cbilu
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thursday, march 9, 1972
lincoln. nebraska vol. 95, no. 82
Rubin: youth
can beat Nixon7
by Michael (O.J.) Nelson
'The American empire is falling apart," Jerry
Rubin told a UNL student audience Wednesday.
Rubin, co-founder of the Youth International Party
(Yippie), spoke to more than 500 people during a
session of the World in Revolution Conference.
The crowd heard him denounce and joke about
many aspects of American society. He attacked the
Vietnam War, the nuclear family, politics, schools and
the prison system.
Rubin said most people in the country believe the
government is corrupt and the only way to change it
is by defeating President Nixon in his bid for
re-election. 'The young people can beat Nixon," he
said, "but to do it we'll have to organize."
Sporting a red, white and blue shirt with the word
"vote" across the chest, he said he had changed some
of his views since 1968. He urged young people to
register and vote.
"There is no difference between Nixon and
Muskie," he said. "They're both machines." He said
New York Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm is the
V
"best candidate."
Rubin called Nixon's trip to China a political trick.
"We can't let Communists like Mao tell us Nixon
should be re-elected," he quipped.
Nixon can't stop the Vietnam War in Peking," he
said. 'The United States has been defeated on the
ground by the Viet Cong so we're fighting a
technological war."
He said the United States is dropping sensing
devices disguised as dog "dung" all pver Indochina.
He said the devices send out signals when something
moves by. These signals are sent to a command post
which dispatches bombers to hit the target.
'They can't tell if the movement is troops, kids or
buffalo," he said.
"We're committing genocide in Southeast Asia.
The leaders of this country won't be happy until that
while area is capitalistic," he said. 'They want to
look at the map and see a Howard Johnson's on every
corner. They want it to be a big parking lot."
He said the Nixon administration had not wound
down the war, just the anti-war movement. He urged
the crowd to go to the Republican and Democratic
National Conventions.
"I was in Miami (the site of this year's Democratic
Convention) a couple of weeks ago. While I was there
we held a news conference. I told those people we
were going to have 10,000 people march naked in
front of the convention hall," he said. 'The next day
tha newspapers said "Yippies to March Nude?" They
thought I was serious. We might just have to." N
"The media is our last hope," he said. 'The
, government controls the programs, but it doesn't
control the news."
He compared the war to the trouble at New York's
Attica Prison last fall. He said the United States
"carried out a search and destroy mission" to
maintain control of that insitution.
He said prisons were for punishment and not
rehabilitation. 'They punish blacks for being black,
the poor for being poor. All prisons should be opened
and the inmates set free," he said.
"There is another form of prison in this
country-the school system," he said. "The inmates
are voluntary, but I don't know why. You don't
really learn anything. What you learn is in the
streets."
He said that schools are for "conditioning," but
the use of marijuana can breakdown the system.
"Can't you see it, the bell rings and somebody says
'Nice bell.' Schools are nothing more than an
advanced form of toilet training," he said.
He said the only way people learn is through
motivation and participation. He also attacked the
educational system as "re-enforcing sexual roles in
our society."
"Its time we realized a woman can do anything as
well as a man, if not better," he said. "Our roles
oppress us. Men should be able to cry, not just be
strong and emotionless all the time.
Kilpatrick
praises
program
balance
by John Russnogle
'The World in Revolution Conference
is the most balanced student program I
will see in the course of this academic
year, 'I syndicated columnist James
Jackson Kilpatrick told students
attending a meeting of the conference
Wednesday at the East Campus Union.
Kilpatrick said he was "all in favor" of
mandatory student fees being used for
such programs if an effort at balance was
made. He added that the idea of banning
radical speakers from the programs was
alien to him.
The conference exhibited tolerance,
broadmindedness, and maturity by the
program chairman, Kilpatrick said.
Kilpatrick's speech focused on the
history of American conservatism and its
viability today. 'The conservative cause is
not lost, but it has been forced to
continually resist and give way," he said.
A conservative, according to
Kilpatrick, is one who, confronting any
given proposition for change, will support
the status quo. Conservatives give greater
weight to tradition and are less inclined
toward renovation and change, he said.
Conservatives considered Nixon "one
of us" when they supported him in the
1968 elections, Kilpatrick said. He used
the analogy of a football team and
explained that in 1968 Nixon was
running all of the plays to the right.
"Something has happened to the game
plan," he said. Nixon's change in attitude
is due in part to subtle pressures of a
discontented society, Kilpatrick said. He
noted several areas where Nixon's policies
clash with conservative views.
Kiplatrick attacked Nixon's position
on the Family Assistance Program (FAP).
FAP will double the number of welfare
recipients. Welfare discourages recipients
from working, he said.
Conservatives, according to Kilpatrick,
have a history of supporting the nobility
of honest labor, and in tolerance of
idleness.
Appropriations which have doubled
the amount of money delegated to the
areas of arts, humanities, the war on
cancer and pollution control also came
under fire, by Kilpatrick. He asked the
audience where Nixon got the power to
make such appropriations.
Every congressman sponsoring a bill in
Congress should be required to state what
invested power he is relying on, according
to Kilpatrick.
In a news conference before his
speech, Kilpatrick described the current
political situation as a "slump."
"It is a time of transition," he said.
Political parties are losing the role they
historically occupied. Both candidates
and voters exhibit less allegiance to
political parties than they used to, he
said. Due to this "drift" it is hard to
make party distinctions, he noted.
Kilpatrick said he thought Nixon
would not be beaten in the Presidential
election in 1972. He added the only thing
that could defeat Nixon would be the
youth vote in a few key states.
Kathy Braemann, first district
candidate for the House of
Representatives, charged Kilpatrick with
referring only to men when speaking of
equality in the U.S. The equality of
women should be top priority for the
government, she said.
Braemann complained that the
government has placed priorities on war
instead of human values.
She and Kilpatrick debated the merits
of the defeated Comprehensive Child
Care Bill. Braemann claimed that modern
society created a need for such programs
but Kilpatrick maintained that he feared
bureaucrats would use the program to
shape children "like so much wet clay."
Kilpatrick said in a question-answer
period following his speech that he
believed capital punishment should not
be abolished but should be very
restricted.
Boos accompanied Kilpatrick's
suggestion that capital punishment should
be used as a deterrent to drug pushers.
"I would subject them to death
without a flicker," he said. Convicts with
life-time sentences who kill other convicts
or guards should also receive the death
penalty, he said.