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The Augusta News - Review February 9.1985
Mallory K. MillenderEditor-Publisher
Paul Walker• Assistant to the Pubhshei
Georgene Hatcher-Seabrook General Manager
Rev. R.E. Donaldsoi Religion Editor
Mrs. Geneva Y. Gibson Church Coordinator
Charles Beale Jenkins County Correspondent
Mrs. Fannie Johnson Aiken County Correspondent
Mr? Clara West McDuffie County Correspondent
Mrs. i*n Buchanan. iii ii i ifashion & Beauty Editor
Linda Starks-Andrews epor er
Roosevelt Green Columnist
A] i-by Columnist
Philip Waring’•.Columnist
Marva Stewart Columnist
George Bailey....,Sports Writer
Carl McCoyEditorial Cartoonist
Olando Hamlett Photographer
Roscoe Williams» Photographer
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Inaugural address:right words
wrong ideas
by Gus Savage
In September of last year, when
the race for the presidency of the
United States was moving into
high gear, I
wrote in a
column: “The
twisting of the
meaning of
words is one of
the things at
which President
Reagan and his
Surrogates are extremely skilled.
Nobody can beat them when it
c'omes to using nice words to
project dangerous ideas and em
ploying holy symbols to hide evil
motivations.”
As I re-read the text of the
President’s inaugural address,
delivered on Monday, Jan. 21, I
am struck by the validity of the ob
servation quoted above, for when
it comes to utilizing the art of
double-speak Reagan was never in
better form than at his second
inaugural.
In continuing his 40-yeai
crusade against government con
cern for the welfare of the people,
the President declared: "We asked
things of government that gover
nment was not equipped to give.
We yielded authority to the
national government that properly
belonged to the states or local
governments, or to the people
themselves.”
Naturally Reagan didn’t men
tion that some of the things he and
the members of his wing of the
Republican Party have always
believed government is not
‘‘equipped to give” is sponsorship
of programs like social security,
unemployment insurance and pen
sions for public workers.
Likewise, he failed to point out
that if we had not ‘‘yielded
authority to the national gover
nment,” legal segregation of the
races still would be the law of the
land.
In the inaugural address, the
President further boasted: ‘‘We
believed then and now: There are
no limits to growth and human
progress, when men and women
are free to follow their dreams.
And we were right to believe that.
Tax rates have been reduced, in
flation cut dramatically and more
people are employed than ever
before in our history”.
Okay, Mr. President, out what
about the facts that some major
corporations don’t pay any tax at
all while the majority of the middle
class has not realized a tax cut,
corporate profits are
mushrooming while the number of
families sliding below the poverty
level is increasing, and Black
unemployment is three times that
of white unemployment?
When you consider that the
number of people entering the job
market each year exceeds the num
ber leaving it, the fact that the
number of people employed ex
ceeds those employed in the
previous ye< is not a guaranteed
indication of an improved
economy. •
Defending his fascination with
Page 4
his “star wars” nuclear defense
systems, the President stated: “I
have approved a research program
to find, if we can, a security shield
that will destroy nuclear missiles
before they reach their target.
It wouldn’t kill people, it would
destroy weapons; it wouldn’t
militarize space, it would help
demilitarize the arsenals of Ear
th.”
Fine, if such a system would
work. However, most experts are
firm in their pronouncements that
for a detensive system to
“demilitarize the arsenals of Ear
th”, it would have to be 100 per
cent effective, and that the cost of
attempting to develop such a
system would bankrupt the
economies of both the United
States and the Soviet Union.
Most credible world opinion
seems to agree that the best option
available to mankind at this state is
the drastic reduction and
elimination of offensive nuclear
weapons.
In a world as complex as ours, it
is naive for the President to think
that merely by unleasing the “en
trepreneurial genius” of American
business benefits will filter down
equitably to the people.
Genuine progress takes genius,
all right, but a genius based on
planning for people instead of for
profits,
By Al Irby
Antagonists on both sides of the
American abortion issue are deeply
disturbed by the recent turn to
r* i
■I Cn
abortion bom
bings—a form
of urban
terrorism that
has no place in
a society
governed by
law. There
have been
20 such incidents across ihe coun
try.
President Reagan rightly called
for an end to such acts in his un
precented Oval Office address to
the Washington March for Life
demonstrators on the 12th an
niversary of the 1973 Supreme
Court decision legalizing abortion
s:“We cannot condone the
threatening or taking of human
llife io protest the taking of human
Civil Rights Journal
by Charles E. Cobb
Just wno is Bernard Goetz, N.Y.’s
so-called “subway vigilante”?
The picture
emerging reve
als no ordinary
NY subway
rider simply
reacting to a
threatening sit
uation.
Let’s look at
the facts. Fact
1— Mr. Goetz, a white man was
hassled by four Black youths for
$5.00. He quickly assumed a
shooter’s crouch and proceeded to
empty his gun into the four. To
quote the Assistant District Attor
ney, “By his own admission he in
tended to kill every one of them
you seen
NOTH lN' YET /
J -NS
l. *J BiAeX tzesoußces ihc.
To Be Equal
Observing 'Black History Month ’
by John Jacob
The celebrations surrounding
Black History Month will pay their
due to great leaders ranging from
Frederick Du
glass to the
Martin Luther
Kings, Roy
Wilkins’, and
Whitney You
ngs of most
recent civil
rights struggles
‘Kr * <’■ |
This is fitting, for a people that
knows its history and is in close
touch with the uniqueness of its
past is a people equipped to face
the future.
Thus, it is appropriate for us to
view the vast panoply of Black
history with pride in the still
continuing struggle to achieve full
equality in fact as in law.
And it is important to pay
tribute to the role Black in
stitutional strengths have played in
that struggle.
For the history of Black
Americans is far from being simply
the story of great men and women
Civility in abortion approach
life byway of abortion,” he said.
The need to maintain civility in
the abortion debate, which touches
on deep emotional and moral
issues, is almost universally
recognized by Americans. Only a
handful 5 percent by one survey
see any usefulness in the bom
bings as a form of political protest,
and then only so long as no one is
injured.
Many who oppose abortion fear
a backlash. The public debate ap
pears headed for more intense
emotional appeals as it is, with
video documentaries and other
techniques intended to make the
anti-abortion case more graphic.
This trend too can hardly be
welcomed.
The public, despite a decade of
controversy over abortion, has
maintained a consistent view.
About one-fifth oppose abortion
A closer look at Bernard Goetz
and only stopped when he ran out
of bullets.” (UNQUOTE).
Fact 2 Mr. Goetz was
carrying an illegal weapon which,
according to the NY Times, was
loaded with dumdum bullets. Such
bullets are generally used because
they rip into the target with greater
impact.
Fact 3 Mr. Goetz shot two of
the youths in the back as they were
running away from him. One
youth remains in the hospital in a
coma and paralyzed from the waist
down. Mr. Goetz then turned in
another direction and shot the
other two youths. He did this in a
subway car crowded with 20 other
passengers.
Fact 4 The grand jury never
heard testimony from either Mr.
struggling against immense forces
of oppression. It is also the story
of millions upon millions of or
dinary, humble Black people who
survived, who held jobs, worked
hard, raised families, and ex
pressed their collective will
through institutions they founded,
guided and suported.
We need only think of the Black
church as one such institution that
comforted a people sorely bur
dened, that defended their rights,
that marshalled their social and
economic power to create islands
of hope in a sea of despair.
Another basic institution is the
Black college, born to teach ex
slaves the will of survival and
-rowing to teach their great
grandchildren the technology of
the 21st century.
There are many other in
stitutions that give voice to Black
hopes and expression to Black
talents
the Black press, the fraternities
and sororities, the business, labor
and professional organizatons, and
under all circumstances, and half
would approve it in certain cases
such as rape incest, or when the
mother’s life is in danger, in a new
Gallup survey for Newsweek.
Somewhat more than half say
they do not question their own
position on abortion, but about 2
in 5 admit to doubts.
Perhaps more to the point is
how the public views what would
happen if the nation returned to
the pre-1973 conditions and abor
tions were made illegal under just
about all circumstances.
Nearly 90 percent think that
women would again break the law
by getting illegal abortions and
that many women would be
physically harmed in abortions
performed by unqualified people.
Eighty-one percent think wealthy
women would still be albe to get
Goetz personally or from the
youths he shot. The District Attor
ney claimed that testimony from
the young men probably would not
have caused the jury to indict Mr.
Goetz because the youths would
simply have claimed their innocen
ce. Presumably the erand jury was
not ot a mind to hear such hearsay.
Fact 5 —The grand jury did not
indict Mr. Goetz for the shootings
because they decided that Mr.
Goetz had not used excessive force
while supposedly defending him
self.
Those are the facts to date.
When the shootings first occurred
no facts were known. Yet many
across this nation, both
both Black and white, rushed to
Mr. Goetz defense. So enraged and
in virtually every community, the
social and fraternal groups.
And numbered among these in
stitutional strengths of the com
munity must be the civil rights and
social welfare organizations, many
of which have roots extending to
the early years of this century. This
year marks the National Urban
League’s 75th anniversary. The
NAACP reached that landmark
last year. Others can point to many
decades of service.
The broad organizational base
of the community enabled Black
people to survive in a hostile en
vironment. It has helped crate new
opportunities while at the same
time trying to correct continuing
inequities and the effects of
discrimination.
Black people understand this
well. Unfortinatelv, the President
does not. He recently said that if
Blacks “ever become aware of the
opportunities that are improving
they might wonder whether they
need some of those
organizations.”
safe abortions. Seven in 10 think
more women would end up with
unwanted children and that
welfare costs would rise to pay for
unwanted children of the poor. Six
in 10 think the moral tone of
America would not improve.
It has proved difficult to weigh
the moral concerns about abor
tion among them, the assuming
of responsibility for conception in
cases where a pregnancy was not
imposed upon the woman, and
respect for evidences of life
against other moral concerns, such
as the woman’s right to privacy
and conscience.
The debate becomes more dif
ficult yet when these concerns are
set against the practical public
issues of making abortion illegal,
which was the public’s experience
vulnerable do we feel in an envior
nment where our well-being is un
der attack, that we not only saluted
the crime, we blinded ourselves to
any racial overtones in the case.
But Mr. Goetz’s own words
remind us that he was not so blin
ded. Before lapsing into a coma,
the paralyzed youth whom Mr.
Goetz shot told his mother that
Goetz himself had instigated the
incident. Mr. Goetz responded,
saying, (QUOTE) “It ’s kind of
ridiculous to consider that
someone—let’s say in my
position—carrying things, would
start up with 3 Blacks in the sub
way.” (UNQUOTE) Not three
thugs, mind you, or 3 armed men,
but 3 BLACKS.
In a city fraught with coverups
of racist violence from both
Black people know that oppor
tunities are improving, thanks in
large part, to the work of their own
institutions. And they also know
that a large portion of the Black
community will need special help
to enable them to participate in
those opportunities.
It is presumptuous for anyone,
even a president, to tell a people
which organizations they need and
which they don’t, especially when
the advice comes from one who
was supported by barely a tenth of
all Black voters and whose Ad
ministration has demonstrably
worsened conditions for Blacks.
Black institutions have survived
not because they met with the ap
proval of presidents, but because
they articulated the needs and
aspirations of Black people and
because they provided their con
stitutents with the services they so
desperately needed.
In this Black History Month it is
good to remember that, and to
recall that our community in
stitutions serve as focal points for
Black progress and achievement.
before 1973: An extensive resort
to illegal abortion that was unsafe
for the poor, readily available for
the better off, and which en
couraged as did prohibition, an
unhealthy flouting of the law.
It decided 6 to 3 to legalize abor
tion in the early stages of pregan
cy. Congress has since decided to
exclude public funds for abortions
for the poor.
A differently composed
Supreme Court, looking at other
cases, could alter the previous
decision. It does not help, with so
difficult a private and public issue,
for the antagonists to resort to
highly charged condemnations,
physical violence, or intimidation.
Legal change, if it is to come
about, must be approached with
civility and respect.
police and civilians—it is up to all
of us to ensure that a complete pic
ture is exposed. What really
happened on that subway on
December 22nd ? Was Bernard
Goetz just a time bomb waiting
to explode, due to an earlier
mugging by a Black youth? Is he,
in fact, guilty of premeditated
murder ?
The grand jury has abdicated its
responsibility to determine the
truth in this case. It is therefore
now up to all of us, nationally, to
keep asking the questions: of our
officials— the Justice Department
and the Federal Grand Jury to seek
answers to raised and unraised
questions—in the media, and
among our ourselves. We must
demand the answers, for if we
don’t, who will ?