EDITORIAL
Local laws should set
transportation standards
The recent spill of nearly 20.000 gallons of weed
killer into Shasta Lake has raised concern aliout the ef
fectiveness of regulations governing the transport of
hazardous materials.
The real problem begins when the Department of
Transportation lists only some of the materials identi
Tied as hazardous by the Environmental Protection
Agency and the Occupational Safety and Health Ad
ministration. Materials considered hazardous In tin
Department of Transportation have to be carried in spe
cially marked trucks or rail cars and are subject to
some restrictions on when and where they ian he car
ried.
The herbicide that w.ls spilled into Shasta Lake
was one of those materials that is listed as hazardous
by the EPA and OSHA but not In the Department of
Transportation.
Because these loopholes exist in federal regulu
tions, city and state officials should take control of the
situation by passing laws requiring disclosures and ere
ating restrictions through zoning laws
HAZARDOUS?
OM, NO MA'AM... Nooooo.
Nitroglycerine is only HAZARDOUS
iF YOU BUMP
j| j_r jfc— *****-*
DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
HAZARDOUS MATERIALS
3
Right wing fuels racist agenda with class politics
E3y David Jarman and Jason Moore
Horatio Alger would lie proud The
unyonn iun-muko• i 1 myths lie
helped ( rente at the end of the
10th century continue to thrive, espc
i tally among those who have 'made it
Alger authored hundreds oi dime novels
extolling the virtues ol hard work, hon
esly and thrift Hi* ideali/.ed an Ameri
can system that allowed young men
who stuck by these print iples to tri
umph over poverty and other an idents
of birth
A typical Alger hero lived in squalor
but was determined to pull himself up
by his own bootstraps by selling news
papers or mntchstlcks Without fail, this
young man was visited by a capitalist
deus ex machine who rewarded him for
his virtue and industriousness by con
ferring upon him u mom suitable class
status
Certainly, there are grains of truth to
the Alger mythos Some poor white
males did succeed, climbing the class
ladder to wealth and power Hie experi
ences ol individuals such as steel mag
nate Andrew Carnegie and oil baron
John Rockefeller bear this out
It should lie noted, however, that "in
dividual" Is the key word here For
most white males, not to mention wom
en, people of color and new immigrants,
the rungs on the (udder of opportunity
were u bit ri< kety, if not completely rot
ted Today, despite nominal gains by
oppressed social groups, success still
occurs on a purely individual, never
collective, basis
(inter Clarence Thomas The newest
aspirant to U S Supreme Court mem
berslup is the very picture of the Alger
myth today Horn into an impoverished
Ceorgia shnrecropper's family, we are
told. Thomas was the beneficiary of a
stern Catholic upbringing that gave him
the virtue and reverence* necessary to
'rouse end his roots Thomas was aide to
THE RUCK ?*SCT
lb
TOTfcKi OVER
tA
obtain generous financ lal aid to attend
Yali:
With enough hard work and initiative,
in' v\ as utile to become chairman of the
Equal Employment Opportunity (aim
mission during the Reagan years, when
the commission was notorious for its
complicity in the ra< ist, sexist and es
sentiailv (hauvinistii federal bench it
the late HOs, where he spent several
thoroughly unremarkable years
Having established himself as a Rea
gan yes-man end a mediocre federal
judge, it is hardly surprising that the
Hush administration stresses Thomas'
upbringing and not his qualifications
Thomas is the very personification of
the Republican approach to race rela
tions. which is best desi ribed as token
ism
Thomas lias indeed lived up to the AI
ger fantasy, climbing the ladder of op
portunity with the aid of benevolent
capitalists — but only to fulfill the
elite's need to kts-p up appearances that
this ladder still is intact, that there real
ly is room at the top for everyone
The Thomas nomination is merely
one part of the Republican right's effort
to paint itself as the good guv when it
comes to issues of race The Republi
cans have latched onto the formerly lib
eral notion that "color of skill doesn't
matter, we re all equal at heart" and re
versed it to suit their own self-serving
needs
Tins appropriation of liberal dex trine
paints the Democrats as the ones en
thralled with issues ol race, but it works
only as long as the right is able to create
the impression that the problem is
solved to the extent that no further legis
lation is necessary
lint this is only one point of the Re
publicans' multipronged attack regurd
ing race The right seeks to use the
Thomas nomination and similar ap
pointments to defuse dissatisfaction
among middle ( lass Idierals txilh blue k
INCHING- ITS NAT JP*ASO. ■
IT FIGHTS TO GAIN
SGML CONTROL
cV
and white, regarding the pact? of racial
progress, while pursuing ever more vio
lent social polit ies against the black
poor and working class
At the same lime, the Hush adminis
tration tries to have its t ake' and eat it
too as they try to persuade the white
working i lass that race is still a prob
lem, that their jobs are imperiled be
cause of the liberal insistence on quotas
[ his relatively subtle racism, t loakod in
the language of economics, is paired
with not so-subtle rat ism in the form ol
Willie Horton campaigning and similar
demagoguery Democrat!! opposition is
quick to realize that the Thomas norm
nation is merely a political maneuver,
that Thomas has lieen pu ked not be
cause he is a competent pirist but tie
i ause tie fills the needs of the Republi
can agenda Hence, Senate Majority
Leader C.eorge Mitt hell, 1) Maine, gloats
over the fact that President Bush has
"fulfilled a quota " While this may be
true, Mitchell and others fail to grasp
the full realities of racial inequality
Ihe irony of the situation is that it is
the Republicans wtio have made the es
sentially Marxist realization that mod
ern racist politics boil down to ques
tions of ( lass As the only social class
with a definable political const iousness,
the right-wing power elite knows that its
long-term interests are liosl served when
the working class and poor are set
against each other along racial and eth
nic lines The Democrats, on the other
hand, cling to outdated notions of rac
ism as a sex ial problem that can be leg
islated to death
A decade of reactionary social polic v
has forced upon many progressives and
even liberals the realization that most
oppressive social relations, especially
race, have their roots in class oppres
sion. Richard Trumka, president of the
United Mine Workers, recently exposed
the fragmenting ( lass politics behind the
Republican racist agenda
"Quota is a code word (for black), he
said "The President is really saying. I
like quotas, some of my best friends are
quotas, I just wouldn't want to live next
door to a quota ' Quota politics is racial
politics is racial politics is anti-worker
politics It’s got to stop," Trumka said
If Trumka and the Republicans ire
right that racial politics is class politics,
the nation's liberals need to understand
that racism is a problem that cannot lie
vanquished through legislation and edu
cation but then, such a realization
would wreck the framework of today’s
liberal movement They would be
forced to realize that passing laws and
talking ideals is nice, but that society is
in need of a more radical overhaul
tile abolition of class oppression for
justice to truly exist
David lurmun is a student at Amherst
College in Massachusetts and managing
editor of the Amherst Student jason
Moore is a political science and history
student at the University and is editorial
page editor of the Student Insurgent
Both sene as co-coordinators of the
Center (or Contemporary Activism
COMMENTARY POLICY
Commentaries should be between 750 and 1,000 words egible
and signed, and the identification of the writer must be verified
upon submission. The Emerald reserves the right to edit for gram
mar style and length if necessary
^JT IN THE END
IT JUST WUE*
OUT OF ‘otG-ttT
D f
v>
SOO.THtf&
r*
?
'V •e.ur
DEPM5SiH6r!
r
ant?
\
Ju
T rftMWfcrtE
OF SOUTH AROCV