A view of America from the other side
Dear Mr. Ambassador,
You asked me to write about your country, America, and to brief it on solutions for aspects of its strained relations with the rest of the world.
Actually, Sir, I see nothing wrong with America but that it is a country none of whose inhabitants seems to perceive beyond its boundaries.
America has kind people but they lack the understanding of kind people.
AMERICAN DEMOCRACY is a laudable proposition but it is reeking in places with age, mouldiness and non-practicability for the rest of the world.
A country cannot be perfect in all respects. America is not.
Yet its people know only their power and not their weakness.
Its generosity knows no bounds but it lacks the character of charity.
FOR WITH THE WORLD, America has placed herself in the role of a master who has to feed servants. It has made herself guardian of people's rights as it sees those rights. It has made herself judge of the good and the bad for them.
No doubt America is failing where it should apparently succeed. No doubt it can't see beyond that horizon into the green fields of the lives of others. No doubt the world is so ungrateful to its great benefactor.
And yet America is so young in the eyes of the world.
We are all human beings—people who live in environments and under conditions and circumstances different from the rest of the next man's world. We
have adapted to our situations with precepts and thoughts that are very much a part of us. Thus we grow up with certain cherished ideas and beliefs on which our thoughts and acts are hinged.
THOSE THINGS. I will emphasize Sir, are not trifles, no, not to us. To abandon them shall be a great loss to us. But America does not know this and America is failing because it does not.
In fact, America would rather think that what comes from America is unmatched and unparalleled. It would rather think that its technology, its industries, its manufactured products, that its ideas, its beliefs, its way of life and its interpretation of the relationship between the government and the governed, that for these ultimate things of life and ways of living, it has no equal.
That is the root of the problem, Mr. Ambassador, for that being the case, America proceeds to think nobody should face difficulties to attain the same things. Why should anyone suffer when America is willing to offer, nay, to push them down the throats of the rest of the people of the world at the first opportunity?
The point America should note here is not that American values are not appreciated abroad, but that
A RADICAL SOLUTION is needed to this problem, Sir. Let us therefore ask America to pause for a moment and think. Can't it then see that similar thinking from the rest of the world, from the smallest to the largest nations, from the most ancient to the newest, can bring no good? Can't it realize the potential of developing rivals among the very nations it proposes to teach the American way of life.
American values, like the values of any single society in the world, cannot mean everything, cannot suit all purposes, all peoples and all places at all times.
But no. America won't. It can only condition herself to thinking that the world outside of America consists of a mass of deprived human beings very much in need of the material salvation and the spiritual elevation outlined in its own achievements.
AS A RESULT, SIR, America feels obliged to lay the red carpet for the world's nations to elevate them to this pinnacle. And of course dedicated America can see no obstacles, not even in the bands tying other peoples to their own civilization, beliefs and cherished way of life.
Now, I will ask America, in fact I will appeal to her to see a bit more of this important fact in order to become a little more perfect. Do so America, it will improve others, perception and reception of what you cherish.
It will because in that approach alone lies the road to understanding, brotherhood, and peace as well as to freedom. In that comparison, that mutual integration and rejection of the evil and the good by all alike, in that alone lies a future for America, for mankind, for the world.
UNCLE SAM, let me address it once more Sir, pause and reflect. Interest in other people's way of life, a sympathetic understanding of the motives and objectives that govern their actions matter even more, more than all the world's money, all its power.
Indeed, Uncle Sam, no country is the standard of the world. Unlike your Cadillac, you cannot claim to be the exception. By SWAEBOU CONATEH
College students re-typed
The Professional Politician— Knows every political hack and ward boss in the state, and does not mind telling you so. The Politician (a) The Liberal—Forgot one of the basic concepts of liberals is the free competition of ideas. The Politician (b) The Conservative — Still crying over Brother Barry's demise.
The Has-Been—Reminds himself that it's better than being a Never-Was. Basks in his glories of days gone by. Pity everything's gone to hell since he ran it.
The Professional Independent—Does everything he can to make sure nobody mistakes him for a Greek. The Professional Independent Girl, a subtype, believes studying is more important than dating. The Professional Independent Boy, another subtype, wears uncoordinated socks and sweaters.
The Professional Greek—Does everything he can to make sure nobody mistakes him for an Independent. The Professional Greek Girl, a subtype, likes to collect pins, a quaint phenomenon. The Professional Greek Boy, a definite subtype, wears coordinated socks and sweaters.
The Drinker—When he studies, nobody is quite sure. Where he gets his money; nobody is quite sure. His greatest achievement, second only to when a bartender bought him a beer, was the day he took an exam drunk.
The Reformer—With his pocket Marx in hand, he really believes any University where the teacher-student ratio isn't one to one is a "multiversity" with all students alienated, though they may not admit it. Desperately wishes this were Berkeley so he could "get some work done." He wants to be a hero, but finds trouble convincing anyone but his fellow 11 Reformers that he is.
—Illinois Daily Illini
LITTLE MAN ON CAMPUS
"--AND-- BY PLEDGING THE 'SIGNAL PHI NOTHINGS' YOU'll HAVE ACCESS TO YOUR SPLENDENT --FULLY EQUIPED-- RECREATION ROOM."
The people say...
To the editors:
We would appreciate your cooperation in publishing this open letter to all KU students:
We of the KU Viet Nam Committee are planning a universitywide referendum on the Viet Nam war, to be held on or about the first of December.
We hope you will vote on your position. Of course, we hope you will know the facts about your position. Between now and December, why not discuss them with a friend? Why not argue about them with your more hard-headed acquaintances? Why not fill in the blanks in your own knowledge of the issues?
We have our opinions, of course. And we are ready to support them. We wonder if you will support yours. We wonder whether you are too apathetic to have opinions.
We offer a challenge. We challenge the students of KU to come out and meet us face-to-face, fact-to-fact, between now and the first of December. If our challenge goes unanswered, then this university must be a sinkhole of anathy and hypocrisy.
We will cast our votes on December first, and we will campaign until then. We challenge the students who support the war to do the same.
Official Bulletin
KU Viet Nam Committee
TODAY
AWS Freshman Elections. All day.
Student ALI Lecture. 3 p.m. Eugene
Buchanan, KU alumnus. Forum Room,
Kansas, Union
KU SDS, 7:30 p.m. Student rights committee, draft program, membership referendum. Cottonwood Room, Kapsas, Union.
Newcomers' Club Discussion, 7:30 p.m. Watkins Room. Kansas Union.
TOMORROW
College. Lake, 9 a.p.m. m.tm. The Crisis of
Japan and the War in Kappa
Epsilon House. 1911 Stewart.
Composition & Literature Conference, All Day, Union.
Munich Society. p.m.
Friday (mw) School of Religion,
(Mvers Hall), opp. Union.
Film Series, 7.30 p.m. "The Rest is
Slovačka" German, Hoeh Aud
Sigma Xi Lecture, 7:30 p.m. Dr.
Melvin Kramberg, national lecturer,
"Unity of Science & Technology."
303 Bailey.
Daily Kansan
2
edutorial page
editorial page
Thursday, October 20. 1966
STRONG STUFF
as seen by EMERY GOAD
The GOOD LUCK award this week goes to any student who has not yet cracked a book for those mid terms—which have already started.
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KU is kind of like a bottle of medicine with all its active ingredients CRC, ASC,-and SLO and those inactive ingredients COSA and SPU.
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Following the resignation of Dean Woodruff, effective this spring, one Strong official was heard to say, "As you all know, the job is up for grabs."
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President Johnson goes around the world visiting with foreign dignitaries and spreading peace but, many KU students can't even make it to class three times a week.
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Watching Fraser Hall is kind of like looking at girls' skirts .it's always going up.
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A rough draft . . . that's what General Hershey and the local boards have been playing with all year.
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Mid terms . . . that's the season when the professor's fancy turns to what the students have been regretting all along.
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Thinking ahead to the Red Cross blood mobile visit on Tuesday we remember the student who stayed up all night last year studying for the blood test.
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The geology students, those are the ones you see out along the turnpike, and the only people we know who get grades for collecting and even tasting rocks.
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And speaking of that new GE 625 computer we remember the student on campus last year carrying the sign, "Do not bend, spindle, or mutilate me."
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY
kansan Serving KU for 77 of its 101 Years
Serving KU for 77 of its 101 Years
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