A new paddle
Remember the slogan, "Bring the war home"?
Slogans die fast, it seems. People may keep using them for awhile, but the period in which a slogan possesses true power is very brief.
This one didn't last as long as most. Probably because most of the people who went around shouting it didn't really want to bring the war home. At any rate, most of them weren't prepared to exert any effort toward converting this rhetoric into reality.
That slogan, like many of the others used in the anti-war movement, was really a kind of threat. (Weren't many of the marchers themselves actually threats—some subtle, but others very blatant?) It was a means by which we could make society listen to what we had to say. "Stop doing bad things across the street or we're going to do our damnest to give you a spanking here at home."
But America didn't listen to us and it didn't get a spanking either. And so we said, "Well we've tried, but they called our bluff and we've only got two choices left—get the hell out or play the game their way."
Sometimes we try to keep America from knowing that we've made this decision. But America knows. We might still march and shout our slogans, but it's only camouflage for our retreat and America knows.
But as with all movements, this one has members who refuse to take a step backwards. There were a few who weren't bluffing when they shouted that slogan. The newspapers call them extremists, fanatics, or crazies. But they are such a small minority that they haven't caused much alarm—until recently.
The crazies have a new paddle which they're using to teach America the difference between right and wrong. Their paddle is the bomb and it's beginning to throw fear into much of America. New York City, with several actual bombings and 200 daily bomb scares, is becoming particularly edgy.
Worried congressmen have already introduced bills designed to control the distribution of explosives. So far the victims of the bombings have been the revolutionaries themselves, but the unlimited potential violence of the bomb is frightening.
In America, the bomb is not a new political weapon. On May 1, 1919, 36 packages addressed to government and business leaders were intercepted by post office officials. The packages contained bombs—the 36 men had been marked for death.
This incident occurred when the Wobblies and Socialists were fighting for their political lives in America. It was the crushing blow. America reacted hysterically—every radical was seen as a potential bomber. Opposition to the conservative trend of American government was virtually eliminated.
If the current bombings continue to spread, a frightened America may force a showdown with the entire radical movement.
ii such a confrontation takes place, the 1970's could become as safe as a fortress for politicians like Nixon and Agnew—just like the 1920's became safe for men like Coolidge and Hoover.
So the crazies are forcing us to make a decision. We can either drop all pretense of protest and make our retreat complete—because we'll have to if America reacts as hysterically as it did to the bombings in 1920—or we can start gathering powder and blasting caps.
This may seem overly dramatic, but the radical movement in America is under such a severe strain that something dramatic is bound to happen.
The Panthers are facing annihilation and members of Weatherman have been forced into hiding by the police.
Are these people revolutionaries in the tradition of Samuel Adams and Thomas Paine, or are they fanatics? Should we join them or denounce them?
Can we justify bombing at home in order to stop the more violent bombings in Vietnam? The fate of the revolution is balancing on our decision.
Will these bombings be the end or will they be the beginning?
—Joe Naas
Number games
From the Colorado Daily, University of Colorado
That decennial statisticians' delight, the U.S. Census, is nearly upon us. The 1970 census will be a great deal different than the country's first in 1790.
The U.S. Constitution provides that "enumeration" of the population "be made within three years after the first meeting of the Congress of the United States and within every subsequent term of ten years."
The purpose of this was to determine how many representatives each Congressional district would be allotted in the House of Representatives.
Not until 1850 did the census ask the name of every inhabitant of the country.
Now every person the census takers can get ahold of will be asked: name, relation to head of household, sex, color or race, date of birth and marital status.
One person in five will also be asked his occupation, education, previous residences, national origin and military service.
Beyond that, one in 20 people will also be asked to answer questions the Census Bureau states will help the government figure out the nation's housing problems.
That's a long way from counting heads so that we can figure out the placement of Congressional representatives.
This is a world that is becoming increasingly impersonal and increasingly crowded with governing bureaucracies that the average person must both answer to and depend upon.
In an age of wiretaps and hidden cameras, people are finding it more and more difficult to maintain any modicum of privacy.
The census Bureau maintains that all information it collects remains "confidential." No organization, governmental or private, can have access to the personal files in the census offices.
It's not as if the people of this nation have been lied to before by their government—we just wonder about the veracity of the bureau's statements.
The military says it now has destroyed the data bank it admitted it was keeping on "subversive" people—like NAACP members.
Several times in recent years Congressmen have tried to establish a center of "vital statistics" for every man, woman and child in this country.
In a mechanized, systematized, bureaucratized and categorized society such as we live in, people don't have much hope of keeping to themselves, unmolested by big business and big government.
Supposedly this nation is a government of the people, by the people and for the people. Yet, time and again we see and feel the effects of a government more concerned about its own orderly perpetuation than the needs of its people.
Knowledge brings power; and power, control.
Why should people in this "free country" be required to divulge to government information they may be reluctant to tell their next door neighbors or best friends?
We see little reason why people should cooperate with the census.
hearing voices—
The handicapped and their minority
To the editor:
Having stood by (more accurately, sat by) and watched the controversy between BSU and the administration over the past year, and now the left-handed students' parody, I feel compelled at last by Mike Shearer's recent editorial ("A Cheap Analogy," March 10) to add a new dimension to the problem of discrimination.
Mr. Shearer stated, "If there are any persons left in America who actually believe that the plight of the American black is in any way parallel to the plight of other 'minority' groups, they had better take a step backward and look again." I have "taken a step backward" and "looked again" and feel certain that the plight of another "minority group" (using Mr. Shearer's definition—"The terms 'minority' and 'majority' refer to a power relation between the groups within a particular society, and a minority is weaker and hence suffers some kinds of disabilities at the hands of the stronger group. Second, a minority is to be distinguished from other depressed groups within a society, because the disabilities under which they suffer are related to special characteristics which the minority shares and of which the majority disapproves in some degree,") is quite as serious as the plight of the blacks—the plight of the disabled individual. Having been a member of this minority group for twenty years (I've been in a wheelchair since age six). I feel qualified to call to anyone's attention the widespread discrim-
ination, both conscious and unconscious, that a disabled person must endure.
Imagine, if you will, parking in the lot behind Frazer Hall and discovering you can't get onto the sidewalk to go to the Library because of a curb. If you are lucky enough to get up the curb, you discover you can't get into the library because of a flight of steps. (If you go between 8:00 and 5:00, you are fortunate in having an accessible basement entrance, but this is an exception to the rule in the case of public buildings.) If you are lucky enough to get into the Library, you discover you can't reach the top shelves in the stacks or the top drawers in the card catalogue, and you can't get a drink from the water fountain or even use the
restroom because of the narrow stalls. The situation is the same in nearly every building (Particularly irritating is the new Woodruff Auditorium with two unnecessary steps at its entrance), and just as restrictive in the community at large.
While you are adjusting to this physical discrimination (never getting thirsty and developing a strong bladder), you discover that you can't enroll in a course necessary for your PhD, because it meets on the third floor of Marvin Hall and can't be relocated. You also discover you are subject to the same ego-shattering discrimination that blacks endure when applying for a job. If there is anyone an employer is less likely to want on his payroll than a black, it is a handicapped person, no matter how qualified he is for the particular job.
There are places, such as the University of Illinois in Urbana, Illinois, where all physical barriers are removed, and the disabled student is able to participate as fully as his handicap permits in all activities and courses. He can get into all buildings thanks to ramps or flat main entrances and can move freely around the community due to melted curbs at street corners. But such universities and such towns are few and take years of crusading to develop. Reality and the "majority" dictates that the disabled individual will be subject to physical and mental humiliation and discrimination long after the blacks have solved their problems.
I comment here, not to arouse sympathy or pity (God knows, this is the subtleest and worst form of discrimination any handicapped person puts up with!), but merely to open people's eyes (including Mr. Shearer's) to some very basic and far-reaching discrimination that another minority of the Silent Majority is faced with,
Thank you
Cheryl Grosser Assistant Instructor in English
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY
An All-American college newspaper
Published at the University of Kansas daily during the academic year except holidays and examination periods. Mail subscription rates: $6 a semester, $10 a year. Second class postage paid at Lawrence, Kan. 66044. Accommodations, goods, services and employment advertised offered to all students without regard to color, creed or national origin. Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the University of Kansas or the State Board of Regents.