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Violence & Influence

On 6 March, the editors of the Daily Californlan—the daily student newspaper of the University of California at Berkeley—were forced to print the Bank of America advertisement on this page. In an editorial entitled 'For the Record' published on the same day, the staff of the Daily Californian wrote an epitaph for press freedom in the United States.

In the past few days this newspaper has undergone an agonizing discussion regarding the acceptance of one of the many Bank of America ads printed in papers throughout the state in the past week.

The ad that we had to decide upon is B of A's catechism on "Violence in America."

It asks us to choose between protest, revolt and violence on the one hand, and the "non-violence" of the American political process on the other.

The implication of the ads is that we should not be for revolution, for radical change—that we should be non-violent in our protests.

The immediate, emotional response of many of us on the paper was bitter anger at the blatant hypocricy reflected in the Bank's taking a Ghandian position of non-violence.

Many of us have long recognized that we do not live in a democracy. We live in a society that is dominated by the ethos of large corporations—such as the Bank of America.

The United States has become a modern-day combination of Huns and Roman armies that each day we continue to unleash on much of the world. The criminality of our actions has long been obvious in Vietnam and Laos.

The actions follow from the economic "newspeak" of B of A-from people like Harry S. Baker, a director of the Bank of America who sits on the board of the largest police weapons manufacturer in the world. Bank of America Director DiGergio, who owns properties larger than the state of Delaware, who has consistently obstructed things like the minimum wage demands of the migrant workers.

From one point of view, if somebody wants to pay for an ad in the paper to express a political opinion, we have no right as responsible journalists to censor the ad.

Ideally, in a free and equitable society, this problem would never arise.

But some of us have experienced too much and seen too much. Some of us no longer believe that America is a free, democratic society "where all men are equal."

The idealism of our earlier youth, the hope that ran through most of us, the hopes that many of us had—John' Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy—like our idealistic dreams, were destroyed . . . murdered.

America is sick. We have a psychic sickness that runs through all of us, we are rapidly approaching the deep end.

At times some of us pause, reflect on history and say that every generation has said this and maybe this is just part of life, of maturing.

But we can't help but look around us, and feel thesese thoughts—we cry, we rage, we smash windows, we desperately cling to our sanity, we gobble down tranquillizers, we stuff ourselves full of marijuana.

We walk the streets of Berkeley alone and confused, we look to the hills.

We look for flowers, for spring, we look for the flowers once within us-for the love, the compassion, the ability to trust and relate to others.

Those of us who objected to running the ad did not do so because we were afraid that our readers would be getting an opinion or a version that we did not wish them to get.

We saw a process going on here that is as concerted, as criminal, and probably as well planned as the bombings of Laos and Vietnam.

The Bank of America has decided to extend its monopoly practices not only to the economy and to the running of this country for their own benefit, but also control taking of the opinions that are expressed in the media.

Through their money and power they have the ability to let other people die and kill for them—we have found that we have virtually no power to stop this now.

Yesterday we found that we also did not have the power to prevent them from entering our newspaper on their own terms.

It is truly tragic that some still feel that there is not a struggle going on in this country-a struggle for power, a struggle for survival, a struggle for our humanity that is directly contrary to the Bank of America and everything that it stands for.

In addition, we discovered that the editors and business managers do not have the power to decide what goes into this paper. We are not so pretentious and naive to think that we speak for the student body or this community.

This paper is the product of the people who put it out. The selection of stories, the way they are written and presented, are a result of the divergent and collective personalities of the people on this paper.

As somewhat experienced journalists we are trying to redefine what a newspaper is, and what it should be. We feel that claims of objectivity and impartiality are myths.

However, we do feel that it is possible to be fair and to strive to be complete in our coverage.

Rather than attempt to disguise our opinions in made-up quotes—a common practice of most newspapers—we like to be honest with our readers and to clearly label our opinions both in news articles and in editorials.

Many of us feel that it is important to go beyond the charge and counter—charge syndrome that is typical of the ordinary news article.

We feel an obligation to explain in an analytical and interpretive manner the processes and facts behind the ordinary topical news in the hope of arriving at an understanding of the events that go on in this way.

Many of us used to abhor the cynicism so common in newspapermen. In the last couple of days we have come to understand possibly how this might come about. People recognize the power of this paper and are continually trying to use it for their own personal and political ends.

As editors we have the responsibility to our readers to evaluate and judge our decisions on what is going on.

In the case of the Bank of America ad, which was not a commercial advertisement, we discovered that we were not permitted to evaluate and judge it on its political and news value.

Because of the University rules we are forced to operate under, and because of the power of the Bank of America—which can intimidate us into printing their propaganda in this covert way, under the guise of free speech—we found out that even though many of us did not want to run this ad, that even though this paper unanimously voted not to run this ad, we did not have the power, legally, according to University rules, to decide not to run what we don't want to run in this paper.

Ultimately, the product we each expend our lives on and for which we must often assume responsibility, is not our possession.