0 4 - The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, December 10, 2003 OP/ED Ub Ln & 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 I'm not going to talk about Al Gore's sense of loyalty this morning." - Democratic presidential candidate Joe Lieberman, when asked yesterday on NBC's "Today" show if he felt betrayed by the news that former running mate Al Gore was endorsing Howard Dean, as reported yesterday by The Associated Press. SAM BUTLERTHsAPX 'u sa vitcl Ys! Las+ _- _ y opM.s No,;+ al oer ~ lJ[' 4 A tale of two summits JASON PESICK ONE SMALL VOiCE I News flash: The state of Michigan is losing manufac- turing jobs. Actually the whole country is. In fact Michigan alone has lost about 170,000 manufac- turing jobs in the past three years. This probably explains why Gov. Jennifer Granholm decided to hold a manufacturing summit Monday to figure out how to strengthen the state's manufacturing base. The problem is that Michigan has been losing manufacturing jobs for decades, but instead of focusing on how to get them back, leaders such as former Gov. James Blanchard worked to create new jobs - better jobs - to replace them. Tomorrow Granholm is going to switch gears and open the "Creating Cool" confer- ence - a conference named by someone who is without a doubt not cool - with a special guest speaker, Prof. Richard Florida of Carnegie Mellon University, best known for advocating the importance of a city hav- ing a large gay community and a creative young workforce. The governor may be trying to cover all the bases that make up her Democratic politi- cal base, from unions to Ann Arbor and Birmingham liberals, but it seems that she either can't make up her mind on these eco- nomic matters, or she enjoys the political benefits of vagueness at the expense of sound, comprehensive policy. First of all, it's not exactly clear what Granholm means when she talks about manu- facturing. She could mean high-skilled jobs that require a great deal of decision-making, training and innovation. Jobs like these don't fit the mold of the traditional assembly-line production that Michiganders familiar with Henry Ford often associate with manufactur- ing. What Granholm refers to as "advanced manufacturing" could be the type of work that's done using advanced computer-design software, in which case a number of College of Engineering graduates will likely become advanced manufacturers after they graduate. On the other hand, - now I sound more like an economist than a columnist - Granholm may wish to focus on retain- ing and attracting lower-skilled manufac- turing jobs. These are the kinds of jobs the state is losing and that prompted the gover- nor to hold the manufacturing summit in the first place. If she plans to keep the low- skilled manufacturing jobs that have been on their way out of the state, then Granholm is up against unconquerable forces, and she's going to waste a lot of the state's money in the process . Part of Granholm's waffling lies in the reality of today's Democratic Party. In the '90s, when the economy was zipping along, new Democrats like Bill Clinton and the pre-2000 Al Gore were able to push free-trade agreements that were good for the aggregate economy, but caused job losses in outdated sectors. Now, almost all the Democrats running for president are pushing their protectionist credentials, arguing over who opposed the North American Free Trade Association first. During this time, Granholm happens to be the governor of a traditionally strong union state. She's smart enough to know that this is probably not the time for her to sound like Milton Friedman. Keeping this in mind, it's not surprising Granholm is calling a business summit a manufacturing summit. It's actually a clever way for her to push a pro-business agenda. The budget deal she and Republi- can leaders announced yesterday includes tax cuts for businesses to help pay for health care costs. At the summit Granholm discussed streamlining the process for businesses to get licenses and permits, worker-retraining measures, overhauling the single business tax, improving educa- tion (although some money would be nice) and reducing health care costs. She has also created the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Growth, which com- bines commercial and labor responsibilities into one department. She even has the environmentalists nervous, which is not necessarily a good thing, but it shows her pro-business tilt. To be sure, not all of what Granholm wants to do will be great for the state's econ- omy, but it's pretty good considering the political context. I wish.she would fund the state's universities at higher levels, but there's no money for that. I also wish she would talk less about manufacturing, but if manufacturing is a code word for small busi- ness, I'll give her a pass - for now at least. Pesick can be reached at ]zpesick@umich.edu. 4 When the media fails ARI PAUL I FoUGHT THE LA 4 T he comedian David Cross once remarked that our country must be in trouble because we have to read other countries' newspa- pers to find out what is going on in our own nation. Last Saturday, community activists con- vened at a small house on the west side of Ann Arbor to witness video footage compiled by independent journalists of the police brutality at the Free Trade Agree- ment of the Americas conference in Miami last month. The footage, and the lack of media exposure of what actually happened, is living proof that our country's media is currently divorced from our Founding Fathers' vision of a scrutinizing press that would constantly keep the public informed about the imperfections of its leaders in order to keep democracy afloat. Here are just a few crimes caught on video by journalists at the Independent Media Center that mainstream media completely ignored: A police barricade informed a crowd of protesters that if it did not disperse within two minutes, they would be arrested. The crowd, putting discretion before valor, complied by rotating 180 degrees, and walking away chant- ing, "we are dispersing." After a period bla- tantly under two minutes, the police tackled the protesters from behind and arrested them for failure to disperse. When police pinned down a nonviolent protester with a broken hand, his fellow pro- testers tried to inform the police that he was injured. Subsequently, the police used tasers to quell their message. The tasers shoot a cord with a pin that penetrates the victim's skin to employ the shock. The removal process is unbearably painful, and it is difficult to remove the pin without causing excessive bodily injury. A trihawked protester and self-described "Alcoholic against the FTAA" was pelted with 20 rubber bullets for flicking off a police barricade. In addition, there are accusations of sexu- al harassment and assault by police against female and transgendered protesters. This footage will most -likely be used as court evi- dence in upcoming lawsuits against the Miami police. As someone who has witnessed the infa- mous clashes between Catholic civil rights activists and Ulster Unionist paramilitary huns in Northern Ireland, I must say that the collec- tive behavior of Miami's riot cops was rela- tively egregious but undoubtedly beyond the legal framework. In the interests of full disclosure, two Uni- versity activists who were arrested while dis- persing are close friends of mine, so my emotional investment in this matter leaves me with some bias, but that does not excuse the fact that their patriotic rights of dissent were trampled upon by employees of the state. But what has most tragically been violated in this ordeal is our right to be informed about our government. Mainstream television and newspaper coverage from that week was shal- low, and footage coming from the police per- spective dwarfed any minuscule view that the police may have actually done something wrong. Because most Americans are divorced from the political process in America, it is their fundamental right to be informed about all aspects of their government, the good and the bad. It is essential to democracy that the media bring the problems of government to light. So when the media are biased in favor of the state, and information about abuses of power are hidden from the populace, our democracy is in trouble. What else didn't you hear? While Bush and his business partners where salivating over the potential profits their FTAA policies would yield, countries like Brazil took a hard stance against them and refused to back down fearing what the FTAA would do to them and their way of life. Bush's dream did not come to life in Miami that week. But you didn't hear about this because the only North American daily newspaper that reported this that I could find was the Toronto Globe and Mail. David Cross' humorous remark is trag- ically sad and true. The debate surrounding our mainstream media should not revolve around accusa- tions of them being liberal or conservative. Our media's duty, in the interests of the democratic process, is to hold our elected officials, regardless of party affiliations, and their policies accountable by proliferat- ing access to all information. Our media are failing, the parameters of the First Amend- ment are becoming more and more mean- ingless and without change, our democracy will revert into the system our Founding Fathers fought against. Paul can be reached at aspaul@umich.edu. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Henretty needs to relax, look at the world from dif- ferent Perspectives TO THE DAILY: I was thoroughly amused at Aubrey Henretty's column today (Say 'perspective' one more time - I dare you, 12/09/2003). Becoming so irate as to be filled with "righteous indignation" about someone, "stealing" her seat seems like a bit of an become too comfortable; if you do, you might become the kind of person who. wigs out and writes an angry column in the Daily if ever someone dares to shove you out of your routine and force you to look at the world from a different angle. Note how I avoided saying "perspective." KRISTIN JACQUE Engineering freshman 'Oriental' a word to describe food, not people The usage note goes on to say that, "its use other than as an ethnonym, in phrases such as Oriental cuisine or Oriental medicine, is not usually considered objectionable." So even though Owens' "family and friends have used that term," you may want to think twice before using it yourself. "Ori- ental" as an ethonym is hardly considered a curse word, but its usage is dated and could be misconstrued as disrespectful. NICOLE TUTTLE LSA Senior UNDER YOUR TREES at- -m --- a S- -o j .:.;, <. :: ;: ;. A