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March 17, 1978 - Image 4

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Michigan Daily, 1978-03-17

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Page 4-Friday. March 17, 1978-The Michigan Daily
hie £zdpt" tn 4a4I OttI
Eighty-Eight Years of Editorial Freedom
420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Vol. LXXXVIII, No. 131 News Phone: 764-0552
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan

To LSA-SG:
A S TRENDS GO, student gov-
ernment at the University is at a
low point.
Support for the various governments
by their constituents is practically
nonexistent, and representatives must
learn to make important financial and
policy decisions in a near vacuum. To
add to this, there seem to be few issues
which these bodies can have an effec-
tive, dramatic impact on.
It is a bad situation alright-a
disheartening one. But if history can be
trusted, it is only a trend. That is why
efforts to disband the government,
however justified they may seem today,
are in the long rtn ill-conceived.
At a meeting of the LSA Student
Government (LSA-SG) Wednesday
night, Vice-President Jodi Wolens
fbught to have a referendum placed on
an upcoming ballot which would
abolish the government. When a
majority of her colleagues disagreed
with her, Wolens resigned.
Wolens' main reason for suggesting
disbandment of LSA-SG, she said, is
that the government only deals with
"taken" issues. But issues are only

Keep trying
"token" if they are handled in a
"token" manner. Any issue, no matter
how many people it affects, can become
"token" if a governmental body con-
siders it with little sincerity.
LSA-SG, like the Michigan Student
Assembly and other local governments,
has been battling internal
organizational problems lately, and no
doubt this has spurred the type of
frustration which would lead to Wed-
nesday night's debate.
Government members only need
provide themselves with a sense of
history and a regard for the future if
they wish to overcome the feeling that
they only deal in trivialities. Student
government and student activism on
this campus has in years past earned a
national reputation for its accomplish-
ments-one that needs to be cared for.
Abolishing LSA-SG would be a selfish
move, too, because sooner or later a
group of LSA students would begin to
wonder why they were not represented
by a single voice.
LSA-SG may be stuck in the
frustrating mire of the present, but its
future may be glorious.

Conspi
I am among those who found it
difficult to mourn too deeply for
Hubert Humphrey. Perhaps he
was, as we were told, essentially
a decent, hard-working, and
courageous man who spent most
of his political life fighting for
what he believed was right. But
faced with the most critical
issues of his life - the war in
Vietnam and the anti-war
movement in the United States -
he failed to speak out or live up to
his principles. In the eulogies
following his recent death, there
seemed to be an unspoken con-
spiracy to forget this and to gloss
over the war as somehow just bad
luck for poor Hubert. The
politicians and' the media ap-
parently want to forget Vietnam
and all it meant. Some of us
remember, and intend to go on
remembering.
Somebofeus remember that
Zbigniew Brzezinski and Harold
Brown, architects today of
American foreign policy and
military planning, were once
master craftsmen (if not ar-
chitects) of the war in Vietnam.
They too have received public
absolution without visible con-
trition. People just want to
forget, and bringing up the
history of such men is considered
irrelevant or rude.
I CANNOT speak from a
position of moral superiority.
During the mid-160's I supported
the American invasion of Viet-
nam as an unfortunate necessity
of the global struggle against
Communism. Although I was
becoming disenchanted by the
end of 1967, when I was drafted I
entered the Army reluctantly but
without protest, and was just
lucky not to be sent to Vietnam to
face tougher decisions there.
Even when I completely turned
against the war in the early 1970's
I did nothing but mutter quietly
about it. I have to live now with
the knowledge that I was wrong
- both intellectually and morally
- and come to terms with that
knowledge, trying to understand
how it all happened and trying to
ensure that it doesn't happen
again. It distresses me that so
many people prefer to avoid such
confrontations, and behind the
phrase "forgive and forget" deny
that there are any lessons to be
learned from the war.
This public amnesia at times
seems to transcend political
alignments, extending to all those
Who remind us of tragic times
and real responsibilities. Our
promise to provide reconstruc-
tion aid to the Democratic
Republic of Vietnam if it signed
the Paris Peace Agreement of
1973 is conveniently forgotten by
most Americans, though the
Vietnamese remember.
But our own veterans ot the
Vietnam war are also shamefully
neglected both by an underfun-
ded Veterans Administration and
by a public which simply does not
want to hear about them. It has
been estimated that a vast
majority of Vietnam veterans at
the University of Michigan have
not registered as such with the
Ofice of Affirmative Action,
presumably because they feel
that such identification may do
more harm than good. The Viet-
namese refugees we officially
welcomed in 1976 remain at ex-
p traordinary levels of unem.

ring to forget Vietnan
of governance and thought were
By Norman Owen irrelevances. We are riow begin
ployment (over 35 per cent) and and eager to learn what had hap- ning to see on TV attempts at
even higher levels of underem- pened there. "nostalgia" for the 1960's. Shows
poyment. Nobody cares. Far from being part of the such as "Whatever Happened to
conspiracy to forget Vietnam, the Class of '65?" and "Loose
THE QUESTION of amnesty they were the victims of that con- Change" try to capitalize on the
for draft evaders and deserters spiracy. It is sometimes hard for style of that decade by glutting if
has been defused by totally us to realize that today's of substance. Forgetting the war
inadequate Presidential offers of sophomores were four years old has come to embody the shab-
biest kind of conservatism, one
based not on principles but on
One alternative to forgetting the inertia.
Realizing this, Marilyn, Buzz,
war entirely has been to rewrite its and I soon found common ground
withother members of the
history in such a way as to deny its University community whose
concerns intersected ours. Some
political or moral significance. of them, focusing on the contem-
porary history of the Left in the
United States, were realizing that'
if suffered from the same mix-
"clemency", but there is no when Ngo Dinh Diem was ture of silence and distortion, and
visible effort to do more. Anyone assassinated, six when the first that it fell into the same gap in
who reminds the public of the American ground troops landed, the awareness of undergraduates
"national trauma" of Vietnamis and nine at the time of the Tet of- - too far past to be remembered,
shunted aside; those such as fensive. That they personally not far enough past to be studied
Humphrey, Brzezinski, and remember very little of the ware scneifnl"isoy"W
HBiownrwy, Baneexcskethid understandable; that they have as conventional "history. We
Brown wr hcareive sthis been told nothing about it or the herefore began planning a teach-
episode from their lives do so. ehnil. in on Vietnam and the United
One alternative to forgetting issues ittraised istreprehensible. States for the coming week of
the war entirely has been te We owe it to them to remember. March 20-24 - the thirteenth an-
rewrite its history in such a way AMERICA's amnesia, as I niversary of the first teach-in,
as to deny its political or moral have suggested, spreads to in- right here at the University of
signiicanc. Frak Snpp, dlude war victims of all political Mihgnn195
despite his disclosures of CIA persuasions, but this does not As our planning group expan-
ineptitude in the final days of the mean that the amnesia itself is ded to include interested students
war, still writes as if our failures politically neutral. Whether by and we started to deal with prac-
were purely strategic and tactiv- coincidence or design, it serves tical problems of scheduling, we
cal; the legitimacy of our presen- as an excuse for not asking any were continually rewriting the
ce in Vietnam is assumed. troubling questions about the program, but our essential pur-
.wipose never changed. We are
Hollywood enters the act with us of poe in eri t going to look long and hard at the
movies that use Vietnam as a set- o wich this oe isp- Vietnam War and the anti-war
ting for a film about something fortable message that the war in movement and the implications
else: "Rolling Thunder"'isjust Vietnam was a mistake (of an of both, past and present, for
"Walking Tall Goes to Viet- Venmwsa"itk"(fa American society. Against the
naam," "The Boys of Company unspecified nature) and not, as prevailing conspiracy to forget
C" a feeble attempt at "MASH some would have it, a crime. I we proclaim a conspiracy to
Goes to Vietnam, and Francis automatically avoid such remember.
Ford Coppola's much-publicized "mially avoid uchre
"Apocalypse Now" will repor- "mistakes" in the future,
Apoalyse ow'wil reor-although without radically
tedly be "Heart of Darkness Goes ahogh ithou r ign
to Vetnm."In ech ase by changing either our foreign
to Vietnam. In each case, by plc rteisiuin hc Norman Owren, an assistant
universalizing the experiemce, policy or the institutions which Nrinoe.a sitn
tiulrityrofth epr emdche' shaped it. professor in the Department of
the film-makers avoid the par- It also perpetuates the myth History, has helped to organize
ticularity ofthis war an ute that the anti-war movement was a teach-in on the Vietnam War
qu o o jjust a "trend" of the 1960's, and
States was doing in Vietnam. therefore that the challenges the and its aftermath. The teach-in
. movement posed to our systems begins Monday.

Give me w Y'O~EN, Y'odIaRFI?4N5, Yost P ELTVCN M 'K .

MEMOIRS AND journalistic
accounts, such as Philip Caputo's
A Rumor of War and Michael
Herr's Dispatches, are often
more honest, but their honesty
usually consists in reflecting ac-
curately the thoughts and
emotions "of American soldiers
who were so caught up in their
own nightmare that they could
spare no time to consider the
Vietnamese. Only Gloria Emer-
son, in Winners and Losers, has
passionately refused to forget the
sufferings of the Vietnamese or
the names of those responsible
for that suffering, and for this she
has been labelled as obsessed,
neurotic, and hysterical. (See
Marilyn Young, "Critical Am-
nesia," in The Nation, 2 April
1977).
Here at the University of
Michigan some faculty members
have continued to teach students
about the Vietnam War. Three of
us - Marilyn Young, William
("Buzz") Alexander, and myself
- finally met and realized that
we were encountering the same
thing in our classes. The students
we saw (admittedly a self-
selected sample) were not
apathetic and apolitical. They
were concerned about Vietnam

The struggle
between imperialisms

LETTERS TO THE DAILY

To The Daily:
The Mideast squabbles bet-
ween the puppets of American
and Russian imperialisms can
not be resolved, because of the
conflicting material interests of
the ruling classes, The sufferers
of these squabbles are the toiling
masses, and especially the
refugees.
Behind all this is the struggle
between American and Russian
imperialisms for the domination
of rich oil resources, for the
sphere of influence in Mideast
and Arabia, for the establishment
of military and naval bases, and
for the trade routs in the horn of
Africa.
To this end, both imperialisms
are supplying the puppets with
many billions of dollars in
military weapons, and with
thousands of advisers. In Iran
alone, there are some 40,000 of
U.S. military advisers and

technicians, while in Etiiopia
there are many more thousands
of Cuban and Russian military
advisers and combatants.
All this can only end up in more
and bigger wars. The stakes are
high, and so;is the danger of 'a
nuclear war between the two im-
perialist rivals, a war that would
resultin universal annihilation.
The Socialist Labor Party
maintains that there can be no
peace under this outmoded and
strike-torn classdevided society,
that it must be replaced with a
class less Socialist Industrial
Republic of Labor, a society
based upon cooperation among
the peoples of the world.
American working class is in a
most favorable position to
inaugurate this next higher stage
of society, confident that the
workers of the rest of the world
will follow suit.
- Frank Troher

kM: t"
r..AD Wid'e FI

mw

d+w i +7 _

Much of the current discussion about the
University's investments in South Africa has
focused on the losses the University might in-
cur by cutting these holdings. Concern has
been expressed over the inevitable loss of
University profits from corporate stocks and
bolnds, the possible loss of diversity in its in-
vestment portfolio, and the loss of a con-
tinuing voice in the corporations' activities
(though the University has rarely, if ever
spoken on such).
One important question is seldom men-
tioned openly, though Ifsuspect it is on the
minds of certain administrators:
HOW MIGHT divestment affect the flow of
rmonetary gifts to the University, especially
from corporations?
The University is rightfully proud of its
success in fund raising. Contributors are
honored annually by name in a booklet
published by the Michigan Annual Giving
P rogram. The most recent honor roll,
"Keeping Michigan Among the Leaders and
Best," covers the period July 1, 1975 through
June 30, 1976.
The biggest givers are listed in large type in
the front of the booklet. They are the
lMichigan Benefactors.
THE REPORT states that "in the three
short years ... since the program was
established, 326 Benefactors have been
0 A0 n Mnwith cumulative aifts to the

S

African losses and gifts

0

By Thomas Detwyler

CAPITALIZED names denote (including parent companies) in which
the University holds investments (as of June 30, 1977).

* denotes firms supporting the six anti-discriminatory Sullivan prin-
ciples.

Allied Chemical Corporation
*AMERICAN CYANAMIDE COMPANY
American Metal Climax Corporation
Arthur Anderson & Co.
Ayerst Laboratories
'The Bendix Corporation
Bethlehem Steel Corporation
BRISTOL-MYERS COMPANY
*BURROUGHS CORPORATION
Chrysler Corporation Fund
Ciba-Geigy Corporation
DOW CHEMICAL COMPANY
*EASTMAN KODAK COMPANY
Ernst & Ernst
*EXXON CORPORATION
*FORD MOTOR COMPANY
*FORD MOTOR COMPANY FUND
Fruehauf Corporation

GENERAL ELECTRIC COMPANY
*GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION
*GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION-Chevrolet
Motor Division
*GENERAL MOTORS CORPORATION
Technical Center
GERBER PRODUCTS COMPANY
*THE GOODYEAR TIRE & RUBBER COMPANY
GULF OIL FOUNDATION
*INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION
Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical Corporation
(Subsidiary of Kaiser Industries Corp.)
*ELI LILLY AND COMPANY
McGraw-Hill, Incorporated
*MERCK & COMPANY, INCORPORATED
*MERCK COMPANY FOUNDATION
Miles Laboratories, Incorporated

MONSANTO COMPANY
OWENS-ILLINOI, INC.
PARKEDAVIS & COMPANY
(Subsidiary of WARNER-LAMBERT CO.)
*PFITZER, INCORPORATED
PROCTOR & GAMBLE COMPANY
Rockwell International Corporation
G. D. SEARLE & COMPANY
SHELL OIL COMPANY
*SMITHKLINE CORPORATION
Touche Ross & Co.
TRW, Inc.
'UNION CARBIDE CORPORATION
The Upjohn Company
Westinghouse Corporation
XEROX CORPORATION
The Partners of Arthur Young and Company

FROM EXPERIENCE we know that the
corporations are overwhelmingly motivated
to act in their self interest (as measured by
profits) and hence, generally, will strive to
continue doing business at the cost of apar-
theid.
rThrough their past and furure "gifts" (ac-
tually only tax write-offs which the citizenry
must make up) these private interests exert
great sway over the public university.
Corporate influence has increased as the
University has*-modeled itself, more and
more, after the corporation. The chief
executive officers, usually with pro forma
approval of the Regents, have fostered this
reshaping along corporate lines - seeking
maximum profits almost regardless of social
consequences, and developing interlocking
directorates with corporations.
Now the moral test of the University is
greater than before and greater than many
people imagined. The' revealed pressures
simply increase the imperative: We must
exercise our educational and social respon-
sibility to cease our promotion of apartheid,
whatever the financial losses.
In the University, as in South Africa, there
are no gains without pain.
0
Thomas Detwyler, a member of the
Geography Department faculty, has
frequently contributed to the University
ner th vaire

erroniously-included donors).
THE LIST is striking for its number of
Benefactors which do business in South
Africa.i

offices.
Some of the Benefactors are subsidiaries of
foreign corporations whose activities in South
Africa are difficult to gauge.

is from them that the greatest resistance to
divestiture can be expected, perhaps in the
form of a slap on the hand reaching out for
gifts.

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