Newspapers / Daily Tar Heel (Chapel … / March 3, 1970, edition 1 / Page 2
Part of Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.) / About this page
This page has errors
The date, title, or page description is wrong
This page has harmful content
This page contains sensitive or offensive material
V oiui isary r or 1 i o mr i i 1 N H II JL ft CO. J n i i m ML. ! 78 Years of Editorial American Masks Failing In Laos, Vietnam, ParisJ It has been almost two years since President Johnson announced the bombing halt of North Vietnam. He did so as an offer to the Communists to begin negotiations in Paris. Since that time, the American position in Laos and Vietnam, and in Paris has raised serious questions as to. our real position, as opposed to our "official" position, in Southeast Asia. ' The American posture': in Laos is dangerous.,. President' Nixon has authorized; Gen.'Creighton Abrarns, commander, of. U.S. forces in Vietnam, to order, air strikes in eastern; Laos ;t,o' counter the North Vietnamese ,' threat to. ' American troops in Vietnam. .And -Defense Secretary Laird' defends , the American military effort in Laos as direct) rejated to"-a, Vpplicy of protective .-..-ruction." ' against " the North Vietnamese'! threat-, to U.S: troops in Vietnam:0 ?: ' iU 7 Applied, , rn ere ly , to North Vietnam. tjie.Jic of protective reaction imeanstAmericari ' planes canbQmb.Sorth, Vietnamese, targets Jin rnere-T anticipation of defensive at tacks on our reconnaisance iplanes. When applied to Laos, the rpolicf -mjs eMca'n ' piai)esvCarf-: bomb Mtian&rgete to; prevent? Jwere going to bomb Laotian targets in the first place. The logic involved fis circular, to say the least. in -!!ie aimsoiv'.iwo years since njiaitetltelbqmbing of the .;Xh.Jluv,.r J&RoilXQj begin utlxoirsi tlTe.'Paris efforts have -f al 1 e if r ef irriiferably: The Riissian hint Sunday that the Communists now plan to withdraw fremi the Paris talks does not speak well for the Nixon position in Paris v .' Vietnam. . , What this new Communist move oes suggest is that Nixon has failed adly in striving to settle ..the 'ietnam travesty. Henry Cabot American negotiator in Paris saying we were failing on that sterile front. Now the Communists are going to do something concrete toprotest t our failure in Paris. MORE TO COME Nixon . . . increasing stakes A Greensboro district judge ruled Friday that the Swedish movie "I Am Curious (Yellow)" does not violate North Carolina's anti-obscenity laws. Judge Kenneth Carrington, in dismissing charges against' . the manager of . the Janus Theatre, which dared to show the film, said: "Obscenity is in the mind of the beholder." Greensboro policemen arrested Janus' Halsey Melone two weeks ago when "I Am Curious" opened its engagement. The Chief District Prosecutor, Ross Strange, charged that the film is part of a . T Eye Of. The Beholder Freedom Todd Cohen Editor Harry Bryan Laura White Bobby N owe 1 1 Mary Burch ArtChansky f!anagt'ng Editor News Editor Associate Editor Arts Editor Sports Editor Bob Wilson Frank Stewart Business Manager Advertising Manager Peter Hatch Night Editor this issue V .1 ' f: ;1 4 v mm Johnson .... ' ... left small hope policy stances on ? Laos--and ; on bombing North; Vietnam seem- to sugge st that' Nixon 'and Laird and the other elite"decisionakcrs have! some- , of thpir, . own ideas - about Vie t nam -..which -.don't exactly conform : to'whatthe American v public Has 'Been led to believe; The war in Asia has been enough of a drain so far on the American way of life. The games the Nixon administration chooses to play and the Ttakeswiiich it chobses:l:o raiseJ :,'Vvvi'Vven Greater ri&'fn our wav of. life, is a perversion of what America - wants and what "it has been promised. And the small hopes which may have; persisted two years ago have -little now tcexist foiin j v , , Anci; asiall -M; wenf 'not? enough, Nixon i xscalating, ,thW hostilities in Sou tlaeast Asia. The administration's , 3policn-;of protective reaction", - a (.poor . iirpn?. - ? uisguise ior iiie.vmericaii uiipiive? does little to improve either bur political relations with the Communists and the free world, or our actual position on the fighting front. We have lost, the ability to win the war, (as if wcjever possessed it) and Nixon's (.alleged policy of gradual withdrawal 'and Vietnamization of the fighting would suggest we have no intention of trying to effect -"a military victory. The President's position as articulated last fall would suggest "that the U.S. is making an honest effort to extricate itself from Vietnam. He spoke of working towards some kind of success in Paris. But the Americans have not -offered the Communists a peace., proposal since last July. Tlie Communists m ade their -last proposal in May, but the failure of the Communists in no way exonerates the impotency of the Americans. , Nixon also claimed that along with the gradual American troop withdrawals and Vietnamization of the war, the U.S. hopefully would be able to withdraw itself militarily from the battlefield. But the latest Communist plot to corrupt the nation's morals. It is a common charge by American superpatriots that one of the stepping-stones to a Communist takeover is the weakening of a .nation's morals by getting the people "interested in sex," and other obscene things. It is a logic which has been used extensively by certain dissemenators of news in this area, who feel that "obscenity"' and Communism go hand-in-hand. We are grateful that once again this lugubrious notion has been legally rejected. Be a i 'Real (Editor's Sole: This column is a "Joint effort" by the Committee for a Free Press to rebut charges in the DTH editorial of Feb. 20, "Free Press Seeks to End DTH Because It Disagrees Politically. ") The Daily Tar Heel has recently heaped a great deal of verbal abuse not only in the ideals of the Committee for a Free Press, but also in its individual members. Several months ago, the victim was Tom Benton; last week, John Aga began a personalized attack on Miss Trent Oliver, . dubbing her, and the entire committee "intellectually dishonest," "simpleminded," "out of their depth when they talk about principle," "inaccessable to reason," "every thought impenetrable and impervious." The week before, he had labelled "the Committee "proto-fascist." His next column stated . that he "of course" did not wish to have anyone "assume" that he "realiy considered Miss Oliver and her friends fascists:" but that he would not retract the epithet. And this week, Mr. Agar has again delved into his store of invective in his efforts to refute the Committee for a Free Press. . ' Our Committee declines to reply iir kind. We prefer to use this space to raise again the fundamental principle of human, rights which our Committee has defended and which Mr. Agar and others have chosen to deny or ignor. The issue involved is a moral one. Simply phrased: It is wrong to force, people to pay for a newspaper with which. s they disagree or whose services they do not desire. w The arguments utilized in an attempt to justify the status quo are three-fold: ; (i) the "student-oriented" paper serves a "basic need" on the campus; (2) We pay' . taxes for many things with which we may j disagree so why not the DTH?; and (3) , thej.Daily .Tar. Heel .will fold without: Universal- compulsory studeati i subsidization; T f : , n ' .None of these, arguments, is valid 'The student' government's; committee finds a ""basic need for a' student-oriented newspaper," and John Agar objects Jo our analogy of the Tar' Heel and the Wall Street Journal: "the Tar Heel is not the Wall St. Journal it performs a fundamentally different function." But the fact is, the DTH does noi? perform., a "fundamieatalLy different, 'i i '' l mi 1 m 1 tt i l 2 lit the'same Drivilepes of a "real" newsDaoer Lei,' the Wall. St. Journal) without being. willing to accept the responsibilities of one (i.e. paying its own way). Endorsing John Agar -2 h, . 'om& 'Th&MgHts O S The state; . of Hawaii(arecently passed h Iiberal , aborn law f the . nation. The new. law allows nearly any Hawaiian woman to have a legal abortion. ,Out-of-staters must have established a residency of at least 90 days in Hawaii to qualify, which as much as says they cannot do so. Three months after pregnancy has been detected, abortion is 'a hazardous operation. This is a step in the right direction; but . going in the right direction, like being - well-intentioned, often is not enough. The law was conceived, after all, by .legislators, men whose major impetus is expediency, convenience, cost considerations: and I cannot help thinking it is a bad law. It's hard to talk rationally about abortion because so much of the "logic" one encounters is merely a battle over terminology which each of us takes on faith. Also, the subject has been talked into the ground without anything new and startling coming to light. This is no attempt at settling the question once and for all: I'm not going lit iiy wiiai l hi suic iu iau in. ucaiucs, my own thinking about abortion is pretty much at a stand. I will try to articulate my thoughts to myself, hoping that as I do so other people may be prompted to reconsider their views. For the one person who's bound to write in disputing my "right" to consider the subject oh, don't bother . . . - My first thoughts, some years ago were that anyone who wanted ari abortion should have means to one. This is the view of many liberal people, for two reasons. They argue that abortion is a necessity for controlling population; especially among those least able to bear the consequences of overpopulation; and they assert every woman's right to have her will over her own body. - I think the need argument is a weak one. Granting that abortion is a useful The Daily Tar Heel is published by the University of North Carolina Student Publication's Board, daily except Monday, examination periods and vacations and during summer periods. Offices are at the' Student Union Bldg.. Univ. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, N.C. 27514. Telephone numbers: editorial, sports, news-933-1011; business, circulation, advert ising-933-11 63. Address: Carolina Union, Chapel Hill, N.C. 27514. " Second class postage paid rt UJ5. "Post Office in Chapel Hill, N.C. 83 political candidates and demanding complete editorial freedom are privileges cf a "real" newspaper. Distorting the news, and the lackadaisical attitude toward the Campus Calendar and toward covering all campus events are inconsistent with the paper's role as a "'student need". If the Tar Heel claims our compulsory fees because it is a campus service, fine let it regress to just that: a bulletin board for campus news. There is no moral injustice in that. But if it wishes the privileges of a "real" newspaper, then let its readership be allowed to support it voluntarily. (2) The argument analogizing Student ""Fees to taxes is specious in the context of Tar Heel support. The "distinction" is that the Tar Heel can be purchased on a per-user basis to allow for the maximization of the freedom of the individual the goal, one hopes, of every good government. 0 Another complaint often voiced by Bur opponents is that we have chosen to suggest Student fees be denied the DTH U K' X .. vmp NIXON ::i"V;'N vjvl IVlx A! I '4 Mji J nijstrurnent for regulating population, jjcontraception is more useful and safer. .' I don't mean that, unwilling motherhood should be punishment for: ignorance or carelessness. But if we're sg6mg to campaign for birth control, emphasis should be on contraception, for the reasons above. For a woman and for society, abortion "jof an undesired pregnancy is cheaper and 'more convenient than fosterchild care. jBut that doesn't make it right; and it's ,'poor policy to seize permanently on the ' wrong alternative merely because a better j not immediately practicable. .1 hope that someday orphanages and y the rest of the current foster care setup Jgive place to something on the order of , kibbutzim. I'd like to see kibbutzim for 7 all kids. But if we strike out for free 'abortions, well have pulled the rug from ' beneath the need argument at least as far ( 2& politicians understand such things for Preformation of foster care facilities. " 7 - Letter W the Editor n lionv "r To the Editor: . Marijuana scare theorists are fond of ' citing the statistic that 80 of heroin 15 addicts used marijuana prior to getting y ! Into heroin. Of course, 100 of heroin ' ' addicts probably tested spinach before f starting on heroin, so maybe spinach leads to hard stuff. What is a meaningful ! statistic is not the percentage of heroin j users who have previously used f 'marijuana, but the percentage of marijuana users who go on to use heroin. ? v Recent research indicates that only a ! small minority of students who have tried ll marijuana go on to heroin or even to 0., LSD. On the other hand, the research also W indicates that the more marijuana one-has .used, the greater is the likelihood that I one has also sampled stronger drugs i including heroin. So there is a connection Cbetween heroin and marijuana although it I' 'has been greatly exaggerated and misinterpreted. Why does marijuana smoking ! sometimes lead to heroin consumption? I I think the connection between heroin and ljaarijuana is in part of consequence of the . wildly exaggerated, lurid and hysterical anti-pot propaganda that kids have been I subjected to by parents, teachers, police, J etc. Fr years kids have been told that ?marijuana is a "Killer Drug", but when they try marijuana, lo and behold, they don't get addicted, they don't get violent. Anti-Pot - lalk Hik 9 - rather than the Yack. Our primary concern, as voicea that an agent of poU!caI opinion-left, rr-ht. or centrist-has no right to extract fes from all students! The Yack does not express political opinions. (3) Finally, the Committee for a Free Press does not seek to "End DTH." This has been a "scare" tactic used by the Tar Heel from their first editorial yelp ("they seek to abolish the Daily Tar Heel because they don't like it.") to Mr. N'owell's last whine "life Without the DTH: A Look Into the Future". If the Daily Tar Heel is so 'vital, so useful, so collectively desirable to the campus, then there is no basis for assuming that the paper would fail if financed on a voluntary basis. Most good college papers do not rely on compulsory support. One example is the Cornell Daily Newswhich has won more awards than the Tar Heel. Moreover, two-thirds of the newspaper's Income at present is from advertising. A campus press financed by the free choice of its readership will have to, broaden its coverage, improve its format and provide more objective and more 1,ul 1bt. .- 'rf)fctte s lm ?' Legislation There'll still be . unwanted children, only ; fewer; or, if not fewer, their existence will be inexplicable, because we'll have a "solution" for this "problem." Well have cured half the disease and made the other half incurable. On the second question: Yes, women should have the right to "control" their own body. I equivocate on the word because no one really controls his body. I've spoken to women who claimed that pregnancy was degrading for them, demanded that they should have had a right to abortion. But wouldn't abortion have been just as degrading? and menstratuation? and lactation? The problem is that such a person isn't at home in her skin. It's no one's fault, it just is. Still, an individual should have the right to use and abuse and rule himself as far as modern science allows. The question, of course, is, Is a fetus a human being? Does a pregnant woman have the right to decide to abort that es they don t become psychotic. They realize that the anti-pot propaganda they have been exposed to is phony and thev naturally assume that the anti-heroin propaganda they have been subjected to is equally phony! Their inhibitions against trying out heroin are thereby reduced and it will be easier for other circumstances, such as a pot shortage, to induce them to sample heroin. I am not arguing that this is the only or even the primary' reason underlying the current heroin invasion in the high schools. It W2S probabty inevitable that the psychedelic craze would ultimately lead to a heroin fad among younger drug abusers. Strong psychedelics like LSD or mescaline enhance sensitivity, they make one more susceptible to impressions from the environment. Many teenyboppers just are not mature enough to be able to handle this supersensitivity and they eagerly switch to a drug like heroin which reduces sensitivity and blocks out the environment. The psychedelic fad becomes a fad for "dope" per se and heroin is the least intellectually demanding kind of dope. This may help explain why teenyboppers often prefer heroin to LSD, but it doesn't explain why many kids have lost their' inhibitions against escalating drug abuse beyond marijuana. I think the lurid and hysterical anti-pot propaganda which kids can easily explode experiential! is representative opinions than or.ts can offend its clientele daily, impunity, because of a capthe : obtained through a monopolistic t'tilitv. as well as individual f .4 favors a voluntary campus press. The editor and columnists of the have consistently advocated pa tor freedom for students in the past: why r.ci now? If students are competent to . J:e each other in a student courts; if m r t students are justified in determining thrir living quarters and closing hours; if it an injustice for sophomores to be required to live on campus in order to subsidize the University's dormitories; if the potential of the individual fcr self-determination, for free choice is 0 valuable, as most students would ;::;; then how can a coercively fin.Wtd newspaper be justified!? Obviously, it cannot. This is the reason that the proponents of Compulsory funding have had to resort to personal attacks on the advocates cf freedom to attempt to maintain their privileges. It was ever thus. Liberate yourself and "yes" in the Referendum. others. Vote something-else inside her? I've had medical students blithely assure me that a fetus is not a person. But that kind of assertion seems rather facile. People plant saplings and say they're planting trees, and with an infallible logic I won't push the point, and surely I won't push the analogy. I'm more than wining to be argued out of this opinion, but as time goes I find myself less inclined to be. I would add this. I favor abortion where the mental or physical health of the mother in endangered by the pregnancy, or where the birth is likely to be of a retarded or deformed child. I'm aware that by my own logic I ought to favor the liquedation of people whose mental or physical feebleness renders them incapable of functioning as what we call "human beings." I don't, and can't think I ever will. Which is perhaps a good place to end: On a contradiction. Heroin Usage' partly responsible. I am not arguing that marijuana is totally harmless. I am artminff that its perils have been wildly and hysterical! exaggerated and that an ultimate consequence of this hyperbole is reduced credibility for anti-heroin propanda. There are some departments and courses in this university which still propagate hysterical anti-pot scare theories. I am told that those responsible for training high school and pre-hih school teachers sometimes transmit lurid anti-pot hyperbole. They should realize that they're helping to breed teenage junkies. The scare propaganda of today creates the dope fiends of tomorrow. Tom Robbins Sociology Department UNC Readers Forinn Letters to the editor must be typed and double-spaced, not exceeding 300 words. The letter writer must indicate his willingness for his opinion to be expressed in rint. Ail printed letters must carry the name and address of the writer(s). Letters should be addressed to the Associate Editor, care of The Daily Tar Heel, Student Union. i 11
Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
March 3, 1970, edition 1
2
Click "Submit" to request a review of this page. NCDHC staff will check .
0 / 75