Seventy-Sixth Year EDITED AND MANAGED 3Y STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN UNDER AUTHORITY OF BOARD IN CONTROL OF STUDENT PUBLICATIONS Direct Action and the Viet Nam, war Ah Inone AreFree, 420 MAYNARD ST., ANN AvLoR, MICH. Will Prevail NEws PHONE: 764-0552 Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 196& NIGHT EDITOR: BRUCE WASSERSTEIN German Elections Depict cGrowing Political Maturity LAST SUNDAY'S expected political vie- tory for West German Chancellor Ludwig Erhard demonstrates anew the- increasing political maturity of that na- tion and ensures continued economic and social development. Erhard's chief opponent, West Berlin's Mayor Willy Brandt was a worthy, sophisticated rival. A Brandt victory would not have altered the true signifi- cance of this election, which lies in the fact that the right-wing Free Democrat- ic party and other extremist splinter groups continued to lose power. Public opinion surveys taken in West Germany ten years ago indicated that approximately 14 per cent of the popula- tion would vote for a "man like Hitler" if they had the opportunity. Today, that figure. is close to four per cent. For. the first time in history, the Germans are making parliamentary democracy work for an extended period of time. (The post. World WarI Weimar Republic lasted no more than five years.) HOW CAN THIS apparent basic change in German politics be explained? Eco- nomic prosperity Is a highly important factor. West Germany today is the most prosperous nation in Europe, and on some production indices (steel, for example) ranks third= in the world. The gross na-f tional product is expanding at the heal- thy annual rate of five per cent. The. West German mark is a stable currency, one of the most solid in Europe. Unem- ployment is unknown in the New Ger- many; foreign labor is continually being recruited to help fill vacant jobs. The average German factory worker or clerk is taking home more money each week than his British, French or Italian coun- terpart, and he can now afford a car and a month-long annual vacation. Another important factor contributing to unprecedented German stability is prestige. One of the prime causes for Hitler's. rise to power was the post-war humiliation of Germany by the victor- ious World War I allies, expressed most clearly in the Versailles Treaty. Fortunately, the Western allies learned their lesson well. Thanks to the Marshall Plan and a more enlightened attitude in the United States and many European nations, Germany's World War II crimes have virtually been forgiven, although. they never will be forgotten. The Bonn government, at least, has been treated as a respectable . member of the world community, and while serious problems relating to reunification and the status of Berlin remain, there seems little chance of an immediate threat to West Germany's political and economic secur- ity. Due to this prosperity and success, there were few concrete issues in Sun- day's parliamentary contests. Personali- ties constituted the key to the election and the cigar-chomping Erhard has evi- dently retained his place as the personi- fication of German success and prosper- ity. In addition, he plays the role of the father-figure leader which West Ger- mans have preferred ever since Konrad Adenauer took over the leadership of the ravaged nation after the war. Some- what surprisingly, even the young gen- eration of Germans born during the war and voting for the first time Sunday opted for Erhard. THE DEEPER SOCIAL FORCES exerting their influence on Germans today may well involve unexpiated guilt for actions during World War II. Writers who have talked at length with Germans of all ages have found in them a curious re- luctance to think or talk about the Hitler years. The younger generations contend that they are in no way responsible for what happened, and they are right, but for the most part they show little inter- est in probing the reasons for German society's mass hypnosis by Hitler. The older citizens, those who played some kind of role during the wartime years, are understandably anxious to for- get, but their attitude when queried, seems, by and large, to result from some- thing approaching mass repression of wartime memories, and a resultant over- preoccupation with material values. This rampant materialism, while common' to much of the Western world, has reduced German culture to a mechanical, spirit- less expression of its society's bourgeois preoccupations. Even more discouraging, the younger generation in Germany shows none of the idealism and political vigor which char- acterizes at least a healthy minority of their counterparts in the United States and elsewhere in Western Europe.. SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGISTS will un- doubtedly find much in Sunday's elec- tion to confirm tentative theories re- garding an authoritarian strain common to German society as a whole. Whether or not such a hypothesis is correct, the world community can at least take some comfort from the election results. Despite deficiencies and weaknesses in German society (and no society is free from such failings), it seems apparent that, for the forseeable future, West Ger- many presents no visible ,threat to world peace. However, a "German problem" re- mains with us. Settlement of the question of German reunification and her disput- ed eastern borders with Poland, as well as the German role in the Western alli- ance must assume top diplomatic prior- ity as soon as the rapidly multiplying crises in the Far East assume managable proportions. -CLARENCE FANTO IN MOST of the Viet Nam semi- nars late last Friday night the conversation understandably turn- ed toward action programs, and in one of those seminars, down in. 25 Angell Hall, the issue of how to mobilize opposition to the war quickly became polarized. There were those who felt di- rect action programs would be most effective, and there were those who maintained that mobili- zation should depend primarily on convincing people with written and spoken arguments instead of demonstrations or civil disobed- ience.. The question was not, by and large, moral or ethical. One dirk not necessarily favor an empha- sis on educational tactics because he believed in not disrupting so- cial order; one did not necessar- ily favor a direct action emphasis because he could not accept being "soft" or believed supporters of the war were evil and one would have to fight fire with fire. Rather, the question was prac- tical: which emphasis would most likely maximize pressure for with- drawal of U.S. troops and the holding of free elections? THE PRINCIPAL proponent of a direct action emphasis argued that the war against Viet Nam is an extremely unpopular war and is not deeply imbedded in Amer- ican values and in the require- ments and structure of our social institutions. If the sit-ins, free- dom rides and demonstrations which hailed the birth of social protest in America in 1960 could mobilize popular opinion and leg- islation on the far more imbedded issue of Negro rights, then sim- ilar direct action should be at least as successful with respect to the war against Viet Nam. The nation was convinced in the case of civil rights, this pro- ponent argued, mainly because people were impressed by the cour- age and commitment which civil rights activiste manifested through. their protests. Direct action on the war against Viet Nam could play on the same emotional responses, making the public far more receptive to the various "academic' 'arguments al- so being offered for opposing the war and making people willing to pressure the Johnson administra- tion into actually seeking peace. I think this position is the most valid. Because of and despite var- ious conditions in the United States today, the potential for or- ganizing war opposition need not be destroyed-and can perhaps be actualized better-by direct action. IN ORDER to make personal actions functional for the eco- nomic relationships on which American society is based, a fun- damentally Hobbesion ethic has, over time, been implicitly incul- cated into the thinking of most Americans. According to this ethic, men are by nature evil and, if left to their own devices, are incapable of achieving individual or social good. Yet men must be organized into collective units to ensure civil or- der and for the more efficient production of goods and services; at the same time, they are con., tinually subject to the efforts of other evil men to impose their will on them. Those governments which have emerged in human history are, therefore, necessarily authoritarian. A far more accurate description (I think) holds man basically amoral-that is, human behavior is not a function of a religiously- metaphysically concerned locus of causation and cannot be evalu- ated in terms of the absolute standard of good and bad sup- posedly established by that locus. RATHER, reality and human behavior are basically materialis- tic; fundamental physiological and psychological needs of the human animal require that indi- viduals combine together to more effectively convert the various forms of energy available into sus- tenance. The particular form which the social order takes is a function of the particular rela- tionships required by the forms of energy and the nature of con- verting tools which a civilization can exploit for this purpose. Moral notions are selectively reinforced through these relation- ships; since inefficiencies and breakdowns in the system soon become evident and are (natural- ly or by conscious effort) nega- tively sanctioned, only those mor- al notions which will produce per- sonal action that is functional for these relationships can per- sist. In this materialistic view, any unhappiness in the world is a (somewhat necessary) result of the repressions imposed by these economic relationships, not of the basic evil or incapacity for ful- fillment of men. The requirements, ii iterms of social organization, of the ener- gy forms and technology current- ly utilized necessitate limitations on many forms of human activity. Activities are dysfunctional if they do not yield usable goods or serv- ices-those engaging in the ac- tivity use more energy in surviv- ing than they return to the sys- tem. Activities are also dysfunc- tional if they alter the complex of relationships already establish- ed-society must then expend to correct the teniporary imbalance, preserve the power differentiations which are needed and guard against further infractions. THE MATERIALISTIC view postulates, further, that natural human expression is not necessar- ily inherently, good or evil; rath- er, it can only be measured in terms of the satisfactions exper- ienced (both by the individual and by those who are affected by his, expression). I Without doubt this moralistic justification is more effective as an ethical system for limiting per- WHY NOT? By JEFFREY GOODMAN sonal action to what is functional than a materialistic justification. The person who sees the social system' in economic terms can hope to change the power rela- tionships expressing those eco- nomic requisites-and there are alternatives which would be pos- sible even in the U.S. But the person who sees the system simply as the necessary re- sult of man's basic evilness and who does not comprehend the roots of its particular form can have little hope for change. With- out hope he is, then more man- agable. To be sure, both this material- istic analysis and the Hobbesion metaphysical analysis can lead to the same type of social arrange- ment. Yet the difference in what is seen as the basis of social. problems ultimately means a great deal with respect to the purposes and methods of exercising nation- al power beyond national boun- daries. THE AVPRAGE middle-aged American understands social or- ganization almost solely in terms of the necessity to ward off the destructiveness which he considers to be basic to non-societal man, does not understand the econom- ic basis of either his morality or the American social system and has been invested with a path- ological incapacity to conceive of other forms of organization ful- filling the needs of societies with different energy resources and technology (and thus different no- tions of what is "moral" behavior). Viewing reality through this lens, the American finds endless justification for America's own pe- culiar brand of "wars of national liberation" (such as the war against Viet Nam). These wars characteristically- flow from the moralistic urge to save other people from a "foreign" form of social organization which, nevertheless, might best suit their economic resources and might best ensure maximum individual ex- pression (as by more equitably distributing the political capacity for directing 'the use of economic facilities, the only source from which genuine pluralism springs), PRESIDENT JOHNSON and all those who support him notwith- standing,,this is the true nature of what the United States is doing to Viet Nam and in the rest of the underdeveloped world which, has been made to depend on our foreign aid. Our conviction that there is only one form of organization which can save all mankind from itself has become so strong that we are engaged either in literal genocide or in the more subtle manipulations of propagandizing, supporting pro-Western dictators and engineering economic pro- grams which do not work because they are planted on the wrong base in the wrong way. Basically, we are insecure in our belief that as individuals we are incapable of achieving happiness on our own and insecure in our belief that the social system we inherit is as necessary to our well- being - as it is pervasive of our lives. So we vindicate our doubts by trumping up charges of "ex- ternal aggression" and platitudes about "fighting a war for peace and democracy" and "prove" our rightness to ourselves by killing. IN THE MEANTIME, those eco- nomic relationships which actual- ly determine our system from the start make wars almost a neces- sity: guns and bombs do not glut the consumer-goods markets and do bring profits and do minimize unemployment. These economic necessities, con- siderably strengthened by the need to protect American capital invest- ments and resource exploitation in foreign lands, have basically, caused most of our neo-colonial' wars, and the extension of the, crusader ethic has remained with us to determine, now more on its own than before, our present war against Viet Nam. It is the same. spirit in which we determine how the poor and the aged and the uneducated are to receive their benefits, in which we try hard to socialize both spir- it and individuality out of chil- dren, in which we exercise pater- nalistic controls over young adults, in which our leaders limit the, bounds of "free" debate, in which' we witch-hunt the deviants about us, in which we extend our mass consumption values through pres- surized advertising (where the consumer may be king) but the supplier is definitely Regent)., WHERE, THEN, is the potential for mobilizing a social movement which must essentially repudiate these notions, and how does di- rect action fit into that move- ment's tactics? The potential for a movement, lies in two groups: a) those who have never fully participated in the 'power relations of the socie- ty and who therefore have es- caped (or themselves rejected) its moralistic Justification; b) those who are now growing up into a world which. is finally too blat- antly overbearing to fpol them. In both these groups there is the possibility of appealing to the stifled instinct for existential ac- tion by actually engaging in ex- istential action. FOR THE NEGRO and white lumpen proletariat across the na- tion, the ethic of social infallibil- ity and social necessity is large- ly a sham, for the system has been neither infallible with respect to7 solving economic situations nor necessary for one to create mean- ingful culture based often on less- inhibited expression than is to be found elsewhere in middle-class America. Especially as illustrated by the riots of the past two summers-as well as by the civil rights move- ment and by the spontaneous way these classes have of expressing their natural violent reactions to the social system-there is tre- mendous potential sympathy for those others-mainly intellectuals and students-who would lead a movement. In the universities, it is the sensitivity born of greater intel- lectual development and experi- ence (or vice versa) which now forms the basis for the teach-' ins, for the Berkeley demonstra- tions and for the civil rights move- ment. What this sensitivity ulti- mately does is to sharpen the dif- ferentiation between one's natural needs and sensibilities and the restrictive, unsensible world. As with the poor declasse, one also finds oneself essentially un- able to participate in the deci- sions which are important to one's life, not only because a moralistic ethic prohibits really free expres- sion but also because the units with which one would deal are too large, too narrow in their al- lowances, too bureaucratized. SO THERE IS growing aliena- tion among college students and their teachers, and there has al- ways been potential for activat- ing the poor. There is a growing need to express oneself, however violently or unlawfully, if one is not to be drawn into dependence on the system's economic relation- ships and into self-delusion by its puppet ethic. Action is potentially the key, 'and in acting with re- spect to the war against Viet Nam one can also strike at that ethic in a second wiy, insisting that it does not justify the slaughter of a whole people. Just how much of this poten- tial can be turned into, political capital is a moot point, and it is not at all clear that the grip of the social system is not already too tight. But .in this case, education and proselytization will do no good either. Compared to direct action, this method inevitably poses the issues no more sharply and no more strongly calls upon latent desires for ,creative expression (in this case and in general, sincere civil disobedience is definitely cre- ative). YET ALMOST as quickly as protestors might organize, the war will sap the strength of this po- tential movement. Public opin- ion, news control and police sur- veillance become more- and more restrictive in wartime, and in any case many who would have joined the movement are being killed. Still, American soldiers die in much smaller numbers than do Vietnamese peasants. In not too long there will be no Viet Nam to save. *A * Ir A Veteran Backs the Viet Nam Conference To the Editor: A WORD of heart-felt thanks to all persons having to do with the Conference on Perspectives on Viet Nam. If, as we know, changes come only when enough people come to believe' that a thing is wrong and pring pressure on government for action, then there can be no doubt that the movement is on the right track. Particularly pleasing were the words spoken by Arthur Miller: "I do not like to be lied to by my (One of them was my younger brother, whose last words were, "It is a little tough to get it the last day.") I leave Ann Arbor with the feel- ing that at long last something real is being done about this non- sense. -Stewart Graves, World War I Veteran Rice, Minn. SNCC Sign To the Editor: IT IS INTERESTING that so many are in agreement in con- demning the "war crimes" sign on grounds of taste and so much in agreement that that particular condemnation has become quite' casual, appearing in subordinate clauses in a number of Daily edi- torials. No one criticizes the logic of the sign, which is impeccable. The major premise, supplied by the sign, defines certain war crimes according to international law; the minor premise, supplied by the au- dience, is that the press and gov- ernment officials readily admit that our armed forces are per- forming these acts; the conclusion, supplied by the sign, is that the U.S. is committing war crimes. Q.E.D. In order to overturn this ar- gument it would be necessary to break down the major premise, by asserting that international law should not have moral or practi- cal force. If anyone would care to make that assertion, he should at least be fully aware of the kind of position that he has to take. MOST OBJECTION to the sign seems to settle upon the arrow which pointed out the Marine re- cruiters. Now this arrow seems de- cidedly healthy to me, because it locates in time and space the wrong being protested. If armed forces, whose purpose is killing, are wrong, then those recruiters are wrong, those very ones, right there. "Taste" in academia often seems to consist in eliminating time-and- space reality by means of ab- stractions, in order that we may deal with dirt without having to' touch it, without even having to' see it. Political people too, of the left as well as the right, talk about "things" like "the govern- ment," "th revolution," "national interests,""' the Establishment," "the U.S.," all of which, if you ever set out to find where they are, turn out not to exist. In dealing with these terms, we never have to deal with 'the hu- man beings underneath, which is a great help to everyone in avoid- ing moral pangs. IN WAR it is permissible to kill people without trial, in fact to kill people whom we admit to have been innocent, sort of by- the-way because "we" are fighting "the enemy," "the Viet Cong." A useful way of thinking, certain- ly, but unhealthy; unhealthy for ethics because the experiential re- alities with which ethics should deal are eliminated, and, subordi- nately, unhealthy for language be- cause words come to have neither objects nor behaviors to which they refer, while we continue to respond to them as though they did. Poor taste, surely. The "war crimes" sign, then, has refreshingly designated some- thing real-a few human beings-_ and certain behaviors of theirs- recruiting-and has shown us the point. It is possible to disagree with what was said about those recruiters,'but they were pointed' ;out as concrete loci of the prob- lem with perfect justice and, to my mind, with many more impli- cations than were probably for- seen; healthy implications never- theless. TO THOSE who consider the sign to have been in bad taste, I wish for you a world which is one big Hatcher tea forever, and God forbid that a dying man try- ing to hold his guts inside his belly should ever turn up on the coffee-table. -Martha MacNeal Zweig, Grad The Great UGLI Sit-In government." Fake and lack of popular in 1917,kplus all the and lack of protest have triggered off all that have brought us ent pass. The war and make the world mocracy turned out one more power grab. propaganda protest back propaganda since then, those events to our pres- to end war safe for de- to be just i Pro.? IN THE COURSE of human events, it becomes necessary to tear oneself off from the rotten decadence of the past and seek the utopian promise of the fu- ture. We, the students of the University, have reached a momentous juncture in history. Last Sunday the authoritarian tools of the administration-the jani- tors of the UGLI-locked students out of the Multipurpose Room of the library in order to limit the knowledge of the op- pressed masses. Would we take these tyrannical tactics lying down? No! WE TOOK THEM sitting down. Despite the administration's plot to thwart the sit-in by adding 371 new seats to the building this summer, we managed to mobilize enough devoted comrades whn were willingt n undergn the trving Con? THE UNDERGRADUATE LIBRARY was so crowded Sunday afternoon that quite a few students sat on the floor be- cause they couldn't find a place to study. Though some have tried to justify this "sit-in" on the grounds of an administra- tive "lockout" held the same day, the in- cident was the perfect example of Com- munist, cowardly and un-American ac- tivities at the University. What's more, it was in poor taste. Here administrators spend weeks and months installing 371 new seats in the UGLI, and students thank them by stag- ing a "sit-in" in return, just because the new seats were full. In addition to all that, where were the library experts among the protestors? A ND JUST HOW VALID does that make TO ADD insult to injury, the War Department (now called De- fense Department) awarded so- called "Victory Medals" bearing the inscription "The Great War for Civilization" to World War I military personnel. What a trav- esty the annual ceremonies at the grave of the unknown soldier are! What would he think if he could know how he had been betrayed? One wonders whether the un- known soldier was one of, the number who were needlessly sac- rificed during the last days of the war. A few days before the war ended, the Germans asked for an armistice and, to save lives, re- quested that hostilities cease. The request for a cease-fire was re- fused by the allies, and the Ger- mans were given until 11 a.m., November 11, to accept or reject the terms offered. Later, terms were agreed upon The Night The Kingston Trio Melted By PETER SARASOHN I WAS THERE when it finally happened and it was truly a terrible sight. The night the en- tire Kingston Trio melted away on the stage at Hill Auditorium -before a sold out crowd. From the start everyone was uncomfortable because of the heat. Being shown to your seat was like cutting through a Turkish bath. If you hadn't lathered up with a double dose of deodorant or drenched your clothes with Canoe or Old Spice, before the lights were lowered you felt and smelled air. Many were positive the folk singers were taking showers in their dressing rooms. Sporting new, dry (but not for long) shirts they began the second half of the show. AND THEN - during "Tom Dooley"-they started shrinking and melting onto the stage. By the end of "Where Have All the Flow- ers Gone" there were just three puddles of folk singer on the floor of the stage. Then they start-. ed dribbling towards the edge. Girls were screaming and running out of the building. Nick, one of 4.1- .S« - -4- 3 ,.n ... ..- .r.A" -as the Kingston Trio did-and be cut down in their prime. Excel- lent talents wasted because the University will not devote the at- tention to a problem that has ex- isted for a long time. It COULD BE even worse next time. It isn't too dangerous if only three or four performers melt but think of the Serendipity Sing- ers, the French Ballet or the Cleveland Philharmonic Orches- tra. If, they should melt all at once it would be disastrous. Those sitting in the first six rows would be lost for certain. Those in the the best dates, but Senior Life Savers aren't too bad. It would be a gamble with a Junior Life Saver but if she had been swimming in the past six months (ask for cer- tification) you could chance it. With others who did not have any of the Red Crosstcards, and who you felt you must date, you could follow this simple procedure. Some afternoon, instead of tak- ing her to coffee, you could sug- gest a swim at the IM pool, subtly that is. If she accepted then you .could check her degree of skill and decide whether she would be a safe date to take to Hill Audi- * r ..