Newspapers / Daily Tar Heel (Chapel … / March 3, 1971, edition 1 / Page 6
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Larry Kessler fife f 4t ti H i O n Opinions of The Daily Tar Heel are expressed on its editorial page. AH unsigned editorials are the opinions of the editor and the stsff. Lf Iters and columns represent onry the opinions of the individual contributors. Wednesday, March 3, 1 97 1 Tom Gooding. Editor 7T7 DTH policy statement on campaign coverage One sure sign of spring on the UNC campus is the sprouting of candidates for political offices. Those individuals have already begun their annual harassment of the student body. The Daily Tar Heel, because it is the only campuswide communications media, has been and will continue to be deluged with appearances and requests from the candidates and their supporters. The DTH will attempt to provide the fairest and most complete coverage possible of the elections. However, we want to avoid misunderstanding between the paper and publicity-seeking candidates. The policy for campaign coverage to be used by this paper is as follows: c A news reporter will be assigned to cover the campaign. He will use all means at his disposal to obtain information on the Sty? My GJar Sfrri 79 Years of Editorial Freedom Tom Gooding, Editor Rod Waldorf Managing La. Mike Parnell .News Editor Rick Gray Associate Ed. Chris Cobbs ....... Sports Editor Frank Parrish . Feature Editor Ken Ripley National News Ed. John Gellman Photo Editor Terry Cheek Night Editor Robert Wilson Business Mgr. Janet Bernstein ...... . . Adv. Mgr. Tom Bello SG nee One of the most significant beginnings Student Government has made this year is in the area of legal service. Working with a $1,500.00 appropriation from Student Legislature, Student Government has defended two students in civil suites, has legally incorporated its print shop operation, and has retained the legal services of Mr. John Brooks to help remedy the student fees controversy. In addition, Judicial Advisor George Butler has compiled a very imformative Students' Rights Handbook, one of the first of its kind in the entire nation, and has organized the Judicial Defense League to defend students' interests in student courts. These efforts need to be maintained by my successor, regardless of what philosophy he advocates, if Student Government is to strengthen its own legitimacy and better serve students. In both of the earlier mentioned civil cases, one a well-publicized incident in Project Hinton and the other a little publicized case involving a black student, students were improperly charged by the Chapel Hill police. Notified of possible police misconduct. Student Government was able to provide legal services in both incidents, The two cases went to court, and both students were acquitted. . i Recognizing a need for greater financial independence. Student Government legally incorporated last December the printing operation. As with any incorporation of any business, this action could only be done with legal assistance.' In the near future other student services will need to be as n t mm o campaign. Candidates may issue policy statements but the reporter will use those statements only as part of the overall news story. The DTH will not serve as a public relations forum for any candidate. We will attempt to publish the fairest and most complete coverage of the election in order to provide the students with the necessary information for selecting the best candidate. We will accept one 600-word, policy statement from each editorial, presidential, vice presidential and RCF co-chairman candidate. The statements must be typed on a 60-space line, double-spaced, with a carbon copy provided. The statement must be turned in to the Editor or Associate Editor in the DTH office by 6 p.m. Sunday, March 7. All statements for each office will be printed on the same day. The DTH will accept no letters to the editor supporting or opposing any candidate. This is necessary to prevent any one candidate from organizing a letter-writing campaign in an attempt to fill the editorial page with his name. However, we will accept letters addressed to the or circumstances general nature involved in a campus political campaign. The paper, will question candidates, look for contradictions in policy statements, and try to point out the differences between the candidates. We have published this policy in an attempt to be fair to the candidates. But more important, we have adopted this policy in an attempt to be fair to the students who must vote. We hope the policy will provide the voters with all the information they need to make an intelligent decision. incorporated if Student Government is to continue in its efforts toward financial independence. Concerning financial independence, the employment of . a lawyer in the controversy was a necessity. Acting as legal counsel, John Brooks has done considerable research into the history of student government and the student activity fee, has talked to past student government and University officials, and has been present at meetings with the Chancellor, President Friday, and the State Auditor. His presence at these important meetings was a great asset; already, his historical research should benefit future Student Government leaders. After a year's experience, from having no help to having the excellent assistance of Mr. Brooks, I realize the need for Student Government to continue providing legal services for students. Indeed, Student , Government needs to expand these services to include a permanant legal counsel. Working daily in Suite G. a full-time lawyer would be an invaluable asset to the student community. This lawyer could serve many purposes. He could help student services and publications in their legal efforts to achieve financial independence. He could act as an ombudsman talking to administrators in all areas of student concern, serving as a mediator when students and administrators are in disagreement on an issue. He could work with Chapel Hill officials to see that all students living in apartments are treated legal T 1 nrhcy (Editor's Note: Larry Kessler is a professor of history here, specializing in the history of the Far East He teaches courses on the history of American involvement in the IndocJiina area as well as courses on other Asian areas. ) Now, it is not likely that anyone still believes Nixon is telling the truth about Indochina, but his latest report to Congress on foreign policy contains flagrant new distortions that need answering. Most obvious is Nixon's claim that "Vietnamization fulfills our objective of reducing American involvement"-a claim that seeks to mask the brutal aggression and wanton killing carried out by U.S. air and ground forces (in whatever their guises) in Vietnam, Cambodia,, and Laos. And this "involvement" such a curious, sanitized description of the systematic destruction of whole nations will increase, not decrease, as the Indochinese peoples struggle forjndependence. Nixon and his top officials have continually threatened the unlimited use of air power and the keeping of a quarter-million troops in w mm a m m w mz- i V UITTL LATH aTTIHQr STARTEP, but Now THAT RYAN HAS Actu A co M Per? tip H, Hs picking up Mi3 pace GroverB. Proctor Goeseir In the first column I ever wrote for the DTH, I listed five points which I feel can be used to explain the conservative position very easily to those who would call it into question. And, indeed, my beliefs have been called into question many times in the last six months since I have been writing this column. That's the way it should be. counsei fairly and equally under existing laws. He could defend students when they have been improperly handled by the local police. He could provide general legal advice to students on a vast number of questions and, over the years, could supply that desperately needed continuity to Student Government. Each year he could help the new Student Government leaders beocme accusomed to their responsibilites, and his continuing research could fully document past actions and directions of preceding student leaders. Thus from a legal standpoint, the attorney would be fulfilling a valuable function of education, both by informing students of their basic legal rights and by helping new student representatives learn from the past. And all this could be provided at cost to the student community of about one-fourth the cost it will pay this year alone on the Yackety-Yack. American society is sustained by its system of laws, and history has shown that the most long-lasting changes in society have been achieved through legal reform. Yet ability to use the law as a mechanism of change is directly dependent on ones knowledge of that law. Student leaders, desirous of change, need to know the best manner, within the law, to accomplish their objectives. This knowledge can be provided by the students" lawyer. Hopefully, future student leaders will recognize the need for a permanent legal counsel if they are to fulfill campaign promises of a stronger, more service-oriented Student Government. 9 i . I J I i J Vietnam until they attain their objectives, which axe nothing less than the military defeat of indigenous nationalistic forces and the creation of a puppet state in the southern half of Vietnam. Nixon also professed a "care about the preservation of international agreements. His cynicism is hard to top: the U.S. has lcng violated both the 1954 ' and 1962 Geneva Accords on Vietnam and Laos, respectively. This and all preceding a d ministrations back to Eisenhower's have introduced foreign troops, created military bases, helped prevent elections, trained counter-insurgency mercenaries, toppled governments that were no longer useful to us, and created divided nations -all in contravention to these international agreements. U.S. talk now of supervised elections, cease-fires, or international conferences rings hollow to the Indochinese peoples, and they win settle for nothing less than the complete and immediate withdrawal of all U.S. forces from their territory. Anything less would sanction past U.S. imperialism and invite www v ir wr w- m mm m m mtm . Jr. UJ1VQ3 However, I feel it probably the right time to re-evaluate and expound on these, positions I laid down on a greater scale than I was able to do then. Therefore, I propose to devote each of my next five columns to each of these five points. My first point was as follows: A Conservative is NOT one who automatically supports everything the President does, but we do respect the authority of any president to make decisions and actions assigned to him by judicial or constitutional authority or by historical precedent. We also believe these decisions and actions must be obeyed and respected. Notice there are several key words and phrases which temper the sense of the last paragraph. In dealing with each one, I shall try to illuminate my beliefs. "Automatically supports-The negation of this phrase is vital. If anyone of any group automatically believed and supported every action of a leader, it would truly indicate a severe lack of individual thought and initiative. Indeed, no human of any persuasion deserves so high a dedication. "Respect the authority" This is the Letter to the editor tote mee To the editor: I have followed with interest the issue of mixed beverages in North Carolina, and I wonder that there has been so little student pressure on the part of North Carolina's youth to bring this fine state up to the civilized standards of the forty-five states which already have decided to approach alcohol in a rational manner. I live in Alabama, and I have traveled quite widely. Never have I seen a state which has such potential for convention activity as North Carolina, yet North Carolina has turned its back on the great revenue which would accompany the increased convention and tourist business that mixed beverages would bring. Too many North Carolinians are seeing mixed beverages as a radical step which will bombard the state's highways with drunken drivers. The fact is, however, that mixed beverages would be a big step toward moderation among drinkers. This i i lit future infringements on their sovereignty Perhaps more insidious than the rhetoric to cover up US. activity in Indochina is Nixon's attempt to make us believe our victims accept the situation. "Today," he asserted, "the political focus in South Vietnam for almost all forces except the Communists is within the established system," and "there were continued signs of a growing commitment to the political institutions (the Presidency National Assembly) established by the 1967 Constitution." The truth h that now, more than ever before, popular non-Communist discontent with the war and the Saigon government is rising. And the 1967 elections Nixon boasts of were hardly democratic: communists, neutralist, and peace candidates were either prohibited from running or prevented from campaigning, and newspapers were widely censored. Still, even with a National Assembly chosen in such a fashion, members of that body as well as the press are now openly attacking the government and U.S. forces in Vietnam. n IL main point of the statement. In any society, humans will invariably structure themselves into some sort of heirarchy out of which leadership elements will emerge. Whatever the form of the societal structure, there will come some. man or group of men with initiative enough to want to lead other people. This being a non-artificial result of men living with other men, then this ordering of society is natural and should be preserved. All this statement says, in the context of America, is that as conservatives we support the existing structure in the country, and that we believe that any ordered society must conform itself to the structure to which it gives birth. Rightly or wrongly, we as Americans have a tradition of a democratic republic with a federated constitution. And it is to this tradition which we must yield as being the structuring of our society until such time as it no longer exists. Finally, in our society, judicial and constitutional authority as well as historical precedent have tremendous weight in preserving this man-made structuring we now enjoy. Therefore, they should be regarded as sacrosanct, as o statement can be verified by the fact that the two Carolinas, which are the only states on the eastern seaboard without some form of liquor-by-the-drink, are leading of all of these other states in automobile accidents and fatalities per ten thousand miles of road traveled in the states. Further evidence of the moderation encouraged by mixed beverages is the experience of Virginia. Virginia, which adopted a law almost identical to the bill being debated for North Carolina, has had a general improvement in public driving especially in Norfolk and other areas near military bases largely because Virginians now buy drinks rather than entire bottles of liquor. The proposed mixed beverage law would not bring distasteful bars to North Carolina, for anyone buying drinks would have to spend as much money on food as on drinks. But most importantly, this mixed beverage bill would be on a local option. Any issue of this magnitude ;0 ' Cynthia Frederick, a Harvard student of Vietnamese affairs, recently visited Saigon and noted a radical transformation in public opinion. She writes: "During the past nice months, students, workers, veterans, women, respected politicians, and religious leaders (including Roman Catholics, who were formerly strongly anti-Communist and enthusiastic supporters of the war) have all taken a public stand in favor of hoa vinh peace. Moreover, for the first time, they have linked this peace with demands for 1) the withdrawal for "foreign" (i.e., American) troops from the South, and 2) the ouster of the Thieu-Ky-Khiem triumvirate. The war has come home, and the "silent majority" of South Vietnam is speaking out, loudly." The Vietnamese peace advocates last November formed a broad-based Popular Front for the Defense of Peace and are now in open struggle against the U.S. puppet government in Saigon. The Popular Front represents a number of mass-based anti-war organizations such as the Committee of Women's Action for the Right to Live, the National Movement for Self-Deterrnination, the High School Teachers Union, the Student Committee for Human Rights, the Catholic Labor Youth Movement, the Vietnamese Women's Association, the Buddhist Women's Federation, the Committee for the Reform of the Prison System, the National Progressive Force, the Progressive Labor Liaison Committee, various trade unions (including dock workers, railway workers, civil servants, vendors, petroleum workers, market workers, and bank clerks), the Vietnamese Students Association, the Saigon and Van Hanh (Buddhist) Student Unions, and the 1965 Peace Action Committee. The American public is so ill-informed on this significant political development because few U.S. newsmen go beyond the official U.S. news agency in Saigon for their information about local politics, and news of the Popular Front is censored in most Saigon newspapers. Those Americans, such as Cynthia Frederick, who made contact with the coalition were promptly expelled from the country. Nixon and the Saigon authorities were determined to keep this new struggle and their attempts to crush it curtained behind a news blackout, but the fate of the Popular Front will depend on the people themselves. ' ! . Vietnamese and Americans cooperating together on anti-imperialist peace campaigns such as the People's Peace Treaty can bring an end to U.S. intervention and the Thieu-Ky:Khiem regime. Only then can the Vietnamese people, north and south, acting in their own true interest, insure their right to self-determination and political freedom. n sysirem it is my assertion that this is a natural phenomenon and hence to be preserved. "Obeyed and respected"-I further emphasize that the words "believe in" or "adhere to" are not used here. As conservatives we have no more duty to agree with President Nixon than do the Leftists of the country. But everyone has an equal duty to "respect and obey" policy decisions issued from the power base of the society. After all, what is a government anyway if it is not that institution which has sole legitimate claim to the power base of a country? H.D. Thoreau to the contrary, though we have bent over backwards to assure full freedom of thought in America, I know of no provision in point of law or tradition which allows flagrant abuse of legal codes. This respect for established authority and its edicts are a hallmark of conservative tradition in this country, and it transcends any "BiH Buckley fad" or any other degradatory label that might be attached to it. Ti n -o n. should rightfully be decided by the people, and only then would the matter be best settled. I thus encourage all Carolina students to write their state senators and urge them to pass the bill and let the voters decide this matter for themselves. Peter McGowin 1340-2 Kins'sA rms ':f: The Daily Tar Heel accepts $: letters to the editor, provided they : are typed on a 60-space line and : limited to a maximum of 300 : words. All letters must be signed : and the address and phone number : of the writer must be included. : The paper reserves the right to gedit all letters for libelous : statements and good taste. : Address letters to Associate & Editor, The Daily Tar Heel, in care of the Student Union. A
Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
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March 3, 1971, edition 1
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