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