a group of noncommissioned officers and Liberian National Guardsmen conducted a bold dawn raid on the palatial executive mansion in the capital city of Monrovia. Their target: William R. Tolbert Jr., 66, Liberia's President and the current chairman of the Organization of African Unity. According to one account, Tolbert was shot in the face and killed. His wife Victoria and members of the Cabinet, the judiciary and the legislature were seized...
Long simmering anger against the Tolbert regime erupted a year ago when the government proposed a hike in the price of rice from $22 to $30 for a 100-lb. bag. (The average Liberian earns $80 a month.) In Monrovia, 2,000 people gathered in protest. A student-led group of some of the demonstrators headed toward Tolbert's executive mansion. The President overreacted, ordering police and soldiers to shoot into the crowd. Forty people were killed and hundreds injured, which set off riots and looting...
...Plato in The Laws, no person would be permitted to be more than four times richer than the poorest. In the U.S. the upper 20% of the population earn 46% of the income, a figure that has changed very little in the past generation. In France that same group earns 44% and in Britain 40%. But those who complain that the chairman of General Motors earns nearly $ 1 million a year never criticize the Who for pocketing that much or Marlon Brando for collecting that sum for just one motion picture. Any attempt by government to set limits and establish...
During the past year a group of American, Canadian and British theologians conducted a long-distance debate on the moral justification of capitalism. The majority concluded it offers greater moral freedom than any other economic system. Said Anglican Edward Norman: "Capitalism is full of minor evils, existing beneath the umbrella of its overall good effect of preserving individual freedom. Capitalism has a good case to argue. It is the case of freedom." The fact remains that throughout the world, millions prefer security to freedom, or think they do, never having known real freedom. Indeed doublethink Communism teaches them to redefine...
...economic progress, or actual retrogression, may cause people to conclude that the system's potential rewards are not worth its real risks. Rancorous confrontations among government, business, labor and a thousand contentious factions could erupt. Warns Arizona Congressman Morris Udall: "When you get a constant pie, and when any group like the steelworkers or the longshoremen gets more, then somebody has got to get less. We have got to adjust to slower growth, and the story of the 1980s will be how we adjust...