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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 23, 1984)
letters Vietnam vet Let me first start out by saying that I am a Vietnam vet. I think this needs to be stated in order to qualify my views. Ronald Reagan (zap!) and (puttin’ on the) Fritz Mondale are both touting the new patriotism of America, but neither candidate has even at tempted to mention any positive action to return the 2,500 MIA’s from Southeast Asia. These 2.500 men are our unsung patriots. They may have given the ultimate for their country (death), and yet the U.S. government has failed to outline any plan to correct this deliberate slighi to the men and women who served their nation proudly. This is not the only area of concern. There are many pro blems relating to alcohol abuse and drug abuse among all veterans of all eras. These are both physical and psychological: Where are the politicians now? What are they doing to* remedy these pro blems? They are ritually sweep ing us‘ under the rug so they do, not get publicly embarrassed! Some patriotism! • • Let this be a. warning to all voters. When we go to war (and we will) and the draft is resum ed (it will be), remember how our government turned its back on those w'ho sacrificed their lives and well-being to preserve our way of life; and'think how sweet it will be to rot in a POW camp while our government continues to tout patriotism. Robert Botta . Graduate, history Eugene 's poor All right Eugene. We’re now a big city. We have our very own bag lady. She pulls her belongings around in a cart, spending the day trying to get enough money'to get a place to stay for the night. Sometimes she makes it. Other times she is forced to sleep in an alley downtown. The police have taken to running her off. Looks bad, I guess. It’s nice that we’re all in school and happily going about bettering ourselves. It’s too bad she can’t have our insight. We’re all survivors, right? Those people you see huddled around fires along the railroad tracks are losers? They don’t want to work? This is what Ron nie would have you believe. Bull. If you give people work, they will find a sense of pur pose. Without jobs they are lost. You judge a nation by the way it treats its poor. America, you came a ways in the 60’s, let’s not let Reagan drag us back. Vote for Fritz on Nov. 6. Dan Suire History Poor spelling The publisher of "Oregon Commentator” should be more careful about spelling since the publication is meant to be cir culated throughout campus. Reading through the front page of its Oct. 22 issue, I spot ted the following errors: polititcs; descision; politicain; critism; corespondent; disarament. I do come across a misspelled w'ord or two occasionally in the Oregon Daily Emerald, but six misspellings on one page is cer tainly too much for anybody to stomach. • Oregon tlfaitv Eihfctilif I hope Commentator would take more pain to avoid such mistakes in the future and save its credibility from jeopardy. Andrew Ang Journalism Yes on 2 I would like to speak in favor of Measure 2. All newspapers are running scare stories on what would happen to the school system in Oregon if Measure 2 passes. What will happen to property taxes if Measure 2 does not pass? They will continue to rise at alarming rates and forclosure will again increase by 61% in Oregon in 1985. Who can afford increased property taxes? The wealthy and upperclasses of our society can. The middle to lower wage earners and people with fixed incomes CANNOT afford higher taxes. • School budgets must. make cuts like' all other agencies. California’s schopl systems did not go down the tubes when they i.nacted their property-tax relief measure. It set fair and reasonable . rates and forced districts to stay On budgets' rather than continuously in creasing their budgets every year. . • The students of this campus voted to be very stingy last year in handing out their money. They refused to finance an alter native newspaper and just bare ly funded this newspaper. How will, most students-vote with other peoples’ money? I hope just as stingily. Please take time to read Measure 2 for yourself, and if you are still voting no, ask yourself- two questions:. Could you afford a $100 a month increase ‘ in your ex penses? Will you work for more efficient allocation of our taxes? Carlyne Lynch Business Major Right to life Thanks are due to Karl Mohr for his insightful letter to the Emerald on Oct. 18. He con cluded by asking the, new right “if a mother doe§ not have the right to terminate the life of her child, what gives you the right to terminate the lives of equally, innocent people?” (For exam ple. in Central America). Perhaps it is due to the fact that 1 consider myself stranded between the new right and the old left that 1 am not able to. see either of these options as deser ving of my approval. For example, even after travelling extensively in Latin America and speaking with the people who are being oppressed there, 1 am not certain of the policy alternatives which would ameliorate the situation. I am, however, clearly convinc ed that the taking of innocent lives in those countries must cease. Likewise, on the abortion issue, 1 have listened to the rhetoric of both the right-to lifers and the pro-choicers and listened to their fine-line distinctions between embryos and babies. Each time 1 do, I find myself less certain of my position on the issue than 1 was when ignorant of the facts. It is only when 1 consider the very nature of the act that I realize something must be done. Though Mr. Mohr appears to take issue with those of us who are attempting to live as Chris tians, he seems to have a firm grasp of the basic tenets to which we would retreat when bewildered by the difficult questions which confront us in this complicated world. Life is certainly too precious a gift to be viewed in the shadowy light of party platforms and socio economic doctrines. It is only through a love which is more concerned with others than self that we can transcend such bar riers to true compassion. Rick Moore Eugene The real issue Robert Coles, Harvard psychologist and freeze-nik, recently disclosed (reluctantly) his findings that only the children of the liberal and af-. fluent are much concerned about nuclear war. This conclu sion upsets many who,.in their' zeal to make nukes the only sub ject of controversy, regularly ascribe feelings of near-hysteria over imminent annihilation to all kids. This disclosure of a limited interest in nukes among the young can remind . us * that assuredly, there is vastly more to concern us all. In fact, those ■ who insist on addressing only such excesses of- power rein force the lie that everything else is basically fine. While the model-citizen peace activists weakly imitate what had become — by the late 1960’s — boring and impotent protest rituals and polite “dialogue” with cops and Marines (becoming livid when anyone acts a bit impolitely toward these friends of theirs), “dissidence” gets defined in just this narrow sense. The deeper “cause,” of course, is the fact that daily life is a scan dal of generalized depression and strangulation. In this barren set-up, wherein human activity is utterly col onized by the imperatives of working and buying, “issues” deflect anger from the real issue: the way we live — or don’t live. . John Zerzan Eugene Bonzocrats I don’t presume to speak for Dr. Brettauer, but 1 can’t ignore the fishy effluvium emanating from Ron Munion’s "Red Her ring” (ODE 10-19-84). When he accused Dr. Brettauer of avoiding the issue, he took the fish out of my mouth. Red her ring indeed! What could be more of a red herring than this brouhaha over a little guerrilla theatre? The Marines seem to have taken it well enough. If any “interested students” were deterred by a few people putting their bodies where their minds are, I can’t imagine them making it as Marines. As for the idea that “the protestors lost any legitimate rights that they once held,” the chilling implications need not be elucidated. Enough on this non-issue. I was disappointed that Munion chose to address only one of Dr. Brettauer’s statements, the question "whether the youthful Reagan followers at least have brains.” Ignoring the primary' point and picking at a weak link in phraseology is not vigorous argumentation. Why not tackle the deeper question posed in the professor's next sentence: whether the Bonzocrats are able "to make the logical connection between the militarism assiduously promoted by Reagan’s puppet masters and the futility of their intense search for the “good life”? What better way to vindicate their challenged perspicacity? When they’ve tuned their minds on that poser, perhaps Mr. Munion will be prepared to expand their worldview beyond the EMU and to take on the real issues of the '80’s: military madness and nuclear nightmare. Larry Taylor Linguistics Debate talk The final debate is over and judgement on how it went can be made. A look at issues can be stated also. President Reagan won, and little debate on this was ap parent by both sides (or so- it seemed from my vantage point). Why? Mondale appeared ner vous (especially the first half), he clearly stated he would not negotiate with . the Russian Leadership until he built up conventional forces so that he could negotiate a “verifiable nuclear freeze” in a position of strength and he DEBATED with President Reagan on Reagan’s dream to, somehow, end the “MADness” (on this point Mondale advocated reducing the number of nuclear arms on both sides which 1 find comical because it only takes 400 warheads to “destroy” the world and the world has 65,000 nuclear warheads!!). 1 believe Reagan is on the right track in this respect and at least he verbalized this fantasy that we all must have, whereas Mondale TOOK issue with him!! I have deep respect for Dr. Helen Caldicott’s theme when she states she is a “conser vative;” she vsfants to conserve the world for future genera tions: Where 1 disagree with her is in her choice of leaders for 1984. If Mondale is elected we will have to wait at least five more years to get to the table. I do believe Reagan will get us talking. One last point. There were many debate parties around town and one of them played a cassette tape titled “Reagan and the Prophecy of Armageddon" after the debaites. The way I see it, Reagan successfully quelled this fear and Mondale left peo ple wondering? Brian Lewis Political Science Animal instinct I recently conversed with Captain B.J. Toynbee, the chief recruiter for the Marines in Eugene and sometimes in the EMU building. Our talk uncovered some basic philosophical differences between him and me. I believe in the ability of humans, using their conscious intellects, to communicate, cooperate and achieve solutions and com promises to problems. Toynbee whole-heartedly believes in “survival of the fittest.” After further discussion, Toynbee responded that he admittedly feels he has more animal in stinct in him than human higher consciousness. And so, for Toynbee, the law of the jungle makes more sense than human attempts at cooperation. He indicated an in tense connection with the ac cumulation of material goods for he and his family, and a dependence upon these objects for his well-being. I related to him my feeling that peace, true happiness, and contentment come from within — from our inner spirit—and may be independent of material possessions. He feels it is necessary to use his animalistic, survival-of-the fittest capabilities to defend, maintain, and increase his material well-being. The im plications of this philosophy of life are quite contrary to a hope of universal peace, sharing and cooperation. Apparently, this is what military also stands for (as Toynbee is a representative of that institution). Unfortunately our institution of “higher” lear ning deems it necessary to in clude them in our educational process. I hope for the day when our campus and town do not allow military recruiters to take our young people away for fighting" and dying in rich peo ple’s conflicts. Steve Faiman C Peace Studies 0 Telling it wrong Here is wtfat candidate Jesse Jacksorf actually said in his reacliing-out mission to Havana: "Long live Cuba. Long live the United States. Long live Castro. Long live Martin Luther King Jr. Long live Che Guevara. Long 4ve Patrice Lumumba.” Here is how the rough-and tumble president, speaking to university students in Illinois, chose to misquote Reverend Jackson: “Long live Cuba, long live Castro, long live Che Guevara.” He’s been trying to rid himself of his rose-garden, pat sy image; how would the great mis-communicator respond to a class action libel suit? Or were these just lapses of memory? Who is it that’s voting for this clown? Keith Bowen Eugene. Cause for alarm Returning toOregon after two years abroad, I am alarmed by some of the changes that have taken place in the meantime.. That someone like Page Mc Callum would begin to cite Adoif Hitler’s ‘good’ points (ODE Oct. 22) is a particularly blatant example which signifies the sickening development tak ing place in our society. As for McCallum’s ‘essential’ VW bus, I think ‘college life’ would pro bably be better without it. The emergence of Neo-Nazi and other ultra-right groups is the cause of so much alarm and worry in the democratic Federal Republic of Germany of today. Why aren’t the same perverse tendencies abhorred here in the traditional leading democratic nation of the earth? The ‘ME syndrome (that is: my job, my career, my im mediate surroundings) has reached a putrid high: Isn’t it time to think about the others (that is: the rest of the world beyond the USA) as well as ourselves? When 1 really think about how the 1980’s will be seen 100 years from now (as Reagan pro posed in the last debate) then I am ashamed. Casey Mathewson Senior, Architecture Section A;-Page 3
