94 e 3ir4ihign Baikj
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TUESDAY, AUGUST 12, 1969
NIGHT EDITOR: MARTIN A. HIRSCHMAN
Looking at
the pollution mongers
POLLUTION CONTROL and conserva-
tion are getting out of hand but with
luck and firm aggressive action it may be
possible to end their deadly hold on the
American landscape.
Each month, in highly reputed slick
page magazines powerful corporations
boast of their contributions in the quest
to overcome pollution and to preserve the
natural beauty of a country cursed with
noxious gases and unsightly wastes.
Olin-Matheison tells of the forests it
is helping to preserve and Standard Oil
speaks in glowing terms of the Eden they
maintain "right in the middle of an oil
field" providing a home for herons and
alligators. Trans Union Corporation soft-
ly murmurs in/stark black type the death
of Lake Erie and the "better business"
they will have in their effort to save the
next one.
It might seem, viewed in the proper
perspective, that an attack on pollution
by the private sector-those who are, in
fact, responsible for the polluting-would
be the best of possible solutions. If the
corporate interest, powerful and wealth
as it is, could be turned upon this task
s u r e ly the environmental dilemmas
which beset the nation could be dealt
with in short order. By concentrating a
massive effort, all the junk and poison
could be cleaned up. Such hopes ignore a
great deal of reality.
But there is a hint in all of this expen-
sive advertising that the noble exertions
are slightly less than altruistic. Pollution
today is a really soft sell. Everybody likes
Fair
warning
POPE PAUL VI deplored Sunday the
near nudity of climbers and drivers
on the crowded highways during Europe's
August vacation days.
In giving his Sunday noon blessing to
tourists at his summer palace in Castel
Gandolfo, Italy, the Pope wished them
happy holidays, but warned against "un-
bridled worldly amusements that seem to
have become the fashion these days."
He mentioned specifically "the sham-
less naturism at certain beaches and
camping places, the ill-considered risks
of some Alpine ventures, and imprudent
driving on highways."
The Pope told the crowd gathered for
his blessing to have a good time, but not
to forget in their quest for amusement
that the holidays also were intended "for
the recovery of physical and spiritual
strength."
The Pope also condemned, in his
speech, the terrorist bombing of trains.
-THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Summer Staff
MARCIA ABRAMSON .........Co-Editor
CHRIS STEEL........ .. Co-Editor
MARTIN HIRSCHMAN .. Summer Supplement Editor
JIM FORRESSTER.............Summer Sports Editor
LEE KIRK..........Associate Summer Sports Editor
ERIC PERGEAUX ................. Photo Editor
NIGHT EDITORS: Nadine Cohodas, Martin Hirsch-
man, Judy Sarasohn, Daniel Zwerdling.
ASSISTANT NIGHT EDITORS: Laurie Harris, Judy
Kahn, Scott Mixer, Bard Montgomery.
Business Staff
GEORGE BRISTOL, Business Manager
STEVE ELMAN . Administrative Advertising Manager
SUE LERNER ..............Senior Sales Manager
LUCY PAPR..............Senior Sales Manager
NANCY ASIN..........Senior Circulatin Manager
BRUCE HAYDON ................Fi~nance Manager
DARIA KROGULSKI...... Associate Finance Manager
BARBARA SCHULZ .............. Personnel Manager
to read about it and everyone is happy
when they see someone is doing some-
thing about it.
But more than being popular, pollution
has the added, most enticing advantage
of being profitable. Perhaps the people at
Olin, one of nation's 50 largest defense
contractors - have established an office
for high-mindedness and possibly the
Standard Oil, long time sponsor of oil
depletion allowances and one of the origi-
nators of the giant monopoly, has de-
veloped a division in charge of altruism.
Somehow it seems a little bit unlikely.
Rather than a welling-up of public con-
sciousness the recent trend toward volub-
ly proclaiming a heartfelt concern for the
problems of pollution and the destruction
of natural beauty is more likely an ex-
pression of the same money hunger that
has always directed the course of these
companies.
RIGHT NOW concern over pollution is
making money for these and many
other corporate giants. Pollution is big
business and everyone wants to cash in
on it.
Perhaps the most repulsive of the ad-
vertisements of this genre to hit the
slick magazines in recent months has
been one sponsored by the R. J, Reynolds
Corp. Reynolds himself tells the reader
of the two page ad that the nation's junk
piles may become the aluminum mines
of the future.
He explains that because of aluminum's
extraordinary weather resistant capaci-
ties it will remain, shining and clean as
the day it was born, while other metals
will corrode. Thus all those discarded
pop-top cans will, as they pile up in mag-
nificent testimony to the beer-bellies
and decayed teeth of the world, provide a
valuable replacement for the earth's
limited supply of bauxite from which
Reynolds makes his metal.
THE PICTURE Reynolds draws is one
of continuous re-circulation. His com-
pany makes the cans. They are used and
discarded. Then, under the plan Reynolds
puts forward, can drives may be spon-
sored by the Boy Scouts to gather cans
to be sold back to Reynolds. The pro-
cess starts all over again and everyone,
presumably is happy.
The moral of the story is that, in our
society people will do anything for a
buck. People will splash pro-conserva-
tion advertisements all over magazines
if it makes their corporate image look
better. They will conserve all the alumi-
num they can get ahold of if it will
boost the profit margin.
UNFORTUNATELY those motives can-
not be depended upon to preserve
what little there is left in this country.
If pollution goes out of style no one
will continue to push anti-pollution cam-
paigns. If recirculation of metals proves
to be not so desirable for the profit
margin it will be scraped along with a
lot of metal that just sits there and
gleems and never rots away.
No, it is not the private sector of money
makers that will save the country from
poisoning itself. It must be strict fed-
eral control and regulation. Rules must
be enforced to restrict the pollution of
the environment as well as to end the
production of unnecessary items the need
for which is created by the corporate
geniuses rather than the desires of
people. Only when the federal govern-
ment acts can we hope to control the
desecration of the world.
CHRIS STEELE
r e _
;
The Texas Wedge
By DREW BOGEMA
THE SUN IS not shining on campuses these days. Increasingly,
Americans are coming to believe that their foreign policy
is a reactionary sham, that their government is run by a
bourgeois clique of fascists, self-seeking politicians, and puri-
tannical prates, that the tyranny of the majority cannot be
changed from within but only through armed revolt and
drastic transformation of the existing regime.
Actually, this is one of the worst things that could have
happened for the campus crowd. University folk have always
set themselves far apart from the coarse redneck and run-of-
the-mill bland, uninspiring suburbanite. Everyone knows they
lead their lives in a world of unimaginative desperation. The
campus, however, has styled itself as the aristocracy of value
for the remainder of the nation, carefully choosing from the
vast array of human experience what shall be called good,
worthwhile, meaningful, and relevant.
Unfortunately for the connoisseurs on campus, however,
a drastic change has occurred in the ways of the humdrum
.American. They have grown tired of copying the manners,
mores, and desires of the rich. They have become impatient
with the trappings of security that everywhere surrounds
them. They are beginning to complain of being channeled,
marketed, packaged, and programmed, dangerous notions to
capture the mind of any commuter. And, they are rapidly
turning toward copying the avant-garde of taste.
SUBURBANITES and rednecks, have, in the past, urgently
sought to somehow equalize their status with the intellectual
and cultural vanguard that are so painfully evident upon the
campus. Previously, however, awed by the exorbitant pre-
tensions of the thinking man, they concentrated their atten-
tion upon the successful businessman or the long-entrenched
well-to-do to distate how they should live.
They purchased homes in the suburbs with trees and grass
that strangely resembled Queen Anne miniatures in Grosse
Pointe or Westchester. They spent hours examining the fine
points of that homogeneous motley Detroit annually offers,
deciding finally upon the car that carried the most distinctive
flair. They searched every nook and corner of the neighbor-
hood F-Mart for the fashions of their uppers.
Today, however, they have scrapped their materialistic
ambitions, instead opting for subsistence living with the hard-
core staples of day-to-day existence. No more college insurance
te- plans for their children, thirty-year mortgages in Happytimes
in- Valley, despicable credit-cards or auto loans. Ten-to-one, it
ch one picked a random sample from the Sunday-morning at-
oks tendance in church, less than ten per cent would tell you they
u- believe in life after death.
40
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Mankind's Magnificent Obsession
Ont being inarticulate
By DANIEL ZWERDLING
"NOW LISTEN, motherfuckers,
we're going to shit on the
world and bust the bum trips
" anonymous underground
press.
The same citizens who brought,
us anti-sex education have now
launched a frenzied attack on un-
derground newspapers which foist
terms of human sex and body
functions on the virgin public.
Perversely, they may be right: all-
purpose four letter words and
epithets should be scourged from
the newspapers, but to identify
and sentitize human expression in-
stead of oppress it.
Underground papers have been
shoveled underground by most of,
the publicbecause it views these
papers like moles, crawly dirty
things which grovel in the earth
we walk on. That's what the same
people think of their bodies: they
hide them on smut stands run
by grizzled New York bums or in
the naughty secret of a room with
the door closed and the lights
out and the kids asleep.
Fortunately, t h e s e anti-ob-
scenity advocates won't get far
trying to abolish the four letter
apithets they abhor because the
words and thoughts persist in peo-
ple's minds, and the Constitution
guarantees our right to print and
say them. Free speech and polit-
ical expression are cherished
American ideals-even if we often
trample them-and the Supreme
Court at least has recognized the
right of people to use any words
they want to express themselves.
But the fact is the copious fucks
of some underground publications
are killing sensitive human com-
munications. Americans speak a
marvelous language which can ex-
press the wonderful peculiarities
and nuances and fine variations
of human existence. Too many
papers trying to liberate them-
selves from society's v e r b a 1
shackles and taboos spread their
liberated terminology so thick,
that in their zeal they have suf-
focated complex subtle expression
with a gross cloak of inexpressive
rhetoric.
THIS IS IRONIC. The liberated
of the left, many of the same peo-
ple who thrive in T-groups and
Esalen encounters and bemoan
the insensitivity of America's so-
cial machine and the communica-
tions breakdown between human
beings-many of these same peo-
ple live their verbal lives in the
all-puprpose world of "mother-
fucker" "pig" and "shit," words
now so comnon and indiscrim-
inately applied that they have lost
all their meaning, They are, among
student-aged groups especially,
not even much good as curse-
words: the words are too unspe-
cialized to relieve the frustrations
which a cautiously chosen "damn"
could in parlors of the 1920's.
(A British magazine, in fact,
has proposed a Royal Society for
the Preservation of Profanity
which would devise a new set
of three-letter words "which will
provide the harrassed male with
the same blessed release he could
obtain from our late-emasculated
four-letter variety.")
THE ONLY consolation for this
increasing inability for sensitive
verbal expression is, the estab-
lished media invented it first and
rammed it down our throats. So
some underground papers are
simply a radical version of the
rhetoric name-calling and label-
ling which the New York' Times
and Newsweek and TV news par-
cel out wholesale.
The media-and consequently,
the people who absorb them-
cannot deal with complex indi-
vidual qualities.
Thus, John Brown, a marvelous
living network of protoplasmic
existence who has lived through
intense experiences and thoughts
and metamorpheses, becomes in
Time magazine: "John Brown, 22
year old hippie." What is a hip-
pie? Apparently only Time knows
for sure.
THIS SAME labelling produces
problems on the left. What is a
"pig"? A man who works for a
police force? Yes, but as ca
gorical "pig" he is laden withi
stinctive value images of hum
brutality and oppression, in mu
the same way as our civics bo
taught us to picture "comm
nism."
Much as someone abhors t
oppressive trend and brutality
the American police system,
cannot categorically denounce
employes as "pigs." Some of th
are wretched, sadistic humant
ings-let's call them that. So
although unfortunately in -t
minority, sincerely want to co
tribute human compassion to
system which has largely beco
a foul machine.
But once we call a policem
"pig," without first looking at
face and personal crises and sm
ing moments and nights of lo
making and his individual acti
on the job: then we denyl
humanity, and fall guilty oft
same insensitivity and blindn
for which we despise the wc
police or corporate presidents
disapproving old ladies ont
streets.
All the businessmen, the po
ticians, the country-club membe
the bureaucrats and ev'ery
people who exploit and dest
others-they are condemnable, b
better condemned than as mo
erfuckers. People can more dee
ly understand each other, wa
m o r e effective struggles a
translate their feelings so oth
may grasp them, if they intens
and sensitize their communi
Lions- and make "shit" a:
"motherfucker" more liket
excrement and Oedipus child th
used to be.
the
of
he
its
em
be-
me,
the
on-
a
me
ian
his
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his
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less
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or
the
oli-
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day
roy
but
th-
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ify
ca-
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the
hey
WHATEVER THE cause of this massive change, confusion
reigns in campus quarters. Who would have thought, some ask,
that mainstream America would. have picked up on antiwar
protest, libertarian life-styles, and drugs?
What will we do if the ugly freeways and monstrous
shopping centers are transformed into the lush greenery of
rural hamlets? How will we deat with lhe , real world if our
beloved suburban creeps forego the middle-class consciousness
and join the brotherhood? How will we distinguish ourselves
from the ordinary crud that one encounters elsewhere in
America? Are we to be crushed by the homogeneity of a new
American whole of our own design? How could they do this
to us?
Realists among the campus crowd now point out that only
two alternatives exist. One is the ancient doctrine of stand-
pattism, which says the only thing to fear is fear itself, that
campus doctrines should be shored up to aljow the campus
to capture the leadership of the new movement.
The other calls for en energetic leap into vast unknowns-
the land originally charted by the hippies-irk order to keep
the muddling middles from gaining parity with the campus.
NEITHER OF the two proposals seems to be gaining sup-
port. Most of the campus crowd seem to be resigning them-
selves to an unthinking, unfeeling lethargy that shackles the
spirit with an emptiness scarcely imaginable.
Some, we are told, have allowed their dress to deteriorate
badly. Others constantly keep one eye at the blinds to witness
the invasion of the suburb creeps. Many have stopped smoking
dope and turned instead to bourbon. Coffee has strangled the
throats of thousands as they hastily dash from conference to
conference to discuss the fate of their subculture. The campus
may never be the same.
'1
JAMES WECHSLER....
Agd da for ieu
wi
PRESIDENT NIXON'S visit to
Saigon was predictably hailed
by spokesmen for the nervous
Thieu-Ky regime as a "political
windfall." An aide to Thieu re-
marked jubilantly :
"It was a very good day."
But none of the dispatches de-
scribed what kind of day it was
for the thousands of political pris-
oners rotting in Saigon's prisons
-including Truong Dinh Dzu, the
peace candidate who finished sec-
ond in the 1967 elections, and
many others imprisoned for no
graver crime than the advocacy
of peace talks (before the talks
began) and the creation of a
representative, coalition govern-
ment.
been so triumphant an atmos-
phere among the Thieu cheer-
leaders.
In effect Mr. Nixon had blessed
Thieu in the fashion he used to
reserve for Republican Congres-
sional candidates. The difference
is that in Saigon he was playing
with life-and-death matters-and
the ruling cabal will almost surely
construe his performance as a
Washington for his father'sre-
lease.
IT IS NO ANSWER to criticism
of Saigon's cold terror to remind
us that Hanoi and the Viet Cong
have long dealt cruelly with po-
litical opponents. The Amerien
investment- of blood and resources
in South Vietnam has been justi-
fieg' as an effort to secure "free-
dom" and "self-determination"
for the long-suffering Vietnamese
people. Such slogans are tarnished
and caricatured each day by the
Dzu case and its many replicas.
"It is a fact of political life in
South Vietnam that President
Thieu's power grows in large
measure out of the support he en-
joys from the American govern-
ment," a Times correspondent
wrote from Saigon yesterday.
That has been the simple truth
for an interminable period. It also
makes the U.S. a vulnerable ac-
complice to the political terrorism
waged by a cabal which depends
for its survival - despite all the
rhetoric about "Vietnamization"
of the war - on our arms and
men.
To suggest that it would be an
invasion of Saigon's sovereignty to
insist upon the release of Dzu and
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Last month a U.S. study team,
composed of clergymen, Congress-
men and other respected citizens,
spent seven days touring South
Vietnam. On its return it reported
that thousands of civilians had
ben jailed without trial, many on
"flimsy evidence" or mere sus-
picion; men, women and children
"have been tortured" and dissent
"brutally suppressed" - especially
among the large Buddhist sector
of the populace.
The investigators-among them
Ky
terms offered by Thieu and Ky,
Mr. Nixon has further encouraged
new delusions in Saigon. For it is
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