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Monday, March 20, 1989 / University Daily Kansan
Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Spotless record can't erase question about nomination
It's finally over. Rep. Richard Cheney, R-Wyo., was sworn in Friday as secretary of defense after a unanimous Senate confirmation. The confirmation came just a week and a day after the rejection of John Tower.
All cabinets positions are full, eight weeks after the inauguration of George Bush. And while the administration can now get down to business, one must question how the decision was made to nominate Cheney.
Admittedly, Cheney has a spotless record — the perfect nominee to guarantee a speedy confirmation. However, Cheney himself has acknowledged that he has little knowledge of key defense department issues such as the Strategic Defense Initiative and weapons-procurement procedures.
Tower, on the other hand, had far more experience with defense issues, having been chairman of the Armed Services Committee. However, debate and concern about allegations of alcohol abuse, womanizing and profiting as a defense consultant from his previous government service precluded his confirmation.
Although Tower was an unacceptable man for the job, it is curious as to why Bush would nominate Cheney who, while being squeaky clean, will have to go through on-the-job training at the Pentagon.
Jill Jess for the editorial board
Salvadoran troubles go on
It is likely that most Salvadorans are relieved to have their country's presidential election finished. Unfortunately for them, though, the intensifying friction that marked yesterday's election probably won't end soon.
Last week, the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, the umbrella coalition of five groups fighting the Salvadoran government, called for a boycott of the election.
government.
In an effort to put some teeth into the boycott, FMLN guerrillas during the weekend knocked out 80 percent of the university's power, sabotaged water supplies and cut telephone lines. On Thursday, the group demanded a ban on transportation, threatening to attack anyone driving on the nation's highways...
fear kept voter turnout low. Although it's easy to find fault with the U.S.-backed Salvadoran government and its election, rebel attacks on Salvadoran citizens are winning no fans and ultimately will prove to be counterproductive. The violence has served only to solidify opposition to the rebels' cause. Even Guillermo Ungo, presidential candidate of the leftist Democratic Convergence, whom the rebels endorsed, flatly condemned their actions.
Rebels promised not to attack voters or polling places, but fear kept voter turnout low.
The FMLN won sympathy from U.S. citizens earlier this year by offering to participate in the election if it was postponed six months to allow the rebels time to organize and campaign.
campaign. Predictably, that proposal was rejected. The right-wing Republican National Alliance, or Arena, which narrowly controls the legislature, had little motivation to grant the request. By all accounts, its candidate, Alfredo Cristiani, was poised to walk away with the election.
postponed. Jose Napoleon Duarte, U.S.-supported Salvadoran president, advocated postponing the election. But Duarte and his centrist Christian Democratic Party has little influence with many Salvadorans. His administration was crippled by charges of corruption and its inability to stimulate the economy or maintain civilian control over the military.
I Cristiani wins, we in the United States ought to be worried. Many believe that the muscle behind Cristiani's party belongs to Arena legislator Roberto D'Aubuisson, who is linked to more than 40,000 murders during the last decade by right-wing death soudas. U.S. money probably financed most of those deaths.
If Arena wins, its stranglehold on political opposition would be tightened, which might reduce the chance of a resolution involving fair representation for the guerrillas and their cause.
But El Salvador is heavily dependent on U.S. money. Each year it receives $3 billion in aid, second only to Israel. When allocating aid, Congress should scrutinize the Salvadoran government's actions, regardless of who wins the election. We have a right to know how our money is being spent.
James Farquhar for the editorial board
News staff
Julie Adam...Editor
Karen Boring...Managing editor
Jill Jess...News editor
Deb Gruver...Planning editor
James Farquhar...Editorial editor
Elaine Sung...Campus editor
Tom Straino...Sports editor
Janie Swialkowski...Photo editor
Dave Eames...Graphics editor
Noel Gerdes...Arts/Features editor
Tom Eblen...General manager, news adviser
Business staff
Debra Cole...Business manager
Pam Noe...Retail sales manager
Kevin Mink...Campus sales manager
Scott Frazier...National sales manager
Michelle Garland...Promotions manager
Brad Lenhan...Marketing manager
Andie Propp...Production manager
Debra Martin...Asst. production manager
Kim Coleman.
Grit Cresaler.
George Ellison.
Jeanne Hitter...Sales and marketing adviser
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D.C. driven by city's real experts
Cabbies keep travelers on their toes with intellectual conversations
Washington is a city filled with important people, most of whom are more than willing to tell you how important they are. Everybody is an expert on something, and
everybody is jockeying for a better position. The low-level civil servants say power is lower.
having an office large enough to hold a desk and a chair.
Those with desks and chairs say power is having an office in the White House. Those in the White House say power is being near the Oval Office.
Those near the Oval Office say power is being allowed to use the tennis courts on the South Lawn. Those on the tennis courts . . . get the point?
Who holds real power is hard to say, but I think I've located the most likely group. Real power lies with the real experts. And real experts are too important to be penned up in these stifling bureaucracies. They hold low profile positions of great freedom where they can think all day long.
They are cabbies.
These experts' identities still would be hidden, had not we happened onto a cabbie named Abbas while coming home from an intelligence-gathering mission at a local night club. As fate would have, the cabbie associates stumbled on the code words that used a cabbie's mouth and let wisdom pour forth.
"You think I'm drunk, don't you?"
"The cable repulsed. "No, sir, you are a
cable repulsed."
greatness I tell you.
Nobody tells my friend this when he is sober,
so I immediately sensed something extraordinary
about this cabbie. I persevered.
where was he from? His accent suggested it was not Detroit. "
"Iran."
'More rational anaylsis comes out of cabs than out of Congress'
Derek Schmidt
Staff columnist
How long had he been here?
"Ten years, since just before the revolution."
Did she have any jambits on the revolution?
Did he have any thoughts on this? Here began a startling metamorphosis. No longer was this Abbas the Iranian cabbie, transportation master of the Washington night. Now our driver was Abba the international thinker, political analyst extraordinaire.
islam is a hegemonic ideology," he said. Then he proceeded to chronicle Ayatollah Khomeini's progress in gaining control over all Muslims, and decried the Iran-Iraq war as a pointless massacre in which a million people followed like lemmings to their deaths.
He likened the Iranian political scene to Spain, claiming that the fall and resurrection of the Spanish monarchy may serve as an historical prototype for Iran.
I wondered why I bothered with college. Four years in Washington cabs would be more informative and, excluding tips, cheaper.
And Abbas was the rule, not the exception. An Ethiopian cabbie later offered a lesson in Ethio-
plan topography. A Jamaican cabbie explained the politics of the Caribbean. A Washingtonian cabbie outlined a plan for eliminating the budget deficit.
More rational analysis comes out of cabs than out of Congress
But that's how Washington is; it's a city of conventions. It's a place where all the curbing is made of granite, and the pavement has potholes big enough to hide a metro bus.
It's a place where the FBI building is a monolith that covers a city block in the center of town, but the Washington Ethical Society works in a small, house-sized building more than three
It's a place where the area in front of the Soviet Embassy is named "Sakharov Plaza."
It's a place where the nation's chief executive performs in the White House, and three blocks away, porn actress Hyypaia Lee performs in New York City. "I'll bet that used to give Ed Moore ulcer."
"People in this country, they don't tend to hear what's going on in Washington," said Vitaly Gan. Washington correspondent for Pravda.
"People (in Washington) are pretty much inducted. They tend to follow the government line."
At first it amused me that a Soviet was calling Americans orthodox. Then, as Gan continued his verbal rampage, it started to irritate me. But when he said American intellectual pro-
tection, I then laughed.
He obviously had never talked with a cabbie.
- Derek Schmidt is an Independence, Kan., junior majoring in journalism. He is in Washington, D.C., on an internship.
Americans must earn cultural identity
Americans whose skin color is black should not be uniformly categorized as African Americans. Furthermore, propagating the issue of social injustice in America as a fundamental part of that particular culture is downright discriminating.
I recognize that slavery and racial discrimination against black-skinned Americans in this country is part of the historical tradition of black racism, and that a current racial practice is another matter.
Except for American Indians, Eskimos and Aleuts, we all have a unique heritage in a foreign culture. Since before the founding of the United States, the celebration and perpetuation of various cultures has been part of the everyday life of our American tradition.
our Americans. Today, more sophisticated manifestations of cross-cultural America are seen in lobby groups in Congress, endowing social organizations and the good old deli at the corner. The purpose of cultural awareness, therefore, is to perpetuate tradition, to establish awareness inside and outside the group and to enhance social position.
Tom Wilhelm
Staff columnist
That is accomplished through enthusiasm, unity and pride. The purpose of a cultural group is to promote an identity that may be the purpose of a political group. To avoid this, it should not imbue its members with
feelings of outrage, helplessness and shame
Except for those recent immigrants from foreign countries who cling to cultural groups for immediate survival, the rest of us who are not first generation Americans should earn the honor of belonging to a cultural group. Armenian-American forming ad hoc relief organizations for the Armenian earthquake victims is an example of a cultural group that expressed itself positively and provided an opportunity for other cultural groups to share and interact.
I have German roots but never refer to myself as a German-American. Nevertheless, for my college language requirement, I studied German and, later, I vacationed in Germany. For a while, my extracurricular efforts provided me with a sense of personal awareness in the German-American tradition.
It is discriminating for black-skinned Americans to consider Trinidadad, Jamaican, Haitian, Egyptian or South African Americans as belonging to the same generic African-American culture and prescribing for it a political agenda
It is hypocritical for black Americans who do not know anything about the history of tribal and national Africa or the current politics of African nations, besides some general idea of what happened that they would even be recognized as "Africans" in Africa — in fact, they would not.
All of us can and should embrace our cultural backgrounds. We should celebrate them, advance them and enrich our daily lives with the study and practice of them. The stuff of American, a potpourri of peoples from all over the world is the positive action of people in cultural groups and other groups. In this way, inter-social forces, such as racism, become an issue of equal importance to all.
So, if you want to talk about social injustice in America, then do it. But don't inculture it into the proud traditions of one of America's finest cultural groups.
Tom Wilhelm is a Lawrence graduate student in Soviet-East European Studies.
BLOOM COUNTY
by Berke Breathed