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Monday, March 4, 1974
University Daily Kansan
KANSAN
Editorials, columns and letters published on this page reflect only the opinions of the writers.
Rich Man's Justice
The pigs of George Orwell's "Animal Farm" declared themselves "more equal" than the other animals, and with them on their farm commune.
Dave Berkowitz, Douglas County attorney, is reported in the Feb. 25 University Daily Kansan to have said that plea bargaining put "humanity, justice and flexibility into the system."
Just as the pigs on animal farm decided to treat themselves as "more equal," the judicial process in the United States tends to treat the rich with "more justice" than it does poor through plea bargaining.
Perhaps Berkowitz, who has established a reputation in Lawrence as a fair and humane prosecutor, was misquoted or quoted out of context. Perhaps he doesn't know the meaning of planning of the trial. Perhaps He has been associating with his Topeka counterpart for too long.
There can be no justice in a system that urges people to lie, to admit to a lesser charge whether the court not, for the court's convenience.
There is no justice in a system in which Spiro T. Agnew bends the law to his advantage in an open and shut case of tax evasion, while poor people who cannot afford lawyers crafty enough to juggle their own money have trouble of pleas bargaining are jailed for crimes they didn't commit.
Justice means equality for all under the laws—under the same laws, not laws that alter to permit the rich to erase a charge of selling heroin from their child's record while the poor man goes to jail after pleading guilty to a charge of possession of marijuana instead of innocent to a charge of intent to sell marijuana.
Plea bargaining is an elitist strategy used to the advantage of the rich and often to the detriment of the poor for the convenience of a court system strangled with too many cases.
As in "Animal Farm," only those who associate with pigs or who have enough bacon to grease the system come out ahead in a society more equal than in more certain people to "more justice." —Carol Gwinn
Nixon Turns Novelist
Playboy Press triumphantly announced yesterday that it had purchased the rights to a for-coming novel by Adrienne Rich. The novel will be entitled, "A Very Unpleasant Relationship."
Playboy agent Scott Tricee said the publishing company paid "more than $400" for the book. Nixon's agent, Ronald Ziegler, said that Playboy Press was chosen to publish the book because "it is the voice of the fatuous dreamers in America." Ziegler neglected to add that the book had been turned down flat by Action Comics.
The novel centers on the relationship between a tough, honest president in the Washington of 1972 who becomes entangled with a sneaky, back-biting White House staff.
deceit unparalleled in the history of American politics.
The fictional president—who is not patterned after Mr. Nikon, who said he was in that his staff only keenly enmeshing him a web of treachery, fraud and
Unfortunately, the novel's hero has no one to tell about this mounting disaster, since his wife ignores him, his daughter has several empty rooms in her head and is too full of eastern liberals to trust.
That leaves the hero no one to
accept his faithful dog, King
Thetis.
Therefore, Ziegler said, most of the book will be conversations between the president and "Tic," who "makes several highly accurate and philosophic observations."
Ziegler said that Mr. Nixon had finished a one-paragraph outline of the novel and that he was at work on chapter one.
"He's a good natural writer," Ziegler said of the President. "He's glad to have this opportunity because he feels that public conversation is fun and stimulated lately and he wants to do something to re-affirm his worth."
—Chuck Potter
Hearst Kidnaping Underwhelming
By WILLIAM RASPBERRY
Washington—The outrage over the kidnapping of Patricia Hearest is—well, underwhelming. Everybody deplores it, all right, but few people seem truly upset.
The Washington Post
I try to imagine what the reaction would be if the young woman's captors were not the so-called Symbionite Liberation Army but, say, the Black Panther Party—at least the Black Panthers in their more militant phase.
Wouldn't the public attitude be vastly different than it is now? And if so, why? Not simply because the Symbionee group's Panthers couldn't have escaped the Panthers couldn't have escaped an outraged reaction merely by announcing their money for their free breakfast program.
I don't know what the answer is. Part of it may lie in the fact that the American people already have formed judgments about the SLA, and not the Syrian or the Symbionese Liberation Army. Part of it may have to do with the fact that the SLA is perceived as a white group, even though some of its members are black. Whatever it is related to the relatively mild public reaction.
JUST WHAT would the proper reaction be? Well to begin with, you obviously sympathize with the distraught Hearst family, and particularly with the girl's father, newspaper editor Randolph Hearst, because he has been the family member most publicly associated with the drama. He has come off as a person who is really a lawyer, but instead his daughter's release but also to understand the objectives of her captors.
Perhaps you also have a reservoir of sympathy for the hungry people who are supposed to be the beneficiaries of the SLA's rains demand. You know there is plenty of water through no fault of their own: the jobless, the disabled, the old, the young, the blind.
Somehow it doesn't seem too outlandish to ask people who have far more than they need to share with those who have far less. Is it possible that young women were the daughter of, say, Howard Hughes or J. Paul Getty. Heard's reputation is primarily that of a newspaper writer rather than an educator, ready to believe that anybody who is rich must have gotten that
The one thing that everybody thought of when the plot first became public was that it could lead to other kidnappings, perhaps for editor Reg Murphy. In the case of Atlanta editor Reg Murphy.
But the temptation to sympathize with both victim and beneficiary in this bizarre episode is not the end of the moral and ethical dilemmas.
ANY RESPONSE short of absolute outrage could be read as sanctioning of kidnapping as a legitimate political tool, and nobody wants to do that.
What of the moral dilemma of the needy Californians who are supposed to be the beneficiaries of the kidnappers' demands? Some poor people, to their credit, said
of the scheme. It struck them as morally indefensible that they should benefit from another family's distress. Helen Lilen, president of the National Welfare Rights organization (NWR) denounced the whole episode as blackmail, but added that her administration administer the food distribution if that is what Hearest and the others wanted.
way by riping somebody off. Only fair that he should have to give some of it back.
If that fuzzes the morality a little, it is sure to set fuzzier with the nassure of time.
sure to get fuzzier with the passage of time. If the SLA held a referendum on the question of extorting food by threatening customers, the vate would come back negative.
But once the extortion is accomplished—once there is free food and your children are hungry—how can you not get in line for it? If you won't take it, someone else will.
It is as transparent—and as unanswerable, the rationale for calling "hot"
merchandise. A lot of people who would never encourage anyone else to steal a suit of clothes or a color television would feel no compulsion to pass up a good bargain on a suit or a TV that was already stolen. After all, if they refuse to buy it, the thief certainly is not going to take it back to the store.
Morality becomes a perishable commodity when it is translated from theory to reality.
Well, before all of us become too realistic, we'd better remind ourselves just what kidnap-extortion is. Ransom demands the exortioners' willingness to commit the extortioners' willingness to commit
What is involved is a particularly vicious form of terrorism, and it is no less vicious because its perpetrators want to accomplish things they consider good.
'ALL TGGETHER NOW! HAPPY DAYS ARE HERE AGAIN-----"
Forced Exile an Old Soviet Tactic
By ISAAC DON LEVINE
Special to the Los Angeles Times
In recent news and interpretive reports about the forexile of author Alexander I. Solzhentytsyn, the case of Russian revolutionary leader Leon Trotsky is frequently cited as the only previous deportation of this type.
This is far from the truth.
I was in Berlin when these deprone-
ment scientifics, philosophers, historians
The precedent was set in 1922 by Nikolai Lenin, founder of the Soviet state, when he ordered the banishment of more than 160 well-known dissidents.
Consumer TV Films Made
It looks like all of those food commercials on TV that are shot in a supermarket with Mrs. Average Housewife. She is being asked whether in her opinion dry roasted Skippy peanuts have fewer calories than peanuts roasted in oil.
The Los Angeles Times
It isn't an aid for Skipy, of course. It's a two-minute production prepared by Consumers Union (CU), the nonprofit outfit that publishes Consumer Reports. If CU has its way, this and similar films will soon be seen on commercial TV news programs across the country. The series isn't connected with the CU membership campaign, officials say.
For the dry-roasted peanuts, the label says, "No oils, fats or sugar (are) used in processing." Mrs. Housewife decides that no oil or sugar must mean fewer calories.
"This is what we call negative labeling," says the voice-over, who goes on to say that there is no significant difference in the caloric value of the two kinds of peanuts, and that sugar is generally not used in roasted peanuts anyway.
By ALEXANDER AUERBACH
The peanut film isn't terribly controversial, except perhaps for the prominent display of the Skipy label in an exhibit at the National Museum of Natural History plots that CU has shot a lot tougher.
They either knock products by brand name or show problems some viewers might
In ca comparison of 1973 subcompact cars, fitted several months ago, the Vega was reported to "start and run poorly," and the WV Super Beetle, with "inferior handling," was at the bottom of the list, tied with the Pinto.
The organization has an enviable reputation for accuracy. It has been sued several times by manufacturers who were outraged at the bad ratings given their products, but it has always won on the small defense that its statements were true.
For 37 years, Consumers Union has been turning out product reports for the readers of its magazine, which now has a circulation of 8 million and an estimated readership of about 8 million.
itself solely on the magazine subscriptions, and regularly takes legal action against companies that try to exploit good ratings for their products. Again, it has always won these skirmishes. Again, it has always won these skirmishes.
A report on pet deaths in airline baggage compartments also pulled no punches. In 2015, one pilot died lying dead in their travel crates, a voice in the background tells of two dogs dying on a Braniff flight, 14 pets died on a TWA flight in the cargo hold as high as 130 degrees.
Broadcasters are being offered a 26-week series of films, two a week, each about two minutes in length. They are intended to be educational material for their news or consumer affairs coverage.
editors and Socialist opponents (Menshevicks)—arrived in several groups. I came to know some of them well—and at least one has remained a friend until this day. All of them have been taken up for security for them by Soviet authorities. All travelled at the expense of the government.
Information about products and services can't subject to the Fairness Doctrine, advertisers aren't allowed to advertise their advertisers are openly comparing their brands to competing products in TV commercials, and broadcast consumer affairs object of Fairness Doctrine complaints.
It accepts no advertising, supporting
No federal standards exist to control pet handling by airlines, the film concludes
"First of all, there is a tremendous and increasing interest in consumer news," says CU's director of communications, Furman. "And there is also the credibility and viewer confidence that a station can present this material to its viewers."
That may sound somewhat idealistic, but stations are snapping up exclusive rights to the TV networks.
What makes CU think that commercial stations are going to buy a series that is bound to offend some of their favorite advertisers?
None had sought permission to leave his native country. In fact, many had insisted—like Solzhtensyx—on their inable right to remain in their homeland, even though they might have had to go to prison. Actually, a number of them were taken out of as–as was Solzhtensyx—before being caught to boats and trans bound for Germany.
THE NEXT LARGE party of deportees arrived in Berlin in September. It included Nikolai Bderdaev, Russia's foremost religious thinker (to whom the Encyclopaedia Britannica devotes a full column); Pitirim Sorokin, who eventually reached Harvard and attained world fame as a socrate; Nikolai Losski, author of *The History of Philodemus*, who had gained European recognition before the revolution, and a whole galaxy of scholars and editors with established national reputations at home.
bv Sokoloff
The first party reached Berlin at the beginning of February. It included Lenin's the Menshevik party, his colleague, Pedor Dan, and Boris Nicolaeva, dean of Russian archivists who died recently while he was Hoover Institute at Stanford University.
Griff and the Unicorn
THE DECISION was made and, for most of the year, the banishment of dissidents (2013)
West and begin to vilify us there. Let them
so."
THIS CHAPTER from the early history of the Bolshev regime is little known in the West. In the Soviet Union, however, it has been set down in a book called "The Dead Tide." by L. Nikulin, published in Moscow in 1965 by the Ministry of Defense Press.
The last party, consisting of 65 activist Social Democrats from Georgia, Josef Stalin's native country, was banished in December, 1922. One of them, Noya Tsi-tadze, a mathematician and a close personal friend of this writer, still survives in Paris; to be associated with Léon Breznet's emulation of Levin's policy in the case of Solzhenitsyn.
In the book, Nikulin reproduces a telephone conversation early in 1922 between Lenin and Djerzhinsky, then the head of the secret mission of the present KGB—the secret police.
“And what if we banish them abroad?”
“Abroad? The menhvsika?”
"I called you because comrade Sergio Ordonjikize has raised the question of what to do with the Georgia Menshevsk, Lenin said. "You keep them in prison?"
On June 15, 1922, another party of deportees headed by the famous economist S. N. Prokopovich and the renowned journalist E.D. Kuskova, both militant liberals, reached Berlin. Prokopovich declared in a statement to the press: "I was a soldier in Russia. I was compelled to arrest me to go abroad." Kuskova, a woman of great courage, spoke of the growing Bolshevik fear of losing power.
The conversation turned to the matter of securing foreign visas for the deportees and closed with Lenin laughing gaily and Dierzhinski "unable to restrain a smile."
In an interview in the Berlin newspaper Rul published two years ago, Dan declared in the name of the deported group: "The exiles didn't want to abandon their motherland and announced that they lacked the means to pay for their trip abroad ... and they are protesting Socialists, the Soviet administration paid the transportation costs."
"Yes. They will vilify us there ... but we will compromise them, and the enemy will reach to reach the eavesdropper."
Solzhentzen may have lost his dramatic fight with the Soviet dictatorship but his exile—like the exiles of others through the years—serves only to reemphasize the lack of freedom in Mother Russia. His loss, then, may thus prove good in at least one way—by helping his father to realize Smyrn's synn' aspirant^h “the bricks laid in a mortar of les” by Lenin and his heirs.
Today, in the Soviet Union, the Breznev ruling group is surely pointing to these 1922 deportations—as described by Nikulin—to justify its treatment of Solzenhitn.
A Nixon of Old Talks to the Press
By LOU CANNON
This self-assured and confident Nixon showed a pre-Watergate skill in putting the best face on his worst problems and in dealing with hostile questions to his own advantage.
WASHINGTON -Richard Nixon displayed the coolness under fire that he has often celebrated Monday night at his first press conference of 1974.
Four months ago, at his last news conference in the East Room, Mr. Nixon had bridged even at mild questioning and described the media coverage of Watergate issues as the "most outrageous, vicious and distorted" reporting he had ever seen.
BY LOU CANNON The Washington Post
Monday night the President seemed to welcome questions about his political predicament as an opportunity to demonstrate that he had no intention of giving up the presidency, even if it meant the defeat of Republican candidates.
"I want my party to succeed, but more important. I want the presidency to survive."
At every post-Watergate press conference
at Monday night Mr. Nixon had never
managed to overcome the temptation to
rebel against his administration,
take it to mask for alliedey biased coverage.
Monday night some reporters attempted to lecture the President and came out screaming.
The most conspicuous example came when Sarah McClendon, correspondent for
"Well, if he isn't listening to this program,
"I'll report to him just what you said," the
President replied. As reporters joined him in
laughter, Mr. Nixon continued: "He may have heard even though he wasn't
listening to the program."
several Texas newspapers, repeatedly shook her pen at Mr. Nixon as she loudly informed him that his Veterans Administration director, Donald Johnson, was giving out "false information" to the American people.
"Now at this point I am not going to join anybody else in kicking him when he's kicked."
At past press conferences Mr. Nixon often demonstrated an ability to disseminate that undermined his credibility even with staunch supporters.
Asked whether Agnew's conduct had brought "dishonor upon his office, this morning," he added. President replied that Agnew had rendered "dedicated service" and had resigned because he knew that he should not stay in office when charged with a criminal offence.
Monday night, though he dodged some questions, he owned up to serious problems relating to the economy and to the energy crisis. Even on the embarrassing question of whether it was that which has stirred the President to criticize the press in the past—he was conciliatory.
Only once, in responding to another tax question, did Mr. Nixon display his old
This came in response to a question by Martin Schram of Newsday, who read portions of a presidential tax speech to Mr. Bush. He explained that neither he had paid his fair share of taxes.
proclivity to answer criticism about his own practice. So he says, effect that, "I don't think I can."
Mr. Nixon responded by reciting a list of persons, including President Johnson, who had taken deductions similar to the $76,000 he took for his vice-president's payers.
Mr. Nixon Monday night showed himself to be very much the man in charge, very strong and assertive in the United States. For a change he demoted one of the coolness he has often proclaimed.
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