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.