Daily Nebraskan
Monday, December 1, 1986
o n o i
Jeff Korbelik, Editor, 472,1766
James Rogers, Editorial Page Editor
Gene Gentrup, Managing Editor
Tammy Kaup, Associate News Editor
Todd von Kampen, Editorial Page Assistant
Nebrayskan
University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Page 4
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--X J US 60THN AUTRE
-cA SINCE VDUR e
I PW3S CONFERENCE
Imagnmairy treaty
SALT II can't be broken
L
ast week headlines screamed clear before his 1984 re-election
that, with the deployment that he had no intention of abid
of the 131st B-52 bomber, ing by the terms of the unap-
the United States had "broken"
the 1979 strategic arms limitation
treaty (known better as SALT
II). Congressmen and foreign
officials alike bemoaned the
event.
Yet, irrespective of what one
believes about the merit of arms
limitation attempts (the histori
cal record on such attempts is
not encouraging about the suc
cess of such agreements), the
simple fact is that no treaty was
broken.
The U.S. Constitution is quite
clear. Article II, defining execu
tive branch powers, reads that
the president "shall have power,
by and with the advice and con
sent of the Senate to make trea
ties, provide two thirds of the
Senators present concur." It is
only this way that, according to of tne lack of acceptable alter
article VI, "treaties made . . . natives, but the status quo itself
under the authority of the United is unacceptable. The status quo
States, shall be the supreme law
n . i a
or tne land. . .
No treaty ever existed the
Senate never ratified SALT II
thus no treaty could be broken.
Elected officials should stand
or fall on the policies they
advocate. You can't blame poli
ticians for doing what they said
they would do.
President Reagan was always
clear in his opposition to SALT arms system. Either policy would
II. He claimed that arms limita- probably be safer than the cur
tion talks simply institutional- rent muddle-headedness evi
ized the arms race and thus were denced by the continual sniping
a poor proxy for real arms reduc- at the president for arms reduc
tions. Reagan also made it quite tions proposals or arms increases.
Letter
'Drunk' Native American
image is unfair
I'm writing a response to an article
dealing with Indian substance abuse,
(D.N., Nov. 17).
As a freshman here at UNL, I try to be
aware of topics and events that are
interesting and available. There are
definitely some important resources
here to learn from. I am also a Native
American, which gives me an added
interest since some of the common
occurences here are first-time expe
riences for me. I appreciate very much
the people I've learned from in ex
changing cross-cultural information, and
I want to thank people who have good
intentions of being aware of our Native
American culture.
Right now I want to experess how
angry I feel, because it seems that the
"cultural" exposure about Native Amer
icans is always alcohol-related. In the
one short year I've been here, there
have been quite a few programs about
and for Native American awareness,
but the spotlight always seems to fall
oh the alcohol problem of our popu
lation. The overtone of the article projected
an image that is constantly accented. I
regret that I didn't hear Grobsmith's
seminar. I'm sure she had a great deal
to report which did not appear in the
article. Her statement "The Indians
feel no shame in being drunk," is very
proved treaty proposal.
The American people have
gone into this pjt-SALT II pos
ture, as it were, v ith both eyes
open. It makes no sense then to
berate the president for "break-
ing" a non-treaty he never agreed
with.
Additionally, the reaction of
America's Western European
allies is most ironic coming so
closely on the heels of their neg
ative reactions to the Iceland
summit's potential. It's obvious
that they do not know what they
want. But that's not new for
modern Western European democ
racies. The problem, in both Europe
and America, is that the status
quo is being maintained because
arms control posture is iunaa-
m s t t rt 1 1 r n rili ! n U ny-i m I - I ?n '
mentally schizophrenic. We're in
a never-never land where real
arms reduction is opposed and
so is the acceptance of treaties.
The West lacks a coherent
vision on how to grapple with the
Soviets. It's the worst of all pos
sible worlds anything would
be better: a cogent arms reduc
tion posture or a clear-minded
pursuit of a forceful strategic
difficult for someone like myself to
read. (How many reports are being
done about the generations of Indian
people that have been colonized and
the mental and physical damage that
has been done to us in that process
over the decades?)
The problems of our people are
deeply rooted and there are no easy
answers. Many of the studies done by
outsiders come to conclusions that
hardly have any impact on the centur
ies of problems that have been culti
vated since our transition from our
society too this one.
Another quotation was, "More Indian
youth use drugs and alcohol than
American youth." This surprises me
because I've always thought of myself
(and still do) as American when I was a
youth. This type of statement becomes
overwhelmingly alienating and I'm so
tired of it and related statements.
On campus, if you see an Indian you
will probably find a respectable, sober,
hard-working student similar to your
self. There are other events concerning
Native American culture that you might
want to be aware of. The public is
welcome.
Laskot Harden
freshman
English
Tine bloom is offfffioii9 (p)roe
Iranian affair marks the end of the permissive presidency
I
was never keen on the description
of the Reagan Years as a Teflon
presidency. When historians go
searching for a label to mark the first
six years of this administration, they
won't find it in cookware. It's in that
other domestic art: parenting. The
1980s will go down as nothing less than
the era of the Permissive presidency.
How often did Ronald Reagan warn
us about the evils of the permissive
society? No rules, no brakes, no disci
pline, anything goes. It turns out the
man was absolutely right. Throughout
his formative early years as President,
Ronald Reagan was a hapless victim of
a politically permissive upbringing.
Consider the words of no less an
authority on child-raising than Dr.
Spock. Unfairly accused of being pedi
atrician to a permissive generation, the
doctor himself warns: "A child, like an
adult, knows when she is getting away
with too much naughtiness If she
isn't corrected, she's likely to behave
worse and worse. It's as if she were
saying, 'How bad to I have to be before
somebody stops me?' "
Does heshe have to be shipping
arms to the Ayatollah?
Appparently. It took the Iranian
arms deal to get the American people
to finally say "no" to their favorite son.
For the first time, the overwhelming
majority of Americans in this week's
Los Angeles Times poll said they didn't
believe the President when he denied
trading arms for hostages.
In the United States, people are
supposed to be custodians of the ward
called democracy. But they have been
unwilling to hold the president they
love accountable for his actions. Maybe
there was a little law-bending here, a
Proposed gay committee explained
There has been much attention
lately to the proposed addition of a
GayLesbian Programming Com
mittee to the City Council of the
University Program Council (UPC).
The aim of this letter is to give some
Guest Opinion
background information so informed
decisions can be made by students.
Since gaylesbian students are
not an American ethnic minority,
which is what constitutes the Amer
ican Minority Council of UPC, the
proposal came before the City
Council. Two months ago, UPC-City
Council began discussion on the
written proposal submitted by mem
bers of the GayLesbian Student
Association (GLSA). The discussion
that followed centered around two
considerations; First, was there a
need for programming to the UNL
students about gaylesbian issues
bit of diplomatic lying there, gun-
running in Nicaragua, disinformation
in Libya, tale-telling over the KAL 007,
disorder in Reykjavik. We allowed an
escalating series of events to be treated
as if they were well-meaning acts or
"misspeaks." Merely a stage he was
going through.
Many chose to trust Ron rather than
the evidence or, certainly, the evidence-
Ellen
Goodman
bearers. Like a fond family, we melted
each time he came striding open-faced
and cheerful into the living-room tele
vision greeting us, "Good evening . . .
you know my name." We were, to put it
simply, overindulgent and relentlessly
approving.
Of course, the more we allowed his
dubious behavior, the more the boun
daries were pushed. It's textbook stuff.
What do the child psychologists call it?
Testing. The final test came when the
man who promised he would never deal
with terrorists got caught dealing and
he couldn't quite charm his way out of
it.
From my vantage point, permissive
ness either in the body politic or in
parenting bears a strong resemb
lance to another P-word in the case-
books: passiveness. Parents who pre-
maturely resign as family rulemakers
often delude themselves with the idea
that their offspring are old enough to
and culture? Secondly, could this
need by met by our current struc
ture? After the proposal to create a
programming committee on the City
Council passed, it then moved to
the Executive Board of UPC. The
proposal was then altered by the
Executive Board because it was a
new programming area We wanted
to enter this new field cautiously
and pay careful attention to the
reaction by the campus. This was
the justification for proposing fund
ing for one year and to evaluate its
successes and failures at the end of
the first year. We have used this
approach before, in the case of the
Asian American Committee on the
American Minority Council.
The reality of the committee
receiving funding is far in the future.
The first step, after it has passed
Executive Board, is the Nebraska
Union Board. Currently this is its
status. If it passes Union Board, UPC
will begin to formulate this commit
take care of themselves without "a
watchdog."
There is some personal value in this
self-deception. These parents free
themselves from the responsibility of
overseeing the behavior of their kids.
Their young are either emancipated or
neglected; the parents are off the hook.
It's the same with permissive polit
ics. The eagerness to totally trust the
President, to ignore any early warning
signs, any notices that get sent home,
allows us to go about our lives without
paying attention. We actively want to
be able to leave our public wards on
their own.
In all this, there is yet another P
word: powerlessness. The most permis
sive parent s or citizens I know are peo
ple who don't believe in their ability to
have an impact, to effect change when
things or people go awry. They go
through Parent I neffectiveness Training.
But what happens when the misbe
havior keeps escalating? Let me return
to Dr. Spock: "Eventually (his) behav
ior becomes so provoking that the par
ents' patience snaps."
The President offered a rationale of
the Iranian arms deal that was about as
convincing as a teen-ager's tale of how
the family car got banged up. The coun
try's patience didn't snap, but it is
more than a bit frayed.
How do you prevent this generation
from falling back into our permissive
ways. There's a new and trendier way
for raising politicians these days. They
call it "tough love."
1986, The Boston Globe Newspaper
CompanyWashington Post Writers
Group.
Goodman is a Pulitzer prize-winning
columnist for the Boston Globe.
tee's budget on a program by pro
gram basisand will submit it to the
Committee for Fees Allocation (CFA).
If it passes this committee, the
request proceeds to ASUN, then to
the Vice Chancellor of Student
Affairs and then the final decision
will rest with the Chancellor. As you
can see, this proposal has a long way
to travel before it becomes an actual,
functioning committee of UPC. If
formed, the GayLesbian Program
ming Committee will become the
31st committee on UPC, the 13th on
the City Council and will join the
ranks of over 300 members of UPC.
We have written this letter in the
hopes of informing students about
the actual content of the proposal
and the basis for our decisions. UPC
will strive to meet the needs of stu
dents in the future and we hope that
students can now make an informed
decision.
Mark Whitacre
Executive Board Coordinator
University Program Council
