4
Wednesday, April 23, 1975
University Daily Kansan
KANSAN
Editorials, columns and letters published on this page reflect only the opinions of the writers.
'COME, JOSEPH... WE HAVE WORK TO DO!'
Thieu's finished
President Ford made a good move in promising not to make an issue of Congress' refusal to supply more military aid to South Vietnam.
At the start of his interview Monday night by CBS newsmen, Ford said the rout of the South Vietnamese army was precipitated by Congressional refusal to "adequately" sumply the army.
But the President went on to say that he didn't intend to use the Congressional decision as a basis for blaming Democrats in a "Who lost Vietnam?" debate. Some members of Ford's administration hinted that such a debate would become an issue in the 1976 campaign.
Ford's decision seems to be the wise thing to do for several reasons. It wouldn't likely be a successful campaign issue. As the President said, there is plenty of blame to go around for what has happened in Vietnam. Besides, the American public is more sophisticated now than in the days Joe McCarthy was president of being "soft administration of being" and "losing China to the Reds."
More importantly, and I hope Ford and other Americans are beginning to realize the fact, no amount of military aid can indefinitely prop up a government that does not obey the government, and several of the governments before it, had dubious claims to the support of their people.
Certainly, in the last year and a half, what there was of popular
support for Thieu had dwindled. Thieu's repressive regime, replete with corruption and incompetence, was its own worst enemy.
The South Vietnamese army has never been an impressive fighting force. The army frequently has been poorly led and poorly trained. The soldiers in the army, many of them impressed into service against their wishes, could hardly be expected to die for the Thieu government. Unless fight, some reason to fight, all the sophisticated weaponry in the world won't make them fierce or courageous.
A government genuinely concerned about the welfare of its people might have "saved" South Vietnam. The United States, as we should have learned from our own experience, defend the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong without destroying Vietnam in the process.
If President Thieu was right in saying the United States "led the South Vietnamese people to death," he was right in that by support, the president suppressive, rigid regime we prolonged the killing in South Vietnam.
At any rate, Thieu can no longer lead anyone to death. Perhaps now the Vietnamese can pick up the begin and begin to rebuild their shattered nation even if the political form of the United States isn't pleasing to the United States.
Craig Stock
Capitalism folklore failing
BY STEVEN LEWIS Contributing Writer
Five years ago prophets of ecological gloom captured the attention of Americans. There were ecological teach-ins, seminars, earth days and much bric-a-brac.
Today we are in a recession and more and more government officials are encouraging a relaxation of those air and pollution standards that grew out of the ecological crush.
In addition, we are being encouraged to buy more. What more is needed? We good once again for America, ironically, six short months ago our President was urging us to keep more conservation minded.
It it seems the ecological crusade is now being stiffed amid the recession. Yet the ecological crisis hasn't diminished one bit. It looms more ominous than ever.
In spite of all the recent environmental legislation, we have yet to accept and act on climate change. We must conclude: We must bring the economies of the developed world into a sustainable relationship with resource cultures and waste absorption.
This largely means zero population growth and zero industrial growth. Most people in the industrial world have accepted the idea of zero population growth. Far fewer
have accepted the idea of zero industrial growth.
Indeed, within the United States the folklore of capitalism has become more and more acceptable in these days of recession. The folklore of capitalism includes worship of private business, free enterprise and an ever-expanding economy, words within the folklore of capitalism include "government regulation," "socialism" and "welfare state."
Howard Flieger, editor of U.S. News and World Report, is one of the high priests of the month Flieger wrote, "Looking far ahead, many economists see the U.S. moving inexorably into a socialist state because of the rise of its people on Washington."
He answers, "The question has never been faced squarely by the vast majority. But this is a fact of history: No nation part socialist and part free enterprise has given birth to the blind blood to assure it well-being, prosperity and dynamic growth."
Flieger then asks, "Is that what Americans want?"
You can be sure that if Flieger had his way, the "perfect blend" would never be found. Joining Flieger in the holy war for 'dynamic growth' has been a challenge to Chase Manhattan Bank, Chase recently purchased ads in national business periodicals in
which it warned that a tabulation of growth rates of 20 advanced economies from 1960-85 in the United States in 18th place.
Chase concludes that heaven will be our reward if we only eliminate unnecessary government controls, ease our very harsh' 'treatment of capital and give preferential tax treatment for retained earnings used for investment purposes, etc.
It's unfortunate that the folklore of capitalism doesn't make allowances for natural and biological barriers to industrial growth. Consequently, the folklore of capitalism breeds prophets of ecological gloom as so many neo-Malthusians.
Unlike Malthus, however, most modern prophets of ecological gloom have made allowances for technological innovation. Many have imitated Malthus' allowances for technological innovation, yet they still see a convulsive future before us.
The main question remaining isn't whether we will limit industrial growth. The main question is how to position and under what conditions.
Our affluence today is at the expense of underdeveloped nations and future generations. The underdeveloped nations own our affluence. Our ecosystem can give and take only so much.
Our prodigious production of
The ecological battle isn't as
much one social class versus another as it is all classes versus nature. Our immediate challenge is whether the capitalism can be overcome by bforest instead of catastrophe.
MORE MOTHER NATURE!... MORE! MORE!'
Budget deficit could be disaster
By James I. Kilpatrick
By James J. Kippatrick
President Ford drew a $60 billion line in his speech of March 29. It was a fine, dramatic gesture and it came out TV. But the already has disappeared. The grim probability is that the deficit for the coming fiscal year will surpass $80 billion.
Without congressional restraint, the deficit will approach $100 billion.
The figures zip through our minds like invisible particles whipped from an electron acceleration device, a serious impact. It is imperative, or so it seems to me, that we concentrate on this whole problem of deficit finance and understand where we are heading.
The federal budget has shown a surplus in only four of the past 20 years. These were not large surpluses: They amounted
cumulatively to only $10.8 billion. In this same period, including the present fiscal year, the deficits have amounted to about $240 billion. One result is a national debt on which we are paying $33 billion this year in interest alone.
That is not the only result. Beyond question, these deficits were a prime causative influence on the combined inflation and recession that struck the American economy with such stunning effect last year. Massive federal borrowings have dominated the capital markets and domino effect-if that abused image may be invoked—on every aspect of our economy.
Now the prospect is for more of the same, in vastly larger sums, piled upon a less stable foundation. The Senate Budget Committee proposes a federal deficit for the coming year of
$69.6 billion. The House committee proposes $72.2 billion. Neither figure is likely to stay clud together.
The House already has passed public works and housing bills that would add $4.3 billion. The Senate is looking at an appealing proposal for new revenue sharing that would add a $2 billion fund to the Congress to go along with Ford's hold-the-line pleas on federal pay and social services; these decisions could add almost $5 billion more. Intense pressures will be applied in coming months for railway aid, public service employee compensation and still greater extensions of unemployment compensation.
We are sowing the wind. As surely as night follows day, we will reap the whirlwind. The tax was raised by a law signed last month, just before
he drew his line in the sand, eventually will be seen as a blunder. Wholly apart from the precedents this act will set, the Treasury can be to add some $23 billion to the Treasury's problems.
If the President had vetored that very bad bill, and let the economy work its own healing processes for a few more months, we might have witnessed a bottom-out and a slow upturn by fall. To be sure, this may happen anyhow. Treasury Secretary William Simon's patches of blue are "slowing down," and the economy may have enough residual health to survive even the bloodletting remedies the Congress has prescribed.
But the far more likely result of the course on which we are going is that Simon will disaster it. But Simon's gloomy projections are anywhere near
the mark, the Treasury will have to finance cumulative deficits over the next five years approaching $350 billion. It will be an economic miracle if this debt can be handled without triggering additional destructive inflation.
It is not enough, as Senator Edmund Muskie, D-Maine, harped, that we "stop," look, and listen." The Senate's Budget chairman will have to exhort his colleagues to do much more. Until we are clearly out of this recession—until rising employment begins to produce a surplus, Congress must set an example of restraint and austerity. If the wild horses of deficit spending are not controlled, we will fail like the improvident Phaethon. And we will be a long time picking up the shattered pieces.
(C) 1975 Washington Star Syndicate, Inc.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
An All-American college newspaper
Kansan Telephone Numbers
Newsroom--864-4810
Advertising--864-4358
Circulation--864-2048
Published at the University of Kansas weekdays during the academic year except holidays and excursions. Lawrence, Kan. 60045. Subscriptions by mail are $8.15 a semester. Subscription to the student activity $1.15 a semester, paid through the student activity
Accommodations, goods, services and employment opportunities for students of the Student Services Department are generally those of the Student Services Department.
John Pike
Associate Editor
Craig Stock
Campus Editor
Dennis Ellsworth
Business Manager
Dave Brown
Dave Reeve
Advertising Manager - Assistant Business Manager
Debra Adelahany
Boston Business
News Adviser Susanne Shaw
Business Adviser Mel Adams
Readers respond / Israel will return occupied territory when assured of safety
It is true that in World War I, the British promised much of the land comprising the Ottoman Turkish Empire to the Ottoman Empire, but was explicitly excluded from any such promise. It had been understood, agreed, and decided that the Holy Land cannot be said to be purely Ottoman territory, from the demanded" (Sheriff Hussein McMahon Agreement, 1915).
Mohamed Elgart* ("History of Arab-Israeli conflict told," April 8) begins his letter with a call to action. He writes that this city and its city's money. Either he is attempting to show that there is some relationship between Arab oil and how it affects the city, or should be perceived, or he is providing a hint (or threat) that unless the United States alters its policy toward Israel, the city of Lawrence will pay for it.
To the Editor:
It is obvious why the Holy Land, with its significance to world culture and the Judeo-Christian tradition and beliefs, has been landed in any promises of land made by the British to the Arabs.
The Holy Land was granted as a League of Nations mandate to Britain because of Britain's British Colonial Balfour Declaration (1917) stated that the British government would favor the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine and would endeavor to facilitate the establishment of Balfour Declaration, issued by the British government in 1917, was immediately adopted by the allies and especially by the United States. The Declaration was unanimously adopted by the League of Nations in 1920.
The President of the United States at that time, Woodrow Wilson, who was the originator of the principle of self-
determination, and the U.S. congress adopted then their commitment to reestablishing the Jewish state in the Holy Land, and this commitment has continued ever since by every president of the United States. This commitment to the reestablishment of the Jewish state in their ancient historic homeland has prevailed since the early days of the First Union when President Jefferson expressed this belief in 1803 in a letter to Mordechal Noah.
When the Arab national movement was beginning to develop, the Jewish national movement, Zionism, was already well established. Zionism, in fact, accelerated the development of the Arab national movement. The Jewish
The Balafour Declaration was favored by Emir Faisal, the acknowledged leader of the Arab national movement at that time (1919) and the future king of Syria and Iraq.
national movement and its right to regain its sovereignty in the Holy Land is deeply rooted in American history. It was therefore that the U.N. General Assembly reaffirmed its creation in 1948. No attempt to alter history can prevail against basal and well known facts.
If the Arab countries had pursued a more cooperative approach to the state of Israel and the Jewish national security in the people in the area of the Middle East, this cradle of civilization and world culture, would have flourished in peace and success and the Arab countries wouldn't need to use force in an attempt to blackmail the entire western world.
No Israeli and no Jee
questions the right of the Arab
people to establish their own
national movement so long as
they recognize the right of
others to establish their own
national movement and their own homeland. The moment the Arab national movement and its right to maintain its state in peace and security, there will be civilizations on the way to real peace.
Israel will be more than happy to return most of its occupied territories the moment it is assured that these lands are secure as bases for hostile activities against its very existence.
Joel Farb Galveston, Tex. Graduate Student
Parking tickets
To the Editor:
This is a copy of a letter I sent to Security and Parking after I receive one of their ridiculous threats.
ment at KU is the biggest FARCE I've ever seen. I got a ticket because I pulled into a parking spot just vacated by another car. I therefore assumed that it was a legal parking space. After getting my ticket, which states that my car was parked in an area, I checked and found that there was a white parking space line on the right of my car, but not on the left of my car.
That was behind Blake Hall and my car wasn't posing a hazard to anyone driving in that area. However, the diligent work of KU's keystone kops solved this capital crime. I have never seen one of the hardworking (?) members of Security and Parking writing out a parking ticket in rain, snow or bad weather in general. However, they seem to write
However, they seem to write out more tickets than there are cars when the sun is shining or at all hours of the night. I find it hard to believe that Security and Parking doesn't have some
monthly ticket quota to fill. I also wonder how the department justifies the $5 penalty for parking violation. The city of Lawrence only fines a person $1 more than the $5 penalty, but was just recently changed from 50 cents. I wonder whether you could tell me where all this money is going? Do you hand out tickets to the women who were the most tickets? I'd also like to know where the word SECURITY warrants a place in the title of the KU cops? How much security were they taking last year when several women were raped on campus?
I for one would like to see something done about the present state of affairs with regard to Security and Parking. Any person who receives a ticket has the right to petition the police, so his her ticket, which basically means you get a chance to tell your side of the story before they go ahead and fine you.
I'd like to know the percentage of people, who do petition for a hearing on their tickets, that actually get off without paying the fine. Whatever the outcome, I'm pretty sure that most students ensure the fine, which is ridiculous.
I'm sure that the personnel at Security and Parking will read this letter with amusement, which wasn't its intended purpose, and then throw it into the waste basket.
I'm paying the fine like an idiot because unfortunately I don't have the time or money to appeal this ticket to city, county or state courts, where the matter should be dealt with. In all farms, I guess I should go to Parking. You guys are doing a great job of screwing the students and faculty.
Thomas R. Cobb Lawrence Senior