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4 » The Red and Black « Friday. March 13,1992
OPINIONS
The Red & Black
Established in 1893 - Incorporated 1980
An independent student newspaper not affiliated with the University of Georgia
Lance Helms/Editor in Chief
Angela Hornsby/Managing Editor
S. M. Hlllmer/Opinions Editor
■ EDITORIALS
Beat those swords
Possibly one of the worst effects of the current reces
sion is the chauvanistic isolationism fostered by politi
cians hoping to capitalize on voter discontent.
Republican presidential candidate Patrick Buchanan
has been the foremost proponent of this “America First”
dogma, and this country can be thankful that his politi
cal shooting star will soon disappear from the horizon.
Some responsible officials, however, have seen that a
stable, politically viable Commonwealth of Independent
States is definitely in this country’s best interest. Even
Buchanan’s former boss - the formerly maligned, former
Imperial President Richard Nixon - has come out in fa
vor of increased aid to the former Soviet Union.
lb this list we can add our own senator, the honor
able Sam Nunn, who recently returned from a four-day
visit to Russia and Ukraine. Nunn, chair of the Senate
Armed Services Committee, said Wednesday that the
United States should be doing considerably more to as
sist the newly independent republics of the old Soviet
Union in moving toward democracy and dismantling
their nuclear arsenals.
“This is a unique time in history," Nunn told the
Associated Press at a news conference. “The United
States government is not yet organized and not yet ener
gized to play the kind of constructive role that we believe
our government and our people must play.”
Nunn secured a congressional appropriation of $400
million last year - along with one of his colleagues on
the trip, Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) - to help the for
mer Soviet republics dismantle their nuclear arsenals
and begin converting their defense industries and work
forces to civilian purposes.
Nunn said, however, that the administration hasn’t
yet spent any of the funds.
The most expensive recommendation, he said, will be
the creation of an international fund to help stabilize the
currencies in Russia, Ukraine and the other newly inde
pendent states.
While $15 billion to $20 billion is needed in that
fund, Nunn said U.S. allies throughout the world also
should contribute. We agree with his assertion that
George Bush should use the same skill he showed in
drumming up financial support for the Persian Gulf War
to marshal similar support for the currency stabilization
fund.
We also support Nunn and his fellow senators in
their recommendations that:
• The U.S. expand humanitarian assistance to the
former Soviet republics, in the form of food and medical
supplies.
• The U.S. assist all republics willing to dismantle
•their nuclear arsenals, rather than focusing solely on
Russia.
• Congress consider eliminating or suspending Cold
War legislation that limits U.S. trade and economic coop
eration with the former Soviet republics.
• Congress expand the government program that
protects American businesses from political risks in
overseas investments.
• The administration treat each new republic as a
fully sovereign state and ensure that the American em
bassy in each republic is fully staffed.
• Bush encourage American businesses to invest in
efforts to covert the defense work force of the old Soviet
Union to civilian purposes by declaring that such invest
ments are in the national interest.
The legacy of two world wars should be warning
enough that the most powerful nation on earth cannont
afford to adopt a laissez-faire foreign policy.
The United States paid dearly for its inactivity then,
and we must not be put in a similar position through
any short-sighted desire for economic security.
STAFF
NEWS: 543-1809
ADVERTISING: 543-1791
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"It's not a fu-fu thing. They run a house for 40 to 70 women."
- Claudia Shamp, adviser to sororities,
on the demands on sorority house mothers.
last of Clinton’s skeletons
Bill Clinton's presidential campaign is a
time bomb that if defused by ths Democrats
will definitely be detonated by the Republicans,
as Clinton has a vsritable walk-in closet just
too fVill of skeletons to withstand eight more ar
duous months before Nov. 3.
The most obvious nightmare haunting a
Clinton nomination is the fact that "Slick
Willie" hasn’t kept ‘Little Willie’ at home. As
The Wall Street Journal reported Jan. 27,
‘Clinton has had extramarital affairs. Any re
porter who has done any research knows it."
And you can bet the mortgage that Republicans
will make this an issue. A December Time-
CNN survey found 42 percent of Americans re
luctant to vote for an adulterer, and The New
York Times reveals 23 percent won’t vote for
one, period. So in a close race, Bush wins on
the sex issue alone.
There are few issues Republicans like to run
on better than “family values,” and, as political
scientists Elaine Swift and Kenneth Finegold
point out in the Jan. 23 New York Times, “The
G.O.P. would like nothing better than to shift
attention from the economy to the personal life
of the Democratic candidate." Since Democratic
nominees get pummeled for being perceived as
morally AWOL on lifestyle questions, how
much more weakened will Clinton be when his
own personal life magnifies such stereotypes?
George Bush loves negative campaigns and
would relish papering over policy failures with
images of himself, Barbara and the grandchil
dren trumpeting the Norman Rockwell family
album. Lanny Lunchbucket may be bewildered
on the capital gains tax cut, but he sure picks
up visual cues and code words concerning mat
ters close to home. Especially in Clinton’s
Southern base will his sexual mischief hurt
him, since this is the deep-rooted home of fun
damentalists who won’t unbuckle the Bible
Belt for a blow-dried slick talker resembling a
televangelist.
And with Gennifer Flowers peddling her sto
ry for $100,000, can you seriously imagine no
other Clinton paramour selling out? Why,
Republican surrogates have millions of dollars
to wave before such tarts. Exactly what kind of
woman commits adultery with a married father
and governor in the first place - one who
wouldn’t betray an ex-illicit lover for big bucks?
Not!
On Clinton's alleged draft-dodging - again
independent of the charge’s merits or relevance
- a prescient Bob Kerrey warns that Clinton
would "be opened up like a boiled peanut’ by
Bush. This, too, plays right into another vener
able Republican dogma that Democrats aren’t
patriotic enough. Remember Bush’s effective
exploitation of the Pledge of Allegiance “issue”
against Dukakis? And you don’t think we’d be
inundated with ads depicting WW1I hero Bush
flying in combat juxtaposed with Clinton’s art
ful avoidance of Vietnam? Liberals in
Democratic primaries don’t care about the
draft, but millions of more conservative veter
ans’ families do and will vote accordingly in
November.
A continuing incongruity between the gover
nor’s public rhetoric and private behavior en
capsulates why he’s long been called “Slick
Willie.” Indeed, he has a history of smoothly
speaking out of both sides of his mouth to cali
brate his pitch to opposing constituencies.
Thus, he proclaims himself resolutely pro-
choice, yet signs a law forcing girls to face their
parents before having an abortion. He boasts
that he’s pro-union, yet helps bust one. And he
singles himaelf out as the Democrat who sup
ported Desert Storm despite conflicting quotes
on it at the time.
A vivid example of his zig-zagging was when
he vetoed a bill only to hours later send some
one with a coathanger to fetch it under an of
fice door so he could endorse it after meeting
with its upset supporters. Ife no mystery why
Arkansas special interests bankroll his cam
paigns.
He also lies. A recent tale ha* Pat Buchanan
going to a Confederate cemetery but refusing to
visit a black one next door. The story portrays a
politician fueling racial animosities, but it’s
false. Buchanan merely placed flowers on an
ancestor’s grave in an old Mississippi cemetery
that (like most Southern graveyards of similar
vintage) has some Confederate soldiers in
terred. But if an honest account won’t grease
Slick Willie’s election trsin, fiction is preferred
(a new lie has Tsongas favoring "across the
board” capital gains tax cuts).
There’s also Mr. Clinton's temper to worry
about as his enraged reaction to a report of
Jesse Jackson endorsing Tom Harkin bore out.
During his recent media scrutiny, we've seen
how an embattled Slick Willie impulsively
lashes out. Wait ’til the Republicans assault
him.
A final vulnerability the GOP would mine is
that there’s certainly been no Arkansas miracle
during his 11-year governorship. Only Clinton
will provide cover for Bush on the environment,
for example. The Feb. 3 edition of Nation be
moaned Arkansas' “dismal" environmental
record and noted it ranks 48th on the "Green
Alert’ scorecard. As for his ballyhooed educa
tion reforms, Arkansas had almost nowhere to
f o but up and remains in the national cellar.
or instance, the Oct. 21 New Republic notes
that while its high school graduation rate’s
gone up, “Arkansas also has the highest per
centage of college freshmen requiring remedial
help."
Bill Clinton is just too exposed to survive the
onslaught of Bush Inc., and it’ll be a shame if
the Democrats yet again blow a real opportuni
ty to take back the White House by saddling
themselves with another loser before the fall
campaign even gets out of the gate.
Douglas Young is a graduate student in politi
cal science.
History easily disproves ad
As a non-Jew and a non-jour
nalist, I would like to offer my re
sponse to the (Monday) ad “The
Holocaust Controversy: The Case
for Open Debate." Were the issues
behind Smith's ad not so signifi
cant, it could be dismissed without
comment. It is riddled with mis
statements, distortions and histor
ical inaccuracies. The historical
record refutes these false asser
tions again and again. Most stu
dents recognize this. The chance
remains, however, that some peo
ple might actually have been per
suaded by his slippery arguments
to question the well-established
facts of the Holocaust. Obviously,
for reasons of space, not all of his
charges can be answered in this
letter, but the following quotes
from the records should give a
sense of what may be found in doc
uments and memoirs. These
quotes and records cited are repre
sentative and chosen for their ex
plicitness. Countless others may
be found with a cursory examina
tion of the material.
Nazi efforts to exterminate the
Jews predate the use of death
camps. Four execution units
known as Einsatzgruppen followed
the German army as it moved
eastward into new territory. One
report dating to the fall of 1941
from Einsatzgruppe C records,
The Sonderkommando 4a ... exe
cuted 33,771 Jews in Kiev on 29
and 30 September 1941.” A report
from Einsatzgruppe D states,
“From 16 September to 30
September 22,467 Jews and
Communists were executed."
These figures record what hap
pened within a period of a few
days, but the extermination
squads were active from the sum
mer of 1941 until the death camps
became fully operative in 1942. An
estimated two million Jews died at
their hands.
On October 4, 1943, in an ad
dress to a group of 66 officers,
Himmler discusses the “final solu
tion." He states, “I am referring to
the evacuation of the Jews, the an
nihilation of the Jewish people ...
Most of you must know what it
means to see a hundred corpses lie
side by side, or five hundred, or a
thousand. To have stuck this out
and - excepting cases of human
weakness - to have kept our in
tegrity, this is what has made us
hard. In our history, this is an un
written ... page of glory."
As for the camps, Smith states,
"There was no German policy at
any of thoee camps to deliberately
kill the internees." Smith main
tains that the “myth of extermina
tion gas chambers’ developed from
the actual use of delousing cham
ber*. He implies that the m«0ority
of Jewish deaths resulted from
starvation and disease in the last
days of the war.
While thousands of imprisoned
Jews did perish from disease, the
systematic extermination of Jaws
in these camps is an irrefutable
fact. Rudolf Hoess testified on
March 16, 1946, "I personally ar
ranged on orders received from
Himmler in May 1941 the gassing
of two million persons between
June-July 1941 and the end of
1943, during which time I was
commandant of Auschwitz." It
must be noted that this figure is
for Auschwitz alone. Hoess dis
cusses the gassing further in his
autobiography, "Commandant of
Auschwitz."
Smith questions why the Allies
did not know about the Holocaust.
In fact, in June 1942, reports of
massacres of over a million Jews
were published in the English
newspapers The Times, Daily Mail
and the Manchester Guardian.
Allied media ran reports for the
duration of the war on what was
known. Allied governments and
private organizations did receive
intelligence concerning the Nazi
programs against the Jews. On
December 17, 1942, the Allies is
sued a declaration, Ths German
Policy of Extermination of the
Jewish Race," which stated that
the German government was “car
rying into effect Hitler’s oft-repeat
ed intention to exterminate the
Jewish people in Europe ... The
number of victims of these bloody
cruelties is reckoned in many hun
dreds of thousands of entirely in
nocent men, women, and children
... [we] condemn in the strongest
poe-ible terms this bestial policy of
cold-blooded extermination."
Smith argues, "With regard to
the alleged genocide of the
European Jews, all available docu
mentation indicates that there was
no order for it, no plan, no budget,
no weapon ... and no victim."
Anyone wishing to question this
statement may examine the eigh
teen volumes of The Holocaust,"
edited by John Mendelsohn, which
is in our library (D810.J4 H666).
This compendium contains repre
sentative pre-war and wartime
German documents as well as
court records and statements. In
addition to this work, see the well-
documented works by Lucy
Dawidowicz, The War Against the
Jews’ and ‘A Holocaust Reader."
Our library contains numerous
other works on the Holocaust, and
the religion department offers a
course on the Holocaust every
spring quarter.
Of course, Smith would disre
gard all of this. He argues that
‘only a handful of documents’ ex
ists - all of which are, according to
him, ambiguous. He diismisses mil
itary records, memos, private
records such as diaries, and court
testimonies. He declares innumer
able eyewitness accounts, by both
Germans and Jews, “ludicrously
unreliable." We rely on eyewitness
testimony in part for our under
standing of all history. Our knowl
edge of the existence of undisputed
historical figures such as Jesus,
Alexander the Great and Julius
Caesar depends entirely on eyewit
ness accounts. Testimonies con
cerning the Holocaust are corrobo
rated by massive documentation.
Herein lies Smith’s method. By ar
bitrarily rejecting all primary evi
dence, one may reconstruct history
however on* chooses.
Efforts such as those by Smith
are dangerous and offensive for
several reasons. They distort our
historical record and cloud our un
derstanding of ths present. By
suggesting that the Holocaust is a
myth perpetuated for sympathy
and political gain, they foster anti-
Semitism and contribute to our
country’s undercurrent* of racism.
They trivialize the loss of millions
■ FORUM
of individuals and the continuing
grief that accompanies such a loss.
They minimize the shock that
should accompany the realization
that in the 20th century, ordinary
people in a civilized society sys
tematically dehumanized a group
of people and attempted to exter
minate them because of their eth
nicity and their religion. In doing
so, they were expressing the
themes of prejudice which have
been dominant for centuries in
Western culture and which contin
ue to this day. That Smith expends
his time, energy, and resources to
propagate his misinformation is
tragic. It would be more tragic if
his misleading and erroneous pro
paganda were believed.
Mark Chancey
Graduate, religion
Minorities need forum
I applaud The Red and Black’s
decision to run Bradley Smith's
controversial Holocaust advertise
ment Monday. There. I said it.
Someone had to. If I had been con
fronted with that situation, I
would have made the same deci
sion, and 111 tell you why.
Many people argued that the ad
should not have been run because
it was “offensive." Poor babies! To
ensure that these people are never
again offended by anything they
see or hear, I personally vow to fol
low them around for the rest of
their natural lives and cover their
eyes or ears when they encounter
something that may potentially of
fend them. I also understand that
Pat Buchanan and Jesse Helms
have openings available for people
who want to impose their defini
tions of offensiveness on others. (I
am sorry for those who found the
ad painful to read. I also hope they
didn’t masochistically force them
selves to read it. No one else forced
them.)
I would also like the thank all
of the people who wrote to The Red
and Black to criticize the ad for as
suming that everyone (except
themselves) would read the ad and
be too stupid to identify it as
garbage. I like to think that, as
college students, we here at the
University have a modicum of in
telligence. I thank The Rod and
Black for considering me intelli
gent enough to make up my own
mind.
But what is really important
hsr* is the First Amendment ques
tion. There is no question that the
paper had the right to print the
ad, and just as rightly, it could
have declined to print it. The real
issues here are the most funda
mental reasons that we have a
First Amendment at all, to encour
age a free and vigorous debate in
the marketplace of ideas, where
truth and falsity can compete.
The people who would deny this
paper its right to run the ad or dis
parage its editors for doing so (by
calling them “unethical" or “fraud
ulent," for example) quit* frankly
scare me. By refusing this ad, the
paper would have set a precedent
for reftising any minority the abili
ty to present its views by claiming
someone might be offended or that
the minority does not have a "le
gitimate" right to speak. By deny
ing Smith’s ad, the paper could
then easily justify refusing to print
something by a homosexual group,
for example. Some people are of
fended by homosexuals and think
that homosexuality is morally
wrong; therefore, the paper
couldn’t run such an ad. QED.
I think The Red and Black took
the only ethical path, making the
truly unbiased decision to run an
editorial advertisement with
which they did not agree. I admire
the paper for allowing me to decide
what I want to read and giving me
the opportunity to think for my
self, rather than taking it away
from me by arbitrarily deciding
which minority viewpoints are “le
gitimate."
Of course, people also claimed
that the ad shouldn’t run because
it was false. Well, Mr. Smith had
one point right - the only way I
know his ad is false is because of
what I’vs been told for many
years. I still believe Smith’s ad is
garbage, but I do not know enough
to refute his claims point-by-point
(as so many critics claimed they
could but declined to do). I imagine
other students here also cannot,
products of the wonderful
American educational system who
learned that the Civil War was
fought in the 18th century, who
identify Charlemagne as “a type of
fish," and who can locate
Greenland on a map only when
asked to find Arkansas. Jewish
students here understandably
know more about the Holocaust
than students who may have slept
through the 10 minutes it was cov
ered in high school.
People offended by this ad
should be thankful for the chance
to respond and educate others. The
falsity of the ad is its main contri
bution to the debate. By providing
such dark contrast, it provides a
place for the light of truth to shine.
(Pardon the cliches.) These people
should also appreciate that the
Nazi Holocaust is remembered -
correctly or incorrectly - as op
posed to the general apathy to
ward other genocides of the past
100 years in countries such as
Cambodia, Armenia, China, the
Soviet Union, Pakistan and the
Congo Free State. Or the smaller
scale genocides - leaving only hun
dreds of thousands dead - in
places like Uganda, Indonesia,
Albania, Burundi, Ethiopia, Spain
and the United States, to name a
few.
Lastly, I'd like to paint out that
there is a lot of garbage in the
marketplace of idea* (caveat emp-
tor), and we can’t make it go away
just by ignoring it. It needs to be
aired out and cleaned up. It may
not be pretty or painless, but it's a
hell of a lot better than the alter
native: allowing ths government,
The Red and Black, David Duke or
anyone else to choose an arbitrary
point beyond which discussion
may not go, and squelching the
rights of a minority who may hav*
a valuable piece of truth to offer.
And to all of you people on ths
Tate Center Plaza rallying to
protest the ad: Be thankftil that
you are allowed to exercise your
rights to assemble peaceably and
freely express your ideas.
David L. Hart
Graduate, journalism