8The Daily Tar HeelThursday, September 26, 1985
- READER FORUM
Taylor's rhetoric uses one-liners for analysis
atlg ar Jw
93 rd year of editorial freedom
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Arm: Rk:ki:rt and
VJitor
Stuart Tonkinson
Bi n Phrkowski
Dick Andurson
J a n it Olson
Jami White
AndyTringa
Manuring V.J it or
AiKHiulc VJitor
Associate VJitor
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Ncu s VJitor
State and National Editor
Worth coming
Carolina Athletic Association Presi
dent Mark Pavao's decision to award
Teague dormitory the Homecoming
crown won in 1983 by Teague resident
Yure Nmomma is the first sign that this
year may see a revitalized Homecoming.
And it's long overdue in coming.
N momma's victory was a statement
of apathy toward the whole concept of
Homecoming at UNC. But the idea of
electing a male Homecoming queen
angered more than a few individuals,
was crucial in a bill restricting the use
of pseudonyms in campuswide elections
and generally shook up those sleepy
heads too stupid to recognize the motive
behind Nmomma's gesture.
Let's face it, folks: Homecoming has
been about as exciting as yesterday's
news here at UNC for as long we can
remember. At best, it's been a passive
activity surrounding a football game
scheduled against a second-rate team
UNC is virtually certain to beat (It is
easier some years than others to accomp
lish this, certainly). Homecoming badly
needs a fresh approach; acknowledging
our past mistakes is a vital first step.
Joe Stewart and Marc Wright, CAA
co-vice presidents and Homecoming
organizers, have taken .several steps
more. They talked to Class of 35 alumni
Charlie Schaffer and Tom Bost in the
Development Office to get some "new"
Genuine freedom fighters
Most of the world's self-proclaimed
"freedom fighters" have sleazy pasts that
discourage the support of Westerners
concerned about human rights and
liberties. In Nicaragua, the contras battle
an increasingly leftist oligarchy but are
stained by the torture and murder of
civilians and by the high-level involve
ment of former members of Somoza's
National Guard. In western Kampu
chea, Khmer Rouge guerillas harass
Vietnamese occupation troops. But
memories linger of their genocide of
urban dwellers in the late 1970s.
Civil wars offer few white knights.
One nationalist movement of genuine
freedom fighters does exist, however.
Struggling in obscurity, these forgotten
patriots resist a brutal, bloodthirsty
campaign of repression to rival Adolf
Hitler's savaging of the Yugoslav
partisans. Among the difficult foreign
policy choices the United States faces,
one should be easy: support for the
Afghan rebels.
American awareness of the crimes
committed in Afghanistan is minimal.
Threatening long prison terms, the
Soviets have discouraged journalists
from walking in from neighboring
Pakistan and taking an objective look
around. The very respectability of the
Afghan cause makes it less controversial.
And without public debate, few bother
to inform themselves on the issue.
This is unfortunate, for though the
resistence receives significant military
The Senate Zone'
Scene: An over-the-hill, partially bald,
perfectly monotone, dutifully enraged
gentleman stands in an empty chamber,
resting his arm on a copy of the U.S.
Constitution, and drones on about the
wisdom of this country's forefathers and
how he, in his own humble yet inspired
way, is keeping their dream alive against
the forces of evil.
"And I say to you now, even though
no one's actually here to listen, that I
am now, and forever will be, a supporter
of the U.S. Constitution. I am pro
American. I am pro-democracy. I am
pro-freedom. I am pro-baseball. I am
pro-apple pie. I am anti-slavery. I am
even ... anti-crime!"
Not exactly the Gettysburg Address,
huh? And certainly not, as the media
big-wigs like to say, good television. Yet
these are the kind of speeches weVe all
become accustomed to from our
substance-shy politicians, especially
during campaigns. And it's also the same
stuff we'd be seeing on our boob tube
day in and day out if the Senate decides
to let the TV cameras roll on its
proceedings.
The Senate, in its own mind-numbing
way, is debating the merits, of televising
its floor "debates", as the House has
done for the past 6 xh years. Though
David Schmidt
VJitor
Leic.h Williams
Mark Powell
Lee Roberts
Frank Bruni
Sharon Sheridan
City VJitor
Bin mess Editor
Sports Editor .
Arts Editor
features Editor
Larry Childress Photo Editor
home for
ideas. Not all of them were possible,
according to Stewart; there's no place
left on campus for a bonfire, for
example.
But they've made up for that in other
ways. On Oct. 23, a sports figure of
national prominence will kick off the
celebration with a speech in the Great
Hall. Thursday night promises an all
campus party sponsored by a united
Greek system, black and white. A
headliner concert (and no, it's not James
Taylor) is scheduled for the weekend,
as well as the still-traditonal parade. Oh,
and there's a game as well: On Oct. 26,
the Tar Heels will face No. 3 Florida
State University. A victory against them
would be something to savor.
And this year's contest for Homecom
ing queen is no joke. Nominees must
be sponsored by campus organizations
and will be narrowed via essays and
interviews to five for an all-campus
vote. Both the Homecoming queen and
Mr. UNC will receive in-state tuition for
the spring semester.
Stewart and Wright deserve praise for
their efforts. Certainly a Homecoming
tradition cannot be built from scratch
in one year. But if their efforts are
successful and this is where we all
come in future Homecomings may
be worth coming home for.
aid, sustained international outrage is
essential for any hope of Soviet mod
eration. Only public ignorance can
explain the disinterest. Consider the
atrocities suffered by Afghans:
unprovoked invasion and conquest by
a superpower, the extermination of
entire villages in. reprisal for guerilla
attacks, the use of poison gas, the
distribution of brightly colored, delayed
action incendiary pellets sometimes
swallowed by small children ...
Today, Afghanistan is prostrate.
Nearly a quarter of the population
battles malnutrition and disease in
Pakistani refugee camps. Virtually every
pre-occupation technocrat and intellec
tual is dead or in exile. Bright children
are taken to the Soviet Union to be
raised. Budding collaborators with the
Soviets join guerilla units to betray their
more patriotic countrymen., No eco
nomic life remains, save the natural gas
inefficiently pumped out as fast as
possible and sold to the Soviet Union
for an abnormally low price.
Afghanistan is not a Soviet Vietnam.
It is much, much worse. The Soviet
Union has flattened Afghanistan and
now rapes the country of its scarce
natural and human resources. The
provision of full moral and military aid
for the resistence, together with eco
nomic support for the helpless refugees,
is a policy not just compatible with but
demanded by every fully developed,
human conscience.
it sounds like a good idea to have our
nation's leaders held accountable
through the immediacy of live television,
we have certain reservations about the
real value of it all.
First of all, how many of us can
honestly admit to harboring any great
desire to spend an afternoon watching
a few long-winded, oratorically stunted
Senators ramble on to a crowd of
tourists about something that has
already been hashed out and decided in
a hearing or back room somewhere?
Better yet, how many of us have ever
watched the House "in action" these past
6 Vi years? Be honest.
Uh-huh, we thought so.
Also, in the House there's a five
minute limit on all speeches. Keeps the
conversation lively, you know. But in
the Senate they can talk all they want.
And though the days of attention
grabbing debates are a thing of the past
gone with the turbulent '60s and
McCarthyism before that there's still
somebody willing to hear their echo.
Probably the best thing that can be
said about The Senate Zone is that it
just might give the statesmen a reason
to hone their speaking skills and maybe,
just maybe, learn to bring debates, real
debates, back to the floor of the Senate.
To the editors:
Reading Allen A. Taylor's
column on the close relationship
between the Soviets and American
liberals ("Liberals play right into the
wrong hands," Sept. 24), I am
saddened at how effective this "real
patriots don't question authority"
approach has been in fueling the
arms race. His column uses two
tactics that have become increas
ingly popular with Reagan-style
conservatives in defining American
foreign policy.
The first is that he reduces even
the most complex issue in interna
tional affairs to a simple "us versus
them" confrontation. It doesn't
matter that the situation in question
may not be a part of American-Soviet-conflict.
Just ignore its
historical and cultural background,
label it Moscow-directed, and jump
right in. A quick reading of the
history books should remind us that
such responses eventually backfire,
making us look bad and the Rus
sians better by default. Nicaragua
is becoming an example of such a
policy.
Second, Taylor plays loose with
the facts, knowing that for every 10
people who hear your "official
source" version of the story, only
three or four may find that rebuttal
Taylor must be wowing 'em at the Kremlin
To the editors:
Allen A. Taylor ("Liberals play
right into the wrong hands," Sept.
24) has thrown us a curve ball. He
sets up liberalism as the fall guy,
knocks it down, and then hopes that
we embrace conservatism no
questions asked. A smokescreen if
IVe ever seen one. No doubt his red
masters in the Soviet Union are
pleased with his column.
Taylor tries to lull us into a false
sense of security with some half
hearted anti-communist statements
and then slips in comments such as
"there are still common goals
between the two countries (the
United States and the Soviet Union)
. . . international trade, contain
ment of terrorism . ." Why should
we spend our hard-earned Ameri
can dollars on Soviet products their
own people don't even want? If we
followed the Taylor Soviet position
on terrorism we'd have to stop our
funding of the contras in Nicaragua
and the Cambodian rebel coalition
(of which Pol Pot's group is a part).
We'd also have to dismantle terror
ist training camps in the United
States, where fine young men learn
to become mercenaries for our right
wing friends and breed terrorists
such as the two Sikh brothers
suspected of blowing up the Air
India flight. Taylor's proposal is just
a sneak ploy to prop up the Soviet
economy and imperil the terrorist
arm of our national security
apparatus.
Taylor is very clever in his
attempt to cover his trail from
Pardon us, the
To the editors:
In response to Allen A. Taylor's
column "Liberals play right into the
wrong hands" (Sept. 24), allow me,
for the benefit of the liberal con
tingency of Chapel Hill and the rest
of the world, to elicit a neglected
pardon from Taylor. V
Pardon us, sir, for allowing
blood-soaked human hearts to
pulsate within our breasts, instead
of wringing them dry so that
mechanisms and circuitry could be
installed.
Pardon us, for seeking to ensure
the happiness of other nations by
showing them our better side our
compassion, our trust and our
undying belief that peace is the
foremost necessity of global politics.
Pardon us, for finding beauty and
love in the world and seeking to
spread it everywhere, instead of
grouping nations and their econo
Anger and fear this is the
By RICK ROBINSON
I was "born again" the other day, but not in
the way you so often hear about these days.
"Politically awakened" might better express it.
It's a rude slap in the face to wake up and realize
that your world may change radically, and soon,
if you don't do something about it. I feel that
I'm an open-minded person, and I want to
address this letter to other open-minded people
who may share my concern and my fate
if we don't begin to take seriously what is
happening around us.
' I'm talking about the so-called New Right,
that radically conservative fundamentalist
Christian faction that is so in vogue right now.
Perhaps you haven't met them. They go by
strange and often misleading names: Students
For America, the Congressional Club, the Moral
Majority. They certainly sound harmless enough,
don't they?
Why so afraid?
They're not. It seems that there are a number
of people for whom they don't show an unusual
amount of respect: blacks, women, homosexuals,
non-Christians. Why? That's a question I have
been asking myself recently. It would seem as
if they are afraid of people who think, act and
look differently than they do. Why? They think
that they have found "the truth" in a book,
admittedly a very important and good book: the
Bible. So why are they so afraid? If you believe
you have found the truth, that's great; possessing
the truth ought to make you feel secure, content
and happy.
But security, contentment and happiness are
Letters
or retraction buried in Hie otwK
pages two days later. For example,
the arguments against Reagan's
Strategic Defense Initiative can and
have filled several books. Taylor
tells us the Russians dont support
SDI, but does he tell us about the
defense contractors who do? Accord
ing to the Sept. 14 edition of The
Nation, four of the top six compan
ies who have begun receiving the
first of billlions of Star Wars tax
dollars are already among the top
five recipients of Pentagon contracts
for offensive nuclear weapons such
as the MX, the cruise and the
Trident missiles. Heads I win, tails
you lose.
Moscow. He urges us not to have
human rights as a foreign policy
priority with our right-wing author
itarian allies.
So far so good, but then he wants
us to accept their eventual evolution
into democracies. As we all know,
countries don't peacefully evolve,
they simmer and then explode. As
soon as our right-wing allies grant
the slightest freedoms, ingrates can
stir up trouble, and the people
revolt. Just look at Iran, Nicaragua,
and now El Salvador, South Africa,
Chile and the Philippines. Misery
for the subjects of our right-wing
allies is but a small price they must
pay for our fears, safety and
comfort.
Allan Rosen
Chapel Hill
liberal contingency
mies and policies into two weapon
ridden football squads, each hell
bent on the touchdown and trusting
no one.
Pardon us, finally, for realizing
and embracing our ultimate inno
cence, which no human lives long
enough to outgrow, though many
succeed in neglecting its lesson.
We're soooo sorry.
Edward Roberts
Chapel Hill
not hallmarks of the New Right. Rather, they
seem consumed by anger and fear. Perhaps they
decided that other people would not be able to
find "the truth" on their own, so they had to
start advertising "the truth." They spent a lot
of money telling people about it. Through
television, radio and magazines, they spread "the
truth" as they saw it. But that wasn't enough.
I guess they felt that not enough people had
gotten their message, had adopted their "truth."
So what to do next?
Well, perhaps they realized that they would
just have to impose "the truth," legislate "the
truth," make it the law. And then people would
have to live by their "truth."
I don't want to live by their "truth." I don't
want my children to live by their "truth." I'm
not a Christian, but they seem to feel that I ought
to be, that I must be. My children ought to be
entitled to make free choices about their religious
beliefs, but they feel otherwise. A woman ought
to be entitled to make certain very personal
decisions about her body; again, they don't agree.
And how about sex? A person ought to be
entitled to choose a lover of his or her choice;
but again, the New Right definitely does not
agree, for if you are so misguided as to choose
a partner of the same sex then your very right
to exist is questioned.
The 'truth' in action
Let's look at an example of "the truth" in
action. H. Keith Poston ("Wallace's pleas for
moral unity can't be serious, Sept. 16) was
fortunate enough and I mean that to be
allowed to express his opinions in a public forum.
Referring to an opinion expressed by Patricia
to the DTH are always welcome, and must
include the writer's name, address, and phone
number. Deadline is 1 p.m. daily.
This letter's purpose is certainly
not to defend the actions of the
Soviets or even the liberals. Nor is
it my purpose to refute Taylor's
misleading statements, since the
issues are too complex to address
in a sentence or two. Rather, my
intent is to encourage individuals
not to accept such one-line analyses
of foreign policy as fact, but instead
to consider deeper understanding of
such issues as part of their college
education. The strength of a true
democracy increases as its people
become better informed.
Bruce Alexander
Graham
San Francisco
had trolleys,
but not this
To the editors:
I am not a student so I don't know
if youll publish my letter, but I am
employed cn campus and avidly
read you daily.
Two months ago, I moved here
from San Francisco to find warm,
super nice people, good Southern
cooking, gorgeous trees and a trulv
scenic campus. However, I do have
one complaint.
Recently I was almost knocked
down on campus by a biker. He
missed me by a footstep, and had
I taken one more step I would have
been on the ground. Two years ago
in San Francisco I was injured by
a reckless biker going the wrong way
on a one-way street. I sustained a
head injury; today, I am still having
headaches as a result of that
accident.
Since there are no bike paths on
campus, I would like to write this
as a precautionary safety measure
and as a reminder to all bikers to
slow down on campus and off
and to take extra precautions
when weaving in and out among
pedestrians.
Perhaps I do panic a bit when
I see a bicycle coming toward me;
however, it is the bikers behind me
and to the side of me that I am more
concerned about. Other than this,
I am finding UNC a wonderful place
to be. Please help me to feel safe
while walking.
Dorothy Moore
Business Administration
Interesting
reading, no?
To the editors:
How ironic that the current issue
of Rolling Stone contains an article
about how Bruce Springsteen's
music has transcended time and
how much it has been misunder
stood. You might find it interesting
reading, Tonkinson ("'Rolling
Stone' sells out to the Yups," Sept.
25).
John Sherer
Hinton James
New Right?
Wallace ("Dual morality lost on Students For
America," Sept. 10), he said: "her plea for moral
unity cannot be taken seriously, when juxtaposed
with her support of homosexuals and lesbians.
If Wallace knew anything about morals or Judeo
Christian teachings, she would realize that
homosexuality is a sin and abomination in the
eyes of the living God. By upholding and
supporting these groups, such as the Carolina
Gay and Lesbian Association, we are inviting
not only the further moral decay of the country,
but indeed the wrath of God."
Poston, why does your "truth" make you so
angry, so intolerant and so fearful? Why are you
not content to experience the personal blessing
that you believe your version of "the truth"
confers on you, and leave to your wrathful God
the fate of those whose views and lifestyles differ
from yours?
It's time to act
I don't hate the New Right; I disagree with
them. I think they are wrong, but who am I
to say? I only know that I don't want them to
impose their opinions and values on my life. I
want to encourage other people who share my
concern to act. Dont let yourselves and me
be forced into a way of life with which we
disagree. Sure, the New Right has a lot of money
and power, but the ways to fight them are cheap.
All you need is your pen, your voice, some time,
and most importantly, your vote.
Thanks, Students For America. You finally
got me involved.
Rick Robinson is a senior American studies
major living in Chapel Hill.