Image provided by: University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Lincoln, NE
About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (April 2, 1971)
dear editor. , .dear editor. . .dear editor. . .dear editor. . .dear editor. . .dear editor. . .dear editor. . .dear editor. . .dear editor. . .dear editor. . .dear edi tor. . .dear editor. . .dear editor. .dear editor. . .dear editor. . .dear editor . . .dear editor. .dear editor. . .dear editor. . .dear editor. . .dear editor. . . ...... dear editor. . .dear editor. . .dear editor, . .dear editor. . .dear edito r. . .dear editor dear editor dear editor. , .dear editor dear editor. . . Re: elections Dear editor: During the years we have been a part of the University community, we have made several observations about student government. We have seen that for ASUN to operate effectively it must reflect continuity and experience, coupled with new ideas created by new people. In the past, little continuity existed between ad ministrations. Student-initiated projects were often abmdoned from one year to the next. More than one year of work is needed to accomplish some things. Also, it takes time to learn about individual offices -and the operation of student government. With experienced students involved in ASUN, programs will get started and reach completion much sooner. Experience alone is not enough, however. New people must enter student government for several reasons. They bring new ideas and perspectives that encourage creative student government. They also have the potential for continued service to the University. In assessing the candidates vying foT office this spring, we feel the University Coalition offers the best combination of experience and new people. For this reason, we will give our full support to the University Coalition. Ron Alexander Krisli ChappeJie Jim Schaffer Vicki Van Steenberg Mary McClymont Jim Pedersen Charley Havlieek Ken Wald Unwanted endorsement Dear editor: Although it is the custom during spring campus elections to endorse members of other slates for ASUN Senate and Advisory Boards, we the undersigned believe it our duty to speak out agains our endorsement by Tim KifKaid, a candidate for president of the student body. Mr. Kincaid and the other candidates mho are opposing the University Coalition party have made numerous attacks on our platform. The U.C platform was built on the ideas of all members of our slate. We believe in, and stand on this platform. Any attack on our platform is an attack on all of our ideas. It is our belief that a candidate should be supported fOT his or her political beliefs. To attack one's beliefs and then to endorse that same person seems highly inconsistent and can be viewed only as a political gimmick. We would like to thank Mr. Kincaid for this confidence in us, but we must refute his endorsement, and request that he remove our names from his list of choices found on the back side of his platform. Sincerely, University Coalition candidates Roy A. Baldwin Bill Bchmer Barry Pilger Sarah Ashby Phil Lamb Jonelte Beaver Tom K repel Corrects Courier Dear editor; I read with considerable disbelief the latest edition of the COURIER, which appeared last Wednesday. Since ASUN elections are less than a week away. I feel compelled to set the record, and the staff of the COURIER, straight on a few points. Relevant portions of this letter will also, hopefully, appear in the COURIER itself next Wednesday. First: on page one I am referred to as stating, in reference to the decision not to put NSA affiliation on the spring ballot, that ""unless those who wanted to put the issue on the ballot could show ' " ' ' " 3 V55 ME ANP SM11S TOR ME, HOED ME UKE YOUU NEVER 1ST MB &0.IM iMm&OMA JET PlANE-.-VOtfT KNOW WHEN JU BE BACK A&A1N' -a popular som a reason why anyone might not support continued NSA affiliation, there was no justification for a vote.'" Not true. What I said was that unless those who wanted the issue on the ballot could show the Senate that anyone else in the entire University besides themselves was concerned enough about the issue to want to vote on it, thst there was no reason for a ballot test. Predictably, they could not show the Senate any such person. Second: on an inside page I am quoted as stating, in reference to the decision to put Daily Nebraskan fee use on the ballot, that "There is no longer a reason to get students" opinion because a good compromise on LB 70 has been reached." Also not true. What I said was that, since LB 70 has been amended to delete all threats to discontinue fees for the Nebraskan, there was no longer any reason to try to appease the wTath of Terry Carpenter and Bruce Wimmer. And if I may be allowed a concluding comment on this mess, it seems to roe that the COURIER ought either to check their quotes for accuracy before they appear in print or issue their ASUN reporter a pencil with a large eraser. Best, Roy Baldwin, UC Tommy As most students know, Kosmet Klub is presenting the rock opera Tommy this Friday and Saturday. The Daily Nebraskan has tried to keep students informed on the progress of this unique production. Even so, many critics are already predicting the failure for the rock opera. Now, there usually isnt much cataclysmic danger in playing the role of the soothsayer on political issues. And whatever danger there is, the predicting is generally understood to be one of the basic parts of the political game. On the other hand, crystal-gazing is a much more limited profession in the theater. And rightfully so. After all, the theater critic is more vulnerable when making predictions than is a political critic. Enter Tommy. Given the above considerations, it seems odd that many of the University self-proclaimed theater critics are maligning this production-before it has been performed. Why the criticism of Tommy? Perhaps it's the nature of the production. Tommy is a rock opera, from a rock band, hardly what you would call a traditional opera for the American theater. And apparently that rock background turns some people olT. It's too bad people feel compelled to take such a foreboding view of a theater production such as Tommy, just because it isn't ty pical theater material. Hopefully, not many students will hold such an arrogant and parochial view of Tommy. The theme of the opera has done nothing to deserve it: "Tommy. He's blind, deaf and dumb. In a simple story about Eternal Life and Eternal Death." Mankiewicz and Braden A policy of national weakness WASHINGTON-Sen. Henry M. Jackson of Washington, who is the Republicans candidate for the Democratic nomination in 1972, sounded forth the trumpet last week and the words he used were intended to separate the righteous from the meek. "A policy of national weakness," that's what critics of the defense budget art adopting, Jackson said, and his words are already echoing through the prose of the Pentagon's favorite flacks. Before Sen. Jackson tris to split the Democratic Party into two camps of shrilly shouting name-callers, it may be wise to ask whan a "policy of national weakness" is and who promotes it. Take for example, Sen. William Proxmire of Wisconsin, Jackson's lithe and lean opponent on the SST, who has become the Pentagon's principal critic in the Senate. PROXMIRE thinks it nonsense to judge one's commitment to national strength on the basis of how many dollars one votes to the Pentagon and its clients. Proxmire opposes spending money on the B-l bomber because it is obsolete. He opposes spending $15 billion on an airborne warning system against intercontinental bombers-which the Russians don't possess. He has opposed spending more money to build more aircraft carriers because our lead over the combined Russian and Chinese fleets now stands at 15-0. He believes that "our strength is not enhanced by bearing a disproportionate share of troops in NATO: to Europeanize NATO would be a greater accomplishment than Vietnamizing Vietnam.' Proxmire thinks that 53 Pentagon civilians to every 100 men in the Armed Forces of the United States anywhere in the world is too many civilians in the Pentagon. Proxmire thought that last year's budget figures which called for 47 civilians to every 100 uniformed men was already out of line. Proxmire notes that there are 12 men in uniform to every combat soldier in Vietnam. He thinks that's too many. He notes the 1.5 million men in the National Guard and the Reserve and he thinks that's too many, considering that the Pentagon has poured money into the upkeep of the Reserves in order to maintain an "emergency force in being" but that when the emergency called Vietnam came into being only 35,000 Reservists were ever employed there. HE RECALLS that we have 300 major bases and 3,000 minor bases around the world, and he think that's too many; he notes that 400 deliverable intercontinental missiles would destroy 75 per cent of Soviet industry and kill one-third of the Russian people. Therefore he thinks that possessing 10 times that number while continuing to build more is possessing too many. In short, what Proxmire believes-and his view is shared by a majority of Democratic senators and more than a handful of Republicans-is that it is time to tell the Pentagon that $70 billion is enough and that the nation cannot affoid to continue its policy of giving the generals and the admirals everything they want. He thinks we cannot afford it-not only because we have a great many things we should spend the money on instead, but because it is bad policy to permit the military to "overspend, o verorganize, overman and underaccomplish." The words are not Proxmire's; they are those of Undersecretary of Defense, David Packard. Proxmire and his allies want a lean, taut ship. They want more mobile missiles. They want more submarines; they favor the underwater missile platform. They want an army ready to fight instead of to clerk or promote itself; they don't see any good reason why out of 11 electronics weapons systems built during the 60s, six should have been miserable failures and each should have cost 100 per cent more than the budget request. They think they speak for national strength, not weakness. They think that letting the Pentagon set national priorities is an idea whose time has come and gone. William F. Buckley, Jr .MoT IMIMOFaMdlllIll I conclude today with the memorandum currently being circulated among prominent members of the right-wing by a prominent crik of the Nixon Administration. CRIME. We should quite letting the ACLU set the ground rules. On the legislative-legal front, we should demand -and I mean demand-wholesale reforms. Then we should put teeth into our demands. We would have the great uncommitted public, not just conservatives, on our side. We would even have many liberals, up to a point. We should let the President and the Congress know that our support in 1 972 win be contingent upon action which should not be confused with Nixon's Liberal copout, the war on '"organized" crime). RACE. Fot a good two centuries now, decent Americans have been moving to redress the wrong done to Negroes. A couple of decades ago, the growing movement for charity and justice (which is never finally achieved for any of us, this side of the grave) got detoured. It became a crusade for forced integration, which is neither charitable nor just. For a decade, conservatives were eloquent and convincing" in pointing out not only the social ills that would flow from forced integration, but also the outrages againiJ personal and family and property rights that would be and were being committed in its name. Then, about a decade ago, when we sniffed the White House lawn, we began to gel Tespectable. Or do I mean "practical"? Anyway, wc abandoned everything but rearguard sniping. And the fruits are bitter to the taste. Now nobody sensible believes in forced integration. But the federal engine goes on, under its own inertia Let us, in sober accents, pick up the torch again. Let no man pretend to favor liberty who denies anyone the right to puk his own neighbors, pic k the fellows with whom his children will go to school, pick the person to whom he sells his home. Finally, we must start talking again to the black silent majority. Twenty years ago there were liter? Uy millons of Negroes living good and productive lives. They haven't all disappeared. But we abandoned them to an ugly choice: the phony moderation of Wilkins or the open hatred of Cleaver. These are nice people. They deserve better of us. EDUCATION. We are all for the voucher system. Fine. Very important. But it worrt solve everything. It won't break the stranglehold of the liberals and the radicals on our educational system. Even granting we are a peaceful people who don't like to get involved, why do we put up with this? Americans want their children to get a sound education. They want their kids to be taught patriotism and morality, and they don't object to a religious flavoring. They get-stones. They also get, and I use the word soberly, subversion. Typically, American values are consciously subverted. And this brings us to an interesting area of discussion. Mr. Nixon, and his admirers, will perhaps try to nibble away at appropriations foT education. This is what passes for political FRIDAY. APRIL 2. 1971 realism. I say it's spinach, and I say the hell with it. We should be demanding a nearly complete withdrawal of the federal government from education. Almost as important, we should be demanding the withdrawal of the states. Education should be, u. a local and church and private and family concern... There is a place for Republican regulars, for Sational Review, for Human Events. But they areat enough. Indeed, if there isnt a rallying point out a bit and looking beyond Pennsylvania Avenue, rtheir own position will continue to erode. It as inevitable. Well wind up defending Nixon's $25 billion deficit against the wanton Democrats, who urge $27 billion. Is it worth flying to Calloway Gardens for that? WTith all the talent and drive and goodwill around, I can't believe that we would willingly turn into political eunuchs. It needn't happen, if we serve up bread rather than cotton candy. K9BB aHUHrift gjjjjJi tettifcw Jljfei mair hi1' irtb LttaWta MICK MORI ARTY, editor CONNIE WINKLER, managing editor JOHN DVORAK, news editor GENE HILLMAN, advertising manager JAMES HORNER, chairman, publications committee . TcU-phone: editor: a72-2SSS, advertbang: 25 99. Second class postage rate pm& at Lincoln, Nebr. Sutoscrifnaoa rates are IS per semester or SS-5 ptr year. Published Monday through Friday during the scborfyear except Murine vacation and exam periods. Member the Intercollegiate Press, National Educational Awertifcirif: Service. College Kress Service, The DnBy Ndmuikaa t a student publication, independent the Diuversiry of Nebraska's administration, faculty and student lowemtnent. . Address: The tafly Nebraska n. 34 Nebraska Usaon, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, Nebraska 6S56&. 'A memorable, heart-warming 90 minutes . . "Who would believe history could be so entertaining and enlightening?" '! hope you win replay your special so our parents might have the opportunity to see it" THE PEOPLE SAID IT ALL! n ''?! a . When it ran before, a flood of letters and telegrams came pouring in almost the moment "Swing Out Sweet Land was over. We've printed a few typical comments above, partly to remind you how special the show was, but mostly to make sure you're watching again w hen . . . " w jir ':: fWwi-,,1 ' lfJ J Hi "5OTI3 OUT SIVEET LAND" fcnrday, April 0 -0:D-10 P.E1 EST- HBO-TU Owdt tar tool tfeM end station) MNCHEt-tBSOl, IMS. ft. lODtl PAGE 4 THE DAILY NEBRASKAN FRIDAY. APRIL 2. 1971 THE DAILY NEBRASKAN . PAGE 5