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PAGE 6-March 15,1973
Justice in the World
A GLOBAL VIEW
By James R. Jennings
Associate Director
USCC Division of Justice and Peace
In the 1960’s Americans discovered
poverty-U.S.A. The discovery was
traumatic, and we still haven’t
recovered. We dramatically declared
“war on poverty” in the United States,
creating federal agencies to wipe it out.
In our quieter moments, however, we
wondered whether we are really
equipped to eradicate poverty. Could
we overcome the gigantic obstacles of
racism and apathy, of insensitivity to
the complexity of the problem, of
insufficient knowledge about poverty’s
root causes?
After a decade of skirmishes, poverty
is still deeply rooted in our society.
According to official government data,
some 35-40 million Americans are poor,
suffering from the consequences of
inadequate food, clothing, housing and
education. The problems of domestic
poverty are still very much with us.
In so focusing our attention on
poverty in the United States, however,
there is danger that we may fail to place
it in the context of poverty worldwide.
That the global situation is desperate is
attested to by world leaders. Pope Paul
VI reminded us, in 1967, that on the
world scene “whole populations
destitute of necessities live in a state of
subjection barring them from all
initiative and responsibility, and from
all opportunity to advance culturally
and to share in social and political life.”
(ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF
PEOPLES, N. 30).
As recently as last September,
Robert S. McNanara, president of the
World Bank, said that about one (1)
billion persons in the Third World
“remain entrapped in conditions of
deprivation which FALL BELOW ANY
RATIONAL DEFINITION OF
HUMAN DECENCY.” (emphasis added)
For example, some 200,000,000
persons in India subsist on incomes that
average less than $40.00 a year. One
half of the world’s people are without
any medical care whatsoever. The
conditions of people in many of the less
industrialized countries are so
deplorable as to boggle the mind.
Dr. Thomas Melady, U.S.
Ambassador to Uganda, and longtime
observer of Third World phenomena,
echoes the concern of many with regard
LIFE IN MUSIC
BY THE DAMEANS
Killing Me Softly With His Song
Strumming my fate with his fingers
Singing my life with his words
Killing me softly with his song
Telling my whole life with his words
Killing me softly with his song.
I heard he s^ng a good song
I heard he had a style
And so I came to see him and listen for a while.
And there was this young boy
A stranger to my eyes.
Strumming my fate with his fingers
Singing my life with his words
Killing me softly with his song
Killing me softly with his song
Telling my whole life with his words
Killing me softly with his song.
I felt all blushed with fever
Embarrassed by the crowd
I felt he found my letters and read each one out loud
I prayed that he would finish
But he just kept right on.
Refrain:
He sang as if he knew me
In all my dark despair
And then he looked right through me
As if I wasn’t there.
And he just kept on singing,
Singing clear and strong.
Refrain:
Norman Gimbel
Charles Fox
Fox-Gimbel Productions, BMI
c 1073 Atlantic
Coming off the number one song in 1972, “The First Time Ever I Saw Your
Face,” Roberta Flack is off to a good start in ’73 with “Killing Me Softly With
His Song.” She has that special gift of making a song come alive, expressing the
feelings of the words to where you experience the song as she herself does. There
is something in the way she handles a song which makes the words ring true and
real.
The February 12th issue of Time, in the feature story entitled “Inside Pope
Records,” says this about the style of Roberta Flack: “In the poised, warmly
expressive style of Flack, the earthy emotions of gospel (Told Jesus) mix with
the more polished, sensuous phrasing of jazz (Tryin’ Times).
“Killing Me Softly” is primarily a “feeling” song, her real forte. It does have a
nice little story about the important element is what is going on inside of the
person. The simple story is that of a person going out (presumably alone) to
listen to this guitar player and singer.
What the words of his song do to her, gives “Killing Me Softly” its real soul
appeal. The song touches her at a level of her feelings and emotions that she
didn’t think anyone could understand or share. It is so strikingly personal that it
actually embarrasses her. With all thy other people around she feels that they all
notice her and that her “secret” is out and everyone is aware of it.
All that we know about her “life secrets” is that they had put her in a state of
“dark despair.” There is the loneliness and the alienation that comes with
carrying all of these weighty matters alone. It is certainly during these times of
isolation when we are trying to protect our scars of life and our hurts and
disappointments that we feel the true uniqueness of our person.
We feel that nobody has gone through exactly what we have gone through.
Nobody has thought our thoughts or felt precisely the feelings that we have
experienced, our sense of frustrations, groping with our fears. We would like to
share ourselves but then there is that risk of not being understood, or of being
laughted at, or told that we shouldn’t feel that way, or that it might sound
stupid to someone else.
Then - someone sings a song (or something else happens) THAT TELLS IT
ALL, as if my life now on display -- “singing my life with his words.” Not only is
my life laid out before me, but it is brought to the view of all the people around
me. The words cut through and literally “kill me softly,” knifing through to
touch the hurts and disappointments, the fears and anxieties. The first reaction
is “I prayed that he would finish but he just kept right on.” There is the
frightened and uncomfortable feeling of experiencing our “true” and
“authentic” selves without the protective shells, the masks, or the games.
Whether this type of experience is good or not depends on what we do with
it. To share some of these disappointments and our inner selves with someone else
can be a tremendously freeing act -- like everything is out in the open now and
we can breathe a sigh of relief. This presumes that we can find a trusting and
'loving person with whom to open up because we do become vulnerable at this
point. On the other hand, the hurt and the unwillingness to honestly face our
feelings can fortify the walls already there and deepen our despair, making it
that much more difficult to rid ourselves of our burdens.
At this point in her life, the person in the song is at a crossroad. She can
either become more isolated and alienated, going deeper into her “despair,” or
grow as a person being able to see and accept herself as she is and possibly
sharing this self so that like the singer she will be able to “just keep on singing,
singing clear and strong.”
to future prospects: “We must
remember that before the end of this
century, the world’s population will
have doubled due to the magnitude of
the present population explosion. Seven
out of every eight persons will be living
in Underfed countries, in ignorance,
sickness and poverty.”
Some physical sciences offer equally
disquieting forecasts. If the standard of
living of the Third World were to be
brought up to that of the average
American, the supply of the earth’s
mineral resources would be rapidly
depleted. For example, the present
annual rate of extracting such minerals
as iron, copper and petroleum would
have to be increased SEVERAL
HUNDRED TIMES.
Americans are not unaware of the
present situation and prospects for the
future. Nor are they unaware of their
position in the world. One dimension of
that position was expressed recently by
former presidential candidate at one of
the national political conventions. To
counter critics of America, he said:
“ .. .tonight I just want to remind you
that this land has far more right about it
than wrong. Just consider the fact that
about 6 per cent of the people in this
world are Americans and they live on
about 6 per cent of the real estate of'
this world. They own OVER 52 PER
CENT of everything of material worth
the world has to offer.” (emphasis
added) To suggest that crass materialism
and overbloated consumerism is “what’s
right with America,” ignores the
fundamental idealism in many
Americans, who have a deep sense of
yearning to “make things right in the
world.”
The experiences of the 1960’s have
shown Americans that their notions
about why poverty exists were, at best,
simplistic. People are not poor simply
because “they are too lazy to work.”
Rather, Americans are discovering that
poverty is systemic, that is, there are
structural defects in our social system
which tend to perpetuate what Pope
Paul VI calls “the hellish circle of
poverty.”
And at the root of this circle is
powerlessness. Systemic poverty is not
overcome by a rich friend who now and
then hands out a hot meal or used
clothing. These things do not
significantly change the condition of the
poor, although they do provide
temporary relief. The real need of the
poor is for power, the kind of power
with which to help themselves.
It was with this need in mind that
the American Catholic Bishops launched
the Campaign for Human Development
in 1970, to provide financial assistance
for organizing groups of white and
minority poor to develop economic
strength and political power in their
own communities. This model for
dealing with U.S. poverty has significant
implications for dealing with poverty on
the global scale.
“THERE ARE STRUCTURAL DEFECTS in our
social system which tend to perpetuate what Pope Paul
VI calls, ‘the hellish circle of poverty.’ And at the root
of this circle is powerlessness. A poor child in rural
America has the look of helplessness at an early age.
(NC Photo courtesy Office of Economic Opportunity.)
Film Classifications
A — Section I — Morally Unobjectionable for General Patronage
A — Section II — Morally Unobjectionable for Adults, Adolescents
A — Section III — Morally Unobjectionable for Adults
A — Section IV — Morally Unobjectionable for Adults, Reservations
B — Morally Objectionable in Part for All
C — Condemned
SUCH A GORGEOUS KID LIKE ME
(Columbia) . . . Truffaut’s playful, raunchy
social satire. — After his serious treatment of
the romantic vision of life in TWO ENGLISH
GIRLS, Francois Truffaut has made a
complete turnabout with a light-hearted farce
that should please his many admirers
immensely. Claude Brasseur is a sociologist
doing research for a work called CRIMINAL
WOMEN, and the film is the story of why it
was never published. His first subject for
interview is the beautiful but amoral and
foul-mouthed Bernadette Lafont, imprisoned
for murder. Brasseur, a man of ‘‘objective”
science, sees her as a victim of society,
gradually becomes enamoured, and eventually
proves her innocence (through the “rushes”
shot by a boy moviemaker). She in turn
frames him for her latest murder and wins
fame and fortune as a media celebrity.
The twists and turns of the plot are funny,
but the real humor comes from the way
Truffaut treats it. Sight gags, sound gags,
juxtapositions of fact and fantasy, all
effortlessly bubbling along, constantly
surprise and fact delight us. Best of all are the
players. Lafont is that rare combination of
earthy beauty and intriguing personality
which makes her quite credible as the
experienced woman of the streets. Yet despite
her crude language and sexual escapades, she
retains enough of the sensual innocence so
apparent in Truffaut’s first film, LESS
MIMISTONS (1958), that it is easy to
understand Brasseur’s being taken in. Each of
the five men in her life (especially Charles
Denner as the moralizing exterminator) are
perfect foils for the comedy.
The moral of the farce (as if it needs
enunciation) is that of the savant, innocent of
the ways of the world, being seduced by his
own egotism and the physical beauty of a
cunning woman. The implicit moral value of a
director like Truffaut is the feeling of
humanity with which he is able to cloak his
characters so that even the worst of them has
an elemental dignity. This is a sex farce which
for once should have the women in the
audience laughing more than the men. (A-lll)
BLACK CAESAR (AIP) stars ex-footballer
Fred Williamson in what must be the all-time
low in black exploitation pictures - not so
much for its excessive gore and rampant sex
(although those elements are in evidence), but
for its utterly cynical assessment of the
intended audience. The movie just does not
give a darn and during the last twenty
minutes, as the fatally shot Black Caesar
wanders the streets of New York, the camera
set-ups allow half of the city's population to
wave, mug, clown in the background — as if
the folks in the audience won’t notice or, if
they do, mind at all. As for the story, it reads
like a correspondence-school-of-writing reject,
about the rise and fall of a ghetto punk who
wastes people who get in his way before he
himself is wasted by the forces that cannot be
overcome. Some fun. (C)
THE HARDER THEY COME (New World)
Jamaican director Perry Henzell has made an
absorbing film study that offers both a tight
personal drama done up with vitality and
freshness as well as a subtle exposition of the
tropical island’s system of social and cultural
separation. The film, in English but
frequently subtitled because of the thickly
accented and mellifluous Jamaican speech,
stars Jimmy Cliff as a country boy come to
Kingston town seeking fame and fortune and
winding up with the wrong sort of the one
and none of the other. The story of the loss
of innocence and its inevitably disastrous
results is a familiar one, but Henzell
capitalizes on the lush and exotic Jamaican
setting and on the startling views of island
society that the average tourist will never see.
The result is a fast-paced film full of color and
action, sometimes violent and harsh,
occasionally confusing, but constantly
bursting with energy and interest. Several
examples of REGGAE, the island’s equivalent
of rock *n’ roll, only add to the unusual
experience. (A-lll)
PAYDAY (Cinerama) Rip Torn gives a
powerful, biting performance as a second-rate,
Country-Western singer whose career has
peaked without his even knowing it, and
whose life is about to go right over the edge.
The picture, is anything but pleasant, as Torn
measures out Maury Dann’s final three days
against a series of roadside one-night stands,
cheap motel rooms, good bourbon,
hamburger palaces, popped uppers and
downers, and an assortment of culturally
stunted groupies and hangers-on. It’s a a
rough, lonesome road with nothing at the end
of the line, and its ravages stand out in Dann’s
haggard face. Unfortunately, it’s a familiar
road, too, well traveled back in 1956 via Elia
Kazan’s A FACE IN THE CROWD, which
starred Andy Griffith in the singer role and
which, ironically enough, had a minor role
played by Torn. Yet with Torn’s bravura
acting, and with fine support fromichael C.
Gwynne as Dann’s harried manager, among
many others, Canadian TV director Daryl
Duke’s feature debut is grittily impressive. It’s
also uncompromising in depicting Dann’s
casual immorality and in translating to the
screen the rough argot of the
Country-Western roadshow once the house
lights come back up and we are taken behind
the scenes. (A-IV)
TOUT VA BIEN (New Yorker Films)
Jean-Luc Godard’s latest excursion into
political cinema is less revolutionary than its
predecessors. Godard has gone back to the
story form and the use of stars (Jane Fonda
and Yves Montand). The film is about a.
factory strike, with a great deal of ideological
debate from all sides. While some of the
sequences have the old Godard flair, it is hard
to see the film appealing to even the most
politically committed. But as an indication of
Godard’s return to cinema form, it is most
welcome. (A-lll)
TV Movies
SUNDAY, MARCH 18 8:30 p.m. (NBC) --
THE RED PONY -- Television adaptation of
the classic John Steinback story, starring
Henry Fonda and Maureen O’Hara, with
co-stars Ben Johnson, Richard Jaeckel, Jack
Elam. The drama concerns a hard-bitten
rancher, circa 1900, facing the dual challenge
of keeping his arid little ranch afloat in hard
times and making a man out of his adolescent
son (played by Clint Howard). Good show.
9:00 p.m. (ABC) -- NO WAY TO TREAT
A LADY (1968) -- Filmed in New York with
much care, Jack Smight’s Lady is a purely
invented but effective mixture of adult
comedy, psychodrama and upbeat love story.
In a tour-de-force, Rod Steiger plays Gill, a
madman with a severe “Mother complex’’
who changes disguises for five compulsive
murders, while a likeable police detective,
Moe Brummel (George Segal), gradually
outwits him. Lee Remick is delightful as Kate\
who appears in time to help Moe with his own
mother problem. Gill’s “priest” disguise may
strike some as in questionable taste, but the
film generally communicates respect for its
audience, and that’s a treat. (A-lll)
MONDAY, MARCH 19 9:00 p.m. (ABC) --
THE SILENCERS (1966) -- Dean-o Martin
gallumphs his way through the spy-spoof
routine in this shabby imitation of the James
, Bond films. Martin, playing. Matt Helm,
free-lance superspy, spends most of his time
cracking heads and getting his own bent
occasionally. When not doing that, he chases
an assortment of comely female spies around
swimming pools, sofas, etc. The comic level is
uniformly low, and so is the moral tone. Not
recommended, even cleaned up for TV. (B)
One! Two! Three strikes, you’re out! . . . but
that’s the old ball game, when the network
trots out its pilots for the annual running of
next season’s spring tryouts. BARNEY AND
ME cast Soupy Sales as a TV performer who
owns a talking bear (nope, it’s not named
Francis). In TOPPER RETURNS, Roddy
McDowall gets involved with his ghostly
relatives (Remember Leo G. Carroll?). And
GOING PLACES plunges would-be novelist
Todd Susman into the pulsating heart of the
New York publishing scene. Pot luck comedy.
TUESDAY, MARCH 20 8:00 p.m. (NBC)
~ POLICE STORY - Vic Morrow and Chuck
Connors star in a television feature adapted
from some of the writings of
p olicema n-t ur ned-novetist (and now
policeman again) Joseph (THE NEW
CENTURIONS) Wambaugh. Tough stuff for
adventure hounds.
8:30 p.m. (ABC) - BEG, BORROW ...
OR STEAL -- Made-for-television flick is a
novel twist on the Big Caper theme: three
unemployed nad handicapped men plot a
daring, ingenious heist. Michael Connors,
Michael Cole, and Kent McCord star. The film
raises some legitimate issues about hiring (or,
in this case, financing) the handicapped who
want desperately to make their own way.
9:30 p.m. (CBS) -- MURDOCK’S GANG -
What happens when a big-time criminal
lawyer is disbarred an has to support not only
himself but his unusual staff of ex-convicts?
You guessed it, and the heat is on as Alex
Drier as the barred barrister and his cohorts
get involved in a complicated
murder-suicide-blackmail case. Janet Leigh
co-stars.
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 21 8:30 p.m.
(ABC) -- TOMA -- TV film is based on the
real-life exploits of detective Dave Toma, a
master of disguise who went underground and
blew a hole in a gambling syndicate operation
from the inside. Tony Musante assumes the
title role as the cop, but look for the real Mr.
Toma in a cameo role (you’ve probably
passed him on the street without even
knowing it).
THURSDAY, MARCH 22 9:00 p.m. (CBS)
- HORNET’S NEST (1 970) - Trapped behind
enemy lines during WW II, rugged Marine
Rock Hudson assembles a rag-tag army of kids
too young to join the Italian Resistance but
old enough to smell blood, Hollywood style.
Routine war-adventure flick features some
excessive gore, made all the more gruesome
by the violent and foul-mouthed youngsters.
(B)
FRIDAY, MARCH 23 9:00 p.m. (CBS) -
SAWYER -- Television production of
perennial Mark Twain classic about
growing up wild (but good) in mid-nineteenth
century Hannibal, Mo., on the banks of the
rolling Mississippi. It’s all there, --Tom, Huck
Finn, Muff Potter, Becky, Aunt Polly, Sidney,
Cousin Mary, Injun Joe, the deep dark caves,
the old swimmin’ hole. Have fun. Buddy
Ebsen, Jane Wyatt, Vic Morran star; Josh
Albee is Tom.
SATURDAY, MARCH 24 9:00 p.m.
(ABC) -- DOUBLE FEATURE - NBC has
more pilots on the air this week than most
airlines have in the sky. CHASE offers Mitch
Ryan, Reid Smith, Michael Richardson and
Brian Fong has a conglomerate of supercops
whose talent pool is available for unsolved big
crimes in major U.S. cities. PARTNERS IN
CRIME casts Lee Grant as a retired lady judge
who turns private eye, with a paroled convic
TOM
the