OPINION
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2005
WWW.KANSAN.COM
▼ CORPORATOCRACY
PAGE 5A
Liberals should reject Dean, Democratic Party
A very sad event will take place tomorrow at Liberty Hall, 642 Massachusetts St. New Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean will mount
STEPHEN SHUPE
sshupe@kansan.com
the stage at 5 p.m, taking the first step in a planned project to fortify Democratic strongholds in red states.
Heaven help us — the Deaniacs have landed.
It's great the Democrats have embraced Dean this year. Just a year ago, he and Dennis Kucinich — the party's two antiwar presidential candidates — were told to sit down and shut up. But now progressives just love Dean again.
If Dean wants to help the progressive cause, he need say only two words tomorrow: "I resign."
Of course, that's not going to happen. The Democratic Party has become the Jim Jones of American politics, telling its followers the only way to get to heaven is to drink the Kool-Aid. True progressives should reject the Democrats and their phony representatives.
Speaking of phony, word is Howard Dean is a tree-hugging liberal. In truth, Dean is a conservative Democrat.
According to Wild Matters magazine, Bush-style deregulation reigned during Dean's tenure as the governor of Vermont. Forests were cleared and the first Wal-Marts and Home Depots were built.
EP came to stand for Expedite Permits for corporations — not Environmental Protection against them — among Vermont environmentalists.
Dean's center-to-right record suggests his antiwar campaign was opportunistic
— simply a way to woo presidential primary voters. If he really wants to prove his reputation as a born-again liberal, the doctor should order George Soros and MoveOn.org to lead an exodus out of the Democratic Party.
Young progressives would follow. Dean's meteoric rise in the primaries is partly attributed to the aforementioned Deanics — disenfranchised young people who responded to the candidate's antiarw message.
But joining the Democratic establishment to beat President Bush is so 2004. It didn't work then, and it won't work now.
We can look to history to see what will work. There was a time when the right didn't feel so emboldened — when conservatives were forced to use adjectives
such as "moderate"
lest they be branded
outside the main-
stream.
The political action groups that grew out of the civil rights and antiwar movements brought real change. Even
Richard Nixon had to bend to the will of the people, creating the Environmental Protection Agency and signing into law the Clean Air and Clean Water acts.
Contrast that with today: President Bush has revived the Reagan administration's bad dream to militarize space. Alberto Gonzales, the legal counselor at the center of the Abu Ghraib torture scandal, was just promoted to the top justice job in the land.
Imagine if the activists recruited by the College Democrats of America last year on 1200 campuses in all 50 states decided to form a new institution in the tradition of Students for a Democratic Society, the leader of nonviolent youth resistance of the Vietnam War. These activists could shock American college students out of their materialistic complacency, just like SDS did in the 1960s.
The main argument against liberalizing liberal politics is America is a center-to-right country. Really? Does that include the 39.3 percent of the population that didn't vote in the last election?
Does it include the 95 percent of delegates on the floor of the Democratic National Convention, who said in a poll they disagreed with Kerry and believed the United States should never have gone to war with Iraq?
Such figures expose America's antiquated two-party system.
On another note, Matt Sevik took a potshot at me in his last column ("Don't trust or rely on one news source for Iraq info," The University Daily Kansan, Feb. 16, 2005). Now to return the favor:
Readers of Sevicik's column might be interested to know that 5,000 U.S. troops have deserted what he calls America's "incredibly noble cause" in Iraq, As Bill Maher said on his HBO show last week, "The younger generation is supposed to rage against the machine, not for it."
♦ Shupe is an Augusta graduate student in journalism. His radio show, "Visual Happenings," airs at 9 Thursday nights on 90.7-KJHK.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Churchillissuenotoneofspeech protection, butincompetence
it is a travesty that in Kansas we have such an asininely liberal university that clearly does not reflect the views of the majority of Kansans.
Unfortunately, the editors in The University Daily Kansan only serve to reinforce this disparity.
The Feb. 15, 2005, article on Ward Churchill made me nauseous. I do not want anyone trampling on my First Amendment rights, either. But protecting speech is not the same as valuing speech.
Sometimes our concern for being good, decent moral people should override our compulsion to be politically correct.
We must also realize our actions have
I fail to see how defaming Sept. 11 victims had anything to do with academic freedom. Instead, it points to his incompetence; a better academician surely could have found a more tactful way of getting his point across.
And regardless of how much of his salary comes from tax dollars, it is a waste of tuition money, too.
consequences. When one speaks as Churchill did, there is no question that people will be outraged.
Furthermore, I do not claim to have an impeccable command over the English language, but I do know that "evil" in not monosyllabic, but rather, has two syllables.
Andrew W. Soukup
Lakin
Freshman
▼ EDITORIAL BOARD
it's hard to heed marijuana laws in U.S. with its contradictions
The United States' social fabric is woven with hemp, which, along with marijuana, is classified as being from the cannabis sativa plant.
Usage of the plant was not criminalized until the passage of the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937.
Abraham Lincoln's wife was prescribed cannabis for her nerves, and close acquaintances of John F. Kennedy alleged that before and during his term, he used cannabis regularly to alleviate his back pain. Our beloved George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were hemp farmers, and even our own Declaration of Independence was printed on paper made from hemp.
The United States often overlooked history with the cannabis sativa plant makes our current drug policies all the more hypocritical and unjust. In 1998 the reauthorization of Higher Education Act of 1965 was passed, which prohibits anyone with a drug conviction, no matter how minor, from receiving financial aid.
As of 2004 more than 128,000
financial aid applicants had been denied because of this rule. As if law enforcement officers didn't already arrest enough drug offenders, in January the Supreme Court ruled that police have the right to use dogs to sniff cars for drugs during routine traffic stops — without probable cause. The Supreme Court ruled that the searches were legal because they were searching for something illegal.
The current marijuana laws in the United States are little else than a smokescreen not to mention hypocritical seeing as how our leaders use it.
More recently, the Times reported that a former aide to President George W. Bush's father, Doug Wead, taped conversations with President Bush from 1998 to 2000 that included a discussion on marijuana.
erful family. Envision him and his Skull and Bones cronies rolling around in an Escalade, on the way to blaze a joint at a friend's house. Bush has the joint in his pocket. Imagine that they have the misfortune of being pulled over. If the officer decides to use a drug dog, which he can even without a good reason, the dog would surely sniff out the joint — dogs have a sense of smell up to one million times that of humans.
Bush responded to a question with "I wouldn't answer the marijuana questions, you know why? Because I don't want some little kid doing what I tried." By saying this, he is verifying that he did in fact experiment with marijuana.
I wonder what would happen if George W. was living out his young, rebellious years today in 2005. This is a stretch, but let's pretend that George W. is growing up today, and he doesn't come from a rich and pow-
Bush would promptly be handeuffed, thrown into the back of a police car and hauled off to jail where he would meet his new friends, Brutus and Bubba. Next, he would save up some money, hire a lawyer,
then wait around nervously for a few months until his court date arrived. When his big day finally came, maybe he would get lucky and just pay a fine and lose his financial aid. Or maybe he would lose his financial aid, receive a fine, be placed on probation, be told to complete community service, be forced to take weekly urine tests at $15 a piece, and attend drug addiction classes alongside cocaine and heroin addicts.
If Rush were to go through all this.
if Bush were to go through an this, would it have actually deterred his drug use? Perhaps it could have. Maybe it would make him never want to see another drug again. On the other hand, Bush can be a bit stubborn, which leads me to believe that his punishment would have caused him to do what many drug offenders do after getting caught, which is become smarter about getting away with it.
Regardless of any change in his behavior after being arrested, Bush would be denied financial aid for his college education. Again, say he didn't have that rich and powerful daddy, as most of us don't. His experimentation with the treacherous marijuana would keep him from completing his remarkable stint at Yale, which brings a good point to mind. Maybe denying financial aid to drug offenders really is a good idea. Had our current drug policies been in place a few decades ago, maybe pot users like Bush never would have been able to go to college, and the world would be a better place.
Matt Hoge writing for the editorial board.
▼ MCKERNAN'S PERSPECTIVE
OUR OWN HOLIDAY WON'T CANCEL SCHOOL, BUT ALL IT TAKES IS THIS SQUIRREL TO BRING CAMPUS TO ITS KNEES?
Free All for
Free for All callers have 20 seconds to speak about any topic they wish. Kansan editors reserve the right to omit comments. Slanderous and obscene statements will not be printed. Phone numbers of all incoming calls are recorded.
For more comments, go to www.kansan.com.
Call 864-0500
I was just wondering if Uggs and North Face jackets come standard when you join a sorority.
♦
Last night I witnessed a miracle. God came down from heaven to my buddy's apartment and made the kei still bubbly. Thank you, Lord.
So we just had a 16-keg party, and all I got out of it was a citation and another lonely night.
What a beautiful day. Because of the power outage, my art history test got moved to Friday. Hell yeah!
Kevin McKernan/KANSAN
I'm sitting on the toilet at Haworth and the lights just went out.
Hey, I'm an Oklahoma State student, and I'd like to see nothing more than KU kick the (explative) out of Oklahoma State this weekend. Go Hawks.
I heard that if you don't wear blue to the game on Sunday, they won't let you in.
TALK TO US
Andrew Vaupel, editor
864-4810 or avaupel@kansan.com
Donovan Atkinson, Misty Huber, Amanda Kim
Stairrett and Marissa Stephenson
managing editors
864-4810 or editor@kansan.com
Steve Vockrock
Laura Francoviglia
opinion editors
864-4924 or opinion@kansan.com
Aahleigh Dyck; business manager 864-4358 or advertising@kansan.com
Danielle Bose, retail sales manager 864-4358 or advertising@kansan.com
Malcolm Gibson, general manager and news adviser
884-7667 or mgjibson@kansan.com
Jennifer Weaver, sales and marketing adviser 864-7686 or jweaver@kansan.com
EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS
David Archer, Viva Bolva, John Byerley, Chase Edgerton, Wheaton Ekins, Ryan Good, Paige Higgins, Mate Hoge, Kyle Koch, DouLang Kevin, McKernan, Mike Mostafa, Erica Prather, Erick Schmidt, Devin Sikes, Gaby Souzai, Sarah Stacy and Annelie Waltem
The Kanaan reserves the right to edit, cut to length, or reject all submissions.
For any questions, call Steve Vockrodt or Laura Francoviglio at 864-4924 or e-mail opinion@ kansan.com.
General questions should be directed to the editor at editor@kanan.com.
SUBMISSIONS
The Kansan welcomes letters to the editors and guest columns submitted by students, faculty and alumni.
LETTER GUIDELINES
Maximum Length: 200 word limit
Include: Author's name and telephone number;
class, hometown (student); position (faculty
member); phone number (will not be published)
GUEST COLUMN GUIDELINES
**Maximum Length:** 650 word length
**Include:** Author's name; class, hometown (student); position (faculty member); phone number (will not be published)
**Also:** The Kansan will not print guest columns that attack another columnist.
SUBMIT TO
Kansan newsroom
111 Stauffer-First Hall
1435 Jayhawk Blvd.
Lawrence, KS 60545
(785) 664-4810
opinion@kansan.com
>