100%

Scanned image of the page. Keyboard directions: use + to zoom in, - to zoom out, arrow keys to pan inside the viewer.

Page Options

Download this Issue

Share

Something wrong?

Something wrong with this page? Report problem.

Rights / Permissions

This collection, digitized in collaboration with the Michigan Daily and the Board for Student Publications, contains materials that are protected by copyright law. Access to these materials is provided for non-profit educational and research purposes. If you use an item from this collection, it is your responsibility to consider the work's copyright status and obtain any required permission.

January 15, 1977 - Image 4

Resource type:
Text
Publication:
Michigan Daily, 1977-01-15

Disclaimer: Computer generated plain text may have errors. Read more about this.


Etje 5fi!Jugn BaIzut
Eighty-Seven Years of E ditorial Freedom
420 Maynard St, Ann Arbor, MI .48109

State of 'high living'
is now in for some,
hard times: Gop. Carey

I

.

Saturday, January 15, 1977

News Phone: 764-0552

Edited and managed by students'at the University of Michigan

. irir ~ ..r'rirrr* / r r\rr ni
1' Oft

By STEPHEN KURSMAN
GOOD TIMES ARE GONE for the State of New
York. Once q state with a high standard
of living, it is now in hard times, according
to Governor Carey. Viewed in a larger frame-
work, New York's difficulties seem to reflect
the movement of economic opportunity away
from the Northeast and towards the Sunbelt.
The upcoming budget for the, state is re-
portedly so bad that the Governor's aides are
spending lots of time preparing legislators for
the expected shock that its release will bring.
The Governor himself even held an unprecedent-
ed briefing for the lawmakers at which he dis-
cussed long-term economic trends in the state.
His basic message was that the Albany gov-
ernment had been hindering the state's econo-
my by increasing taxes and public spending in
the absence of economic growth. The result has
been a wall of high taxes and regulations that
Steven Kursman is a regular contributor to
The Daily's Editorial Page.

discouraged investment by businesses.
BUT THE LEGISLATORS are passing the
blame to others. Being the governmental organ
that wrote the tax laws and business regula-
tions they are somewhat blameworthy. They are
also somewhat reluctant to admit their mistakes.
Mentioned by various legislators as culpable. are,
' federl pollution regulations, high, energy costs
and a certain state law dealing with unemploy-
ment insurance. But the admission of overspend-
ing is not easy to come across.
And while state politicians are squabbling
amongst themselves, the investment dollars need-
ed .for an economic stimulus are quietly slipping
away to areas where economic opportunity is
better. And most of these areas are within the
Sunbelt.
IF THE PRESENT TREND continues, and
there is every likelihood that it will, then a
city like Jacksonville or Houston may become
the Big Apple of tomorrow and a state such
as Texas may be the, nation's economic pow-
erhouse. It could well be that New York's econom-
ic vitality then will be in memory only.

"r $\j,"

LATIN AMERICAN POLITICS:

National Security used

to

'justify total

THE MILWAUKEE JOURNAL
OST.FIRELDNEWSPAPER SYNDICATE, 1977
we register it under a foreign flag and use it for
shipping .. . like the US oil cam panies!'

'Why don't

,.

By FRANK MAUROVICH
Pacific News Service
THE MILITARY RULERS who
control eight of this con-
tinent's 12 nations are engaged
in total war.
The enemy is international
Marxism. The battleground is
the minds of the people. And
the remedy is Seguridad Nacion-
al (national security), a unique-
ly South American ideology that
has replaced democracy and be-
come the glue that binds the
military governments here: Ar-
gentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile,
Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru and
Uruguay.
This is a "hot" war. The body
count in Argentina last year to-
taled more than 1,400 - far
more than that of Northern Ire-
land. As many as 20,000 politi-
cal prisoners are believed held
in Argentine jails. In Chile,
sources estimate 100,000 citizens
have been jailed since the 1973
military coup and thousands
have disappeared.
One out of every 60 Uruguay-
ans has been- in a prison or
detention center, usually for po-
litical crimes.
In Paraguay, 2,000 persons'
were arrested for political rea-
sons last spring alone. Some
prisoners have been held with-
out charge for as long as 18
years.
And in Bolivia and Brazil, as
elsewhere, torture of political
prisoners is common and wide-
ly documented.
But what is happening in La-
tin America is not simply a
matter of brutal military re-
Letters should be typed
and limited to 400 words.
The Daily reserves the
right to edit letters for
length and grammar.

pression or leftist revolution,
says Jose Comblin, a highly re-
garded theologian and political
scientist who has taught in Bel-
gium, the U.S. and Chile and
has spent many years studying
and writing on military govern-
ments.
THE IDEOLOGY of national
security, says Comblin, is the
key to understanding Latin Am-
erica's dictators. It is the en-
gine that drives the continent,
the doctrine that steers the
course of the "war" and shapes
all facets of national life - eco-
nomics and culture, as well -as
politics. National security was
even invoked to justify the new
population *ontrol program an-
nounced by Peru's military gov-
ernment last month.
According to Comblin, the
strategy of national security as
a measure for dealing with em-
ergency situations has been
transformed into the official
ideology of the state. Its roots,
he says, are deep in late 19th
century pan - Germanism, a
movement advocating the union
of all German-speaking people
in one state.
After influencing Nazi Nation-
al Socialism, the ideology died
until it was resurrected by La-
tin America's military schools
after World War II.
In these schools, principally
in Brazil's Advanced War Col-
lege in the 1950s, Latin Ameri-
ca's military politicians devel-
oped the doctrine that the state,
or nation, is the supreme "or-
ganism" that the people must
serve - a radical break from
the politics of the Western
World.
As expressed by Brazil's chief
national security ideologue, Gen.
Golbery de Couto e Silva: "The
nation is absolute or it is noth-
ing. A nation can accept no limi-
tations of its absolute power."
tOMBLIN SAYS the ideology
of national security is based
on three fundamental concepts:
geopolitics, total strategy and
the privileged role of the arm-
ed forces.
This version of geopolitics, un-
like the traditional notion, is a
former Nazi doctrin'e that re-
gards the state as the vital o-
ganism that has to grow, strug-
gle, expand and defend itself.
In relation to the state, the
individual is a myth. People
exist only as part of a state,
to serve it and defend it, ex-
plains Comblin.
And every sta°, according to
this notion of geopolitics, is in-
volved in unremitting war. The
present form of warfare is be-
tween East and West, commu-
nism and the Free World.
In this battle, says Chile's
ruler Gen. Augusto Pinochet,
who for many years was a pro-
fessor of geopolitics in Chilean
military schools, "There is no
room for comfortable neutral-
ism."
Chile's Col. Baciagalupo,
writing in a recent issue of
Chile's National Security maga-
zine, concedes, "For many it

war
munisn," he says, "the arm-
ed forces see no distinction be-
tween civilian and soldier-all
are involved.
"Furthermore, in an ideologi-
cal war ideas are weapons.
Therefore, both citizens and
ideas have to be controlled,"
he adds.
The consequence of this total
war in Latin America's military
regimes has been massive ar-
rests of not only the avowed
leftist revolutionaries and poli-
ticians, but all suspected sym-
pathizers as well, including la-
bor leaders, journalists, clergy-
men, university students and
professors.
THE WAR HAS ALSO created
legions of political refugees who,
forced to flee their countries,
are increasingly unable to find
safe havens in neighboring
countr-c that also are involved
in thiv giggle.
A central computerized data
bank in Chile collects informa-
tion on political refugees for
six of the countries in the South-
ern Cone, excluding only Peru
and Ecuador.
Control over these subversive
forces can only be effected by
the armed forces, according to
the doctrine - hence their
privileged role.
"The Third World's armed
forces are the only social or-
ganization that is cohesive, cap-
able and efficient enough to
cope with the socio-economic
problems of the underdeveloped
countries," says Chile's Major
Claudio Lopez Silva, a top ideo-
logue of national security.
His assessment echoes the
recommendation of Nelson
Rockefeller's 1969 Report on the
Americas, in which he urged the
U.S. to work - with the Latin
American military. The "new
type of military man," said
Rockefeller, represents "the sin-
gle most powerful political
group in society," and could be-
come "a' major force for con-
structive social change in the
American republics."
TrHE MILITARY governments
that have come to power, ex-
plains Comblin, have adopted
the tenets of national security
to justify permanent authori-
tarian government structures.
Absolute power is vested in
the Council of State or Supreme
Cabinet (the name varies from
country to country), composed
of the heads of the military
branches and perhaps a few
civilians.
This supreme body as repre-
sentative of the state, oversees
the entire political, social, eco-
nomic and cultural process.
When "irreconcilable differen-
ces" erupted beteen the Uru-
guayan Council of State and
President Juan Bordaberry last
June, for example, Bordaberry
was simply repl'aced with 72-
year-old Aparicio Mendez. Men-
dez immediately stripped thou-
sands of politicians of their right
to vote, hold office or engage
in political activity for 15 years.

+
MICHAEL BECKMAN
rAHE FRENCH GOVERNMENT, in an act of supreme
cowardice, capitulated to illusory Arab retaliations and
let Abu Daoud, go free. Daoud is the number one sus-
pect of plotting the massacre of the 11 Israeli athletes
in the Munich Olympics.
Daoud had been sitting in a French prison since Fri-
day of last week, awaiting France's decision as to whether
they would honor Israeli or West G -man requests that he
be extradited to stand trial. In a tngaroo court hearing
held this past Tuesday, the extradition appeals were de-
nied, extrinsically on a technicality. They claimed that the
West German request was not made through the "proper"
channels, and that the Israeli government did not have
the proper jurisdiction.
Since when have the French become so concerned with
protocol? This is the country that gave the world the XYZ
affair, Napoleon, Talleyrand, Clemenceau and a whole
legacy of shady dealings and dealers. And now they come
off be being ethical enough to disclaim their humanitarian
duty with limp moral justifications? It is an outrage.
The French government let Daoud waltz off to Algeria
for the simple reason that they are afraid of economic
reprisals by the Arab nations and terrorist reprisals by
the Palestinian Liberation Organization if they turned him
over to be justly tried. Their formula for releasing him
was simple: French people own many cars. French cars
need gasoline anti oil. French factories and utilities are
dependent upon oil as a fuel source. The Arab nations
supply the majority of oil to France. Israel does not ex-
port oil. Germany does not export oil. Therefore, France
does not export Daoud. If Descartes were alive, he might
compose a -new branch of philosophy based upon these
tenets.
Now Daoud is in Algeria, probably being given a ticker-
tape parade in a Citroen, through downtown Algiers, laugh-
ing to himself, smug in his knowledge that justice has tri-
umphed once again.
Meanwhile, Israel has recalled its French ambassador,
West Germany has strongly denounced the action, and the
PLO has praised France's sense of justice.
In what can only be termed shocking, as of yet, the
United' Nations has not passed a resolution condemning
Israel for having the audacity to ask- that Daoud be extra-
dited.
How long is this kind of anti-Israeli action as pursued
by France going to last? How long are the countries of
the world going to allow narrow economic interests to warp
their sense of justice? When is something constructive go-
ing to be done to put a stop to terrorism?
The French government has blown a big chance. They've
blown the oppprtunity to make a small inroad towards
redressing one of the most savage, brutal and odious epi-
sodes in recent history. They had the opportunity to tell
the Arabs that all of their oil and wealth can't buy jus-
tice and dictate policy, and that if they tried any more
pressure politics, they could take their oil and shove it up
their collective keisters.
But the French sold out, as they've done before, and
as they'll do again. And what is the saddest part of the
story is that after a few days of mock outrage, nobody
will give a damn. Abu Daoud will go down in PalestiniAn
history books as a folk-hero, West Germany will begin
searching for some other way of erasing their collective
guilt over Auschwitz, while the new wave of Naziism slow-
ly infiltrates into the new generations minds. The color
and pageantry of the Olympics, as Jim Mckay would say,
will go on as usual, like this past summer, with nary
a remembrance of what happened at Munich in 1972.
Franch will go on claiming neutrality in the Arab-
Israeli dispute, while making final preparations to sell
another SO Mirages to Libya, for transfer to Syria. The
United States will continue to press Israel to make further
land concessions, to re-establish theit reputation as the
arbiter of peace throughout the world. And somewhere on
this planet, a man will set off a bomb, or hijack a plane
in t-he name of a cause.

l

'Why don't we call it King Kongsky!'

Letters:

......M.: ..

ci-i
{~-r

More Shahin

N.

To The Daily:
I AM WRITING in response
to Jim Shahin's Dec. 11 editor-
ial about the Meg Christian con-
cert, and to The Michigan
Daily's front - page lead-in
to\that story ("The Meg Chris-
tian concert .. . was No Man's
Land . . .). As the person from
Oasis who talked to Mr. Sha-
hin at least three time before
and at the concert, I hardly re-
cognized the story as Shahin
reported it. The factual errors
and deliberately misleading
language presented as editorial
reporting lead me to question
the personal, political, and
journalistic integrity of Mr.
Shahin. To cite just one exam-
ple, Mr. Shahin stated, "By
this time (Wed. night at the
concert) it was too late to even
buy a ticket because the con-
cert as sold' out." False. After
Elain Fletcher agreed to re-
view the concert (Meg had re-

concert that evening, and a
number of men attended. Fin-
ally, Mr. Shahin was awer of
Meg's preference for a female
reviewer two days before the
concert. From that time until
he walked out the door the eve-
ning of the concert, he expres-
sed nothing but complete "un-
derstanding" of that request.
The five wome of Oasis came
together out of a desire to
bring more women's music to
Ann Arbor, as well as other
cultural events that speak to
the experiences and politics of
being a woman in this society
and elsewhere. We well under-
stand the political issues in
having such a focus. We would
like our events to reach as
many people as possible, wo-
men and men - but our first
priority is the women of this
area.
There is no way to undertake
the task of production of wom-
en - oriented events without
stirring political convictions
from all directions: we wel-

Back to Top

© 2024 Regents of the University of Michigan