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Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers
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WEDNESDAY, MAY 20, 1970
NIGHT EDITOR: NADINE COHODAS
MSU students arrested:
Peaceful meeting broken up
RACISM IS A disease; it is contagious
and it spreads rapidly. Too many
people know that it exists but are un-
willing to do anything to rid us of it.
What happened two days ago on the
Michigan State University (MSU) campus
is an example.
The president of MSU is black; Clifford
Wharton is the only black'president of a
large American university. One would ex-
pect him to be vehemently opposed to
racism. But is he?
Over 130 students met Monday night at
the MSU student union to plan various
workshops and teach-ins for the follow-
ing day on the topic of how to rid the
university of racism. This meeting was
not attended to by "longhairs, commies
and radicals" but by students who are
deeply concerned and opposed to all forms
of racism.
So what happens? The students are
accidentally in a building after the sup-
posed time of closing. Not a terribly radi-
cal action, but it was enough provocation
for the police to arrest 132 students on
charges of loitering and trespassing-bail
was set at $300.
Many people would not even take the
time to do anything about racism but
when those s t u d e n t s did, they were
arrested.
UTRY DID President Wharton call the
police in?
On the surface, because students were
in a university building past its closing
time. But the students did not have the
slightest intention whatsoever to occupy
the building. Their meeting had just run
overtime. Hardly an infraction that war-
rants arrest.
The police action that night also was
exemplorary. Two medical students were
sitting on the steps of the union when
the police came. They were told to get
inside, and then arrested for being in the
building.
The high point of the bust was when
the police came and told the students to
vacate. And when the students attempted
-to vacate, they found the doors locked.
Last week when students had occupied
the ROTC bldg. the students were given
advance notice by the police and by the
administration. On M o n d a y, no such
warning was issued; the police just came
and arrested the students who were still
in the union. An o b v i o u s change in
tactics.
IT IS VERY important to point out that
there was no violence and apparently
no intent to commit violent acts last
Monday.
Students are repeatedly told to "stay
within the system" and not commit vio-
lent acts. Students are told to "keep their
cool" after other students are violently
harassed by' law enforcement officials.
But now,tafter looking at the occurrences
this past week at MSU, one wonders
which way to turn.
-EDWARD ZIMMERMAN
By LYNN WEINER
"IT IS A PRIVILEGE to s e r v e in the
Armed Forces of the United States,"
claims the Selective Service System.
"It is not a privilege to be ordered to
kill," says an Ann Arbor conscientious ob-
jector.
And it is this belief which motivates a
growing number of draft-eligible men to
seek alternatives to military service. Some
evade the draft by going to Canada. Some
resist by going to jail. Many seek physical,
psychological or occupational deferments.
Some work actively to destroy the system.
And an increasing number claim conscien-
tious objection (CO), and apply for the
e'uiaon Work option.
Aeeorctne to the 1967 Selective Service
Ant. R CO is a man who "by reason of
rnlinUs training and belief. is conscien-
tio"llv onnosod to narticipation in war in
any form." The CO's. the men who com-
nrrme. who refuse to actively narticipate
in war yet accept society's right to ask
service of them are a complex and diverse
lot.
POTENTIAL AND EXEMPTED CO's in
Ann Arbor are no exception.
Chuck is a graduate student in political
science. He wears a ring which encircles
the three-pronged peace symbol. Brought
un in a small Ohio town by "liberal" par-
ents, he became increasingly a w a r e of
world political and military events while
an undergraduate, and, after the April.
1967 anti-war demonstrations in New
York. he filed for his CO.
"Since then I've been waiting," he says.
His case, denied on the local and state
levels, is now before the President. His de-
cision to file a CO "is at least somewhat
of a confrontation, and has some moral
backbone. Leaving the country. submitting
and fighting, and deliberately flunking the
physical are moral copouts."
But Chuck sees resisters as having a su-
perior position to his. "Resisters won't
have anything to do with the Selective
Service." he says. "Although I think their
position is more praiseworthy t]
try to be somewhat pragmat
want to go to jail or to Canad
overjoyed at the prospect of ci
either. Since all the alternativ
acceptable, I try to get the be
self while trying to make my po
to the government." And he se
as the best way to accomplisht
Why won't he fight in the ar
"I'm opposed to all violence,"a
"If a robber pulled a knife onr
by law, shoot him. But I thin
would be wrong. The only forc
I could condone would be t
wouldn't inflict injury or harm
AND IF HIS CO is denied?"
in." he answers. "I'm no mart
I'm right. I don't want to co
much as I do, but I must in ord
jail or Canada." But, he admi
to jail rather than the army."
As most CO's. Chuck often
draft counselor, and says he co
to "get out of military servicei
they can." "It's really persona
people," he says. "A CO is grow
moral position. Given the poli
ties, you can't end the draft. An
end war. The only concrete thir
to take a position which man
beliefs. My position is a compron
beliefs . . . but I don't see how
benefit me or anyone else."
MARV IS A MICHIGAN CO
serving his two years of civilia
a local hospital. A social work
he didn't want to fight. But he d
to go to jail or to Canada, eith
"I didn't feel like dying in ai
for nothing," he says. "So I cho
promise. The question is a simp
you want to enter the army, ori
"I'm not moralistic," he add
CO's 'have a martyrdom comp
feel I'm not responsible for an
It's a matter of compromise.A
you remain in the United States
serve or take a
han mine, I promise, whether by paying taxes which go
ic. I don't to defense or by going to jail."
da. I'm not "In my position as a CO" he says, "I
vilian work don't serve the country, but I serve my-
es are un- self and other people. My degree of com-
st for my- promise is that I was told if I didn't want
sition clear to fight, I must take a civilian job, and I
ees the CO agreed." Mary doesn't think the d r a f t
this. should be abolished, though, and terms an
med forces? all-volunteer army "threatening." He in.
as answers, stead envisions the draft with more lib,
me, I could eral exemptions as a basic reform.
ik shooting
eful action JEFF, A LAW STUDENT from Mary-
hat which land, identifies himself as an "establish-
. " ment CO." "I believe that society has the
right to ask for some years of my life," 5 1
"I won't go he says, "but not in the army. So instead
yr, I think of total non-cooperation I work within the
operate as system."
er to avoid Jeff, whose parents are pacifists and C
its, "I'd go whose father was a CO during World War
II, holds a deep faith in society. "I be-
acts as a lieve society can ask for non-violent ser-
unsels men vice from its citizens," he says. "So you
in any way must either work with society or cop out.
1 for most Given that you are interested in the sur-
unded in a vival of society, you must reject violence."
tical reali- And that means, he emphasizes, not on-
d you can't ly rejecting organized violence, b u t re-
ng to do is jecting the "opposing of violence with vio-
ifests your lence." And, he adds, "those that wait for
mise on my the revolution are often using the future £
jail would as an excuse to do nothing. There are con-
crete things to be done today, instead oft}
just waiting until tomorrow."
currently But of the ten potential CO's he knew he reme
.n work at as an undergraduate, Jeff says seven have bly show
graduate, chosen to become non-cooperators. "Where exhibit."
idn't want I think society has a right to ask service
er. of its citizens," he says, "They don't be- cat
rice paddy lieve in the systems' rights at all.",'I can't
such av
se to com- Many potential CO's he knew have also, matter v
le one: do he said, "sold out" to the Reserves. "But er
not?" that's allowing society to treat you as a pIerpe ua
Is. "M o s t sheep and herd you into the war machine, pacity b
lex. But I he states. "If enough stand up and say ganizede
nyone else. 'not me' society must either reexamine it I can't
As long as self or become more extreme in its meth- training
s you com- ods." He counsels many students on draft Patric
alternatives, "trying to help them decide choose h
for themselves."applicati
JEFF FOSTERS A UTIOPIAN view of know,"
JEFFFOSTRS Acountry.
a potential "constructive selective service." sooner d
S"We should have a universal service in up my be
America, divided between the Peace Corps, "Jail is
VISTA,the Job Corps and a volunteer
army which could build in the ghettoes in- RICK,
stead of in Vietnam." from Pe
> He has received his CO, and is no w but is ni
'a awaiting his job assignment. If he had for it. "I
been denied his CO, he says, he would have life is g
R,_gone to jail. "If you have convictions," he right to
states; "and believe in society, you must been per
be willing to back your actions up; you are no ri
must be willing to dissent but to affirm Rick s
belief in society by accepting imprison- that killi
s. ment." logical ju
"I can't destroy the potential inherent won't fig
in a human being," says Patrick, a grad- his CO?
uate student in bio-chemistry. Brought up years," h
in Massachusetts, he agrees that he owes tion. But
service to the country, but he would to- the Unit
tally abolish the military draft, and not Canada."
serve in a violent capacity. The impetus "I'm n
for his decision to file for a CO came after countryc
a year of study in Europe. no 'obli
"I saw America from a new viewpoint," though I
CO?
A
embers. And the Berlin Wall force-
wed me what war reduces men to
ICK'S DECISION was a moral one,
take a human life; I must act in
way to allow each individual, no
what his race or nationality, the
1 right to realize his life," he says.
.to the Armed Forces in any ca-
ecauge I can't lend support to or-
efforts to kill other human beings.
support organized premediated
for violence," he adds.
k has received his CO, and will
tis service next fall. What if his
on had b e e n denied? "I don't
he admits. "I might have left the
I would never resist, though. I'd
do something devious, like screw
a waste," he says.
A PHILOSOPHY undergraduate
nsylvania, has filed for his CO,
ow questioning his original basis
filed with the absolute belief that
ood, and that all men have the
live," he says. "But recently I've
plexed by the notion that there
ghts."
says t h a t intuitively he thinks
ing is wrong, but he. demands a
ustification for that belief. He still
ht, though. And if he doesn't get
"I might hide a w a y for five
fe says. "That's a romantic solu-
if I had to, I'd to to jail. I like
ed States. I would never go to
Lot sure I owe anything to the
or to, anybody," he adds "I have
gations' to improve society, al-
'11 do all I can."
4
Search for inflation weapon:
Wmage and price controls?2
THE NIXON administration's continued
pronouncements about the improved
state of the U.S. economy were dealt a
severe blow yesterday when Arthur F.
Burns, chairman of the Federal Reserve
Board and a Nixon appointee, called for
an "incomes policy" to speed the econo-
my's return to price stability.
Only a month ago, Burns expressed
confidence that the economy had weath-
ered the worst, and was on its way to
lower interest rates, and reduced prices.
But the statistics refuse to support his
optimism.
Nikon's attempts to control inflation
have done little but increase the unem-
Pieture this
SPRINGTIME IS the time for daydream-
ing and federal narcotics agents have
provided a subject for the most glorious
dream of all.
Monday night the agents seized 2%
tons of marijuana aboard the "Rough-
neck," a dowdy old ship agents had re-
named the "Flying Dutchman."
In line with daydreaming, just think if
the ship had caught fire and all that
grass started burning.
Imagine the firemen removing their
helmets, sitting down on the deck and in-
haling, inhaling, inhaling.
What a high..-.
-MAYNARD
ployment ranks. Overall unemployment
rose from 3.5 per cent in January to 4.8
per cent in April. At the same time, mi-
nority unemployment rose to 8.7 per cent.
But unemployment is not the only thing
that in increasing. Estimates of the fed-
eral budget deficit are trying to keep up.
Although the administration originally
estimated a small surplus in the budget,
it now appears as though there will be a
deficit of at least $13 million.
The recent Teamster wage settlements
and the impending United Auto Workers
contract negotiations do not indicate
that an end to wage increases is in sight.
And industry continues to raise its prices
to maintain its profit margin.
AS WAS TO be expected, the Chairman
of the Council of Economic Advisors,
Paul McCracken, was quick to denounce
wage and price controls by saying they
have not worked in other countries. But
even he refused to rule them out com-
pletely.
The Nixon administration is aware of
the growing unrest over spiraling infla-
tion. It is becoming increasingly apparent
that Nixonian methods to halt inflation
are doing little more than put a large
number of people out of work.
At a time when unemployment is rising
rapidly, and prices more rapidly, Wage
and price controls are a possibility that
cannot be. summarily dismissed.
-ALEXA CANADY
Co-Editor
The politics of U. S.
military spending
(EDITOR'S NOTE: The author is co-
director of the Institute for Policy
Studies.)
By RICHARD BARNET
SECRETARY OF DEFENSE Mel-
vin Laird's recent announce-
ment of proposed cutbacks in the
military budget was designed to
put the Congressional critics of
Pentagon extravagance on the de-
fensive. Laird's strategy for dis-
arming the small but, growing
number of Congressmen and Sen-
ators who speak out against bloat-
ed military budgets is to pin the
responsibility for unemployment
on the budget choppers. Nothing
demonstrates more clearly the
magnitude of the problem of con-
verting a war economy to a peace
economy.
There can be no conversion pro-
gram that would release signifi-
cant resources for the non-defense
economy without a major political
reorientation in the United States.
When it com'es to defense spend-
ing, most Americans do not be-
lieve that the present levels of
prosperity or employment can be
maintained except by a war econ-
omy. They do not see or will not
accept the revolutionary implica-
tions of their belief. An economic
system that works only by turning
out products that endanger itself
and the planet is literally suicidal.
But for more than 20 years Amer-
icans have accepted the notion
that the defense budget is the es-
sential prop for the economy. Un-
til recently it was hard to find an
economist who didn't subscribe to
the view that massive government
defense spending is a healthy, even
a necessary stimulant.
WITH THE huge rise in mili-
tary expenditures during the Viet-
nam war an increasing number of
economists have come to see that
military spending is a prime cause
of inflation, and because military
hardware destroys rather than
creates wealth, increased military
;pending has caused a decline in
the rate of productivity. The
American economy is in trouble
because of productivity slowing
down in the midst of a galloping
inflation.
But there is no national policy
of reconversion, despite the ob-
vious need for it, because the pow-
erful economic and political groups
that feed on the military budget
have no interest in losing control
over their huge share of the tax
dollar. In the present political
climate they see no necessity to
change profitable patterns of
career building and money mak-
ing. All talk of shifting national
priorities is vain unless the in-
dividuals who now profit from ever
expanding military budgets are
made to see that they must shift
their own priorities.
THE SET of institutions that
make up the military-industrial
complex-firms which are depen-
dent for survival on military con-
tracts, politicians who make con-
eers on the military porkbarrel,
universities that are willing cap-
tives of the military, and the vast
bureaucracy of the Pentagon it-
self-have had a rather clear set
of mutually reinforcing priorities
for more than 20 years. Each has
wanted control over a greater
amount of national wealth to en-
hance its own power. None of these
institutions has any incentive to
make a major redistribution of
make a major redistribution of na-
tional priorities or national wealth.
Defense firms are reluctant to give
up the system of military social-
ism in which the tax dollar is used
to subsidize private profits. A
politician like L. Mendel Rivers,
a dearth of alternative uses for our
national wealth. It is clear that
there is a crisis in the American
city and in the natural environ-
ment which cannot be solved with-
out the spending of hundreds of
billions. It is also clear that pro-
grams of retaining, relocation, and
reconversion can be designed to
ease the transition for workers in
defense industry and military per-
sonnel so that they do not suffer
because of a change in national
policy. The community, not the in-
dividual war worker or soldier,
should pay the cost of conversion.
Such a national reconversion pro-
gram would be a major undertak-
ing but it could be done. The prob-
lem is that there is neither the
will nor the incentive to do it.
If the federal government is to
take the lead in reordering na-
tional priorities, it will have to
exercise openly and rationally two
functions that it now exercises
covertly and irrationally. The first
is subsidization, and the second is
planning.
A widely believed economic
fairytale has it that there is an
invisible wall separating the pub-
lic government and private enter-
prise, that men get rich in spite of
the government and not because
of it. The reality is otherwise. The
United States is a highly sub-
sidized society. Not only defense
contractors but oil interests, con-
struction interests, shipping inter-
ests, and many other receive bil-
lions of dollars worth of subsidies
funded by the taxpayer in the
form of depletion allowances, ad-
ministered prices, and cash bene-
fits. There is nothing wrong in
principle with subsidies. The
American system probably could
not function without them. The
important political questions are:
Who gets subsidized? What na-
tional purpose is served? Are the
lision with entrenched political
forces interested in the status quo.
It is even easier to spend a dollar
on the moon or on the bottom of
the sea than on the poor, the
hungry, the sick, or the old in
America's cities or on her farms.
Under the Puritan eithic, the gov-
ernment, like God, helps those
who have 'helped themselves. ; For
a politician, investing to solve a
crucial problem in American so-
ciety involves a near-certainty of
making at least one political
enemy.
Much of the recent talk about
"shifting priorities" for the na-
tion minimizes the difficulties.
The Pentagon has already laid
claim to most of the "peace divi-
dend" which is supposed to be-
come available with the end of the
Vietnam war.
Administration officials such as
Daniel P. Moynihan, have indi-
cated that there will not be much
left over for the people of the
United States once proposed addi-
tions to the weapons stockpiles
have been purchased. One major
reason why tax dollars will con-
tinue to be spent on military hard-
ware when important parts of our
society are economically starved
is the lack of effective institutions
for investing in America. We have
spent so little for educating our
children, cleaning up our rivers,
transporting our people, or pro-
viding health care for everyone
over the last 25 years that neither
state and local governments nor
the Administration in Washington
is in a position to spend the money
well even if it suddenly became
available.
FOR A GENERATION, four U.S.
presidents have used the defense
budget as a convenient excuse to
avoid confronting our domestic
problems. As a result our political
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