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Wednesday, February 21, 1990 / University Daily Kansan
Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Drug summit
Bush's trip to Colombia is move toward denting drug trade; now he needs to tackle domestic side
A after pre-summit hype, threats, kidnappings and potential assassination, President Bush is safe and sound in the United States; poised again to fight drugs.
United States, poised again to right Despite the kidnapping of three U.S. citizens, Bush ventured to Cartegena, Colombia, to meet with Latin American leaders and formulate a policy for winning the war on drugs. What emerged was what Bush proclaimed as an "anti-drug cartel." No one is quite sure what that means, but Bush assures the world that he will do his part to reduce demand for cocaine and other illegal substances.
In actuality, nothing new in fighting drugs was proposed or created. The Latin American leaders did not rule out the use of their own forces to fight drug cartels within their borders. They stopped short of giving Bush and the United States permission to implement a naval blockade off the Colombian coast.
A blockade would not keep harmony in the region. U.S. submarines lurking off the coast waiting to seize or sink drug runners would only heighten tensions and anti-U.S. feelings.
Force was present at the summit, however with air, sea and land based troops standing guard during the six-hour event. Although the potential was there, the money spent on 5,000 troops, including hovering helicopters and Navy frogmen, could have been spent on
something worthwhile to, aid the summit's topic.
Still, the meeting was a step in the right direction. The United States is not responsible for the activities in other countries. The Andean nations must increase their efforts to stop producers, while Bush needs to give more attention to ending the narcotics use and abuse within the United States. Education and treatment programs will go far in ending the problem.
The new anti-drug cartel must not throw money at the problem as is the case with most national emergencies. It must be carefully administered, but done quickly.
In final analysis, the event of last week was, in simple terms, another photo opportunity for Bush. It was an attempt for him to be seen with the leaders of Latin American in a way that projects him favorably in the eyes of Latin Americans but more importantly, to some people in the United States who doubt his ability to lead and directly address an-issue.
Bush has gone to the source of drugs. Now he needs to take care of those at home addicted to narcotics. Eliminate the demand and suppliers will look elsewhere for business. Actions will speak louder than any vacation photograph from Colombia.
John P. Milburn for the editorial board
Members of the editorial board are Richard Brack, Daniel Niemi, Christopher R. Ralston, John P. Milburn, Liz Hueben, Cory S. Anderson, Angela Baughman, Andres Caveler, Chris Evans, Stephen Kline, Camille Krehbiel, Melanie Matthes, Jennifer Meitz and Scott Patty.
WEDDINGS, ENC
East Germany to Wed Successful Industrialist
East Germany, daughter of the late Joseph Stalin of Moscow, has announced her engagement to Northeastern Germany of Rom.
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ington IV.
war firm
L. Bean
asset
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The bride, 90, is a former Marvel superhero who was active in Olympic shooting and weight-lifting. A resident of Berlin and Leipzig, Ms Germany made her debut in 1960, riding a tank into Prague.
The brides father; Mr Stalin, was a founding partner of Hitler & Stalin, a major mergers and acquisitions firm in the early 1930s.
The bridegroom, 40 distant cousin of the bride, is a
was a Marshall Plan Scholar and received an MBA from NATO
Mr Germany's father was a prominent National Socialist who lost a bid for world domination in 1945.
Snow days
KU officials should cancel classes in severe weather
W hy weren't classes canceled Thursday when campus sidewalks and streets were so icy and slippery that it was dangerous for KU students to attend class?
Sidewalks weren't the only risks to the lives of KU students, including those who are blind and handicapped. Several roads were blocked in different parts of campus. It was dangerous.
serious for KU students to attend class? KU officials should have given the decision a second thought Thursday morning. The decision meant risking the lives of KU students and faculty. Watkins Memorial Health Center officials Thursday reported several minor injuries and one significant injury caused by icy roads and slippery sidewalks.
for KU on Wheels buses to climb the hill on Naismith Drive; the slippery street caused delays and traffic jams.
For safety's sake, classes should have been canceled Thursday. Some professors and students were late for classes while others canceled class or just did not attend.
Global changes infiltrate governments, lives
One day of classes is not worth risking the lives of students and faculty. Days like Thursday are best spent at home studying and not battling the elements. Next time the administration should think a little longer about class cancellation.
Andres Cavelier for the editorial board
Perhaps the most remarkable part of the remarkable changes now sweeping the world is how unremarkable they seem.
■ Eastern Europe slips almost naturally into becoming what it was for so long — Central Europe. Only in Romania were the most revolutionary changes accompanied by civil war, and it was mercifully brief. The idea of one Germany still sets off instinctive fears here and there, but it seems as inevitable as one France or one England. The natural flow of people, ideas and currency begins to dissolve complex plans and forebodings. Formal structures — political, military and economic — will have to be worked out, but there is little doubt that they will be. ■ In South Africa, Nelson Mandela is released on schedule and, despite an abstract defense of violence as a legitimate reaction to apartheid, he speaks of peace, prepares to negotiate and praises South Africa's president as a man of good will. He tells young people to go back to school, and they do. Peace, it's not only wonderful, it seems normal in a land that has been torn by tension for decades. The scattered violence on the occasion of the hero's release seems peripheral; peace and hope seem the norm.
In the Soviet Union, the proceedings of the Communist Party begin to resemble those of
Paul Greenberg
Syndicated columnist
any other parliamentary body, complete with open debate between the Old Guard and Young Turks. The astounding has been accomplished; the miraculous may take a little longer.
Only in the vastness of China and a few scattered outposts like Cuba does the ancient regime persist, and the cracks beneath the surface are evident there. Totalitarianism, a feature of the political landscape for the better part of this tormented century, becomes the exception. The wave of the future has become the fast-receding past. And it all seems so normal.
One thinks of the way Jim Crow gave way in the U.S. South as if it had been crumbling from within for decades, and required only a short, decisive push to come tumbling down. Desegregation was a dramatic change for those caught in the middle of it; but compared to social and political upheavals elsewhere, it was a brief, peaceful process. And once the region's official caste system was
gone, life was so much simpler without it.
Perhaps with the benefice of time, the dominant ideologies of the 20th century — Nazism, communism, racism — will be seen not so much as the menaces they were but as mysteries. Those trying to explain them toward the end of the 21st century may find themselves in the position of today's southern grandparent trying to explain the separate drinking fountains in front of some old courthouse.
Even now the official ideologies are explaining that Lenin always favored the free market. As evidence, they cite his New Economic Program in the 1920's. Democracy becomes the creed of the new Soviet establishment.
Buried in the new party platform adopted by the Central Committee last week was this small detail: "The Communist Party of the Soviet Union believes that the existence of individual property, including ownership of the means of production, does not contradict the modern stage in the country's economic development." Exclamation point. This is the political equivalent of the weather service announcing that, in this modern stage of meteorological development, it is no contradiction to have the sun rise in the West. That is just what it seems to be doing in the new Marxism, which sounds a lot like the old
capitalism.
The CPSU is beginning to sound a lot like the GOP. You have to be an ideological tap dancer to keep up with the Communist Party's contortions these days. In this party line or a conga line doubling back on itself? Poor Webster is so far behind that my copy still defines communism as "a theory advocating elimination of private property." and socialism as "any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or government ownership of the means of production." The Central Committee has just erased the first commandment of Marxism-Leninism. At this rate, communism will not be defeated; it will simply become meaningless.
The historian and dissenter Yuri Afanasey set the tone for the demonstration in Moscow when he proclaimed: "Long live the peaceful revolution of February 1990, which is now under way." Recognize the historical allusion? After all those years of Soviet propaganda, it is almost forgotten that the Russian Revolution occurred in February of 1917, not October. That was the Bolshevik Revolution. It was the February Revolution that toppled the czar, established a provisional government with Alexander Kersenky as minister of justice, and planned a Constituent Assembly that would enshrine the civil
liberties of all. The major thrust of the February Revolution was not much different from that of the demonstration in Marx Prospekt: democracy, moderation, equality before the law.
This February, Russia seems to be picking up where Kerensky left off. The signs carried by the demonstrators could have been addressed to the scar and his nobility: "Boyars!" said one, "We are coming for you!" After 73 years in the wilderness, once again the people were rising against a tiny, collapsing aristocracy.
Much of the world now seems in the benevolent grip of a February Revolution. Will it succeed this time? Or will its moderation, its peacefulness, its air of normalcy be swept away by the winds of October? To make a revolution is one thing, to keep it, another. As Americans discovered in the 18th century. The world has Robespierres aplenty, but few Washingtons.
How natural this year's revolution appears — how normal. But nothing may demand artifice like the natural. The most peaceful of gardens need tending, lest it become a jungle. A chorus of Mirandas now halls this Brave New World, but to keep it will require the judgment and perspective of a Prospero.
> Paul Greenberg is the editorial editor of the Pine Bluff (Ark.) Commercial.
Other Voices
Freedom took a new meaning Feb. 11 as the world watched Nelson Mandela walk out of 27 years of captivity. The exultant celebration of his countrymen measured their own expectations. The violence that accompanied the celebration underscored the complexity of what lies ahead.
The climax of the day was written in Mandrake's address to the nation, as the man imprisoned for terrorism set the agenda for all South Africans.
With etoquence and vision, he looked beyond the bondage of apartheid to "the establishment of democracy" on "a 'non-racial basis.'"
Mandela walked free from prison but not from a system of racism that denied the rights of black people.
stu strangle's 'tale' n'vees on.
Unpredictable forces have freed with him. They provide now unprecedented risk but also opportu-
From the Los Angeles Times, Feb. 12.
News staff
Richard Breck ... Editor
Daniel Nieml ... Managing editor
Christopher R. Falston ... News editor
Lisa Moa ... Planning editor
John Milburn ... Editorial editor
Candy Niemann ... Campus editor
Mike Conaldez ... Sports editor
E. Joseph Zurgu ... Photo editor
Stephen Kline ... Graphics editor
Kris Bargulli ... Arts/Features editor
Tom Eblen ... General manager, news adviser
Business staff
Margaret Townsend...Business manager
Tami Rank...Retail sales manager
Micsey Miller...Campus sales manager
Holly Goulds...National sales manager
Meleh Lahman...National sales manager
Mindy Morris...Co-op sales manager
Nate Stamos...Production manager
Shawn Landel...Anti-competitive product manager
Carlo Stimina...Marketing director
James Glennapp...Creative director
Jenat Rothholm...Classified manager
Harry Stine...Travel manager
Jeanne Nines...Sales and marketing adviser
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LETTERS to the EDITOR
Divestment hurts
Jackson's glaring misperception that sanctions will expedite social and economic freedom for South African Blacks is especially dangerous because it erroneously implies that if you are against sanctions, you are for apartheid.
Two-time presidential candidate Jesse Jackson would have you believe that continued sanctions against South Africa are an effective way to accelerate the abolition of apartheid.
Thousands of Blacks lose their jobs when sanctions are imposed, while whites continue to protect their welfare through a variety of economic alternatives.
Sanctions also spurn divestment, forcing U.S. corporations and management sympathetic to Blacks' aspirations out of South Africa. For Blacks, this means slower growth in wages, a reduced chance of professional advancement and elimination of many training, education, health and recreation programs offered by U.S. companies.
Eighty-five percent of South African Blacks are opposed to sanctions, according to a May 1989 Gallup poll. If we are truly serious about bringing down the oppressive system of apartheid, it is best to listen to those subjected to these destructive measures rather than
publicity hungry leaders simply jumping on the sanctions bandwagon.
John Noltnemeyer
Students For America
Paola junior
Yes, rejoice; it's true. No longer are we bound by written law to respect private property. We are free to commit vandalism as an
To justify vandalism because of a 10-minute inconvenience and a $40 permit is contemptible. To support violence rather than due process is disgusting. To advocate anarchy in response to a parking problem is moronic. However, to do all these things in print as a journalist is blatantly irresponsible. Mr. Evans, this country has a working legal system that is set up to deal with both types of people that you describe. I only hope that they are while they are the parking violators, they arrest your beloved vandals as well.
Yes, it is sad but true that because thousands in Lawrence own cars, the laws of probability state that there will be times when you won't be able to park where you like. However, thanks to Chris Evans, we all know how to vent our frustrations. The solution is to do hundreds of dollars worth of damage to another person's property.
Respect property
expression of our discontent. What insight you have Mr. Evans. Scratching paint and pouring beer on windshields is no longer illegal. It's justified. A $10 infraction justifies $900 damage.
Ken Mosley Lawrence Junior
CAMP UHNEELY
I THINK HE
SHOULD BE
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His BARE NECESSITIES
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MAKES IT         GONNA BE
THROUGH CLASS   EASY. HE
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CLASS DOES HE    CIVILIZATION
HAVE NOW ANYWAY? DISCUSSION
BY SCOTT PATTY
R.J.? Do You
WANT TO TELL US
HOW YOU FELT
ABOUT TODAY'S
READING?
I THINK
HE IS,
MAAM.