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Student protests, May-December 1971
1971-05-12 Daily Iowan Letters: ""The May Uprising"" Page 3
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Student Revolt" was written by a leading international Marxist scholar, Ernest mandel " ... (I)n the framework of the third industrial revolution manual labor is expelled from production while intellectual labor is reintroduced into the productive process on a gigantic scale. It thereby becomes to an ever increasing degree alienated labor - standardized, mechanized, and subjected to rigid rules and regimentation, in the same way that manual labor was in the first and second industrial revolutions. This fact is very closely linked with one of the most spectacular recent developments in American society: the massive student revolt or more correctly, the growing radicalization of students. " To give an indication of the scope of this transformation in American society, it is enough to consider that the United States, which at the beginning of this century was still essentially a country exporting agricultural products, today contains fewer farmers than students. There are today in the United States 6,000,000 students and the number of farmers together with their employes and family-help has sunk below 5,500,000. We are confronted with a colossal transformation which upsets from certain fields of activity, but reintroducing it on a larger scale and at a higher level of qualification and skill in other fields. "If one looks at the destiny of the new students, one can see another very important transformation. related to the changes which automation and technological progress have brought about in the American economy. Twenty or thirty years ago, it was still true that the students were in general either future capitalists, self employed or agents of capitalism... But today this pattern is radically changed. It is obvious that there are not 6,000,000 jobs for capitalists in contemporary American society.. Thus a great number of present day students are not future capitalists at all, but future salary earners, in teaching, public administration, and at various technical levels in industry and the economy. Their status will be nearer that of the industrial worker than that of the manager... "The university explosion in the United States has created the same intense consciousness of alienation among students as that which is familiar in Western Europe today. This is all the more revealing, in that the material reasons for student revolt are much less evident in the United States than in Europe... the consciousness of alienation resulting from the capitalist form of the university, from the bourgeois structure and function of higher education and the authoritarian administration of it, has become more and more widespread. It is a symptomatic reflection of the changed social position of the students today in society. "American students are thus much more likely to understand general social alienation... The first political reaction of American students was an anti imperialist one. But the logic of anti imperialism has led the student movement to understand at least in part the necessity of anti capitalist struggle, and to develop a socialist consciousness that is today widespread in radical student circles." - from the pamphlet "Where is America Going" by Ernest Mandel (originally published in March, 1969) Mandel's analysis of student insurgency cannot be ignored any more than the revolt itself can be ignored. People don't, in spite of what some commentators would have outsiders believe, walk into the strong possibility of arrest and beating for the fun of it. Can it be that political officials like Police Chief Patrick McCarney really believe that the insurgency in Iowa City is caused by the manipulation of students by the left by "outside agitators" or that the whole affair is a result of a penchant for violence by student-citizens? "There was nothing political about it all" McCarney said of Monday's activities. "You couldn't believe something like that could happen in America in this little Iowa City." Does not "this little Iowa City" contribute to the existence of America as it is? Is a capitalist Iowa City somehow immune from the alienation of working people under all other capitalism - forced labor to maintain a subsistence at home and the oppression of people all over the world because of parasitic imperialism? Can law enforcement officials believe they're doing anything but protecting the system that requires such inhumanity?And can this police chief who denounces "mob violence" in such a righteous way be the same man who told a Mechanicsville audience last August that he was critical of the university officials for allowing "undesirable individuals" to sit "on the corner of Washington and Clinton Streets 24 hours a day?" - Lowell May "STUDENT REVOLT" tinue. The more we comply, the more we are to blame. This is a moral question we all have faced. So we tried. We tried to get Gene McCarthy elected, but he was dangerous, so we settled for Hubert Humphrey and Richard Nixon. We tried to teach people - again we failed because people had been told by their government 20 years ago that communists were worse than the Nazis they'd just beaten. They would not listen. So we got angry and we marched and we threw rocks and we got busted. Now the President says he's going to run this war they way he wants no matter what the people say. Some people got killed. Some were marching and some were just standing around. So we remain peaceful. As long as we do that the police and the senators and the president will let us alone. After all, then we've only got words and Nixon doesn't listen to out words and neither does the middle-American (remember: the words of a communist can hypnotize you into believing what isn't true !) So we are faced with a choice which is hard for anyone to make. Either we can continue with impotent, verbal, peaceful sanctioned protests or we can begin the fight now to change what needs changing. If the President can't be persuaded to listen, he must be forced. If we can't convince him he "ought to" end the war then we'll have to show him "he's better." It won't be easy. Power struggles never are. But it can't be effective unless we attack the point of greatest strength - the orderly functioning of this society. As long as everything id "business as usual" the war will continue and so will racism, and so will economic exploitation and sexploitation. And without a fight everything WILL stay business as usual. The French revolution, the Russian revolution, the American revolution- they were all violent - millions of people got killed. But they had a cause they considered worth it. It's time we all looked inside ourselves and asked if we want justice enough to die for it. If we don't we don't deserve to have it - and we won't. Mike Hennessy , A3, 426 Brown St. To the Editor: The day care controversy has been cooled by a University concession- another house has been surrendered. The topic of nursery care provision has been over-worked and the antagonistic camps are by now well defined. There is little need to express a professional opinion about child care which could only be emotionally interpreted as male chauvinistic prejudice (STC) I will, therefore, focus on the new university policy of providing houses for worthy causes. Should not the copulating nonpopulating be treated with the same consideration as the copulating populating? Will the male students demand a house for a brothel? Any old university house should do and the unit would not require heating or repairs. Beds from unoccupied University housing could be obtained and Engineering could install STC a red light on the porch. There should be no need to import mercenaries, as local co-eds could be hired. Women's liberation should applaud efforts to pay them for services they presently render without charge. The regents could be appeased by turning over a certain percentage of the gate. "Letters..." FREE ALL POLI P It all hangs together: as pol repression, so increases the finan movement, so dries up the "goo charges have relied on. Mike Pill (221 N. Linn tel 353-0153) are organizing a stu "United Bail and Legal Defense give them a call or stop by. Mo desperately needed. Money can 201 Communications Center, also Further, a series of workshop of the Union: 10:30 a.m. "Defense busted"; 2:30 p,m. "When you're tended as practical advise to peo DI May 12, 1971 3 (of 4)
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Student Revolt" was written by a leading international Marxist scholar, Ernest mandel " ... (I)n the framework of the third industrial revolution manual labor is expelled from production while intellectual labor is reintroduced into the productive process on a gigantic scale. It thereby becomes to an ever increasing degree alienated labor - standardized, mechanized, and subjected to rigid rules and regimentation, in the same way that manual labor was in the first and second industrial revolutions. This fact is very closely linked with one of the most spectacular recent developments in American society: the massive student revolt or more correctly, the growing radicalization of students. " To give an indication of the scope of this transformation in American society, it is enough to consider that the United States, which at the beginning of this century was still essentially a country exporting agricultural products, today contains fewer farmers than students. There are today in the United States 6,000,000 students and the number of farmers together with their employes and family-help has sunk below 5,500,000. We are confronted with a colossal transformation which upsets from certain fields of activity, but reintroducing it on a larger scale and at a higher level of qualification and skill in other fields. "If one looks at the destiny of the new students, one can see another very important transformation. related to the changes which automation and technological progress have brought about in the American economy. Twenty or thirty years ago, it was still true that the students were in general either future capitalists, self employed or agents of capitalism... But today this pattern is radically changed. It is obvious that there are not 6,000,000 jobs for capitalists in contemporary American society.. Thus a great number of present day students are not future capitalists at all, but future salary earners, in teaching, public administration, and at various technical levels in industry and the economy. Their status will be nearer that of the industrial worker than that of the manager... "The university explosion in the United States has created the same intense consciousness of alienation among students as that which is familiar in Western Europe today. This is all the more revealing, in that the material reasons for student revolt are much less evident in the United States than in Europe... the consciousness of alienation resulting from the capitalist form of the university, from the bourgeois structure and function of higher education and the authoritarian administration of it, has become more and more widespread. It is a symptomatic reflection of the changed social position of the students today in society. "American students are thus much more likely to understand general social alienation... The first political reaction of American students was an anti imperialist one. But the logic of anti imperialism has led the student movement to understand at least in part the necessity of anti capitalist struggle, and to develop a socialist consciousness that is today widespread in radical student circles." - from the pamphlet "Where is America Going" by Ernest Mandel (originally published in March, 1969) Mandel's analysis of student insurgency cannot be ignored any more than the revolt itself can be ignored. People don't, in spite of what some commentators would have outsiders believe, walk into the strong possibility of arrest and beating for the fun of it. Can it be that political officials like Police Chief Patrick McCarney really believe that the insurgency in Iowa City is caused by the manipulation of students by the left by "outside agitators" or that the whole affair is a result of a penchant for violence by student-citizens? "There was nothing political about it all" McCarney said of Monday's activities. "You couldn't believe something like that could happen in America in this little Iowa City." Does not "this little Iowa City" contribute to the existence of America as it is? Is a capitalist Iowa City somehow immune from the alienation of working people under all other capitalism - forced labor to maintain a subsistence at home and the oppression of people all over the world because of parasitic imperialism? Can law enforcement officials believe they're doing anything but protecting the system that requires such inhumanity?And can this police chief who denounces "mob violence" in such a righteous way be the same man who told a Mechanicsville audience last August that he was critical of the university officials for allowing "undesirable individuals" to sit "on the corner of Washington and Clinton Streets 24 hours a day?" - Lowell May "STUDENT REVOLT" tinue. The more we comply, the more we are to blame. This is a moral question we all have faced. So we tried. We tried to get Gene McCarthy elected, but he was dangerous, so we settled for Hubert Humphrey and Richard Nixon. We tried to teach people - again we failed because people had been told by their government 20 years ago that communists were worse than the Nazis they'd just beaten. They would not listen. So we got angry and we marched and we threw rocks and we got busted. Now the President says he's going to run this war they way he wants no matter what the people say. Some people got killed. Some were marching and some were just standing around. So we remain peaceful. As long as we do that the police and the senators and the president will let us alone. After all, then we've only got words and Nixon doesn't listen to out words and neither does the middle-American (remember: the words of a communist can hypnotize you into believing what isn't true !) So we are faced with a choice which is hard for anyone to make. Either we can continue with impotent, verbal, peaceful sanctioned protests or we can begin the fight now to change what needs changing. If the President can't be persuaded to listen, he must be forced. If we can't convince him he "ought to" end the war then we'll have to show him "he's better." It won't be easy. Power struggles never are. But it can't be effective unless we attack the point of greatest strength - the orderly functioning of this society. As long as everything id "business as usual" the war will continue and so will racism, and so will economic exploitation and sexploitation. And without a fight everything WILL stay business as usual. The French revolution, the Russian revolution, the American revolution- they were all violent - millions of people got killed. But they had a cause they considered worth it. It's time we all looked inside ourselves and asked if we want justice enough to die for it. If we don't we don't deserve to have it - and we won't. Mike Hennessy , A3, 426 Brown St. To the Editor: The day care controversy has been cooled by a University concession- another house has been surrendered. The topic of nursery care provision has been over-worked and the antagonistic camps are by now well defined. There is little need to express a professional opinion about child care which could only be emotionally interpreted as male chauvinistic prejudice (STC) I will, therefore, focus on the new university policy of providing houses for worthy causes. Should not the copulating nonpopulating be treated with the same consideration as the copulating populating? Will the male students demand a house for a brothel? Any old university house should do and the unit would not require heating or repairs. Beds from unoccupied University housing could be obtained and Engineering could install STC a red light on the porch. There should be no need to import mercenaries, as local co-eds could be hired. Women's liberation should applaud efforts to pay them for services they presently render without charge. The regents could be appeased by turning over a certain percentage of the gate. "Letters..." FREE ALL POLI P It all hangs together: as pol repression, so increases the finan movement, so dries up the "goo charges have relied on. Mike Pill (221 N. Linn tel 353-0153) are organizing a stu "United Bail and Legal Defense give them a call or stop by. Mo desperately needed. Money can 201 Communications Center, also Further, a series of workshop of the Union: 10:30 a.m. "Defense busted"; 2:30 p,m. "When you're tended as practical advise to peo DI May 12, 1971 3 (of 4)
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