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Tuesday, November 28, 1989 / University Daily Kansan
Opinion
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
U.S. has moral obligation to aid Eastern Europeans
The tidal wave of reform created by the crumbling Berlin Wall has reached Czechoslovakia, where the Communist Party leadership resigned Friday amid pro-democracy rallies.
As in Poland and East Germany, the rapid political movement in Czechoslovakia was most evident by the thousands of demonstrators who protested for 10 straight days demanding a move toward democracy. Support for reform was so overwhelming that Czech leaders had little choice but to acquiesce.
The United States should welcome such reforms and encourage them in other Eastern-bloc countries. People in Poland, East Germany, Hungary and now Czechoslovakia have taken advantage of the increased freedom allowed by a less-interventionist Soviet Union. Instead of merely standing by and applauding, the United States needs to take an active role in ensuring the hard-gained freedoms in these countries are not lost. This means money.
It is time the United States crafted a plan to aid those countries pursuing democracy. The plan, which could be similar to the Marshall Plan developed to help Western Europe after World War II, should provide economic and technical assistance to modernize the countries. The United States could grant loans through the World Bank and offer to send advisers to interested nations. This not only would help countries already pursuing reform but would push for change in those nations resisting the move toward democracy.
Of course, such a plan would require a lot of cash, and the question is whether the government could raise it without further burdening the taxpayer. One solution would be to transfer funds from the defense budget. Defense Secretary Richard Cheney said Sunday that the reduction of the Soviet military threat in Europe could mean deeper cuts in U.S. defenses. The money saved could be diverted into assistance programs for Eastern Europe.
Reform has begun in Eastern Europe. The United States can either watch approvingly or take an active role in furthering democracy. It has a moral obligation to do the latter.
Daniel Niomi for the editorial board
Regents should help pass qualified admissions now
The Board of Regents should consider endorsing a statewide qualified admissions program in the near future. Now, all graduates of Kansas high schools are automatically accepted at any Regents institution.
The qualified admissions program would require a college preparatory curriculum for high school students seeking admission to Regents institutions. Though the Regents have recommended a college preparatory process, which includes three units of natural science, three units of math, four units of English, three units of social science and two units of foreign language, they have failed to actively push for the enforcement of these requirements.
W. W. Musick, a member of the board, said the Regents had made efforts to support the qualified admissions program and had successfully implemented some portions. He said high school students were required to take three years of science and math, and, according to last year's records, all but 31 high schools across the state required graduates to fulfill two years of foreign language.
Attaining full financing in the final year of the Margin of Excellence is justifiably the number one priority of the Regents, but they should equally consider drafting legislation endorsing all requirements of the qualified admissions program in the near future.
The successful implementation of qualified admissions would improve the quality of education in our Regents institutions. Though some school districts are unable to meet some of the qualified admissions' requirements and are financially limited on the diversity of coursework they can provide, their graduates can always continue their education at the junior college level. At this point, they would have the opportunity to sharpen their academic skills before advancing to the state Regents system.
The qualified admissions program has the potential to more effectively prepare high school students for the competitive nature of the Regents curriculum and will endorse our state's commitment to academic proficiency.
Thom Clark for the editorial board
News staff
David Stewart ... Editor
Rio Brack ... Managing editor
Daniel Niemi ... News editor
Candy Nieman ... Planning editor
Stan Dell ... Editorial editor
Jennifer Corner ... Campus editor
Elaine Sung ... Sports editor
Laura Husar ... Photo editor
Christina Winner .. Art/Features editor
Tom Eblen ... General manager, news advisor
Business staff
Linda Prokop...Business manager
Debra Martin...Local advertising sales director
Jerre Medford...National/rational sales leader
Jill Lowe...Marketing director
Tami Rank...Production manager
Carrie Stanlink...Assistant production manager
Margaret Townsend...Co-op manager
Margaret Hopkins...Creative director
Christal Dooll...Classified manager
Jeff Meesey...Tearsheets manager
Jeanne Hines...Sales and marketing adviser
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IMPEACHMENT AMERICAN STYLE
IMTEACHMENT LEBANESE STYLE
In the early 1960s, East German leader Walter Ulbricht began to introduce a series of economic reforms. The goal of these reforms was to transform the East German economy into a more efficient one and thus provide the inhabitants of the GDR a much higher living standard. Viewing with dismay the alarming rate at which West Berliners were emptying their store shelves, the Party leadership moved to close the border. During the night of August 13, 1961, elemental organizations moved to close the border. Standing side-by-side and armed with guns, the border forces watched workers seal the border at first with barbed wire, then later with concrete slabs.
The period of economic reform soon stagnated as Khruschev was replaced by Brezhnev in 1964. The hopes for economic prosperity never materialized, but the Wall remained. Once seen as a measure to benefit the East German people, the Wall became a means to keep an
Wall gone, memories remain
It's gone. After standing for 28 years, two months and 27 days, the Berlin Wall has fallen, an event which occurred with the same overnight rapidity that heralded its infamous creation. The debate over the political reunification of the two Germanies, which will haunt the foreign policy agenda of all countries for the decades to come is, for the present, overshadowed by the spiritual reunification of the Germans in the GDR with their brothers in the West. More importantly, a nation left embittered by the tragic repression of a workers' uprising on June 17, 1933, has once again been forced to hope, help, and rebuild the Soviet Union, which has reinforced its tanks upon unarmed workers in 1963, has played a key role in forcing this rapid re-humanization of the German border. Scenes of West Berliners jumping over the wall presenting startled East German border troops with flowers will remain with us forever.
At the beginning of the year, then ruling leader Erich Honecker stated that the Wall would be standing for 50, if not 100 more years. As I stood at the Wall this summer during a visit to friends in East Berlin, it seemed to me as well that this symbol of repression was here to stay. Now, three months after my visit, the unthinkable has occurred. Honecker was gone, and with his removal the Wall's days on earth were numbered.
Originally conceived as a final measure to stop the flow of goods from East Berlin to the West, many East Germans initially greeted the Wall with hope. Although the border between West Germany and East Germany had been closed for some time, the border running through Berlin had remained open. Many Berliners who lived in the East worked or shipped in the Western parts of the city. The reverse was also true of many West Berliners. The problem was, however, the existence of a tremendous black market in the city. Those who worked in the West were paid in West German currency, which was much stronger than the goods they bought, much less in the East, the higher value of the West German mark allowed West Berliners to buy up what few high-value consumer goods the East Berliners had available. The situation was further aggravated because many East German goods were state subsidized, making them even more attractive to Westerners. The border remained open. Berlin was a divided city in terms of politics and ideology but physically remained one city.
James Beale
Guest columnist
increasingly disgruntled population in line. As the East German dissident Rolf Henrich pointed out, the maintenance of a "double life" divided between te private world of the home and the public world of the workplace not only distorted the reality of life for most people but also developed into a national schizophrenia. And so it remained for the last 28 years.
As long as the dominant power in Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, opposed change not only in its own country, but, as shown by the invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, in the socialist "brother" countries as well, Honecker and the ruling elite of the GDR began to see the Wall as a means to preserve stability and as a means to legitimize the system. With Gorbachev's rise to power, however, the winds of change began to blow across Eastern Europe. Always a favorite vacationing place for East Germans, Hungary quickly became the destination for many, and, as Hungarian began to dismantle its border with Austria, the small nation was overrun by Germans seeking a way out of their stagnant society. With as much as to two percent of their total population streaming out of their land, the Politburo was forced to act; they sealed off the GDR. By sealing off the borders the Politburo forced their people to take to the streets. Large demonstrations, never before seen in the GDR, soon became commonplace as hundreds of thousands of people voiced their dissatisfaction. With Honecker's removal the stage was set — with Moscow's backing — for removal of the Wall.
The Wall. One should even now capitalize this noun. A wall can be made of wood or cinder block in homes or buildings. A fence marks off private or public property and provides a sense of privacy from one's neighbors. The Wall, however, was not built with just cement or barbed wire. The Wall was built with sacrificed hopes of post-war Germans living in the GDR; this Wall has blood for mortar. It was just seven months ago that the last victim, a young man, was shot and killed as he attempted to flee. He was on one floor, that a man, who lived in a homemade balloon, fell to his death. Anyone who has not stood in front of the Wall with East German friends, knowing that they could never cross over to West Berlin, cannot understand the full, human dimensions of the wall.
In the end it was the human dimension that finally overcame the Wall. It was the people, not only those who fled around the Wall, but more importantly the unknown thousands — and one night in East Berlin, millions — of ordinary people who destroyed the Wall. Asked by a Western television journalist what the reaction would be if the ruling SED (Socialist Unity Party) attempted to restore the wall, one Eastern German woman responded that the people would bury them in ashes. Man can build dams to hold back the rushing water of rivers, but one can never dam the human spirit.
James Beale is a Wichita graduate student.
U.S. aid would hurt Poland
The Russians are coming. Also the East Germans. And the Poles. No, it isn't the invading hordes the free world feared in the '50s. It's a legion with its hands out. Poland's Lech Walesa already has set out on the pligramage/appeal to the West. As usual, he was eloquent, stirring, visionary: "We are building an America of the East . . we need Columbuses from the states . . to discover Poland, to clear the trail."
Lech Walesa is a hero and was hailed as one in Washington. He isn't an economist and shouldn't be confused with one. Right now, Polish politics are heavy on charisma, mainly Lech Walesa's, but short on reform, change and hope. And without reform, change and hope, all the U.S. dollars that Washington can print, which is a frightening amount, won't help. The answer to Poland's economic crisis is not to drown them in debt. But that is just what the enthusiasts of the moment could wind up doing. When a challenge appears, the standard suggestion is a new Marshall Plan to meet it. The country has been told it needs a new Marshall Plan for the cities, for education, for Poland and for the rest of Eastern Europe. The hundreds of millions that the United States is preparing to advance the new Poland is considered an opportunity wasted, an insult to the spirit of freedom-loving men everywhere. Nothing less than a Marshall Plan will do.
The metaphor has its limits, which tend to be overlooked at moments of rhetorical flight. The original Marshall Plan was successful in rejuvenating Western countries with Western economies and Western institutions, like money and credit. The Marshall Plan was intended to overcome the effects of a mere world war, not 40 years of a Communist "thievocracy" that has obliterated not only economic progress, but the idea of a modern economy.
Listen to Jeffery Sachs, a Harvard professor who has been trying to advise the Poles on how to reform their non-existent economy: "Poland has no banking system, no credit system. Almost everything that's done requires bureaucracy allocation. I mean, I talk to government
Paul Greenberg
Svndicated columnist
people here, and even ones who are sympathetic to the idea of a free market don't understand even the fundamentals of finance. We were talking with one person we admire over at the central bank — the state bank, the only bank — who's a very smart fellow, and I was making some point about the money supply, and he was looking bewildered, and then he said , 'Look, Professor Sachs, please understand one thing: I went through eight years of economic training. I never heard the word 'money' once.'
Poland, like the Soviet Union, has a system that would make honest barter look advanced and medieval economies efficient. It was and still largely is a "command" economy that depends on vast bureaucracies swapping quasi-mythical quantities of goods. The Poles have been strangling for four decades on the system the Sandistas have only recently brought to Nicaragua. Of course they've lost hope. They've lost more; they've lost their grasp on economic reality. Artificially induced poverty will do that for a society. In Poland's case that hasn't been easy, considering the natural resources and skilled labor Marxism has had to overcome to achieve its usual result.
Now the United States is urged to pour money into this non-system. One would think U.S. citizens had learned better from our own War on Poverty, which Poverty won without even exerting itself. It always does when there is more money around than institutions or individuals able to absorb it usefully.
- Paul Greenberg is the editorial page editor for the Pine Bluff (Buff.) Commercial.
LETTERS to the EDITOR
Skip the satire, please
Who is Brett Brenner?
And why is such a naive person allowed to write editorial copy for the University Daily Kansan? These were my thoughts when I read in the Nov. 21 Kansan why the U.S. should continue to send more than a million dollars (officially — who knows about unofficially) a day to El Salvador, a country with only 5.9 million inhabitants. Pity that money doesn't go directly to general populace. Imagine the effects of a person received a mere 25 cent-a-day boost to his or her income!
Recent and not so recent history demonstrates how the U.S. government deals with Third World countries on foreign policy matters. Vietnam 1958-1974, Philippines 1986, etc. (plenty of et cetera!)
So please, dear journalism major(s), if you are not well versed in a particular socio-economic/political topic, and a journalism major only rarely is, don't instill further ignorance in an already competent population by simply tout the official government line. Isn't that what Praved used to do a couple of years ago? Write instead about KU's greek system or something equally banal.
Howard Hyten Lawrence senior
Don't bash abortion laws
David Stewart, writing for the editorial board in the November 20 University Daily Kansan, makes several unfounded assumptions concerning Pennsylvania's new abortion law.
After mentioning the clause in the statute requiring doctors to discuss the risks of abortion with their patients (yes, this is surgery, after all) Stewart beates the lawmakers of Pennsylvania for daring to even consider this idea. According to Stewart, the Pennsylvania lawmakers consider women to be “... totally irrational, unaware, and basically, stupid.” A person facing heart bypass surgery would insist on having the cardiovascular surgeon discuss the risks of the procedure with him. Does this make the bypass candidate irrational, unaware and stupid as well? I think not.
Also, Stewart, why is a 24 hour waiting period such as persecution of the women of Pennsylvania? If a woman has made the decision to have an abortion based on what she thinks is best for her, she will feel the same way one day later. A well thought out decision will still be a well thought out decision 24 hours later. It is the hasty decision that should be subject to change, and abortion should certainly not be a hasty decision. Hence the waiting period.
Finally, it was the citizens of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania who put these lawmakers in office. Clearly the people do not believe that their legislature is "treating them like they don't have minds." When one considers the arguments behind these actions, the Pennsylvania edict is not nearly as far out of line as you and the editorial board would have us believe.
Loren Kallenbach
Bartlesville, Okla., sophomore
Gays want equal rights
I am so tired of people like Eric Moore using their irrational beliefs to justify the discrimination of homosexuals.
First, gays do not want any more rights than any other group. They merely want the contentment of knowing that their basic rights will not be denied because of their sexual orientation. Second, I did not choose to be gay. That idea is ridiculous. Why would I choose to have feelings for the same sex at the risk of being despised and discriminated against? Think about it, Eric. It's illogical. The only real choices a homosexual has are to deny his or her true feelings and suffer frustration from an unfulfilling life, or to openly accept them, thereby suffering hatred and prejudice. Neither option seems desirable. Yet, we must choose the option we can best cope with until society learns to be tolerant of our sexual orientation.
Chris Hrabe Great Bend senior
J