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