P ge 4-Tuesday, January 9, 1979-The Michigan Daily
To the same en, but dierentmeans
Decline of the Center
By Thomas Hayden eHAT CONCERNS ME more than the rise of the right
is the decline of the center. Middle-of-the-road offi-
N AUGUST 1968,iu Chicago, I was arrested twice and cialdom seems to have no answers to our ecomonic problems
I beaten in the process, lived for some 48 hours in disguise beyond those of the New Deal, nor, to our foreign problems,
for fear of further violence and then found myself facing beyond those of the cold war The country is daily becoming*
indictment and trial on charges of conspiracy to incite a riot. . ' less governable because no consensus of purpose binds the
In 1978, Hubert Humphrey, the presidential candidate American people. Americans under age 18 have never
chosen in the violent setting of that Democratic convehtion in experienced a stable two-terin presidency. As spiraling
Chicago, is dead, as are Lyndon Johnson and Richard Daley. energy costs aggravate the economic picture, more and
The Vietnam war is forgotten or unknown to most young more Americans are competing for less and less in the "land
people. The old liberal guns-and-butter coalition built around of opportunity." Hope - the force that motivates people to,
welfare at home and bellicose anti-communism abroad has become involved in life - may burn low or even out.
broken up and the law-and-order candidates of 1968, Richard especially for the young.
Nixon and Spiro Agnew, having failed to imprison their anti- J can think of only one long-term alternative, and I still see
war adversaries, languish instead in political exile it coming. What began in the '60s - a rising demand for a
themselves voice in the decisions controlling our lives - will spread to
What of the radicals of the left from those years? every sphere, particularly to the corporate world, where so
We helped to shatter the walls of segregation, end the war, much life-and-death power is concentrated in se few hands..i
win new. recognition for youth, minorities and women, topple The total political activists of the '60s, having now fully cut
two presidents - and yet the revolution we forecast never their teeth, will be back again and again with the same
camen philosophy but expressed through new roles. If the '60s
Many of us, like nostalgic veterans of wars past, now ask brought our birth and development, the '80s and '90s will be
ourselves whether "our time" has passed. our years of maximum influence andmaturity.
My own opinion is that "our time" is coming -but not as My point is simple: The '60s created what can be called a
quickly and not necessarily in the same way we once wished. leadership generation for the future. Just as the Depression
Take the Chicago conspiracy defendants as an example. and World War II were the formative experiences for most of
Various observers, apparently seeking to dispose lightly of our decision-makers for the past 30 years - including every
the spirit of the 1960s, take satisfaction from the "failure" of president from Truman to Carter - so the Vietnam-to-
those prosecuted in that trial, from our apparent Watergate period give birth to a new generation of dedicated,
abandonment of the barricades. ?.M .r0 and politicized people.
I see it differently. We have not been without our petty - Thomas Hayden like many of the radical leaders of the Eisenhower - to demonstrate support for lunch In our fathers' time, democracy was threatened from,
conceits, even our imbecilities, but on the whole we are still sixties was deeply involved in the civil rights counter sitdowns in the south. About 150 men were in abroad, our own institutions were basically sound, affluence
trying to live lives of social responsibility. I now chair the movement of the late fifties. This photograph, taken on the group which came from Amherst and Williams appeared to mostto be guaranteed, America was No. 1. In
Campaign for Economic Democracy, a grass-roots effort to April 15, 1960, shows a group of sign-carrying New colleges in Massachusetts and Trinity and Wesleyan in our time, we have received a different world view:
bring giant corporations under democratic control. David England college-students as they picketed the White Connecticut. Democracy has been most threatened by "plumbers".
Dellinger edits a political magazine and continues to House - then occupied by President Dwight operating from the White House, our institutions are
demonstrate against nuclear weapons and other threats to troubled, affluence is hardly guaranteed and being No. 1 in
the human race. Jerry Rubin continues his quest for a For there were many like the Chicago defendants then, as 15 years. I chafe when I hear high officials calling on bombs hasn't made us No. 1 in the quality of life.
therapeutic revolution. Bobby Seale writes books and is there are many of us scattered through America today. I am Americans to "toughen up" for another showdown with the The reappearance in years ahead of the '60s activists with
working in social service programs. Lee Weiner and John thinking of people who, in times of urgent crisis, will take on Soviet Union over Africa - as if nothing at all has been this guiding outlook will be misread by many. Some will not.
Froines are in Washington, Lee with the ACTION program enormous commitments and make great sacrifices, learned from the Vietnam war. I am bitter when I read that recognize us, and some will believe we have "settled down":
and John with the Occupational Safety and Health but use more conventional means to personal and social more Americans are poor today than when Lyndon Johnson's too much. We will not be a protesting fringe, because the
Administration. Our main lawyers in the trial, William change whenever possible. War on Poverty started, and that an entire generation of fringe of yesterday is the mainstream of tomorrow. We will
Kunstler and Leonard Weinglass, continue to represent At the height of the war and the urban riots, those of us minority youth is being written off as expendable, I am not be protesting but proposing solutions: an energy program
unpopular defendants. Abbie Hoffman has literally dropped looking for change faced a closed political system and it was depressed to find that today's college students have been cut with renewable resources, such as the sun; democratic.
out, since he's forced to live as a fugitive to avoid a long jail logical to carry our dissent into the streets. By doing so, we off from their own immediate history: Most don't know restructuring of large corporations; employing technology to
sentence on anold drug charge, but only Rennie Davis has opened a crack in the system, and having opened it, it is now whether SDS stands for the Students for a Democratic decentralize decision-making and information, making the.
dropped political activism - and that to undertake a hardly surprising for us to enter. And to some, like myself, Society or the name of a detergent. quality of our lives more important than greed and;
spiritual life, have run for public office, antiwar leader Sam Brown heads materialism.
So while we are not quite "Eight Who Changed the World," ACTION, with an early civil-rights leader, John Lewis, as his Ultimately, this shift to the right doesn't worry me. The Those who filled the streets in the 60s may yet fill the halls
neither have we given up the struggle. None of us has had deputy; former Ramparts editor Robert Scheer writes achievements of the '60s cannot ever be erased entirely, nor of government in the '80s, and, if we do, I don't believe we will
conventional careers, or joined in celebrating the system we articles that appear on the front page of the Los Angeles can we be pushed back into the 1950s. Times have changed forget our roots. When I was being sentenced by Judge Julius1
opposed together in Chicago. Times. My wife, Jane Fonda, who was a special target of too much. Hoffman at the end of the Chicago trial, he looked bemusedly
Nixon and almost blacklisted in Hollywood, is now at me, and said, "A smart fellow like you could go far under
Crack in the system "respectable" and drawing large audiences. Other examples Nothing can persuade women and minorities, for example, our system."
'T HOSE WHO MAY HAVE expected more might recall abound. that they should reset their consciousnesses and expectations Who knows, Your Honor, perhaps I will. And if it whould
that we were chosen for our role as symbols of protest in Some will concede these cases in point, but scoff at the like the hands of a clock, to those of the 1950s. Nothing could happen, I won't forget how much you taught me.
Chicago - not because of any special gifts, but because John notion that they represent more than the moderate success of convince American parents to send their sons loyally to die 0
Mitchell's Justice Department decided to indict a certain a few individuals. The trend, they say, is to the right, to somewhere in the Third World. Indeed, recent events like the Thomas Hayden, a founder of the Students for d
panorama of scapegoats for a showcase trial. We were the apathy, to a return to the '50s. coal miners' strike, the farmers' demonstrations and the Democratic Society (SDS), was the editor of the Daily ir
best the authorities could find, and yet even the jury, in the Certainly a right-wing counterattack is under way at the Proposition 13 vote in California are evidence of a deepening 1960-61. This Article is reprinted from the Los Angeles
end, did not consider us a conspiracy. moment, aimed at rolling back many of the gains of the past of populist skepticism towards all institutions. Times.
Wbr £ibiian 1§aiIg
420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Eigh ty-Nine Years of Editorial Freedom
Letters to
the
Daily
ii r
Vol. LXXXIX, No. 82
News Phone: 764-0552
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan
A return to square one
THE ANN ARBOR school system
is toying with an idea whose time
came 24 years ago. More than two
decades after the U.S. Supreme Court
decision in Brown vs. the Board of
Education of Topeka, Kansas, after
two decades of community pressure, 15
years after the appointment of a
citizens advisory committee to map
out a desegregation process, four mon-
ths after the state of Michigan finally
stepped in and order the city to do
something about the problem, the
school board has finally decided that it
might have to do something about the
segregated school stystem it presides
over.
Another citizens advisory committee
has been appointed. Its task is the
same as that accomplished by a com-
mittee in 1963. Map out several alter-
native methods of desegregating the
schools. Some administrators are
taking courses to prepare themselves
and the community for what one ad-
ministrator refers to as the "trauma"
of desegregation.
The process has been and will be
purposefully slow. The school ad-
ministration and the board of
education have no intention of
"moving with all due speed' to correct
an injustice 'that should have been
eradicated 15 years ago.
The school administration and the
board of education blame the state for
not developing concrete definitions of
In September of last year the school
board could not even bring itself to
pass an innocent resolution that simply
would have said the board would work
in some way-any way-to
desegregate the schools. After the
resolution had been stripped of any
meaning and simply pledged that the
board , was willing - to pursue
desegregation the board still voted it
down. They were not interested in
desegregating their schools. Board
members said they .were afraid any
desegregation resolution might mean
busing. This overlooks the fact that 50
per cent of the students in the system
already ride the bus to school.
Desegregation through busing would
simply mean the bus ride would be a
little longer. But the education would
be a little broader, and maybe when
these kids attend the University some
whites and blacks might even sit with
each other in the cafeteria.
Segregated schools contravene
every precept on which our "free
society" was built: equality of persons,
one nation under god, and the fact that
education received in segregated
school is inherently unequal, according
to the Warren Court.
Yet the school board may remain
content to allow white enrollments in
excess of 90 per cent in four schools,
while another four schools have
minority registrations in excess of 50
In support
of Bo
To The Daily:
The halftime fiasco at the M-
Western Mich. basketball game
should never have happened.
Whether Rep. Perry Bullard was
invited or simply assumed the
role of presentor of a resolution
commending Coach Bo Schem-
bechler's football successes, a
basketball game was not the time
or proper forum for a political
speech.
After the first half-dozen words
with the audience making their
feelings very clear, one would
think a politician would be astute
enough to change direction and
say the thingsexpected of him in
the first place.
Perhaps Mr. Bullard has made
too many trips between Lansing
and Ann Arbor lately and was
unaware of place and audience.
There were no boos when Mr.
Bullard was introduced but when
he talked politics instead of spor-
ts like he was supposed to, the
audience drowned him out. The
bullheaded Mr. Bullard con-
tinued despite the overwhelming
message from ten thousand in the
audience.
Under the circumstances, Bo
did the right thing in walking
away from the out-of-place
political oratory.
Mr. Bullard should apologize to
the ten thousand fans he insulted
by his misuse of their basketball
game.
-Howard Rasch
More support
for Bo
To The Daily:
While attending the U of M-
WMU basketball game on
December 16, we were pleasantly
surprised to see U of M football
coach Bo Schembechler walking
across the court to be honored
with an award during halftime.
However, this pleasant feeling
was not to last long, for within a
matter of minutes, Mr. Schem-
bechler was again walking across
the court, but this time it was not
in anticipation of receiving an
award.
We listened with horror as Rep.
Perry Bullard, the presenter of
the award, seized upon this op-
portunity to voice his political
views on the decriminalization of
marijuana. Whether one agrees
with Mr. Bullard's views or not,
this occasion was not a political
one, but rather one to honor the
coaching record of Mr. Schem-
bechler. Bullard's behavior was
an insult to both Coach Schem-
bechler and the thousands of fans
attending the game. Mr. Schem-
bechler was more than justified
to walk out during this appalling
speech and the fans' hearty
ovation indicatedatheir total
agreement with his reaction.
Although Schembechler was
forced to leave without his
award, he took with him the
overwhelming support and ad-
miration of the crowd. Hats off to
Bo!!
-Heidi Mulso
Christina Eads
In support
of Sam off
To The Daily:
The Women's Caucus of the
Department of Political Science
strongly endorses all efforts
designed to redress the selective
application of standards by the
tenured faculty in its rejection of
the Department Executive
Committee's recommendation to
promote and tenure Assistant
Professor Joel Samoff. Reported
accounts of the deliberations in
this case clearly indicate that the
decision-making process was
biased and inconsistent with the
criteria purported to be in
operation during the process.
This aside, we are well aware
of the national and international
recognition of Assistant
Professor Samoff as one of the
top Africanist and political
economist by experts in his
discipline. This notwithstanding,
in October of this year, he
received a distinguished service
award from the University as a
mark of his outstanding work.
Furthermore, he has shown an
unyielding dedication to quality
teaching and creating a climate
conducive to the education,
recruitment and retainment of
women here at the University of
Michigan.
Thus, we call on all concerned
parties to help facilitate a just
outcome in this case - not to do
so will be detrimental to the
educational community at large
and students in particular.
-Women's Caucus,
Department of Political Science
Vietnam Veterans
To the Daily:
On Tuesday, November 28, you
ran an article highly
objectionable to Vietnam era
veterans. It concerned a gunman,
said to have psychological
problems, who' was prominently
identified in the headline and the'
lead paragraph as a "Vet" or
"Vietnam veteran." Nowhere in
the article was there any
evidence that military
experience had anything to fo \
with the event described. The
identification serves no purpose
but to perpetuate a stereotype of
the Vietnam veteran as unstable,
and prone to violence. (In the
same manner, a few years ago
the ace or criminal suspects was
prominently displaye0, until
public protests made it clear that:
this kind of guilt by implication
was not to be tolerated).
In view of the high levels of =
unemployment among Vietnam
veterans, the inadequacy of sup-
port serv ices they receive, and;
the kwidespread 'public,,
discrimination against',
them-often fostered by media
portrayals of veterans as drug-
crazed killers-we protest;
against this kind Of writing..
Vietnam veterans need help from
the society that sent them off to
fight a terrible war. If you can't,
help, at least don't hinder.
-Norman Owen
Committee of Vietnam-
Era veterans
No COmment
Department
This paragraph is from an article written by Jim
Murray and appeared in The Washington Post on
January 2, 1979.
Wvn..y tnihn, .nf n aptlf h a , ifhn
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