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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 13, 1968)
nLdJfp, nion iiiimiiiii!i!!iiiiiiiiiiii!!iin;ii!!i!ii”ii!iiiiiiiimiiiimimn;inniHHii!ilinmiiniii!iliiiiiliiii A Time to Say No Editor’s note: Marshall Johnson, a member of the Resistance, comments on Thursday’s planned nationwide draft demonstration. We are born with one possession, a life. As we choose to act and move in relation to other beings, we form a working context in which our lives bring something into being. What most beings live in around the world is the most miserable poverty and agony. Those persons suffer and we luxuriate initially by a chance of birth. But from birth on, it is no longer a matter of chance. It is a matter of choice. By our surrendering the choices of or ganic relationships to clerks, board members, and machinery actions, we have chosen a way of relat ing to our brothers. We have chosen that we shall live fat lives and that they shall suffer. The foreign policy of this nation acts out this fact by murdering and manipulating those people around the world who choose to live other than by our wishes. Instead of a context of sharing, we have set a context of hoarding. A policy growing from the darkest fears bears the fruit of death and more fear. The draft card in your pocket is a pledge and a ticket. The ticket to our manipula tion and a ticket to a senseless grave for our brothers around the world. Consider two questions that Ihe society offers to those who challenge the context of our lives. “How can you be so sure that the government is wrong?” If the society were truly concerned about right or wrong, the proper question would be. “Are you so convinced that the state is correct that you can kill another human being?” The second typical question is usually a varia tion of, “What would you do if the Chinese land ed at Portland?” The military logic of an invasion is that it can succeed only if the population ac cepts orders from the invader just as it accepted orders from the previous rulers. What is most significant in these questions is that they are not true questions but rather devices (like the threat of imprisonment) intended to preserve the present context of our consideration of our lives. Thursday, many young men will attempt to act out a new context of their lives, the context of brotherhood, by returning -their draft cards to the Selective Service System and refusing to co operate any longer with that organization. The willful commission of this act is a felony. The government usually does not prosecute this crime. About 5,000 men have returned their cards and prosecution and imprisonment policies are being shaken. Instead, non-cooperators are reclassified 1-A delinquent. Induction refusal is the usual charge against them. This ordinarily results in conviction and imprisonment from 0 to 5 years. But one does not choose jail when one chooses the Resistance. The man who stands in non-co operation and the non-draftable who engage in complicity with him choose how they will live. They attempt to act out the brotherhood of every man around the world. To say something mean ingful to the world, something as radical as bringing brotherhood and honesty into being in that sole thing which a man possesses, is not an easy act. It entails sacrifice. It will not bring an immediate end to the circle of murder and fear. But this circle will only end by taking the single parts out of the machine that makes the circle continue. If man can be free, if we can bring our rhetoric into our lives and act it out—then there is free dom in our own lives and potential life around a world of brothers. ......iiiiiimimmmiimiim.... Emerald Editor: All letters to the editor must be typewritten and triple spaced. Letters must not exceed 300 words and must be signed in ink, giving the class and ma jor of the writer. Those dealing with one subject and pertaining to the University or Eugene community will be given pref erence. The Emerald reserves the right to edit letters for style, grammar, punctuation and po tentialy libelous content. Let ters not meeting these criteria and those which are mimeo graphed or otherwise obvious duplicates will be returned. ‘Highly Unusual' Emerald Editor: Recently, t witnessed a very strange thing. I would recom mend it to everyone. Why is it that everything student govern ment does, somehow becomes worse than regular government? I watched student court, and it is worse than regular court. It seems that when the case I watched was presented, the de fendant lacked one of his major witnesses and asked for a con tinuance of the trial to a future date, as is regular procedure in regular courts, but this was denied by the student court. Furthermore, it seems that the indictment of the defendant in this student court had the penal ty appearing with the summons for the crime he was charged with It is highly unusual in a regular court to recommend a punishment before a person is found guilty. I then inquired what qualifi cations are required for a mem ber of student court since I knew that a regular court judge had to be a lawyer first. It seems that there are no require ments for student court mem bership except approval by the Senate and you know where they’re at. Beware of student court, it’s worse than the sys tem’s regular court. Blaine Ackley, * * » ‘Shortsightedness’ Emerald Editor: The proposal to develop the Tioneer Memorial Cemetery as a site for University buildings would eliminate still another set of valuable choices from our physical environment. It is cer tainly a fact that the University needs to build additional space and that the Cemetery provides open space, but the consequent assumption that one is an ap propriate solution for the other seems shortsighted in several respects: New construction need not be accommodated on additional space within the open campus plan. Much of the open space that exists between buildings, which in fact is often wired against trespassing, has little value in comparison to a place within the University and com munity which has existed and matured through the develop ment and history of the town. The Pioneer Memorial Cemetery is a place which describes changing life patterns and pro vides a reminder of the con tinuity between the town and the University. It has beautiful trees, is a sanctuary for birds, and is a place to fulfill some of the needs and questions not answered in the classroom and lecture hall. A University has the re sources to develop and oppor tunity to expose the implica tions of comprehensive actions. However, shortsightedness like the Pioneer Memorial Cemetery proposal not only destroys parts of the environment which en rich human experience, but dis cards one more opportunity to generate value within the com munity. David Rinehart, Assistant Professor Department of Architecture University of Oregon Vote Emerald Editor: November 14 is National Re sistance day, a day on which thousands of draft-age men all across this nation will deny the Selective Service System the power to “channel” their life energy towards death and de struction. These men feel that by accepting a deferment, any de ferment within the system, they are merely perpetuating that system, a system whose means and ends they abhor. The means are those of coerc ing men through fear and threat of imprisonment to co operate and fit into a massive machine—"to take their part." The ends are ostensibly those of defense, but in the present con text they reveal themselves as mass murder and the literal destruction of a country—Viet nam. Ronald Reagan has said. “We are in Vietnam for our own self interests " To me, this rings true. The business world is mak ing billions from defense con tracts. The economy is healthy at present because of the astro nomical spending by the gov ernment for the Vietnam war. What logic is it to destroy a nation for the “Health” of our economy? We can adjust and re direct our economy. We cannot undo the horrendous nature of our involvement in Vietnam. For myself and many others the possibility of peace in the world is not a reality given the pa ternalistic and suppressionistic nature of our foreign policy. There will be a Guatemala or Bolivia to satisfy our “own self interests” after Vietnam, unless we can change the perspective of our leaders. The best way that I see to stop our extreme militarism is to stop the main stay of the militarism—military consciription. On November 14 I am cast ing my vote, my whole vote, against militarism and war. I ask each one of you holding a draft card to carefully consider your own beliefs concerning our presence in Vietnam and the orientation of our whole foreign policy. Are your beliefs being served by the activities of the Selective Service System? The presence of a draft card in your pocket is a vote for military conscription and con sequently a perpetuation of our involvement in Vietnam. This is what Democracy is all about, casting your vote for your be liefs. If you believe in some thing other than war and kill ing, let it be known. Free your self and your life from the pow er of the military complex. It cannot exist without its millions of soldiers. It cannot exist with out you and I. The choice is yours, be aware of your beliefs and your vote on this Thursday, Nov. 14. Don Marquis Senior, Sociology Pen Pals Emerald Editor: I have in the area of 500 pen pals in other nations of the world. From time to time I am receiving letters from others who wish to have American pen friends. Also many relatives of my pen friends want to write to Americans. If any of your readers would be interested in having pen pals in the following listed nations please call me at Ext. 2661.: New Zealand. Malay sia. Italy, Hong Kong, Mexico, Uruguay, Colombia, Nigeria. Pakistan, Singapore, Mauritius, and Macau. I have one or two from many others nations not listed. If you want a special na tion possibly my pen pals around the world will be able to find you one. Charles L. Simpson Jr. Oregon daily Opinions expressed on the editorial page are those of the Emerald and do not necessarily represent the opinions of the ASUO or the University. However the Emerald does present on this page columnists and letter writers whose opinions reflect those of our diverse readership and not those of the Emerald itself. RON EACHUS, Editor Associate Editors John Anderson Cindy Boydstun Rick Fitch Chris Houglura Gil Johnson Linda Meierjurgen Steve Moore Doug Onyon Ron Saylor Sally Schippers D. L. Sonnichsen Jaqi Thompson RICH JERNSTEDT Business Manager DOUG CRICHTON Advertising Manager rsAKoAKA STUNK National Advertising Manager University of Oregon, Eugene, Wednesday, November 13, 1968 erry ana l J4c ami White America Must Support Black Power Editor’s note: Clyde DeBerry is currently a professor in the School of Community Service and Public Affairs. Calvin Harris is a senior in Political Science at the University. One of the most ominous features of current American society is that White America and Black America are on a collision course. That such a collision will take place is inevitable because of a certain characteristic in American society that has been permitted to exist in our culture since its beginning. The politi cal and sociological characteristic to which we refer is White racism. It is unique to our culture only because it has been highly perfected into a sophisticated ideology. We have, in short, learned much from our European cousins. To say that economic factors such as competition for jobs is the major element in the ideology of racism, is to cite only part of the problem. Much could be said about the development of the Protestant ethic and its partial, if not major, responsibility for the prolongation of a racist society. White racism can be de fined as the doctrine of White supremacy promoted by means of political and economic power, exercised purposefully to hold in bondage another people—in the case of our society, non-Whites in general and Afro-Americans in particular. We do not mean to suggest that the Protestant ethic as such promotes the ideology of White racism, but rather that certain specific elements within it give rise to certain attitudes. IDEALS DISTORTED There is nothing inherently wrong with such concepts as hard work as a means toward building a better life. Nor are cleanli ness and thrift, in and of themselves, ‘‘bad."The element of ethno centrism, however, distorts these ideals. Further, when such ideals become masks behind which greed, pettiness and racism can hide, then the whole ideology of the Protestant ethic must be brought into question. One of the more important problems to be faced is clearly defining the desired goals and relating the necessary means to these goals. Hard work is not necessarily a noble task if the goals to be achieved are not related to societal needs. Taking land away from the Indians was “hard work,” but was it “noble?” To say that a person’s appearance is necessarily an indicator of what he is like inwardly is a somewhat dubious notion. The Protestant ethic has opened the door to many questionable con cepts, questionable because they are subject to so many interpre tations, questionable because some have little relevance to meet ing today’s problems. Racism and ethnocentrism are closely related. To a large extent, both have their origins in Western European society. What we are talking about here is the modern day slavery (of the 17th to 20th century) which sought not only to take possession of another man’s body, but also to dehumanize him in the process. RACISM IMPLIES POWER Racism can be said to exist when one group has the political power and the intention of forcing its will on another people. In this context, to talk about “Black racism” in the United States is patently absurd, since Black Americans do not have the power to force their will on White society. White society on the other hand does have such power and has used it ruthlessly. Black Americans do have the power to force American society to face up to itself. (Continued on page 7)
