4 - The Michigan Daily - Friday, January 21, 2005 OPINION 420 MAYNARD STREET ANN ARBOR, MI 48109 b fi t~guu & cd 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 Unless otherwise noted, unsigned editorials reflect the opinion of the majority of the Daily's editorial board. All other pieces do not necessarily reflect the opinion of The Michigan Daily. NOTABLE QUOTABLE 4 4 Personally, I don't feel much like celebrating. So I'm going to mark the occasion by pledging to do everything in my power to fight the extremist Republicans' destructive agenda." - Nancy Pelosi, House Minority Leader, commenting on President Bush's inauguration, as reported yesterday by The Associated Press. SAM BUTLER TLE SoAmox 0Y 4 ub 4~~T yA Looking beyond 'I have a dream' ELLIOTT MALLEN IRRATIONAL EXUBERANCE We're all used to. going through the motions of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. After facing massive stu- dent pressure from the Black Action Movement over a decade ago, the University decided to take the day off and hold a symposium hon- oring the civil rights leader, giving us an opportunity to celebrate hard-earned civil rights by playing beer pong a third night in a row. King has become an easy-to-swallow sym- bol for universally accepted and vaguely worded concepts like freedom and diversity. He's the revo- lutionary everyone can agree on: charismatic, God- fearing and, most importantly, shot down in his prime. What many fail to realize is that King's radi- calism stretched far beyond his "I Have a Dream" speech. His stances against the Vietnam War and in favor of the labor movement are either forgotten or skimmed over, diminishing his true radicalism. A look at who has been honoring King makes it easy to see to what degree he has become an empty symbol of activism. General Motors, a company with a history of racist hiring practices in Detroit, has donated $10 million to help build a memorial to King in Washington. Bill Swanson, chief executive officer and chairman of the renowned arms manu- facturer Raytheon, has stated that the outspoken pacifist has helped his corporation, claiming that "we are a more inclusive society and a more inclu- sive company because of Dr. King's vision." King has also been posthumously appointed spokesman of companies hoping to benefit from an association with such a revered figure. Alca- tel, a firm dealing with voice and data networks, recently released a digitally altered commercial depicting King giving his "I Have a Dream" speech in front of an empty Mall while a voiceover soothingly asserts that "Before you can inspire, before you can touch, you must first connect. And the company that connects more of the world is Alcatel, a leader in communication networks." Alcatel spokesman Brad Burns assures us that "It's not like we're selling a product, we're simply associating our brand with it." Apple Computers took a more subtle approach by releasing black- and-white print ads featuring pictures of King with the company's logo and the words "Think Different" inconspicuously located in the corner. It's the smoothest corporatization of a revolution- ary figure ever - a seamless, wordless transition from substance to style. Slick advertisements and empty gestures fail to portray the depth of King's objectives. His efforts on civil rights are his most widely acknowledged achievements because today they are universally accepted. However, King the antiwar activist and workers' rights proponent are largely ignored due to, the still-present controversy over these topics. Everyone wants to live in an environment where people "will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character," but not everyone shares identical feelings on labor rights or the Vietnam War. In 1967, King gave a speech entitled Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence in which he declared that the Vietnam War was "an enemy of the poor." King saw the war as a manifestation of racial and economic inequality in the United States, saying that "America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam contin- ued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic, destructive suction tube." He decried the "cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same schools" and pointed out the hypocrisy of a situation in which "we watch them in brutal solidarity burning the huts of a poor village, but we realize that they would never live on the same block in Detroit." For King, resisting the Vietnam War was an integral part of promoting true equal- ity. Time magazine called this "demagogic slander that sounded like a script for Radio Hanoi," which is certainly a departure from the fawning one hears today from mainstream news sources. King, spent the later years of his life fighting for workers rights and economic equality. According to him, gaining civil rights was the easy part on the struggle for equality, as "There are no expenses involved, no taxes are required, for Negroes to share lunch counters, libraries, parks, hotels and other facilities." Substantial changes requires "the outlay of billions for decent housing and equal education," a fact many are reluctant to acknowledge. In 1968, King announced the Poor People's Campaign, which was to culminate in another march on the nation's capital, demanding a $12 billion Economic Bill of Rights that would ensure employment for the able, income for the disabled and a final end to housing discrimination. King was shot in Memphis, Tenn. while visiting in support of striking sanitation workers, who marched with placards proclaiming "I am a man" under the shad- ow of National Guard tanks and bayonets. Had King not been assassinated on that hotel balcony in 1968, he surely would have become a leading voice in the labor movement. Perhaps the reason people have been so reluctant to embrace the anti-war, pro-labor King is that he tackled issues that plague our country to this day. We are fighting a war with an army in which minori- ties are disproportionately doing the killing and dying. Despite King's best efforts, the poor are still overwhelmingly black. We would all like to think that King's dream has been fulfilled and that now all that's left to do is build monuments, hold symposia and run King-invoking advertise- ments cominderorating a troubling yet'dsed chapter in American history. The striking paral- lels between King's America and our own make this far from appropriate. Mallen can be reached at emmallen@umich.edu. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Daily should strive for balance in its jobs coverage TO THE DAILY: I have been keeping an eye on your recent stories about the upswing in the job market, as I search out a start to my career. However, I was ashamed to read your article in yesterday's paper (Jobs for graduates increasing, 01/20/2005). The article was very factual and likeable positive throughout - that is, until the last few paragraphs. The bulk of the article is composed of data from employer surveys and reactions from various personnel within the career guidance organization. Then the author turns to a few choice words from one student. Having landed five job offers after two months of searching, this individual offers advice like: "As long as you're really aggressive, the job market works in your advantage," and "The biggest thing is to think outside the box." These sound like canned phrases clipped straight from those blindly optimistic career magazines. Is this person sup- posed to represent the typical job-seeking stu- dent in the first place? The interviewed student continues with the fol- lowing proclamation: "There are a lot of jobs out there. It's your fault if you haven't found one yet." It would be fine with me if I could read the news without baseless condescension. This individual clearly has no grasp of the finer details of match- ing position with applicant, much less respect for the modern reality of the politics of hiring. I encourage the Daily to look for multiple stu- dent perspectives as a complement to the facts of the issue, and to pay more attention to the intended message in such articles. Nick Magnuski Rackham Bush's cabinet appointments have more qualities than loyalty TO THE DAILY: I could not disagree more with your edito- rial regarding President Bush's choices for his cabinet (His loyal servants, 01/19/2005). First off, Alberto Gonzales is a wonderful choice for attorney general. I find it incredibly disre- spectful you could even imply he condoned the barbaric acts committed in the Abu Ghi- rab prison. If you were to ever read the actual memo I am sure you are referring to, you would know he not only never condoned the treatment that occurred in isolated incidents at the prison, but instead merely narrowly defined what was legally permissible. In the case of Condoleezza Rice, I am unable to think of a better choice for secretary of state. You make the point that because she is such a close advisor and friend of Bush's, she would just be a yes man. However I would argue this would not be a bad thing. When an advisor who normally agrees with the president disagrees with him, the president is more apt to take notice. I believe this will be the case with Rice. I would be remiss if I didn't mention that Rice has one of the most impressive resum6s I have ever seen. She is widely regarded as one of the foremost experts in foreign policy, serving as a professor of political science and pro- vost at Stanford University and as an advisor to the first President Bush. Everyone is entitled to his opinion regarding Bush's appointments; however, to say the nominees for attorney general and secretary of state lack an "understanding of the modern world and the role America is to play" is absolutely ridiculous. Justin Benson LSA freshman VIEWPOINT Barking up the wrong tree BY ALEXANDER HONKALA The recent case of Merck's denied bid to approve its cholesterol-lowering drug Mevacor for over-the-counter sales showcases just what the pharmaceutical industry has become. Ever since 1997, when the federal Food and Drug Adminis- tration loosened its regulations on pharmaceuti- cal advertising and allowed drugs to be marketed directly to consumers ("Have you asked your doc- tor about Viagra?"), the pharmaceutical industry has become more and more like FOX News - sensationalist, overblown and inaccurate. Those three easy steps have become the industry's stan- chondriacs who will spare no expense to medicate their psychosomatically induced conditions. This is especially effective if it includes assaulting the target population with primetime TV commercials every 30 seconds. Step 2: Overblow it - lie to your potential customers about the benefits and symptoms that your drug will bring. For example, in 1987, the FDA approved azidothymidine, which Burroughs Wellcome flaunted as a breakthrough drug in the fight against AIDS. Nevermind that AZT's deadly toxicity had been well documented since the 1950s when it was being reviewed as a potential chemo- therapy drug. Nevermind that the National Institute sales. Science knows that cholesterol is important. It becomes bile acid, hormones and myelin, which allows your central nervous system to function. Yet we all know that too much cholesterol can clog your arteries and make them go "pop!" Ostensi- bly, Mevacor lowers your cholesterol. But therein is a finer distinction that needs to be made. The cholesterol in your body comes from your food and from your liver manufacturing it. When your liver is making cholesterol, it also makes some other important stuff that is rather essential to your body's continued vitality. However, Mevacor inhibits your liver's production of cholesterol and the other important stuff that goes with it. This can, :; ...... .. , , 1 I