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420 Maynard Street, Ann Arbor, Mich.
Edited and managed by students at the
University of Michigan
Editorials printed i The Michigan Daily express the individual j
opinions af the author This must be neted in all reprints.
Tuesday, May 18, 1971 News Phone: 764-0552
NIGHT EDITOR: ROSE SUE BERSTEIN
Letters to The Daily
U.S. troops in Europe
OF THE PROPOSED amendments to the draft exten-
sion bill currently being discussed in Congress, the
first to be considered in the Senate is the one formulat-
ed by Democratic leader Mike Mansfield, which will pro-
bably come to a vote tomorrow.
Mansfield would attach to the pending draft bill an
amendment requiring the withdrawal of half of America's
troop contingent in Europe.
At first it might seem hard to grasp Mansfield's logic.
With 284,000 U.S. troops still in Vietnam, and thousands
of others in neighboring Indochinese nations, it would
appear almost worthless to attack American economic
and military imperialism in Europe while the primary
thrust of American intervention in the affairs of other na-
tions is still Indochina.
In addition, whatever merit Mansfield's argument
might have is likely to be overshadowed by the primary
argument against the alternatives to the draft now under
consideration.
Yet, after these considerations are broken down, the
fundamental argument remains: what justification canj
there be for the presence of the American military abroad?
Supposedly, the initial justification for our presence in
West Germany-where the number of our troops is second
only to our contingent in Indochina - lay in the fear on
the part of the European allies of attack by the Soviet
Union.
The fallacies of this logic became more evident with
time, and more sensible governments. discarded their at-
tempts at rationalizing the existence of large standing
armies on practical grounds. Even if large standing armies
could be justified morally, practically their effect as a
deterrent in the European nations had little basis in fact.
Now, as far as most American involvement in foreign
nations is concerned, a third argument has been evident for
at least the last decade of an America living still in the
glories of a military triumph over a quarter century ago.
Namely, the nations themselves who host our troops have
attacked our involvement ' on political, if not economic,
grounds.
THE ONLY real justification now for other nations want-
ing American troops is economic, as the recent West
German ascension on the currency market indicates. And,
as in Indochina; it will'be the economic and not the moral
harm done by our presence which will cause America's
turnabout.
-MARK DILLEN
Sutiner Editorial Staff
STEVE KOPPMAN LARRY LEMPERT
Co-Editor co-Editor kd
ROBERT CONROW . ... ................. okiEtr
JIM JUDKIS ........-........Photography Editor
NIGHT EDITORS: Rose Sue Berstein, Mark Dillen, Jonathan Miller, Robert
Schreiner, Geri Sprung
ASSISTANT NIGHT EDITORS: Juanita Anderson, Anita Crone, Jim Irwin,
Alan Lenhoff, Chris Parks
LSA governance
To The Daily:
THE LITERARY College is un-
dergoing major changes, in ad-
ministration and in policy. LSA
Student Government is caught
between its responsibility to the
college ad its responsibility to its
students The government has the
potential to be a guiding f o r c e
for administering the lit school,
an intermediary between students
and the administration, and a
service agency to aid lit school
students.
The government is young, one
year old. In that year it has fail-
ed to revamp the college, it has
failed to be recognized as a legi-
timate source of student input.
This failure has been due both to
the action pursued or not pursued
by the government and the re-
ception of LSA Student Govern-
ment by the faculty and the stu-
dent body.
LSA Government is not trying
to be a political organization. It
is attempting to become a val-
uable source of student influence
in policy making and innovations
that directly affect each student
within the college.
READERS!
The flow of Letters to The
Daily has dropped precipitously
with the start of the Spring-
Summer term. We need your
letters - we cannot maintain
our unique level of editorial
page quality without your help.
A fundamental step towards
opening the path to valuable stu-
dent input was taken with the
passage of the Governance Pro-
posal. It provides for a student-
faculty policy making board. The
value of this board lies in'the op-
portunities for both students and
faculty to rationally analyze, dis-
cuss, and suggest changes t h a t
will strengthen the quality of edu-
cation provided in the college.
With understanding and re-
cognition of the legitimacy of the
suggestions made by the board,
all members of the literary college
will benefit, faculty and students.
The policy board can provide a
testing ground where obvious ar-
guments that would come out in
open debate on an issue can be
worked out beforehand, to facili-
tate the decision making process.
For example, certain aspects of
different issue that the student
side has difficulty comprehending
from the faculty point of view and
vice versa. This would have been
useful in the debate over quorum
size in the Governance Proposal.
Students felt 200 members rea-
sonable, but faculty, well-aware
of problems inherent in obtaining
a quorum for faculty meetings
perceived it would be impossible.
The members of the board have
the potential to influence pas-
sage or rejection of a motion.
This could be an alternative to
the departmentalism existing
within the faculty presently.
BECAUSE the Governance Pol-
icy Board can make significant
contributions to the administra-
tion of the college, we support the
board and encourage students to
sit on the board.
-James Bridges
President, LSA Student
Government Executive
Council
-Fran Hymen
Member at large, LSA
Student Government
Executive Council.
Pollution
To The Daily:
ROSS WILHELM iDaily, May
13) claimed that "Ecological E^.
warnings may deaden interest."
Of course! When people discover
that bicycling and picking up or
carefully disposing of personal re-
fuse has no effect on over-all pol-
lution they can very well ask:
"What's the use?"
Wilhelm also claims, as a de-
terrent to personal concern, the
unwillingness of "consumers" to
pay higher taxes or higher pric-
es to meet the 'hundreds of bil-
lions of dollars" which will be re-
quired to make the world a safe
and beautiful place in which to
live. Why should consumers be
required to foot the bill for en-
vironmental damages which capi-
talists have inflicted on human
and natural resources so that they,
the capitalists, can roll in
wealth? The working class has
paid and dailyepays enough in the
loot which it creates for the cap-
italist class over and above that
which the wages of the working
class can buy, enough to have
maintained a decent environment
as well as enough to reduce ad-
ditional destruction of the land,
the water and the air.
The capitalist class will not 4
forego the "hundreds of billions
of dollars" of the loot which it
takes from society to make the
world safe and beautiful. The
workers,athe real producers of
America and the World, can do
the job when Society (not the
State) owns and controls the in- £
struments and means of produc-
tion. All members of society will
then have much 'more of the ma-
terial and cultural blessings of the
scientific age than even the more
highly paid workers now have.
-Ralph Muncy
May 15
Letters to The Daily should
be mailed to the Editorial Di-
rector or delivered to Mary
Rafferty In the Student Pub-
lications business office in the
Michigan Daily building. Let- '
ters should be typed, double-
spaced and normally should
not exceed 250 words. The
Editorial Directors reserve the
right to edit all letters sub-
mitted.
- -Its IsOSkipper.. -Wnatever tat
blip was on radar is gone now!"