OIL CO. OIL CO.
PUBLIC PROOUCTON
TIO P
x r
Thoughts and feelings:
between self and so ie~t n er nm o f lnv
PULIG w,(/ Y
THE
Michigan Daily
Edited and managed by Students at the
University of Michigan
Saturday, July 27, 1974
. ........._ - - - - - -
News Phone: 764-0552
Sail on,
Shipwreck of State
FROM THE POLITICAL high seas there is still no indi-
cation that the nation's President is planning to
desert a sinking leader ship.
The impeachment storm that has been darkly brew-
ing on the political horizon for the past year has gained
considerable wind velocity and is succeeding -in making
ominous waves.
Yet those who expect the Nixon Administration boat
to capsize easily do not give either the sturdiness of the
vessel or the personality of its captain enough considera-
tion.
The Nixon presidential ship is a calloused, barnacled
and politically battle-practised man-a-war. The Repub-
lican platform deck planks are traditionally expensive
and thick, and the boat is laced with intricate and relia-
ble political rigging.
Although most of Nixon's original crew is gone,
the President still has the faithful services of Kissinger
as a foreign steward, St. Clair as a legal navigator, and
Ziegler as a cabin boy.
BY NOW OUR Presidential Captain should be doubting
the strength of supoort in the main massed, and
should be concerned by the increased leaking. But it will
take more than windy Congressional squalls to cause
Nixon's political boat to founder. Even the Supreme
Court's decisive 8-0 vote did not constitute a broadside
hit with any imnact: it managed only to take more wind
out of the already sageing Presidential sails. A political
shipwreck will be a result of the actions and judgment of
the Captain.
Because of the nolitial m'lritime policies of its cap-
tain, the entire shin of the American Presidency must
face the gales of public upset, the battering of legisla-
tive inquiry and outrage, and judicial definition. The
captain seems to use both ship and crew for a personally
glorifying voyase rather than the profitable completion
of an elected mission for the voting members of the ship's
ownine company.
The citizen stock-holders cannot relinquish their
share in the shio's venture: they have too much at stake.
They can only try to save the shio by court-martialing
the cantain and on the basis of existing evidence, decid-
ing whether or not to politically keel-haul him in. Like
the fictional Cantain Bligh, Nixon does not seem to be a
man who will relinquish command easily or throw himself
overboard.
HIS ADMINTSTRATION ship will probably continue to
serve his purpose for a while longer, unless the leaks in-
crease, more plank rot is discovered, his remaining crew
mutinies, or more unaccounted-for doubloons are found
in the ship's hold.
Nixon seems determined to stand firmly at the helm
and drop anchor when attacked. If it is necessary, he
will go down with his ship; he will not go down alone.
We are in a time of waiting, a calm before battle.
Public sentiment and impeachment clouds darken, while,
perhaps hoping that the threatening storm will blow
over in hot gusts of verbal puffery or dissipate into apa-
thetic mist, the presidential leader ship of Richard Nixon
sits silent and stagnant on the water.
-BETH NISSEN
We pointe you the way to go
And scratched your name in and, '
'hough you Jtst thought it was nothingm ore -
Ttan a place for you to stand . . .
Teats of rage,
Tears of grief-
Why tt,,st I alwas, e the thief?
tome to r me .oou knows we're so alone
And ite is. hiet
-tobI ylan
-hi, the wett is hIe symbol of that social st ructroe
ohih, evolved h bmankind in meeting its most pri-
mitive needs, is idependent of all political form'.
P'oitica 'structures. chang, a'. do natio', ht the ie
of man wih it'. need rmtain'. eternallyteate-
this cannot be cihanged.
-The I Ching, lexagram 4: The Wei
TUE PLACE WHERE thoughts and feelings
meet may be the font of all human creativity
if both thoughts and feelings are nurtured by the
environment-both the social and the natural
environment. Life, as adaptation, may require
change in either thoughts or feelings when they
are not nurtured, or it may require a change
in environment, or both. Sometimes, we try to
change the social environment by persuasive ex-
pression, perhaps trying to avoid changing our-
selves. The following letter is one such attempt.
Martin,
This is the first day in awhile I awoke for
work early.
It's always Itard to change, at least for me,
when change involves shaking myself loose of
the influence of people I've loved. I feel a lot of
pain and turn the resentment and hostility either
toward the object of past affections, or toward
myself.
Ultimately, resentment stems from fear, and
fear can be confronted and conquered. And yes,
we all do this in different ways, and maybe it
leads us in different directions. To the extent
that we want to be free agents, it's our responsi-
bility to accept this.
This is an inner responsibility, but its lessons
can be valuable to others who might run across
similar situations in their own lives.
TIS IS A TIME of consolidation. Not the time
when highway construction pushes outwardly
at a boundless New Frontier, but a time when
highways stand as expressions of an integrating
force. (Only the police and military can use
them at the wild speeds for which they were
designed in another age.) It's a time of the
growing realization that it may be easier and
more profitable to tighten the belt than to wine
and dine on an expense account. A time, as both
you and I have said, of reconstruction rather
than of tearing down the walls betweens us.,
But the time has created a rift and a divided
conscience. Perhaps we all placed too much
faith in the possibility of reconstructing reality
in ways different in the fundamental structure
and substance of human interaction from that
of our parents. Not only has this not happened;
we have, it seems, succeeded only in deepening
the comedy and the tragedy of the past by one
generation.
[HAT'S THE ESSENCE of th rifts. You as a
Christian (or you might prefer, Post-Christian)
seem to feel absolved fromr the pain. t'm quite
sure no idol, fetish, or presently-existing ritual
system will absolve me. I'm left with rules and
contracts and, insofar as I see any possibility of
further change, naked expressions of self, A
certain humanism pushes professions and scien-
tific orthodoxy as Kosher, while another, more
native humanism sees the Self bound, borderless,
in a seamless web of selves, at the same time
standing free. Both point to the same soul, and
that soul is hurting.
WE ALL YEARN for an end to the opposition
Uu~uF1Nul cl Xu;~ y- an economy M Juve
rather than selfishness, a society impossible to
rebel against while affirming one's own life, be-
cause life in it, and all that affirms life, is sanc-
tified.
SELFISHNESS-STRANGE STUFF. I invited
you to become a party to the relationship be-
tween L--- and me, and ultimately I had to get
out, because, in a sense, more of my love was
drawn to you than to her. I said you could have
her on a silver platter, though by then, this was
a fait accompli. Acts of love, after all, are those
acts which fill a need we feel in each other.
You've called me self-righteous and vindictive,
but you've also said you feel like a thief. I don't
recall telling you you were a thief, no matter how
defensive I may have been. When you can let
go of the values that make you feel like a thief,
I think you'll also stop feeling that I'm self-
righteous and vindictive. I'm not pushing gay
lib; the people I love, not a limiting group iden-
tity, are what I'll fight for. I am pushing person-
al liberation, and it's my goal to liberate every
part of a person I love, man or woman, straight
or gay.
MEANWHILE, I HAVE doubts about whether
I need a stable, singular relationship that will
allow me to focus and discipline my energies on
some form of creative and productive work.
Again, the rift: My professors can no longer ac-
cept the undiscipline; they'd have me brush off
people like you, and a big part of me tells me
most of my past success has been academic
or literary, and that I should heed their admo-
nitions. But what was I studying, what was I
writing about? Life, myself, American culture
and specifically a counter-culture, all of which
I began to feel a couple of years ago I could not
both be a part of and observe.
To be a part of, and to be able to observe-
Yes, this is the rift, my own 18-minute gap. It
was my dream to close that rift; it had become
the purpose of my life. That's what I mean by
"personal liberation." And so I turned to feeling,
regarding intellectual structures as dehumaniz-
ing tools, knowing - or so I thought - that I
alread had enough of these conceptual tools to
send back messages to that other world, the
world of my parents and professors. How deep
is the wound when I realize that now I can't
reach either side?
. DO I THINK YOU'RE just a hype? No; tell
ya' what I think. You got a lot of me away from
L--- because you had me by the balls. There's
nothing innocent (or guilty) about your sen-
suous advances, caressing my hands or my head
or sharing a tender, fluttering kiss the night I
brought by a long-lost girlfriend. That first night,
tripping when you broke down into that phe-
nomenal mix of laughter and tears, and walked
softly over and embraced me, and kissed me
and told me that you loved me, it was an expres-
sion of feeling that surpassed anything I've ever
experienced, even, perhaps, the dissolving of
boundaries that comes at the moment of orgasm.
Orgasms are cheap, but every moment of shared
life like life itself, is precious. You said that
L--- and I were both "loves" of yours-many,
many times. You also said I was the first per-
son you ever really knew, maybe the first friend
you've had. Where are you now?
TRUE, YOU KNEW before I even met you that
I'd wanted you to seduce me, and you did warn
me that you couldn't satisfy my needs. Perhaps
we both failed to consider the weight that these
facts carried before it was too late to avert dam-
age. It will always remain a question whether
you couldn't - or wouldn't - satisfy my needs.
Coontinued on Page S
Contact your reps-
Sen. Phillip Hart (Dem), Rm 253, Old Senate Bldg., Capitol
Hill, Washington, D.C. 20515.
Sen. Robert Griffin (Rep), Rm 353, Old Senate Bldg., Capitol
Hill, Washington, D.C. 20515.
Rep. Marvin Esch (Rep), Rm. 412, Cannon Bldg., Capitol
lill, Washington, D.C. 20515.
Sen. Gilbert Bursley (Rep), Senate, State Capitol Bldg.,
Lansing, Mi. 48933.
Rep. Perry Bullard (Dem), House of Representatives, State
Capitol Bldg., Lansing, Mi. 48933.