UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN editorials
Unsigned editors represent the opinion of the Kansan editorial staff. Signed columns represent the views of only the writers.
APRIL 12, 1979
ASK is not a bargain
It is too late for a cry of outrage, but a sigh of disappointment seems appropriate.
The Student Senate renewed KU's membership in the Associated Students of Kansas on Tuesday—a move that will cost each full-time equivalent student 50 cents a year, or one KU's fiscal 1980 membership.
Indeed, it seems odd that KU students suddenly required the representation of a so-called professional lobbying organization after years of successful work by university administrators and by the Senate's own lobbying group. Concerned Students for Higher Education.
IF ASK's track record during this legislative session was indicative, one must question the group's effectiveness.
Lobbying efforts failed on legislation concerning the Landlord-Tenant Act, decriminalization of marijuana and
voter registration by mail. The group succeeded only in its efforts to back a boost in the minimum wage for students and increased funding of a state scholarship program.
Although each of those issues had some effect on KU, ASK critics have rightfully noted that the group's lobbying priorities do not pertain to the goals of higher education. Student activity money is being squandered on a program that will do little, if anything, to improve the quality of education the University can offer.
ASK CANNOT lobby for programs that specifically relate to KU or any one of its member schools. Instead, the group must concentrate only on issues of general interest to member schools.
why, then, should KU pay more than $9,000 for a group that quite possibly will diminish KU's own lobbying efforts?
Americans should listen to black South Africans
Why, indeed. Yet, students have no choice to but sigh and make the best of the worst situation.
The Endowment Association and the U.S. corporate interests with investments in South Africa have been distributing the funds to the black South African chief named Gatsha Buthelezi, who holds a powerless political position given to him by the racist South African president.
To the editor:
Philip Garcia carelessly used these distributed quotes in his article on apartheid in the Kansan on April 3. Naturally, the chief is quoted as saying that American investments help South Africa's black majority.
Apparently this chief is one of the few black South Africans who supports the views of American business journals. He is the only black they ever seem to quote.
Buthelezi is a very common name in South Africa and two other black South African leaders are also named Buthelezi. Their words should be considered.
One is Bishop Manas Buthelezi, who was recently asked about the black community's response to international economic sanctions against South Africa. His reply:
"We know that there will be suffering, but realize that it is by suffering that something better may happen. We don't mind taking the consequences."
A third black leader named Buthelsa is a former head of the black student movement. He was sentenced to nine years in prison in 1974, his "crime"? The courts found him guilty and sentenced him for the wielded awl of American investments! That, in South Africa today, is a crime.
A great many of South Africa's black leaders have risked arrest for that crime. Steve Biko, the internationally known leader who died in prison in 1977, called our investments in South Africa "America's sin."
The Nobel Peace Prize winner, the late Chief Albert Luthulh, supported an economic boycott of South Africa as "a method which is more effective than any other institution of South Africa, the most important voice of white conscience in South Africa, called in 1979 for a cessation of intolerance."
1. Strong economic pressure is of vital importance in bringing about as peaceful a peace as possible.
2. Peaceful relations are essential.
3. Attempts to change the situation through pressure by investors have proved inadequate.
2. Investment in South Africa is investment in aparthood, and is immoral, under the circumstances of the day.
4. Arguments that economic growth can produce fundamental change has proved false. Many black organizations have opposed foreign investment in South Africa and this would be the opinion of the majority to be seen black if their voices could be heard."
These people risk imprisonment for calling to us. I think we should listen.
Jonathon Unger.
Assistant professor of East Asian cultures And five students
Sullivan Principles
Sullivan Principles can't end apartheid To the editor:
I was surprised to see the tattered old Sotvan Principes dragged out of my room. I thought about it all.
as a plausible answer to the South African problem. One need scarcely glance beyond Garcia's own text to cast serious doubt on the relevance of this report by expert advisers in South Africa.
Leon Sullivan, that "member of the board of General Motors" as Garcia refers to him, came up with his famous principles as a reaction to the mounting outrage against American investments in racist South Africa.
The principles call for American companies to promote fair employment practices.
Apparently, the "lone cry" of one black South African supporter of the Sultan Principes is about all the persuasion Garcia needs. This is especially curious in light of the fact that Gatsha Buthelezi heads one of the most homelands for Garcia, right-module.
Buthelez is, in fact, one of several African puppets trapped out by the white minority government. As for the Sullivan Principles, he claims there is more than gorified corporate advertising.
What does it matter if American businesses express a belief in equal and integrated employment when South African law prohibits fair employment practices?
As a member of South Africa Caltex Ltd, put it, "My company doesn't want me to do that."
Even if the principles were fully legalized what difference would it make when the American firms employ a mere one percent of the workforce? The principals say nothing about majority rule, nothing about the Bantusians or rule, nothing about South African law or providing quality education—nothing, in fact, about the realities of apartheid.
It's not hiring practices, but Western technology, commodities and capital that prop up apartheid. For example, this country supplies assorted weaponry to South Africa through licensed foreign manufacturers. IBM computers are extensively used in military operations and transportation. General Motors vehicles go to the South African police and military.
Both IBM and GM adhere to the Sullivan Principles. The whole structure of Western trade and investment has underwritten the economic success story of the nationalist regime. The white elite's political power is derived from this economic strength.
I certainly don't want to give the impression that the Sullivan Principles are useless. They are useful public relations for corporatism and convey an image of social responsibility.
And they provide a smokescreen of soothing phrases invoked by the Endowment Association to mask the harsh truth of life in South Africa is investment in apartheid.
They may dispel whatever doubts individual investors have about the consequences of their acts. They are useful to academics looking for something to write about.
Lawrence graduate student
Laird Okie
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Barry Massey
A shortage. That's the situation for energy-hungry Americans with a low income.
Tax on excess oil profits needed
In an attempt to increase our domestic supply of fuel and to decrease our dependence on foreign oil—Middle Eastern oil—President Carter decided last month to raise the price of imported oil increase to world market prices beginning June 1 and ending in mid-1981.
The logic of decontrolling prices is to reduce consumption and to provide oil companies with more profits to sink back which, for, and production of, domestic oil.
To ensure that oil companies do not escape with "huge and undeserved windfall profits", Carter proposed an excess of $50 million that could be placed in an Energy Security Fund.
This fund would provide money for rebates to poor families to help them meet higher fuel prices and for development of mass transit and alternative energy
Initial reaction to the decontrol of domestic crude oil prices might be condemnation of Carter and his plan, which seemingly makes richer—at the expense of consumers, of course—an already wealthy industry.
FURTHERMORE, IT SEEMS an
think that the excess profits tax in itself
will bring about increased production by
consumers or that profits be reverted to
consumers.
This may happen, but it depends on the oil industry and Congress.
Carter did not need Congress' approval to decontrol prices; he does need its approval to impose and effect the excess profits tax.
While one may condemn Carter, Congress must be scrutinized at the same time. It does not take much probing to reveal that Congress shares the blame for our current vulnerability in the energy arena.
Two years ago, Carter presented Congress with an energy plan that might have established a long-range energy policy. Granted, there were serious flaws in Carter's original proposal and he failed to adequately confer with lawmakers, but without无尽懈怠 squabble, and wounded for 18 months before agreeing on an energy plan.
NO DOUBT. A major obstacle to completing an energy policy was the lobbying efforts of the oil industry. But more important were the congressmen whose constituents have a vital interest in the industry.
And that's the complaint; legislators putting local interests before national interests. Carter holds the highest public office in the country and his role is to provide leadership. But Congress must also lead.
Congressmen have continually taken part in anti-president rhetoric rallies. And though they may be belligerent Carter out of office, they had better look at their own interests to connect them to local interests that interfere with other interests helps legislators get re-elected.
As J. William Fullbright said in a recent issue of Foreign Affairs, "The modern legislator, with some admirable exceptions, has discarded the role of educator in favor of performing services for his constituents—and not really his funders but the best organized, best funded and most politically active interest groups."
PRESIDENT CARTER laid it on the line for consumers: higher prices for less oil.
As a result of decontrol, the price of a newly produced barrel of oil will increase to $12.50 this year, compared to the current price of $10.80. The price of a new barrel of oil will be about $16.
The price of gasoline is expected to increase by four or five cents a gallon by 1982; a second estimate places the increase at 15 cents a gallon.
Inflation is expected increase by only 1 to 0.3 of a percentage point as a result of
On the other hand, the White House estimates that dependence on foreign oil will decrease by 200,000 barrels a day in 1800 and to 1.1 million barrels a day in 1900. The State Department's 8.7 million a day and our imports total 7.8 million barrels a day.
Severity-five percent of the decrease in foreign consumption would result from increased domestic production and 25 percent from a drop in consumption.
CONGRESS MUST now make it clear to the oil industry that the tax is coming.
Democrats, especially those from the energy dependent Northeast, rightfully complain that consumers will be paying outrageous prices without any real assurances of rebates. James Flug, director of a consumer lobbying group, Energy Act said in a letter to the industry activist Press that America "would have to pay down prices for huge amounts of oil which would have been produced anyway."
But there are skeptics on the value of a tax.
Adds Sen. Thomas Eagleton, D-Mo,
"Prospects for an effective windfall profitas tax are near zero. Even if such a tax could be maneuvered past the opposition of oil state senators, it would be almost impossible to administer."
Indeed, the oil industry is opposed to any excess tax. It says existing taxes would take 60 percent of any windfall profits. Despite itself has defeated a similar oil tax.
This is a critical time for U.S. energy policy, and there is no room for politicking. On the contrary, Congress—especially all of the Republicans—has the reality of the tenuous energy situation.
The excess profits tax must be passed; this action would be the least sort of justification for decontrolling oil prices.
$1.30 gas would buy independence
By HARRISON BROWN
By HARRISON BROWN N.Y. Times Feature
HONOLULU—Those who were unconvinced at the time of the Arab oil crisis in 2015, should dramatically decrease its dependence upon imported crude oil may now feel differently in light of the loss of $79 billion per year from oil-exporting Middle Eastern countries.
If we had the political will, we could become completely self-sufficient in energy and phosphorus resources by expressly adopting a serious threat to national security than any of the alleged imbalances in strategic power between the United States and the Soviet Union.
The greatest barrier to our replacing imported crude oil with alternative indigenous fuels on a substantial scale is the cost. All alternatives to natural crude oil for liquid fuels will be more expensive for years. A 1977 study by the National Academy of Sciences suggested that synthetic lubricants could reduce coal using tried processes at $20 to $30 a barrel. (All the figures here are in 1967 dollars.)
The problems of expanding coal production far above current levels suggest that this estimate should be $25 to $40. Even considering the increases in oil prices by members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, it is unrealistic to expect that the cost of drilling a gas pipeline drop beneath natural crude's very soon.
By that time, it will too late for the major oil-importing countries to accumulate the necessary capital and build infrastructure. The production of synthetic crude oil will be large and expensive. The capital cost of a plant capable of producing 50,000 barrels of synthetic crude a day from coal would be about five years to construct.
Thus, capital accumulation, research and development, design and construction of the first generation of synthetic crude oil plants would have to be started immediately if we are to achieve some self-sufficiency by the year 2000.
This is unlikely to happen in the absence of substantial government involvement. It is unlikely, too, that there is a solution to the problem through "the free play of the market place."
Recent study suggests that even if synthetic crude oil costing $4 a barrel were fed to American refineries, gasoline untaxed would cost about $1.30 a gallon—still substantially less than the price paid in 1978 in Europe and Japan.
This suggests that the capital necessary for construction of synthetic crude oil wells is not limited to a fraction of a graduated gasoline tax that would lead eventually to a price of gasoline in America that would be comparable to the price paid elsewhere in the world, about $200.
The capital needed for the development of a synthetic crude oil capacity of 3 billion barrels a year is estimated at about $165 billion.
If the 110 billion gallons of gasoline sold each year were taxed progressively to bring the price to world levels and if the tax were placed in a federal energy fund, the necessary capital could be accumulated by paying taxes but would not increase in the demand for gasoline.
The accumulated capital in excess of that needed for building the synthetic rubber industry.
other alternative liquid fuels into use, including alcohol.
The important conclusion is that once we reconcile ourselves to paying about $1.3 a gallon, many possibilities emerge for achieving energy independence within two years.
Other sources of liquid fuel would emerge. The greatly increased price of gasoline and other refinery products would result in the adoption of intensive conservation practices and an accelerated shift to alternative fuel sources to fill needs other than transportation. Such changes reduce the demand on balance-payments situations would partly offset the inflationary forces of the price increases.
We must face the fact that we have been spoiled by inexpensive crude oil and have fallen into a deep trap. We can extricate ourselves—if we pay a price that will be uncomfortable but will not kill us. Our failure to pay could lead to catastrophe.
Harrison Brown directs the Resource Systems Institute at the East-West Center in Honolulu, a culture and technical center of research author of "The Human Future Revisited."
South Africa not only rights violator
To the editor:
Professor Edward P. Dutton, not surprisingly a professor of social welfare, calls on the KU Endowment Association to divest corporations that do business in South Africa
For good measure he adds a number of countries which, under right-wing governments, U.S.-based corporations do or did not have the most cooperation in corporations do business in the Soviet Union.
Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Poland and the People's Republic of China.
One wonders if Dutton is familiar with the human rights violations in these countries and why there are so many of them.
be part of the "avant-garde" trend to oppose South Africa in general.
Andy Warren Mission senior
Conscription of elite could prevent war
To the editor:
In response to Richard Cram's letter of
April 1, I don't favor the draft. However, if
the college-educated children of the "more intelligent elements of society" (congressman, doctors, lawyers, newspaper publishers, business executives and university administrators), were sent to the battlefield, where they learned how much this country would be less inclined to waste young people's lives in another war.
Vennie White Boston, Mass.