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December 10, 1985 - Image 4

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The Michigan Daily, 1985-12-10

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4

OPINION

Page 4

Tuesday, December 10, 1985

The Michigan Daily

Editedamena n t Michigan
Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan

A re-election nightmare

(

Vol. XCVI, No. 67

420 Maynard St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109

Editorials represent a majority opinion of the Daily's Editorial Board

United Front

"If we don't
relationships
McGuiness

exist as individuals, our
don't exist" - Hugh

IN RESPONSE to the recent out-
break of racist graffiti on cam-
pus, the United Front Against
Racism, and on an ad-hoc group of
Michigan Student Assembly and
LSA Student Government
representatives, and campus
minority groups, has considered a
constructive method of preventing
future attacks on minority and
other oppressed groups.
Their proposal is to mandate a
one or two credit course for all
flreshmen, which would examine
ijale-female relations and racism.
Clearly, these issues need to be ad-
dressed, and a required course is
an excellent means of pointing out
that these problems are prevalent
dven if they aren't articulated, in
student attitudes and behavior
toward other students.
While students do receive some
exposure to awareness-raising
programs at Orientation and in the
gesidence halls, all too often student
te graduate with the same
stereotypes they brought along
with their high school yearbooks
when they first came to the Univer-
ity.
i Through a required course
Students could explore problems of
Mter-personal communication in a
dasual discussion format, and
share their ideas with other studen-
's to raise awareness. Further, a
mnandatory course would em-
phasize the University's commit-
tment to student education about

these issues.
In addition to social awareness
raising, such a course could serve
as an introduction to the utilization
of University resources. Every
student should be informed enough
to make an educated decision about
the quality of their experience at
the University. The University
ought to promote the availability of
thirty libraries, impressive
museums, research sources, and
organizations on campus and in the
community.
As a decentralized institution
which stresses individual
achievement, the University
doesn't offer much support or
guidance for the individual either
socially or academically.
If the University is to serve in-
dividuals, it should promote in-
dividualism and provide a basis for
students to understand and respect
each other.
The United Front Against
Racism has presented an excellent
-means of raising student
awareness about these problems.
Although their idea is embryonic, it
does address the necessity of
developing a comprehensive
program to facilitate individual
growth through the heightened
awareness of the student body.
It would be miraculous if studen-
ts and other community members
could erase ignorance when they
'clean up' campus graffiti early
next year. But since there are no
miracles, fortunately, there is hope
in education.

By David Kopel
A couple nights ago, after mixing too
much tequila, beer, and pizza, I had a
terrible nightmare. I dreamed that Jimmy
Carter was re-elected President in 1980.
You can imagine how the country went to
hell in a bucket.
Remember all those Georgia cronies of
his he inflicted on the nation during his first
term - like Bert Lance and Hamilton Jor-
dan? It got worse in the second term.
For the number two spot of the State
Department, he picked a law school dropout
who couldn't tell you who ran South Africa.
He claimed to have learned what he knew
about foreign policy from Time and
Newsweek.
After Griffen Bell resigned as Attorney
General, Carter replaced him with this
home-state redneck who spent most of his
time arguing for school prayer and calling
the ACLU a "criminal's lobby." He thought
the Bill of Rights shouldn't apply to the
States.
The economy got worse and worse. The
number and percentage of people living in
poverty rose. Infant mortality and
malnutrition skyrocketed.
Since Carter didn't have the nerve to cut
middle-class programs like Social Security
and Medicare, the budget defecit went out of
control, to over 200 billion dollars a year. as
a result, we'd have a new record trade
deficit every month.
Foreign policy was where things really
fell apart. although Carter did stick with his
decision to deploy Pershing II missiles in
Europe, he couldn't communicate the
rationale for doing so. So the European
peace movement went crazy, and the
Russians benefitted greatly from the anti-
American propoganda.
Carter removed the grain embargo again-
st the Soviets in early 1981. He never did
have the fortitude to stick to anything
politically unpopular (even though the em-
bargo was crippling Soviet agriculture and
forcing the Communists to allow much more
free enterprise on the farm).
A while later, he tried another embargo,
to stop the Western Europeans from helping
the Russians build a Siberian natural gas
Kopel is an attorney in New York City
and a recent graduate of the University's
Law School.

pipeline. In typical Carter fashion, it was a
good idea, carried out ineptly. He announ-
ced it unilaterally, without consulting any of
our allies - whose cooperation was essen-
tial. A few weeks later, the whole thing was
such a fiasco that he quietly abandoned it.
The Middle East was where Carter's
second-terms incompetence really shone
through. Somehow or another, he managed
to convince Congress to sell the Saudi
Arabians AWACS and advanced jet fighters.
The Saudis, who gave Carter all the respect
he deserved, went right on sabotaging the
Camp David accords and funding the P.L.O.
In a masterstroke of Carter diplomacy, he
announced strategic security agreement
with Israel, and cancelled it the next week.
It's almost unbelievable what a mess Car-
ter made out of Lebanon. First, he told the
Israelis to go ahead with an invasion. When
the invasion was on the verge of crushing
the P.L.O. and driving the Syrians out of
Lebanon, American TV reports of the
fighting got too hairy, and Carter made the
Israelis stop.
You won't believe this, but in my night-
mare, Carter actually helped negotiate a
safe withdrawal for the P.L.O. from Israel
encirclement! Reagan might not be very
smart, but at least he would have had the
common sense to tell our friends from our
enemies.
As one bizarre twist followed another,
Carter ended up sending the Marines into
Lebanon. Of course in typical Carter
fashion, he sent them in without any clear
purpose, and made them fight with Marquis
of Queensbury rules. If Reagan had been
President, he would at least have ordered
the Marines in to win.
Pretty soon the anti-American terrorists
caught on to what a sap Carter was. It
seemed like every American in Lebanon
was being kidnapped, or else murdered with
car bombs. The Iranians and the Syrians
even helped a guy car bomb our embassy,
but Carter did nothing about it. ')It goes
without saying that security at the embassy
was just as pathetic as everything else in the
Carter Administration.)
Things got even wors. Seeing that Carter
was on the run, the Iranians (and the
Syrians too probably) sent these guys to
hijack T.W.A. plane. Just to make
everything more humiliating, the hijackers
ended up holding the plane at Beruit airport

- the same place Carter's Marines had
been driven out a few months before.
Naturally Carter never even considered
any kind of military reaction. He ended up
making the Israelis release some of their
prisoners, in exchange for the hijacked
Americans.
You know how Carter retaliated once the
hostages were freed? He said American
planes couldn't land at Beruit Airport any
more. As usual, all of our allies laughed at
him, and refused to join in the boycott.
Then Carter's Secretary of State (some
Wall Stree type, who thought world politics
was like a tariff meeting with the Belgians)
suggested that we ask the Lebanese to ex-
tradite the two hijackers who had killed an
American marine. Apparently the
Secretary of State didn't realize that we'd
make the extradition request to the
Lebanese Minister of Justice, who happened
to be the boss of the hijackers. I realized I
was having a nightmare then, because the
Lebanese guy had a Rastafarian name -
something like Natty Berry.
In the final episode of my nightmare, they
wer interviewing Reagan on the Today
show. Reagan was complaining how Carter
had made america the laughing stock of the
world. Reagan suggested that since Iran
and Syria were behind all this terrorism, it
was high time we struck at some of their
military targets. He called Carter a
spineless wimp for not even attacking some
of the known terrorist training camps in
Lebanon.
Reagan made fun of Carter's lame effort
to close the Beruit Airport. Reagan pointed
out that if Carter really wanted to close the
airport, he could hav bombed the runways.
At the very least, we could have denied
U.S. landing rights to countries that kept
flying into Beruit.
In a very emotional statement, Reagan
concluded that we should all remember
some other Americans who had been held
captive in Lebanon for several years. He
said it was a disgrace the way Carter tried
to make America forget those people, and
said that the President ought to tell Syria to
get these Americans home, or face the full
wrath of the United States.
I woke up from the whole nightmare in a
cold sweat. Then I remembered that in real
world Reagan had been elected. I felt so
happy that we had a real leader - one who
wouldn't get pushed around by thugs.

Double Trouble

T HIS WEEK the Reagan Ad-
ministration accused Cuban
;advisors of becoming directly in-
volved in Nicaragua's war against
U.S.-backed contras. Reagan
claimed that the Cuban role in
combat may make it even more
necessary to give military aid to
"the contras.
The Cubans, however, are
unlikely to be impressed. The
Cuban newspaper Granma already
reports that Spanish newspapers
have uncovered that U.S. money
,goes to hiring Spanish mercenaries
-to fight with the contras.
R Given Castro and Reagan's
respective motivations, it is
possible that both accusations are
true or that both are false. In the
past, Reagan's accusations that
Nicaragua is sending arms to the
guerrillas in El Salvador turned out
to have no basis in fact.
That Cubans and Spaniards
might be dying in the civil war in
Nicaragua is not surprising. the
-two rival blocs - East and West -
-have often put their tremendous
resources into bringing Third
:World countries under heal. The
Soviets send helicopter gunships to
Nicaragua for use against US-

backed contras. The contras use
U.S. money to buy surface-to-air
missiles to shoot down the Soviet
helicopters.
Of course, the escalation in
weaponry and war makes each side
more dependent on its well-to-do
and technologically sophisticated
supporters. While the contras and
Sandinistas could have settled their
dispute without inviting foreign in-
tervention, the Nicaraguans seem
to have little choice but to suffer
through the superpower contention
on their territory.
For their part, the Sandinistas
previously offered to send the
Cubans home if U.S. aid to the con-
tras is cut off. That the United
States has never allowed any coun-
try in Latin America to govern it-
self without interference is such a
given, that the' Sandinistas'
proposal seems quixotic.
Much as Cuba can be condemned
for its attempts to replace U.S. con-
trol of Nicaragua, it is the United
States and its bloc that insists on
non-diplomatic aid to the contras
and the inevitable Cuban response,
which the belaguered Sandinista
regime is only too happy to accept.

NOT1N SACR!D?
F 4 , 6 G 0 OB-
_.@/p9BS iTNt MI dJ6AA' DILr _!
LETTERS:
Racist incidents compromise dignity

To the Daily:
In response to your article on
the recent anti-Semitic attack on
the Sigma Alpha Mu fraternity
and the Sigma Delta Tau
sorority, I would like to express
my concern about such actions.
Recently having been similarly
victimized, I can empathize with
the Jewish American community
for having to suffer such in-
dignities. I share their anger and
dismay. Racism and anti-
Semitism may rear its ugly head
shouting words like "Chink" and
"Kike," but the body of that beast

Chinese-English dictionary.
English is my native language,
not Chinese. Therefore, I often
need the dictionary to help me in
my research of Chinese history
since much of what I read is in
Chinese. My point here is that I
am just as "American" as the
"hostile Americans" who van-
dalized my carrel and books.
Many people have expressed
shock or surprise over these in-
cidents happening at the Univer-
sity. I, however, am not sur-

prised. I've been dealing with this
Ignorance and intolerance, un-
fortunately, are deeply ingrained
in thissociety, andthe University
is merely another part of our
society. The University com-
munity should never think that it
is above or separate from other
sectors of American life; we
share the same faults as the rest
of the world. Obviously, a univer-
sity education does not
necessarily instill enlightened or
tolerant thinking.
I have no answers as to how to

stop this sort of thing, but I do en-
courage everyone to confront it.
Discuss it, write about it,
dissuade it, but do not ignore it.
Turning a deaf ear to it won't
make it go away. Silence only
makes the beast grow fatter. It
doesn't really matter which
ethnic or religious group is slan-
dered. When such incidents occur
everyone's human dignity is
compromised.
-Scott Wong
December 3

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