OPINION
The University Daily KANSAN
October 3, 1983 Page 4
The University Daily KANSAN
Published since 1889 by students of the University of Kansas
The University Daykan Kansa (402-595-604) is published at the University of Kansas, 118 Staffer First Hall, 370 W. 12th Street, daily during the regular school year and Monday and Thursday during the summer sessions, excluding Saturday. Subscribes to mail are $15 for six months or a year in Douglas County and $18 for six months or $35 for a year outside the county. Student subscriptions are $3 a semester through the student activity journal FOSTMASTER. Mail resumes to:
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A fitting tribute
It has been almost a year since the Vietnam memorial in Washington, D.C., was dedicated to the nearly 60,000 U.S. soldiers who died in a war that was marked by deep controversy and extreme bitterness. The bitterness ran so deep that it took the nation nine years to erect its memorial to the fallen soldiers.
Lisa Ashner, student body president, has been working since June on the memorial proposal, talking with various student groups, KU administrators and veteran groups' representatives.
Now, the University of Kansas student body may erect its own memorial fountain to those KU students who fought and died in the war in Vietnam. Members of the Student Senate Finance and Auditing Committee gave preliminary approval to a memorial Thursday when they voted to provide $10,000 for it out of carry-over funds from previous years' budgets.
The reactions have been positive, Ashner said, and she and her committee have been working on a financing plan that calls for voluntary contributions from KU living
groups and other contributors to come up with an additional $10,000 to pay for the memorial, tentatively planned for the Chandler courtyard at the Burge Union.
Two other University government bodies must consider the memorial. The full Senate and a special committee out of the executive vice chancellor's office will make their decisions on the project this week.
Tom Berger, a member of the memorial committee and a Vietnam veteran, said the memorial would be an expression of concern for fellow students who died in the war. It will be neither a symbol of anti-war nor pro-war beliefs; it is simply a remembrance of those students who died in the war in Vietnam.
A fountain is a fitting memorial. It fits easily into KU's longtime tradition of dedicating structures Memorial Drive and the Campanile are two prime examples — to its soldier students who have died in wars. It is time that the KU students who died in Vietnam were honored here in Kansas, as they are in Washington, D.C.
An early endorsement
The AFL-CIO's executive council voted this weekend to bestow its blessing on Walter Mondale. Union delegates will vote on the endorsement Wednesday, but that's only a formality.
The backing of the AFL-CIO used to mean something. Presidential candidates who captured its endorsement could count on a lot of footwork and money from the rank-and-file.
The real question is whether the federation can deliver this time. Will the rank-and-file follow the executive council's lead?
Maybe not, according to a recent New York Times-CBS News Poll. It showed union members almost
evenly split between Mondale and Sen. John Glenn, D-Dhio. That's not good news for Mondale. Sure, he'll get $20 million in campaign aid from the AFL-CIO, but he may not get enough of the blue-collar vote to beat Ronald Reagan, that is, if he can beat Glenn first.
Critics of labor will point to the endorsement and the poll and revive the old argument that union bosses really don't represent the membership.
But bitter splits among the labor movement in recent presidential elections have taken some punch out of the labor endorsement — Jimmy Carter got only a lukewarm boost from labor in 1980, and the working man's foe, Ronald Reagan, was elected president.
Regardless, the AFL-CIO is using a different strategy for this election. It endorsed a candidate for the primaries, instead of waiting until both national conventions were over. Perhaps the federation's leaders hope an aggressive start and extra time to iron out differences will create more of a spirit of unity for when the campaign heats up next year. They'll need that if they're to reach their real goal — to put Reagan out of office.
Watt's record of controversy
Interior Secretary James Watt's reference to members of his advisory committee as "a black, a woman, two Jews and a cripple" was not a joke. Instead, Watt's refusal to refrain from consent for it reveal the content they both have for the people they are supposed to serve.
Watt's weak apology was merely political etiquette and should not obscure his record of insulting the people in actions and controversial policies.
Watt's first revealing outburst came during his first year in office when he questioned the capability of black physicians who had gained entrance to medical schools through action programs. Steve one, Watt.
In June 1982, Watt sent a letter to Israeli Ambassador Moshe Arens implying that American support for Israel hinged on American Jews' support of Reagan's energy development programs. He suggested that "friends of Israel" would support Reagan's policies "if they are really concerned about the future of Israel." Strike two.
In January of this year, American Indian leaders called for Watt's resignation after he said that Indian reservations provided a better example of "the failures of socialism" than the Soviet Union.
The letter angered many American Jews, yet Reagan stood by his man in the Interior Department.
Watt charged that Indian leaders were "interested in keeping this
group of people assembled on a desert environment where there are no jobs, no agricultural potential, no water, because if the Indians were allowed to be liberated, they'd go out and get a job" and the leaders would lose their "government handout." Strike three.
DIANE
LUBER
Staff Columns
In baseball Watt would have been out, but this is the Reagan administration, and Watt's policies embody Reagan's views that environmental regulations should be reduced and laws opened up for development.
Staff Columnist
Although they have had Reagan's approval, Watt's policies have generated as much furor as his insensitive remarks.
Watt would like to open almost one billion acres off the U.S. coast to oil and gas industries for exploration and development. Environmentalists and coastal state officials oppose the plan, and Congress has since voted to ban leasing off the north and central California coast.
Watt's attempt to allow oil, coal
and mineral development on federal property in the Rocky Mountain states raised the fire to those states' governors. And his plan to open up 800,000 acres designated as wilderness study areas for energy and recreation is being supported by three senators and six national environmental groups.
One of Watt's most controversial actions was an auction last year of 1.6 billion tons of coal along the Wyoming-Montana border for an average price of 3.5 cents a ton. The General Accounting Office later charged that the department had received $100 million less than the fair market value of the coal. An alleged leak of key bidding information to some bidders is blamed for the low sale price.
Watt has plans to lease almost 16 million tons of coal by this time next year, but the House and Senate have both voted to ban coal fires for six months until a study of Watt's controversial practices is completed.
In serving private interests at public expense, Watt reflects Reagan's views on environmental issues. But Reagan's refusal to censure Watt for his bigredretention of the death penalty reflects Reagan's lack of respect for minorities that no amount of political courtship can replace.
Watt's sense of humor seems to be one that only Reagan shares, but voters have a sense of humor, too. But the last laugh at the polls next year.
It has been done many times before—people have delicately gone wrong to food make a political worse. It has worked, and sometimes it didn't.
Fasting to protest arms race
Mahatma Gandhi refused to touch food until the Hindus and Moslems reconfirmed their differences and the reasons in them unpartitioned India.
Bobby Sands, while pushing for Irish Republican Army demands, died as a result of his hunger strike in Ireland.
The group has ended its hunger strike. But the fasters tried to make the world more conscious of the nuclear buildup.
And recently a group of 11 people organized an international "Fast for Life" to call attention to the nuclear arms race.
The group included members from diverse locations: four from Paris; three from Bonn, West Germany; and four from Oakland, Calif.
Their demand was not unreasonable. That the world cannot survive a nuclear arms race is obvious to them. It is impossible to fight against this race by fasting.
In their own small way they
KALPANA
TRIVADI
Staff Columnist
appealed for more public awareness of the arms race. It is easy to dismiss them as activists vying for public attention, easier still to scorn them as mere political faddis. But it is hard to ignore them.
When Francis Hughes, an IRA gunman, died of starvation two years ago, British officials in Northern Ireland said he had in effect committed political suicide by being killed in medical attention for 54 days.
Governments usually do not recognize the hunger strikers. Maybe they do not acknowledge the hunger strikes because they fear fasting will become a common means of political expression.
But when there is a worthy cause to fight for, a hunger strike can be an effective way to deliver a message. The message of the recently-concluded strike was "Quit the nuclear arms race."
It is a shame to waste lives. Critics of hunger strikes say the fasters can achieve much more by staying alive and healthy to champion their cause rather than by weakening themselves to death.
but every century has its share of idealists who will sacrifice even their lives for their vision.
Hunger strikes — blackmail or strategic political move? Neither. They call for present action to ensure future peace.
Fasting — neither a mere ritual nor a political fad. It has worked in the past, and it can work again.
Now it's reported that President Reagan's campaign advisers' sights are fixed on a manned space station specially designed, one administration official told columnist Lou Cannon, to "knock the socks off" Democratic contender John Glenn.
Faced with this threat from outer space, the Reagan campaign envisions a public relations counterattack "not unlike putting a man on the moon."
Reagan's space show
The station won't be in orbit until 1991, but the president is predicted to approve a down payment of $200 million for NASA's 1985 budget. Reagan strategists think this will
break Glenn's monopoly on the "hero image."
An interesting feature of the gambit is its cost, between $6 billion and $8 billion. The plan is beginning to stir controversy even within the administration.
The CIA and the Pentagon argue that the information can be obtained far more cheaply with unmanned satellites.
A panel of the National Academy of Sciences announced that a space station won't be needed for scientific research for about 20 years.
From the look of the previews, this will be a good show.
Boston Globe
LETTERS POLICY
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Security is main factor for trip
WASHINGTON — President Reagan's decision to visit the Philippines in November will be based on the outcome of violent political struggles being waged in the streets of Manila.
The crackdown by the security forces of President Ferdinand Marcos shows no sign of easing, and Reagan's security dominates all other considerations in allowing the one-day visit.
Reagan's possible reluctance to leave town if Congress is still in
E. MICHAEL MYERS
United Press International
session notwithstanding, chaos in the streets of Manila or a poor security environment will be the basis for the judgment on going and with it.
It's understood that the visit could not go forward if the Marcos regime is implicated in the assassination of opposition leader Benigno Aquino, or if it blocks an objective investigation of his murder.
The administration wants to avoid action that would further weaken Marcos if a verdict is still on his possible role in Aquino's death.
Another consideration is the vital U.S. security interests in the Philippines: Clark Air Base and the Subic Bay naval installation. These bases are strategic American assets along the sea and air lines of Asia.
No longer does the United States have such assets in Vietnam — they are ports to the Soviet navy now.
A Reagan visit to the Philippines can be judged by Marcos's opposition as American support to the embattled leader. If an anti-American regime ultimately comes to power in the Philippines, Clark Air Base and Subic Bay may go with Marcos.
The United States has seen this before. President Carter's administration supported the dictatorial shah so long that support doomed any chance of possible accommodation with the radical Islamic
But that's not the decisive factor in Reagan's visit
Washington has expressed its confidence that the Marcos government will properly investigate the death of Aquino, shot to death by a reputed criminal on his arrival at the US embassy two years of exile in the United States.
If the Marcos government could
Years of support for the Somoza regime in Nicaragua, despite Carter's condemnation of his human rights record, helped poison relations between Washington and Managua.
revolution that seized control of Iran.
Thousands of Filipinos have raged through the streets of Manila, clashing with club-swerving security forces in opposition to the long, harsh rule of Marcos and doubles of Martes. The president Marcos has warned of even harsher retaliation to control the street protests.
not protect a popular opposition leader who placed himself in its security, some people ask how it can prevent the assault of the president of the United States.
An excess on both sides could close the question against a Reagan visit. The White House is watching closely. President Reagan said he still was going to Manila, though he might change his plans if Congress, instead of going home as expected, was still working on his legislation.
But there is another Reagan with an opinion.
A White House source has said that Nancy Reagan was arguing strongly against her husband visit, because of the potential danger.
There is danger to a president wherever he goes, and Reagan has already brushed death in one assassination attempt.
Military installations and America's role in Asia are important. But more deaths and violence in the streets of Manila and how that could be the No. 1 factor for the president in going ahead with the visit.
V