. - -__ - Iiphdiaq Chahey '- ZtM Siritgan ha OW Eighty years of editorial freedom Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan Brother: Have I got a deal for you! i _____ ,I k I 420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, Mich. 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 oil reprints. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 13, 1970 NIGHT EDITOR: DAVE CHUDWIN Women's eration 4 0 . .Honest dialog needed THE TYPE of sexual separatism t h a t Robin Morgan and several of the more radical participants in last week- end's Women's Liberation Teach-in ad- vocated is detrimental to the development and success of the liberation movement. This movement has the potential for becoming one of the major forces shaping our society. Its potential membership cov- ers more than half of this country's popu- lation as well as the hundreds of millions of women living in the rest of the world. Yet sexual separatists are undercutting this massive support base by advocating a liberation policy which is both unwork- able and unsuitable for the large major- ity of women. Women do not hold positions of power comparable to those of men' in most of the institutions which are so important in shaping ,and ruling our society. Due to this lack of female participation, a so-' ciety has evolved which to a large extent does not perceive or cater to women's needs and wants. Another consequence of men's societal domination has led to the formation of a society which does not perceive a womanas a man's equal. XPERTS FEEL this social structure is the result of a basic insecurity which men feel in not being able to live up to the myth of virility and man-as-protector which has been imposed on them 'as so- ciety developed from the hunting stages to its present form. As a consequence of their inability to live up to this myth, men find it necessarv to uphold their own self-assurance and psychological stability at the woman's expense.:Men do this by degrading and re- pressing the woman's role in order to more" easily dominate her and demonstrate that they are living up to the masculine image imposed by social norms. The -Liberation movement's main tac- tic then must be to open up an honest, unadulterated dialogue between the sex- es. Only in this, way can men and women rid themselves of the misconceptions they have of each other - including their sex- ual roles - and work together to create honest and equal relationships. THE WOMEN in the liberation move- ment want to build a better society which is based on - among other things - sexual equality. But simple biological necessity makes it impossible for women to create a society without men. And a just society cannot be built unless every- one who will be a part of the society con- tributes to its building and mainten- ance. The racial problem in this country today is an example of this situation where a segment of the population has been prevented from making a meaning- ful contribution to s o c i e t y. And just as the racial problem is as much a psy- chological, emotional, economic and -so- cietal problem with which whites must deal, so must men be an integral part in the process of liberating women from the inferior position they hold in society. SEXUAL separatism does have a purpose for women who are "getting their heads together" - who are trying to develop a personal identity unadulterated with "man-made" norms - and who feel they cannot develop a female identity un- less they withdraw temporarily from to- day's male-dominated society. But once these women have developed an intensity it is important for them to lead the dialogue and help lead the fight - with men - which can create a better society. Sexual separtists have confused what the focus of Women's Liberation should be. Women's Liberation should not per- ceive men as women's enemies. B u t women should instead see as the enemy the beliefs and ideas which the great ma- jority of today's men hold, and we must work with men to eradicate these beliefs from our society. -JUDY 'KAHN Personnel Director DURING THE last few weeks, seniors at the University have been receiving telephone calls from an organization which calls itself the Consumer Buying Serv- ice. "We're promoting a new serv- ice," chirps the chipper voice on the other end of the phone. "It s a buying service," she says, and members of the service can pur- chase a wide variety of products at low costs because the service buys its goods directly from the manufacturers. "We want, to get your reaction to it," she concludes, "and if you come down for a 30 to 40 minute group orientation, we'll compen- sate you with a nice gift." The idea intrigued me enough to spend the time to go for my orientation at the buying service office, located on Fourth Ave., next to the Western Union office. T was greeted by a substantial man who introduced himself as Mr. Becker. One other person, Lawrence, was waiting for the orientation. Mr. Becker informed us that some other people were expected, so we waited. They never camne, and after a few min- utes we moved into a back room where we began our orientation. Becker began by informing us that the buying service is called Consumer Buying and Educational Services, and is backed by the Grolier Society, which is the world's largest publisher of ref- erence materials. I was skeptical of the phrase "world's largest," so he showed us a picture of their corporate headquarters-a gleam- ing skyscraper in,New York. I was slightly reassured, and when he said the Grolier Society sponsored the television shows Jeopardy and Kaptain Kangaroo, I knew things were all right. Becker next brought out a couple of charts which showed that retailers always raise prices over the manufacturers' cost to them. The average price mark-up, according to the charts, is 69 per cent. I was totally outraged to learn how the merchants are making money, but my anger turned to smug joy when we were told how to beat the high cost of retail buying. BECKER INFORMED us that the buying service buys items di- rectly from the manufacturers, and buys in quantity, thus elim- inating the retailer, and the sav- ings are passed on to members. The service uses professional buy- ers (who really what they're do- ing), and the organization has been in business for 16 years, so they have whole bunches of con- nections which can get them the best deals on everything. Mr. Becker then t h u m b e d through a little catalogue which showed some of the merchandise which members of the buying service can get, and the low prices which they pay. The items avail- able include, automobiles, stereos. televisions, cosmetics and patent medicines., "What do you think of that?" he asked, pointing tota bottle of ,5.000 vitamin pills-with the same chemical composition as One-a- Day-and a price tag of $20.00. I was duly impressed. At one pill a day, that bottle would last near- ly 14 years. Another item was a stretch wig for $14. "This is such a fantastic bargain," he claimed, "that the manufacturer wouldn't let us use his name." Apparently the manu- facturer figured the fantastically low price would incite people to rioting, and they would storm his warehouse if they knew who he was. AFTER THE presentation on the buying service, Mr. Becker ex- plained the Educational in their name, saying that consumers in this day and age, need informa- tion on where they can get the most value for their money. He then followed with the logical conclusion that consumers need the Encyclopedia Interna- tional and the Grolier 50 volume set of Great Classics. Mr. Becker mentioned with a great deal of pride, that the set of Great Classics was six feet long, placed side by side. He also claim- ed the encyclopedia was edited for easy reading by the editor of the, New York Times. Having never heard of a position, at the Times called "editor" I. expressed inter- est in that fact. He changed the paper to the Daily News, and said he could show me an advertise- ment with the editor's name. I asked to see the advertisement, and after a bit of rummaging, he produced the ad, which he said had been in Life magazine. THE EDITOR turned out to be George Cornish of the N.Y. Her- Myths of a Palestine By MICHAEL SCHNECK RECENT EVENTS in the Middle East have once again brought the Palestinian Arab guerrilla or- ganization to the attention of the world. Since the Six-Day W a r these g r o u p s have been in the forefront of the so-called demo- cratic revolutionary movement to free Palestine from the Israelis. When discussing Arab guerrilla organizations, the' main focus of the many guerrilla groups, it sets policy for most of the smaller organizations. Fatah claims to be organizing a national liberation movement based on guerrilla war- fare. However, this is far from the case. It is a truism in all modern, guerrilla warfare theories that success is first and foremost de- 'pendent on t h e mobilizations of mass support as a means to dis- rupt governmental functions. No evidence of this mass sup- port has been forthcoming from the occupied West Bank area. It seems that Fatah does not en- gender strong feelings from those Arabs living under Israeli rule. Or perhaps life is tolerable enough; for those Arabs that they do not want the deprivations which they would face should massive civil resistance break out. FATAH CLAIMS it is not mo- tivated by racist feelings but that it only wants to destroy the Zion- ist character of Israel. They as- sert that no genocide of'the Jews will occur if their struggle suc- ceeds, and that Jews and Arabs will live in peace as brothers. On the surface it would appear t h a t Fatah is an organization composed of revolutionaries dedi- cated to liberating both A r a b s and Israelis from the oppressive system of Zionism. In fact, it asks ... Time to come together SUNDAY, THE final event of this week- end's Teach-in on Women was held. But what was intended as a panel dis- cussion on the possible directions for the women's movement resulted in a raucous circus which alienated many of those who came. The disruption began when a coalition of radical women claimed that the panel format, with its limitations on speaking time, was typical of the opuosition wompen have always felt when they attempted to speak out. The group asked that all who agreed with their position sit on the stage floor. They then proceeded to turn the panel into a disorganized discussion session. After ,the coalition had shouted down speakers, grabbed a microphone away from Congresswoman Martha Griffiths, and overturned glasses of water on the speakers' table, a majority vote of the audience returned the program to its original panel format, with the provis- ion that speakers could talk as long as they wished. What Robin Morgan, Marlene Dixon, Nadine Miller and the others who sat on the stage floor must realize is that there is a huge gap between the radical femin- ists and the average American woman, who, though she is oppressed by society, doees not yet realize is. JjORGAN and the coalition claim "there is no' such thing as an expert on women's liberation because each woman is an expert on her own oppression." This is not the case. The vast majority of women readily accept the discrimination they face in jobs, as wives, and as sex objects. The six women who sat on the panel were in a position to provide in- formation on how women are oppressed - through statistics and by relating per- sonal experiences. Gardner's tears and Miller's account of life as a radical lesbian, when they fin- ally spoke, made the audience under- stand the oppression women face more than did the inane arguments over the 'organization of the afternoon session. AT ONE POINT, those on the stage tried to force all the men in the audience to leave. However, this attempt was dis- allowed when Barbara Newell, special as- sistant to Robin Fleming and tle panel modesrator, explained that University functions are open to all. This attempt to exclude men from the meeting is indi- cative of a mentality that can be an impediment to change, because unless men realize how they manifest t h e i r supremacy, there will be no change. PERHAPS THE person on stage who made the most rational comment was Gardner, who cited two reasons why she joined her sisters on the floor. She said she wanted to support her sisters, even if she did not agree with their ends or, their means. She said she had also given up being "lady-like" in favor of being a person. Gardner is right. For the sisterhood to be effective is must have compassion for all women, whether they are members of WITCH or suburbanite housewives. And with this compassion must come the de- sire to educate their sisters, who may still be struggling for their self-identities. Women must also stop being "lady- like" and instead try to be real persons. This means working for a cause without trying to fit into a social mold. But the -obnoxious behavior of those onstage Sun- day can only force new converts to wo- mens liberation back into their "lady- like" cocoon. 4 FEW WEEKS ago a counter-group staged an "Honor Womanhood" Day, when all women were urged to wear a rib- Letters to The Daily Feminists To the Daily: THOSE FEMINISTS who were active in disturbing the Su n d a y afternoon meeting of the Women's teach-in at Hill Auditorium should know they were actively destroying leanings which some of us have had toward their movement. The amount of flack directed at professional women who are work- ing within the system was sur- prising. The active feminists of Sunday might do well to realize that by their words and their be- havior they have possibly direct- ed women to the professional groups they despise rather than drawn women to themselves, as they say they wish to do. -Mary Ann Rodgers Oct. 11 Women in office To the Daily: THE DECLINE over the past ten years in the number of women in elective and appointive office is so remarkable that the statistics deserve to be stated as clearly as possible. Compared with an esti- mated 18,000 women jn county elective office ten years ago, there are now less than 4,000 women in such offices in the U.S. In 40 states reporting, appointive jobs held by women dropped from about 43,600 in 1959 to 4,800 in 1969. A decade ago 347 women sat in state legislatures. In 1969 there were only 299. Since 1959 the number of women in the U.S. Sen- ate and Congress has shrunk from 17 to 11. -Jean King Oct. 12 Violence To the Daily: THANK YOU for repeating ald-Tribune-a statement which I haverno reason to doubt, since Mr. Cornish probably had a lot of time on his hands after the Her- ald-Tribune folded seven years ago. There were other educational things. One was a reference serv- ice where you write in to get an- swers to various questions. Then there were sets of books - ge- ography sets, art sets, science sets - all from the world's largest publisher of reference ,materials. AT 'tHIS POINT, I got the feel- ing that Mr. Becker was trying to sell me books, which seemed beration one to believe that most Israelis want to be liberated from Zion- ism. Yet, an examination of the writings of Fatah, reveals the op- posite conclusion. Fatah sets out the objective of the war against Israel in bold type: The liberation action is not only the wiping out of an Im- 'perialist base but, what is more important, the extinction of a society: I n q i r a'd mutjtama (Arab words for extinction of a society). Therefore armed violence will necessarily assume diverse forms in addition to the liquidation of the armed forces of the Zionist occupying state, namely, it should turn to the destruction of the factors sus- taining the Zionist society in all their forms: industrial, agricul- tural, and financial. The arm- ed violence necessarily should also aim at the destruction of the various military, political, economic, financial, and Intel- lectual institutions of the Zion- ist occupation state to prevent any possibility of a re-emer- gence of a new Zionistrsociety. Mlitary defeat is not the sole goal in the Palestinian Libera- tion War, but it is the blotting out of the Zionist character of 'the occupied land, be it human or social. Fatah propagandists' normaly avoid the more blatant forms of genocidal expression s u c h as "throwing the Jews into the sea" and use instead "liquidation, or the uprooting of the Zionist exis- tence or entity." However, when the implications of their objective come to be spelled out, it is realiz- ed that Zionism is not only a po- litical regime or a superstructure of sorts, but is embodied in a so- ciety. Therefore, the society must be liquidated which must involve a great deal of killing. TnE EXISTENCE of Israel is founded upon the existence of a concentration of Jews - so the destruction of this state m u s t mean their dispersion. To where? Fatah says that Jews will be al- lowed to live in a democratic Arab state after Israel's extinction. They clarify t h i s statement by saying only those Jews and their descendants who lived in Pales- tine before the Zionist aggression started. Zionist aggression, ac- cording to Fatah, started in 1917 with the Balfour Declaration. Thus, part of the Jewish popula- tion must disappear. How? If Palestinian Arab guerrilla organizations are not anti-Jew- ish, why is it that the hostages not released in the recent hijack- ings were mostly Jews. True this was not done by Fatah but by a Marxist oriented group. slightly deceptive, since the originaf phone call implied the "oienta- tion" was only to get reactions to the consumer buying service. Mr. Becker than asked Lawrence and me if we saw anything among the various books and the refer- ence service that could be of use and appreciation to us. Lawrence said "no" and walked out. I want- ed to see the rest of the demon- stration, so I said yes. Becker explaine that the con- sumer service is available in a combination offer with selected book sets and the reference serv- ice. To start with the books, he said I could have either the Great Classics or the encyclopedia. I chose the encyclopedia. With the encyclopedia, I was also entitled to two other sets of books from among several offered. I picked a geography set and a science set. The complete combination offer thus included: membership in the consumer service for one year, I00 opportunities to use the reference service, the Encyclopedia Inter- national, a set of science books, and a set of geography books. The total value was $1,200. NOW, CAME the great news.- Since Grolier was interested in advertising its products, if I would agree to let my .name be used in their office as an endorsement of the buying service, and if I wrote a letter about the service and the books (which would be used in ad- vertising), then I could have the whole combination for only $510. This price just to cover manufac- turing costs, and the company makes no money in the deal. I asked if this was the whole demonstration. Becker said "yes." I said "thank you, but the price is too much." As I turned to leave, Becker, who seemed a little surprised, said earnestly, "Did you know that of the people who buy a Grolier pro- duct today, 82 per cent of them will buy a Grolier product again in 10 years? Now, how's that for a recommendation?" How's that again? front It becomes clear that the demo- cratic unbiased nature of the Palestinian liberation movement is not really so unprejudiced. Their attitude is clearly anti-Jew- ish as well as probably genocidal in its objectives. IT IS UNFORTUNATE that radical groups today are so quick to accept the Palestinian's claim that their war is the same libera- tion movement that is struggling in Vietnam and'that was won in Algeria. Any analysis, but the most superficial, must show many fal- lacies in this claim. First of all, what the Ar a b s claim to be their liberating guer- rilla war has not been going on for years and years. In fact it is a relatively recent phenomena. Al Fatah was started and acted un- der the aegis of the radical Syrian Baath party. Fatah receives most of its financial support from the reactionary oil sheikdoms along the Persian Gulf and from King Feisal of Saudia Arabia. Yassir Arafat alias Abu Ammar, leader of Fatah, has previously b e e n connected with the conservative Moslem Brotherhood in Egypt. He had to flee from Egypt in 1954 be- cause of the Brotherhood's abort- ed attempt at a revolution. *" '. 1 4} 4 y w7 --~ - HAV(IYAAOPL. ~ C,4 C C LET US EXAMINE the analogy that Fatah makes with the in- dependence struggle in Algeria. Algeria was a French colony with a small minority of Frenchmen and ten million Algerians. Israel proper has over 2.7 million Jews with 250,000 Arabs. The French had France to which to return; the Israelis have nowhere to go. The Algerian people could para- lyse a large French, army by guer- rilla warfare, owing to the vast- ness of Algeria which is 852,600 square miles. In this terrain, there are many mountains, thick bushes and roadless regions which ren- dered movement of the army dif- ficult and made way for successful guerrilla warfare. As regards Palestine, most of t h e occupied territory is settled with fortified settlements connected, by an ex- tensive network of roads which facilitates army movements. When the revolution erupted in Algeria, its' active organizations were in Algeria. As for the Pales- tinians, the organization of a rev- olution must grow outside the oc- cupied territory. There are many other points upon which the Algerian analogy breaks down. ISRAEL IS NOT a dictatorship as is t h e government of South Vietnam. Well over a majority of its people firmly believe in t h e state. The Arabs in Israel proper have the highest living standards in the Arab world. No one claims Law Quad To the Daily: CIRCULATED throughout resi- dence halls has been a campaign statement for a student candi- date for the Board of Governors; which alleges that ". . . the Direc- tor of Housing very generously (and very quietly) agreed to as- sume the Law Quad's $500,000 de- ficit into the Residence Hall bud- get . . ." This statement is com- pletely without basis. The financ- ial transactions involving Univer- sity Housing are widely known. No portion of ,residence hall monies supports the Lawyers Club. -John Feldkamp, Director, University Housing cannot give any money to a n y- body. It is true that a meeting was held at the Beth Israel Synagogue, (I was at that meeting, so I know) when members of the BEDL and WRO stated theii case and asked for funds. Money was col- lected and people who attended that meeting, gave out of t h e i r own pocket, as individuals, I re-, peat, because this is important, as individuals, because we felt that the cause was just and that the WRO was in need of funds to clothe children for the winter. We gave the money, which is not tax- deductable, and riot the B e t h Israel Congregation. There were also Jewish people at that meet- ing, who are un-affiliated or be-