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Eighty-two years of editorial freedom
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan
Seeds of subversion sown
in
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 all reprints.
FRI DAY, DECEMBER 8, 1972
The fate of mass transit
STATE FUNDING for mass transit meets
its fate in the state legislature next
week. The issue is whether a quarter of
the money from a two cent increase in
the state gasoline tax will be allocated to
mass transit programs.
Although the bill diverting gas money
to public transit passed the House last
spring, it had the subsequent misfortune
to fall into the hands of Sen. James
Fleming (R-Jackson), Chairman of the
tipper chamber's Highway Committee.
Fleming, who has declared himself a
"hardened and ardent" foe of any pro-
posal to divert the gas tax of suffering
motorists to mass transit, is an example
of the magnificent wrongheadedness
which members of the human race-
especially politicians-can attain.
For ten months he locked the bill up
in his committee against the wishes of
most of the other members on it. Even
then, the bill would never have gotten
onto the Senate floor if supporters had
not promised Fleming to hinge its passage
to a constitutional amendment, to be put
before the voters in 1974, which would
place a constitutional ceiling of 5.6% on
the amount of tax money that could be
diverted to mass transit.
IWIE THE AMENDMENT passed the
Senate a week ago Tuesday, it was
Editorial Staff
SARA FITZGERALD
Editor
PAT BAUER ............. Associate Managing Editor
LINDSAY CHANEY..............Eitorial Director
MARK DILIEN...................Magazine Editor
LINDA DREEBEN........Associate Managing Editor
TAMMY JACOBS ................. Managing Editor
ARTHUR LERNER ................ Editorial Director
ROBERT SCHREINER.............Editorial Director
GLORIA JANE SMITH ................. Arts Editor
ED SUROVELL..................Books Editor
PAUL TRAVIS ..........Associate Managing Editor
NIGHT EDITORS: Robert Barkin, Jan Benedetti, Di-
ane Levick, Jim O'Brien, Chris Parks, Charles
Stein, Ted Stein.
COPY EDITORS: Meryl Gordon, Debra Ta.
EDITORIAL NIGHT EDITORS: Fred Shell Martin
stern.
DAY EDITORS: Dave Burhenn, Jim Kentcb, Marilyn
Riley, Judy Ruskin, Eric Schoch, Sue Stephen-
son. Ralph Vartabedian, Becky Warner.
T iEGRAPR/ASSOCIATE NIGHT EDITORS: Prakash
Aewant, Gordon Atcheson, Laura Berman, Penny
Blank, Dan Blugeran, Bob Burakoff, Beth Eg-
nater, Ted Evanoff, Cindy Hill, Debbie Knox,
David Stoll, Terr Terrell.
STAFF WRITERS: Howard Brick Lorin Labardee, Ka-
thy Ricks, Eugene Robinson, Linda Rosenthal,
Zachary Schiller, Marcia Zoslaw.
ARTS STAFF: Herb Bowie, Rich Glatzer. Donald
Sports Staff
JOHN PAPANEKS
Sports Editor
ELLIOT LEGOW
Executive Sports Editor
BILL ALTERMAN.............Associate Sports Editor
BOB ANDREWS............Assistant Sports Editor
SANDI GENIS ............... Assistant Sports Editor
RANDY PHILLIPS.........Contributing Sports Editor
MICHAEL OLIN...........Contributing Sports Editor
OCUCK DRUKIS ........ Contributing Sports Editor
JOEL GREER.............Contributing Sports Editor
T oday's staff:
News: Debbie Allen, Pat Bauer, Jan Bene-
detti, Dan Biddle, Tammy Jacobs,
Sue Stephenson, David Unnewehr
Editorial Page: Denise Gray, Robert
Schreiner
Arts Page: Richard Glatzer
Photo technician: Tom Gottlieb
defeated in the House by an eight-vote
margin two days later. If it doesn't clear
both houses and get on the ballot, the,
money for mass transit won't be allo-
cated.
Worse, last Friday the mass transit bill
itself suffered a tie and was defeated in
the Senate. Like the constitutional
amendment in the House, however, it
will be considered again next week after
legislators return from a series of con-
ferences in Miami Beach.
The humor of the situation is that
even if both measures pass, mass transit
programs stand to gain a paltry $21
million a year. That is barely enough to
keep the fast-failing local bus companies
in the lower-figure red.
Still, passage of the state subsidy will
clear the way for federal matching grants
and make the blue-print Southeastern
Michigan Transportation Authority (SE-
MTA) a reality. Although public inaction
on mass transit has assured us decades
of grief on our fast, modern freeways,
SEMTA has the potential of developing a
small but seminal public transit net-
work in the near future.
-DAVID STOLL
Smear tactics
against Gill
POLITICAL VENDETTAS at this Uni-
versity have been the object of hilar-
ity in many places, including the pages
of this newspaper. But the leaflet cam-
paign being conducted against SGC Vice
President of Minority Affairs Lee Gill is
far from funny. Late Tuesday night, uni-
dentified persons posted leaflets in Gom-
berg House of South Quad warning resi-
dents to "Lock you doors! Your RD may
Rip'You Off!"
Gill is resident director of Gomberg
House. The leaflet reproduced from a
local newspaper a notice of Gill's exam-
ination on charges of larceny in Ann
Arbor Circuit Court.
The charges against Gill, according to
reliable sources, are far from substan-
tiated. Whether politically or personally
motivated, such smear tactics accomplish
nothing constructive.
-T.M.
Power corrupts.
THERE ARE REPORTS in the wind that
since Henry Kissinger had a reveal-
ing interview last month with an Italian
journalist, the White House has launched
a campaign of sorts to make it clear to
everyone that it is Richiard Nixon-and
not Kissinger-who is calling the shots
in the Paris peace negotations.
In the interview, the president's top
foreign affairs advisor compared himself
to a Wild West cowboy who "enters the
village alone and does everything on his
own."
All we can say, Mr. Nixon, is you better
not let him get behind your back.
-R.S.
By JAMES EASTLAND
N MARCH 16, 1970, in a speech
before the Senate, I alerted my
colleagues and the nation to a
serious danger to the internal se-
curity of our country, that w a s
about to result from the return of
a group of young Americans who
had gone to Cuba for theaalleged
purpose of cutting sugar cane and
thus helping the Communist regime
that strangles the freedom of that
island republic.
The group called itself the "Ven-
ceremos Brigade." It has grown
from an initial membership of 213
to nearly 2,000.
The Communist regime of Cuba
was quick to realize thatthe seeds
of subversion sown in Cuba among
members of this group would bear
handsome fruits in the U n i t e d
States.
WHAT I predicted two and a half
years ago has come to pass.
Testimony taken by the Inter-
nal Security Subcommittee has es-
tablished the subtle method of
training of the "Venceremos Bri-
gade" members. Copies of Cuban
manuals on guerrilla warfare and
urban terrorism seized from re-
turning members, dog-eared and
with salient points underscored, in-
dicate intensive study of such dead-
ly literature.
Diaries of the brigade members
indicate that the Cubans held sem-
inars. where Latin American, Af-
rican, North Vietnamese, and Viet-
cong guerrilla experts lived, work-
ed and gave performances of their
skills.
In his address to the second con-
U.S.
disregard the revolutionary w h o
spoke best in favor of the activist
who fought the police the hardest
(sic). Members of the Venceremos
Brigade, according to their diaries,
made it possible for Van Ba to
cros the border from Canada into
Detroit for an on-the-spot inspection
of what he considered the "enemy
camp."
Brigade members have been ar-
rested in Massachusetts,. and in
California, and elsewhere, for pos-
session of explosives and manu-
fact:ring of bombs. Others h a v e
infiltrated computer data centers
of oil companies and were found
in possession of maps of pipelines
with strategic locations marked in
red pencil. I could cite more exam-
ples.
THE DANGER is by no means
past. I once introduced into the
Congressional Record the names of
the first contingent of the Vencere-
mos Brigade. I think it appropriate,
in view of the continuing threat
which these Venceremos Brigade
members constitute, to add t h e.
names of the members of the four
brigades which followed the first,
so that anyone who reads the Re-
cord may know who there activists
are.
Jaynes Eastland, a U. S. senator
from Mississippi, delivered these
remarks on the Senate floor Oct.
18. Following his article in the
Congressional Record were the
names and home towns of 2,000
members of the Venceresos Bri-
gade.
'S
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t
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f
k
tingent of the brigade Fidal Castro
was optimistic about the future
performance of the brigade mem-
bers. He said:
"I believe with this we are' be-
ginning a great movement. I be-
lieve that this creates the basis
for a tremendous development -
which will have a tremendous im-
pact on the whole world . ."
WHAT FIDEL CASTRO was ex-
Castro visiting the people
pecting has become manifest in
many ways and in many parts of
this country. For instance, on the
weekend of April 16-18, 1971, a
group of Venceremos brigade or-
ganizers held a "working semin-
ar" with a workers' committee of
Cesar Chavez' United Farm Work-
ers Organizing Committee. Two of
the items on the agenda of the
meeting involved the "exchange
of information and show of solidar-
ity with UFWO workers."
What actually happened accord-
ing to the May, 1971 bulletin of the
brigade was a full-scale indoctrin-
ation seminar on organizing along
Marxist lines.
Then there is the case of one
Van Ba, a Vietcong representative
in Cuba who exhorted the Ameri-
cans of the Venceremos Brigade to
I'
Getting y
By PETER LAFRENIERE
SITTING ON A limb of your mind, you
watch the flow of your thoughts be-
neath you. The river moves on endlessly,
its small waves, riding on years of mo-
mentum, strike incessantly against t h e
world's shore. Sparkles of sunlight laugh
and cry as they dance upon the surface,
unaware of the fallen logs and dams ahead.
Sitting, you watch; witnessing, you learn,
as your thoughts reveal their innermost
secrets. Soon you understand their proper-
ties and how to control and direct them
straight towards the ocean of clear con-
sciousness. You fall from your mind and
become one.
* * *
SPIRITUALLY IS a term long desecrat-
ed by the "modern" world. Since these has
been a flurry of mystical activity through-
out the ages, the tendency has been to lump
them all together under one heading, which
can only lead to confusion and misnomers.
Yet, upon careful inspection, spirituality
crystallizes into a unified, consistent sci-
ence which was first experienced inter-
nally through developed methods and then
written down as a system composed of
both practical techniques and philosophy.
Hence, although the theoretical accounts
allow us to digest it analytically, it is only
the experimentation done in our own men-
tal laboratories that synthesize the know-
ledge into spiritual realities.
Yoga is such a precise technique which,
if taught by a qualified acarya (one who
)urs el tog
has studies under a realized being) will
systematically open the mind to higher
conscious planes. Ananda Marga (which
means Path of Bliss) is a spiritual society
which teaches the practice of tantric yoga,
another area greatly misunderstood. Start-
ed about 6500 years ago by Lord Siva in
Northern India as a powerful method of
mind liberation ,tantra was corrupted by
Mongul invaders .who turned it into a mere
sex cult thereby taking from a purely spirit-
ual plane to a physical one.
ether
th rough
Yoga
4
THIS DOES not mean that tantric yoga
strives to suppress certain basic drives in
man nor does it attempt to deny the tran-
cient reality (maya) we normally exper-
ience, but rather expand our conscious
minds to encompass all the realms of exist-
ence produced by higher causal laws. Suc-
cess in this form of meditation comes only
through much clash and cohesion; the pro-
cess whereby the mind's vibrations struggle
with the object of its thought until har-
mony is reached between them. So really
everyone does tantra at some level, the
highest being when the mind penetrates into
its source and evolves to its true nature of
complete happiness. This is the goal of all
spirituality and all paths are hard, yet
persistent effort will purify the mind, layer
by layer, until consciousness alone reveals
the real Self.
ANANDA MARGA conducts a Free-Uni-
versity Yoga class here in Ann Arbor.
Everyone in the class has been participating
in collective perception games, meant to
demonstrate different aspects of the phil-
osophy. A talk usually follows on a new
topic each week, then we flow into yoga
asanas (exercises) which are concerned
with perfecting the glands in our bodies
in order to maintain a parallelism between
our physical sphere and our psychic one
as the latter is developing through the prac-
tice of meditation. After the deep relaxa-
tion which follows, we have a short medi-
tation, then sing some songs. At the end
of class there is a discussion about how the
class went that week. Not only is this
beneficial to the teachers, but the sharing
of opinions helps each of us to get a
perspective of where we are in relation to
others. All in all, the sessions attempt to
bring spiritual philosophy alive by relating
it to our everyday lives as well as impart
enough knowledge to continue meditating
on our own.
ALONG WITH ITS spiritual practice,
Ananda Marga has an intense interest in
social upliftment. The spiritual Master of
the yoga society states . that we are all
brothers and sisters of one undivided human
society. He also says "Let no one get the
scope that his life has become useless." In
the United States, social service has been
done in these areas: setting up cheap kitch-
ens for the elderly, a childrens school in
California, a girls home in Wichita, Kan-
siis, yoga classes in prisons, and an emer-
gency relief team is now being ,set up for
the whole country. In India hundreds of
children's homes as well as schools, col-
leges, and emergency relief teams, which
played an important role in Bangala Desh,
have been established.
In doing social service the spiritual Mas-
ter Shrii Ananda Murtijii has said "The life
of the person becomes mechanical if he
remains overwhelmed with the sentiment
that one must do such acts, one must per-
form such service and sacrifice, one must
rise in this manner, and so on. Happiness
disappears there. For this reason, such
ritualism cannot be called real Karma. To
serve others at one's own sacrifice is called
penance. In the absence of love, the serv-
ices rendered and penance undergone for
show only are fruitless . . . Divine Bliss is
easily available only to those who base their
action on Love."
SO ANANDA MARGA is a continuous
movement towards growth in thephysical,
mental, and spiritual planes. All that we
have to do is have faith in our true self,
then we will find that nothing is impossible.
First we have to dive deep into ourselves
to see that the true light of love exists
in each of us, so then we can move the
whole of humanity towards that goal. When
we realize this, we will "See that not a
single individual lags behind."
Peter LeFreniere has written several ar-
tides on yoga and meditation for The Daily.
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On legalizing prostitution:
Chasing after skin is bizarre
By PETE HAMILL
POLITICIANS can usually think
of more ways to waste money
than ordinary mortals can, and the
current "war" on pornography,
peep shows and massage parlors is
a good example. This is a city
which can't raise enough money
to rebuild Brownsville, clean the
streets, fill the potholes or catch
the crooks and it has its cops and
other employes running around
chasing skin. It's bizarre.
The Times Square area does
have a seedy, crawly look to it
these days, but the sex clean-up
isn't going to change things very
much. The prostitutes will be on
the streets as long as heroin ad-
diction eats away at the city's
heart, and as long as there are
johns willing to pay for the serv-
ices of the women. A crackdown
does not stop prostitution; it only
moves the prostitutes to another
part of town.
If the people running the crack-
down were serious, they wouldn't
waste the time of the cops and the
others who chase around the town.
They would be pressing for full le-
galization of everything.
IF PROSTITUTION were legal-
ized, the masage parlors would be-
come the basis of the system. In-
stead of having cops posing as
johns at our expense, the parlors
would be brought into the tax sys-
tem, the women would be licensed
and forced to have medical check-
ups against veneral disease, and
a big hunk of hypocrisy would go
out of our lives.
The brothels would exist in the
open; a generation would grow up
knnwin ahnt their existence. and
true crime; the law is making a
moral judgment and asking cops
to enforce that moral judgment.
A certain element of the pop-
ulation objects to the existence of
prostitution, but that does n o t
mean that prostitution wil go
away. All i means is that somebody
objects.
But the basic tactic of t h o s e
who truly object is to refuse. They
do not have to use brothels, b u y
pornographic books or magazines,
or line up at the peep shows.
But some people want, perhaps
even need, those things, and in a
free society, they should have that
right.
Legalization would also mean re-
gulation. There could be specific
zoning codes to control the more
blatant sort of advertising. And
there could be some regulation of
prices.
Most civilized nations have red
light districts, and those countries
which have abolished them (like
France and Italy) have found to
their chagrin that the system goes
haywire, that venereal disease
spreads, and that the pimps and
racketeers continue to provide the
services, but with a vicious under-
tone.
New York now has legalized
gambling on horse-racing, and the
public morals did not suffer; the
horseplayers simply moved from
the illegal bookmaker to the legal
bookmaker.
Within a few years, all sports
gambling will almost certainly be
legalized with the only objections
coming from the mob guys, and af-
ter that we will no doubt have full
casino gambling, along the lines of
Las Vegas.
the true obscenity: street crime,
violence, poverty, drug addiction,
rotten housing.
To continue to ask grown inen
and women to go chasing around
after skin is a waste of time.
Pete Hamill is a columnist for
the New York Post.
Copyright 1972, New York Post
Corporation
Letters to The Daily should
be mailed to the Editorial Di-
rector or delivered to Mary
Rafferty in the Student Pub-
lications business office in the
Michigan Daily building. Letters
should be typed, double-spaced
and normally should not exceed
250 words. The Editorial Direc-
tors reserve the right to edit
all letters submitted.
*i
Why hreak up a winig
team?
Letters to The Daily
Crass sensationalism
To The Daily:
YOUR TODAY column of Thurs-
day in which you saw fit to point
out that Mark Friesen "believes
he is Gob, a counterpart of God,
and in touch with the planet Ven-
us" shows crassness, interest in
sensationalism, and a most repug-
nant lack of humaneness and sen-
sitivity in dealing with human af-
fairs. Did you think that q u o t e
would illicit chuckles?
After having received help for
Bull----! You're a common part
of the great unfeeling, undignified
majority.
-Scott Zimmerman
Dec. 7
Dirty little kids
To The Daily:
ON MY first visit to Ann Arbor
in about ten years I picked up the
December 1st Daily. The vulgarity,
on its front page would indicate
it's now in the hands of a bunch
Saturn rocket you printed on your
front page Thursday morning. Un-
fortunately, when your caption
writer identified the photograph as
having been taken, "last night,"
he or she should have realized that
such a thing was clearly impos-
sible. The picture, which featured
the rocket standing against a black
sky with a full moon, could not
have been taken last night'because
the moon was not full last night.
Indeed, the moon last night w a s
"new," and only barely visible.
,.v ift mnnn haei en full-
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