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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 2, 1995)
VIEWPOINTS EDITORIALS OPINIONS. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR America casts its vote for change... yet again ■ OUR OPINION: A . i for q , • k ';<• )iu! ■ )• ’. e < '• gridlock to the Congr<-r.s (lhain (Ji.un (ihain (Change of fools Americans just can't seem lo got enough change in fed eral government. Three years ago the elec toral majority elo< ted Bill Clinton on his platform of a new vision for this country. We voted for, among other things, an end to the grid lock between the legislative and executive branches. But. we got tired of that (not enough change) and elected a Republican majori ty to tin* Mouse anti Senate two years ago. Republicans, who one year before had been the bastions of status quo politii s. !«•( ame the harbingers of a new spring for America Right. SiQ( e i hristening the (ion tract with Amori) a revolu tion. the Republicans have been preparing and pushing their baiant ed-budget pro posals through both houses. Last week the House and Senate approved the COP budget, and Newt, et al. stood and applauded their efforts Of course. Clinton has said he plans to veto the pat kagf*. Welcome hack to gridlot k Americans are politic ally restless. Our attention span for long-term reform is equal to our willingness to wait through cummen ials between sitcoms Real polit ic al work is boring and lengthy. Rather than waiting to see if programs sue h a health-c are reform and Americorps will have an effec t. Americ ans voted for instant gratification. And what we are left CAMPUS COLOR LINES VWiar 0 you tt'.f'* about race fetation* on campus’’ Pteasa submit youf lettef to the Cmefatd offices at Su«« TOO h ( MU Of send us you' thoughts via e-maa at ode@o»egon uotegon edu l t*tte»* on this issue will be published Nov 6 with, is a mirror image of tin? nation’s budget prob lems under the Hush admin istration - illuminating for us, ont it again, what we hate about American politics "All these people do is argue They never get any thing accomplished I’m vot ing tor change In the next ©lection." Hut the quick fix isn’t working Voting for "change" without an under standing of what that < hang© will mean is conn terproduc ti\ v "Change" has bought us two years of legislative salaries to t ut Medic are, col lege loans, welfares, national service, the Corporation for Public Hroadc asting and the National Endowment for the Arts two years of wasted time to lav waste to the poorest of Americans — two years to prepare "sweeping reform" that will never get past the ()val Office. America does need a change We need to learn that out responsibility for the future of this country does not end when we i hw k our ballots it is where it begins If politic tans are ignorant, arrogant, belligerent and wasteful, if they are out of touch with Ainerii a, if they are power-hungry and inet fective it is not their fault. In our haste to kill the bore dom of legislative |in|activi ty. we elected them and then changed the i hannel. 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CArtf $*.***+# ■ « Stfhn. **1010 S*s>fno S4»m» A -';-.*rm IA». ^MNI Yowtig lititm »*on 44tfc** wjw> ftfcff CrartnoiS' Claud it* U<* CaAvUntf rwujt >4* Mil M4U12 H4 17\J >44 4343 . Mi i) N* fa***.-MM I,?- . U.S. isolationists threaten U.N.’s future Dithering” was the word Emerald columnist Primo Fontana chose to describe the United Nations last week [ODE. Oi t 25), on the 50th annivervtrv of its founding Reading through his simultaneous indictment and sentencing of the 1 'tided Nations i onv incud this reader that dithering had but one accurate function — to describe the polemic of the columnist Whether or not his sermon was well* intended, he dithered In an age of new i sola tionism in the United States, a col umn about the United Nations in a college daily might suggest a welcome counterbahuu e to the short sighted revival of ultra nationalism Hut not with Fontana The temptation for some patient souls might lie to say. "give hint time to gain the perspective of experience, when he'll recognize that the United Nations for all its warts, its human failings — is a better alternative than that offered try pompous flag-wavers " I'm not that patient —- not when I see the spectacle of a veteran legislator, Robert Dole, pandering ton right-wing constituency by using the United Nations as the si apegont for the world’s problems The time is overdue for citi zens (and readers) to rebut the shallow bully boy behavior of politicians who would exploit us and of the bandwagon writers who miniit them Fontana, paranoid over the United Nations impinging on his nation's sovereignty, des< ribed “the chains of the United Nations shackling nation*'' who otherwise might, as individuals or in treaty, perform more effective ly on the world stage. Then he used the Gulf War as an example of flow the United States was aide to evade those shackles How was this achieved? By acting, he wrote, under the guise of the Undid Nations. Hypocritical as it was. (tie Gulf War, which the United States strong-armed its allies into acting in a U.N disguise, at least was open in ils blatant illegality that served U.S oil inter ests Too often during the Cold War years, it fifi ] I he V V./ must develop oa independent police force capable of rapid deployment w bile .still being directly accountable to the Security Council. 33 1C l veryone on this globe has a life or death stake in lthe l \'sj survival. -95 was the hidden U.h agenda that (through underi over activity of the CIA) frustrated what must ol us thought our agenda was to aid the grow th of democracies throughout the world That contradiction of our stated goals with our hidden behavior is what valid journalists research for their published reports But Fontana follows the path of least resistance just like too many of his < ol leagues out in the "real world " He. and they, take the easy way out, dutifully digesting the data fed them by authori ties. than regurgitating the party line for their readers As they quickly learn, it's so much eas ier to wave the flag Fontana described himself as one of those outside the Amerunn journalcstu and political elite, not having “a stake in the U.N.'s sur vival.'' He's w rong Everyone on this globe has a life Or-death stake in its survival. Granted, if the United Nations is to be sus tained. some of its golds must tie re-evaluated, the veto dominant« of Security Council mem bers must he diminished; it must reform proce dures that are wasteful. Most important, it must develop an indepen dent polite force capable of rapid deployment while still Iseing directly act ountable to the Security Council. The last thing you and 1 (and Prime) need for survival is empty-headed indictments of the United Nations that ore pushed by politii ians and newspaper columnists whose heads lie buried deep in the sandbox of isolationism George Hr res is a hoard member of the Oregon l /ruled Sat ions Association Hr is the former ifm versify of Oregon Sports Information director, past editor of the faculty/staff newsletter Inside Oregon and current manager of the University Speakers Bureau His latest hook is The Year of the Duck. LETTERS POLICY The Oregon Daily Emetaid wilt attempt to punt at! tetters containing comments on topics ot interest to the University community Letters to the editor must be limited to no more than 250 words, legible, signed and the ideniifica hon ot the writer must be verified when the letter is submitted The Emerald reserves the right to edit any letter tor length or style
