4A - The Michigan Daily - Monday, March 1, 2004 6 OPINION 420 MAYNARD STREET U nANN ARBOR, MI 48109 opinion. michigandaily..com tothedaily@michigandaily.com EDITED AND MANAGED BY STUDENTS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN SINCE 1890 JORDAN SCHRADER Editor in Chief JASON Z. PESICK Editorial Page Editor NOTABLE QUOTABLE Everybody was feeding off the carcass of what was Iraq." 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. SAM BUTLER THE SOAPBOX h o w io ce e~S 1 t-e Y ja nace.- 41,1tx . bec dscvtec.ed... s VZ - Interim Iraqi trade minister A li Allawi, on corruption of the oil-for-food program by Saddam Hussein's government, as reported yesterday in The New York Times. Coming unstuck in history ZAC PESKOWITZ THEL LOWER FREQUENCIES "Main Street is the cli- ple with the moral uncertainty that often tions, but the second go around was more max of civilization. That surrounds it has resulted in many outcomes promising. The foreign policy team mis- this Ford car might stand as abhorrent as those initiated by millenari- handled the Rwanda crisis in the spring of in front of the Bon Ton an sects. The self-styled progressives of the 1994, but eventually exercised a credible Store, Hannibal invaded early 20th century who embraced the prom- response to genocide in Kosovo. Candidate Rome and Erasmus wrote ise of eugenics as a cure for the world's Clinton often took a skeptical attitude in Oxford cloisters." problems represent a particularly unsettling toward free trade, while President Clinton - Sinclair Lewis case of this behavior. The relevant distinc- struggled to get the North American Free "What are the politics of tion between the two forms of endism is that Trade Agreement past a Democratically boredom?" in the more ambiguous example, individuals controlled Congress. As vice president, Al - Malcolm McLaren merely believe that the possibility of the end Gore went on CNN to mock Ross Perot as exists. We have created the tools for the a protectionist with a photograph of Rep. A fter more than 40 years of Cold realization of the good.life; it is up to the Willis C. Hawley and Sen. Reed Smoot, the War anxiety about counterforce next generations to adopt them. authors of the ignominious Hawley-Smoot strikes, the adequacy of the civil Generational narcissism may be the hand- Tariff Act of 1930, and defend the princi- defense system, a bomber gap followed by iest explanation of humanity's habit to identi- ples of NAFTA. By the end of his presiden- a missile gap, the proliferation of MIRV fy the final stage of history as a development cy, Clinton was winning major trade battles missile technology and the credibility of contemporaneous with one's existence. In by large margins. Both parties seemed to deterrent threat, the end of history looked this respect, it is a self-absorbed fetish. How- be converging toward the ideals in Fukuya- like a pretty good bargain. The thesis ever, its defenders insist that there are bene- ma's vision of the end of history. served to displace the apparently unshak- fits of this obsession with the end. It is a tool Of course, none of this holds now. John able fear of the end of humanity with more to impose order on the complexity of histori- Kerry flaunts his isolationist campaign mundane fears. Even as tragedies and con- cal events, find a purpose in the confusion of line, "We shouldn't be opening firehouses flict still lay ahead, future society would be life and reduce political disagreements to in Baghdad and closing them in Brooklyn." defined by free markets and democratic their essentials. It's difficult not to be cynical when exam- institutions. We knew what we were and The sea change in the U.S. political ining Sen. John Edwards' jibe that trade where we were going. arena on the issues of free trade and represents a "moral issue" when he voted The tendency to identify one's own humanitarian intervention and the relative against the African Growth and Opportuni- epoch and way of life as the crown of cre- decline of the Democratic Leadership ty Act. President Bush implements quotas ation is a persistent undercurrent of human Council's influence has reflected a distinct on steel imports and tariffs on textiles. The history. The countless millenarian move- shift in the attitudes of Americans toward belief that the end of history is preordained ments that have claimed the end is nigh and the end of history story. While it has since breeds a sense of complacency toward exhorted their followers to consummate been mocked, critiqued and largely these sudden shifts. The end of history the- gruesome deeds are prominent examples of renounced by its creator - Francis sis wraps policies that are genuinely impor- this mode of thinking. A belief in the imper- Fukuyama has since argued that the pace of tant in a cloak of urbane nonchalance. ative of "progress" and the concomitant technological innovation prevents history History, even from the victor's circle, is belief that the ideal of progress can be readi- from coming to an end - for a short still worth fighting for. ly identified is a more ambiguous example expanse of time it looked and felt real. On of the same pattern of thought. The fascina- the foreign policy front, the first Clinton Peskowitz can be reached at tion with progress and an inability to grap- term didn't always live up to the expecta- zpeskowi@umich.edu. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR BAMN is not a 'para- terrorist' organization TO THE DAILY: I was deeply confused by Dan Grano's letter (Information on website an error; Col- lege Republicans do not support the MCRI, 2/18/04) calling the pro-affirmative-action group BAMN a "para-terrorist" organiza- tion. Assuming Grano could not possibly be likening nonviolent protest to terrorism, I searched for a potential definition. Dis- carding the ideas that the speaker had to be protected from a group protecting against terrorism, that BAMN was operat- ing a crack suicide-parachute squad or that being in favor of affirmative action is somehow "parallel to, but going beyond, terrorism," I can only hope that he intend- ed the prefix to somehow soften and legit- imize his comparison of a group he disagrees with to violent killers. In which case, his remark is merely para-offensive, para-extremist and para-stupid. DENNIS CLARK Rackham Nader a better choice than Democrats TO THE DAILY: I'm having a hard time swallowing this "Anybody But Bush" pill - the rationale that the Bush administration is an extrem- ist rogue faction of ideologically driven Christian fundamentalists and that any Democrat would be better. This administration is not so rogue judging by U.S. history, which shows a consistent record of covert or open aggres- sion to undermine movements in the pub- lic interest that challenge global corporate profiteering. And judging by the Democrats' last three years as the opposition, they're no better. For such an extremist agenda, where have they been? Where were the filibusters, the procedural obstructionist tactics? The Democrats, including presi- dential candidates John Kerry and John Edwards, abdicated the power of Congress to declare war while ushering in the new era of Bush's national securitv strategy no to evil! Vote your conscience and vote for Ralph Nader who says, "There are a hundred million non-voters that no one has figured out how to bring back into the electoral system, which I want to try to do." MITCH ABRAMS Reader Politicians need to make difficult choices for country TO THE DAILY: On Feb. 25, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan made comments before Congress that Social Security benefits would have to be trimmed to keep Social Security and the federal budget fiscally sol- vent. These comments were unpopular with both Democratic presidential candidates and also with President Bush, as you could probably expect in an election year. This move by the candidates is no doubt to pro- tect their stand with older voters, who are more likely to hit the polls, despite the bleak future of the federal budget and Social Security. However, this demonstrates one of the biggest problems with our government and our political system. No one who has his name on a ballot is willing to step up and take an unpopular stand for the good of the country. The biggest problem with politicians is they start out wanting to gen- uinely do good, serve the country and make America better. However, in their quest for power, they compromise their values, and the good they sought gets lost in the shuffle as politicians struggle to gain and remain in power. I personally have started to become apathetic about the entire political system when we as a country have serious prob- lems, and we do not have any serious people who are willing to solve them. In my opin- ion, what this country needs is sincere, hon- est and authentic leadership, which is in rare supply. I know I paint a much more dire picture than is actually out there - our gov- ernment does us a great deal of good, pro- viding peace and security (among other things). But I see that we are sliding down a slippery slope, and American is getting used to accepting less, so I ask you Daily readers, what will you do about it? Whatever your City's police need to protect pedestrians TO THE DAILY: This letter is a response to the article enti- tled Jaywalking causes greater concern since student deaths (02/17/04). The Ann Arbor police are not doing their jobs as far as pro- tecting pedestrians is concerned. I have first- hand experience. I was struck by a car while walking to work in Ann Arbor in January of 2003. This occurred in front of the Michigan Union, as I was crossing South University Avenue in the crosswalk. I was hospitalized with a broken hip, head wound and internal bleeding. I was in the hospital for a month and in a wheelchair for three months after that. The point I'd like to make is that even if you are legally crossing the street in Ann Arbor, you are not necessarily safe, so the issue of pedestrian safety is much broader than Lt. Michael Logghe attempted to convey with his statements in the article. Not only did the police never contact me for their report, but they failed to return my phone calls after repeated attempts. The person who hit me was issued a ticket at the scene for failure to yield. The result? The police officer, Offi- cer Martin, never showed up to court that day, and the charge was dismissed. So part of the problem, as I see it, is in the failure of the Ann Arbor Police Department to enforce the law. That is the kind of "civil service" you can expect from The AAPD when you are a law-abiding, tax-paying citizen of Ann Arbor. Thanks for nothing, Ann Arbor. KENNETH A. LONGO Research fellow, Department of Physiology II LETTERS POLICY The Michigan Daily welcomes letters from all of its readers. Letters from Universi- ty students, faculty, staff and administrators will be given priority over others. Letters should include the writer's name, college and school year or other University affiliation. The Daily will not print any letter contain- ing statements that cannot be verified. Letters should be kept to approximately r