Feeding the monster
U.S. can’t afford lavish military budgets
1
General Dynamics Co. plans to lay off 30 percent of its
workforce over the next four years. The move is another
example of the crumbling of the “industrial” in Amer
ica’s long-standing military-industrial complex.
Throughout the Cold War, that complex had been one of the
j pillars of the U.S. economy. The exaggerated threat of war with
the Soviet Union — or with its “agents” across the globe —
was played up by U.S. policymakers. It kept the electorate
happy and greased the economy.
But now, in the early post-Cold War and post-gulf war days,
that “threat” is seen in all its overplayed stage glory. With it
comes the realization that a military-industrial economy and a
global defense force are no longer necessary.
What’s more, the United States and the Soviet Union can no
longer afford to feed the monster.
General Dynamics realizes that. Unfortunately, President
Bush and Congress don’t seem to understand.
The Senate last week approved a $1.46 trillion budget tha*t
includes a near-record projected deficit of $290 billion.
Senators made some minor changes in Bush s outlays to
domestic programs. But it left one big-ticket Bush request
intact — the $295 billion he called for in defense spending.
Granted, that amount is significantly less than the $300
billion-plus defense budgets that were routine during the
Ronald Reagan presidency. But those exorbitant budgets were
considerably more than the economy could support even then,
during the days of frosty, “evil empire” foreign policy.
Now, though, when that empire is in a spiralling decline,
even the pretense of a threat h5s been reduced to never-never
land. And there is no justification for the continued level of
military spending.
Several liberal senators attempted to use that argument to
boost their plans to reduce the defense budget last week. But
Sens. Bill Bradley’s and Paul Simon’s plans to divert $6
billion from the armed forces to social programs and the deficit
were rejected overwhelmingly.
The logic of senators who voted against the Bradley and
Simon plans flies in the face of sound management.
A General Dynamics official told The Associated Press
Wednesday that trimming his corporation would make it a
“leaner, but at the same time a stronger,” business. Apparently,
the Senate operates on different, and less sound, economic
principles. *
„ — E.F.P.
-LETTERS tTh°e EDITOR
DN joke issue reflects reality
I disagree with Pal Jilek’s com
ment that the recent issue of the Daily
Half-Asskin journeyed loo far from
the Daily Nebraskan’s continuous
example of journalistic ethics, integ
rity and style. Perhaps if it had been a
part of the April 1 issue as it has been
in the past, he would havecome to see
it as the joke issue that it is... or is it?
Mr. Jilek, is it up to the Daily
Nebraskan to decide what articles to
print or not to print just so that the
world at large gets a rosy picture of
what occurs on this campus? It seems
to me that it is the job of the students
and their leaders to promote a posi
tive impression of life at the Univer
sity of Nebraska-Lincoln. The DN’s
job is to report what goes on, whether
positive or negative, on this campus
and no one is “safe” from their jour
nalistic eyes — ASUN, RHA, the
regents* the greek system, etc.
The question is whether you or
your cohorts stopped to think about
the copies of the March 14 issue of the
Daily Nebraskan that ended up at
Lincoln businesses, the State Capitol
and the homes of alumni, not to mention
in the hands of a great many UNL
students and professors. On the front
page of that issue, DN staff reporter
Alan Phelps noted that you and sev
eral soon-to-be newly elected mem
bers of the UNITY party, including
its executive slate, were watching “St.
Elmo’s Fire” over beer and pizza in a
fraternity room on this campus. UNL,
Mr. Jilek, is a dry campus and its
fraternities are not excluded from this
rule, neither are ASUN members and
executives. As you so eloquently pul
it, “How can we as students expect
them to take us seriously and be treated
like adults when this is what we show
them?”
I suggest that you not use the Half
Asskin as a scapegoat and that the
leaders, yourself and the students of
this campus direct concern toward
ethics and integrity in daily life. Leave
the reporting to the journalists of the
Daily Nebraskan.
Wendy L. Nielsen
senior
secondary education
-EDITORIAL POLICY—
I ■ I
-LETTER POLICY
Initialed editorials represent offi
cial policy of the spring 1991 Daily
Nebraskan. Policy is set by the edito
rial board.
The Daily Nebraskan’s publishers
are the NU Board of Regents, who
established the University of Nc
braska-Lincoln Publications Board to
supervise daily production of the
paper. According to the regents’ pol
icy, responsibility for the editorial
content lies solely in the hands of the
newspaper’s student editors.
The Daily Nebraskan wel
comes brief letters to the editor
from all readers. Letters will be
selected for publication on the
basis of clarity, originality, timeli
ness and space availability. The
Daily Nebraskan retains the right
*
to edit letters.
Letters should be typewritten
and less than 500 words.
Anonymous submissions will
not be published. Letters should
include the author’s name, ad*
dress, phone number, year in
school and group affiliation, if
any.
Submit material to the Daily
Nebraskan, 34 Nebraska Un,°J’
1400 R SL, Lincoln, Neb. 6858»
0448.
-rue u&tvrs...?
SCMfcOHt ...
i H £• L-U-0 * • • *•
mi■ iiw i ■nunrTT
WALTER GHOLSON & PAT DINSLAGE
Realism: A postgraduate course
"What —Me worry?"
—Alfred E. Neuman
i
"Thousands of us, whether we )ike
it or not, whether we intended to be or
not, find ourselves standing on the
cutting edges of this nation’s life. We
cannot, even if we wished to, sit be
hind closed campus doors and drawn
academic blinds wringing our hands
and hoping that our deep problems
will somehow magically disappear."
—William Birenbaum
his year’s crop of graduates
are about to discover the an
swer to a crucial question: How
well has this university prepared them
for a world that goes on its merry way
oblivious to the struggles, issues and
triumphs associated with surviving
and succeeding in an academic envi
ronment?
It’s a world with an epidemic of
terminal diseases, with poverty, un
employment, oppression, homeless
ness, drug addiction and cutthroat
economic competition.
But wait.
“That’s not my problem,” some,
maybe most, of the graduates may
say. “Gimme a break — I’m just
starting out. I’ve got loans to pay off,
got to get a place to live, get started in
my career. I’ve got plenty of prob
lems of my own.
And they’re right — they do have
plenty of immediate problemsof their
own, and maybe even some long
term problems with which to deal. All
the -isms” have been around a long
time — racism, sexism, classism —
and they II be around for a long time
to come.
“When I get to be successful, when
I get settled a bit, when I get to a
position of power where I can really
do something, then I’ll.. ”
As non-lraditional students —
dinosaurs, possibly — left over from
the Slone Age of the ’60s and ’70s
war and protests, we’ve heard it be
As non-tradi
tional students —
dinosaurs, possibly
— left over from the
Stone Age of the
’60s and ’70s war
and protests, we’ve
heard it before.
fore: The problem definitions, the
•solutions, the promises and threats,
the excuses. And nothing has changed.
If today ’ s soon-to-be graduates did
not deal w ith the “ - ism ” problems as
students, what makes them think that
all of a sudden they’re going to deal
with them in the future? If students
can be isolated front the seriousness
of the -isms on a campus, where ideas
are supposed to flow freely and be ex
changed between different cultures,
races and religions, then why would
they expect it to be any different in
the harsh world of competitive eco
nomics and people even more inter
ested in preserving their status quo
power?
Everybody wants the same oppor
tunities from the “good life:” a good
education with an equal right to pur
sue the elusive clement of happiness.
But is it possible to secure happi
ness in the real world and smile in the
face of social problems that threaten
the stability of the planet? Will these
graduates and future leaders construct
private domains with barbed wire
fences to keep them away from the
problems they didn’t learn about or
deal with in college?
We worry that what college stu
dents and graduates can’t see from
the front door is what we will all have
to deal with in the future. We are
concerned that these students and
graduates have become insensitive
and preoccupied with what a bunch of
political types tell all of us is the right
thing to do.
Those few students who expressed
some concern about the future of our
planet were shunned when they men
tioned the disintegration of the ozone
layer or the need for ecological san
ity. When they stood up for minority
groups, they were labeled hippies,
communists and worse.
, What does this say about our cur
rent educational system? Docs it mean
that once the graduates step across
the stage to receive their degrees,
they also nTust close their eyes to the
needs of those who are not political,
never read Shakespeare or macroeco
nomics?
Will the class of 1991 be more
concerned about jobs and economic
security and less motivated by the
needs of undereducated citizens in
dire need of competent leadership0
Today’s graduates, and the stu
dents still at the university, need to
look at what UNL has prepared them
for. It’s easier to accept and search for
the “good” job/life than to work for
change, to make a difference. It’s also
easier to teach young minds to accept
what they’re told than to teach them
to question what they sec and hear,
whether on the streets or in the class
room. Have the graduates been edu
cated to accept that sexism, racism
and classism will always be a fact, or
have they been educated to work to
erase those problems?
But how is change instituted. It
has to start with the educational proc
ess — by telling the truth, especially
in the classroom. Either education
prepares students to flow into the
mainstream by convincing them that
the mainstream’s goals arc the only
ones worth having, or education pre
pares students to continually question
the status quo and its values.
Unless we begin to retool the edu
cational systems to work for thejowj
of the entire society now, all we w»
ever produce are elitism and its I*hc
cousin “*isms.” , , ,
Dinslagelsasenior news-editorial maj .
a Dally Nebraskan night news editor ana
columnist. Gholson Ls a senior nev*s-i'
major and a Daily Nebraskan columnist
