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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 13, 1978)
opinion Aid the shah? Not for all the oil in Iran Look at a global map and Iran seems very far from Eugene. Events there also seem remote, vague, like a long distance telephone call gathering static as it travels the wires. But Iran lies much closer to the Uni versity than the apparent distance of miles suggests. For several reasons. First, Eugene hosts an articulate group of Iranis, who experience through their families and friends at becomes a threat to any person and society that values its freedoms. Power-bloc strategists like National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, columnist Jospeh Kraft and leaders of nations everywhere seem curiously capable of forgetting that politics is process, not ends. Politics is how we do certain things, the spirit and methods with which we pursue a particular goal. As we destroy that process, we destroy the purpose of politics. home the desparate viciousness of the Shah’s newly installed military regime. Second, the United States govern ment maintains a shameful policy that accepts and abets the Shah of Iran’s suspension of already limited political and civil rights. This supposedly guarantees Iran’s continuing to supply 10 percent of our oil imports. Third, among the groups seeking to obtain and exercise a right to oppose the Shah’s policies lies a broad coali tion of students and student organiza tions. Tehran University today could be Chicago in 1968, Kent State in 1970 or even Eugene in 1971. Fourth, the example of autocratic vic tory over democratic forces anywhere vars Any goal can be achieved in a variety of ways, but it remains the way we choose to accomplish those goals that determines whether our politics will be humane and honest or opportunistic and hypocritical, as is the Carter administration’s policy toward Iran. Irani oil could probably flow from non-Shah wells as readily as Shah wells. Or we could pay a neighbor a decent price and buy oil from Mexico. Or, as a nation of profligate consumers, we could try to want and waste a little less or a little more with the resources we have. It has become chic, in some circles of dogmatic thinking to wave Vietnam like a bloody flag, as if American foreign policy is congenitally inclined to repeat that heinous blunder forever. But Iran today appears as much like Vietnam in 1964 as anything that's come down the road since the Paris Treaties. Consider; •American businesses have a mas sive investment in the booming Irani economy—an ecomomy that remains markedly restricted to a small bourgeoisie; • Iran suffers the harsh, corrupt rule of a narrow, autocratic elite with close links to Irani and U.S. businesses; • The United States is supplying the Shah’s regime with arms, equipment and military training, used not against a purported external enemy—the Soviet Union—but against Iran’s own people; • That regime is characterized by our government and military establishment as the defender of political freedom and Western interests, even as it sup presses those freedoms and shames any association with those interests. Last week, the Carter administration agreed to send Iran new shipments of riot-control gear. With those arms goes an implicit encouragement for more of the regime’s violence. Americans should not be paying to put bullets in the brains of Irani protes tors. Write Representative Al Ullman, of Oregon’s Second Congressional Dis trict. As chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, he has a lot to say about what American tax dollars buy. Write our district’s own Congress man Jim Weaver. Eugene votes nad a lot to do with re-electing him and not his right-wing opponent. Weaver’s really a born-again budget-cutter; suggest that he start with these arms shipments to the Shah's generals. Letters to these officials can be ad dressed simply: Washington, D C. 20510 (U.S. Senate) or 20515 (House of Representatives). The Emerald also urges that stu dents lend moral support to the anti Shah efforts of local Irani groups. Cer tainly, some of these seem zealous to the point of fanaticism, but we re member young Americans once were fanatic on the subject of Vietnam. Many of these Iranis aided our anti war actions that helped get American armed forces out of Vietnam. We should help them get the same forces out of Iran. Antonio Porchia once observed, ‘The killer of souls does not kill a hundred persons one time; he kills one person a hundred times.” The crisis of Iran and the American response to it must be seen equally as a spiritual as well as a political confrontation. That dilemma will ultimately con sume us, if we pretend that Iran is somehow different, somehow not a part of that unity of the democratic spirit which this nation expounds. theirs Sexpert not on the ball In Thursday’s Emerald your ‘sexpert’’ commented on the ‘myth’’ of blueballs, saying in part: “In the popular lingo, men often refer to themselves as having blueballs' when deprived os sex. This is primarily a psychological feeling — not a real physical phenomenon.. She then alludes to the use of this “myth’ as a tactic men use to lure unsuspectintg females to their bedroom. Not only is this explanation a misrepresentation of the attitude of most males who desire warm, loving sexual relationships, it is also inaccurate. Blueballs is caused by vasocongestion in the scrotum that is not relieved by orgasm, and it HURTS. If orgasm does not occur after extended periods of arousal, blood in the scrotum puts pressure on the testes, resulting in a sensation not unlike sudden contact with a moving object—a boot for instance Unlike boot-genital contact, however, the pain subsides over a period of several hours. Why don’t you start looking for a real sexpert who knows what she’s talking about and doesn’t camouflage attacks on male sexuality under the guise of science? Vic Napier senior, political science What s in a name? When I called to speak with Jock Cornfield to inform him that my name had been misspelled in Mike Pee s article (Emerald, 10/30/78 “PEOPLE SIT DOWN AND FIGHT EUGENE’S JOGGER SYNDROME),’’ he was less than sympathetic. He told me that a correction was unnecessary as the misspelling affected no one. There are only two times in the life of the average Jo American that one gets one’s name in the paper: when one marries and when one dies. I had my chance for number “three" in the news. I wanted to send dippings of the artide to my parents and friends who for years have hounded me to do some thing worthwhile Winning the “most creative sitter’ award in Mike O’Brien’s Living Room Bookstore Sit was the high light of my life Thus, I was saddened to see that my name had been misspelled. I was also perplexed because the misspelling was so grossly inaccurate. The correct spelling of my name is Leslie T What. The incorrect version as it appeared in your paper was Page 4 <0»£ -«v V; Frieda Tappensitter. I forgot to mention that the archaic title, 'Miss,'' was also used. There exists the possibility that Pee used so-called artistic license" in his article but I prefer to think that he is just one of the many flippant college students who cannot spell but hope to become writers. As Fredric March once remarked, "I don't care what you say about me, just get the name right!" Leslie What 65 Lund Drive One for the good guys Congratulations to everyone who worked on the land slide victory for Ballot Measure 9 It was the right issue at the right time and the quarter-million-dollars media cam paign the private electric utilities (PGE and PP&L) waged against it has to be one of the more costly routs on record After outspending us by a margin of over a hundred to one, we carried every county in the state. Our own en deavors relied more on wits and solid grass roots support than anything else. We put five pages in the Voters Pamphlet by petition and after the opposition had already bought significant amounts of radio time, we were allowed to run our own ads on the same stations for no more than the cost of producing and distributing them. Much of the utilities' advertising campaign centered on a doubtful scheme to label the measure as an anti-nuclear power referendum, when the wording of it simply denies them from making a profit on any new power source before it is available to their customers. The public may have been a little leery of this tactic since it was these same utilities that four years ago told us that nuclear power is the best bargain on the market. Paul Williams Coordinator, Oregonians for Utility Reform, 4995 Center Way Monday, November 13, 1978
