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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 19, 1984)
Pago 4 Monday, November 19, 1934 Daily Ncbraskan o ft UC(H)f m o 1 h , pi mams must pews woijjcrp 1 . 13 Tn 1955 Nebraska women earned 64 percent of the amount paid to men. In 1080, they earned 60 percent. The national average is about 64 percent. Have women cone a long way? No way. On a national level, there ts little hope for action to create pay equity. President Reagan disdains the idea and one official in his administration called pay equity proposals "looney." President Reagan also holds the Equal Rights Amendment in disdain. On the state level, there is hope for pay equity. In a landmark Washington state pay-equity case, District Judge Jack Tanner ruled last December that the state had long been engaged in "discrim ination on the basis of sex." The case is being appealed to the Supreme Court and should be decided within a year. Should the Supreme Court reject the appeal, about 1 5,000 state employees will get wage increases and four years back pay. The Reagan administration has gone on record against the judge's decision. In Nebraska, a pay-equity study bill failed to pass by six votes in January, but the Nebraska Commission on the Status of Women probably will draft another bill for this session. LB 700 would have provided funding for a study comparing state jobs on the basis of skill, effort, responsibility and working conditions. We support the idea of a study and hope a bill similar to LB 700 is passed this time around. If women aren't being paid the same amount as men for work of comparable worth, the free market is being restrained. Twenty-five states have commissioned pay equity studies. Minnesota passed legislation requiring all local govern ments to implement policies leading to pay equity by October 1085. If the current trend for states to take action toward nay equity continues, the administration's "looney" attitude will be come obsolete. We hope so. Students often view UNL administrators and the NU Board of Regents with distrust and resentment they are blamed for everything from high tuition to the bad residence hall food. An open forum held on Thursday at Regents Hall was a positive step toward changing those attitudes. The board of regents, in cooperation with AS UN, allowed four student groups to make presentations and afterwards administrators, regents and students mingled. That kind of contact will bridge gaps and make both sides more aware of each others' concerns. Such open forums should be held at least once a semester. We commend ASUN and the university leaders involved. 11 1 M . J l t V Vr VW J XT TfTh. m t -. r. j 9 t J A Vermont district court jury Friday acquitted of trespassing 25 members of the "Winooski 44," a group which staged a three-day sit-in last March at Sen. Robert Stafford's (R.-Vt.) WLnooski office. In doing so, the jury condemned the United States' policy of military involvement in Nicaragua and the Reagan administration's policy of deliberately lying to the American public about events in Central America and its intentions there. F-v r Chris Burbacli After four days of hearing testimony from former CIA employees, Salvadoran refugees and foreign affairs experts, the jury conceded to the defense's arguments that the sit-in was necessary to publicize the U.S. government's misdeeds, and that the Winooski 44 was exercising its First Amendment right of grievance. The trial, and its verdict, could score a major blow to the Reagan administration's mission to drum up con gressional and popular support for continuing and per haps heightening U.S. intervention in Central American nations, particularly Nicaragua, if it inspires further protest and civil disobedience. David Rosenberg, an associate professor in political science at Middlebury College in Vermont and a govern ment consultant on foreign affairs, testified at the trial. He said the testimony of such witnesses as former CIA employee David McMichaels, who was in charge of over seeing such matters as the recent investigation into alleged Nicaraguan arms trafficking, proved that U.S. actions in Central America "constitute war crimes and that this administration has as its goal the overthrow of the Nicaraguan government." Counsel of the defense Olin McGilL also of Middlebury, said the jury responded strongly, sometimes emotion ally, to testimony at the trial. After the judge had charged the jury, it didn't take long for them to make a decision, McGill said. That reaction seems to be a common one among those who hear valid testimony about U.S. intervention in Nicaragua and El Salvador, many Americans just don't like the things their government is doing in their names. It also appears that government officials are aware of that reaction and the possible harm it could do to their plans, which gives them a good motive for circumvent- A J3 T mericans ack during World War II, a common expression was Don t you know there s a war going on?"Jf you were a child, which I was, and asked your par ents for anything they didn't want to give, that was the response you got and there was no sense in arguing. As anyone could tell you, there certainly was a war on. Cohen Now, things have gone totally the other way. No one seems to notice that again there's a war on. It's a small war, a covert war, but a war nonetheless. Only Nic aragua seems to notice. How else can you explain the persistent sense of shock and outrage that comes over the nation whenever something else is revealed about what the United yawn States is doing in Nicaragua. The ether day, for instance, a Contra leader, Edgar Chamcrro, testified that the CIA told him that the United States was out to topple, not reform, the Sandinbta gov ernment. Characrro's testimony was played in the newspapers as news when it should have been self-evident. Men are not going to risk their lives to "reform" their government These are soldiers, not members of Common Cause. Still, this country's capacity for delusion seems limitless. Almost a year ago, the Sandinistas re ported their ports were being mined. America yawned. But . when it was revealed that Ameri cans had assisted in the mining, all hell broke loose. Once again, we were shocked. But who did we think was laying those mines? ing the truth, or, more bluntly, for lying. In truth, the secret war in Nicaragua is not popular. In fact, the only place the secret war is even secret is in the United States, where our government is deliberately keeping us unin formed. Deception is the only means by which the Rea gan administration can garner popular support for its Central American adventures. Rosenburg says there are two ways the U.S. govern ment can continue to fool its general citizenry: It can minimize negative press reports on military action, as established during the Grenada invasion, and it can continue propaganda campaigns to taint Nicaragua as an evil empire, a communist regime exporting revolution. However, even as the government "leaks rumors," however unfounded, about non-existent Soviet MiG shipments to Nicaragua and insists in contrast to FBI and CIA evidence that Nicaragua is exporting arms to El Salvador, real leaks undermine its already shaky argu ments. The recently revealed CIA counter-insurgency man ual proved, in Rosenberg's estimation, that the United States is interested in overthrowing the Nicaraguan government. The manual said nothing about stopping an arms flow, which by the VS. government's own esti mation does not even exist. Rather, it gave instructions on "neutralizing" Sandinista officials. As public and Congressional awareness grows, so wanes support for the secret war in Nicaragua and the war by proxy in El Salvador. When the covert war was first officially approved in 1981, Congress gave the administration all the money it asked for. The allotment decreased in 1982. Then, in 1083, the House denied the project any money, then reached a compromise with the Senate to release some funds. This year, the House and Senate refused to spend any money on the covert war. Covert activities are continuing under the Joint Com mand's Special Operations Agency without congressional approval. In fact, the United States is near to the brink of overt war in Nicaragua. Our government is conducting yet another grand scale war game near Nicaragua, and we have some 20 ships, two aircraft carriers and 150 aircraft in the region. The Joint Chiefs have several contingency plans for invasion, and are perfectly capa ble of creating a triggering incident to justify an inva sion. The whole thing sounds a little likeGrenada, but the actual conflict would be quite different. It would be costly, in lives and dollars. In fact, Rosenberg believes an invasion would not be successful ever. An invasion of Nicaragua would not only be a breach of international .eaaers malce La! fe Ml S 1 1 H I as u.b. j There 723 a similar howl from both Congress and the public when the contents of that now infamous CIA training manual was revealed. Everyone seemed surprised. Kill? Moi? Perish the thought. But what did we think was going on in the jungles of Nicaragua? And when the Sandi-1 nbtas .said that Chilian officials' were being assassinated, who did we think was pulling the trig ger? Say what you will about the CIA operative who wrote the manual, he at least appreciated what we are "doing in Nicaragua making war. That usually entails killing. Something about Nicaragua pro duces both bewilderment and a measure of incredulity that a con man would kill for. Take the recent episode of the now-you-see-them, now-you-don't MiG-21s. According to administration sour ces, crates that usually contain MiGs were loaded aboard a Soviet freighter that later armed in the Nicrcguan port of Ccrinto. At that, the administration went into its Chicken Little mode, crying "The MIGs are coming, the MiGs law, it would not be in the United States' interest. Rosenberg said the trial in Vermont, as trivial as it may seem, is already having an effect in Washington. The Joint Chiefs remember Vietnam, and more recently, Lebanon they aren't going to move against popular opinion. The Greek philosopher Aeschylus said, "In war, truth is the first ca-ualty." The Winooski 44 fought to stave off war and revive truth. Let's hope their spirit catches on. war' in Nicaragua are coming." Not since the good old days of bomb shelters and "take over" had there been such an artificial panic, such a false : sense of alarm. But there were no MiGs. Sup pose there were. The official line is that the MiGs would "alter the balance of power in the region." The phrase gets repeated like a catechism, as if saying it over and over makes it true. But Nicaragua is a small, impoverished country that the CIA is fighting out of its petty-cash drawer. It's reeling from a combination of the Contras and its own economic misman agement, and it's hard to believe that a few MiGs could alter the region's balance of power. Net only have we turned Hon duras into a tropical aircraft car rier, but it is the United States that decides the balance ofpower in the region. We are in the region, we have the power and we car. do pretty much as we want. You can make what you want of Nicaragua, It b clearly not a democracy in the usual sense of the word, but neither is it your basic communist government. It is something in between a dis appointment to almost everyone. But whatever it is, it b not now a threat to ether countries in the region. Even American experts concede that the bulk of the arms the Sandinistas have been buying are defensive in nature. There is little doubt that Nicaragua is on the Reagan ad ministration's hit list reforms or no reforms. The terms "Marxist" and "communist" are brandished with 1950s glory, as if we have not learned a thing since then and as if once youVe said them, nothing you say afterwards has to make any sense. Link Nicaragua has been puffed up into a hemispheric menace and we have, covertly and in a rather modest way, gone for its jugular. Its, Vfehtesisa Petl Vrftsrs Group