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Erim: Organize To Stop The War Machine

Erim: Organize To Stop The War Machine image
Parent Issue
Day
11
Month
October
Year
1974
OCR Text

ERIM: Organize To Stop The War Machine

Yes, folks, you can join a late sixties-style anti-war mobilization right here in 1974. Dan and Jane will love you for it, and it's all courtesy of the war machine's local management.

What we're talking about are the plans of the Environmental Research Institute of Michigan (ERIM) to move to Ann Arbor.

"WHAT'S AN ERIM?

ERIM is the former Willow Run Labs of the University of Michigan, developers of sophisticated electronic battlefield weapons for the Vietnam War.

Among Willow Run's accomplishments are acoustic, seismic and infra-red sensors to detect human beings under jungle cover, also laser designators as in the famous "smart" bombs used in the Christmas 1972 bombing of North Vietnam.

Now ERIM literature stresses the peacetime spin-off benefits of its research but we don't think any of it is very good. More than 50 percent of ERlM's budget still comes from classified military contracts; present work is thought to be building on past.

It should strike us as curious that ERIM wants to move next door to North Campus, because the only reason the labs were finally banished from the University in January 1973 was six long years of antiwar struggle.

The labs are presently housed in deteriorating, University -owned quarters at the Willow Run airport. One hundred and fifty graduate students from the University are working there. And although the University was supposed to cut all ties with Willow Run, employees can put down their hours for both places on the same time sheet.

Think about this, then read on.

GOVERNMENT INCENTIVES

To finance its move more cheaply, ERIM has applied to the Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners for $3 million in tax exempt industrial revenue bonds. While no county funds are directly involved, the bonds will enable ERIM to obtain needed capital at about half the prevailing interest rate.

Democrats have a majority on the county commission, but several sometime anti-war liberals have gone along with ERIM so far because they think turning down the bond issue will threaten 450 jobs.

This is extremely limited thinking. The kind of federal expenditures upon which ERIM feeds are actually detrimental to the well-being of working people.

WHY STOP IT?

According to a Public Interest Research Group in Michigan (PIRGIM) study, each $1 billion increase in military spending costs the state an extra 3,200 jobs.

This happens because military spending creates fewer jobs than nearly any other kind. Spending for advanced technology, whether military or peace-time, creates even fewer jobs. The most impressive of ERIM's war research spin-offs, the Earth Resources Technology Satellite, thus becomes less impressive when the cost it took to put it in orbit is measured in poor people's jobs.

Instead of millions of dollars spent on satellites and secret weapons systems, we want $I0,000 guaranteed annual incomes for thousands of unemployed workers.

We don't think we can stop ERIM from carrying on its dirty work right away, but we do think we can make it a lot more difficult to keep on with it.

If ERIM is denied a county bond issue, then its move to new quarters may be delayed, and anticipated expansion forestalled.

If ERIM is denied bond favors by the county and it's municipal jurisdictions, it may be forced to move farther away from the University upon which it depends.

If ERIM is forced into the private bond market, it will have to pay twice as much interest for its credit, and its ability to compete with other research firms for federal contracts will be damaged.

The anti-ERIM movement could also create uncertainty in federal offices as to the firm's ability to carry out future contracts, fuel opposition to war research in other places, or even force ERIM to give up classified research.

We want to bash war research and military spending at both ends, not only in the Congress where the appropriations are made, but out here in the provinces where we have to pay for it.

YOU CAN DO SOMETHING

If you don't want your county government granting low-interest credit to war researchers so they can move closer to the University and expand their operations, get in touch with the Ad Hoc Committee to Stop ERIM War Research.

Early starters include the Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti branches of the Human Rights Party (761-6650), the Indochina Peace Campaign (764-7548). the Ann Arbor Sun and the New Morning Media Collective, the New American Movement. and the Young Socialist Alliance.

Besides laying plans for mass mobilization, the Committee is also lobbying with commissioners. The campaign is concentrating on three liberal Democrats known at one time for their stands against the Vietnam War.

These are Mare Lou Murray (Ann Arbor. 971-6828), and James Cregar, (Ypsilanti, 485-0513), both of whom were thought to be leaning in favor of the bond proposal, and James Walter (Ypsilanti, 485-1571 ) who has already voted for the proposal once in committee.

Democrat William Winters (Ypsilanti, 483-9406) is a strong union man and says he has an "open mind" on the issue.

VOTE STALLED

As the Sun went to press Thursday, it appeared that ERIM's county bond application was being stalled over property tax complications.

At a ways and means committee meeting Thursday October 10, the county board of commissioners was expected to table the bonding proposal, pending special advisory meetings by the County Planning Commission and the Ann Arbor Board of Education. Ann Arbor City Council will also take up the matte for the second time next week.

Since ERIM is nominally tax-exempt, purchase of existing industrial facilities in the city would remove them from the tax rolls.

The effects of the move on the tax base assumed more importance as ERIM announced last week that it was planning to buy, not the former Conductron property, but a Bendix Corporation building worth approximately three times as much tax revenue.

Purchase of the $6 million Bendix plant would be subsidized by Bendix, which would write off half the price as a charitable donation.