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4A - The Michigan Daily - Thursday, January 31, 2002
OP/ED
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Unless otherwise noted, unsigned editorials reflect the opinion of the majority of the Daily's
editorial board. All other articles, letters and cartoons do not
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-- A statement from the group that has
kidnapped Wall Street Journal reporter
Danny Pearl, as quoted by Reuters. The
group demands release of Pakistani
prisoners captured in Afghanistan.
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Our wedding gift to/corporatism
JOSH WICKERHAMTisP l WORLD
"Fascism should more
appropriately be called cor-
poratism because it is a
merger of state and corpo-
rate power."
-Benito Mussolini
Because we have a
president who
doesn't read history
books (or any books, for
that matter), I've been thinking about a few
things we should keep in mind during our ascent
into the New World Order.
Wait, I'm sorry. I guess they're calling it
"America's New Role" now. So let's roll. Like
a rolling stone.
For this war to work, the economy has to be
steaming and belching at full capacity. Our pres-
ident said it himself. (My suggestion: Tune in,
turn on, drop out.)
Displaced Enron workers can work for
defense contractors.
According to Dubya, there is also apparently
a moment we must seize.
Now we're being asked to swallow a new
historic period.
In this, the decisive decade for our way of
life, we, the right, the proud, the just, have found
a new answer to our woes. Forget about the
abortion clinic bombers Attorney General
Ashcroft won't capture in his terrorism dragnet.
Forget about Columbine and the Enron scandal.
Forget about our own sorry state of life and the
fat slobbery of prosperity. We have a new dis-
traction. We're going to war!
Sit down and watch the tube.
That's because there are no alternatives to
Horatio Algerism. We are right. Capitalism is
the most efficient way to innovate. Our corpo-
rate leaders, who obviously got to the top with
the tools of honesty, self-reliance and invest-
ment in the future, expect others to do the same.
They expect growth. And they expect new mar-
kets. They expect results.
Our will is strong, there's no doubt about
that. We're simply lying to ourselves if we think
our will is strong enough to take on the rest of
the world.
Yet we expect to win. We will have a tri-
umph of the will, even if it kills us. (Which it
probably will.)
We expect no less.
I'm relatively pessimistic about our short-
and long-term prospects. How can I feel any dif-
ferent when I know we have an unquenchable
culture of bloodlust, more guns than citizens,
media that lies to us and a government in the
final exhausting heat of a race for empire?
We're taking big strides, people and though its
inevitable we'll fail in our fight with the rest of
the world, Rome acquired the most territory in
its history during its last gasps. Hey, so did Ger-
many. But then again, we're fighting for market
share, so it doesn't matter if we abandon our
roots.
As long as we don't admit we're wrong,
we'll die honorable deaths. And in the mean-
time, we'll have what we've been referring to as
prosperity.
Although ultimatums usually get me into
trouble, I have only one criterion for my contin-
ued citizenship in this war machine.
I will not be subject to an integrated national
identification system, for this spells the triumph
of the infrastructure over the people. There is no
trust when power is involved. All we can expect
is abuse. Link this with a system which matches
faces to credentials as one passes before a cam-
era hooked to new face-recognition technology
and soon the political dissident becomes the
desaparecido, whisked to the private prison-
industrial complex's answer to the gulag. Or like
Enron accountants who are supposed to testify
before public hearings, we'll all commit suicide.
Merging database software, identification
equipment and economic records with the
newly integrated CIA atd FBI databases will be.
a great boost for the lagging tech sector. And
what better way to celebrate the marriage of
business and government than with the surren-
der of personal autonomy?
Our wedding presents to GovCorp will be
our previous identities. And we'll get something
in return - the choice between rolling with the
tidal wave or rolling under a rock. At least we
can cross our fingers about campaign finance
reform, but big whoop. We'll get something that
goes only half way unless we're articulate in
making our demands to get soft money out of
the campaign system.
Alas, rolling on in silence is my fate, as this
is my final column. And for the record, I do love
my country - I just don't confuse it with my
government.
Thanks for reading and good luck to you all.
I suggest you buy guns.
Cheers to the fucking Coca-Cola war!
Josh Wickerham wants to thankyou for being
patriotic and not talking backHe can be
reached via e-mail atjwickerh@umich.edu.
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V LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Daily editorial on
campus policing had
many inaccuracies
To THE DAILY:
The Daily editorial concerning campus
police jurisdiction ("Policing out of bounds,"
1/30/02) contained numerous inaccuracies. The
Hope College police have jurisdiction off of the
Hope College campus not because of an
appeals court decision but because officers of
the Hope College Public Safety Department
have been deputized by the Ottawa County
Sheriff. They therefore legally have jurisdiction
throughout all of Ottawa County. The court
decision only upheld authority that already
existed.
The University of Michigan Department of
Public Safety in contrast derives its police pow-
ers from Public Act 120 of 1990 passed by the
Michigan Legislature. That act gives the gov-
erning boards of all public four year higher edu-
cation institutions the power to deputize their
own police officers. The Daily stated that DPS
officers can enforce laws off campus.
The act, however, limits the jurisdiction of
DPS officers to University owned or leased
property and "any public right of way travers-
ing or immediately contiguous to the property."
The University Board of Regents would only
have the power to extend the jurisdiction off
campus if another state law passed by the legis-
lature allowed them to do so first.
DPS officers were briefly deputized by
Washtenaw County Sheriff in 1990 and 1991
but only as a temporary measure until Public
Act 120 was put into full effect. I am not writ-
ing this letter to either defend or criticize the
deputization of campus police. Rather I am
writing this to point out the shoddy journalistic
practices of the Daily editorial board. A sound
editorial writer would have done a minimal
amount of research of the basic facts.
The real question that the Daily should be
asking the regents concerning the University
police is why the public safety department
oversight committee created under Public Act
120 of 1990 has never been allowed to do any
real work.
BRIAN S. KIGHT
Alumnus
Bathrooms are
barrier to equality
form social roles. Those social roles often have
bnothing to do with toilet etiquette but they have
been passed down through our Victorian-soci-
ety just as have gender-specific bathrooms.
Elias Kass' letter ("Transgendered bath-
rooms protect 'freedom to urinate"' 01/28/02)
touched the root of the problem: A perception
of not belonging. When we perceive certain
classes of individuals as not belonging in one
arena, we carry those perceptions to other are-
nas. Thus, women not belonging in men's bath-
rooms carries over to women not belonging in
men's places of work (and vice-versa, men are
thereby perceived not to belong in the home,
raising children).
I am not arguing that gender-specific bath-
rooms are a cause of other types of gender dis-
crimination. Rather, they are a barrier to
eliminating gender discrimination.
DAVID H. KAPLAN
Law Student
Painting Sparty
shows 'lack of class'
To THE DAILY:
To the Michigan fans who thought defacing
public property was a good display of school
spirit: As I was walking to class this morning I
was greeted by the sight of Michigan State's
beloved Sparty statue covered from head to toe
in maize and blue paint. Understanding that the
rival basketball game was last night at the Bres-
lin Center, I know why it happened, I just don't
agree with the reasoning.
Shouldn't being a true fan consist of boost-
ing your team to victory? I believe the words of
your very own Athletic Director Bill Martin fit
nicely for this situation, "When you cheer for
the maize and blue, direct your efforts to the
support of the team ..." The statement was
made about the atmosphere in Yost Arena, but I
believe they apply to all of your sports pro-
grams both home and away. When you stop to
think about it, what does defacing school prop-
erty say about your team and yourselves, other
than a lack of class?
Having said that, I know what's coming
next, "What about when Michigan State fans
did it to our school?" The fact of the matter is
that it wasn't right when the tables were turned
and the color of the paint was green. Someone
has to be the bigger person here, step up and put
a stop to it. Instead of acting childishly, let's get
some class and encourage our teams instead of
destroying property that has nothing to do with
the game.
ERIN BIDINGER
Michigan State University student
term "bleeding-heart liberals."
To begin with, the writer is under the
impressionthat he was calling someone a
name, which is never a good way to convince
them of your position. Secondly, I would like to
take issue with the idea that this is a negative
label. The term bleeding-heart has two possible
meanings here; the first being a plant of the
genus Dicentra commonly found in flower gar-
dens, the second being one who displays exces-
sive concern or pity for others. I will assume
that the second definition is. How it has become
that to have concern for one's fellow humanity
can be used as a disparagement baffles my
mind. One would think that an excessive con-
cern would be preferable to the other extreme. I
care about others and I'm actually quite proud
of that fact.
As for liberal, I am once again bewildered
at how this word became one of disparagement.
This word means to be in favor of reform, sup-
portive of individual freedom, free from preju-
dice, tolerant and generous. We should all be
so. In modernpolitical discourse, it is common
to use liberal as if it were a bad word.
I am proud to be a liberal; to denigrate me
because of my political views is intolerant and
inappropriate. The nature of liberalism is to
seek progress, personally and societilly. Liber-
alism is an expression of my desire to make the
world a better place, and will not be taken as
some sort of aspersion. Liberal isn't a bad
word.
MAT TRANDAL
LSA junior
India does not see
Kashmir as 'last
bastion' of secularity
To THE DAILY:
I commend Waj Syed for his three series
article about Pakistan ("Home of the Pure,"
1/28/02, 1/29/02, 1/30/02. While I admire his
objectivity and in depth reporting in the first
two parts of the series, I am disappointed that
when he discusses India-Pakistan relations he
predictably slips into the India-bashing mode as
soon as he mentions "Muslim Pakistan and
Hindu India."
Perhaps Syed is blissfully unaware that
India has the second largest population of
Muslims next only to Indonesia and definitely
more than Pakistan. India has always been
vehemently secular (it says so in the constitu-
tion), in marked contrast to Pakistan, which
defines itself as an Islamic Republic. We do
not sene Kashmir as the "last bastion" of our
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