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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 15, 1981)
opinion___ Holocaust ruling shows misguided courts This country has gone litigation-happy Lawsuits have become the second-most popular pastime It's a virtual certainty that every aspect of life in this country eventually will be reviewed in court The latest in a succession of odd legal wrangles pits a Long Beach, Calif, businessman named Mel Mermelstein against a right-wing group named the Institute of Historical Review Mermelstein filed suit against the IHR be cause they contend the Nazi’s extermination of six million Jews was fabricated by the Jews and offered a $50,000 reward to anyone who could prove otherwise Now that’s a group of foolhardy revisionists with money to sqaunder ion of Christ be judicially reviewed? Where are they going to find witnesses? Who'll pay the lawyers for the prosecution — and the defense? Lawyers never work for free Mermelstein said after the ruling "I always had confidence in the judicial system and that is the crux of it all.” But how can we have confidence in a system overrun with lawyers more concerned with fees than a speedy judiciary that dispenses justice and is now being used to revise history? Who benefits from rulings whether the Holocaust actually happened? Neither Mermelstein nor the revisionist IHR benefits in any way They have tied up the courts with a strange legal battle which has prevented other, no doubt more important, cases being heard Who benefits in reality? The lawyers — regardless of which side prevailed the lawyers will have silver creasing their palms and lining their pockets Perhaps cases should be reviewed by a stronger system of preliminary hearings All it takes is one judge saying, "That's ridiculous NEXT CASE'” ours Mermelstein claimed the reward and took the group to court when they failed to pay off The first step was for the court to prove the Holocaust as a fact. Mermelstein had proof In a five-hour depos tion to his attorney he recounted his experience at Aushchwitz in the summer of 1944 In that depo sition Mermelstein told of seeing his mother and two sisters led to the showers He has not seen them since Superior Court Judge Thomas Johnson took “judicial notice’ of the Holocaust and ruled that “Jews were gassed to death in Auschwitz in Poland.” This is doubtless the most anti-climatic court decision to date Not to make light of the horror of the Holocaust — but ruling whether the gassing of six million Jews actually occurred is a landmark decision for any judge Shakespeare was right — first get rid of the lawyers. There are cases on court dockets that have taken years (some as long as a decade) to be heard The constitutional provision that an accused party has a right to a fair and speedy trial is made a mockery of by cases as ridiculous as this attempt at rewriting history What’s next on the docket? Will the crucifix REMOVING THE REGUlATORT THORN PRCM M POOR BEAST'S PAW voi jrs Arson Well, now that the University has in augurated its newest president the first thing to be done is to bring Pres Olum to court to face a charge of first degree arson After all, it was on his behalf that a reception was held in the EMU ballroom last Saturday evening, Oct 10 At this reception there were several tables — where the citizenry of Lane County sat eating — which had LIT candles burning steadily away in clear violation of EMU regulation prohibiting burning materials I know its painful but our duty is clear Pres Olum must be prosecuted Other wise we would have to admit that the prosecution of a simplistic and obnox ious, but not yet criminal, man named John Kaiser is a clear and glaringly ob vious example of a double standard of justice No doubt with his otherwise un blemished record Pres Olum will be eligible for parole in six or seven years David Isenberg Senior, international studies Musicianship In response to Jeff Dickerson’s piece, "Beat of a Different Drum " Page 4 Thank you for recognizing that we (the Oregon Marching Band) are un derstaffed. underfinanced, and under supported As for the rest of the article, I guess that we have given the student body a little too much credit Why should we insult your intelligence (or ours, for that matter) by rolling about the astro turf in front of 50,000 indifferent fans9 Instead we've tried to put together an audiovisual experience which should not only illustrate our musical abilities, but our ability to work together — 120 peo ple, moving as one Apparently, we were at one time a "crazy band " However, the basic law of musicianship states that Any rise in craziness leads to an equal decline in quality We are only beginning to recover the quality of the band We also used to sit in the student section where it is much easier to join in the cheers and get a little rowdy We were finally forced to move — instrument repair bills and uni form dry-cleaning were putting us out of business (How many people have you seen throwing ice, gum, oranges, etc at a marching band9) We were then moved to the top of the reserved section, but the fans in front of us didn’t like us playing across the tops of their heads Now we have sideline seats. But, since the fans behind us don't like us to stand up, and we are practically playing into the athletes’ ears, we rarely play The only positive thing I've heard is that we re needed — the University would lose ABC-TV funds if Oregon couldn't field a marching band (That, by the way, is the only reason for our existence ) You can huddle under your umbrellas, wearing mittens and sipping rum-and cokes, and complain that we aren't showing enough enthusiasm If you want "lunatic fringe " remember that there are easier ways to earn two credits than to spend 12 5 hours a week rehearsing a 10 minute show for an indifferent audience I, for one am a little proud of my ability to move to the beat of the same drum corps as 120 other people Christina Weseiy Sophomore, economics Out of context I’m glad to see your series on the four sports that were cut last spring, but I do feel obliged to point out that my com ments about low interest in women's golf were taken out of context My quote, "When the hearings for cuts were held no one showed up to support golf," was in reference to hearings held in 1977 when the then-existing women's golf program was dropped Certainly there were more than a few voices of protest this time around (last spring) when women's golf was threatened Janet Heinonen Women's Sports Information Director MX verbiage In spite of all the verbiage about MX, no one seems to want to discuss how we got into this situation to begin with 1 he arguments for MX rest on an established fact — that the accuracy of Soviet missiles have increased enormously during the past decade This is not dis puted What is disputed is whether Soviet missiles are now accurate enough to take out all of our land-based missiles in a first strike (the only way to know for sure would be to try it), and whether we ought to react by commissioning MX (plausible arguments are advanced on both sides) But how did the Soviets improve their missiles so rapidly9 The answer is not complicated under the Nixon admin istration we sold them the needed tech nology, which would probably have taken them another generation, if not forever, to develop on their own The lesson here is — not to dis seminate military technology not even to allies unless they really need it, and never, never to anyone else If we refuse to learn, the best we can hope for is endlessly increasing military-industrial spending, trying to keep ahead of our selves (or jump over our own dingus, as the Slavs say) The worst is the nuclear holocaust of which various quasi religious and other groups are warning us (sad to say, groups that blindly favor the same kind of suicidal detente that produced the conditions that are now pushing us toward militarism) And we will have only ourselves to blame Stephen Reynolds Associate Professor Department of Religious Studies Thursday, October 15,1901
