4 OPINION Page 6 Saturday, January 7, 1984 Sinclair The Michigan Daily Edite fRdbtgan e aity i Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan CAIDID1 Vol. XCIV-No 80 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 4 Editorials represent a majority opinion of the Daily's Editorial Board Salvador's Congress must be considering military aid for El Salvador again. It's easy to figure out when a vote on aid is coming up-just look for the Salvadoran government to make a token improvement in the abysmal human rights situation there. And to and behold, just such an empty gesture was made this week. The government transferred two government officials with connections to right wing death squads to posts outside the country. The hope among Reagan ad- ministration and Salvadoran officials is that these meaningless moves will pacify congresspersons opposing Salvadoran military aid long enough to get such aid through Congress. Such a policy has worked in the past and will undoubtedly work again unless Congress stands up to such tactics. The death squads are responsible for an estimated 39,000 civilian deaths, in- cluding 6,000 last year. Human rights advocates want the government in Salvador to clamp down on the squads as a - prerequisite for continued military and economic aid from the United States. Until this year a law did link aid to improved human rights, but even that connection was tenuous and led to little improvement. In fact, since Ronald Reagan became president, reform in Salvador has reversed. Land reform programs which many agree are crucial to the survivability of Salvador's gover- nment have virtually ceased. Death rights sham squad murders have increased dramatically in the past few years. Much of the blame must go to Reagan, a president too wrapped up in an ideological struggle against Com- munists to see wrongs of other per- suasions. Reagan cannot see that terror from the right is no better than terror from the left. Reagan's philosophy is showing it- self in other ways. He ended the non- partisan composition of the Inter- American Foundation, which is responsible for handing out aid for small-scale projects to combat specific problems in American nations. Though Congress prescribed that the foundation be non-partisan, Reagan appointed three conservative mem- bers to shift the panel's balance in his favor. Now, it will give its aid in ac- cordance with Reagan administration plans-without considering human rights. These are the kinds of actions that will continue to cause problems both for the Salvadoran government and the Reagan administration. Until the Salvadoran officials put a stop to the death squads and prosecute those who participate in them-not just transfer them-they cannot claim respec- tability in their fight against the Marxists. Until Congress or the Reagan administration is willing to stand up for human rights and insist upon lasting improvement, the U.S. policy in Latin America will continue to flounder. 4 4 TO JFRCNMSE OMlE OF THEISE CHARERS/ Ou ARE coN 1 W A'Rou N ALL Ki FORM. ' ANPN'DON'T LJoRIr NC AW V OF TO ESE LrrrL E FE U.ous A\1GuT YVouR. OLD " ) ASKED Th FILL OVT A W ALD CROUjDs H AU E TAThERED TRy/ QONE!~ouL L FoRGET- Minneapolis fighting to aim 4 civil The Great Ticket Caper T'S HARD TO tell if the prosecution examples would probably be ineffec- of three alleged Ann Arbor ticket tive. Come next fall the three charged scalpers is a foreshadowing of a police and the rest of the bunch will be back crackdown on the institution of on the streets with the November scalping or if the move is a half- arrests lost to the past. If any crack- hearted attempt to scare scalpers. If it down is to come, efficiency would call. is the latter, as it appears, the Ann Ar- for it at the beginning of the season. bor Police and Washtenaw County Instead, three men may bear the Prosecutor should recognize the brunt of punishment for an activity futility of their effort. that is pursued in a widespread, if One has to wonder why no scalpers varied, manner throughout Ann Arbor. were arrested until the final game of If it is presupposed that the police the year. It would be foolish of law en- sincerely are trying to limit the forcement officials to claim no prior amount of scalping in Ann Arbor, the knowledge of this not-so-rare activity questions of why only three arrests, since it is impossible to walk anywhere and why after the season has ended, around central campus without appear perplexing. hearing sales pitches being raised by The untimely arrests are a wasted scalpers on the days preceding any effort aimed at an occasionally lovable home football game. element of our community. Our The charges serve no constructive resident scalpers actually serve an purpose. Scalpers don't work on into important function during the football- the post-season, so any setting of oriented fall. Where else will students get tickets for their parents? By David Rubenstein MINNEAPOLIS, Minn.-City fathers-and city mothers-in Minneapolis have joined with prominent feminists to propose a totally new legal approach to fighting pornography. The city passed an ordinance which would define pornography as a form of discrimination against women and a violation of their civil rights. But Mayor Donald Fraser, citing con- stitutional concerns, vetoed it this week. Sponsors of the measure are working to override Fraser's vote. THE LAW would allow in- dividual citizens to file civil suits against pornography traffickers and ask for damages or a "civil injunction" against further display or sale of the por- nography. The ordinance was co-authored by Catharine MacKinnon, an associate professor at the University of Minnesota Law School, and by feminist writer Andrea Dworkin. Dworkin and MacKinnon recently offered a course on por- nography which generated con- siderable controversy. It also at- tracted several community ac- tivists-and, in a sense, led to the proposed ordinance. THE CIVIL rights approach is a novel one. Attempts to control pornography under the law usually take one of two paths. First, it is regulated through obscenity laws. The courts have ruled that obscenity is not protec- ted free speech, and in 1973 the Supreme Court provided guidelines for defining ob- scenity-though it left it up to local courts to apply these guidelines. But local juries have proved reluctant to define material as obscene, so this method has done little to stop what many consider to be an onslaught of increasingly violent pornography. A second approach, now much used, involves zoning laws-treating pornography outlets like factories or bars, and restricting them to certain areas. The courts have found this prac- righ ts tice constitutional, so long as the zoning is not used to ban such stores outright. THIS SEPTEMBER a Men- neapolis City Council committee held hearings on just such an or- dinance, and residents of the af- fected neighborhood asked rMcKinnon and Dworkin to testify. To the surprise of most of those present, the two women spoke against the law and outlined their civil rights approach instead. "I do not believe," MacKinnon testified, "that pornography has to exist." Impressed council members promptly hired the two women to draw up the ordinance. The bill provides a careful two- part definition. The first, and crucial, part says, "Pornography is the sexually explicit subor- dination of women, graphically depicted, whether in pictures or in words." THE DEFINITION goes on to list nine other qualities-in- cluding women portrayed as sexual objects or commodities and women portrayed as en- joying humiliation or any form of physical abuse. If one of these nine elements is depicted along with "sexually explicit subordination" the result. may be construed as por- nographic. The ordinance has been strongly criticized by Linda Ojala of the Minnesota Civil Liberties Union, among others. Ojala calls it "blatantly unconstitutional." "WHAT IS subordination?" she asks. "Supporters of this bill may feel they have a very clear personal vision of what it is, but there are all kinds of people in this world, all kinds of viewpoin- ts." The law is also vague, says Ojala, and would have a "chilling effect on free speech." MacKinnon replies, "When a lawyer says that pornography is a protected right of free speech, that's an argument, not a fact." Free speech has never been an absolute right, she says, pointing to libel and extortion laws as examples.. Both sides agree that the or- 4 against porn 4 Does this violate your civil rights? Minneapolis is considering an or- dinance that would define pornography as a form of discrimination that violates women's civil rights. Proponents of the measure are trying to get the city council to override Mayor Donald Fraser's veto. v, dinance, if Fraser's veto is overriden, will likely end up before the Supreme Court. THE STRENGTH of this movement in Minneapolis comes partly from the fact that women are a vital, and visible, political force here, both in the neigh- borhoods-where spray-painted slogans from "Castrate missiles" to "Stop porn" abound-and in city hall, where six of the 13 city council members are women. Women here also have helped lead anti-military and disar- mament actions. The wife of the city's police chief was among those jailed after a recent non- violent protest. Council members in sympathy with the intent of the ordinance but troubled by the constitutional issues may note for it anyway. The law's backers contend that any costs of a, constitutional challenge will be borne by the plaintiff, not the city. Whatever the fate of the or- dinance, it is clear that por- nography will be a major political issue here for some time. At recent hearings, both expert and personal testimony was of- fered, much of it claiming that pornography is directly connec- ted with the violent abuse of women and children. The debate has changed the way many people regard por- nography. As one Civil Rights Commission member said after the hearing, "It will be difficult for anyone to say after this that porn is a victimless crime." Rubenstein is a Minneapolis writer. He wrote this article for the Pacific News Service. F & BLOOM COUNTY by Berke Breathed 'LU \ ~ .~7,,n,,,ndJ umser n Cr.., i ulr r w l r )Pt 1 ni A14 CIM/CN ARID TWr ,r/t, Limm 1t/ or-r 8 LGi.t I I