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OPINION
Thursday, October 24, 1985
Page 4
The Michigan Daily
i.
a
Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan
Two sides to every coin
Vol. XCVI, No. 36
420 Maynard St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Editorials represent a majority opinion of the Daily's Editorial Board
Raise your voice
A CALL FOR a campaign to
"defund MSA" by two college
Republicans suggests an unwise
action but might bear the odd fruit
of making more students aware of
the Michigan Student Assembly's
potential and activities..
LSA senior Jeff Evans and
engineering major Mike Davidson
produced a poster reading, "Wan-
ted for Campus Stupidity"
featuring pictures of three Univer-
sity students and calling for studen-
ts to attend Tuesday night's MSA
meeting to protest a recent MSA
resolution endorsing demon-
strations at Vice-President George
Bush's speech on the 25th anniver-
sary of the Peace Corps.
Although the two were attem-
pting to satirize a campaign
organized by the Latin American
Solidarity Committee to protest
Bush's speech, which labelled four
Reagan Administration officials as
"Wanted for State Terrorism",
they went too far by seeming to in-
vite harassment for the three
students pictured on their flyer.
The proposal to defund MSA is
potentially very dangerous. The
University administration often
makes decisions for the University
without taking into account student
concerns. The proposed code of
non-academic conduct and the
stalled women's crisis center are
only two examples.
While MSA itself has only the
slim legal powers spelled out in
regents bylaw 7.02 to affect ad-
ministrative decisions, it has the
resources - provided by student
funds - to investigate and
publicize decisions which are un-
der consideration.
It is only by "yelling" that
students can affect the ad-
ministration, and MSA is the
student body's loudest voice.
The question of the nature of
MSA or any other central student
government is an issue more open
to debate. Interpretations of what
is "student opinion" are
necessarily colored by influential
students' personal views on
national and international politics.
It is actually a small part of
MSA's funding that goes toward
researching and publicizing con-
troversial issues on campus. Much
of the $5.07 per term fee goes
toward Student Legal Services and
the Ann Arbor Tenants Union. Of
the two remaining funds that MSA
dispenses to University groups to
fund campus activities, the bulk go
es to publicity and assistance for
events that the assembly itself has
had no hand in planning. The Latin
American Solidarity Committee,
the group mentioned alongside
MSA to be "defunded", has yet to
receive any MSA monies this year.
Many students charge that MSA
actually represents only a small
percentage of the students on cam-
pus and it is important to note that
only 18 percent of the student body
participated in the MSA elections
last spring.
But MSA itself is not responsible
for student apathy, and it is en-
tirely justified in acting on the
wishes of the constituency that ac-
tually elected it. Rather than
calling for a revocation of student
funds for MSA, students who
disagree with the assembly should
work to become a part of it and
restructure its priorities.
The "defund MSA" drive may
cause more students to pay atten-
tion to what MSA is doing. The
more students aware of MSA, the
more seriously its complaints to the
administration will be taken, and
the louder it will be able to yell on
behalf of all students.
By David Katz
While the editorial written by David Buchen
and Mark Weinstein ("Intelligence' is only
the start," Daily, October 22) was both a
truthful andaccurate account of the activities
of the CIA, they unjustifiably focused all the
blame for these "crimes" on the CIA. As the
cliche goes: "there are two sides to every
coin," and the CIA should not be the only ones
held responsible. Half of the blame should fall
on the shoulders of big business.
In the past, the CIA and big business have
shared a relationship which can best be
described as mutually beneficial to both par-
ties. According to a classified State Depar-
tment report dated September 3, 1948, cer-
tain major U.S. corporations agreed to
"provide cover" for CIA spies by allowing
them to pose as corporate employees in their
plants that were located in foreign countries.
Which companies were involved? It has
been widely published and rarely denied that
Exxon, Chase Manhattan, Lockheed, Moore
McCormack, and Control'Data were at one
time or another involved with the CIA. One
company, Ashland Oil, has admitted it.
In exchange for these companies'
cooperation, the CIA has shown its gratitude
by making sure that the foreign countries in
which thesecompanies operate continue to
have governments which are both friendly
and accomodating to these companies.
Another reason that the government is so
accomodating toward big business is
because many government officials were
formerly executives of the companies that
they are "helping", and a good number of
these officials return to these companies after
they leave their government posts. For
example, from 1953 until 1977 every U.S.
Secretary of State has at one time or another
been on the Rockefeller family payroll. And
from 1961 until 1977 Dean Rusk and Henry
Kissinger were relying on the Rockefellers
for their very solvencies.
One example of big business' joint ventures
with the CIA was briefly mentioned by
Buchen and Weinstein in their editorial. The
incident involved the CIA-backed
assassination of Guatemalan President
Jacobo Arbenz. Arbenz has been continuing
the policies of his predecessor, former
President Juan Jose' Arevalo, which included
land reform and redistribution and the
establishment of a government-owned port,
highway, and telegraph service. Prior to this
time (1950) the only highway, port, and
telephone/telegraph service had been owned
and operated by United Brands Fruit Compa-
ny.
In other words, the economy of Guatemala
was basically a monopoly with United Brands
acting as the monopolist. Arbenz hoped that
his policies (that were later recommended in
Kennedy's Alliance for Progress Program)
would foster a market in which the national
industries could compete with United Brands.
He did not choose to nationalize Brands' in-
terests which was a common practice in
many Third World countries at the time.
The latter policy is referred to by
economists as a yardstick industry. When
United Brands realized that its monopoly in
Guatemala was threatened, it turned to the
State Department for help. It is important to
note that the Secretary of State, John Foster
Dulles, and the Director of the CIA, Allen
Dulles, had both been members of the law
firm of Sullivan and Crumwell before en-
tering their government service. While they
were working at the firm, they had personally
defended a case for the firm's client-United
Brands. The rest is history.
In 1954 the CIA overthrew the Guatemalan
government by having Arbenz assassinated,
and it was no surprise that the new leader,
Castillo Armas, established a new economic
policy that favored United Brands. Later, in
1959 the CIA used borrowed transport ships
from United Brands for its Bay of Pigs in-
vasion.
In Iran the CIA also brought about the over-
throw of the leader of the Iranian gover-
nment, Mohammed Mossadegh, Mossadegh
was killed because he threatened to
nationalize oil wells that had been leased to
American oil companies at the turn of the
century. He had threatened to nationalize
them because the American oil companies
refused his request to fork overtsome of their
profits in the form of royalties to the Iranian
government for the use of their oil.
The American oil companies involved were
controlled by the Rockefeller family.
Therefore, the CIA had Mossadegh
assassinated in order to preserve the
Rockefeller-owned American oil companies'
control over Iranian oil in the U.S. market,
thereby giving them a monopoly so that they
could fix gasoline prices for the American
consumer. Just remember who the people
that ran the CIA and the State Department at
that time used to work for-the Rockefellers.
The purpose for implicating big business'
role with the CIA is not to diminish the CIA's
responsibility for their acts. The purpose is to
prevent people from making the CIA the
scapegoat that should be held totally respon-
sible for these acts.
Big business may not have committed these
acts, but they played a major role in causing
them, for they stood to gain more than the
CIA in most instances. So if people are going
to protest when the CIA sends job recruiters
here, they better be prepared to treat the
representatives of Mobil, Exxon, Shell,
Lockheed, and Control Data the same way
when they come here to recruit people for
employment.
Katz is afreshman in LSA.
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U.N.-happy birthday
T ODAY MARKS the 40th anni-
versary of one of our age's most
inspiring and sadly unfulfilling in-
stitutional ideas: the United
Nations.
Forty years ago today the inter.
national organization was born un-
der the branches of Dumbarton
Oaks, emerging as a paradigm of
promise designed to- address the
trauma of a post World War II
world.
It was humanity's collective
horror at the ravages of war that
prompted the drafting of the U.N.
charter, but as the specter of a
conventional war waged in the
Western European theater grew
increasingly. unlikely, -the super-
powers and economically elite
nations became further
disengaged.
Despite the fact that modern
communications and diplomacy of-
fer the greatest potential for
solving the major problems that
face our world, the reality is that
this potential goes largely
unrealized. Unfortunately, those
nations with the least to gain
through collective action often
withdraw or seek the most ex-
pedient and often selfish solutions
to international problems. There is
an unfortunate lack of serious
planning:and commitment to long-
member countries of the United
Nations reflect on the spirit of the
organization and declare renewed
-commitment to the U.N. charter
While today we in the Western
World are largely unaware of the
violence and poverty which con-
tinues to plague most of the planet,
it is no less inperative to honor the
ideals of the charter's authors:
men who have led nations through
the hate and blood of war and
sought universal freedom from
such brutality.
Forty years ago, there was an
urgency to implement the ideals
enunciated in the charter. Today
the chronic crises of hunger,
poverty, and regional warfare
have become almost acceptable
and appalingly little effort is
collectively expended to mitigate
the miseries suffered by so many.
Problems escalate to crises with
weak or no attempts to arrest the
danger before they become
catastrophes.
Recommitment to the charter of
the United Nations means also a
renewal of commitment to the
resolutions passed by the various
bodies within the U.N. Unfor-
tunately, the majority of the
proclamations made by the U.N.
are systematically ignored or
defied by member nations. Such
"
LETTERS:
Call for renaissance of Hispanic unity
Though insularism is rarely the
fault of the individual, it is the
responsibility of every member
of our society to be willing to un-
derstand fellow members.
Hispanics comprise 10 percent of
the American population. The
ignorances and misconceptions
that beset the Hispanic image to
the other 90 percent is not solely
the fault of those who desire to
understand. We as Hispanics are
as much to blame. Often times,
Hispanics allow notions to per-
petuate because it is easier to
acquiesce. Moreover, many
Hispanics deny that they are
Hispanics even to themselves.
Since many Hispanics are
indistinguishable from the other
90 percent, this can be quite sim-
ple.
Hispanics are not
homogeneous. Hispanis come in
names. They tend to argue
among themselves in an effort to
maintain identity. As time goes
on, less and less of us speak
Spanish.
In many cases, Black
Hispanics will resort to simply
being Black and White Hispanics
to being White. As sub-societies,
Cuban, Mexican, and Puerto
Rican communities in the United
States are slowly allowing the
final conquest: that of our iden-
tities. Let us look around; how
much of Hawaii is left that is ac-
tually Hawaiian? It would be a
great indignity to have been
swallowed up by the other 90 per-
cent.
Recently, Secretary of
Education William. J. Bennett
stated in the New York Times his
beliefs on what it means to be a
good American: to share a com-
mon heritage and a language. I
disagree. I am proud and happy
with my heritage. Am I to
pretend that Thanksgiving for me
begins with the Mayflower? Let
there be no mistake: to be a good
American is not necessarily to be
a good Anglo.
Hispanics should take com-
mand of their destiny with asser-
tion. There is much to be learned
from the other 90 percent, but
that is not to say that Hispanics
should prostitute themselves for
the sake of convenience.
Hispanics should tread upon
whatever commonalities they
have. Traditionally, Cubans and
Puerto Ricans have enjoyed
telling jokes about each other.
Likewise, distinctions are made
between Mexican-Americans,
Chicanos, and even "Tex-Mex."
Perhaps a simple place to begin
an effort toward Hispanic unity
would be in words; Hispanics
have a wealth of literature which
rarely reaches the reading lists
of many Hispanics of this
generation. It seems that Anglo
pragmatism does not encourage
humanistic endeavors in the
pooresti10 percent of the
population.
Finally, I wish to make clear
that I do not propose that
Hispanics build walls around
themselves. I do propose the
Renaissance of a dying notion,
"Hispanidad."
-Luis A. velazquez-Rivera
October 13
by Berke Breathed ,
BLOOM COUNTY
I