PAGE EIGHT THE MICHIGAN DAILY SATURDAY, MAY 13,19+67 PAGE EIGHT THE MICHIGAN DAILY SATURDAY. MAY 13 19G7 s:a.ca .w. al.wVasaa aa} d.Talis.L .I"Vf 1vV STowards The NeOwer By HARVEY WASSERMAN Editorial Director, '66-'67 F OR THE PAST fifty years the politics of the United States has centered around two basic ideologies-liberalism and conser- vatism. Each has acted in its own separate way to enlarge the state. I 4 Conservatism: Most Ameri- can conservatives claim they oper- ate within a framework of 19th century liberalism, that is, the doctrine of laissez faire. In prac- tice this has involved in the eco- nomic sphere the defense of priv- ate rather than public corpora- tion. While legitimately following their philosophy in opposition to social welfare legislation, conser- vatives fought anti-corporation legislation on "free . enterprise" grounds when in fact the legisla- tion was aimed at preserving pre- cisely that. It was no accident that the Republican party became the party of big money. far more important, however, was the fact that while conserva- iives were fighting the expansion of the state into the economic, sphere, they were promoting its role in curtailing civil liberties. In 'the name of anti-communism the1 conservatives have been the prime promoters of a military establish- ment and a CIA-HUAC-FBI leg-, acy of Federal control that be- speaks Orwellian authoritarian- ism far better than the early Am- erican concept of free speech. 0 Liberalism: But it has been the liberals, not the conservatives, that have run the country since 1932. Their legacy is greater and more dangerous than that of the conservatives. For in their self-ordained pur- suit of social justice and social equity the liberals have created exactly what the conservatives predicted-a huge, crushing wel- fare bureaucracy. The social leg- islation of the New Deal may have cost hte conservatives some mon- ey, but it cost the poor any inclin- ation they might have had for es- tablishing a life independent of affluent America. Welfare means money. The Am- erican poverty program gives the poor enough to live on plus a bit more. The system keeps its de- pendents from working, offers enough education to acculturate the poor young but too little to form the basis of a decent living. There is not enough leeway for the establishment of one's own in- dependence -- welfare recipients are not encouraged to organize and remove themselves from the dole lists (in fact, some are losing their support for doing precisely that), all are taught how to fill out government forms. In essence the liberals have brought the poor into a value sys- tem but have been unable or un- willing to give enough so that the beneficiaries can move in it hap- pily. At the same itme they dis- courage other value systems from forming-witness the liberal re- action to black power and black nationalism. The poor individual has become and must remain the semi-poor independent. For the liberals themselves this has meant the establishment of a large poverty corporation, which they run through the government and the universities, whose pur- pose has been to administer a way of life to the slums. THUS BOTH liberals and con- servatives have expanded the sttae to the detriment of its citi- zens. The conservative brand of authoritarianism-control of free- dom of speech, emphasis on the military and on the large corpor- ation-has progressed quite well. The liberal brand of authoritar- ianism-the imposition of a legis- lated value system on the poor- has also won out. And much to everyone's sur- prise and chagrin, the meld has created 4 war in Asia-one which brings the cooperaiton ow the two philosophies into remarkable re- lief. . .Soon there must emerge the synthesis-the political hippies. The New Left has undertaken the struggle for community organization. Ultimately, its program is to take a seat of power from Washington and put it in the words. The wards may send delegates to a city council, 'a city council may send delegates to Washington. The city block will at last return to its residents.. ...................................... ...............................................smgssa2##22%ENEammMME~en Left or just plain fail on power terms, as liberals gleefully predict when criticizing militant tactics as "hurting your own cause." NO, THE ANSWER is not in that New Left. Nor is it yet in the hippies. But the hippies are really the first to-hit at the core of the problem. For while the New Lefters have correctly estimated the power problem in terms of a total system, the hippies less con- sciously have put their finger on . . the ultimate manifestation - the life-style itself. They have com- mitted the supreme act of rebel- ss - con- lion-total rejection. of a way of life. less fortunate brothers in India, Africa, Asia and Latin America. Thus an international poverty program-foreign aid-came into being. University economists and sociologists chose the word "un- derdeveloped" as the tool for studying those countries. When one says "under"-before something, that implies that the main term is desirable. "Develop- ed" in this case refers to a mod- ernization process as known in the United States-urbanization. mass production, mass consumption. American liberals decided that was the best course for the Third World. In order to attain American style modernization, large influx- es of capital were needed-a pat- tern that fit well the interests of U.S. corporations. To insure the corporate investments, had a strong interest in maintaining sta- bility in the'Third World. That is why consensus is so easily ob- tainable on Vietnam. The anti- Communist militarism of the con- servative wing is satisfied; the do- gooder role of the liberal wing isI the United States has a powerful, often deciding, role to play in shaping the lives of the Vietna- mese. How could they oppose him on that? It was in large part their idea in the first place. Thus the circle is complete, TheI liberals, for all their humanitar- corporate, faceless, ma sumption society. The hard-core New Left differs The old-timer Ginsberg does it from the left of the thirties bas- not so much in his poetry as in ically in its lack of a substitute his insistence on living on $3000 structure. The old left saw the a year. The San Francisco hippies problem in terms of an economic do it certainly not in their in- system, the New correctly sees it sistence on wild clothes, but in as being far too much to be in- their giving away food, in their cluded in a single specific pro- living 20 and 30 to a house. and gram. Instead it fights for the in their sharing of children, wives sweeping concept of "democracy" and lives in the name of Love -- ,, (not, as in middle class circles, co- satisfied. And everybody makes ianism, created and sustain a bu- money on the deal. reaucracy (they even call it a Yet, one might object, it is the liberals who are giving Johnson the trouble. Well, yes and no. The only man yet to correctly describe the main stream of liberal dis- sent on the war has been, of all "war" on poverty) at home and abroad, whose end is- to promote a worldwide hegemony of the as a cure-all. American way of life. The conserv- w atives, for all their pronounced What "democracy" means is al- fear of bigness, created and sus- lowing those on the bottom to re- tain 54 mi-na i-A iht d s ti i wer a r s befits their numbers. people, Lyndon Johnson. He can-'Lai i r n veLg~v ut 6u ed thefi "nervous nellies" and that operation that stifles freedom of not their wea is precisely what they are. They speech and will not allow the poor decry the cost of men, they fear of a country to overthrow its rich. THE END war with China. But they do not advocate an end to the U.S. com- IN REACTION comes the New distribution mitment. Left, or perhaps I should now say far only b alth. purpose of that re- of power has thus ecome sophisticated vertly, and in the name of for- bidden pleasure). The hippies, with drugs and with games, with days of talk and play, create one thing -community. "Community" for the hippies in- volves the one element most lack- ing in American society-a con- cern for the rights of other peo- ple not within a pre-conceived val- ue system. but for their individ- ual selves. The statement is in the com- munal life-style. It is one of com- plete freedom, where each makes his contribution and is treated as an individual. The sexes seem to merge in clothing and long hair, the people merge in a non-ac- quisitiveness that denies status, the minds seem to merge in a sort of anti-intellectualism that goes beyond traditional academia. What comes through is a far deep- er and more naturally expressive self than is possible in the very ornamental American way of life. The expressive arts take prece- dence and all the hippies work at making their lives fit that art in totality. But the hippies are outside pow- er in the usual sense. Their force lies in their ability to attract fol- lowers by example, and no more., The leaders of the New Left do not make use of power-their ac- tivities are as Clausewitzien as Johnson's, and in accepting his terms they have accepted at least some of his system. They dress and live it. SOON THERE must emerge the synthesis - the political hippies. The New Left has undertaken the struggle for community organiza- tion. Ultimately, its program is to take the seat of power from Wash- ington and put it in the wards. The wards may send delegates to, a city council, a city council may send delegates to Washington. The city block will at last return to its residents. Winning that power situation will be, of course, quite a job. But the New Left has undertaken a self-defeating task. It wants hap- piness for its people but seems bent on. organizing them to move up in a system that is dedicated to keeping them down and into a life- style that has produced new high- rise slums to replace the old and socially more promising slums. Even if they succeed in making the city block an effective offen- sive political unit, their thrust seems to be at precisely what they should be trying to avoid. In today's terms, an effective small community organization needs a good political offense just to stay alive. But the task would be easier if there were somewhere else to go than the traditional "up." That job must fall to a new breed of leaders, one farther re- moved from the mainstream of American life. They will be part hippie, part existential organizer. They will organize not to fight but to drop out; their primary change from New Left leadership will be the ultimate rejection of power in any form. Their aim will be not to build political machines, but self- -sustained and independent living units. SO SOON you will be hearing that Abraham Lincoln was ourx worst President because he killed 500,000 men to preserve the na- tion-state. That Franklin Roose- velt was a bad one because he ex- tended the control of one man into the lives of millions. That not only should there be no draft, or army, but also no Presidentd to pay it and send it to war. That "Let the people decide" is less relevant than "Let the people Ialone."' IAnd that there should be no Imore public aid of any sort beyond When you can't afford to be dull sharpen your wits with NoDoz NoDoz keep alert tablets or new chewable mints, safe as coffee, help bring you back to your mental best... help you become more alert to the people and conditions around you. Non-habit forming. While studying, or after hours, sharpen your wits with NoDoz. Tablets or new Chewable Mints aily Classifieds Get Results (By the author of "Rally Round the Flag, Boys!", "Dobie Gillis," eta.) HOW TO GET A'S IN ALL YOUR FINAL EXAMS In today's column, the last of the school year, I don't intend to be funny. (I have achieved this objective many times throughout the year, but this time it's on purpose.) The hour is wrong for levity. Final exams are looming. Have you got a chance? Lsay yes! I say America did not become the world's foremost producer of stove bolts and gottgr pins by running away from a fight! You wilt pass your finals ! How? By studying. How? By learning mnemonics. Mnemonics, the science of memory aids, was, as we alt know, invented by the great Greek philosopher Mnemon in 526 B.C. (This, incidentally, was only one of the inven- tions of this fertile Athenian. He also invented the house cat, the opposing thumb, and, most important, the stair- case. Before the staircase people were forced willy-nilly to live out their lives on the ground floor, and many grew cross as bears. Especially Demosthenes who was elected Consul of Athens six times but never served because he was unable to get up to the office of the Commissioner of Oaths on the third floor to be sworn in. But after Mnemon's staircase, Demosthenes got to the third floor easy as pie -to Athens' sorrow, as it turned out. Demosthenes, his temper shortened by years of confinement to the ground floor, soon embroiled his countrymen in a series of sense- less wars with the Medes, the Persians, and the Los Angeles Rams. This later became known as the Missouri Compromise.) , ' t : K4 Y/. /4 It For the war in Vietnam, though supported most strongly by con-{ servatives, is in fact a liberal's Vietnam is not a war of mili- tarism-it is one of welfare. The typical defense comes firom Rober t lcNamara, the liberal in charge of the war machinery. When ask- ed recently about the Vietnamese lives being lost in the war, his response, as befits his social con- cern, was a rieference to saving their souls. Perhaps the most im- portant architect of the Vietnam policy is not a military san, bute "Of course think it should be le the economist Walt m Rostow. Now a high Johnson advisor, Rostow's highly influential theories of eco-I success of "take-off," stability Far from it. The New York nomic development for "'under- was needed. Any social movement Times finds escalation "no strate-, developed" countries conveniently that threatened to take the out- gy at all" but says in no uncer- include sections oil strict opposi- moded route of nationalization stamn terms U.S. permanence in tion to nationalism and the cur- would be stopped. To stop those the south is "'a sound one." Ar- tailment of any guerilla activities movements, a military presence thur Schlesinger, Jr., furrows his A,, i-zf n, f..hlp. P ,rnmn'rt __- 1.,.a - .,....A hrnw, hat Tohr~ej' li.,, to the But I digress. We were discussing mnemonics, which are nothing more than aids to memory-little jingles to help you remember names, dates, and places. For example: Columbus sailed the ocean blue In fourteen hundred ninety tiro. See how simple? Make up your own jingles. What, for instance, came after Columbus's discovery of America? The Boston Tea Party, of course. Try this: Sanmuel Adams Hlangq the tea Into the briny Zayder Zee. (NOTE: The Zuyder Zee was located in Boston Harbor until 1801 when almon P. Chase traded it to Holland for Alaska and two line buckers.k But I digress Let's get back sto nicnmnics. Like this. In mietrs f Pern,cd ' ix-I ftse " edse d s Personna Blades nrake ,rslriand,(eu -onya.ev_ I mention Personna because the makers of Personna Super Stainless Steel Blades are the sponsors of this column. If I may get a little misty in this, the final column of the school year, may I say it's been a pleasure working for Personna? May I say further that it's been an even greater pleasure working for you, the undergrads of America? You've been a most satisfactory audience, and I'm going to miss you this summer. In fact, I'd ask you all to come visit me except there is no access to my room. The makers of Personna, after I missed several deadlines, walled me in. I have no doors or windows-only a mail slot. I slip the ,columns out; they slip in Personnas and such food as can go through a mail slot. (For the past six months I've been living on after dinner mints.) I am only having my little joke. The makers of Personna have not walled me in, for they are good and true and gleaming and constant -as good and true and gleaming *4 galized." the Newer Left. The original New enough to involve a redistribution Left worships Castro and Lenin, of the wealth. In accepting the authoritarians themselves. This is conventional ends as well as the the leftism of Ramparts and Car- michael, those who will advocateI non-interference in Vietnam while aking intervention gainst Rho- dogmas and strategies of Ameri- can political power, the New Left has failed to create an alterna- tive life style. Carmichael hints >I I