4 - The Michigan Daily - Friday, March 31, 2000 lbe 1M[irbwut DaiQ g William Jefferson's climate controlled karma 0 420 Maynard Street Ann Arbor, MI 48109 daily.letters@umich.edu Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan MIKE SPAHN Editor in Chief EMILY ACHENBAUM Editorial Page Editor Unless otherwise noted, unsigned editorials reflect the opinion of the majority of the Daily's editorial board. Allother articles, letters and cartoons do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Michigan Daily. Hash Bash should focus on legalization W .. Clinton hooked up last weekend. It was perfect. The party was in South Asia. India, Pakistan and Bangladesh were the babes from the rival sororities. The orgy that followed was huge. I mean, we're talking about one and half billion people here. A sixth of the world was high on star-spangled Bud Light democracy flown in on Air Force One. Non-Prolifera- tion Treaty ecstasy pills kept them all trip- ping on the Taj Mahal.' Business venture bongs were the bomb and Ravi Shankar anthems made good karma. But it was the morning after the East meets and mates West _ party that the pseudo- Waj democratic hangover Syed hit every one. And O yes, Clinton also left a Te raci burning couch on the Kama Sutra porch: Kashmir. So, just to round all you anti-foreign correspondence buggers up on what happened in South Asia last week. Clinton arrived in India. He saw the Taj Mahal and petted bengal tigers. He bought two car- pets on his Platinum Visa. He ate chicken tan- doori and mango ice-cream. He probably smoked a beedi or two. In the middle, he strayed into Bangladesh. There, he met vil- lagers and ate fish. He thanked the Bangladeshis for the night out by writing them a check for a few mill, which probably covered up that poor country's bill for all the banners and flowers they had lovingly adorned the vacuumed and garrisoned streets with. Then, he hooked up, leaving the Bangladeshis with sweet promises of aid and economic ben- efits. He got back to India. He bought a sari for Hillary (Platinum Visa). More mango ice- cream for the Commander in Chief. He visit- ed an orphanage to show off his soft side. He went to a tech conference to show off his industrial savvy. Then, he hooked up. The morning after, Mother India was left misty eyed with promises of renewed ties, fresh starts, increased trade and revived aid. Beauti- ful. Then, much to the chagrin of India, Clin- ton headed out to Pakistan: Nuclear Club Member No. 8, The Land of Military Juntas and Powerless Purity. It was thought, even by cynical poli sci eediots like this one, that this was it: Kashmir would be put on the table and the state of that State finally discussed. There was hope of the defunct peace process being jump-started and of the half-million Indian- Pakistani forces on the most tense border in the world being de-mobilized. But yet again, Clinton hooked up, this time with the mil- lions whom he addressed live on TV, telling them that it was "up to the people of Pak- istan" to meet the challenges of re-furbishing democracy and signing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. In effect, what Clinton was asking a 140 million people of a country where there are twice as many soldiers as teachers and which has been ruled by the mil- itary for half its bloody existence to do was to play Plato while the generals played Napoleon in Islamabad; moreover WJC asked them to sign the CTBT, a bullshit agreement which means nothing and can be averted via alternate means of laboratory/diplomatic gimmicks. Taking the pious generals in Islamabad for his frat bud- dies, Clinton assumed that they would allow all of the above, especially after India was left gloating and chiseling its strategic forces across the border. And 0 yes. Kashmir was once again left out of the speech and to the arbitrary whims of the nuke and spook for- eign policies of the Islamic Republic of Pak- istan and the Republic of India. Beautiful. There is no military solution to Kashmir. Sacrifices of national pride and policy will have to be made from both sides to resolve the issue (note that by employing the term 'both,' I pretend to myself that the Kashmiri people will not sacrifice, perhaps because they have lost enough already). That is a given. If they are lucky, Pakistan and India will resort to the same proxy war they have been fighting in the mountains for the last few years. People, like the 35 Sikhs massacred in a village in Kash- mir while Clinton checked out the Taj from a red carpet in Agra, will continue to die. If they are not lucky, then, like the 'experts' suggest, a conventional confrontation might spiral into a nuclear confrontation between the two nations. But we do not need experts to realize that the American president just took a media- enhanced democratic dump on a crisis which demands urgent international mediation and a fresh salvo of diplomatic initiatives. Clinton has left the Indians congratulating themselves for being excellent hosts and cooks and the* Pakistanis desperately confused about how to go about signing some bullshit treaty which promises them nothing. Meanwhile, as the after-taste of mango ice-cream remains and pictures of the Taj Mahal are framed for the White House, Kashmir bleeds. - Waj Syed can be reached via e-mail at wajsyed@umich.edu. T his Saturday, the air around Cen- tral Campus will take on a very distinctive odor as thousands of people, students and non-students alike, gather on the Diag to roll a joint in honor of the annual Hash Bash. A tradition in Ann Arbor since 1972, Hash Bash was born not only as an excuse to smoke pot but as a way to protest the criminal- ization of marijuana. Indeed, the protest is the most important aspect of the event. Based on the existing evi- dence, there is no good reason for mar- ijuana to be illegal. The dangers posed by smoking mar- ijuana pale in comparison to those posed by the use of many other legal substances. Unlike nicotine, alcohol' and even caffeine, marijuana has never been proven to be physically addictive, nor has there ever been a recorded case of a fatal overdose. Marijuana's vaunt- ed status as a "gateway drug," which introduces users to more dangerous substances such as heroin, cocaine and LSD, is based on similarly dubious sta- tistics. In general, the effects of mari- juana use are comparable to those of alcohol, yet alcohol is legal while mari- juana is not. Another reason to legalize marijua- na is its medicinal value. It has been used to relieve the symptoms of glau- coma, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, paraplegia and quadriplegia, as well as to reduce nausea in cancer and AIDS patients. However, most states ban the drug even for medicinal use. This pun- ishes the sick for therapeutic use of a substance that should not be illegal in the first place. Many of the legitimate dangers caused by marijuana use would be alle- viated were the substance legal. For instance, once legal and regulated, it would be far less likely that people would smoke marijuana laced with more dangerous substances. Legalization of marijuana would also remove the social problems associ- ated with its use. It would free space in the already overcrowded prisons, as many marijuana offenders receive unduly stiff sentences even for posses- sion. Indeed, possession arrests count for approximately 85 percent of mari- juana-related arrests. As many of these offenders are no doubt otherwise law- abiding, it is a waste of taxpayers' money and a misguided action on the part of the criminal justice system to punish marijuana users so harshly. It is for reasons such as these that Hash Bash was formed - to support the decriminalization of a relatively innocuous drug. The key issue here is not merely marijuana but freedom of choice: The right to put anything one wants into one's body. In recent years, Hash Bash has become something of a commercial event, as people in and around Ann Arbor think of it primarily as a pot-smoking party. But the event should not be as much about getting stoned as it is about standing up for personal rights. THoMAS KULJURGIS TENTATIVELY SPEAKING MALE BMt4Yn59,. II4lst NIUDc Hot issue Flag burning should remain legal I t is an ongoing debate in Congress. Once again votes are near in the U.S. Senate on a proposed amendment that could make burning or desecrating the U.S. flag illegal. While this issue is undoubtedly one of the most heated and personal debates in the country, the law is clear. Burning the flag should not be an illegal action. Time and time again the U.S. Supreme Court has said that the per- sonal destruction of the U.S. flag is a legal and protected form of free speech as outlined by the First Amendment. And yet nearly every year this issue is brought up again in Congress. Ameri- cans of both party affiliations continue to actively fight for or against this issue and those against it continue to pressure Congress into seeking to amend the freedom of speech laws as presented in the Bill of Rights. What Congress needs to recognize here is that this is a personal battle - a battle that will never be settled through a moral consensus but is settled lawful- ly. In examining the issue of flag burn- ing, one needs to separate personal beliefs from legal ones. Those who support the right to burn the flag do not necessarily support flag burning itself. The important distinction to make is that Americans should have the right to do so. Freedom of speech is a funda- mental right in our country and a dri- ving force behind our Constitutional legislation. Abridging the right to free speech in any manner would be an action against our American ideals. Congress has more important issues to deal with then eliminating flag burn- ing. The issue is highly personal, gar- nering much of its support from Republican politics, veterans and civic groups. It is understandable that people who fought for our country in war and who see the flag as our symbol of free- dom would fight to protect it. Still, the truth is that the Constitutional laws that guarantee free speech are much more important than a symbol should ever be. If done in a peaceful manner, the burning of the flag is a legal form of protest. It is simply another way in which citizens of this country actively express their concerns and voice their beliefs. The sense of patriotism that many amendment supporters feel is understandable, but misguided. Pro- tecting the right to burn the flag pro- tects the very rights that previous American soldiers fought for. In deciding to examine the issue, Congress must also realize its relative importance on a national scale. Aside from being an act protected by the first Amendment, flag burning does not occur nearly enough to argue amending the U.S. Constitution. Restricting our freedom of speech in the hopes of pro- tecting an action that occurs rarely does not make sense. Although govern- ment officials feel that the majority of the country would be in favor of such an amendment, they are mistaken. Polls taken on flag burning are often biased due to ambiguous questions. Instead of focusing on a niche issue like this, Congress needs to turn its attention to more pressing issues. No matter what one's personal agen- da or feeling may be about burning the flag, it is not their place to judge other people for doing it. Part of being free is being able to destroy a symbol in which one has great pride. Disallowing our ability to burn the flag only destroys the ideals that it stands for. Freedom of speech is a privilege of this country. It is a right fundamental in the history of our nation and it is protected by the First Amendment. It should not be taken for granted by any citizen or politician. Cwen 'S column unfairly labeled liberals TO THE DAILY: It's very selfless of Josh Cowen to consider himself "liberal" at the outset of his column "Note to campus liberals: Look on the bright side," (3/28/00) since he spends the entirety of said column deriding and criticizing that very group. In the process of trying to get the left to "look on their bright sides," he illustrates the pressing need for political clarity and his own lack thereof Cowen would have it that the debate between liberals and conservatives boils down to a conflict between optimists and pessimists. Looking at this debate, or at politics in general, in such a way is irre- sponsible and dangerous. The question ought not to be what is "positive" and what is "negative;" the question ought to be what is right. Liberals (and in that cat- egory I certainly don't place Cowen) do not believe what they do because it's neg- ative; they do so because they believe it's right. One may happen to believe that it is not necessary to bomb civilians in Yugoslavia, starve children in Iraq or send $1.6 billion in mainly military aid to Colombia to protect my "right to stand in the middle of the Diag and criticize." If one came to the opposite conclusion, based on the facts, it would still be more welcome than choosing to go along with whatever our military does because doing otherwise would be "focusing on the neg- ative." Even if it were the case that we ought to base our political beliefs on optimism and cheeriness rather than truth, his doc- trine (attributed to the insurmountably optimistic and cheery George Will) that liberals focus on the negative while con- servatives focus on the positive is base- less. Liberals criticize the United States, the University, University President Lee Bollinger and the Armed Forces, and this makes them negative. Have we so soon forgotten the unending barrage of conser- vative hate-mongeri ng, involving every- thing from calling abortion providers and the millions of women who have exer- cised their reproductive rights, murder- ers, to accusing a University course of being a tool of the evil homosexual recruitment drive? Both liberals and con- servativesalike support what they believe in and question what they do not. There is no justification for claiming that one group focuses on the negative and the other on the positive aspects of the nation. Finally, let's just admit that there are, in addition to positive aspects, negative aspects of our world. If someone points one of those negative aspects out, it is generally in order to eliminate it, and hence make the world better. There's nothing wrong with that. GARTH HEUTEL LSA SENIOR MAQ C IAtl-tnc 7L! iij I I e Board was approved unanimously by the whole of the Michigan Student Assem- bly. If the integrity of its members was going to be questioned, it should've been questioned then. Personally, the last political party I was involved in no longer exists. That makes it tough to accuse me of bias, and I am the chair of the Election Board. If I had felt the rest of members of the Board lose their objectivity anytime during the election, I could've superceded their decision. But that never happened. The Election Board should be appre- ciated, noteslandered. Being on the Board is a tough and thankless job. The four other members of the Board, Siafa Hage, Peter Handler, Marisa Linn and Jen Sea- mon, worked just as hard as I did and didn't even get paid. If that's not dedica- tion, I'm not sure what is. I've served on several Election Boards in past semesters and they typically have been fearful of strictly enforcing the rules. This Board was the first I've worked with that did what they felt was right, and not necessarily what would be popular. And that takes a lot of courage. ALOK AGRAWAL MSA ELECTION DIRECTOR Wolverine Party was wronged in MSA election TO THE DAILY: I went to the recent MSA council meeting because I thought the punish- ment was unfair for the people running in the Wolverine Party. I know Doug Tietz personally, he is one of my good friends. I know that he would never compromise his ethics. I also some of the others run- ning, like Jessica Cash. Everyone run- ning with the Wolverine Party was running to represent the students who voted and elected them. At themeeting, the current MSA council had a chance to give the Wolver- ine Party a chance to appeal before the newly "elected" people were placed in office. There were numerous attempts by a limited few to postpone this meeting, that MSA has, to voice the opinion of the University, is being abused by power hungry people. I voted in the election, and now my votes are being discarded. My voice has been silenced. The students have spoken in the election, we want wolverine. I now look to the administra- tion to remedy these wrongs. DAVID WARD ENGINEERING FIRST-YEAR STUDENT Southworth ruling was disappointing TO THE DAILY: I appreciate the Daily's coverage of the Supreme Court's Southworth ruling. I am very disappointed in the decision, though. Forcing students to financially support cam- pus groups that are politically, ideologically, or religiously opposed to their own beliefs is a clear violation of civil rights. In his concurring opinion, Supreme Court Justice David Souter compared mandatory fees for student groups to using tuition dollars to pay professors with con- troversial views. However, professors, unlike student groups, must uphold acade- mic/ethical standards and justify their expenditures. Compulsory support fosters an unmerited sense of entitlement. Instead of encouraging campus groups to empower themselves through their own fundraising efforts, the university tells them that they somehow have a "right" to public money by mere virtue of their existence. The issue of "no taxation without representation" is also a concern. Because our money is given to these groups regardless of our consent, there is no compelling reason for them to listen to differing views. The Southworth decision raises many questions. Howwill funds be "neutrally" distributed, as the Court demands? MSA funding is allocated by "level of campus activity," which clearly favors organizations that are already large and well established. Does this ambiguous phrase refer to meet- ings per week, number of chalkings on the Diag, or something else? In addition, are there any stipulations for how our money is to be spent or are we simply making indi- ra.* rnnn.tnin ., nrinc rnliainimnc' _ A IRA". 0