OPINION
The University Daily KANSAN
January 25,1984 Page 4
The University Daily KANSAN
Published since 1889 by students of the University of Kansas
The University Daily Kanana (USPS 60/640) is published at the University of Kansas, 118 Stauffer Fint Hall. Lawrence, KA, 60045, daily during the regular school year and Monday and Thursday during the summer session. Exemption applies to students who pay $25 for six months or $72 in Douglas County and $18 for six months or $35 for a year outside the county. Student subscriptions are a $3 semester charge through the student account. FOSTMATER. Send address changes in writing to University of Kansas, Attention: Student Accounts.
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Japanese defense
Japan has lived in the protective warmth of America's postwar defense womb long enough. The Asian nation is now a maturing world power that must take greater responsibility for its own protection.
The United States is still obligated to help Japan defend itself, a shackle it must wear for forbidding Japan to accumulate weapons to wage war after World War II. It cannot hurriedly break its pledge of protection.
The United State must slowly, and carefully shift the burden of defense onto the Japanese government's shoulders.
Japanese Foreign Minister Shintaro Abe began a six-day Washington visit yesterday to improve U.S.-Japanese defense and trade relations.
During the talks, White House officials are expected to continue to encourage Japan to spend more on defense.
Although Prime Minister Yasuhi Nakasone agrees with this advice, Japan will not sap its economic might by returning to militarism. Still, Japan is expected
to spend more on defense this year than it has spent in recent years.
Japan, now the second greatest economic power, has taken advantage of strong U.S. protection long enough.
But increasing Japan's defense spending will enable its small military to improve protection from eminent attacks, and will allow the United States to concentrate on the defense of surrounding regions.
But despite the Reagan administration's call for more Japanese defense spending, Japan's cautious effort to beef-up its military strength has met with mixed reviews in the United States.
American critics see two threats from a Japanese defense build-up: a dangerous sign of returning militarism and the ability of Japan's industrial prowess to wreak havoc with U.S. military technology industries.
American trade with Japan, which is now wrought with tension over imbalances, will have to monitor the control of military technology to prevent further disparity and quarrels.
Statue taking up time
Legend has it that the Earth was created in seven days.
It took 34 years to build the Panama Canal.
Now, if an entire world can be made in a week, and if mere mortals can connect two oceans by building a canal in slightly more than three decades, how could it possibly take a state 95 years to decide on a statue for its Capitol?
Last week the House Ways and Means Committee delayed action on a bill that would place a statue of Ceres atop the Capitol.
Ceres is the Greek goddess of grain, harvest, agriculture, fertility and seemingly anything else having to do with the four seasons and crops.
Since 1889 the people who support the Capitol have patiently waited to
adorn the building with some kind of sculpture. It's about time the building was so adorned.
Although a statue of Ceres seems to fit our Capitol because of her connections with agriculture, the decision has taken far too long.
Common sense tells us that if it has taken this long to endorse the goddess Ceres, then maybe she should no longer be in contention for our attention. It seems, perhaps, that the action just wasn't in the stars.
In fact, maybe it's time to give some other symbol such as the breadbasket a shot at the top.
Making no moral judgements, it certainly is not too much to ask of our legislators to stop wasting time on this particular lady and finally cap our Capitol with something besides a red 1,000 watt lightbulb.
Clean up American act
Care to hear how good a job the Soviets are doing in either stealing or buying high technology designs and equipment from Japan, Western Europe and, of course, the United States?
Well, according to the Defense Department, Russia has filled half of its needs for advanced military technology by that means.
... The sieve through which much of this technology passed into Soviet hands — legally, and usually indirectly — was the Commerce Department.
it might be easier to do something about these shipments, despite the opposition of Commerce Secretary Malcolm Baldridge and business interests which profit from them, if
At present, Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger is seeking authority to review all applications for export licenses, and Secretary of the Treasury Donald Regan is overseeing a Customs Service campaign to intercept illegal shipments of sensitive material.
the White House would get its act together.
Thusfar, though, both men have been proceeding with little or no help from the White House . . to keep vital technology out of the hands of our most dangerous adversary.
Regan would also like to move all export enforcement authority from commerce to the Customs Service.
Boston Herald
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LETTERS POLICY
Democratic party distressed
Obvious and damaging intraparty conflict, lack of a unified stance on important issues and Walter Monterrey's careful party fragmented and weak.
And unless most voters fall prey to the deluge of selfish, near-sighted propaganda of the money-hungry special interest groups who back the
Backers of the Democratic party must be distressed.
MICHAEL BECK
And the strength and weaknesses of the Republican Party aside, the Democratic Party members, with their bickering and dissent, will keep the present administration in power at least for another four years.
party, the Democrats will succumb to internal strife and division.
grasp of the Democrats for many reasons. Some of the signs of division are incessant squabbles over state primaries and caucuses, in which some of the Democratic convention delegates are chosen.
Understanding the labyrinthine caucus debates are difficult at best, but because Iowa wants to conduct its caucus earlier than the New Hampshire primary, the party has divided and shown its lack of unity.
Staff Columnist
The issue of whether Iowa or New Hampshire picks its delegates first probably will make little difference. But it does illustrate party divisions that are so intense only the courts can settle disagreements.
The presidency is beyond the
The divisions over Iowa's caucus went as far as the courts, which ruled against the party's rules and in favor of the loways.
Other divisions in the party include the polarized stances taken by the Democratic presidential candidates on issues that affect all of us.
Walter Mondale and John Glenn, clearly the only two candidates who have a chance of getting the nomination, have slandered and
'The Democratic Party is in deep trouble. It offers the American public not a single direction but many, economically unfeasible directions.'
contradicted each other constantly on important issues.
The division over party procedures and issues will probably carry over when it comes time to pick a presidential nominee.
This debate for a nominee will not be as intense, though, as the debates over caucuses and issues. The Democrats realize they must choose the best politician from the list of candidates, and the logical choice, the one who will win the most votes is Mondale.
On defense, for example, Glenn is a proponent of a strong defense system. Mondale's record indicates he is against heavy defense spending.
Mondale has shown his muster in a number of ways. He has received a fist full of endorsements — from the
AFL-CIO to the National Organization for Women.
And by getting those endorsements, Mondale has increased his prestige and power. But he has had to promise political favors, which include additional financing or appropriate legislation.
Mondale's backing is immense. He carries with him the support of nearly all liberal special-interest groups, whose desire for federal taxation could easily could send us back to the economic throes of the Carter administration.
The Democratic Party is in deep trouble. It offers the American public not a single direction but economically unfeasible directions.
For the party to reclaim its prestige in American politics it must unify its members, take unambiguous stands on issues and find a representative that can get votes without pandering to every interest
This may be asking too much. But the Democrats will have four more years to think things through. In any case, the backers of the Democratic Party should for now probably accept defeat.
Abortion breakthrough near
NEW YORK — This year, the 11th anniversary of the Supreme Court's decision legalizing abortion, brings to light a of a breakthrough in abortion rights.
It should, in fact, be a breakthrough political year for women. For no matter who becomes the Democratic candidate, his prospects may depend on successfully making women's issues crucial in the presidential and Congressional campaigns.
Many women are angry and frustrated. Their interests — particularly the Equal Rights Amendment and ending the nuclear arms race — have been thwarted by the Reagan administration and by Congress.
With Medicaid financing cut off in large part after 1977, many low-income women have been forced to the horrifying alternatives of self-induced or illegal back-alley abortions.
Poor women, especially those who are black or belong to other minorities, have long been singled out for special oppression by the denial of Medicaid payments for abortion.
There were an estimated 5,000 to 23,000 women in this category annually between 1975 and 1979, says the Center for Disease Control, in Atlanta, in its last study of the problem. Seventeen deaths from illegal abortions occurred in those years.
As a result of the Medicaid cutoff,
an estimated 29 percent of poor women had to scrouge from slim savings for legal abortions or beg money from friends, according to Willard Cates Jr., in a study by the University of Disease Control published in 1982.
Although 16 states and the District of Columbia now finance abortions, Cates found that an estimated 18 babies died from alcohol abuse not covered by Medicaid had to
Marking the anniversary of the Court's decision, poor women met in New York City recently for a "people's hearing" and will launch a campaign to end the co-sponsored in the House by many members of Congress.
LAWRENCE LADER
Is it any wonder that women, supposedly guaranteed the right to abortion by the Supreme Court, are turning their bitterness on Con-
Author
The Medicaid bill should be a rallying point for pro-abortion forces despite fears that the time is
Even if the poor can scrape up the money for abortion, the worst problem in vast areas of the United States is that poverty exists in the poor's home counties.
carry their pregnancies to term. The combination of poverty and unwanted children has become an increasing disaster.
not ripe. Yet the history of abortion rights shows the dangers of timidity
When one faction insisted that only a moderate abortion-reform bill had a chance in the New York State Legislature in the mid-1960s, militants went all out for complete repeal of the old repressive law.
Their bill, which passed in 1970 and legalized abortion in the first 24 weeks of pregnancy, became a landmark for the country.
In addition, a federal court case, *An abortion Rights Mobilization v. Internal Revenue Service*, in which the plaintiff seeks to bar the illegal use of religious organizations' tax-exempt money in political campaign financing and fundamentalist support given to anti-abortion candidates.
The Catholic hierarchy has found parishioners increasingly rebellious. 79 percent of Catholics in a majority church under abortion under the Court decision.
Women's power, therefore, may well change the composition of Congress, and the anger of women should prove the decisive edge.
Lawrence Lader, author of "Abortion" and "Abortion II," was chairman of the National Abortion Rights Action League in its first six years and is now president of Abortion Rights Mobilization.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Column wrong
It is truly kind of the University Daily Kansan to allow people like C. Henry Coan to express their views on the editorial page of our newspaper, but perhaps in the future you will need a more asserter amount of bifling nonsense.
To the editor:
On page four of the Kansan, Jan. 23, 1984, Mr. Coan calls for the formation of 'an independent body' to study KU's 'military-related activities'<sup>3</sup> and to have certain of these activities 'discontinued and reinstated' and 'do not contribute to the well being of human kind.' How noble
Here are a few of his insidious "activities":
The KU Federal Credit Union has "been forced" (at gunpoint, no doubt) to become part of the Air
Defense Credit Union. If KUFCU is being administered by the ADCU (they're both run by the federal government's National Credit Union Administration) what of it?
If Mr. Coan sees a problem with KU's credit union joining an organization that lends money to U.S. servicemen (most credit unions won't) then perhaps Mr. Coan would like to investigate some other evil military institutions as well — such as the Veterans Administration benefits program — it's about an militaristic as Rhode Island.
Mr. Coan also points out that the CIA is "in all probability" conducting "secret" surveillance on our foreign students, to give them jobs working for the CIA in their own countries. I wish someone would walk up to me and give me a job. Perhaps Mr. Coan is jealous.
(Besides, ROTC rhymes with Nazi) Let Mr. Coin chew that压 - i bet he spit out another editorial. After this one, William Allen White is up to around 2,500 R.P.M. – Think about it.
Perhaps Mr. Coan feels that the modern American military officer has no need to worry about politics, world culture or anything else that KU has to offer.
Lastly, Mr. Coan points out that — God help us all — the ROTC
program has seen a rise in enrollment. This needs to be "investigated" and possibly "discontinued and prohibited?"
There are dozens of ROTC members on campus (a few even in journalism) that would not be able to go to college were it not for the various military scholarship programs.
Thomas L. Roberts Overland Park senior
Election year tax increases are avoided
The average American's wallet typically survives election-year congressional sessions in good fashion. This year, with political control of the White House and the balance, should be no exception.
WASHINGTON — Members of Congress, always fearful of having to vote for taxes in an election year, already have taken their first action of 1848 to protect the pocket of workers and themselves at the same time.
The access fee was intended to replace Bell System subsides that have kept long-distance rates high to maintain low local telephone
Even before beginning its 1984 session, Congress pressured the Federal Communications Commission to delay until mid-1985 a $2-a-month telephone access fee that American Telephone & Telex Co. had joined to impose on consumers and small businesses April 3.
Charging customers the flat monthly fee for the privilege of
ROBERT MACKAY
United Press International
"Certainly, we're sensitive to what the Congress is thinking." FCC Chairman Mark Fowler said after the delay was announced. "Is it political? Yes, it has become, unfortunately, a political issue."
being connected to long-distance lines, the FCC said, would have allowed long-distance rates to fail
Dole jailed the action and said there was no need now for the Packwood bill. The Kansas Republican also said that, in light of the FCC action, the Senate would never approve the Packwood legislation.
Last year, the House passed a bill to prohibit — not just delay — the telephone access fees for consumers.
The White House was against the measure, and Senate Republicans feared the political consequences of voting against the legislation and thereby appearing to favor higher telephone rates.
The Senate had planned to consider this week a bill by Sen. Bob Packwood, R-Ore., that would direct the FCC to delay the access fee, restudy the issue and report back to Congress in two years.
Sen. Robert Dole, R-Kan., and 31 other senators sent a letter Wednesday to Fowler asking that the access charges be delayed. Two days later, the FCC announced a preliminary decision to delay the fees.
But Packwood, the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, said that the FCC left in place a $6-a-month charge effective April for businesses to telephone lines and that the bill was still needed to prevent a shift of telephone costs from businesses to individuals.
Even if the legislation is brought up on the Senate floor, however, the FCC action now makes it easier for senators to vote no on the grounds the bill would virtually duplicate the FCC action.
The consumer, although spared the $2-a-month fee on the phone bill, may not be an outright winner in this case.
The AT&T said the FCC action would make it impossible to proceed with its proposed rate reductions for long-distance calls. Local phone rates may rise, but long-distance rates will not be coming down.
Senators who no longer have to worry about voting to raise the telephone bills of their constituents by $2 a month were the real winners.
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