OPINION
Page 4 Sunday, November 4, 1984 The Michigan Daily
4
Ete db sa nv Michigan
Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan
Students guzzle at
debates
Vol. XCV, No. 52
420 Maynard St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Editorials represent a majority opinion of the Daily's Editorial Board
Mondale for prsent
HARRY TRUMAN pulled off the
biggest political upset in history
when he won the presidency in 1948.
Walter Mondale can and should do the
same in 1984 to prove once again that
polling statistics don't vote, people do.
Mondale deserves the support of the
American electorate because he has
done his homework and offers the
fairest and most realistic vision for
U.S. civil rights, arms control/foreign
affairs, education, and economic
policies. President Ronald Reagan has
not done his homework over the past
four years. He is especially uninfor-
med in two critical areas: defense and
security issues.
It is true that Reagan deserves one
good grade for the present state of the
U.S. economy. Unemployment, after
reaching all-time highs midway
through his term, has returned to 1980
levels. But the president's pledge to
balance the budget has backfired, and
U.S. deficits are nearly double what
they were when he took office.
Reagan's handling of the economy is
not a compelling enough reason to send
him back to the White House for four
more years. His mismanaged and
misguided policies in other areas
command a more informed leader.
Around mid-August 1962, an attorney
general of Minnesota named Walter
Mondale wrote a letter to the assistant
attorney general of Florida. He wrote:
"I believe in federalism and states'
rights too... But I also believe in the
Bill of Rights... Nobody knows better
than an attorney general or a
prosecuting attorney that in this day
and age furnishing an attorney to those
felony defendents who can't afford to
hire one is 'fair and feasible.' " That
was Mondale speaking on behalf of the
right to legal counsel for those who
can't afford one. He voiced his concern
about this injustice even before the
landmark Supreme Court ruling in
Gideon vs. Wainwright supported that
interpretation of the law.
Mondale's philosophy of justice is in
stark contrast to Reagan's. In 1985,
Reagan said he favored the Civil
Rights Act of 1964. But in a charac-
teristic Reagan flip-flop on a crucial
issue, he said in 1966 that he "would
have voted against the Civil Rights Act
of 1964." There is reason for concern
when you look at a statement he made
in 1967. "It doesn't do any good to open
doors for someone who doesn't have
the price to get in. If he has the price,
he may not need the laws. There is no
law saying the Negro has to live in
Harlem or Watts," Reagan said. Con-
sidering that five of the current
Supreme Court justices are 75 or older,
there is reason to fear the chilling ef-
fect on civil rights under a Reagan ap-
pointed Supreme Court.
Taking into account his past
statements, it is not surprising that
Reagan was reluctant to renew the
1982 Voting Rights Act and hedged on
making Martin Luther King's birthday
a national holiday.
What is surprising, however, is that
recent polls show America's youth
supporting Reagan's reelection. On
campuses where students are more
politically informed, the Ivy League
schools, Mondale has a 19 point edge
over Reagan. And it's no wonder that
informed students prefer Mondale.
Reagan has not only shown little finan-
cial commitment to education, but
fails to see the importance of equal ac-
education, should see the flaw in
Reagan's theory.
Students who are not so bad off
should consider the average student.
Tuition has. doubled or tripled at most
medical schools in the past several
years. That, coupled with Reagan's
student aid cuts, is locking out many
middle and lower class students, a
recent study by the Association of
American Medical Colleges found.
Mondale should be the clearest
choice for students, not only for his
dedication to equality of opportunity
but also on the basis that he realizes a
trained work force is the key to a more
productive economy. In addition to his
$11 billion financial "strategy for ex-
cellence in education," Mondale has
some fresh ideas. He would, among
several suggested new programs, allot
$1 billion of that money to modernize
advanced university research
laboratories and libraries. Talented
students in the fields of mathematics,
sciences, and foreign languages would
receive college scholarships with the
agreement that in return they would
teach in those fields after
graduation. Mondale would call this
the Education Corps.
The right to life has come up
frequently in this campaign. Mondale
will defend life better than Reagan.
Although Reagan would ban abortions,
he has slashed, and will undoubtedly
cut further, such programs which seek
to assure a child's subsistence once he
or she is born.
Reagan's real desire to save life also
seems suspect considering that he has
funded the largest peacetime military
buildup in American history. And, in
the first year of his term, top Reagan
administration officials made
repeated public pronouncements about
"limited", "winnable", and "sur-
vivable" nuclear war when the experts
admit that the reality of nuclear war
does not permit survival.
Mondale has programs to secure
American lives. Among them is his
pledge to work towards a "mutual and
verifiable" nuclear weapons freeze.
Unlike Reagan's Cold War theories of
force first, negotiations later, Mondale
believes in resolving differences with
diplomacy first, with force as a last
resort.
Mondale also has the integrity to
honestly admit taxes must be raised to
curb the deficits. Most of the experts,
Democrats and Republicans, agree
with Mondale on this point. Reagan
must raise taxes, but he has found it is
a good gimmick to say he won't. The
taxpayers will find out the lie if he is
reelected. And you can bet the burden
of taxes won't fall on those most able to
pay.
Mondale's Senate voting record is
evidence of his good record in defen-
ding the environment. Reagan's ap-
pointment of James Watt and Anne
Burford don't even deserve comment.
The choice is clear here.
And if students of the '80s are con-
cerned about jobs as well as the en-
vironment, take note: Wednesday
Reagan pocket-vetoed a bill aimed at
employing an estimated 18,500 youths
in its first year through a conservation
jobs program. The president turned his
back on both students and the en-
vironment in this instance. And this is
not and will not be the last time he does
this.
Ronald Reagan's worldview is not;
broad enough. He has proven that he is
uncompromising and unwilling to ac-
F OR THE SECOND week in a row par-
tisan politics violated the University's
ivory towers as campus leaders
took advantage of the few remaining days
before Nov. 6 to sling some mud.
In the absence of Ronald Reagan and
Walter Mondale, Andrew Hartman and Mark
Leachman filled in as the Democratic
challenger debating the Gipper. In one of the
nationally televised presidential debates,
much of the American public opted to watch
the World Series baseball game. At the
University Club Bar Friday, most students
preferred to gossip amongst themselves and
to guzzle down beer rather than listen to
student leaders discuss national political
issues.
T7he Week
in review
On the issue of student financial aid, Har-
tman, president of the campus College
Democrats, pointed out the cuts Reagan has
made in aid programs such as Pell grants,
State Student Incentive Grants, college work:
study, and National Direct Student Loans. He
said that these cuts have made education af-
fordable only for the rich. The Solomon
Amendment, a bill signed into law by the
president which ties federal financial aid to
Selective Service registration, discriminates
against the poor and minorities, Hartman
charged.
Leachman, president of College
Republicans, argued that he didn't think
Reagan's financial aid and education policies
came down unfairly on the low to middle in-
come student. Leachman said that he's
making it through school and his father's in
the middle income bracket.
As for the Solomon Amendment, Leachman
said he personally didn't see anything wrong
with asking students to defend the country
which pays for their education.
The Democrat and the Republican did seem
to agree on one issue during the course of the
debate.
"I personally don't agree with the 21-year-
old drinking age," Leachman said, adding
that he can understand, however, Reagan
feeling that drunk driving is an important
problem. Reagan recently tied federal high-
way funds to the 21-year-old drinking age to
get states to raise the legal age and cut down
on alcohol-related driving fatalities.
The Democrats couldn't disagree with
Leachman on the drinking age issue, and
neither could the panelists who posed the
questions to the two sides. The debate con-
cluded with almost everyone involved con-
tinuing the happy hour drinking spree that
had been interrupted by the hour-long debate.
I
4
q
Daily Photo by MATT PETRIE
Mark Leachman, president of the College Republicans, defends President Reagan's
education, foreign affairs, and economic
Club bar.
The proposal calls for better insulation in
ceilings and attics as well as caulking in door
and window frames. And according to a
spokesman from WARM, no major structural
changes would be required, though the
proposal (would have) an approximately $300
pricetag per house for the materials.
Proponents of the plan say it could save $3-5
million a year and would increase energy ef-
ficiency by 15-25 percent.
Landlords are undoubtedly not going to feel
too warmly towards the sponsors of this
proposal. A similar weatheriZation proposal
fell to defeat last year when many landlords
campaigned against it, charging that the
plan would be too costly for them to im-
plement.
And with a vacancy rate at a meagre 1.63
percent in September of this year, it's
unlikely the landlords will feel the urge to.
spend the extra dollars to weatherize.
SPOCK on campus
Students who haven't seen a Star Trek
rerun lately and miss that loveable yet
unemotional Vulcan science officer will be
pleased to know that he is on campus.
Well, not really. Students Proud of Campus
Knowledge (SPOCK) have plastered Spock's
face across campus lately as part of their
campaign to stop passage of the ballot
proposal to make Ann Arbor a nuclear free
zone.
"The main reason is that we really think
(the nuclear free proposal is) an infringement
on the rights of students and the people of the
town to study whatever they want," said
SPOCK member Eric Shapiro.
Shapiro said the group is opposed to the
ambiguity of the ballot proposal.
"It doesn't say what research actually en-
tails," he criticizes. "Is it studying? Is it
discussing ideas?"
If passed by city voters Tuesday, the
design, research, development, testing or
production of nuclear weapons, including the
command, delivery, control, and com-
munication systems for such weapons will be
banned.
On the opposite side of the issue: Michio
Kaku, a nuclear physicist at the City College
policies at a debate held Friday in the University
of New York, came to campus this week to
plead the case for those who believe in a
nuclear free proposal for this city.
Kaku criticized the U.S. government for
following nuclear strategic theories from the
1950s which no longer apply to the modern day
situation. He said that the U.S. government
still believes that it can prevail .in a nuclear
war, despite what experts say, and that it is
necessary for the people to take action by
passing measures such as the free zone.
He pointed to the effectiveness of the anti-
Vietam war march on Washington in 1969.
Kaku said that public demonstration of op-
position prevented then-President Richard
Nixon from using tactical nuclear weapons in
order to allow the U.S. to gain the upper hand
in the war.
Other supporters, in the face of charges
that eliminating nuclear weapons research
would destroy the city economy, released a
study this week showing that the city's
economy would not be significantly affected.
Nuclear weapons research accounts for less
than one-tenth of one percent of the total q
Universtiy research budget, the study found.
The study, conducted by Citizens for a
Nuclear Free Ann Arbor with the help of
University economics Prof. Thomas
Weisskopf, also found that only five research
firms in the city have contracts related to
nuclear weaponry and that not one of these
companies depends solely on these contracts
as a source of revenue.
Meanwhile, the actual enforcement of the
nuclear free proposal is up in the air. Though
the proposal calls for the establishment of a 4
city commission composed of three coun-
cilmembers and two citizens, only one out of
eight contacted by the Daily last week said
they wouldn'thave reservations about ser-
ving on such a commission. Most said they
didn't feel they were qualified or able to make
the time commitment necessary to be on it.
The battle lines on both sides are clearly
drawn. The suspense is much worse than a
daytime TV drama, and a thousand times
more important. Stay tuned on Election Day. d
A heated issue
Just when the weather is beginning to turn
cold, there is WARM(th). Or rather,
Weatherization As Responsible Maintenance,
a group concerned with keeping winter
heating bills down in the area's rental
housing.
WARM's membership includes those who
are already in the Public InterestdResearch
Group in Michigan (PIRGIM), Student Legal
Services, and some fraternities. They are
hoping that the idea is a hot one so they can
garner the 5,000 signatures needed to place
the proposal on April's ballot.
Members should be betting that the idea
spreads like a brushfire, however, since the
petition is due Jan. 3 of next year.
The Week in Review was com-
piled by Daily Opinion Page editor
Jackie Young.
.9
LETTERS TO THE DAILY
Free zone won 't
a
To the Daily:
Once again The Daily
should pride itself with taking the
most liberal viewpoint possible
without consideration of both
sides of the story. In your opinion
editorial, you support
the Nuclear Fre Zone Act. "'Yes'
on nuclear free Ann Arbor" (Daily
November 1).1 urge your readers
to reflect on the full effect of such
a law.
The first effect would be im-
mediate publicity nationwide of
"The first city to..." but this
would be short lived and probably
buried in the depths of the major
newspapers and other forms of
media. Sure, the president and
members of Congress would
probably hear about it, but it
would have little or no long term
affect nationwide, and would be
soon forgotten.
Second, should the nuclear free
Third, the city of Ann Arbor
would be hurt. Thousands of tax
dollars would be moved from the
city as ten or more companies
that even have the slightest
nuclear research would have to
move. They may just move a
mile or so to Ann Arbor Township
but the research would still con-
tinue.
Fourth,; the companies that
stay in Ann Arbor would be
India 's
To the Daily:
There is neither East nor
West but only one world,
when peoples stand hand in
hand as brothers and sisters.
-Mohandas Gandhi
After reading several articles
[fec
severely affected (r
live in a capitalist n
society!). Many c(
government resear
cially rewarding, s
the total research
example KMS Fus
State Street is in
reknowned for its res
fusion (a promising
ce for the future) bu
in part by governm
Washington
remember we for research which can be used in
ot communist weapons or fusion power plants.
,ompanies do No one loves nuclear weapons,g
ch as a finan- but I hope your readers will con-
small part of sider the full effects of such a
picture. For devastating "token" law before
ion on South they vote on Tuesday.
ternationally -L. J. Stock
earch on laser November 2
energy sour- Stock is president of the
t is supported University Engineering Coun-
ent contracts cil.
Hindus seek revenge
4
was assassinated by Sikh guards,
many Sikhs within India are
being attacked by Hindus solely
in the name of revenge. As a
result, innocent people (Sikhs as
well as Hindus) have been hurt
and killed. All too often entire
communities are blamed for the
actions of their extremist in-
through revenge or terrorism,
must and will be quelled in a
democracy as large as India. It is
unfortunate that many have
chosen to question the validity of
democracy in India. One must
advocate that India was born into
democracy. Her democratic
system has successfully coped