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Page 4
Daily Nebraskan
Wednesday, January 21, 1987
Tl o rt o
Nebrayskan
University ol Nebraska-Lincoln
Do numbers lie?
Accurate indicators needed
fTD eople vote their pocket
p books" is an aphorism
that can help explain
President Reagan's election, re
election and personal popularity.
The shift in popular perceptions
of the economy from the dishevel
ment of the 1970s (high un
employment and high inflation)
to the relative stability of the
'80s corresponds rather nicely,
in the public mind to the advent
of Reagan in the White House.
In the '80s inflationary expec
tations were greatly dampened
by the recession, and the unem
ployment rate dropped to a more
or less (politically) acceptable
level. Along with dropping infla
tion and unemployment rates,
the economy has dropped on the
list of important issues in the
public's mind.
Nonetheless, the future state
of the economy continues to
concern the relatively few people
who still pay attention to it.
One of the biggest concerns is
that "proxies" for measuring
economic activity are measuring
the wrong phenomena. That is,
many statistics, ostensibly point
ing to an economy experiencing
a boom in production, in fact are
measuring only monetary or
J pecuniary levels. For example, is
the historically high level of the
stock market really an indicator
of a "bullish" economy? Not
necessarily. Stock prices repre
sent the interaction of that com
modity's supply and demand:
They do not represent "real"
impacts on the productive assets
that represent the wealth of a
society.
Letter
In the name of love and King,
people can't forget his message
I would like to take time to thank
the Daily Nebraskan for its coverage of
our newest federal holiday (DN, Jan.
19), Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
While we have celebrated Lincoln's
and Washington's commitment to excel
lence for many years, it is refreshing to
see support for one of this century's
greatest leaders. King's inspiration and
goals were derived from others who
also sought peace and unity for eve
ryone such as Jesus Christ and
Mohandas Gandhi. King pledged an
allegiance to a "love ethic": an idealis
tic belief that love, not force, would
conquer the evil of racism, discrimina
tion and violence against one another.
The DN covered a story about a min
icourse offered at UNL. Having taken
the course myself, I feel it is a course
that people take not to "fill in an hour"
on their schedules, but because King's
teachings are beneficial to those who
follow them.
The Culture Center, located in the
Commonplace building, had a wonder
ful symposium last year honoring King.
Attorney General Robert Spire spoke,
as did a number of black leaders in the
community.
While many of us don't remember
much of King when he was alive, much
of his teachings spread further than
just in the United States. The rock
group U2, from Ireland, has written a
few songs in memory of King. One,
Jeff Korbelik, Editor, 472-1766
James Rogers, Editorial Page Editor
Lise Olsen, Associate News Editor
Mike Reilley, Night News Editor
Joan Rezac, Copy Desk Chief
Another example of the pre
dominance of the unproductive,
pecuniary (or business-college)
mentality over the productive
(engineering) mentality is the
expansion of productive assets.
In the past, a business owner
(or the owner's representative)
would indicate a desire to expand
the business in order to meet
consumer demand better and
increase profits. This typically
entailed the construction of new
productive assets like factories.
Such an expansion meant more
jobs, more income and more real
production.
Today, however, expansion
means a transfer of assets. That
is, merging with other already
existing businesses. Thus, in
stead of expanding the entire
pool of productive assets, today's
businesses all too often simply
transfer the same assets as one
huge conglomerate gobbles up
another.
The first point of success in
other countries is that they
emphasize real production as
the measure of economic pro
gress and not simply the transfer
of paper between the offices of
corporate attorneys. The former. ,
represents the entrepreneurial
spirit that once made this country
famous; the latter represents the
legalistic spirit that makes this
country infamous. In order to
avoid economic stagnation in
the near future, the American
business community must once
again concern itself with real
production and end its suicidal
infatuation with paper assets.
"(Pride) In the Name of Love," sparks a
haunting paean to King's struggles and
untimely death: "Early morning, April
4, shots ring high in the Memphis sky,
freed at last, they took your life, but
they could not take your pride."
Recently, Rev. Jesse Jackson claimed
that there has been some progress in
the decline of racism, but that "eco
nomic racism" still exists and is the
most plightful to blacks around the
world. King once said, "A man who
won't die for something is not fit to live.
The ultimate measure of a man is not
where he stands in moments of comfort
and convenience, but where he stands
in times of challenge and controversy."
King believed in equality, peace and
love and he died because of it. Let
us honor him by continuing with the
pursuit of his dreams.
David J. Cox
senior
psychology
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Anonymous submissions will not be
considered for publication.
Groundless attack
There is something sickeningly
ironic in the two anniversaries
being observed this week. Monday
we celebrated the birth of a tremendous
American, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,
who was shot down in his prime.
Tomorrow we will mourn the death of
some 20 million Americans who never
had the chance for a prime. On both of
these days, we remember those whose
only capital offense was inconvenience
in the first degree.
The plight of blacks in the history of
America admits of sardonic parallels to
the plight of the unborn over the last 14
years. Black slavery was first propagated
and defended on the premise that the
African Negro was not really human.
Even our precious Constitution, whose
bicentennial we celebrate as we speak,
originally referred to the black as a
"three-fifths person." Such demented
thinking survived overwhelming evi
dence to the contrary for many decades.
Today it is the unborn child who is
considered less than human. The motiva
tions behind the pronouncement are
complex, but there is none that is
warranted by responsible thinking or
supported by medical evidence. Yet the
myth continues. And those who have
historically been human-rights activists
have mostly retreated to this camp of
convenience and ease. We have returned
to the philosophy that those whose
humanity is for any reason in doubt do
not deserve to be treated as human.
Where would the black, the Native
American and the woman be today had
we always placed the burden of proof
on the one who claimed equality?
But there are more ingenious argu
ments in the pro-abortion camp lately,
which claim to be valid even if the
unborn child is human. And it is here'
Pregnancy policies still not perfect;
child-rearing not for women only
There was a time when nearly every
pregnant working woman was
given special treatment. She was
escorted ever so chivalrously
right out the door.
In those bad old days, it was assumed
that the one true path to equality and
job security was to get employers to
treat pregnant workers the way they
treated other workers. Pregnancy, many
of us argued, wasn't a disease, and
pregnant workers weren't automatically
incapacitated.
Legislation that outlined discrimina
tion was born and passed in 1978. You
couldn't fire a worker just because she
was pregnant. But, on the other hand,
you didn't have to make any allowances
for the pregnancy. This was the sort of
rigid equality we called progress.
There emerged out of this period a
kind of pregnancy machisma. To this
day, many women, especially in the
professional world, trade tales of how
they finished their brief or newspaper
story while having contractions every
10 minutes. Women in nontraditional
jobs often have felt compelled to prove
that they can put in as long a day as any
man, even if it's the ninth day of the
ninth month.
This bravado, or bravada if you prefer,
was largely fueled by the fear that they
would be punished for being "different."
Pregnant women could be sure of their
jobs only as long as they fit no
matter what shape they are in into
the same mold as men. As a policy, this
makes as much sense as everybody's
favorite clothing label: one-size-fits-all.
Gradually, we have been trying to
make a midcourse correction in the
path of equality. Young women who feel
more secure in the workplace and yet
more stressed by the expectations of
being employee and mother have begun
to insist that some leeway, some breath
ing room, some consideration, be given
to pregnancy. One after another, states
are devising and passing pregnancy
disability-and-leave policies. But those
of us who remember the bad old days
have wondered: Can you devise a policy
on the unborn resembles racial bigotry
that the parallel with the plight of the
American black shows us most clearly
how faulty the thinking is and what
kinds of sinister games are really being
played.
A popular defense of abortion on
demand is. the charge that so many
babies are unwanted and would only be
born into a life of sadness, deprivation
and rejection. One must ask how we
would have reacted to one who argued
in the '19th century that the indis
criminate killing of black children in
America was warranted on the grounds
that those children were doomed to a
James
Sennett
life of sadness. Or more closely parallel
yet, how about slaughtering black
children in Africa because they would
stand a decent chance of being captured
and exported as slaves? Surely the
strong possibility that theirs would be
a life of misery and pain would have
been enough reason to justify their
genocide, regardless of their humanity.
The failure of the analogy is not readily
apparent to me.
The more philosophical of the pro
choice supporters have argued recently
that the question of the child's hu
manity is overridden by the demands of
of the personal freedom and autonomy
of the mother. In other words, one
person's right of choice could be greater
than another person's right to life. This
thinking represents our worst night
that gives preferential treatment to
pregnant women without it backfiring?
Enter the Supreme Court. Last week,
five justices who range in philosophy
from Scalia to Marshall upheld a Cali
fornia law that gives pregnant women
some preference. California requires
employers to grant up to four months of
unpaid leave to women disabled by
pregnancy and childbirth, even if such
leaves are not granted for other dis
abilities. ' S
Ellen Uf
Goodman"
The employer in question, California
Federal Savings and Loan Association,
said the state violated the federal law
against discrimination. The S&L pre
sented itself as a defender of equality,
though in its case it was defending the
right to treat all workers equally shab
bily. The decision, written by Justice
Marshall, went to the core of the
problem and said, "By 'taking pregnancy
into account,' California's pregnancy
disability-leave statute allows women,
as well as men, to have families without
losing their jobs." But perhaps the
most important line in the decision
affirmed that the federal law was "a
floor beneath which pregnancy dis
ability benefits may not drop not a
ceiling above which they may not rise."
n
Editorial Policy
Unsigned editorials represent Editorials do not necessarily re
official policy of the spring 1987 Daily fleet the views of the university, it s
Nebraskan. Policy is set by the Daily employees, the students or the NU
Nebraskan Editorial Board. Board of Regents.
mm
mares come true.
Where is the line drawn between one
person's convenience and another per
son's existence? Does the prospect
that your actions, or even your presence,
represent an infringement upon my
succeeding in my goals and my desired
lifestyle give me the right to remove
you from the land of the living? I see
little difference in the thinking that
would allow the death of an unborn
fetus on the grounds that its birth
would wreck havoc for the mother and
the thinking that allowed the repression
of blacks because their freedom would
cause economic turmoil and upset the
goals of the slave owners. Again, the
failure of the analogy escapes me.
This final attempt at justification
demonstrates just how ad hoc the
argument for abortion on demand has
become. Stripped of medical or socio
logical justification, the forces have
turned to an ethical argument that is
unparalleled in the history of moral
philosophy. Pardon me, but I immedi
ately suspect any argument that asks
me to consider untried and unproved
theses in order to understand its rea
soning. I suspect even more when that
reasoning asks me to consider anything
more important than a single person's
right to choose if he will live or die.
This is a week when I shall weep
twice. I have already wept for the shed
blood of a leader who protested the
distribution of freedom based on skin
color. I will weep again for the shed
blood of millions of potential leaders
whose deaths cry out in protest against
the distribution of freedom based on
the luck of the draw.
Sennett is a graduate student in phi
losophy and campus minister with
College-Career Christian Fellowship.
This was a direct signal to the states
that they can offer extra benefits to
pregnant workers.
What next? The California law does
raise the "ceiling" of benefits to
pregnant women, but just a few inches.
It only covers the physical disability of
child-bearing, not child-caring. What
working families need is a much wider
support system "to have families with
out losing their jobs" and jobs without
losing their families.
The Supreme Court has said that we
may allow the special treatment of
pregnancy. The decision is a real, but
not a final, victory for working women.
Another midcourse correction looms
ahead in the path toward equality.
At this moment in change, we need
to do more than just make it a bit easier
for women to carry the double burden
of work and home. We need to share the
load. It's important to mute any dis
advantage that employers find in hiring
women. It's equally important to engage
men in the earliest stages of their
children's lives.
From this plateau, we can take the
next step. We can write disability
programs that cover all workers. We
can legislate child-care leave that in
cludes fathers, like the parental-leave
bill Rep. Pat Schroeder (D-Colo.) is
shepherding through Congress.
We have finally begun to raise the
ceiling. Now it's time to raise the roof.
1S37, The Boston Globe Newspaper
CompanyWashington
Post Writers Group
Goodman is a Pulitzer prize-winning
columnist for the Boston Globe.