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 I We encourage our readers to use this a