“United States is dying”

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32975, 22 July 1972, Page 2

“United States is dying”

Two young Americans — a folk singer,

Phil Ochs, and a cartoonist, Ron Cobb (above) — said in Christchurch yesterday that they believed their country was dying.

Stifled by reaction, now almost general, against the war in Vietnam, the United States had slipped downward ever since the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963, they said.

Whereas reaction against the Vietnam conflict had once been confined to small groups, the bulk of middleclass American citizens were now vociferous in their opposition to continued American involvement. There was no possibility of the United States becoming isolationist, but for the country to survive it would have to withdraw its farflung military and economic ties and concentrate on solving some of its problems at home, they added. “BEHIND MCGOVERN” Mr Ochs said that the bulk of young Americans were solidly behind the Presidential candidate, Senator George McGovern. “McGovern represents our last chance of restoring the fabric of American society when all peoples can work together and not against one another,” he said. It was incredible, he said, that countries such as New Zealand could allow the existence on their soil of American bases without strong public pressures to have them removed.

“What appals most young Americans is the fact that we have vastly overextended our economic stranglehold on the rest of the Western world," said Mt Ochs. “You know, after the economic putsch it is not long, as history proves, before the army moves in.” HOPE FOR SURVIVAL Mr Cobb, who described himself as having a “conversational comfort” with scientists, said that the only hope for survival in the United States lay in the growing ability of people to react to problems. This was also something slowly influencing the rest of the world, he said.

“People are beginning to realise that no matter what event occurs, it Will have some effect on them. We are all inter-related. This is the law of nature. In time, everyone has to be honest, and to do this we have to reach out to one another.” There was no use imagining that such a process would be all sweetness and light. It would, and did at present in the United States, lead to outbursts, often of a very negative kind, Mr Cobb said.

“People are trying to get away from the industrial

rat-race. In doing this, they have to make ® new cover y o f w hat it means to be h “ man ’ That is why we e an “ e ? ,g and P Xa eSS,OnS ° f “Ber and affection, All this means, of course, t “® re mi *st not be — absolutely must not be—-any

censorship, for we have to get rid of the fear of words which is really a fear of one’s inner feelings.” MATERIALISM The Western World, Mr Cobb said, would not be able to sustain the “phoneyness” of a materialistic society for

long when people began again to talk to one another. “Take a look round you and ask why young people and many others are clinging together. Might it not be that they have learnt again what it is to communicate honestly? 1 * said Mr Cobb.