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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 31, 1978)
f--editorial->. In order? Sunday, an unidentified person seemed bound and determined to support the recent anti-smoking campaign of Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare Joseph Califano. A curious Emerald reporter, seeking a nicotine fix from the cigarette machines in the EMU, was more than a little surprised to find pink “out of order” signs on all of the machines in the building. Suspecting something foul afoot, the reporter dutifully shoved his 60 cents into the machine in spite of the persis tent warning. The machine worked. The sign didnt. k____' •*** * asffigi iKSMP *" w Letters Church clarified Reviewing Carol Queen’s arti cle in the Jan. 16 Emerald: While as all members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints may be known as “Mormons ”, not all Mormons are members of the Church. A Mor mon is anyone who professes to believe the Book of Mormon — this includes about 80 denomina tions in existence now, these sects containing anywhere from three members, to the thousands of the Reorganized Church, to the four million of the Church (head quarters at Salt Lake City). The "homosexual caucus” referred to in the article is not a part of the last one mentioned. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints does not condone homosexuality. All revelations from God on the subject, past and present, con demn homosexual relationships. Barbara Selby, secretary LDS Student Association Senior, General Science Emerald off base Friday’s coverage of the occu pation of Johnson Hall has again exposed the Emerald's position on the campaign to get the Uni versity out of Southern Africa. The Emerald, while it may give lip ser vice to divestment, has repeatedly opposed and discredited any real action which could achieve that end. First of all, we denounce the outrageous slander, distortions and outright false reporting in an article covering the occupation. The article states two different places that we were “trembling’’ and “shaking” as if terrified of the consequences of our actions. If we were so scared, why didn’t we run out of the building as soon as the cops showed their faces? Why were we chanting all the way to the police vans if we were “trembl ing” with fear? In fact, a glance at the photo of the occupation on the cover of Thursday's Emerald is enough to expose the falsity of the image presented in the article. If anyone is a coward, it is the corpo rate front-men on the State Board who, seeing their policies at tacked by scores of students, hide behind the armed force of the state to achieve their ends. The occupation of Johnson Hall was carried out to enforce the de mand that the State Board begin immediately to sell its stock in corporations doing business in Southern Africa. To strike a blow against these imperialist corpora tions who prop up the apartheid system is striking a blow on the side of the Southern African free dom fighters. This is by no means “misdirected,” but is actually hit ting the nail on the head. Besides the article, Friday’s editorial rushed to distort the whole purpose of the demonstra tion. The editor couldn't say often enough that the action was "mis directed” on the justification that the issue is "in the judicial pro cess.” This is nothing but a regur gitation of the excuse put forth by the Board in order to squirm out of taking any action on the divest ment decision it has already made. According to Ed Branchfield, the Assistant Attorney General, there is at this time no legal barrier to selling the stock. In fact, Attor ney General Redden issued a legal opinion in 1976 on this ques tion; he ruled that the State Board is the agency with authority to set investment policy and that the Oregon Investment Council is the “subagent” of the Board. As this makes clear to say the Board is rooting around for any excuse to stall divestment in hopes that people will forget about it is not “dogmatic rhetoric.” The real reason the editor so frantically attacks the occupations is that he is opposed to any effec tive action that would strike a blow at the Southern African regimes and their rich backers in this coun try. He labels the struggle in this country to support the peoples of Southern Africa “theatre of the absurd.” Such statements will come to no better end than the one made in an Emerald editorial of 10/25/77 which said: “Students in the 70s tend to be more apathetic; there is no storming of Johnson Hall or mass demonstrations against the apartheid system...." Myra Delay David Miller Gregory Sayles Propaganda shot David Greene, in a letter ap pearing in the Oct. 30 Emerald, expressed a “Love it or Leave it" attitude towards political protest. His suggestion was that if the stu dents who staged the recent sit-in at Johnson Hall were so violently opposed to the University holding stock in companies which support apartheid in South Africa, then they should divest themselves of the University thereby removing their individual support for the sys tem. While I cannot agree with the “Love it or Leave it” attitude (after all we can't just get up and go every time the University or the State of Oregon or the Federal government makes a mistake) I can certainly sympathize with Greene’s implied suggestion that the members of the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade and the Southern Africa Liberation Support Committee leave the University. Sit-ins and picketing are well es tablished and respected forms of protest in the United States; how ever, they lose their effectiveness when they are clumsily used as they were by the RCYB and the SALSC at Johnson Hall. These two groups, much to the discredit of their worthy cause, gave the impression that they were made up of irresponsible and irrational people imagining that they were carrying on the '60s spirit in the 70s. Sitting in at Johnson Hall made about as much sense as sit ting in at City Hall on that occa sion. Neither had a damned thing left to do with the sale of the South African stock. The State Board had already voted to sell the stock and it was (and still is) up tc? the Attorney General’s office to determine whether the State Board or the Oregon Investment Council has the authroity to sell it. The stu dents at the sit-in were told this by Vice-Chancellor Freeman Holmer but decided to remain and get ar rested anyway. This so that, the next day, they could hand out what was nothing less than a Scandal Sheet with a bold head line reading “23 STUDENTS AR RESTED” and stating in the copy that the State Board was stalling in a last ditch effort to “keep the stocks despite their vote to sell them" which is patently false. It was a very poor propagandist shot. If there was to be a sit-in then it should have been at the Attor ney General's office. Apparently, though, the members of the RCYB and the SALSC are more con cerned with getting their names in the papers than with making a genuine effort at supporting their cause. I am saddened to see so worthy a cause as this soiled by the clumsy self-seeking tactics of these pseudo-revolutionary groups. Bruce Robinson Freshman, Undeclared Alienating protest Yes! I heartily agree with the Emerald editorial (Jan. 27) on the anti-South Africa protest sit-in or Wednesday. I thought the protesi was misdirected, inappropriate disruptive, uncalled for, alienat ing, childish and potentially harm ful to what is otherwise a worth while cause. Perhaps the CIA haj infiltrated the groups involved in order to alienate the left from the anti-apartheid cause. I noticec that the RCYB has had theii rhetorical, dogmatic hands in the affair, taking all the credit they can get. Let them be credited with their misdirection! I am afraid that many individuals will abandon the anti apartheid cause if their sort of intol erant action continues; I person ally am alienated by the self glorifying and potentially violent methods used in the protest. I am afraid the Emerald’s coverage of the RCYB and its an tics fails to give the majority of the left in the University a fair shake. I would like to see Richard Seven give more media coverage to other left groups on campus. For example, the People for Southern African Freedom is an active anti-apartheid group that seems to be a little more compe tent than the groups sitting in on the wrong office at the wrong time There are socialist alternatives to the RCYB, such as the Young Socialist Alliance, and whoever is selling the Guardian on campus There is a chapter of the New American Movement here that is proposing socialist alternatives to a number of community issues The ecology groups, feminist or ganizations and the GTFF are permeated by leftists who are working just as actively for these causes as any member of the RCYB. There is a Socialist News Col lective and a Pacific Northwest Research Center, which carry news and research issues from a left standpoint. They don't go marching through the EMU or sending self-glorifying editorials to the Emerald. They nevertheless deserve media coverage for the progressive work they have done, in hopes of attracting potential left ists instead of alienating them with misdirected protest. Tony Hoffman Graduate Student, Psychology Letters policy The Emerald will accept and try to print all letters and opinion columns containing fair comment on ideas and topics of concern or interest to the University commun ity. Letters and opinions will be run on a first-come, first-served basis. Both let ters and opinion columns must be typewritten, using 65 character margins, and should be triple-spaced. Letters and opinions must be signed and the author s field of study (or faculty status) noted.
