0 OPINION Wednesday, January 15, 1986 Page 4 The Michigan Daily 0 be ftiCgan 4atl Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan Media1 By Brian Leite This article concludes a threes distort foreign policy r part series Vol. XCVI, No. 74 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 Editorials represent a majority opinion of the Daily's Editorial Board i Building a dream M ARTIN Luther King Jr. devoted his life to fighting bigotry and promoting racial un- derstanding. This great leader's birthday provides an excellent op- portunity to reaffirm his ideal of nonviolent resistance and to vow the fulfillment of his dream. King, inspired by the example of Gandhi and the writings of Thoreau, led the civil rights struggle through peaceful demon- strations. From the Montgomery boycott of 1957 to the March on Washington in 1963, King showed the effectiveness of nonviolence as a means toward reform. King's ef- forts led to passage of the monumental voting and civil rights acts of 1965, the first legislation of its type since the Civil War. Despite these achievements, King died with his work incom- plete, and 18 years later his dream remains unfulfilled. Bigotry still lives, as is clear in the racist grafit- ti permeating the campus. Minority enrollment, though up slightly from years past, still in- dicates a disproportionately small percentage of black students at the Wo man Three cheers for Barbara Black, the 52 year old mother of three and recently appointed dean of Colum- bia Law School. Her position as the first woman to lead an elite school marks an encouraging signal to professional women. The brilliant and most important message of Black's achievement is that a career encompasses an en- tire life, and does not have to be limited to a narrow focus or a single job. The willingness of women to adopt this attitude is essential to their personal fulfillment. Black has shown that motherhood and professionalism are not mutually exclusive. On the contrary, such richness of personal experience brings a priceless depth and perception to any job. Black's accomplishment necessitates the support of in- dividuals in her life, like her husband and children, as well as University. With these facts in mind, civil rights advocates here on campus will commemorate King's achievements while focusing on the difficult work that lies ahead. Included in the com- memoration activities will be a speech by Joseph Lowery, president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and a unity march from Trotter House to the Diag. The institution of King's birthday as a national holiday demonstrates a national appreciation of the im- portance of King's message and the need to continue his fight. Im- proving affirmative action laws and enforcement of the Voting Rights Act are of crucial importan- ce, as are efforts at combatting poverty, a condition that hurts blacks disproportionately. King's accomplishments are many. He improved the American racial climate and made significant gains for blacks and other minority groups. The obser- vation of his birthday signifies the recognition of a great man, an in- comparable leader, and the ar- chitect of an essential struggle. Swork the farsightedness and wisdom of people at Yale who appreciated the contribution she could make to academia by gaining the incom- parable experience of raising children. How does one account for U.S. sponsorship of systematic violence and exploitation throughout the world? Noam Chomsky has remarked, "Across the entire spectrum of debate it is pre-supposed that the U.S., alone in modern history, acts out of a commit- tment to abstract moral principles rather than rational calculation by ruling groups concerned for their material interests." The ruling group in the U.S. is that class of individuals who control and profit from the dominant enterprises of the private sector (which, of course, includes much of the national media): the top corporate executives and owners, stockbrokers and investment bankers, corporate lawyers. These individuals have since WWII, as a matter of fact, staffed most of the key foreign and domestic policy-making positions of the federal government. (In the Reagan Administration, for example, Shultz and Weinberger are former corporate executives, Baker a corporate lawyer, Regan a top N.Y. stockbroker, and Deputy Sec. of State Whitehead a retired invest- ment banker.) Policy, accordingly, is designed to protect and advance the in- terests and needs of the major enterprises of the private sector. It is not surprising, of course, that this should be so. After all, the livelihood of the policymakers has derived from this sector, and their hearts and minds are closest to the needs and realities of this sector. What is remarkable, however, is the ex- tent to which those not intimately connected with this ruling group (e.g. academics, reporters, lesser political functionaries) have internalized the legitimizing message that the U.S is a moral foreign policy actor. In this way, the system perpetuates itself throughout. Thus, one could not imagine a New York Times reporter submitting, say, an article documenting U.S. support for the genocide in East Timor, though comparable articles have appeared in the European press. The reporters and his editors have already inter- nalized the message that the U.S. basically serves noble ends through its foreign policy, though it sometimes makes mistakes. A vivid account of U.S.-backed atrocities would make them uneasy; it would be met with incredulity, suspicion. Such an account would not fall into the realm of understan- dable or acceptable phenomena: psychologically speaking, it is therefore likely that it will be rejected. Given that we can hardly ever know the full facts of any situation, we frequently fall back on seemingly intuitive organizing conceptions of the world in assessing new information; the difficulty is that the organizing concep- tions surrounding U.S. foreign policy are not supported by the historical record. It is worth digressing a moment to note that it is particularly disturbing to observe the extent to which many academics - whose very enterprise is critical reflection and study - subscribing to the very language and model of foreign policy which the evidence fails to support. It almost defies belief that in the wake of the brutal aggression and war in Vietnam, the con- tinued and bloody U.S. involvement in Cen- tral America, and the endless series of ex- poses of government lies and inventions (e.g. the Pentagon Papers, the White Paper on El Salvador), that we should still find academic writing on international affairs talking calmly, almost platonically, about U.S. "security" interests, U.S. policies for promoting democracy, U.S. strategies for resisting the spread of communism and U.S. concern for the developing countries. The activities of large and essentially amoral power constellations, whether they be Soviet or American, are simply not adequately described by a language of reasons and motives more appropriate to a philosophical dialogue. This is not to suggest, by the way, that adoption of a rigid Marxist framework would be a positive development: quite the contrary, though illuminating, the limitations of such analyses are, I take it, apparent to most at- tentive scholars of contemporary affairs. What is called for is an abandonment of an Enlightenment descriptive apparatus in favor of a critical approach which pays at- tention to non-rational forces. In any event, why should we accept the thesis of ruling class interests as deter- minative of American foreign policy as a more plausible analytic framework? Con- sider these facts: * The U.S. depends on getting all its tropical foodstuffs (e.g. cocoa, coffee) from Third World nations. *American industry depends on getting much of its: manganese from Brazil and South Africa; chromium from South Africa; foreign copper from Chile and Peru; tin from Indonesia, Thailand, and Bolivia. *U.S.-backed fascist regimes have always welcomed and protected U.S. investments and U.S. exploitation of natural resources and labor. Following the '64 Brazilian coup, enormous iron ore concessions were gran- ted to Hanna Mining and Bethelehem Steel; following the '65 Dominican Republic in- vasion, Gulf & Western moved in to take over much of the food industry; the list goes on. Wherever the U.S. has installed a fasc- ist regime, the pattern is the same: an im- mediate influx of investment. In addition, because these regimes terrorize and sup- press reformist movements and labor unions, maximum profits on investments are reaped by the local and U.S. elite, while poverty remains the local norm. *Even where the immedite economic in- terest is not strong, the U.S. still has a general interest in crushing populist movements lest a precedent be set for widespread resistance to U.S. domination (this seems to have been one of the main motives and goals in Vietnam - unable to achieve this goal, the U.S. settled for devastating the country and its agricultural base). This theory by the way is merely the widely cited Domino Theory stated in slightly different terms. Even if these facts are unconvicing, there remain numerous instances where ruling groups and their spokesmen have ar- ticulated U,.S. policy fairly straightforwar- dly. During WWII, the Council onfForeign, Relations produced a revealing set of reports stressing the need for limiting the* sovereignty of foreign nations to the extent that such sovereignty hinders U.S. economic prosperity and noting that, "The interests of other people should be stressed, not only those of Europe, but also for Asia Africa and Latin America. This would have a better propaganda effect." In 1969, Assis. Sec. of State Charles Meyer publically affirmed the need to "protect; American .investment" (though not in- dicating at what cost). With the U.S. loss of Vietnam, Business Week in an editorial of 4/7/75 remarked that "the international economic structure under which U.S. com- panies have flourished since the end of WWII, is in jeopardy,;" and reminisced that "No matter how negative is a development (e.g. Third World populism), there was always the umbrella of American power to contain it ... The rise of the multinational corporation was the economic expression of this political framework." And in 1977, at the height of the Nazi-like bloodbath in Argentina, David Rockefeller made most apparent America's foreign- policy value system: "I have the impression that finally Argentina has a regime which° understands the private enterprise system." A relatively humane political system at home does not guarantee humane conduct of external affairs. Nor does the affirmation of: moral ends by popular and seemingly civilized leaders necessarily correspond to the real pursuit of other ends and interests these leaders are also committed to serve. The prevalence of continued sentimentality about America's objectives and the recent. upsurge in infantile macho rhetoric assumes' that Reagan's reassertion of traditional hegemonic drives should be successful. It 6 remains to be asked what university com- munities are making to the understanding and alteration of these events. Leiter is a graduate student in law and philosophy. Rather than c into structural systems that ha for men, society resources to pr choices. Acknov needs as differe portant is cruci ment and growti sexist society. T society will cha titudes and the company them ference between achievement ex bara Black, and creating a ft professional wo follow suit. -A IL oi hanneling women and institutional ve been designed must reassess its ovide women with vledging women's nt but equally im- al to the develop- h of a healthy non- he extent to which nge traditional at- structures that ac- will make the dif- n one outstanding emplified by Bar- I the possibility of uture for other men who want to IN 1.04cLC CK $ANU7_NN S AW CTZGNS NO WOOPN MR _~4, --- -r AM TTIIGMY LETTERS: University Council is making progress To the Daily: promoting them. unfounded. The preliminary (ra of thA Prn...renr being carried on by University Council is tnpn-ea mini hut