-Thursday, October 6, 1977-The Michigan Daily
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Eighty-Eight Years of Editorial Freedom
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420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Vol. LXXXVNII, No. 25
News Phone: 764-0552
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan
Older citizens rate the right
to plan their own retirement
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T IS FITTING that the fight to push
aside the mandatory retirement
age is being led in Congress by two sep-
tuagenarians - Congressman Claude
pepper (D-Fla.) and Sen. Jacob Javits
4;-N.Y.). At 77- and 73, respectively,
ey demonstrate the folly of cutting
Eder people out of the action when
tey have much left to give.
Under Pepper's guidance, the bill to
Push the mandatory retirement age
tom 65-70 in all private enterprises
lnd eliminate it altogether for federal
;mployes was passed nearly
unanimously in the House last week.
'assage in the Senate is expected
.within months, though Javits is pre-
baring an amendment which would
eliminate mandatory retirement for
ll, regardless of public/private em-
ployment status.
Taken as an economic matter, this
'bill has certain unpleasant vulnerabili-
ies. In our own academic community,
-for instance, it would discourage young
-cholars from getting jobs held by el-
derly, securely tenured professors.
-inemployment nationwide might be
inflated.
g But) taken as a matter of rights,
£ there is no question that the mandatory
retirement issue is one that has cried
for amelioration for decades. Par-
I ticularly now, when other barriers of
t E
W )NO NOUNOM WH&OA
discrimination have been assaulted
and toppled, it is appropriate that the
elderly have won their share of equal-
ity.
There is no one so desperate as the
65-year-old worker who, though physi-
cally and mentally fit for a job, is for-
ced to step aside, relinquishing liveli-
hood and the piece of life that a job pro-
vides. There is statistical proof that a
relationship exists between employ-
ment and health in older people as
well; when the job is gone, the will to
live is often shaken.
It is clear that fears of heightened
unemployment, despite arguments to
the contrary, are largely unfounded.
According to a Senate committee, only
two tenths of one per cent of the labor
force would choose to work past 65 if
given the chance. Such a group would
not severely limit job opportunities for
the young. Moreover, those 200,000
people deserve to continue at their
work.
The problem of fitness needs reso-
lution, of course. But a'medical test for
all employes would solve such uncer-
tainty. Some people are unfit for work
at 60; others are still in their prime at
70. The point is, the arbitrary limit is
inherently unfair.
We applaud Congressman Pepper.
His work is a high point in congres-
sional action of recent years.
The real enemy?Look athom
Jimmy Carter, the command-
er-in-chief of the world's leading
counterrevolutionary power, has
embarked on a grotesque con
game to pass off American im-
perialism as the liberator of the
world from totalitarianism. Cas-
tro praises Carter, the fake-lefts
try to pressure him, but the duty
of Marxists is to tell the truth to
the working class. And the truth
is that despite all "human rights"
hypocrisy, the main enemy is at
home. Karl Liebknecht said so in
World War I, the Trotskyists in
the imperialist countries said it
again in World War II. But revo-
letionaries in the United States
have a special duty to tell this
fundamental truth, for "their"
bourgeoisie is the central imperi-
alist power, which in one way or
another oppresses all the peoples
in the world.
This repulsive crusade for "hu-
man rights" comes from the
chief representative of the ruling
class responsible for the nuclear
destruction of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki, the napalming and
slaughter of millions of Vietna-
mese, and the execution of Kent
State and Jackson State students
protesting American butchery.
Not surprisingly, reactionaries of
every stripe, from Anita Bryant
to the Ku Klux Klan, have found
Carter's anti-Soviet crusade a fa-
vorable climate to mount their
mobilizations against minority
groups, women, homosexuals,
and the working class.
IN REALITY, the pious moral-
ism of Carter's "human rights".
boils down to the "right" of U.S.
imperialism to militarily main-
tain its top position in the world
market. Completely consonant
with such morality was Carter's
gala dinner with Generals Videla
and Pinochet, the blood-drenched
dictators of Argentina and Chile,
to celebrate the signing of the
Panama Canal treaty this month.
together, these events have sent
the credibility of United States'
pretensions to hegemony over the
"free world" to an all time low.
American imperialism remains
the strongest among the western
imperialist powers but the
American rulers are anxious to
reassert this position. Thus, at
the heart of Carter's reactionary
crusade is the desire to whip up
chauvinistic patriotic fervor to
strengthen the hand of the U.S. to
act as the gendarme of the west,
and to put the Soviet Union on the
From the
Spartacus Youth League
interested in for the Soviet Union
is the freedom for capitalist ex-
ploitation and oppression. The so-
cial gains of collectivized prop-
erty and the planned economy
won through the victorious Rus-
sian Revolution must be uncon-
ditionally. militarily defended!
IT IS TRULY"tragic that the
American bourgeoisie is able to
muster considerable credibility
for its campaign by exploiting the
very real crimes of the Stalinist
bureaucrats in the Kremlin.
These parasites on the gains of
the Russian proletariat must be
swept from power through a
political revolution that reinsti-
tutes soviet democracy and
carries forward the tradition of
revolutionary internationalism.
While other leftist organiza-
tions crusade against the Soviet
Union while exhorting Carter,
who called for "ethnic purity"
during his campaign for the pres-
idency, really to implement "hu-
man rights," the Spartacus
Youth League asserts that the
main enemy is at home. Only an
international socialist revolution
led by a Trotskyist party can
sweep away the bourgeoisie and
their barbarous capitalist
system. Down with the human
rights hoax !
The Spartacus Youth
League is a group of Ann Ar
bor a 4betroit Marxists.
However, Carter's propaganda
campaign is more than mere
hypocrisy. It is two-faced moral-
ism in the service of militarism.
The U.S. bourgeoisie has not yet
recovered from the drawn-out de-
feat it suffered in Indochina, or
the stark exposure of the Water-
gate affair which came on its
heels. In addition, there has been
a steady erosion of the United
States' previously unchallenged
economic predominance among
the western =imperialists. Taken
defensive.
Today, the attempt to refurbish
the moral authority of Yankee
imperialism means a bigger war
budget and "hanging touch" in
the arms control negotiations. Ul-
timately, however, this
ideological offensive presages
imperialist war, this time prin-
cipally directed against the
Soviet Union. In the face of this
threat, revolutionists must
acknowledge thatthe; only,
"freedom" the imperialists are
M OuT' OF OFFICE?
Mi
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EDITO IAL TAFFlick, Keith Richburg, Julie Rovner, Dennis Sabo, Annmarie
EDITO IAL TAFFSchiavi, Paul Shapiro, Elizabeth Slowik, Mike Taylor, Pauline
*N MARIE LIPINSKI JIM TOBIN Toole, Sue Warner, Linda Willcox, Shelley Wolson, Mike Yellin,
Editors-in-Chief ' aigEio and Barb Zahs
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Letters to
woods
The Daily
To The Daily:
As a recent tenant of Ann Arbor Woods
apartments, I was most interested to read
your article "Sky-high rates at A2 Woods."
My wife and I moved into this complexin May
of 1976, paying a non-refundable $50 "cleaning
fee," one month's rent as a security deposit,
and a monthly rent of $201. We were informed
at that time, by the manager, that we should
expect no greater than a $5-$10 increase in the
monthly rate per year. In a letter dated 1 June
1977, we were informed that effective 1 Au-
gust 1977, the rent on our apartment would be
increased to $285 per month, the cleaning fee
to $55, and the security deposit to $285! (A
mere $84 increase). Of course, we moved out
by the effective date.
Had we known that we would eventually be
forced to move, we obviously would never
have taken the apartment in the first place.
Losses included the $50 "cleaning fee,"
moving expenses, drapes which cannot be
used in our new place, time, etc. The people
responsible for this outrage should be brought
to justice. I suggest immediate evacuation
and boycott of Ann Arbor Woods apartments.
Tom Rosatti
September 30
cheers
To The Daily:
I noticed with interest Scott Lewis's column
of September 25, which listed the reasons giv-
en by Bo for the team's poor showing this
year. Among the reasons listed are a wet
field, poor officiating, the opponents'
strength, injuries, and a lack of enthusiasm.
You can throw all of these out except for the
lack-of-enthusiasm theory, for which the stu-
dents and other fans should be faulted.
As an alumnus who has attended many Wol-
verine games at home and away, it is evident
to me that the quality and quantity of vocal
support has been decaying throughout the
years at Michigan Stadium. I've heard more
enthusiastic support and crowd noise at local
high school games where the crowd has num-
bered between four and five thousand loyal
and faithful fans.
When one considers the amount of support
that 100,000-plus fans are capable of gener-
ating each Saturday, it should be enough to
keep the adrenalin freely flowing in each
"Shit!" by a student body that's supposed to
rank among the tops in the country. How
many of these smart-alecks would yell that to
their 6- or 7-year-old brothers or sisters while
watching a game at home on TV? It's a good
example to set for all the young ones who
come to Ann Arbor for an afternoon of fun ex-
citement.
If Michigan fans and students want to have
their players play like a Number One team,
they should act like a Number One crowd and
start getting behind their team - vocally!
Quit this booing and bellyaching if we don't
win by 40 points. Babe Ruth didn't hit a home
run every time at bat. Support the team with
your best and you'll get their best. And that's
-all you can ask.
Sherwin Goldstein
September 27
RC
To The Daily:
Thank you for the prominent coverage of
my talk yesterday to the LSA faculty regard-
ing the vitality of the Residential College. In-
evitably, however, there were a few miscon-
structions of my report, and I would appreci-
ate the record being set straight, lest I have to
fight spectres not of my own making. First, it
does not cost RC students 25 per cent more
than LSA counterparts; both pay the same
tuition. What I said was that we estimate that
the RC cost per student credit hour is approxi-
mately 25 per cent more than the average cost
per student credit hour in LSA. Regarding the
,number of teaching fellows in RC programs, I
said that there were only two exclusive of the
language instruction programs. Finally, it is
not true that "some of our lecturers are
'cheap labor,' being TFs" (the positions of
lecturer and TF are mutually exclusive) but
that some of our lecturers are cheap labor
being underpaid in view of their qualifications
and responsibilities.
John Mersereau, Jr.
Director, Residential College
and Prof. of Slavic Languages
and Literatures
October 3
many of whom now have no employment and
who have little hope of enjoying youth or mid-
dle age in dignity? Will the general welfare
load be reduced if senior citizens continue to
hold employment which younger people
might do better? Will the transference of uh-
employment from senior citizens to younger
citizens reduce the governmental debt which
has been and continues to be the principal
cause of inflation? Hardly !
, The nation's forests, irreplacable resour-
ces, and water and air supplies have been
jeopardized by profit seeking lumber barons,
mining barons, and industrial barons. Ameti-
cans and people the world over have been rie-
duced to being either voiceless cogs in profit-
making enterprises or idle and useless wards
of the state. Should we continue to tolerAte
such destruction of people and of nature?
Surely, there is a better way, a way which
will enable all members of society to be
usefully and happily employed to the full
capability of each and to the improvement'of
the natural environment. People the world
over have the right and the opportunity:to
take the production of necessary goods and
services out of the ownership and control of
capitalist idlers who seldom toil or spin.
We also have the right and the ability to ds-
tablish a new form of government which will
be based on social ownership, administration
and conduct of production and distribution.
We the people will then be able to employ
human and natural resources most advan-
tageously. The production of goods and ser-
vices so as to benefit each man, woman and
child will be far safer and more humane than
to allow a few industrial barons to destroy
both society and government.
Ralph Munpy
September 28
Editorial positions represent
a consensus of
The Daily Editorial Staff
retirement
I