Word: draconian
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...addicts. A life sentence is meted out for selling butsu (the Japanese gangsters' untranslatable coinage for heroin). Mere possession can mean several years in jail. To cut off the demand, the government required that every user caught be confined for at least 30 days of treatment. The most Draconian fact-by American standards-is that each addict's treatment begins with "cold turkey," or withdrawal unassisted by chemical crutches such as methadone...
...Netherlands' AKZO, for example, is laying off more than 6,000 workers, a draconian measure that has raised questions in the Dutch Parliament. The move has also caused Dutch, German and Belgian labor leaders to plan a joint committee to monitor AKZO's future management decisions. U.S. companies in Europe have been hurt too. "Very few firms, European or American, are making much money out of fibers," says a Monsanto executive. "The European industry has double-knitted itself into a corner...
Technically, the 1970 recession ended more than a year ago-but try to tell that to the battle-scarred bosses of many corporations. They are continuing or even tightening the draconian controls on spending that they started during the downswing. And their austerity campaign is cutting a wide swath -from hiring practices to such two-bit matters as engineers' putting tuxedo rentals for professional dinners on their expense accounts. In what could be a permanent, important change in U.S. business, more and more managers have adopted a show-me attitude. They are asking: "Is this expense necessary...
They recommended draconian measures. One memo suggested a "demonstration drop" of a "nuclear device" over North Viet Nam, to be followed by "the use of nuclear bombs and devices where militarily suitable," if Hanoi did not respond and make peace. Another called for "employing atomic weapons whenever advantageous...
...books and "consciousness raising" sessions, hyperbole seems to have become its hallmark. "The majority of women drag along from day to day in an apathetic twilight," states Germaine Greer unequivocally in The Female Eunuch. She warns that "women have very little idea of how much men hate them." The draconian arbiter of Sexual Politics, Kate Millett, has mentioned the "envy or amusement" she noticed in certain men when Richard Speck murdered eight nurses...