Tuesday
Editor in chief: Jack Clifford
Managing Editor: Jessica Blanchard
Newsroom: (541) 346-5511
Room 300, Erb Memorial Union
P.O. box 3159, Eugene, OR 97403
E-mail: ode@oregon.uoregon.edu
EDITORIAL EDITOR: MICHAEL J. KLECKNER opededitor@journalist.com
Taking the time to make the right decisions
SCRIBBLES OF
SANITY
JAYNA BERGERSON
Confession: I haven’t voted
in four years. The last
time I bothered to fill out
a voter’s ballot was for
the presidential election in 1996.
Despite this, I have decided that
this year I will open the ballot sit
ting on my desk. I will take the
voter’s pamphlet and read through
it. And, with luck, I will get it
filled out and sent in on time. But
before I tell you why I have had
this sudden change of heart, I
should probably explain why
I haven't bothered to vote
in the past four
years.
I must say
that I have nev
er allowed the
belief that my
vote didn’t
count to keep
me from voting.
I once heard a
student say, "My
vote doesn't mean
anything. I am just
one person." She
was right. And I
admit that my vote,
by itself, doesn't
mean much. But
votes are not indi
viduals. They
don't stand by
themselves. Your
vote and
are
and so are
votes of hun
dreds of other
people. So they
do make a difference when they
all agree.
Apathy is not an issue either.
All this talk about how apathetic
our generation is toward voting
and national issues never applied
to me. I live in this state and I do
care about what happens because
it will affect everything around
me.
No. The real problem is
time, energy and priori
ties. In order to vote, I
need to find the time and
energy to research the is
sues and make the deci
sions that I feel are
right and
necessary based on the given in
formation. These are the appropri
ate actions of a responsible voter.
If I am going to take the time to
vote, I want to do it right.
But on my long list of stuff to do,
voting never appeared to be very
close to the top. I mean, I
have been a little
preoccupied the
past four years.
Most of my time
and effort (and
money — but
that's another sto
ry) goes toward
my education.
So now we have come to why I
had this sudden change of heart.
Well, it isn’t because I have more
time or energy, because I have real
ized that is just not going to hap
pen as long as I am in college.
The voter's pamphlet is enough
to scare anyone away from voting. I
don't know many college students
with the time to read through that
monstrosity. Of course, I could just
read the small tidbits of informa
tion provided by all the various
special interest groups. They could
even tell me how to vote, so I don't
have to do any work at all. This op
tion has always been unpalatable
tome. If I couldn't
research the
issues well
enough to
have an in
formed
opinion in
time to
vote, I felt I
shouldn't
vote. The
idea of voting
the way some
one else thinks I should would
make me feel like a puppet. And I
don't know about you, but I don't
want anyone pulling my strings.
Actually, one of the reasons I de
cided to vote in this election is be
cause of a change in my priorities.
I realized that if I don't vote, I can't
complain. In the past I have caught
myself complaining about the out
come of various measures and
laws that were passed. Then I real
ized that I had no right to com
plain, because I didn't vote to stop
those measures from passing.
You can’t complain about the
way things are when you don't do
anything to try and change it. And
I’m not talking about staging a
coup or lobbying Congress. Noth
ing so grandiose. All that is needed
is a vote. That's all.
By voting, you may discover the
public is not as stupid as you
thought, and they all voted the
same as you. Hope is renewed in
the possibility that justice can pre
vail. If not, then voting earns you
enough clout to yell, scream,
stomp and turn red in the
face when the meas
OVT G-OlNO
juu vuiou uu
on is passed. Re
gardless of the out
come, your reac
tion will be
justified.
Time to turn in
that ballot.
Jayna Bergerson is a
columnist for the Ore
gon Daily Emerald. Her
views do not necessari
ly represent those of
the Emerald. She can
be reached at
bjay@gladstone.
uoregon.edu.
Ten reasons to make Nader president
Guest Commentary
Dan
Headings
H
ere are the top 10 reasons I’m
voting for Ralph Nader:
,1)1 want a candidate not
owned by corporations. On campus,
Gloria Steinem said that Nader support
ers have unreasonable purity standards.
I’m actually demanding only one thing:
a candidate that doesn’t answer exclu
sively to wealthy interests.
2) I want federal matching funds for
the Green Party. Nader is great, but I
would vote Green without Nader. I
want the party that represents me to
have more influence.
3) I’m thinking long-term, not short
term. Four years of George W. Bush
doesn’t frighten me like a lifetime of
two-party politics. Two parties can’t ad
equately represent nearly 275 million
people. A vote for Nader is a vote for
representation reform — eventually.
4) I’m not naive enough to believe
Gore. The Democrats want to lure the
hard-left, so they conveniently forget
that candidates’ stump speeches don’t
always match their actions when elect
ed. Gore speaks eloquently to the inter
ests of every demographic he woos —
even if he contradicts himself.
5) Nader represents feminism, if a
middle-class, American woman’s right
to an abortion is the only feminist is
sue, then Al Gore qualifies. But some of
us care about women in other countries,
who have deeper concerns than just the
right to choose. Gore worked to get Chi
na permanent normal trade relations. In
China, female factory workers often
have to show their menstrual pads as
proof they aren’t pregnant. What about
their rights?
6) The Democrats have sold me out
before. Bill Clinton worked for NAFTA,
pushed through GATT, supported the
WTO, is resurrecting Star Wars and sold
out universal health care and gay rights.
Could the Republicans have been much
happier? Probably not. Am I voting for
another Democrat? Definitely not.
7) My conscience tells me to. Democ
racy only works when people vote for
what they believe in. Democracy is cor
rupt when we vote against a candidate.
I will not vote for a Democrat and feel
dirty afterward simply to keep Bush out
of office.
8) No one will get to appoint extrem
ists to the Supreme Court. That’s why
we have Senate confirmation — sena
tors must be more moderate to get elect
ed. And Republican appointees haven’t
been that horrible — 5 of the 7 justices
voting for Roe v. Wade were appointed
by Republicans. This Democratic fear
tactic is a misnomer.
9) Votes for Nader are not votes for
Bush. National polls don’t show Nader
taking votes away from Gore. The latest
ABC News poll (Oct. 26-28) shows Nad
er with 4 percent and Gore trailing Bush
by 1 percent. But the Christian Science
Monitor poll (Oct. 26-29) shows Nader
with only 3 percent and Gore trailing by
6 percent. Other polls confirm this;
there’s no correlation. Nader votes are
Nader votes. Democrats should realize
that not everyone voting for Nader
would support Gore.
10) The Democrats are using sleazy
politics. After ignoring the Green Party
for almost a year, Gore is now very in
terested in Green voters. But Democrat
ic supporters speaking on campus have
treated us like childish, knee-jerk left
ists who haven’t thought through their
arguments. Nice speech, Ms. Steinem,
but I’m no child. I’ve thought about this
for eight years. Gore’s politics haven’t
changed my vote and attacks only turn
me away.
Dan Headings is a volunteer with Lane Victory
2000.
Letters to the editor
Exposing Blatant Lies
I am consistently rewarded by attending campus
programs imported by the Cultural Forum. I looked
forward to last week’s talk in the EMU Ballroom by
Michael Parenti. But I sensed something wrong when
it was announced that Parenti was brought to campus
by a local middle-school teacher who is Oregon’s lead
ing apologist for the Serbian butchering of Bosnian
and Kosovo Muslims.
Sure enough, Parenti set up his audience to accept
blatant lies after he established some credibility by de
scribing a reality: how U.S. imperialism discourages
Third World democracies while widening the gulf be
tween rich and poor at home. All of a sudden, he shift
ed into a tirade about how we are misled by the mass
media parroting government misinformation about
Serbian genocide “that did not exist.”
The linkage between government lies and lazy me
dia is an unfortunate truth. But there are exceptions,
such as in Serbia, where the controversial NATO
bombing finally ended the slaughter of Kosovars for
humanitarian, not imperialistic reasons. Propagan
dists like Parenti fool some people by stating the obvi
ous and then deviously linking it to a lie.
What he and his chortling host deserve is a chance
to be rebutted by the truth about Serbia as expressed
by a campus authority who knows it firsthand — pro
fessor Ronald Wixman.
George Beres
retired
former University sports information director