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4 - The Michigan Daily - Friday, September 27, 2002
OP/ED
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NOTABLE
QUOTABLE
I invested all my
power in achieving
peace."
- Slobodan Milosevic, who is
currently being tried in The Hague for war,
crimes in the former Yugoslavia, in his defense
against allegations of ethnic cleansing,
as reported yesterday by Reuters.
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The unknown pleasures of activism
JOHN HONKALA Too EARIY IN TE SUN
"Here was a new to its inevitability. played crucial roles in the civil rights move-
generation ... dedicated But if the war is so inevitable, why are we ment, the anti-war movement of the '60s and
more than the last to the waiting until it happens to begin protesting? '70s and divestment from apartheid South
fear of poverty and the Why aren't we indignant? Why are we not in Africa in the '80s.
worship of success;.grown the streets already? It would not be, I suspect, A well-organized anti-war movement with
up to find all Gods dead, inaccurate to assume that large portions of the wide participation on college campuses has
x all wars fought, all faith Ann Arbor and University communities oppose tremendous potential to affect U.S. action
in man shaken ..." a war in Iraq, especially if conditions remain as. abroad. Students alone are not likely to change
Rthey are. Yet, we continue to bide our time, the Bush Administration's war plans, but we
- F. Scott Fitzger- waiting for bombs to go off before we act. can be an impetus for a larger movement that
ald, This Side of Paradise, 1920 Sometime in the last 20 years activism has can. Opposition to war in Iraq, however latent,
become passe, an all too sincere act that is too exists on a large scale in this country. But
adly, our lethargy is not original. We are free of irony for mass participation. Whereas in mobilization requires propulsion, and student
not the first generation to count athletes the late '60s protest was chic, today it is lame, activism can be integral to the construction of
as heroes, not the first to want for a noble romantic pie in the sky. We are too far removed such a movement.
cause. We were beat by at least 80 years by F. from the fresh idealism of '60s campus culture We have before us now the war, the univer-
Scott Fitzgerald, the voice of the original dot- to believe in its potential. sal rallying point that we've claimed we've
com generation. Our whiny excuses - We've When Fitzgerald wrote This Side of Paradise, never had. Irrefutable arguments have been
got no Vietnam! - are as plain and useless as Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer was made against a pre-emptive strike in its present
Warren G. Harding. rounding up and incarcerating suspected Com- form, and nearly all of them have been categor-
And this is unfortunately how we sound. munists and subversives. Eighty years later we ically ignored by the Bush war machine. Legiti-
We grouse because we don't have the war, the find this appalling. All wars fought? Was mate questions remain unanswered.
revolution that our parents had. We've grown Fitzgerald asleep? We must not wait until bombs begin to fall
complacent, those of us born after Vietnam. Sadly, he wasn't. More likely he was disaf- to voice our dissent. The repercussions of war
Mass student protests are so far away as to be fected, detached and unimpressed with the in Iraq could be devastating. For too long now
history; sit-ins and well-attended rallies are dis- underwhelming smallness of it all. Likewise we've revealed ourselves to be apathetic and
turbingly rare. We've been sitting around today. Instead of participating, we've relied on complacent political actors. Its time we said,
instead, one hand on the PlayStation controller, a misconception that the boom years of the '80s "Here's a new generation..."
the other, however uninspired, awaiting a sign. and '90s offered little to rally around in order to
A more urgent television program, perhaps, justify our abstinence from politics. In the ****
telling us its time. We are, forgive me, lost also. meantime, we've let our issues drift right by us.
Meanwhile, injustice surrounds us: unfet- This lack of dissent on college campuses, The last day to register to vote in the
tered globalization, civil liberties subsumed by not just at the University but around the coun- November elections is Oct. 7. Registration
national security, a live-wire Middle East. try, is alarming. Dissent needs to come from forms are available at www.michigan.gov/sos
We're about to go to war! And we've reached somewhere, and if not our campuses then and for . more information go to
a point now, I think, where we can be pretty where? All the cliches about student idealism www.youthvote.org. Please register and vote.
certain that Spurious George isn't going to are cliches for a reason. Student activism has in
back down from his threats to invade-Iraq. the pastprofoundly influenced U.S. foreign and John Honkala can be reached at
Even the war's most livid critics seem resigned domestic policy. Student protest, for example, jhonkala@umich.edu.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Piskor fails to see that more
globalization is the answer
TO THE DAILY:
Jess Piskor's Sept. 25 column (Me? A
hypocrite? I protest) completely misses the
central accusation of hypocrisy leveled
against anti-globalization protesters by
their critics. Instead of addressing the cen-
tral charge that anti-globalization protest-
ers are hypocritical because they oppose
policies that have a positive effect on the
workers they claim to represent, Piskor
attacks the valid but insignificant observa-
tion that anti-globalization protesters
freely enjoy the fruits of the system they
are agitating against.
What Piskor fails to address is that the
influx of manufacturing jobs into develop-
ing countries is the source of massive eco-
nomic growth in the countries that
participate and has lead to substantial qual-
ity of life increases for their citizens. Any
realistic economic model will predict that
the response to an increase in demand for
labor will be increased wages and
improved working conditions. This is due
to the simple fact that workers would not
leave their current occupations to work in a
new factory unless they are enticed with
sufficiently superior wages and working
conditions. In the long term this leads to
increased wages across the entire labor
market, since local employers must com-
pete with the foreign-owned factory for
employees.
Not surprisingly, this has been exactly
the case. Over the last 20 years, India and
China, both of which have actively
embraced economic globalization, have
seen substantial improvements in the quali-
ty of life of their poor laborers and have
growing middle classes, whereas African
economies stagnated. In South America,
pro-trade Argentina has twice the per-capi-
tal Gross Domestic Product of the anti-
globalization Venezuela despite its
significant oil resources. Moreover, the
labor conditions in multinational corpora-
tions' facilities tend to be better than what
predominates at local businesses; the most
egregious cases of abuse that one hears
about typically result from when multina-
tional corporations contract with local
manufacturing companies which they do
not directly oversee. Given these facts,
shouldn't the answer be more globaliza-
to allow LGBT rainbow flag to fly below
American one, 9/26/02).
I wholeheartedly agree with him and
actually did send e-mails to the Michigan
Student Assembly and to the University
asking them to not fly the flag. The rain-
bow flag does not represent me and it does
not represent anything I approve of. The
American flag represents this country and
it represents why people from other coun-
tries, races, religions are welcome here,
but it does not represent one small group.
The rainbow flag does.
Another reason I thank you is because I
now know to look at the MSA website to
peruse upcoming proposals and issues -
maybe next time I can be present to speak
out against issues like the rainbow flag.
It's not that I am intolerant, it's just that I
feel all groups should be fairly represented
and flags flown on campus should do that
- which is what the American flag does.
Thank you again for such a fine paper!
KATHRYN CLEVENGER
Engineering graduate student
SAFE discredits itself in
bringing Al-Arian to campus
TO THE DAILY:
Students Allied for Freedom and Equal-
ity has a right to say whatever they want
under our great nation's first amendment.
They can host a conference over whatever
ideas they wish to make public. I may dis-
agree with much of what SAFE believes,
but I would sacrifice my life for their right
argue their viewpoint.
However, SAFE delegitimizes itself by
bringing Sami Al-Arian to our campus. Al-
Arian bragged about plotting and financing
a suicide bomb in Israel in a letter confis-'
cated by the FBI, and he was caught on
video chanting "Death to Israel" in Arabic.
SAFE's hosting of Al-Arian not only jeop-
ardizes the security of our campus, but
gives the impression that SAFE's views are
allied with his. The leaders of SAFE
should cancel Al-Arian's visit in the best
interest of their own group, as well for the
greater good of the university.
RICK DORFMAN
LSA junior
The author is a co-founder of
Michigan Student Zionists.
of all, the Diag and North Campus flag
poles should never be used to advance the
agendas of individual student groups. May
it be for a week, day or even a second, the
replacement of the Stars and Stripes with
any other flag is inexcusable. The U.S. flag
flies there day after day to remind us of
our unique freedoms in this nation.
Regardless of our opinions of this country,
we must respect that fact.
Second of all, LGBT says that their goal
is to improve awareness and acceptance of
gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender
affairs, while what they really want to do is
press their values on the campus communi-
ty. In the article, LGBT co-chair Pierce
Beckham justifies the resolution by stating
that "For some, the rainbow pride flag
affirms and protects more than the U.S.
flag". If some people find comfort in the
rainbow flag, that's fine, but for most peo-
ple on campus it does not. The flying of the
LGBT flag would undoubtedly alienate a
significant population of this community.
While we may or may not support LGBT,
we all take advantage of what Old Glory
stands for. I hope that the Vice President of
Facilities considers the implications of this
resolution before he acts on it.
KARL LENSS
LSA sophomore
Nation should brace for
biological, chemical attack
TO THE DAILY:
After the Sept. 11 attacks, the nation is
constantly in the process of improving itself
in order to counter the terrorist attacks. How-
ever, a major threat to. national security
comes from the bio-weapons attack. After
the recent anthrax cases, it became extremely
important to understand the nature of the dis-
ease and how to counter it.
Researchers throughout the country are in
the process of studying the nature and thera-
peutics of anthrax. New and promising thera-
peutic agents for anthrax have been proposed
in the recent past that may contribute signifi-
cantly toward tackling the disease. Although
ciprofloxacin, the antibiotic used to treat
anthrax patients has been successful, more
promising therapy should include a cocktail
of different methods so that an effective
treatment against anthrax can be developed.
Rece~nt reseairchjon anthraix has been
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