IwIM1PMrII r rr r MYr glf r rinr II i II r rrr Oli fir. Y I t Seventy-Seven Years of Editorial Freedom EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS OF THE UNIVESTrrY OF MICHIGAN UNDER AUTHORITY OF BOARD IN CONTROL OF STUDENT PUBLICATIONS 's<' AT-LARGE ..And to all a Good Night Ly NEIL SHISTER 4 A sti "L3 i ; ere Opinions Are Free, 420 MAYNARD ST., ANN ARBOR, MICH. Eruth Will Prevailns NEws PHONE: 764-0552 Editorials printed in'The Michigan Daily sypress the individual opinions of staff writers or the editors. This Mist be noted in all reprints. IDAY, APRIL 12, 1968 NIGHT EDITOR: RON LANDSMAN. Democratic Contenders: Too Many Liberals ESTERDAY'S WHIR:WIND visit to Lansing by Senator Robert Kennedy marks the Michigan unveiling of the re- vised version of Politics '68 complete with major casting changes and a script totally rewrtten by Lyndon Johnson. Now that recent events have rendered an anti-Johnson crusade relatively irtele- vant, it time for a reassessment of the merit; o participating in this year's Preslden'VAl charade. On the surface, Johnson's political abdication should give this year's Presi- dential . race an almost millenialistic quality for many. For the new alignments within the Democratic Party are such that Hubert'Humphrey-once considered far left-has become the only hope of th party conservatives. The enthusiasm that the ascendancy of the party's liberal wing would have in- spired a few years ago has been effec- tively checked by the bitter experience of the past ,five years. The Johnson Admin- istratio has convincingly demonstrated the inadeluacy of liberal dogma to con- front th'e prek~lems of ,a deeply troubled era. Kennedy, Humphrey and Senator Eu- gene McCarthy all represent minute variations on the theme of outdated lib- eralism. While the three contenders have hopefully learned from the excesses of the Johnson Administration, they have not seen fit to revamp their underlying political postulates. And there lies the weakress of the Democratic Presidential trio,. FOR EXAMPLE, none of the three con- tenders have given any indication that they reject the dangerous myth of se- curity through nuclear deterence and are willing to undertake the unilateral disairmament initiatives toward the So- viet Union necessary in order to destroy the spectre of mutual distrust. While hopefully all of the Democratic threesome have now learned that America cannot police the globe, there is little evidence that any of them really perceive the deeterious effect that American eco- nomic hegemony has on the underde- 'veloped world. If America does have the sincere in- terest which it should have in the econ- omic development of the Third World, then our aid in greatly increased quan- tities must be channel through a multil- ateral agency like the United Nations so the underdeveloped countries themselves can decide how best to employ this vitally needed capital. AIa .THREE CANDIDATES will un- doubtedly place great emphasis on the need to dramatically increase the amount of Federal funds channelled into the urban ghettoes. But the candidates have presented scanty evidence that they understand the emasculation of black self-respect which is a result of paternalistic programs and the corresponding necessity for the poor to have complete control over their own lives. ' Furthermore they appear to cling to the facile notion that there still is a rel- atively painless way of solving America's racial blight. The nation must recognize that even business involvement in the ghetto or a similarly attractive plan will be relatively meaningless until whites are willing to fundamentally alter their lifestyles and begin to accomodate the Negro in America life. LASTLY all thre.e candidates represent a philosophic inclination to stress benevolent Federal control over the free- dom of the individual. For example, it is 'keeping with contemporary liberal rhet- oric to attempt to remedy the anti-liber- tarian aspects of the draft through an alternative system of compulsory nation- al service. None of the Democratic con- tenders appear prepared to place in- dividual liberty on a higher plane than the nationalistic goals of the'state. What distinctions do exist between Kennedy, Humphrey and McCarthy are rooted in personality and style rather than ideology. Only if the Vice-President mistakenly believes that his road to political glory lies in further mimick- ing the policies of his political lord and master, will there be any substantial pro- grammatic difference between the can- didates. Consequently while there are few policy reasons to distinguish among the Democratic trio, many will argue it is necessary to staunchly support the strongest candidate in, order to prevent Richard Nixon from realizing his long cherished dream of moving to the White House. But the can-win approach to Presi- dential politics seems relatively unneces- sary as polls and intuition easily indicate that any of the three candidates can beat the latest Nixon retread. As for other possible Republican hopefuls, all trends' are that the GOP still believes it would rather be right than President. THERE APPEARS to be little prag- matic necessity for critics of contem- porary liberalism to compromise their convictions and support one of the Demo- cratic candidates for President. By actively supporting a candidate one is naturally impelled to inflate the standard-bearer to almost heroic pro- portions and mentally blot out his de- ficiencies. This can only. serve to en- trench the Politics of the Superman as the public is led once again to believe that the election of a certain man will be sufficient to divert America from her disastrous course. America needs far more at this cru- cial juncture than liberal platitudes and tried and tired solutions. We need far more than the facile and glib programs of candidates scrounging for elusive votes. What is necessary is a thorough re- structuring of our basic political axioms and a redirection "of political thoight toward the new realities which have emerged during this dismal decade. THE SUDbEN and momentous events of the past two weeks display both hope for the amelioration of some of our worst abuses, and the depth to which fundmanetal problems are embedded in the fabric of our society. The need for critics who can pierce America's self-delusions will be vital in the days ahead and it is therefore urgent that these dissidents not abandon their role in a burst of unwarranted enthu- siasm for any Presidential candidate For with Johnson's withdrawal, the Presidential race is no longer crucial and the outcome seems relatively forordained. A new Kennedy-Nixon tilt appears in the offing and the result looks like a re- make of 1960. IT IS IMPERATIVE that the campus maintain a relative coolness toward all, candidates and thereby leave itself free to point out the underlying inade- quacy of the liberal programs of Kennedy and his two Democratic rivals. This is a time for academia to con- centrate on building a new ideology to replace the liberalism which failed. For the universities to exchange the funda- mental task of updating ideologies and issues for the sign-waving hoopla of a relatively unimportant President election wmiln hp tro ai HE TIMES really are changing, faster and more completely than maybe even Dylan himself realized. Yet in the end perhaps the only thing that ever changes' is time, perhaps beneath the moment's drama that be- comes mundane in retrospect there is something more basic about the human condition that is changeless. This is what Hesse's Siddartha came finally to realize as he went to the continually flowing river for his wis- dom, and Thomas Wolfe may have made the ultimate contrast that can be made when he juxtaposed Time and the River. There is something fraudulent in trying to sum- marily make meaning of four years. It cannot be done. It seems now, in the midst of the hurricane, that monumentous things have occurred. But the cardinal sin journalists commit is in attempting to inject instant meaning into anything that happens, and I'll resist the temptation. Before I go much farther, though, there are a few debts that I must publicly proclaim. The first is to Dr. Robert Angell, who retires this year after a long and distinguished career at the University. I majored in sociology because of the profound effect Angell had on me when I was a sophomore, and have since come to realize that he was important for me more as a man than as a sociologist. He combines a great sense of humanity with a sharp, penetrating mind and it is 'in- deed too bad that there will not be more, students and professors who can benefit from the experience of being around him. THE OTHER person who has given me something special is Robert Skilar,},an assistant professor of. history and American Studies. In a few years here Sklar has become a campus celebrity, and, the fact that he has is a commentary both on him and the University. He has transcended the barriers of the University, making himself genuinely accesible to students simply by caring enough to make the effort. More importantly, though, he is thinking in a new way, combining a variety of concerns and disciplines in an attempt to synthesize them into a single, important approach to the study of culture and it especially exciting and interesting to Watch himt work, and in turn be worked by him. * * * It is a scary feeling now to be leaving. I vividly remember the first time I saw this place, arriving on a humid Sunday before fall orientation. After unpacking into a fourth floor, garret-like room in West Quad, I walked down State Street.- I ' saw Angell, Hall and thought that it must be a Federal Reserve Bank. not part of the University, since only a Federal Reserve Bank ' could be that pretentiously stolid. And I recall being awed by the immensity of the U.G.L.I. And wonder- ing how one gets up the courage to ask a girl out at a University, since they seemed so obviously worldly and sophisticated. Today this same campus, with its same Diag benches, looks incredibly different. Its mood and style have changed. To a large extent there are two discernable groups of students around-those who still believe in a world inhabited by Wendy the Wimp in wee-juns and villager outfit and Sidney Straight with rep-tie and rep- mind, and those who don't and are trying in a variety of ways to find one they do believe in. The war has played a big part in doing this. It his' excited people, made them anxious and tense, and prompted them to look at the quality of life they had been leading and attempt to improve it. The student power thing is a manifestation of an amorphous sense of malaise bred by the war and if the student power movement now has faded away, it could quickly reappear in another guise. Similarly, the campaign for New Politics is potentially extremely important, for its ad- vocates urge attacking the roots rather than the surface manifestations of social malfunctioning, and they are proponents of not only radical politics but also radical education and economics. THE CHANGE that has occurred in the Black tem- perament over four years is obvious. How close it will start hitting was reflected this week when a group of Blacks took over the Administration building and locked everybody else out. * * * -But beneath the tempest one has the haunting feeling that maybe nothing is really changing at all. Men are still hungrily looking for salvation, not so much in god or society anymore, but still somewhere-maybe in mystic love. They are desperate for immortality, on such a fundamental level that perhaps few are aware of it, but Bertrand Russell understood it when he said "all men want to be God, the only difference between a genius and another is that the genius is unwilling to admit that he can't be." Yet of course something is happening, something monumental. We as a civilization are rapidly approaching the era of total structure, total organization. The me ek are not going to inherit the earth, but the social scientists, the technocrats exercising power are. This is Shister's fearless prediction, his final idea as a writer with The Michigan Daily. Civilization will soon, within the next hundred years, have reached the point where if every- thing is not known, at least everything will be knowable. The computers are indeed destined to take over, and the men who make them work are destined to run the whole show. It is painful to say this, yet unavoidable: Humanists, those who do believe that there is something noble about the human being and that if shown the way he will prevail with grandeur, are in the rear-guard, not the vanguard of society. Our destiny is to be created and nurtured in an environment where chance is drama- tically minimized and order is forever. "I know all the truth this world has, and that is that it has none" writes Camus in the person of one of his characters. The spectre of absurdity pervades life, but still the Odyssey of life is a fine one even if there is no Ithaca at the end of the road. 4 Which Road to Arab Nationalism? By REUBEN RAINISCHI Daily uest Writer As ANISRAELI STUDENT I would like to lrespond to sev eral points raised by Mr. Imad Khadduri in his two articles on the "Palestinian Liberation Move- ment," but I must first congratu- late Mr. Khadduri for being the first Arab, student (in my period of study here) with the courage and intellectual openmindedness to admit that Arab countries themselves are burdened with "corrupt governments and rel- atively stagnant societies" and that their primary responsibility is to change these conditions for their ownl people. In his article Mr. Khadduri equates Israel to the French colonialists who ruled in Algeria and other parts of Africa. I have no doubt that many people in Is- rael, having had to fight by themselves a very 'costly war against British imperialist inter- ests in the Middle East, have the strongest admiration for the A l- gerian freedom fighters. However, may I remind Mr. Khadduri that French settlers in Algeria did not have any cultural ties or feelings of heritage for Al- geria before they migrated and established themselves in that land. Also, behind the French settlers stood a leading colonial power while behind the immi- grants to Israel stood nothing but the sea and British detention camps in Cyprus. It is interesting to note that in Israel, British foreign domination was replaced by sound democratic institutions while in Algeria, colonialism was replaced by a military junta. It is really unfortunate that a na- tionalist like Ben Bella went from a French jail to an Algerian free- dom jail! Mr. Khaddurn sees Israel as a creation of foreign designs intend- ed to suppress Arab freedom. But may I remind him that since its creation Israel has never served as a base for foreign troops, has nod alligned itself with foreign military personnel. Yet taking a brief glimpse at the Arabic world, we are wit- nessing the operation of Ameri- can military bases in Saudi Arab- ia and Libya. And it is no longer a secret that Russian naval forces use Arab ports of Latakia, Port Said, and Alexandria as de facto naval bases and that the entire Egyptian army is now guided, trained, and supported by Rus- sian military machinery set up in Egypt. WHILE I SHARE Mr. sKhad- duri's desire for the creation of some kind of economically viable' and socially just Arab Palestine, let no one forget that Jordan seized the area of the West Bank during the 1949 war with Israel' and the Palestinian liberation cause was then betrayed by' its very saviors.' The conference table can very easily lead to an independent Arab Palestine and there is no need to sacrifice additional lives of young courageous° Arabs who desire their own independence. Since the six day war, Israel has many times renewed its request for direct talks with its Arab neighbors. I am confident that a confer.: ence between Israel and the con- cerned Arab states and repre- sentatives of the Palestinian Arabs themselves can produce an in- dependent Arab Palestine within the borders of historic Palestine as the United Nations partition plan called for in 1947. However, to ask Israel to relinquish its military gains without a sound peace in the area would be forcing her back into the vulnerable po- gition in which she found her- self prior to June 5, 1967. And now, by refusing to ne- gotiate with Israel in a peaceful manner under United Nations Representative Jarring's guidance, the Arab states are continuing to murder the Palestinian national- ist movement. And at the same time, non-Palestinian Arabs have the naked audacity to complain (much like the fellow who kills his own parents and then asks "Why, am I an orphan"), that Palestinian independence is being thwarted. I cannot escape the conclusion that what hinders the establish- ment of a just peace in the Middle East is the fact that the coun-i tries Which Israel is inviting to the conference table are pres- ently ruled by outdated royalist and feudal regimes on the one hand and military 4extremists un- der the disguise of socialistic na- tionalists on the other. WHAT WE ARE SEEING in 'Palestine' is 'an intervention by Arab countries from outside Pal- estine to "safeguard" the interests of the Palestinians. However, this same intervention on the lat- ter's behalf has already led the Middle East into three wars with tremendous men and material losses and the creation of num- erous refugees. I once listened to a broadcast in Israel by His (then) Majesty Ibn Saud who, pledged ten million Arab lives for the 'cleansing of Palestine from its Zionistic cancer'. By saying that the Palestinians as a libera- tion movement. can "be detroyed but not conquered" in their ef- forts to achieve "the elimination of the political state of Israel," Mr. Khadduri displays not only his desire for the violent destruc- tion of one society but also his willingness to commit - even unto another's total annihilation -- a would-be nationalism which he does not represent. Personally, I feel that if the Palestinian Arabs had less sup- port and backing from their Arab "brothers" across the frontiers, their cause of self-determination would have already triumphed. In conclusion it is perhaps ap- propriate that I repeat here Mr. Abba Eban's statement to the world "Let us not go backward to belligerency but forward to peace." What we are witnessing now during this period of no war and no peace is the continuation of the old trends that the coun- tries in the area are devoting their entire national efforts, their energies, and their material re- sources to the causes of arma- ment and military alertness. AND THIS IS DONE at a time when both Arabs and Israelis are are in a desperate need to devote more of their resources to an im- proved standard of living. Let us just think for a moment how much safer and better and healthier the entire Middle East could be if we would but work together. The conference, table is still waiting. fI 1* l Letters: Logicand the Pill ., , The Daily is a member. of the Associated Press, Collegiate Press Servite and Liberation News Service. Second class postage paid at Ann Arbor, Michigan. 420 Maynard St.. Ann Arbor. Michigan, 48104. Daily except Monday during regular academic school year Daily except Sunday and Monday during regular summer session. Fall sd winter subscription rate: $4.50 per term by carrie: ($5 by mail); $8.00 for regular academic school year ($9 by mail). Editorial Staff MARK LEVIN, Editor STEPHENWTLDSTROM URBAN LEHNER Managing Editor Editorial Director DAVID KNOKE, Executive Editor CAROLYN MIEGEL.......Associate Editoria) Director WALTER SHAPTRO .......Associate Editorial Director WALLACE IMMEN....................News Editor PAT O'DONOHUE:.... .............News Editor LUCY KENNEDY ...............Personnel Director DANIEL OKRENT' ............ .......Feature Editor NEAL BRUSS. .......... ...Magazine Editor ALISON SYMROSKI .... Associate Magazine Editor DAVID DUBOFF................ Contributing Editor AVIVA KEMPNER ...,.......... Contributing Editor ANDY SACKS. ..............Photo Editor ROBERT SHEFFIELD .................. Lab Chief NIGHT EDITORS: Marcia Abramson, Rob Beattie, Jill Crabtree, John Gray, Henry Grix, Jim Heck, Ron Landsman, Steve Nissen, Richard Winter. DAY EDITORS: Phil Block, Eleanor Braun, David Mann, Michael Thoryn. Sbort Staff To the Editor: NOT EVEN from the Liberation News Service does one expect an article asblinded, stupid, and illogical as David Epstein's "Ca- pitalism, the Third World, and the Pill" of last Saturday. We may summarize Epstein's argument thus: the U.S. is exploiting the Third World; therefore, birth con- trol is evil. The seemingly "logidal connec- tion" is effected through vague references to a monolithic "Es- tgblishment" gaining from the population control it insidiously purveys. Epstein's observations concern only those regions in which birth control might be in the economic interests of this Establishment: even here his evidence is strained and unconvin- cing, consisting, largely of pre- sumptions of guilt-by-association, totally unreal assumptions of class deference, et cetera.' In the vast majority of the Third World, overpopulation is directly felt as misery: the major example is, of course, India. It is not only exploitation which causes underdevelopment - it is aqually poverty and underdevelop- nent which cause inefficiency and secondarily exploitation: causal- ity runs in circles, not segments. In his conclusion, Epstein uses an argument that is logical only in a Marxian system of logic, in which the power of the Establish- ment is axiomatically the greatest evil. He claims that birth con- trol serves to disarm the miser- able masses. There is some truth to this position: birth control will disarm the masses in their quest for power. But the struggle. is not for power; it is against misery, The means is confused with the -ad' orr .f+-i mwPnnn nf the matters broadly construable as "political." Epstein's subject mat- ter is surely relevant; his title is intriguing. But the article itself is a fraud: itself far more deter- mined by the grimy monolith of anti-Establishmentarianism than the monolith it professes to ex- pose. It did not deserve the stamp of respectability that is automa- tically by publication in The Daily. -Fred L. Bookstein Joseph J. Bookstein, M. D. Means and Ends To the Editor: IN VIEW of the profoundly un- settling events of the past week I feel compelled to issue an appeal to all parties in the current Amer- ican racio-economic crisis, i.e. everyone of us. Please bear in mind the necessary and intimate link between the nature of the means employed to deal with socialprob- lems and the nature of the ulti- mate result. The black-poor and their sym- pathizers should harbor an aware- ness that if revolutionary change is precipitated that this style or operation is not likely to be dis- persed by the winds of change once success is achieved; leaders propelled to the surface by such a movement most probably would come wearing blinders of enmity which would inhibit constructive programs and the institution of true civil liberties. It is doubtful that the prevalent take-take-take "tactic." once widely employed, would stop with the attainment of immediate needs, and it is hardly compatible with the personal dig- nity which blacks profess to be czplri r should not be allowed to over- whelm vigilance against brutality, h e a v y-h a n d e d administrative measures, and trigger-happy in- clinations among soldiers, police, and the burgeoning, panic-strick- en armed citizenry. In short, everyone must exercise his utmost ingenuity in finding means which are consonant with the ends envisaged. I am not sure that the govern- mental policy of "help - when - you - can - but - mostly - just - step - aside" advocated by Mr. Lehner in last Sunday's editorial' is the best of all possible choices,' but few of the (albeit ill-funded) programs of the now infamous "planners" have met with much success so far, and I am willing to endorse the experiment.. De- veloping separate enterprises is something blacks want to do and would channel the black people'sF already extant sense of community '" into activities which would be of concrete benefit to their livelihood. BUT IF THIS separatism is to contribute toward the long-range resolution of this nation's racial problems it must be a functional, creative separatism by mutual agreement rather than by mutual recrimination. Toward this end it is imperative that articulate black, leaders steal at least part of the communications stage from their fire-bombing brothers and clear- ly elucidate this neo-separatism to their justifiably terrified white fellow Americans. It would be tragic if blacks were to give up talking just when whites are be-' ginning to listen. -Lynn Struve, Grad. Neither the University nor any group othEh than the ad hoc committee of the four predomin- antly Negro Greek organizations; planned that week's activities. The article stated that it was a "University program in con- junction with 'National Negro History Week'" and this is defin'- itely wrong. The parcelling of the authors' report on that pro- gram in between the interviews is misleading because it insinautes that those persons int'erviewed planned it and none of thoe per- sons'were on the Committee. Since the two authors of this particular article either did not know who planned the program or chose to' ignore this in their article, let me explain exactly who the planners represent and what the program represented. The Central Committee of the Nation- al Negro History WeekhCommit- tee is composed of the Philan- thropic or Service Chairmen of the University of Michigan chap- ters of Alpha Kappa ;Alpha Sor- ority, Alpha Phi Alpha Frater- nity, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, and Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity., The other com=6ittee,, members were members of the philan- thropic committees of these four Greek organizations, with two exceptions, one independent stu- dent (unaffiliated. with any stu- dent organization) and one mem- ber of Phi Epsilon Pi. THIS COMMITTEE was formed so that the four Greek organiza- tions could work together and, with! independents to plan ac- tivities to celebrate National Ne- gro History Week. This ad hoc committee adopted as its theme "The Role of the Black Student in the White University." ;Knowing The article could have been more enlightening as far as the National Negro History Week pro- gram had you consulted the ads that the Committee placed in The Daily (March 20-24, 1968) or the Presidents of any of the Greek organizations involved. It would have made your article less mis- leading and less subjective but it would have made the article more accurate and more objective. One last comment about the article. The research for the Ne- gro History course and the in- itiative for discussions with the administration orginated'with the committee of the four Greek or- ganizations chairmanned by Mr. Richard Ross. I hope that in the future when The Daily decides to'print articles on the black students on campus" and their activities that it will try to obtain all the facts first. -Yvette D. Casey, '69 Chairman, National Negro History Week Committee Initiations To the Editor: THE CONDEMNATION of "one of honorary fraternities" (Daily, April 9) for its lack of propriety in holding initiations last Friday was unjustified. For those people King's death had no tragic import, nor could they really rec- ognize it as a national tragedy. The cancellation of "their juve- nile antics" would have been no more than hypocrisy. Miss Duffy perhaps meant to say she is disgusted with a cul- ture which breeds people blind to their most obvious moral respon- sibilities and -with a sense of brotherhood which is less than skin deep. The events of the past fn .x ,q r ixole aYf -, vn C r 9. Y,