Letter from a Whig

...To the surprise of many (even though Ford had been widely rumored to be the frontrunner and the entire Michigan congressional delegation had been invited to the White House nominating ceremony that night), Nixon did nominate Ford, but it is a choice that is not so surprising...

...These Republican officials complain quietly that Nixon could have better satisfied the needs of the country and the Party by appointing someone of Senator Goldwater's stature, even Senator Baker or GOP National Committee Chairman, George Bush...

...The President, however, was apparently confident that he had the votes to get Connally nominated and he is reported to have been more than willing to force a congressional showdown...

...As House Minority Leader, Ford had performed remarkably well, considering what a few Republicans have called the "creeping CREEPism" syndrome of the Administration...

...Last, though not least, business has used degrees, however irrelevant to the tasks at hand, as a sifting device in hiring...

...Many students reach higher education without ever having been led to accept the authority of persons or institutions, and without having been asked to do anything requiring a major effort...

...Cynicism Remains Nixon's choice, nonetheless, raises serious questions...

...The U.S...

...But what did it accomplish in terms of the criteria of the classical analysts of history and society, criteria that in large part were also upheld by Karl Marx...

...orchestrated the effort to nominate the Vice-President, the Democrats could not have hoped for a better choice than Jerry Ford...

...These same officials discount the White House's targeted "leaks" which seemed to indicate that the President chose Ford so as not to divide the Republican Party (or even the country...

...Moreover, Marx cannot be held responsible for the crude simplification of his ideas that has often, and properly, been referred to as "vulgar Marxism...

...And he certainly cannot be held responsible for the deliberate perversion of his ideas that, in analogy to one of his favorite pejorative designations, "lumpen proletariat," may be called '~lumpen Marxism...

...The victim of this investigation has, in fact, been the Vice-President, and not the Maryland Democratic Party...

...District Court Judge, Walter Hoffman, called the (former) Vice-President's no contest plea the full equivalent of a guilty plea...

...So much the worse for the federal government...

...The events which forced the Vice-President to resign are undoubtedly both a personal and a national tragedy...

...Circuit Court of Appeals has ordered the President to hand over his White House taped telephone conversations (a decision which Nixon will appeal before the Supreme Court...

...And for those who know Maryland politics, this is an irony which has not gone unnoticed...

...Education" is the cheapest way (for the unions) of doing so...

...Indeed, when Nixon requested Republican leaders from around the country, as well as the GOP House and Senate members, to submit nominations for potential candidates, few expected this to be more than an exercise in public relations...

...Labor all too often welcomes education to keep people out of the labor market as long as possible...

...of the United States, Agnew's political future once seemed limitless...

...Marx cannot be held responsible for all the ideas that Kautsky, Plekhanov, and Lenin have presented as orthodox...

...The Democrats, in a true spirit of reconciliation, promised Nixon bell's fire if he attempted to 12 The Alternative December 1973 nominate an aspiring 1976 presidential candidate...

...However, changes that have been made in the classical substance of original Marxism to serve political purposes are scientifically untenable...

...No more than 35 percent of the college age group should study for degrees and faculties should be reduced accordingly...

...Gold had also reportedly jumped out of his chair when Agnew had praised the President for the support he had given to him...

...Hegel's concept of Asiatic despotism, it will be remembered, involved the idea that the huge Asiatic world had not shared in the western development but that, speaking socio-historically, it had stood still...

...Few expected Nixon to listen to the threats of the Democrats...

...I guess it's that they just don't make things like they used to, including party machines...

...Nixon chose Gerald Ford only after Attorney General Richardson withdrew himself from consideration (a politically adroit move for a man who probably plans to run for public office in Massachusetts...

...WASHINGTON)--That was a week, that was...

...What apparently had begun as an anonymous phone call to the Internal Revenue Service about political graft and corruption in Baltimore County (a long-time Democratic stronghold) quickly mushroomed beyond what anyone had really expected...

...Marx's views on history and society largely continue the classical macro-analytic tradition...

...But it is not fostered by refusals to exercise authority and by acceptance of anyone and anything...

...The very word "education" here helps to mislead people since it conflates the process of being educated--which may or may not succeed--with its successful accomplishment or product...

...And what was the character of the order that came into being through the Communist revolution...

...Selection on any basis other than the qualities relevant to the job is "discrimination" and should be made unlawful...

...What Is the Lesson...

...Parents, finally, cannot escape a share of the blame for the present situation...

...The following essay is a slightly edited version of a lecture given at the Australian National University in Canberra...

...At this time he-indicated his awareness of the fact that in Asia there existed a peculiar type of despotism...

...Such a preference should be regarded as "discriminatory," in the invidious sense, whenever the college education has no demonstrable relevance to the job to be filled...

...But education can be harmful if it is transformed into schooling, over-extended, and imposed on those who are not able to benefit, by those not able to educate...

...To demand that an applicant have a college education (when it is not relevant) is discrimination just as an irrelevant preference for race or religion is: irrelevant discrimination in terms of educational credentials ought to be prohibited legally just as racial discrimination is...

...Thus ended what had promised to become another log cabin American success story...

...One Democratic congressional aide gleefully stated that had House Majority Leader Tip O'Neill (D-Mass...

...Jerry Ford, like Senator Dole of Kansas had done as Chairman of the Republican National Committee, had worked hard for his fellow Republican colleagues...

...After a few decades of political supremacy, the Nationalists in the late forties were ousted by the forces of the Communist revolution...

...When the revolution of 1848/1849 failed, the continental period of Marx's activity as The Alternative December 1973 13...

...Nixon also withdrew John Connally's name from consideration after the former Texas Governor had pointed to the battle Nixon could expect from both Republicans and Democrats in Congress...

...Many Republicans have applauded Ford's nomination because they fear that the worst is not yet over for Nixon...

...Yet in many cases the preference for college graduates is irrational...

...Colleges have played a decisive role in creating educational inflation, and they could stop it...

...But what is the lesson...

...It is, on the whole, within their power to stop it...

...They could limit admissions and rededicate themselves to cognitive learning at the college level...

...The White House is not the most cheerful place in Washington today and Jerry Ford's nomination has done little to change the mood decisively one way or the other...

...This is why many talented students find it difficult to accept intellectual discipline, and to accept the authority of those who profess and transmit it...

...For reasons of their own, Democrats too are elated...

...The educational inflation could not occur without the cooperation of colleges...

...The modern Chinese revolution had its start in the Nationalists' attempt early in the twentieth century to replace China's traditional government and society by a pluralistic institutional structure of the western type...

...Neither Gold nor Broder had much to say, except that they were "confused...

...Ford, a somewhat colorless but loyal Party figure, seems to be the best solution to both problems and thus satisfies many Republicans...

...In 1842/43, and stimulated by his work at the Rheinische Zeitung, Marx became increasingly interested in certain realistic elements of Hegel's philosophy...

...For our politicians and our social pundits there could be no more opportune time for the July Fourth rhetoric which usually accompanies such events...

...The government has found it easier to yield to the pressure which industry has not opposed...

...The White House position is being met with such cynicism for the following reasons: Two weeks before Vice-President Agnew resigned, Nixon was already running security checks...

...He spoke for them in their districts and he helped them raise money...

...Successor Named With the Vice-President's resignation the debate quickly focused upon who would be nominated as his successor...

...Implicit in all their presentations is the admission that nothing is more dangerous to the power and prestige of the Communist regime in Russia (and in China) than the application of mature Marxian concepts of Asiatic society and Oriental despotism to their "socialist" societies...

...Aware that Marxism is the lingua Franca of most of the intellectuals who today promote societal change I would like to stress the Marxist approach to these problems...

...Continuing Bitterness In what was billed as his final television speech to the nation, the (former) VicePresident reasserted his innocence and indicated that his resignation was not ~an admission of guilt, but a plea of no contest, done to quell the raging storm...

...And there have been ideological misapprehensions...

...They further doubt that Ford's nomination came in response to congressional pressure and discount the White House line that the President wants to remain neutral in the 1976 GOP presidential nominating process...

...What was the character of the order that had existed at the start of the Chinese Nationalist revolution...

...It matters not at all whether the selective process is meant to irrelevantly exclude or include groups (sexual, racial, religious, educational) in any proportion, including the proportion in which they occur in the total population...

...What can be done...

...The best people that can be found should be selected as students and professors, regardless of race, religion, or sex, or anything else, except for those dispositions of character that make a person capable of living in an intellectual community and make it possible later as well to benefit from having lived and learned there...

...Consequently, many GOP officials wanted someone who would receive approval quickly so that in case of presidential impeachment the presidency would not fall by default to Democratic House Speaker Carl Albert...

...and in this respect Marxism proper is more realistic (and classical) than non-Marxist critics tend to recognize...

...Now is the time for everyone to quote Lord Acton's perennial truism that 'tall power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely...

...Education transfers much of the cost of apprenticeship to the taxpayer--even if it is a comparatively inefficient way, in many cases, of preparing for the business at hand...

...Included in the lecture are certain passages from Karl A. Wittfogel's book, Oriental Despotism (Yale, 1957...

...Another fear expressed (unofficially) was that any person who joined the Nixon team would be irreparably tainted and thus would have election problems in 1976...

...Universities must become selective in what and how they teach, in hiring and keeping professors, and in admitting students...

...They are convinced that attending college must be good and can do no harm, as they were convinced that attending church is helpful and never harmful...

...and Gold, to his credit, stated that these instant analysis sessions serve little purpose...

...As Plunkitt of Tammany Hall observed, good politics means loyalty, all the way to the prison gates...

...And although Agnew had only the highest praise for President Nixon (and his vice-presidential nominee, Gerald Ford) during his television speech, in an earlier interview with the Nashville Banner, Agnew stated that intense pressure from the highest levels of the Nixon Administration had forced him to resign...

...Many students never have experienced it, and therefore i:md it hard to accept the authority of the law and the university...

...Vice-President Agnew resigned, pleaded no contest to an income tax evasion charge, was fined $10,000, and received three years of unsupervised probation...

...From poor boy to Baltimore County Executive, from Maryland Governor to Vice-President (Spire who...

...The latter irrelevant--and unconstitutional--inclusion is now sponsored as ~'affirmative action" by, yes, the federal government...

...Many Americans believe in education as they used to believe in religion...

...The list, of course, was endless, and there was also strong support for Governors Reagan and Rockefeller...

...Ford was first elected to Congress in 1948 and he is considered to be a "close" friend of Nixon's (he has been an unswerving Nixon Loyalist...

...Some of them do reproduce Marx's classical and orthodox views, some do not...

...The Communist revolution was expected to advance from a Communist-dominated '%ourgeois-democratic" revolution to a "socialist" revolution as defined by Lenin and his followers...

...The President's serious consideration of Richardson is also regarded by some GOP officials as indicative of Nixon's continuing insensitivity to the Republican Party's right wing...

...Authority can be transferred to those who stand in loco parentis only if there is parental authority to be transferred...

...However, industry, labor, and the government have connived...

...Nixon reportedly wanted Ford as his running mate in 1960, but Henry Cabot Lodge with the support of President Eisenhower was able to prevail and get the vicepresidential nomination in that year...

...Measured by its own criteria, it was eminently successful...

...If, on the other hand, the alumnus does not "make it" by virtue of his education, what the college has created is ambition untethered to possibility-an unhappy person likely to hold society responsible for his frustration and who, therefore, will be harmful to it...

...Agnew thus failed to still what many see as the continuing bitterness among Agnew partisans over the former Vice-president's being hounded out of office by "Nixonites...

...Even though many congressional Republicans had listed Ford as their first choice, and highly regarded as he might be, many others--perhaps most --would have preferred someone else...

...It crucially affected the socio-historical views of Lenin's supposedly orthodox followers...

...There is also the question of the $100,000 Howard Hughes contribution to Nixon (through his long-time associate Rebozo) which has yet to be traced and explained, and some suspect it was used for personal benefit...

...But the true tragedy is that while many will speak of the moral code elected officials should live by, not all will believe their own eloquent hot air, and even fewer will live up to it...

...House Minority Leader, Jerry Ford, was the overwhelming favorite (reportedly by a margin of two to one) of congressional Republicans for the vice-presidential nomination...

...Vic Gold, Agnew's former press aide turned syndicated Washington columnist, and Washington Post journalist David Broder, were on CBS immediately after the Vice-president's speech for one of those instant analysis sessions the Vice-President had so often criticized...

...This attempt was deficient in numerous ways, but it aimed at what the Marxists call a "democratic" revolution...

...Rehabilitation will be hard for them, for society, and for the universities...

...Among the various reproductions of Marx's concepts of society and history, lumpen Marxism appeared already in the writings of Lenin...

...Some of the most important features of the resulting orthodox position are due to Marx himself...