LESSONS IN THE ART OF POWER

The same method of irradiation is also used with great advantage to sterilize medical and cosmetic material, as readers know from the witch hunt in Mine Hill, New Jersey. In the April 1983 issue we reprinted a flyer (Radiation!!! A Time Bomb Comes to Mine Hill!) by a character who aspired to political office while blocking a private company's sterilization facility. Word reaches us now that he has indeed been elected mayor of that enlightened town.

There are lessons in this for the student of politics, the art of acquiring and maintaining power over other people. Witch hunts and fear mongering are well tested techniques of that art. In 19^th century Russia, the Czars and their cossacks practiced it by claiming the Jews slaughtered babies to make sausages from them. In 20^th century New Jersey, the mayor of Mine Hill gets himself elected by preaching absurdities about the dangers of "colbolt 60."