The Michigan Daily - Friday, February 17, 1989 - Page 5
Speaker gives his ethical
L rules as example to heed
Student
video
examines civil
BY MICHAEL LUSTIG
Politicians must define ethical
standards which they will strictly
follow, a government official said
last night.
Doug Ross, director of the
Michigan Department of Commerce,
offered six rules of ethical conduct
which he said he follows daily.
He spoke last night to 100 pro-
fessors, students, and participants in
the "Ethics: The Cornerstone of the
Public Trust" conference sponsored
by the Institute for Public Policy
Studies.
"If it's illegal, it's unethical,"
Ross said, giving his first rule. An
exception to this is an act of civil
disobedience, where a person know-
ingly breaks a law and welcomes any
consequences that might come.
Deception, Ross said, is ethical if
it is done in a context which is un-
derstood by all participants. For ex-
ample, he said, in a football game, if
a quarterback fakes a handoff, it's
ethical because that's what a quarter-
back is supposed to do.
But if a person is running for of-
fice, and lies about how he or she
stands on an issue to try and win
votes, that is unethical, he said.
"If an action inhibits the ability
of a public official to define what
public interest is and then act on that
definition, that's unethical," Ross,
defining his third rule.
He added that a public official
must clarify how he or she is going
to make decisions on issues in the
beginning, and then be consistent
about it.
"If someone leads a despicable
personal life," Ross said, "...and if it
has no compromising political ef-
fect, it is not politically unethical."
Ross's fifth rule focused on per-
sonal connections: "Associations or
complicity with unethical political
behavior is unethical."
His last rule states that a person
must draw an ethical line which they
must not cross, because, Ross said,
once the line is crossed, it is usually
easy to "justify the next increment."
Ross then took the rules and ap-
plied them to a variety of situations
and examples which he posed to the
crowd at the start of the speech. For
example, if a person campaigns for
office as an opponent of abortion,
and then, based on his or her con-
science, votes for a pro-choice mea-
sure, that person has deceived the
voters, violated Ross's third rule,
and has acted unethically.
In a different example, Ross
mentioned former presidential candi-
date Gary Hart, who was caught
having an affair with an actress.
Hart's actions, Ross said, were not
politically unethical, but gave in-
sight into his character and helped
voters make decisions about him.
Cox
...speaks on ethics
Bush rejects Soviet proposal
for cease-fire in Afganistan
WASHINGTON - President
Bush said yesterday he hopes the fi-
nal- pullout of Soviet armed forces
from Afghanistan ensures "no more
bloodbaths" in the war-torn nation.
While applauding the troop with-
drawal as "a new chapter in the his-
tory of Afghanistan," Bush rejected a
Kremlin call for an immediate cease-
fire and arms embargo.
Answering questions from a
group of reporters in the Oval Of-
fice, he said he was afraid rebels op-
posing the Soviet-backed Kabul
government would be left in a disad-
vantageous position if U.S. assis-
tance stopped.
Just hours before Bush talked to
reporters, the second-ranking official
at the Soviet Embassy in Washing-
ton had reiterated the Kremlin's call
for a cease-fire.
Minister-Counselor Yevgeny Ku-
tovoy said that a comprehensive set-
tlement of the strife in Afghan-istan
depends for the most part on "a
DavidX
Continued from Page 1
for the Black American people to
admit to themselves that they are a
people pulled down to the lowest
denomination... Black achievement
is in the United States, Black his-
tory is in Africa; and the people need
to know that."
David X linked the history of
Black American people with their
African heritage.
"You have those genes in you,"
he told the audience, "so do not
broadly based government with the tremendous amount of lethal
participation of all warring parties plies left behind and then cu
and without outside interference." supnort for the resistance and
sup-
ut off
3thus
Bush demanded the Soviets stay
out of Afghan affairs.
"The Soviet Union had nothing
to fear from the establishment of an
independent, non-aligned Afghan-
istan," he said in a written state-
ment. "At the same time, the
U.S.S.R. bears a special respon-
sibility for healing the wounds of
this war, and we call upon it to sup-
port generously international efforts
to rebuild Afghan-istan."
Bush's comments came a day af-
ter the final pullout of Red Army
forces from Afghanistan after a nine-
year occupation.
Bush said he could not endorse
the cease-fire and arms embargo pro-
posal because he was concerned So-
viet forces may have stockpiled
weapons for the Soviet-backed gov-
ernment in Kabul.
"It would not be fair to have a
leave an unacceptable imbalance,"
Bush said.
State department Spokesperson
Charles Redman said there has been
massive stockpiling by the Soviets
in recent months.
"In the final days of the with-
drawal, they left behind even more
military equipment, including tanks,
APCs and multiple rocket launch-
ers," he said.
Bush said the U.S. commitment
to the Afghan people "will remain
firm, both through our bilateral hu-
manitarian program and through the
United Nations' efforts to remove
the mines and resettle the refugees
and help reconstruct the war-torn
economy.
There are widespread fears that a
struggle for control by competing
guerrilla groups could throw Afghan-
istan into a civil war.
Et hiCS
Continued from Page 1
As this happens to more people,
he said, citizens lose their trust in
government. People won't give trust
to people "who feather their own
nests," Cox said.
The recent rejection of a
Congressional pay raise after huge
public outcry, Cox said, is an ex-
ample of citizens saying, "We don't
think anything of you people."
For the executive branch of gov-
ernment, Cox offered two recom-
mendations.
The Office of Government Ethics
should get more power and have the
ability to issue reprimands, he said.
Second, Congress should tighten
laws around the "revolving door."
Now, former government officials
are not permitted to lobby their for-
mer employers for one year, but they
can lobby other government agencies
immediately.
The law, Cox said, should pre-
vent former officials from lobbying
any agency for a period of time.
Congress also needs laws outlin-
ing what is unacceptable behavior,
he said.
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BY VERA SONGWE
Albert Culler and Linden Harri-
gan, two Black students from the
Schomburg Satellite Academy High
School in the Bronx, yesterday gave
a presentation on the civil rights
movement seen from the eyes of
students.
It included 25 minutes of inter-
view footage with random subjects.
The movie's aim was to educate
people on what really happened in
the '60s in the South and to show
that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
wasn't the only person who fought
for civil rights, but that many of the
marches were organized by students.
"Before we took this class all we
Satanic
Continued from Page 1
parts of the Koran, the holy book of
the Muslim religion. The tales of
two characters, Mahound and Jahilia,
allude to a significant incident in the
life of Mohammed, recorded by two
early Arab historians. But this inci-
dent was later discredited by com-
mentators of the Koran and remains
discredited today. Currently, western
beliefs account this incident as "the
lapse of Mohammed."
The second controversial aspect of
the book is the author's choice of
the name "Mahound" because it re-
sembles the name Mohammed -
the prophet of the Muslim religion.
The significance is that Mahound is
traditionally a name given to satanic
figures; here it could represent a
negative portrayal of Mohammed.
According to The New York
Times Book Review, the story oc-
curs in a dream within a fiction
story, twice removed from reality.
mnov,1T
knew of the civil rights was Martin
Luther King and the March on
Washington," said Harrigan.
"The movie came out of trying to
look for ways of getting students
involved, and letting them see and
talk to regular people who fought for
the civil rights," said Pam Sporn, a
teacher at the school. "By being in a
project they have to internalize the
material, so they understand it bet-
ter," she added.
Among the people interviewed
was Doug Harris, film producer and
Matt Jones, a freedom singer during
the civil rights movement. Both
were members of the Students' Non-
violent Coordinating Committee
(SNCC) during the civil rights era.
Harris said that that many of the
main leaders who started the different
protests were killed and not often
spoken of.
Cecilia Green-Cosa, lecturer at
the Residential College, said after-
wards: "I thought it was absolutely
wonderful. I think it is appropriate
to have high school students show
us history."
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think you are anything less."
David X said most ethnic groups
are named after their place of origin,
but the word "Negro" does not tie
Black Americans to any single
homeland.
He went on to establish the ori-
gin of the word Negro, which was
used to refer to Blacks when they
were taken as slaves.
Negro originates from the Greek
nekro - meaning death or ceme-
tery. David X criticized books and
scholars for continuing to use the
word interchangeably with the word
"Black."
"We are a people who have been
written out of history when it comes
to consequential events that took
place in the history of mankind."
David X urged the audience not to
be ashamed of who they are, but to
understand and accept themselves.
Only then, he said, would they be
able to understand their personalities.
He said Blacks should teach their
children about slavery and the real
horrors of the era, like Jewish people
do of the Holocaust, so they can
better understand their current situa-
tion.
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