Newspaper Page Text
Page 4
The Red and Black
Wednesday. November II, 1981
GjjZ Red^n^BlacK
Istublishcd ISV.l — Incorporated I ISO
*
GCPA
( harlcs II. Kussill. (mural Manager
Juslin (lillis. I dilur in chiil Mot (■uldhvrg. Manauinu Idilor
Iff indc/tt ndent student firuqw/H; not ulliltulcd tilth the l niver\it\ nl (icorniu
Let justice be done
Members of the Elbert County Board of
Education slithered out of their holes long
enough last week to perpetrate a shocking viola
tion of civil liberties and constitutional rights.
The school board fired special education
teacher Peyton Hammond Mize, who was ar
rested early last month on a charge of public in
decency in the men’s restroom of Peabody Hall.
The school board’s action followed a decision by
Athens-Clarke County Magistrate Pierre
Boulogne to drop all charges in the case.
Mize and his attorney submitted to Boulogne a
letter from a physician which Boulogne took as
an adequate explanation of Mize’s behavior in
the restroom. Mize, though understandably
reluctant to discuss his physical problems, said
Tuesday he had recently undergone surgery to
correct a medical condition. That problem caus
ed behavior in the restroom which a police of
ficer interpreted as "public indecency.”
None of that made an impression on the
Elbert County school board although it convinc
ed a judge. The board has apparently already
made up its mind. Raise any talk at all of
homosexuality in a small town like Elberton —
whether the talk is justified or not — and heads
must roll.
One is simply taken aback. Never mind that
Mize, an Athens resident, is by all accounts a
good teacher. Never mind that he received a
governor’s award for the quality of his program.
Never mind that his colleagues twice nominated
him for Teacher of the Year. Never mind that
his career has been severely damaged and
possibly ruined by the school board’s action.
None of that matters at all.
What matters to the cretins in Elbert County
is that Mize was accused of being a homosexual.
The school board did have the courtesy to wait
until after the judge’s hearing to meet with
Mize. It waited exactly an hour and a half, and
Boulogne’s decision had no effect at all. Accused
of a crime, eh, Mr. Mize? Well, to hell with
judges, we think you're guilty.
Have men and women not sacrificed and
struggled for rule by law? Did we not adopt a
Constitution and a Bill of Rights to protect us
from the arbitrary exercise of the state’s
awesome authority? Has not our history been a
struggle against just such abuses as this?
Not to hear the Elbert County school board tell
it. The mere accusation of impropriety was con
vincing evidence. Mize conceded that he might
as well never have gone into the Nov. 3 meeting;
a certified copy of Boulogne's order dismissing
the charges made no impression at all.
Would any member of the Elbert County
school board enjoy if he had been arrested and
charged with a crime he did not commit? Would
he care to have his job and reputation stripped
away on the basis of a charge that was clearly
unjust? Is one’s guilt to be deduced from the
mere circumstance that one has been charged
by the state? What then of freedom? Precisely
what remains of liberty?
Mize’s attorney believes his client has an ex
cellent case, if he chooses to sue. Though the law
about when school boards have a right to
dismiss teachers is unclear, this is one case
where a clear wrong has been perpetrated.
There is no excuse for it, and we hope Mize pur
sues every legal avenue to punish the board for
its narrow-minded ignorance.
“Let justice be done,” the Roman lawmakers
used to say, “though the heavens fall.”
Here s. Now: Maxwell Glen and Cody Shearer
Polishing up on Solidarity
Polish jokes are out of fashion these
days. Americans and Western
Europeans have been reduced to
gaping at the success of the Polish
workers' rebellion Well they should,
for the independent union Solidarity's
vision of a democratic and decen
tralized economic system is as much a
challenge to Western corporate
capitalism as it is to the "socialism" of
the Soviet Union and its satellites.
Solidarity and the government have
announced plans for a new round of
talks this week aimed at resolving the
country's economic crisis. The an
nouncement followed an unprecedented
meeting between new government head
Wojciech Jaruzelski, union leader Lech
Walesa, and Poland's Catholic ar
chbishop
The meeting underscored what was
already apparent: The workers have
revolted in the workers' state, and a
new order has arisen to challenge the
regime.
On the streets of Krakow, liberals
flaunt anti-government posters and T-
shirts, usually with impunity.
Throughout the country, wildcat strikes
that not even Solidarity can stop have
been called to protest price hikes, food
shortages and political repression.
The government, brought by cir
cumstances to the blunt recognition
that the trade-union movement and its
demands command widespread sup
port, has been forced to deal. Moscow
sits on the sidelines, deploring the
movement but clearly unwilling to pay
the dear costs that military in
tervention would entail.
What Solidarity wants is hard to pin
down and label The immediate causes
of the 1980 shipyard strike that led to
the union's formation were price hikes
and chaotic economic conditions, which
haven't really improved.
The Zloty. Poland's currency, has
lost most of its value as a unit of
economic exchange. Widespread
shortages and long lines to get the
meager rations that do see their way to
the shelves have fostered an un
derground barter economy; the pockets
of many Polish workers are lined with
money, but there is nothing for them to
buy. A bottle of vodka or a carton of
cigarettes commands the respect in the
marketplace that the Zloty cannot.
Solidarity blames the government
and its central planners for the coun
try's economic condition. Though there
are many differences, Poland's
economy is organized along the lines of
Russia’s, with nationalized industries
controlled by bureaucrats. To date
there is little or no wot ker participation
in economic decisions; further, Poland
hasn't even the "invisible hand" that is
supposed to regulate resource
allocation in a capitalist market
economy
But the discontent in Polish society
clearly runs deeper than economic
conditions Poles have never quite been
brainwashed with Communist
propaganda the way Russians have,
largely because the Catholic church has
been a strong moderating force, a
platform from which humanistic, anti-
government views have for decades
made their way to the masses.
Information contrary to the Com
munist-party line was pretty widely
available even before the 1980 strike;
now it can be had openly, through
Krakow's leading newspaper, through
Solidarity (which gets Western press
reports by telex) and through the
church. Censorship is still practiced,
but opponents of the regime have the
tools to fight it. Solidarity has, and will
probably get, demanded access to the
mass media.
What is fascinating is that Poland, as
Poles themselves like to point out. is a
Western country with Western
traditions. Krakow was long one of
Europe's leading cultural centers, and
Poles have made crucial contributions
to Western art, literature and political
and scientific thought. (Nicholaus
Copernicus was an alumnus of
Krakow's university.) The Polish
nobility of the 16th century, in an
episode strikingly like that in which
English nobles gained the Magna
Charta, secured for themselves
numerous political freedoms, including
the right to elect their king.
Poland's alliance of workers and
Catholic intellectuals, as it struggles to
galvanize popular support for and state
acquiescence in a decentralized
economy, thus draws on Western
values to which Poland itself con
tributed.
What ought to be of central concern to
Westerners who say they support
Solidarity is that those values challenge
not only the authoritarianism of the
Polish system, but they explicitly
contradict the patterns of political and
economic organization that have come
to characterize European and
American life.
On both continents, but especially in
the United States, political alienation is
the norm A planning system that was
Franklin Roosevelt's answer to social
chaos, and is Ronald Reagan’s stock-in-
trade despite his claims to the contrary,
deprives the people of political and
economic choices that are by right
theirs, putting those choices in the
hands of “experts."
Monstrous corporations that are
worlds away from Adam Smith's
competitive model make decisions that
affect the lives of millions, and they are
accountable to no one. (General Motors
and Exxon cynically hire bevies of
flacks to march around singing the
praises of competitive capitalism.)
The American banking system,
whose policies are crucial to individual
freedoms and choices, is controlled by
— you guessed it — bankers.
We live, in short, in a planned society
Lech Walesa would gag almost as
quickly in America as in Poland,
something Ronald Reagan and his
henchmen clearly do not realize
One could carry the parallel too far
The patterns of social organization
have an essential unity, but they differ
vastly in detail. Western political
freedoms provide both a basis for
challenging the system and a method
for ameliorating conflicts over it.
Nothing of the sort holds true in Poland.
Still, the Poles are to be admired and
watched carefully. U S supporters of
Solidarity correctly point out that the
union is attempting something for
which there are few precedents and no
contemporary models in the East or
West: economic self-determination for
workers. Can such a system answer
political and economic needs in a
society of rising aspirations? Can op
position leaders avoid a hard-line
backlash that stops their movement in
its tracks?
The direction that American
progressive thought takes over the next
half-century — and more importantly,
the political program it sets forth —
may depend on answers from across
the sea.
Justin Gillis is editor-in chie/ of The
Red and Black.
More than flag-waving this Veterans Day
BOSTON — Our nation doesn’t make
much of Veterans Day anymore Flags
fly at half-mast and fresh wreaths
grace local war memorials Since most
American veterans work, only a frac
tion lake to the streets to honor those
w ho aren't around
And (or Americans born after 1945,
Veterans Day w as once a school holiday
but little more
Yet today, college students and
science professors on 140 campuses
around the nation will be putting their
Veterans Day to good use As part of a
national teach-in, they'll try to come to
grips with the possibility of a nuclear
war
Armageddon is not a pleasant
thought Since Hiroshima, most
Americans have either exorcised it
from their thoughts entirely or reduced
it to sick jokes According to a recent
Newsweek poll, only 18 percent of all
Americans "frequently” think about
nuclear war Most say they are
"concerned " but go into punt forma
tion w hen the topic arises
Lately, however, we've been hard-
pressed to maintain this "out of sight,
out of mind” attitude
President Reagan last summer
authorized the Defense Department to
proceed with production of the neutron
warhead He subsequently endorsed the
production of 100 MX missiles and 100
B-l bombers Moreover, Reagan has
said a nuclear war can be limited to
Europe, displays little interest in arms
control and leaves the impression that a
nuclear war can be fought — and won
These conditions, coupled with the
demise of SALT II last year, led the
Union of Concerned Scientists based
here to organize a 12-college con
sortium to help young people "think
about the unthinkable Since Labor
Day. over 130 additional schools have
joined
"Our national memory is quite
short," said Eric Van Loon, executive
director of the 100,000-member Union
“Today’s students don’t have a clear
understanding of the bomb.”
On most campuses, the national
teach-in will include a brief introduc
tory course on the logistics, dimensions
and the likely outcome of a nuclear
war There will be slide shows of
missile systems, diagrams about the ef
fects of nuclear blast radiation, and
hopefully, plenty of questions from the
audience.
One lesson many undergraduates
may learn is that neither the tynited
States nor the Soviet Union can truly
"contain" a nuclear war Leonid
Brezhnev even admitted this to a Ger
man newsmagazine last week Mean
while, the well-respected International
Institute for Strategic Studies in Lon
don published a paper last month
stating, "Once it begins there can real
ly be no possibility of controlling
nuclear war.”
For most schools, the teach-in will be
a one-speaker, one-night affair. On
other campuses, however, favorites
such as scientist Carl Sagan, economist
Paul Samuelson and Sen. Gary Hart, D-
Colo . will speak, as well as a handful of
Nobel Prize-winning physicists. UCLA
is sponsoring a five-day film festival to
boost interest in their teach-in
Sponsors here say that their Veterans
Day events aren't necessarily aimed at
defusing the MX, cruise missile, or the
neutron warhead. They simply want to
jolt younger Americans into thinking
realistically about nuclear war.
They know, moreover, that Ronald
Reagan won't be able to dismiss their
efforts as easily as he has brushed aside
the dozen disarmament rallies held
recently in Western Europe
"The teach-ins will be conducted by
doctors, economists and presidential
science advisers," Van Loon told our
associate. Michael Duffy. "It's not ex
actly a group of left-wing students mar
ching around under banners. This will
reach citizens and voters in our coun
try."
The scientists will have their work
cut out for them On one hand, only one
American in 10 believes he or she w ould
live through a supposed "limited ex
change” of nuclear missiles At the
same time, the nation has
"pathologically denied" the possibility
of real nuclear war for years, according
to the former president of the American
Psychiatric Association. It's a tough
paradox to crack.
Yet, unless the nation begins confron
ting the growing possibility of nuclear
war, the arms race will continue un
checked. In addition, till the public
TO THE EDITOR:
1 was very disappointed with Julia
Dinkins' response to Man Martin's
"Simon.” I think his cartoon shows
much more intellect than its
predecessor "Murray" or its com
petitor "Roommates."
It is a shame that Dinkins cannot see
Martin's reference to black people for
what it really is. Simon questioning his
black friend shows his desire for
understanding, not his intention to poke
fun. Here Martin makes his most im
portant statement: How are whites and
blacks ever to understand one another
if we do not explore each other?
I find it refreshing to see such issues
explored in a cartoon format, which
helps us to see ourselves with a little
humor Therefore, I can't help but
takes a stand, our leaders won't see
much political gain in seeking the arms
reductions that could lessen our fears
and preserve our future We hope
discussions like these on campuses this
week will help the Reagan administra
tion take the late-November Theater
Nuclear Force arms talks with the
Soviets in Geneva seriously
Of course, some people might suggest
that it s disrespectful or unpatriotic to
scrutinize the nation's strategic
defenses on Veterans Day.
But Nov. ll may be a natural time to
take note of the full effects of a
worldwide war. In recalling the past, it
seems instructive to look ahead to the
possibility of World War III.
Obliterating the world is not a pleasant
thought. Veterans can attest to that.
Copyright 1981
Field Newspaper Syndicate
wonder why Martin's "Simon" is not
published every day
DONNAS. EMERSON
Junior, art education
‘Look it up’
TO THE EDITOR:
In my dictionary, Mr Emmett C.
Dennis, "black” means "of the color
black" and "white” means “free from
color ” Since both terms refer to color I
believe they are equal
1 wouldn't care if you were purple as
long as I felt you were a worthwhile
person to know
LISAK. MORGAN
Senior, telecommunications
nuist e* m m m\m vet m nmqrim...,,"
Letters
‘Run ‘Simon’ every day’
Editorial: 543-1809
Chi*/copy editor Sylvia Colwell
Copy editor* Elaine Dukakis Kale Wyatt Joan
Lamia
New* edft.tr Ed IvTgge
A imm iate new « editor David Nelson
Sport* editor .Mack Browning
Entertainment editor Kevin Hu knell
Photo editor Nancy Shepherd
An director LuTTi Preston
Trotting coordinator Andna Krewton
Auutonl new* editori Demse Seatey BobKeye*
At*utant»ports editor MikeChnatenaen
Anstant photo editor BlU Tumblm
Editorial page editor Tom Lee
W ire editor Chris Tiegreen
OCA Todoy coordinator Maeveen Behan
Librarian Jan Hulling*
Advertising: 543-1791
Advertising manager David Kainei
Sale* Training manager VickieO'Bnen
< /us.i/ied ad manager Paul Pendergrass
Advertising representative* Lee Ashworth Doug
Bailey Jeff Hemng Lua Lindgren Mark Malon* y
Jean W ilton
Production: 543-1791
Production manager Stephan A Beard
A Mutant production manager l.isa K Morgan
Production itaff Karleen Chalker Sonya Boltin. Joy
Pennington. Bill Krueger, Dara Sawyer. Brenda
Cleveland
Contributions
The Ked and Black an independent vtudent new super not at
filiated with the limrrsity of *ieorgia u published Tuesday
through Enday with the exception of holiday* and examination
period* by the Hed vnd Black Publishing Co . Inc an inrtepen
dent non protit corporation The Red and Black u printed bv
Walton Press Inc Monroe Oa Second cla** postage paid at
Athena Ua Juhui
The Ked and Black weteome* letter* to the editor and print* them
a* space permit* Due lo spare limitation and legal consi.ier.ition>
all letter* are subject lo standard editing tor iihrlou* material and
length Short teller* are prelerred To be considered for public,i
tton letter* mini be typed .Amide «paeed on a Mi spare line They
must include the name, address and telephone numlnr of the
writer Please include student classification and ma)nr nr ap
propriate idrntificalMin ' professor I mon otlicer etc • Wr can
omit your name in print lor a valid reason on request
(alters should not exceed 1 ilouMr spaced lypewrtMrnpagr*
The Ked and Hlack also prints guest editoral column* muter the
same condition* that apply to letter* to the editor Column* should
not exceed four double spaced l v prw nllrn page*
Column* and letter* should be addressed TO THE EDITOR The
Red and Hlack 12-1 N Jackson Si Alhrn* (la UNii lazier* can
also be delivered lo the editorial office al the above adder** or
deposited in any of The Red amt Hi.uk * clamfird ad luxe* on cam
pu*
Opinion* expre**cd in The Red ami Hlack uthrr than unsigned
editorial* are the opinmn* of the artier* of *igmd mhmuw or car
luoro and an* not necessarily itw of Th. Rest ..m! HUk
Publishing Cn . Im
The enltn* content* of The H*d and KUck an* C.^n right I Mil In
The Ked and HUk l*ubli*htng C. Im ill right* rr*er\ed
Reprint y by prrmi**ionnf I hr editor*
Inquine* concerning article* Hut hate appr.tr.sl... The |<ed and
Hlack 'houl.1 hr madr at the editorial office* t«M>SU I MM In
tfutrie* about advertising sfciuld be modi* al the I hoi new* offirr.
(JM>KM79I
Subscription rate is 124 per year ( all . «M>SU I7»l for mforma