Page 4- Friday, October 26, 1979-The Michigan Daily
Ninety Years of Editorial Freedom
Vol. LXXXX, No. 44 News Phone: 764-0552
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan
U.S. relief aid can
end Cambodian tragedy
America Revisited
kevin rosner
HE ADMINISTRATION'S pledge
e of $70 millio to the Cambodian in-
tprnational relief fund is a long-
overdue acceptance of this country's
ifsponsibility for the current plight of
tie Cambodian people. The famine and
djsease gripping the populace are a
direct result of the genocidal policies of
the Nixon-Kissinger administrtation,
whose unprovoked and unwarranted
qombing attacks turned a developing
4ation into the current breeding
ground of pestilence and starvation.
Dr. Kissinger's defense of America's
expansionism is to shift the blame for
expanding the Vietnamese war onto
Vietnam people. But the fact remains
tbat the Cambodians were neutral non-
combatants, and America's massive
military excursion into that country
Was a deliberate act of aggression
ranking in terms of morality
somewhere near Hitler's excursion in-
Poland and the Huns' invasion of
Europe.
§o Carter's pledge of $70 million to
0ebn up the tragic legacy of Nixon and
issinger is not a sacrifice on our part,
even an act of good will. It is a
isponsibility from which this country
gnnot escape, and the $70 million
giust only be the first step in a process
rehabilitating and reconstructing
*e country that we devastated.
: The Carter administration package
i relief and through existing inter-
iational organizations must now be
tfllowed up by an immediate U.S.
GIrlift of food and medicine into Cam-
"rodia. Committing the forces of the
%.$. military to such a massive relief
fort would assure that direct ship-
M0nts of food from this- country ac-
tdially reach Cambodia's starving. The
jtdministration must also allocate a
gercentage of our own food production,
Specially grain, for immediate ship-
ment to Cambodia on U.S. carriers,
knd U.S. personnell could aid in the
d?stribution
-All this would still not atone for the
dark spot in America's history, but an
iihmediate commitment to reconstruc-
ton would at least demonstrate to the
'orld that this country accepts its
grave responsibility.
;But there is another side to this
y agic episode. The illegal and
gi egitimate puppet government in
!ihnom Pehn has so far been reluctant
Q accept offers of international aid to
fIeed Cambodia's starving masses. The
tietnamese-backed authorities are
Oparently waiting for the inter-
dptional community to recognize their
fraudulent government before they
will allow the world to feed their
people. These inhumane butchers are
using the Cambodian people as their
pawns in a ploy for recognition of a
government that was installed by
Vietnam's aggression, and it amounts
to nothing more than international
blackmail that strains the very fiber of
humanity.
But the humanitarian concern in
feeding three million people at this
point outweights the disgust at
recognizing a supposed government
that blackmails its own people. For the
purposes of negotiation to allow the
food relief, the administration must
America, I too, have given you all/and!I am nothing
In your glazed eyes. Do you see me as a spy or degenerate?
You, America, are stoned by the hysteria of your crowds who
Still kill themselves like Dionysian slaves except
There is no wine-There is no song.
There is just the wheel and the barge.
Still roasting your artists and poets of beatitude
Who pulled you out of the fire McCarthy was tending.
How many men and women walked along Broadway and sang
holy songs
To your land, your people, seeking good in all eyes?
America, 42nd street is in ruins and the Beats are dead and
gone.
Gone with prro Jack Kearoua who breathed his last breath in
1969.
Your fog was too much and swallowed him up by a blind
drunk.
Do you weep America?
You mattered in your steel offices of locks and keys about
Those hipsters who talked of meaning and God in Paterson
lofts.,
Out to village bars, to others, and losing our minds along the
way..
Their Man-God Neal Cassidy is dead too America.
You killed him with expulsion to Mexican deserts.
He died walking do wn your train tracks, coming home to work
The Industrialism of your two shores.
America, the Beats were the last generation who spoke truth
to your face.
Yes, some lost themselves in surrealism and visions.
Lost like sheep who clustered together for warmth from your
bitter Yankee chill.
They stunk like Turks who smoked one too many cigarettes
Forgot to bathe and ran out into the village square to see
What the day was about.
There were fictional stories for Life Magazine when the
Midwest hugges its Protestant arms and hoped
Love was real.
Beats
Beats are the frum taps and the soldiers who should live
Eternally in the history books to tell your children about
courage
After the great way, after the holocaust, after the trauma.
America, the Beats were the letters in this trange soup
of chance
Who came up right and spelled words you didn't want to hear.
A merica, Ginsberg had two dollars and twenty seven cents in
1956
America, that wyas the year of my birth and Iam penniless in
79
What plans do you have for me?
You've tried to undermine my meaning by telling me-God
islos
eNven me a chest ful of shabby reasons, phlem, and no-opes
America I renounce your days of no music.
I am a junkie of hope.
You told us you were a fighter, the Beats knew your lie
and told.
Teller of desperate lies to your children
Who reacted by dancing in the streets and didn't go to work.
You lies to Time magazine about the Beats.
You lied to Newsweek about the Beats.
You lie to me but I've seen the wheel coming full circle
for sometime now
With spokes that slash my generation with fear
Splits them in two.
I, America, feel te Beats praying for us.
Spirits rid us of our feeble minds
Let us see God reading the newspaper-
Only the funnies: he has nothing to do with the headlines.
America its been 35 years since the Beats began their pilgrimage
Since then politicalfugitives run free among us
Are you learning forgiveness America? How much were you
paid?
We are your marrow and don't forget it.
Beats you never thought Knowledge
That builds baracades around Meaning
Blake loved the Beats from heaven
F. Scott Fitzgerald would have toasted them.
Whitman would have kissed them all and written Odes of Love
to them.
Meaning, is still on the road or in another of Jack's
eighteen stories.
Grandfather of the Beat
Holder and worshipper of time
Where is your spirit now Jack?
I walk these streets in 1979, the year of the Republican
I choke and feel so hopeless sometimes, I do feel so alone
Jack.
You are dead and gone It is my monkey which schreeches
in my ear.
Will me generation realize they can be angelic?
America, I have gotten up hope you will act impulsively about
anything
But war and the draft.
Beats, see now this wheel which has come full cirtcle and it's
1951 again,
Holding each other up, you hold me up by tugging at my mind
We owe you part of each day but don't say anything to
make you feel better.
America, Corso is lost somewhere, Burroughs has gone
underground
I heard he's in Brooklyn behind coils of barb wire.
Kearouc and Cassidy are in heavey where they belong.
Father Ginsberg still speaks his truth to women in depart-
ment stores
About the price of tomatoes and the price of their lives.
We have nothing to lose but our lives and aren't you worth
it?
I see men and women mesmerized by the questions
Frozen to their chairs
Will emotion surface and Reason come to rule?
The universities teach Plato but don't mention that Socrates
Was as Beat as they come.
Orwell was right America you are jumping the gun
Come to grips!!!
The Chinese are eating the Vietnamese alive.
The Soviets spend days worrying about the Olympic games.
The Greeks are really dead and Latin isn't spoken by the holy.
The Queen of England might as well hole up in an abandoned
beach house
She swingsno power.
Only drunks who lust after lust
Dominate the national news
Along with your doath.
I won't stop pushing America.
I wonder what the Beats would think of running off to
some
Village in Europe and forgetting this headache.
Would they too recede into some quiet corner of the world.
And talk'to themselves?
Would they spit in the street and cut their hair?
America, I don't care about my hair
I just need a good laugh once in a while.
I hate being serious so pass the wine.
I won't kill and will act impulsively
I'll never be sorry for celebrating the end of the war.
I won 't sing sad songs about your inflation for it will kill
you in the end.
I hate Marx but he proves you right by every day's end.
Beats, I hope you didn't lie to me either.
I stand before my generation and sing this ode to Life.
I hope they hear
For as time passes, its gets harder to think
I
mj
K issinge r
deal with and negotiate with the mur-
derous Vietnamese puppet gover-
nment. The Carter administration
must make no pretense that it enjoys
negotiating with a government as vile'
as that in Phnom Penh. But where the
lives of three million people are con-
cerned, this type of limited de facto
recognition is an unfortunate reality of
this tragic situation.
The Cambodian episode ranks as one
of the blackest pages in the annals of
human history. From. the Nixon-
Kissinger bombings during the Viet-
nam war, to the communist takeover
by the murderous Pol Pot, to this
current chapter of famine and despair,
Cambodia has been devastated by a
decade of ,atrocities, from inside the
borders and without. And the victims
have been the people of Cambodia.
With the $70 million in relief aid as a'
first step, and with airlifts of American
food and medical supplies, the U.S. can
at least begin to turn a new chapter in
Cambodia. In the name of simple
morality and human dignity, the
. current government in Phnom Penh
can only do the same.
I.
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THE MILWAUKEE JOURNAL
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Letters to the Daily
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To the Editor:
Last Monday night I had the
unfortunate experience of
hearing Jane Fonda and Tom
Hayden speak - about the U.S.
economy with the criticism of big
corporations being the main em-
phasis of their unfounded, and
irresponsible complaints.
Mr. Hayden said he thinks big
conglomerate corporations
should be broken up and given
over to the workers and all the oil
companies be nationalized. I
have nothing against worker in-
volvement in company decision
making or governmental
regulation of such vital produc-
most of America's big economy-
supporting businesses would soon
be put out of business because it
takes an education such as you
and I are now receiving to run a
productive business.
No other reasoning is anywhere
near realistic. Let's be practical
for a moment; a laborer's duty in
societyis to do his or her job. Af-
ter eight hours on the job, most
people prefer to go home and
relax or go out for a beer, etc. The
last thing a tired riveter wants to
do at the end of the day is put on
different clothes and go do
another person's job. The closest
On Mr. Hayden's idealistically
foolhearty plan of nationalizing
the oil companies, two seconds of
sound thought would reveal that
this plan is no plan at all. First,
look at what Europeans are suf-
fering through: Great Britain,
France, and Italy all have
various nationalized in-
dustries-their prices are twice
or more ours and their standard
of living is much lower than ours.
Although Mr. and Mrs. Hayden
would have you quickly believing
otherwise, our standard of living
is in fact one of the highest in the,
world.
qw.
is that there is no profit incentive
for it to do so-a basic theory of
our productivevconomic system.
Would you like the government to
produce our oil?: If so, get ready'
for $3.00 a gallon gas over night.
I was the student in the yellow
"M" shirt whose question you
purposely and rudely ignored due
probably to the possibility that
you knew it was an applecart-up-
setting question amidst a rally
for what I think was communism
under - the guise of "economic
democracy". The question was:
How can you give the least bit of,
support, (which you and Mr
14nuion nl' nV. nmmss~i -
I