Letters
Poor taste
As patrons who attend the Shake
spearean festival at Ashland every summer,
we are deeply offended by Jock Hatfield s
feature in the July 13 issue of the Emerald in
which he was unable to make a single posi
tive statement about something most know
ledgeable people consider superbly done.
We realize Mr. Hatfield was trying to be
funny; however, he merely succeeded in
revealing his abysmal ignorance and lack of
appreciation for truly fine theater. His re
marks regarding Shakespearean fans were
not only totally without humor, but were in
sulting to Ashland theater patrons. Most of
us have not only “made it past page one of
plays such as Richard III, but, unlike Hat
field, have understood what we read.
Also, we have never seen patrons in
Lithia Park “offering peanuts to each
other,” but we certainly can see why one
was offered to Hatfield.
Most of the article is such a mass of drivel
it is senseless to waste time responding to it
in detail. The Emerald should have more
taste than to carry this article, much less
give it front page coverage.
We re sure the lyrical poetry and delight
ful puns of Shakespeare will far outlive the
tripe of Jock Hatfield.
In short, if you’re too stupid to understand
it, Hatfield, stay home. Neither Shake
speare nor Ashland theater needs you.
Lou Johnson
Les Kellow
Labor Education and Research Center
Nuke Risks
Oregon has one nuclear power plant,
Trojan, located near Rainier, Ore, on the
Columbia River.
Nuclear power is a very controversial
issue right now. Arguments are heard, both
pro and con, together with fact and emotion.
And why not? Millions of dollars are in
volved and millions of lives are affected. But
when all is said and done, when regulatory
agencies have ruled and permits are ap
proved — Why the controversy?
1. The government speaks: “We will
solve the waste problem. When? After 30
years, there still is no solution in sight. Just
recently, the U.S. Department of Energy
said a solution will be found in 1988 — five
years later than an earlier prediction of
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1983. Can we realistically hope to store
radioactive wastes away from everything
alive for 250,000? Already over 450,000
gallons of highly radioactive
sludge have leaked into the ground up at
Hanford, Washington, making the Colum
bia River one of the most radioactive rivers
in the world.
2. Terrorism. The U S. Nuclear Regula
tory Commission (NCR) last year reported
over 8,000 pounds of uranium “missing It
only takes 12 pounds to make a small
atomic bomb! Someone with uranium or
plutonium could blackmail entire cities,
states or countries.
3. Economics. No, nuclear power is not
cheap — witness soaring utility rates. Port
land General Electric (owner of Trojan) has
raised its rates over 120 percent in the last
few years, and PP&L is not far behind. Lane
Electric Cooperative’s rates are going up
too — they've bought into the proposed
Pebble Springs nuclear reactors. Our taxes
pay for insurance, research, and develop
ment for the benefit of private investors.
Personally, I’m fed up with the risks and
the costs. Conservation and solar energy
are outstanding sources of power, just now
being tapped.
In good conscience, I cannot sit passively
by and allow this hazard to threaten my life
and the lives of future generations in light of
the recent studies on low-level radiation
(like Trojan gives off) that have just been
completed by Dr. Mancuso and Dr. R. Ber
tel!.
I will be participating in the Trojan De
commissioning Alliance August 6 action at
the Trojan plant where I will non-violently sit
in front of the gates, asking that the plant be
decommissioned immediately. I risk arrest,
but this is a small price to pay now, given the
suffering and cancer that will certainly be
the result if action is not taken soon.
David Pollack
475 West 15th
Too grandiose?
I proposed to the current Student Body
President at the ASUO that my research
showed that never in collegiate history has
a national convention of student govern
ment ever been held. I therefore proposed
that he consider holding a national conven
tion of student body presidents. (Maybe
1,700)
My reasons for such proposal would be to
offer an idea to the convention: A national
newspaper edited and dedicated to student
services, politics and activities. Along the
lines of the Emerald.
Secondly to pass on information about
the ASUO incidental fee and methods of im
plementation. Thirdly to garner support for
ERA.and its continued fight in the three
remaining states.
Course I may be just off my whack but I
believe something of this nature could be a
big success and I ve told the President I
would invite my friend Jim Whittenbury if he
believes it plausible. I have suggested
maybe even Gerald Ford might be in
terested in attending if he were invited
Pretty Grandiose?
If the ASUO thinks the idea sucks. I'll try
to sell it somewhere else
Thomas Condon
l
America has lost its courage
Rarely has a speech by someone not
in public office attracted as much com
ment and controversy as the com
mencement address at Harvard Univer
sity by Alexander Solzhenitsyn. In that
address, Solzhenitsyn accused the
West, and America in particular, of hav
ing lost its courage, of selling out to
materialism and of lacking spiritual
stamina. His critics responded by accus
ing Solzhenitsyn of failing to understand
the nature of a free society, of being
more comfortable with totalitarian re
gimes than democratic governments
and of being too isolated from the main
stream of American life to be a reliable
commentator.
Mbst of the reactions to the speech
suffer from a common mistake: confus
ing criticism of our society with criticism
of our political system. This confusion is
common because we too often equate
government with society, the natural re
sult of an ever-expanding concept of the
legitimate scope of governmental power
and authority.
Solzhenitsyn, on the other hand,
makes no such mistake, for he is gener
ally not concerned with politics. That is.
he is not concerned with the forms and
operations of government. His primary
concern is morality What interests Sol
zhenitsyn is not the free society, but the
good society, and he does not regard the
two as necessarily synonymous. To him,
it matters little that Richard Nixon
was elected to office while Charlemagne
was not.
In this regard, it is important to distin
guish Solzhenitsyn from Andrei
Sakharov, the Carter Administration's
favorite Soviet dissident. Sakharov’s
complaint with his government is purely
a matter of human rights. He continues
to support Marxism in theory while de
nouncing the remnants of "Stalinism"
which he sees in contemporary Soviet
policies.
Solzhenitsyn’s rejection of Marxism,
on the contrary, is complete. He rejects it
in theory at least as vigorously as in its
practical application. To him. borrowing
the phrase of the New Philosophes in
France, the idea of a decent, democratic
Marxism is the false dream of "Bar
barism with a Human Face."
It is this moralistic tone that causes
many Americans to feel uneasy about
Solzhenitsyn Just a few years ago, a
young State Department functionary re
portedly described Solzhenitsyn as
"almost a Fascist." And this, remember,
was the State Department of Henry Kis
singer; one shudders to think what An
drew Young must call him.
To Solzhenitsyn, the issue of the day
is not "Shall we be free?" Rather it is
"Once we are free, how shall we live up
to the responsibilities of freedom?” His
concern is not with the right to choose
but with making the right choices.
It may be true that Solzhenitsyn is not
altogether familiar with the workings of a
free society. But one who was, Edmund
Burke, expressed similar sentiments
nearly two centuries ago, when he
wrote:
“Men are qualified for civil liberty in
exact proportion to their disposition to
put moral chains upon their own appe
tites; in proportion as their love of justice
is above their rapacity; in proportion as
their soundness and sobriety of under
standing is above their vanity and pre
sumption; in proportion as they are dis
posed to listen to the counsels of the
wise and good, in preference to the flat
tery of knaves. Society cannot exist un
less a controlling power upon will and
appetite be placed somewhere, and the
less of it there is within, the more there
must be without It is ordained in the
eternal constitution of things, that men of
intemperate minds cannot be free. Their
passions forge their fetters.'
In other words, it is not sufficient to
concern ourselves merely with con
structing a free government. That may
be the end of our political considera
tions, but then the greater challenge be
gins; translating that freedom into an
opportunity to do good rather than an
excuse for doing harm, whether to our
selves or others.
“I have spent all my life under a Com
munist regime,” Solzhenitsyn told
the Harvard graduates, "and I will tell
you that a society without an objective
legal scale is a terrible one indeed But a
society with no other scale but the legal
one is not quite worthy of man either.
We are so accustomed to assuming
that a political solution exists for every
problem that many assumed Solzhenit
syn, in criticizing American society, must
have been implicitly advocating some
political action be taken to redress these
wrongs. In fact, he is saying not that
government should require more of us,
but that we should demand more of our
selves. He is suggesting that our re
sponsibilities — to ourselves, our neigh
bors and to society at large — do not end
with the fulfillment of our legal obliga
tions And foremost among those re
sponsibilities is that of demonstrating to
the world that a free and open society
need not degenerate into a morally cor
rupt, self-indulgent, hedonistic society
It is this issue that I wish the critics of
Solzhenitsyn would address.
Jack Roberts
Third year Law