Oregon daily emerald., January 26, 1978, Section A, Page 4, Image 4

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Letters
At the grassroots
Now is the time to become in
volved in politics at the grassroots
level!
Issues are at the heart of politics
and too often only a select few
decide issues which eventually ef
fect us all. On 26 Jan. 78 the Uni
versity Democrats will sponsor a
platform convention to draw up a
platform to submit to the State
Democratic PrePrimary Conven
tion. In order to have a truly rep
resentative set of concerns, many
people with many special in
terests are needed to write these
platforms.
There are many interesting
candidates which have an
nounced plans to seek nomina
tions in the primary elections this
spring. We must express our con
cerns to them and the best tool to
let our concerns be known is a
well-rounded platform.
You are needed. Attend this
general meeting as the first step to
let your voice be heard.
Kathleen Hostick
Junior, Political Science
Dribble
Once again the Emerald has
distinguished itself with an article
in which insight and intellect
cease with the title.
I refer to the Jan. 24 dribble enti
tled “Law May Carve Up Corpo
rate Crops.” National Land for
People displays the incredibly
naive, short-sighted, and self in
terested view of the world which
one has come to expect from
‘Communists’’ and “Birchers”
(the article's words, not mine).
Enforcement of the archaic
1902 law limiting participation of
farmers in federal irrigation pro
jects to 160 acres will not bring
back “family farming whatever
the hell that is. It is not economi
cally possible today to farm 160
acres and make a profit. That is
reality. "Family farming" is no
thing more than an invitation to a
life of abject poverty. Nor will en
forcement stop the few big corpo
rations affected by the law from
farming. Their power and wealth
wi II find a way around the problem.
Enforcement, however, will be
the death blow to many struggling
independent farmers. Fewer far
mers will mean less food and
higher prices, contrary to NLP
contentions. When the indepen
dent American farmer is a thing of
the past, the only “persons” who
will be capable of carrying on a
business at a loss will be the large
corporations who receive certain
tax advantages for business los
ses. Enforcement of bad laws can
only hasten the day when the big
corporations completely control
farming in America.
Steve Huff
2nd year Law
A word of thanks
I would like to express my heart
felt thanks and undying gratitude
to the Revolutionary Communist
Student Brigade. Without their
judicious presence and unwaver
ing persistence, all of us at Dr.
Szymanski's slide show on Cuba
last Friday would undoubtably
have swallowed a revisionist line.
SAW
As the vanguard of the campus
Left, the RCSB can be counted on
to thoroughly repudiate future de
partures from True Marxism
Leninism, It is my hope that, if or
when China restores capitalism,
the RCSB does not neglect its
duty to lead us in a renewal of the
old question: Who Lost China?
Timothy Shorrock
Graduate student,
Asian Studies
Letters policy
The Emerald will accept and
try to print all letters and opin
ion columns containing fair
comment on ideas and topics of
concern or interest to the Uni
versity community. Letters and
opinions must be typewritten,
using 65 character margins,
and should be triple-spaced.
Letters and opinions must be
signed, with the author's year
and field of study (or faculty
status) noted. Letters and opin
ions will be run on a first-come
first-served basis.
.. npinmn
Mid-East editorial distorted
Submitted by
Monathamat Aitatabah of the
Organization of Arab Students
The Emerald editorial of Jan. 16th entitled,
Peace is at hand — maybe was a dear example of
bankrupt journalism Besides distorting the facts and
undermining the aspirations of the Palestinian peo
ple, the editorial sought to bnng the history and future
of the Arab people to the negotiating table. It is sur
pnsmg that the same editors who wrote in support of
the struggle of the people of South Africa would give
outright support to the racist colonial state of Israel.
According to the Emerald editorial, the two
stumbling bocks to peace in the Middle East are:
controversy over the Sinai peninsula and the dis
pute over the future of the West Bank. ” The Emerald
editors simplistically reduced the whole conflict to a
mere territorial question. The editors, in their rush
to draw a strategy for peace in the Middle East, forgot
the whole history of the colonization of Palestine and
the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. They
forgot that this process of colonization led to the
expulsion of 1.5 million Palestinians from their home
land to live in a harsh exile.
What the editors did was to reduce the content of
peace to merely finding solutions to the problems
that emerged after the 1967 War; it was this war that
led to the Israeli occupation of the Sinai peninsula,
the Golan heights, the West Bank and Gaza. The
editors considered Egypt and Israel (for that matter
Sadat and Begin) the main parties for peace and
started examining the compromises which ought to
be given.
The Emerald editors did not bother investigating
the nature of the regimes that are so willing to bargain
and compromise people’s rights. Begin, whose plan
for peace was endorsed by the politicians of the
Emerald, was the leader of the terrorist group —
Irgun — which was responsible for the murder of
thousands of Palestinians. Sadat, on the other hand,
Pace 4 Section A
is a dictator who has been suppressing the national
and democratic movements in Egypt since he came
to power in 1970. His celebrated Open Door Policy,
ie. opening the economy of Egypt to Western in
vestment, has led to the increased impoverishment
and misery of the Egyptian masses. The only com
promises that can be expected from these two op
pressive regimes are those that will maintain their
rule and further the oppression of the masses.
The editors “understand” why Israel is unwilling
to allow a “belligerent Palestinian state" along its
borders. Do they understand the history of Israel’s
aggression against the Arab people? Do they under
stand that Zionism, the ideology of the Israeli ruling
elite is a racist ideology and was declared by the U.N.
to be such? Do they understand what the Palestinian
people’s rights are? Do they know that there are
more than 15,000 Palestinian political prisoners in
Israel? Do they know the true nature of the Egyptian
regime which holds 6,000 political prisoners?
The politicians of the Emerald seem to think that
those questions are irrelevant to the pursuit of peace.
But how could we have peace if the Palestinians
right to self-determination is not guaranteed? How
can peace be achieved while the racist Zionist state
of Israel oppresses and discriminates against the
Palestinians? Peace to the Emerald editors means
the maintenance of the status quo. It is important that
peace come, but it must come with social justice
which is the goal of the Palestinian revolution, as put
forth through its struggle for a democratic and secu
lar state in Palestine. And this aim should be
materialized not on a part of Palestine, such as the
West Bank or Gaza, but on all of Palestine.
Before the editors suggest a strategy for peace
they should have examined the dimensions of the
problem more thoroughly, or they should have
opened the Emerald’s pages for dialogue so the
stand they took wouldn't have been so one-sided.
Unfortunately the Emerald fell into the general trend
prevailing in the U.S. media recently; it substituted
sensational headlines for analysis.
-opinion--—
Somewhere to turn,
not to be changed
Submitted by
Carol Queen, Director,
Gay People’s Alliance
"Gay? Someone to turn to...”
When this ad runs, the GPA (Gay People’s Alliance) office
frequently gets calls.
"Who are these guys? Is this some kind of counseling ser
vice or what?”
The classified ad from Barnabas Ministry in Veneta has
appeared in the ODE off and on since September, and it's getting
harder and harder to tell from the ads what you are getting into
when you call them. When they first appeared, they were
straightforward in their focus, reading: “Ex-gays who have found
the key..." Now, though, there is no real indication of their coun
seling orientation or even their religious orientation, and I believe
that this should be made dear to the gay person before s/he
contacts Don, Terry and John.
The question of whether or not a homosexually-oriented
person is morally objectionable and bound not to engage in the
kinds of relationships s/he normally prefers is the subject of
intense debate in almost all religious bodies. There are few major
denominations with no homosexual caucus (even the Mormons
have one), and many clerics are of the opinion that homosexuals
are bound only to be true to God and the self. This trend of opinion
in organized religion is sufficiently strong that many religious
people with a gay orientation have had their inner conflicts
greatly lessened by it. This, however, is not the message of the
Barnabas Ministry.
There is likewise heated debate in the psycholog
ical community as to whether a homosexually-oriented individual
should be encouraged to change her/his sexuality. (Many gays,
of course, have no inner conflicts of this kind.) Professional opin
ion is becoming increasingly strong in favor of self-adjustment
and acceptance, partially because psychiatric "cures” of gays
have proven workable only in the smallest percentage of cases of
extreme maladjustment. Research is beginning to indicate that
some highly-spoken-of “cures" leave the individual with no sex
ual feelings whatsoever.
In the Barnabas Ministry's brochure, Don talks about God s
love turning the depression and loneliness" of homosexual life to
peace and stability — non-homosexual life. But gay members
of Eugene s Metropolitan Community Church are likely to say the
same thing about God's love from a vantage point of secure
sexual and religious orientation. Members of GAYouth or GPA
will say that their depression and loneliness disappeared when
they got in touch with an active, supportive gay community.
And heterosexually-oriented individuals will, at certain
periods of their lives, complain of the depression and loneliness of
' 6in 9®nera" Depression and loneliness" are no more inherent
0 |5 « °* a 9aV Person than “peace and stability" are in the
world of an individual who is not gay . To say that one needs to find
an alternative to homosexuality in order to alleviate one’s depres
sion and dissatisfaction is ignoring the fact that there are scores of
omosexuals in this community and on this campus who are
appy with themselves the way they are. There are probably
many more who need nothing more than some acceptinq friends
— someone to turn to.
Someone *° *u rn *° — no* *° be changed, but to be accepted.
There are so many more important things to do with one’s energy
than to try to become something one is not. If you are gay, you do
not have only the Barnabas Ministry to turn to. You also have Gay
Peoples Alliance, Gay Rap, GAYouth, Metropolitan Community
Church, Integrity (gay Episcopalians)...you have a community of
people who can accept you without demanding that you conform
to an arbitrary standard, one which has already given many
people the space they need to grow.
V