I 4 - The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, September 3, 2003 OP/ED Ulbou £tjmDaI 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 And if you liked the economy under Bill Clinton, America, you're going to love it under John Kerry." - Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) officially announcing his intention to seek the Democratic nomination for the presidency on the deck of the U.S.S. Yorktown in Charleston, S.C. JOEL HOARD STICK FIGURES ARE AWESOME -- - - - - - - - - - A,. My Ifolow Marfrc'us, T.. Scott Baekula, ome to you today wf m some sad crews.. UH OH! Ou.rrinds at Stick Figures Are Awesome wiii be retir~ng from the ,rTI oonq btis'es if)just a s ort tiMe. . OH NO! . i F But take hteartl They WM be replaced by seorse whose extenO beyondt cputernirted stik figure"s. That's good ! you~ think that g3 34eb£e shoo~td Le ,vu, please email h~ank{you f or your time, A. tHooray' .k What the hell is a neocon? ARI PAUL I FOUGHT THE LAW A ttila the Hun. Genghis Khan. Paul Wolfowitz. Young freshmen, you as rising scholars are entering a stage in life when you begin to under- stand how the world works. But rather than let you wallow in four years of hard studying and personal misery to find the answer, I'll just tell you what causes problems like a dying economy, countries rotting in their own piss and bad things that happen to good people. It's all because of the neoconservatives. Some people shy away from the neocon conspiracy theory because it is reminiscent of ancient anti-Semitic "Hymie rules the world" myths. For example, many of my fellow stu- dents (myself included) were offended when Hussein Ibish of the American-Arab Anti- Discrimination Committee called neocons "idealistic, crazy and chauvinistic Jewish- Americans," at a speaking engagement at the Michigan League last year. But in that accusation lies a sad fact. They are hard-line ideologues whose personalities and foreign policy can be characterized as chauvinistic, and mazel tov, they're all Jew- ish. A quick note to the anti-Semites: This doesn't vindicate Jewish conspiracy theories, as most American Jews have remained Democrats. A little background. Most neocons were all the same in their past lives as Trot- skyites.. This isn't.surprising, as Trotskyism is similar to neoconservativism in that they are both anti-democratic and demand all- out, uncompromising war against their enemy (capitalists for the Trots, everyone who is not America or Israel for the neo- cons) and seeks to be the overarching, sin- gle ruling hegemony. Furthermore, it's not uncommon for peo- ple to keep to the extremes. For example, the now-racist David Horowitz was thought to be naive by his friends for his enthusias- tic support for the Black Panthers in his Marxist youth. Most of them made the switch in the '60s, like Irving Kristol, when they found themselves supporting Israel when the left was rallying for the Palestinians. They also came from urbane, New York intellectual society, and were disgusted at what they perceived to be the filth that was sex, drugs and rock and roll that stood at the center of left-wing social life. As Kristol in his trademark, elegantly pompous tone, said, "A neoconservative is a liberal who's been mugged by reality." In short, nationalism got the best of them. Zionism started out as a left-wing movement, an anti-racist agenda that stood side by side with the civil rights movement. But along came a distrust among the Zionists. They felt no compromise could be made with the enemy. They shunned the leftist aspects of Zionism and traded "peace now" for "piece now" and salivated at the thought of armed conflict. Similar developments happened when violent, bigoted "white devil" attitudes emerged from Black Nationalism. But what makes right-wing Zionists a problem for this country? A few of them, like Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Defense Policy Board member Richard Perle, hold high positions where they can dictate policy. Neocons care not about the domestic problems that plague our nation - abysmal public education and unemployment to name a few - but about funding Israel and sticking with the hawkish Likud Party and flexing military muscle against anyone that steps out of line with America. Don't take my paranoid, left-wing word for it. Perle himself said, according to The Christian Science Monitor, "The President of the United States, on issue after issue, has reflected the thinking of neoconservatives." And just look at the numbers. There's never enough money for schools but there is always billions of dollars available for Israeli aid and whatever war Bush and the neocons want to fight. This nation doesn't suffer from a lack of money, it suffers from an unbalanced allo- cation of available funds. In fact, some esti- mate that the Bush administration is actually spending more money on the neocon agenda than Johnson did on his Great Society domestic policies. This isn't to say that United States should stay away from brokering peace between Israel and the Palestinians. On the contrary, the United States should spend a reasonable amount of energy on ending war and secur- ing ourselves from terrorist threats. But aid- ing the Israeli extremist position is unhelpful and damaging for the region, and turns a blind eye to more important domestic ills. Paul can be reached at aspaul@umich.edu. Don't worry, be happy JASON PESICK ONE SMALL VOICE spent my summer break in Ann Arbor. I took a class and worked a couple of jobs. I also watched a lot of really bad TV. Almost every day of the week was filled by a different TV show that would waste at least an hour of my time. MTV's 10 Spot is a great way to waste time, and the start of the new Fox show "The O.C." will keep the fun going during the school year. The best consola- tion I can think of to comfort myself for wasting so much time is that I am not alone. Americans are obsessed with this breed of TV. Not many of the people in this country can name six of the Democrats running for president, but I feel confident saying that they probably know who Clay Aiken and Ruben Studdard are. The com- bination of filth and reality TV is a potent formula for networks lacking creativity and looking for ratings. The names of Fox's new TV series are usually so funny on their own now that "Saturday Night Live" will no longer be able to poke fun at them. But television is not the only cultural medium in decline. This year two of the biggest movie stars of an earlier era, Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck, passed away, while Colin Farrell, who by the way does a very impressive American accent, has rocketed to the top of the industry. The great majority of movies are now under two hours long (a noteworthy exception being "The Hulk") and try to attract moviegoers by having the coolest and loudest explosions. Popular music has also gotten a lot sil- lier, not to mention happier. 50 Cent is now the biggest hip-hop artist, ending his friend Eminem's reign over the genre. While the era of depressing punk rock ush- ered in by Nirvana is becoming less popu- lar, Sean Paul and Justin Timberlake now dominate the airwaves and the "TRL" countdown. Everything is lighthearted and fun now. This column, however, is not meant to be a moralistic attack on these changes or American tastes and preferences. As I noted above, I have been known to indulge in this junk myself. What is so striking about these changes, however, is the polit- ical climate in which they have taken place. Between the tenuous international cli- mate threatening the country to the feeble state of the U.S. economy, common sense suggests that we'd be a little more depressed right now. Instead, it feels a lot like it did in the 1920s. People are just partying the time away. Popular culture's response to John Kennedy's assassination in the '60s, such as Don McLean's "Amer- ican Pie," and its reactions to the Vietnam War, such as a string of movies and scores of record albums, were entirely different from its reactions to Sept. 11 and the war in Iraq. A generation ago, people actually seemed as if they cared that the world and their country were changing before their eyes. As the world around us has gotten darker and more frightening, Americans have begun expressing themselves in more carefree and lighthearted ways. While every poll shows that people are serious about national security issues, it's hard to think of one way in which anyone has actually changed his life in the last couple of years to reflect this attitude. It's possible that this preference change reflects a need to forget about serious issues - a desire for comic relief. But this disconnect from reality is not only trou- bling, but it should make many Americans feel guilty as well. While I laughed at contestants on "Par- adise Hotel" as they drunkenly stumbled around while trying to manipulate each other, some of the kids I went to high school with were in Iraq fighting a war. I got better grades than they did in high school, but I have a hard time feeling superior to them in any way as I goof around in Ann Arbor learning academic theories and philosophy. This disconnect between the cocoon many Americans are living in and the world outside of this cocoon cannot exist forever. A little bit of fun is fine, but slashing taxes and telling people to go shopping after Sept. 11 not only denies the seriousness of the situation facing the country, but it is a typical reflection of the Bush administration's superman attitude toward policy. They make the big deci- sions, and we go about our happy little lives. 4 Pesick can be reached atjzpesick@umich.edu. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Alumnus supports divestment from Israel To THE DAILY: I would like to thank the Daily for printing the article, Israeli commission criticizes police force (09/02/03), which reports that "the Jewish state has systematically neglected its Arab minority." Last May, the Israel Democracy land dispossession and allocation, education, language, economics, culture, and political par- ticipation, is further evidence. This does not even take into consideration the disenfranchise- ment of 3.6 million Palestinians living under a brutal Israeli military dictatorship. Many scholars and academics have begun to brand this political system as an "ethnocra- cy." Universally, this is known as apartheid. In 1984, the University divested from apartheid in South Africa. Given this precedent, there are between bias and opinion. I must concede that the Daily is technically correct. By definition, an editorial should be biased. However, too many Daily editorials blindly justify their arguments. They often acknowledge the opposing viewpoint, but rarely reason their viewpoint in relation to the oppos- ing viewpoint. Daily editorials tend to say, "Here's what I think, not much else exists and I'm correct." Yes, editorials should express strong opinions, but they should not cursorily I 7T7177 -- ii 77w'.kM1YM A klk!pi .Fh41r.(. A~ uYltiF!1V K MA.F n sx;;x: n ...