America

1968

America is a nation in search of itself.  It has been a land of seekers from its very founding.  The first people to settle America sought adventure or a new start in life, but whatever their reason for coming to the new world, most were out of step with the old.  They were either bored with the life they had known or they were seeking freedom of belief.  Having come with old world traditions, they soon developed their own life style.  In time many colonists began to feel disconnected from the mother country.  When they declared their final independence, the leaders of the colonies took the old and new and formed a new government upon a constitution of loosely framed law.  This framework was so loose, the nation has been defining it ever since.

This government has operated for two hundred and is no longer new.  The adventure of discovery is finished.  The frontier is gone.  The land is filled.  Is America still a land of seekers?

It is.  The loose framework of laws still needs definition and it is constantly challenged to resolve new problems.  Conquering the frontier caused new difficulties, for America is still a land of seekers, who can no longer run off to the wilderness to start a new life.  They must find it where they are.  Once America sought to grow and find a place in the world.  It has its place now. 

Today America must define its position to its self and to the other nations.  It seeks the answer of what it should mean to the world and the meaning it finds may be more important than anything that went before.  The old search for expansion has ended; meanwhile, the seeking of place goes on.

Norman Podhoretz's Negro Problem

1968

Norman Podhoretz has noticed a racial problem in our society.  Subjectively examining this problem through his own growing-up experiences, he believes he has an answer.  His answer is miscegenation.  He believes the only answer is assimilation.  Otherwise racial disagreement is a hopeless situation.  This is a novel statement.  Most theories of bringing the races closer are through understanding, and miscegenation is vigorously denied as a goal.  This very fact is pointed out by Podhoretz in his essay, “My Negro Problem -- And Ours”.  And his use of that word, miscegenation, sticks in the mind after reading his essay.  It plays upon the emotions, whether the reader is pro or con.  It shocks.  It is because it is there to shock that it stays in the mind.  It even seems to be the theme of his essay.  But is it?

His essay breaks into halves.  The first half is devoted to events in the author’s childhood.  The other to his adult reasoning.  By telling several events from his childhood within a racially mixed neighborhood, he presents reasons why he could be excused for hating Negroes.  Then he tells us he doesn’t hate Negroes.  Or rather, that he makes a conscious effort not to hate them.  “I cannot restrain my nervousness whenever I pass a group of Negroes,” he says.  This is his true theme.  He speaks of fearing Negroes as an adult, but the fear is actually the fear of the child.  Again we have a split between childhood experience and adult reason, a conflict constant throughout the essay. 

He began with two ideas that puzzled him as a child.  He explains why the ideas bothered him, how they conflicted with what he saw with his own eyes.  Then he explains how he came to understand what was behind these ideas.  He became liberal with age.  But he is honest about his liberalization.  He admits it is influenced by his childhood prejudices.

Podhoretz’s essay speaks directly of a racial problem, but basically it is not concerned with race.  It is concerned with facing conflict as an adult.  It discusses the difficulty of reason to overcome emotion.  What Norman Podhoretz’s says is the adult must overcome the child. 

Norman Podhoretz essay, "My Negro Problem -- And Ours" was published in 1963. It was considered an important and influential take on racial relations in the 'sixties'. Perhaps to understand this short response of mine written in 1968, a person should first read Podhoretz's essay. You can do so by clicking on the title of this post. 

Experiment

1970

EXPERIMENT

Of the myriad problems of modern American society, racial disharmony is certainly one of the most dominant.  It has been the boing issue of the last decade, with roots going even further into the past.  And it threatens to remain a complex and perplexing issue for the future.  However, despite the maze of unanswerable questions surrounding every approach to understanding our society’s racial facets, one fact can be stated without too much argument.  The attitude concerning what should be the minority’s relationship to the majority has changed.  In the early sixties, assimilations of the minority into the mainstream of society were felt to be the best answer.  As the seventies begin, there is an emphasis on racial pride and the perpetuation of sub-cultures.  It is as if the melting pot had been turned into a great soup tureen serving out different soups.

Where once the rally cry of minorities was brotherhood with all mankind, there are now cries of black power, red power, yellow power and so on.  Language, clothing style, hair style and other particulars of a given minority, that were once disowned by the minority members who wished to blend into the mainstream of American society, are more and more being adopted by the same as their special identity.  Any attempt at changing such styles is regarded as an attempt to force the majority’s values on the minority.

Whether this development of racial pride is good or bad is not our concern.  We are concerned with such things as style, fashion and taste being regarded as the essence of a given group of people.  Our purpose will be to devise a means to prove that such styles are not inherent differences within different racial strains, but are acquired through various experiences.

HYPOTHESIS AND APPROACH

I propose there is no difference between people caused by race, but that differences are imposed upon people by outside pressures.  I do not intend to deal with those pressures.  I am interested in proving only my basic premise in its purest form.  I have devised an experiment to test my hypothesis to some degree.

My approach is simple.  I have compiled a series of musical groups.  Each group contains seven popular songs performed by singers of different race.  A group can then be played for a selected group of subjects who will be asked to list the songs in order of preference.

Why did I choose popular music for my experiment?  I choose a field of art, because only in art does there seem to be any real conventions of racial tones.  There have been inventions by men of all races, but can any single invention be defined in terms of race?  Such terms as “soul music”, “black experience”, "Jewish school of literature” appear often in art criticisms and attest that racial definitions exist in the field of art.  I feel this is especially true in the area of pop music.

A few years ago I was with friends talking about the Righteous Brothers, who were a white duo singing “black music”.  One of my black friends laughed and said, “If you think that’s soul, well I guess I’ll have to take you out to hear some real soul music.”  In that particular statement is the belief that there is some essential difference in the music of different races; a difference caused by race.

I believe the difference is mostly imaginary.  Therefore, I choose pop music as the perfect media for my experiment.

EXPERIMENT

Subjects are selected.  The main requirement for selection is that a racial mix is maintained.  There should be enough subjects to make the results significant.  The experiment deals with music that is a subjective form at best.  Allowances must be made for individual tastes, hearing differences and possible familiarity with the music being played.  There should be enough subjects to allow for these factors and still give definite patters in the charted results.

The subjects are then asked to listen to a series of musical selections and to rank the songs in order of individual preference.  A number will be given each song and they will use the number to list the songs.

SAMPLE GROUP OF SONGS

This performers are racially mixed, but only half of the subjects should be told this.  The half not knowing for certain that there are black and white singers will act as a control group in that no prior prejudice has been given.

1. Try a Little Tenderness   Otis Redding     Black

2. Alabama Song                   Doors                White

3. There She Goes                Bill Medley       White

4. Sudden Stop                     Percy Sledge      Black

5. America 1968                   Animals             White

6. Valentine Song                Tim Buckley      White

7. Always Something There to Remind Me   Dionne Warwick   Black

Some Aspects of the Military Industrial Complex: Notes by Sidney Lens and Others

1970

What is the Military-Industrial Complex?  The term is attributed to President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who warned in his “farewell address” that “the Military-Industrial Complex” was to be gravely regarded because “potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist”.  The military influence, according to Eisenhower,  “is felt in every city, every state house, every office of federal government”.₁  But what is the meaning of this term?  Sidney Lens attempts to answer this question in his book The Military-Industrial Complex.

Before looking at what he found, let’s take a brief look at the author.  Sidney Lens originally came from Newark, New Jersey and for much of his early adulthood was associated with organized labor.  After turning to journalism, he traveled through 74 countries and interviewed many heads of state and policy makers  His books have concentrated on political and labor difficulties and include: Left, Right and Center; The Counterfeit Revolution; Crisis of American Labor and The Futile Crusade: Anti-Communism in the United States.₂

The Military-Industrial Complex originally appeared in “The National Catholic Reporter”.  This article was revised into book form and released in 1970.  Structured into eight chapters, each chapter treats a specific aspect of the “Complex”. 

In the first chapter, entitled “Unmasking the Goliath”, Lens attempts to show how the military had appropriated funds from Congress without question or challenge until the Vietnam War begged the question of military effectiveness.  Congress began searching for some answers and uncovered great  waste in spending by the military.  The most glaring example being the cost jump for a deep submersible rescue vessel ordered by the Navy.  Originally quoted at a cost of $36.5 million for twelve, the later estimate became 4480 million for six; and Senator Proxmire maintained that in the last 40 years, there was only one instance where such a vessel could have been used.₃  Despite such overruns on cost, and many cases of plain shoddy work, the same industrial outfits continued to receive large military orders.  The large number of former military officers serving on the executive staffs of many of these industries may or may not have anything to do  with the situation, but the possible morass of corruption hinted at by Lens’ figures suggest a second instance to use a deep submersible rescue vessel.

“Origins and Purpose” is the second chapter.  Herein, Lens traces the development of the military-industrial complex from a very secondary influence before World War II to a major influence on United States policy after the war.  He questions the basis of this influence by questioning the actual Soviet threat in the early period of the cold war as well as just  side, east or west, was most guilty of treaty breaking.  Our proposed objective of self-government for other countries is shown to hide courser objectives; not human rights, but mineral rights.  Out statement that we only wish for other countries to control their own destiny proves to be feckless if under our breath we say, but we will control their fortunes.

In chapter five, Lens raises the question of “Self-fulfilling Strategies”.  Pointedly, this is the ability to construct a strategy that forces the circumstances that prove the necessity of that particular strategy.  One sample given is the Cuban missile-crisis of 1962, when President Kennedy had the famous eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation with the Soviets.  It has been put forth by some that this crisis arose out of the United States own weapons strategy.  The strategy referred to was “city-sparing”, which the Soviets allegedly took as an indication that the U. S. would attack first, so the Soviets stepped-up their own weapon displacements.₄ 

As proposed, the “city-sparing” plan did not claim any strike-first objective.  It was supposed to be a sane approach to nuclear war.  the plan was invented by the Air Force, over the objections of its own high command.  The objections were not quite as harsh as the General who stated: “Let’s start killing people.  People need to respect the United States, and when we start killing people, then there will be more respect for the United States.”₅  But they were of a more punitive nature that the proposed idea.  However, Secretary of defense, Robert McNamara backed the “city-sparing strategy” and it was adopted.  According to the designers, it should spare the lives of 100 million Americans in an all-out nuclear war, presuming both sides used it.  If one side only planned to use it, it worked better as a strike-first strategy.₆

In Lens’ other chapters, he digests rather extensively researched facts as support for his argument.  Each chapter takes a specific problematic aspect of the “Complex”.  The military influence on labor, on academia, on the solving or lack of solving of internal problems, on government secrecy, dishonesty and censorship.  It is interesting to consider lens’ work in light of some conclusions drawn by Richard J. Barnet, Co-Director of the Institute for Policy Studies and former member of the State department, in his book, with the very succinct title, The Economy of Death.

The building of a Warrior State threatens a nation’s own values, especially freedom.  A nation which spends a great deal of its resources on a military establishment at the avoidance of confronting domestic problems faces civil disorders/  If a nation decides it cannot deal with the causes of this disorder, it must seek to suppress it.  If a nation will not base security on the consent of the governed, it will base security on detention camps and graveyards.  And a nation, which devotes its funds to instruments of violence, gives an example to its citizens on how to solve problems.  “Law and order speeches make little impact when those in authority seek order primarily through force.”₇

Lens offers some “Alternatives to Catastrophe” in his final chapter.  he lists a seven-point program for lessening the power of the military-industrial complex and furthering peace and freedom in the world. 

1. End military aid to foreign countries. 

2. Increase aid for social reform. 

3. The aid should be given through the United Nations as a step in strengthening that body. 

4. The United States should “nationalize” American firms operating on foreign soil and make them government-to-government ventures.

5. Encourage cooperation between small nations, aiding their development by lessening dual-effort. 

6. Move toward disarmament, since the temptation of having weapons is to use those weapons. 

7. Suggest programs at home, which are alternatives to militarism, such as attacking poverty, racism and so forth.₈

Lens’ contentions can best be summarized with a simple quotation, for Lens finds a strong military-industrial complex existing and approval of by large segments of our culture.  We are asked to delight in our strength.  But in light of Lens’ information we must ask if “the heart of the wise should be in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.”₉  Whether Lens’ proposals will be adopted, or whether they are the best solutions, is left hanging in the air.  But it seems certain from known facts that the “Military-Industrial Complex” will continue searching for greater weapons.  And the possibility of a “doomsday machine” lies within our hands.  It is possible to launch twelve satellites into orbit about the earth, each containing a nuclear warhead.  If these twelve warheads were to be exploded while circling above our heads, they would have the same effect as four simultaneous major volcanic eruptions.  The result of both or either is the same; the end of all life on earth.₁₀

NOTES:  SOME ASPECTS OF THE MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX

1 Ferdinand Lundberg, The Rich and the Super-Rich (New York: Bantam Books, 1968), p. 5.  Lundberg quotes Eisenhower’s farewell address.

2 “Liner Notes”, The Futile Crusade, back cover.

3 Sidney Lens, The Military-Industrial Complex (Kansas City, Missouri: Pilgrim Press, 1970) p. 5, hereafter referred to as Lens.

4 Lens, pp. 91-92.

5 Richard J. Barnet, The Economy of Death (New York: Atheneum, 1969), p. 64, hereafter referred to as Barnet.

6 Richard Fryklund, 100 Million Lives (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1962), pp. 18-32.

7 Barnet, pp. 8-10

8 Lens, pp. 155-159.

9 Ecclesiastics, King James Bible (Philadelphia: John C. Winston Co., n.d.), 7, 4, p. 601.

10 “The End of the World”, Franklin Institute (Philadelphia: Fels Planetarium, 1968).