Eighty-Seven Years of Editorial Freedom 420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, MI 48, 09 ECONOMICS: Burns churns out more 'good news' Wednesday, November 24, 1976 "Cws Phone: 764-0552 Edited and managed by students at tie UnP ersity of Michigan Turkey Awards: *Rond 3 By STEPHEN KURSMAN ON THURSDAY ARTHUR Burns spoke in New York and said he expected an economic resurgence. On the, same day the Commerce Depart- ment released figures indicating that the rate of growth of the GNP dropped for the third quarter in a row. It is an old story by now. It seems there are some in politics who have dedicated themselves to the perpetual churning- out of good news regardless of reality. -Neville Chamberlain assured us of de- mocracy, Herbert Hoover assured us of Steve Kursmran is a Daily Editorial writer. prosperity and now Arthur Burns as- sures us of economic resurgence. Fortunately the analogy is not com- plete for Arthur Burns is not a head honcho and our head-honcho-to-be shows signs of taking a more realis- tic attitude about getting our economy back on the track. But the similarities are nonetheless troubling. One won- ders just how many people would have to be out of work before Arthur Burns would decide that unemployment was a bigger problem than inflation. IT IS FRIGHTENING to know that one of our powerful public officials is telling the unemployed amongst us that it is better to be without a job now because inflation is being checked. The fundamental oversight in this "sooth- saying" is that it's difficult to worry about inflation when lacking the money to make purchases. Such thoughtless policy, if sustained, usually leads to breeding of an equally thoughtless policy 'that bears the markings of the opposite end of the political spectrum. The latest Commerce Department fig- ures are but the latest - edition to a long string of unsettling economic news. Substantial economic evidence points to a recovery running out of steam. The figures are not conclusive and it is by no means certain that a new re- cession is on the horizon. But it is ob- vious that the f recovery is slowing down and Mr. Burns continuing atten- tion to inflation despite the' slowdown tells us that at the very least he is being very stubborn. AT A PRESS conference following his New York speech, Mr. Burns referred to an upcoming meeting with Jimmy Carter and said, "I hope there will be a meeting of minds." Indeed. If there is not a ,meeting of minds we will all be in a bind. Arthur Burns is the chair- man of the Federal Reserve Board and the actions of the agency he heads have a big effect on an economy of which we are all a part. IN THE SPIRIT of turkey, stuffing and pumpkin pie, The Daily awards Its Third Annual Thanksgiving Tur- key awards: President Gerald R. Ford wins The Appointed Turkey that fell off his Training Wheels for his effort during the last couple of years. The I am Not a Racist Turkey goes to President-elect Jimmy Carter for his success at convincing the Plains Baptist Church to admit blacks to church membership. Earl Butz gets the Loose Shoes Turkey for his racist, sexist "Joke" after the Republican National Con- vention in Kansas City. GARY GILLMORE gets the Tur- key Shoots Turkey award for asking to be murdered, and then trying to commit suicide. The If You can't Peat 'Em, Join 'Em Turkey is graciously bestowed on Zolton Ferency for selling-out and rejoining the Democratic Party after six years of vicious criticism in the Human Rights Party ranks. The Home for the Holidays Turkey goes to Patty Hearst, who once claimed she was an "urban guer- rilla," and is now sitting in her par- ents' comfortable suburban San Fran- cisco mansion. The Kilocycle Turkey goes to Bob Ufer, the football announcer, for his constant militaristic references to the games and their outcomes. Chicago Mayor Richard Daley gets the Kingmaker is Dead Turkey for not being able to find enough votes . to elect his hand-picked guberna- torial candidate Michael Howlett. If you haven't reqd the Paper, You haven't read The News Turkey goes to Rep. Marvin Esch for his slander- ous campaign against his victorious Senatorial opponent Donald Riegle. THE BREAK ME, Break Me Tur- key is awarded to the Graduate Em- ployees Organization (GEO) for its determination to get a decent con- tact from the Administration. The 10 per cent Closest to my Heart Turkey goes to University President Robben, Fleming and the Regents for raising our tuition and then being unable to grant our teaching fellows an equitable pay raise and other economic benefits. The Deep Fried Turkey Turkey goes to Norman Lear for getting rid' of Jimmy Joe Jeeter by electrocut- ing him in a bathtub.. And finally, The Rabid Turkey Turkey goes to Dr. Strange Hayes for retaliations against his players Democrat liberals but By KEITH RICHBUF wA and his wonderful performance Saturday in Columbus. last HIS R LIGAOUS BELIEV% siON L0 CIZeNS ~ , t MAKE NO MISTAKE about it, their is still a liberal wing of the Demo- cratic party and it is very much alive, albeit in disarray. The progressive fac- tion is constituted by both New Deal spill-overs - who made their mark in the early civil rights platform battles, a la Hubert Humphrey - and by the new young idealogues, reformers of the Vietnam and Watergate era. The question now is who willpick up the reigns of the liberal cause? The Kennedys stood long unchallenged as the leaders of the Democratic liberal wing. In fact, if Robert Kennedy cannot be accredited with inventing the. pro- gressive faction, then he certainly holds claim to giving it new life with his break from President Lyndon Johnson over the Vietnam War., Kennedy's open protest against L.B.J.'s Vietnam policy - then known as the "Kennedy-John- son feud" - was the first real mobili- zation of the liberal forces. Some die- hards like to credit Minnesotan Eugene McCarthy with initiating the 1968 lib- eral revolt, dismissing Kennedy as a Johnny-come-lately. The fact is that it was Bobby Kennedy, not McCarthy, who the liberal antiwar wing backed for the Presidency as an alternative to L.B.J. When Kennedy declined for not want- ing to appear ambitious, the liberals approached Senator George McGovern, who was too busy with his re-election campaign to make a protest run for the 7I r-N-wr~rrrrr~~ r Presidency. McCarthy was only the third alternative, and it was not McCarthy who "opened the door" for Kennedy, but Kennedy who boosted McCarthy by dis- couraging a "Kennedy write-in" vote in the New Hampshire primary. AFTER THE KENNEDY assassina- tion, and the Hubert Humphrey "spoil- er" nomination, the progressive wing of the Democratic party was left leader- less, refusing to support Humphrey for his close alliance with Johnson. Ted Ken- nedy, the surviving brother of Camelot, "inherited" the leadership of the "shaw- ow government." Ted Kennedy can still mobilize the liberal block at a moments notice, but after inauguration day, the new Demo- cratic President could usurp Kennedy's control. Jimmy Carter, who calls him- self a "populist" at best, depends on his Vice-Presidential choice Walter Mondale to keep the liberal support. There could be a split among the Democratic lib- erals. Jimmy Carter campaigned on a pledge bordering on fiscal conservatism, alienat- ing a lot of the liberals. (Thus was the reason for McCarthy's protest cam- paign.) A split among the liberals would pit the followers of Carter's brand of liberalism and the Walter Mondale loy- alists against the die-hard Kennedy fac- tion, reminiscent of the Robert Kennedy- Johnson feud of the 1960's. HOWEVER, A NEW face could emerge out of the 1976 elections to take con- I *. * 1 trol of the progressive faction. Senator- elect Don Riegle who has vowed to be a "fighter," could rely on his "roll-up- the-shirt-sleeves" Bobby Kennedy image to jockey into position to head the re- formist wing. Daniel Patrick Moynihan could also pick up the fallen liberal ban- ner, and if Mo Udall opts for a Senate seat, he could easily become spokesman of the left-of-center. But the most interesting to watch will be the "Fritz" side of the "Grits and Fritz" ticket, Walter Mondale. During the vice-Presidential debates, Mondale claimed that he would not hesitate to disagree with his boss if the occasion arose. The test will be if the inevitable occasion arises. If Mondale splits with Carter, the Vice-President could control the liberal following above even the glamorous Ted Kennedy. If Mondale staunchly defends the President from Plains, right or wrong, he could fall into the Hubert Humphrey syndrome. "The Humph" defended Johnson to the end, thus alienating the liberals.. If Mondale' defends Carter in the not-so-unlikely event of a liberal revolt, "Fritz" will, like H.H.H., lose his liberal following and his chances of ever being at the top of a ticket in 1984. THEY SAY HISTORY. repeats itself, and it is solely on the basis of his- tory that this writer substantiates any predictions. In this case, I predict that a battered Republican party will return in 1980 with a conservative-rightist can- them? didate (possibly Reagan or Texan John Connally) something like the 1964 Barry Goldwater run. In such an. event, the conservative-Republican will take a beat- ing a la 1964 and give President Carter a landslide, reminiscent of L.B.J.'s and Richard Nixon's. Landslide Presidents, have a tendency to become imperial Presidents, and I predict'an immensely popular Carter will fall prey to the precedent. In such a case, the Demo- cratic party will be idealogically split in the 1984 election primaries between a Carter loyalist and a liberal Demo- crat (possibly Kennedy, but don't bet on it). The Democrats will be so split, as they were in 1968, that they 'will de- liver the White House into the hands of a moderate; appealing Republican (keep an eye on Howard Baker and Illinois Governor-elect James "Big Jim" Thompson). Not only would this align with history, but it would follow the established cycle started in 1952 of eight years Republican, eight year Democrat- ic, and eight years Republican with Jim- my Carter coming up for the Democrats. AT ANY RATE, Washington-watchers will be glued to their chairs for the next four years. Some say that after the elec- tion, the game of "politics-watching" comes to a close. Quite to the contrary - I think that that's when the game really begins. Keith Richburg is a Daily cartoonist and frequent Editorial Pale writer. / . . i 'i / Distributed by os'nieges 'ZImes SYNDICATE Thanksgiving food needs nobler populace to feed QINCE EVERYONE FROM Eric Sev- areid to "Bitsy Booper," our ten-year-old 'neighborhood CB buff, has expropriated my original Turkey editorial, I wanted to be innovative again this year 'and do a column on Punkins (good people) and Cranber- ries (wry little slices of Americana). But after Lillian Carter, Phil Hart, Betty Ford, and Rebecca Shelley, and the builders at Division and Liberty who could have ripped up eight shrubs but didn't, I ran out of Pun- kin . Besides, most of those awards were earned by virtues of omission rather than commission, and that in itself was enough depressing commentary for one week. The seminal Cranberry went to John Dean, who (you may remember) didn't have a friend to use for a reference when he applied for a library card. All the other in- cidents I could find were much more bitter than sweet: not suitable Thanksgiving fare. AT FIRST I FELT. vaguely guilty that I couldn't think of more good neonle and instructive events in nub- public consumption is saddening, but it is also infuriating.j The American populace, no longer mesmerized by Nixonian newspeak jargon, can differentiate between thrown mud, inherent slime, and can- did speech. Recent election victories demonstrate that clearly enough: Carter and Riegle were unhurt by revelations that, according to con- ventional media "wisdom," should have crippled them. Anyone who thinks Betty Ford is immoral for her briefs about dope and abortion is probably a misogynist anyhow. Press reports of Butz's latest racist crack shocked people for a variety of rea- sons (iot the least of which was the titillating treatment it got), but the worst of what he said was surely its vicious±.es and not its diction. So why do the wives of men in pub- lie office (and their children and dores and turtles and press agents- not to mention man and women Do- liticos. and the husbands of the handful of prominent female politi- cons) mmble along, talking along a line that c-r 'n't really exist? And why is it that everyone - south africa To The Daily: TODAY THE EYES of the en- tire world are focused on South Africa. The heroism of the work- ers and students battling apartheid inspires all the ene- mies of racist oppression, while the Vorster regime with its vi- cious police, attack dogs, ban- stutans, pass laws and barbed wire, can only be regarded with hatred. At the -recent SYL forum on South Africa the brutal nature of the Vorster regime and a re- volutionary perspective for its overthrow were discussed and debated. However the Revolu- tionary Student Brigade (RSB) excluded the SYL from its No- vember 11 forum entitled "U.S. Out of South Africa." It is impossible to ignore the connection between this action of the RSB and their tacit sup- port to South Africa in the An- golan war. In the confrontation between the Cuban led/Sovet backed MPLA and the South Af- rican / CIA led FNLA-UNITA armies, the RSB refused to stand for the military victory of the MPLA - preferring instead Kissinger's "neutrality" policy! The RSB's idols in the Peking bureaucracy sent advisers to Ithe South African led armies, thus betraying the Angolan peo- ple and the international prole- tariat, and weakening the de- fense of the gains made through the Russian and Chinese revolu- tions. THE PRESENT ISOLATION of the RSB is largely the result of their lining up with the ra- cists in actively opposing busing for school desegrregation. In Boston they have agitated amdng the racists for a strike against busing, while the Octo- ber 1974 issue of Revolution bore the banner headline: "Peo- ple Must Unite to Smash Boston Busing Plan"! They also prais- ed the "tremendous fightback" of the Louisville racists rioting against busing. Students, workers and facul- ty members at the UM should protest the RSB'seexclusionism. The RSB disagrees with the Letters in its miserable politics. The SYL welcomes such open and public debate within the work- ers movement, secure in the knowledge that our revolution- ary politics will prevail and will lead the working class to a successful proletarian revolu- tion. Spartacus Youth League. o'ordI usage To The Daily: OUR LEVEL OF awareness and political copsciousness is re- flected in our everyday use of language. This point was well illustrated by the blatant dis- play of male supremacy in re- cent Daily news items on the Michigan-Ohio State footbdll game. A photograph showing fans with a sign reading "FUCK the BUCKS" appeared on the day of the game. This same theme was continued on the front page the following day (Sun., Nov. 21) where another fan was quoted as saying: "I don't give a shit (referring to to a traffic jam after the game), we just fucked Woody." To argue against reading be- tween the lines of these state- ments, is to confuse first-rate machismo for innocent expres- sions of enthusiasm for the Wol- verines. Much more is at stake here than a Rose Bowl. The use of the word "fuck" to express one's contempt for an opposing team is no innocent use of a metaphor. This is true even when people who use the word in this way are themselves ig- norant of the full message it communicates. WHY SHOULD THE word "fuck" be used to express one person's contempt, and the de- sire to humiliate another per- son? The reason can partially be traced tothe taboo surround- ing this "dirty waord" that once made it a private adult-male commodity, expurgated (by men) from the mouths of babes and women - a symbolic ex- purgation of all sexual desire the TODAY'S STAFF: News: Jay Levin, Ken. Parsigian, Stu McConnell, Bill Yaroch, Linda Will- cox, Lisa Fisher, Bill Turque Editorial Page: Rob Meachum, Tom Stevens, Mike Beckman Arts Page: Lois Josimovich Photo Technician: Chris Schneider Daily from the minds and loins of the non-initiated (Women who ran- gress the taboo of sexualdesire still risk being slandered as nymphomaniacs). More importantly, these ap- parently innocent expressions use the word "fuck" as a syno- nym for "rape". The Buckeyes could not simply be defeated. They had to be humiliated, and forced to accept our victory. To be completely humiliated, they had to publicly renounce their masculinity, become "cunt", and be force-fucked (raped) on the field. A half-page ad in the Saturday Daily, sponsored by 25 local merchants, went so far as to advise in bold print: "Crack Woody's Nuts!"E - THE FOOTBALL RHETORIC of "hail to the victors" and "the conquering heroes" must be seen from the macho perspec- tive to be fully appreciated. Let's make no mistake about who is "number one". The U-M football team' is everyman. The lesson to be drawn from this football talk is clear. To be fucked still means to lose. We are all living in Man's Country. Unless cock privi- lege is overthrown a lot of peo- ple will continue to be "fucked over" especially women, chil- dren, and gays. Lionel A. Biron November 21 ... JM'APRCN N( NOPJH sueGE ORfiIM..* __r _ x _ -.a o . O p O CS i .. [} } . 1 O / '> - -s'-. l 1 I 'ii 1f J1/' 7t 'pr- ,, T (i 1 G '1 y ;Nk 1' ri '® t Q0 Q - . AM a Q ,,: o , t .. !" ff,:, f , r f d ' ,, . /- / '. ,/ -'" 6 1 _..F _ -(... G y J' . ? 3 t