MMMMq 4A - The Michigan Daily - Thursday, October 2, 2003 OP/ED UIIe Attitgan atij 420 MAYNARD STREET ANN ARBOR, MI 48109 letters@michigandaily.com EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN SINCE 1890 LOUIE MEIZLISH Editor in Chief AUBREY HENRETTY ZAC PESKOWITZ Editorial Page Editors 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 necessarily reflect the opinion of The Michigan Daily. NOTABLE QUOTABLE If the person has violated law, that person will be taken care of." - President Bush, promising to deal with the unnamed officials responsible for revealing CIA agent Valerie Plame's secret identity, as reported yesterday on CNN .com. STEVE COTNER AND JOEL HOARD OPERATION PUSSYCAT Building the anti-organizational organization ZAC PESKOWITZ TimE LOWER FREQUENCIES espite Wesley Party," spoke to a generation of activists interests, has been largely replaced by the Clark's awk- alienated from the Democratic Leadership role of individual beliefs and worldviews. ward unveiling Council's control of the party. But more NGOs and interest groups have sprung up to to the national electorate importantly, Dean's confrontational approach monitor politicians on specific issues and two weeks ago, the toward the Democratic Party appealed to the more voters than ever before base their politi- retired four-star general electorate's distaste for large organizations. cal decisions on one issue. has won himself a posi- From the demise of machine politics to the The rise of Howard Dean was the latest tion at the top of several massive decreases in union memberships, that chapter in this story. Dean billed his cam- national polls. But based hallmark of the industrial age, the large organi- paign as a challenge to the entrenched atti- on last Thursday's Wall zation, has endured a slow and steady decline as tude s and interests of the federal Street Journal/CNBC debate in New York individuals become disenchanted with the cul- government. He vigorously caricatured his City, most of the Democratic field has cho- ture of the large organization. They are viewed opponents as a personification of party sen to ignore Clark, dismissing him as a nov- as conformist, intellectually stifling, faceless and fealty, a collection of political hacks elty who, lacking the necessary political antiseptic. In short, everything we despise. In whose entire careers are due to their machinery, will wither in the snows of Iowa the world of business, no one leaves college unyielding service to the party. He utilized and New Hampshire. Instead they have spent intending to spend his life with one company the Internet to expand his appeal to narrow their time slicing apart former Gov. Howard along the lines of the archetype criticized in subgroups that usually garner little atten- Dean of Vermont, casting him as a compatri- William Whyte's "The Organization Man." One tion in presidential races. ot of Newt Gingrich and skewering him as an of the prime factors discouraging college gradu- Now Dean is taking a different tack to bat- anti-Israel radical. Dean now has spent his ates from pursuing a career in the federal gov- tle the Clark candidacy. Dean's criticisms of week plotting the opening stages of his cam- eminent is a profound disinclination toward Clark echo the attacks Connecticut Sen. Joe paign against Clark, the only candidate in the bureaucratic culture. Everyone wants to be a Lieberman's campaign staff levied against field besides Dean who can plausibly sell rugged individual, oozing charisma. People Dean this summer. In their minds Dean would himself as an outside-the-Beltway antidote to hope to take a year off and write screenplays, upset the Democratic establishment, hijack the the Washington establishment. backpack through the Hindu Kush or start a party leadership and cripple the party in the Howard Dean has sprung a surprising boutique consulting firm. The good life has process. These arguments were based on the gambit to corner Clark and limit his appeal. evolved along a decidedly individualistic bent underlying assumption that the party is some- Speaking to The Washington Post's Terry over the past 40 years. thing that needs to be defended and, as a result, Neal, Dean said of Clark, "This is a Republi- The ramifications of these developments they had little traction. Voters barely took can who just converted to being a Democrat. for the world of politics are particularly sig- notice of the Lieberman criticism, dismissing it That's going to be a big problem for a lot of nificant. The days of enormous blocs of vot- as intramural squabbling. The Dean campaign people." Dean generated much of his early ers uniformly following the diktats of their has yet to learn the secret to its success: It's the support with his blistering attack on the precinct captains are long gone. Ticket split- ideas and the attitude, not the organization, that Democratic Party status quo and his familiar ting is at a historically high level. Loyalty to matter now. refrain, appropriated from the late Sen. Paul parties has decreased. Political behavior has Wellstone of Minnesota, "I'm here to repre- become less predictable as the fundamental Peskowitz can be reached sent the Democratic wing of the Democratic cleavage of the industrial age, economic atzpeskowi@umich.edu LETTERS TO THE EDITOR I 4 Picard's judgment of Greek community irresponsible, a betrayal of her sisters To THE DAILY: I was thoroughly disgusted to read Alyssa Picard's letter (Greek community irresponsible, possesses 'poor self-policing skills,' 10/01/03). It was grossly irresponsi- ble of her to judge the entire Greek com- munity, composed of thousands of students on campus, based on the actions of only a few of its members. The reaction that I had to the hazing incident, along with my pledge sisters and other members of the Greek community, was one of shock, sadness and disbelief. For Picard to imply that not only are members of the Greek system stupid enough to allow this behavior, but that all of the members condone such actions, is appalling. The campus community is so quick to point out the shortcomings and misjudg- ments of members of the Greek system. The campus and city media are clearly focused.on giving the Greek system a bad name. Yet, they conveniently fail to men- tion all the positive activities and philan- thropies that the Greek community participates in. But I think what I find most reprehensi- ble about Picard's letter is that she is a Greek who trashes her own sisters, her own system. She, more than the average adult, should know what goes into the Greek system, and the Pan-Hellenic system of sororities. She has been through sorority rush and knows that it does not consist of the beer bongs and degradation that she alludes to, but rather long hours of going from house to house, speaking with more sisters than you can count. Not only does she have the audacity to make a mockery of this year's Greek slogan, but she also fails to draw the distinction between the fraternity and sorority systems which have very different systems of rushing. If this University is going to continue to judge the masses on the actions of the few, then every member of the student body is irresponsible and lacking self- policing skills. If Picard wants responsibil- ity on campus, she should start with herself. She should have been responsible enough to not immaturely iudge an entire presented - for example, our finding that dur- ing the first six months of the current uprising, The San Francisco Chronicle was 30 times more likely to prominently report the death of an Israeli child than a Palestinian child - our entire reports are available on our website, www.IfAmericansKnew.org under the media analysis tab. ALISON WEIR Alum Paul's ignorance and contradictions prove what's wrong with liberals To THE DAILY: Class is back in session. Today, we will be acting as Ari Paul's substitutes because he is on permanent leave for being an arrogant moron. The claim that Paul makes about the lack of liberal bias in academia is baseless and completely unfounded (What liberal academia?, 10/01/03). Facts, which Paul has conve- niently omitted, indicate that liberal pro- fessors have dominated the university political discourse for years. According to a study by the University of California at Los Angeles's Higher Edu- cation Research Institute, 48 percent of undergraduate professors identified as "lib- eral" or "far left" while only 18 percent described themselves as "conservative" or "far right." Furthermore, a study by Paul Kengor in Policy Review found that, of the political makeup of 190 social science and humanities professors at many of the nation's top universities, such as Cornell, Stanford and the University of Colorado, 184 professors identified as registered Democrats and only six identified them- selves as Republicans. Paul goes on to contend that conserva- tive organizations are on equal footing to their liberal counterparts because of large donations by groups such as the Collegiate Network. What he forgot to point out was that the overwhelming number of liberal groups on college campuses are sufficient- ly funded by the universities themselves and have no need for further funding. Interestingly enough, Paul goes on to accuse conservatives of being, essentially, anti-Semitic and "inherently racist" because of "the tendency of conservatives to attack things like Hollywood, the media, iir --n r n a s eaTan afa -and nn_ Daily and Daily columnists biased and misinformed TO THE DAILY: Ari Paul and David Horowitz have one thing in common: They both appear to do zero research before submitting their opin- ions, preferring to make broad generaliza- tions about particular groups to get their respective points across (What liberal acad- emia?, 10/01/03). I agree with Paul that it is important for universities to maintain their academic freedom and not have to worry, for example, that the Michigan Leg- islature be given authority to do an item- ized scrutiny of every class offered in the curriculum (e.g. efforts to eliminate the "How to be Gay" class). Granted, everyone is entitled his or her own opinions. And as long as they allow the opinions of others to be heard and are at least willing to listen there should be no problem. The problem is, from my experi- ence, this has not been the case in the social sciences. There is also a time and place for everything, and when my biology professor goes off on a tangent about the Bush admin- istration and how the invasion of Iraq is wrong (during last winter term), I question what that has to do with the day's lecture. I also lost respect for Paul when he decided to label the business community as "professions of avarice," and his assertion that "well informed people in general tend to vote liberal." He also crossed the line by asserting that the modern conservative movement is inherently racist and especial- ly anti-Semitic even though Paul Wol- fowitz is currently deputy secretary of defense. Should I ask Paul for evidence about these theories? It is true that the Collegiate Network spends $200,000 a year to support conserv- ative campus newsletters. But one should ask why such a network was created in the first place. It may have something to do with the fact that most of the primary cam- pus newspapers nationwide, such as the Daily, which receives university funding, are heavily biased toward a liberal bent. The Daily in the past has explicitly and proudly asserted that it is a progressive/lib- eral newspaper. Fine, but the Daily, as the official school newspaper, is speaking for the entire university. And it appears, con- sidering the several columnists who write 6 E 'k ': 1 u Y"t 1'y i1 .T:Y ... S