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Monday, October 12, 1970
University Daily Kansan
KANSAN comment
Polarization Helped By Detractors
Kansan Staff Photo by JIM HOFFMAN
Polarization is considered by many to be one of the principal crises of our time, but it is a rather elusive term. Two recent events in Lawrence provide examples of the ease with which it is nourished and encouraged.
Both were tragedies with overtones that emphasized flaws at one pole—the established order. The first was the fire at the Renz Apartments in Lawrence, which left a KU student in critical condition from burns suffered while she was trying to escape from a building whose safety standards did not meet the safety city housing code.
The second was the crash of a plane carrying the Wichita State University football team to game in Utah. It has been disclosed that the planes did not meet Federal Aviation Administration safety standards.
Both of these tragedies could provide evidence that standards and safeguards within the "establishment" for the protection of human life and ethical standards do not function. Either they do not function or they are cast aside in too many instances.
Both can be used as supportive evidence of the existence of what Arthur Schlesinger calls the "crisis of confidence" that exists today in American society.
Many question the validity of the dissent and protest prevalent today—dissent and protest that is most often directed against the "establishment." But when a breakdown within the established order permits such preventable tragedies as occurred in the last two weeks, the anti-establishment "pole" must resist its supporters and followers, who can point to the two tragedies as evidence that the power structure must be reformed when the unsuccessful enforcement of its own guidelines and rules permits the tragedy of the fire and the plane crash.
But the opposite pole gathers its supporters just as easily when it hears its motives and interests impugned a la Spiro Agnew by the student body president at KU, who
has said that the city of Lawrence can deal with problems "only after someone has been hurt or killed because of them."
If Agnew has contributed to polarization on the national level, Bill Ebert contributes to local polarization when he speaks of the "dark, unpublicized sides of Lawrence," and infers that the citizens of Lawrence do not recognize and have not realized that their city has problems.
in polarization does exist, it can best be dealt with on the local level. Flaws can and must be identified within the established order. On the other hand, the process of ending polarization is not aided by those who glibly impugn the motives and sincere interests of those within the established order, most of whom are as distressed at the breakdowns which allow injustices and excesses as those at the opposite pole.
-Bob Womack
Changing the Grade System
Beginning Tuesday, the University Council Committee on Academic Policies and Procedures will hold the first in a series of three meetings, and to provide guidance, credit, and general course requirements."
This can be interpreted as the first in what hopefully will be a listing of innovative and policyites at KU.
Change per se, in grading and requirements,
will draw sharp criticism from what could be a
sizeable portion of the faculty. This is to be ex-
pected.
There are those who see the very foundations of the University crumbling with the introduction of programs such as a universal credit-no credit option, or the elimination of the language requirement. Those skeptics would be shocked by what follows along the classic conception of higher education.
The problem arises with a generation of students—and some faculty—who would define the function of the university as facilitator rather than the instructor, of the students' academic discipline.
The grading system, which many feel pervers the true function of the University, is an extension of the rewards-promotion syndrome promulgated by American business and professional interests. The rub is that many businesses rapidly becoming disenchanted with the big-business aspect of our society that demands proof of accomplishment, academic or economic.
The entire system of requirements and
certificates may be altered in a student-conceived curriculum.
The grade (may we all bow our heads to the word) is losing its validity.
I believe a redefinition of the University
educational experience is inimitable, but so is
reliability and part of our job.
The challenge is, then, for committees like the above to approach restructuring in a rational manner so as to not disenfranchise any of those involved.
—Tom Slaughter
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(Editor's Note: The writer served as a U.S. infantryman in the
American Division in Vietnam from November 1989 to August 1978.)
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WITHDRAWALS OR REDEPLOYMENT? Vietnam GIs: Shuffling the Cards
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By BOB NORDYKE
Kansan Staff Writer
Shortly after President Nixon's Midway Island announcement of a 25,000-man troop reduction in South Vietnam, the red nylon U.S. mail bags carried thousands of letters from the States to soldiers of the 9th Infantry Division, asking how soon they would be home.
The surge of optimism and hope experienced in the United States was blunted in Vietnam by the well-honed cynicism of soldiers who had been taught by their own experience not to expect any good hack while in the Army.
The historical importance of the President's announcement was straugged off by those who stood to gain the most from it, with a sense of irony and mockery.
For most of the men fighting the war, including those in the unita chosen to be withdrawn, the new catchword, "withdrawal," did in fact mean
The first little-known lesson of withdrawal was that a unit could go home with very few of its own men.
... the new catchword, "withdrawal," did in fact mean very little.
Still, when President Nixon, on June 8, 1968, descended upon Midway Island, met with South Vietnam's President Thienuu, and announced the first reduction of American troops, there was the sign of a real change in U. policy in Southeast Asia.
--those who rule set the framework within which all of us must operate. When we are站 at our desk, we must be in the accompaniment of Spiral Corkscrew's crocodile tears, it shouldn't be too surprising if they don't say their hypocrisy and shorttightness merely says "a plague on both your houses," for forgetting who lives in the accommodation and who lives in the shack.
The new course of American involvement, christened by Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird as "Project Vietnamization," implied that, after nearly 10 years, the United States was finally getting out of Vietnam.
The Nixon policy marked the third stage of American involvement. From limited advisory roles to massive escalation with thousands of ground combat troops, the policy was now one of planned withdrawal proportionate to South Vietnam's increasing ability to defend itself.
As proof of the new direction, President Nikon announced at Midway the first specific pullout of Americans. Two brigades of the 9th Infantry Division and one regiment of the 3rd Marine Division would be home by July 1989.
As was Nixon's intention, the headlines from Midway went to the announcement of a troop reduction. This, he hoped, would quiet the opposition.
At the conference, Nikon also issued important notice to the leaders of both North and South Vietnam, noticehes he would lead to a military confrontation.
For President Thieu, the announcement that the United States was getting out told him to improve the training of the South Vietnamese army and to take over more combat responsibility. Nixon also implied that the U.S. would allow and allow National Liberation Front participation in free elections.
To Hanol, President Nixon demonstrated a sincere wish for an end of the war and a desire that serious negotiations would proceed at Paris. He also gave notice that a step-up in the training of South Korea would soon make military victory for the Communists an impossibility.
Over the past few months police power has murdered men and women at Berkeley, Kent State, St. Louis and Lawrence, and Lawrence. The murders are criticized by liberals as "regretable excesses," but nothing is ever really done. Many law enforcement police because murdering black people is an established police tradition. Killing students has followed because few people, like them, are killed when the blacks were killed. If students at KU had protested as much at the time of the Jackson State murders as they did at the time of the KKK, brothers and sisters had done the same elsewhere, Nick Rice might be alive today. But there was a concert that day. Liberals might cue from the students' lesson.
Two days after the Midway conference, President Nixon said that he had "opened wide the door to peace," and invited North Vietnam to attend.
The new policy statement, which prompted critics to say that Vietnam was now "Nixon's War," carefully avoided a timedate for U.S. troops in the confirmed removal of American troops depended upon the level of Commerce on July 30, Nixon said he would make no further peace concessions.
Today police are being shot in cities across the country. Too bad, because police are people, too, and indiscriminate terrorism nearly always backfires. Still, it is important to remember that
The hope of Vietnameseization has drifted into this pessimistic reality; there has been little progress in the 15 months since Midway.
President Thieu has shown no inclination to be more flexible in his rule of South Vietnam, nor has Hanoi been more conciliatory at Paris or on the battlefield, although the level of fighting has been sporadic and nothing compared to the bloody 1968 Tet offensive.
Finally, the most hope-inspiring aspect of Vietnamization, the troop withdrawals, have been mismanaged and misled. For the men who are supposedly being pulled out, the relevant word is "redeployment."
Men in other outfits throughout Vietnam with only a short time left of their tour are sent home a few days early and are called part of an insurgency.
The withdrawal program works on two premises that make it look better on paper than in fact. First, troop reduction is largely achieved by not sending very many new men to Vietnam as replacements. Secondly, men who have served less than 10 months of their year's tour of duty are not sent home with their inactivated units, but are redeployed to other units in Vietnam as replacements.
Thus the cynicism of soldiers blores the blisters of withdrawal. Men who had never been close to the 9th Division's area of operations have lost their sense of humor.
Still another aspect of the program overshadows the mere displacement a soldier feels when he stays in Vietnam while his unit goes
What liberals avoid facing is why such men are in these places. Whenever an effective challenge status quo arises, Repression is the vital part of the power structure. Whenever an effective challenge to corporate control over our destinies has arisen, violence, murder, and legal repression have a threat. Superficial reform then attempts to destroy what little vitality may be left in the movement. Years later, liberals make the original leaders accountable for their fate. This was the fate of the American labor movement, the progressive and pacific movements after World War I and II and today the youth, black women and women's movements.
For the men who are supposedly being pulled out, the relevant word is "redeployment."
RAPPING LEFT
On April 30, 1970, North Vietnamese Army regulars initiated a major offensive in Hue Duc Valley, 20 miles northwest of American Dahlia.
The withdrawal program has not to any great degree allowed U.S. offensive combat operations, but has sometimes affected a unit's ability to even defend itself—the result of dropping troop levels by not sending new replacements from the States.
Three pacification hamlets were overrun and four forward fire support bases came under fire daily for nearly two months.
Two infant battalions and part of a third of the 19th Infantry Brigade were committed to the fighting in Hiep Duc, along with two other companies.
Bv GUS DIZEREGA
Repression and the Avenues of Change
The Nixon policy has two contradictory sides. The statistics are impressive, and it is true that the troop level has been greatly reduced. By next spring, troop strength is expected to be down by 250,000 men. The burden placed upon the men left in Vietnam is not so unimpressive. Unless there is a change in tactical operations accompanying continued withdrawals, the program is a sail-out of those men.
Political regression has been a frequent occurrence throughout American history. Liberals have always called such periods "regrettable exceptions," inexplicable relapses from our democratic heritage. This explanation generally blames the machinations of a few powerful liberals, who happen to be at the wrong place at the wrong time for the excesses.
Several infantry companies suffered up to 70 per cent casualties, had to remain in the field, seriously underweight. No replacements were arrived. About the only new men that had been available since the first invasion of the 1st Infantry Division, which had been "withdrawn" that spring.
Popular movements are destroyed through police repression—the club, the gun, and ultimately the army. They never have the opportunity to resist, so they must offset the wealth of the oligarchs. Our freedom is guaranteed precisely to the
blindness is that they operate within the same framework with the same basic assumptions as the reactionaries. That is why Hubert Humphrey can talk of Law and Order and why Sottero and American "peacekeeping" in the Middle East, and why they only get really upset when some people fight back at their exploiters using the same weapons that are used against them.
The whitewash of the Rice murder in Lawrence—like the equally questionable Dowell justice and the equally injustice in America is that which serves the ruling class, that law and order is another way of saying political repression. American liberals still refuse to learn that domination abroad requires with freedom at home is a fantasy.
degree that it is not used—as soon as its use becomes effective, "lamentable excesses" occur.
A government that can main, oppress, burn, and murder the people of Caracas, Canelona, Guatemala, the Dominican Republic, and all too many other places, is equally responsible for the home. The reason for the liberals'
So long as peaceful avenues of effective work remain open we should use them to the best of our ability, but it would be foolish to be lulled into believing that the battle against insurgency or decency can be won on the non-existent battle ground of American democracy.
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