The Battalion
Viewpoint
December 1,1981
J
Slouch By Jim Earle
TMAS
"TRESS
5?ECIAL
"Want a money-saving hint? Wait till after Christmas; they’re
much cheaper then. ’’
U.S. needs 50, not
one, economic plans
By DAVID S. BRODER
NEW ORLEANS — When the Republi
can governors met here for a couple of clays
just before Thanksgiving, they gave a clas
sic demonstration of that aphorism,
“Where you stand depends on where you
sit.” In interviews previewing the likely
dynamics of the 1982 election, they showed
how much their view of President Reagan’s
economic policy depends on the health —
or sickness — of their own state economies.
To Gov. Robert F. List of Nevada, where
state gaining revenues are up 14 percent
this year and the economy has “helped .the
recession only in a very limited way,” it
seems that "Reagan is doing better all the
time. He is stronger than ever in the West.
Try telling that to Gov. Victor G. Atiyeh
of Oregon. He says it’s “getting tougher and
tougher” to defend the president. The se
vere and prolonged nationwide housing
slump has brought not a recession, but de
pression, to Oregon’s vital forest products
industry. Statewide unemployment, now at
10.6 percent, is projected to jump to 12.5
percent in the next few months.
Atiyeh is no less a conservative or a
Republican loyalist than List. “I support
the president in trying to cut both taxes and
budget,” he says. “But it’s a question of
timing.” Where List says there has been
“no real grief” on the first round of cuts in
federal aid to Nevada, Atiyeh says the im
pact in Oregon has been “unbelievable.
People don’t want big spending programs,
but when you have the kind of unemploy
ment we have, they expect the govern
ment to help.”
The debate between the two Westerners
has its counterparts all across the country.
Energy-rich Sun Belt governors like Wil
liam P. Clements Jr. of Texas and David C.
Treen of Louisiana were cheering the presi
dent on, while farm-state governors like
Robert D. Ray of Iowa were warning that
Reagan’s personal popularity does not con
vince voters that “his policies will help the
farm economy.”
The Battalion
USPS 045 360
MEMBER
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Southwest Journalism Congress
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Cartoonist. . . . Scott McCullar
Graphic Artist Richard DeLeon Jr.
Photographers Rose Delano
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Speaker turns ‘informative’
discussion into propaganda
[he Nov.
dent in a
Editor:
On November 21 in room 301 Rudder
Tower there was a conference on American
Policy in Central America. The speaker was
Dr. Margarita Melville of the University of
Houston, This meeting was sponsored by
the International Student’s Assoication
here on campus.
Since this is a country where the right to
free speech is carefully guarded, Dr. Mel
ville had every right to come here and ex
press her views. To counter or to agree with
Dr. Melville’s views a representative panel
was chosen from the student organizations
of Venezuela, Honduras, Belize, Guatema
la, El Salvador and the United States. Each
country had one representative, except El
Salvador. All these representatives but one
were told not to prepare for this meeting.
They were merely supposed to be an infor
mative panel. The exception to this was the
second representative form El Salvador.
This “surprise” representative of El Salva
dor was Joaquin Samayoa, the underground
leader of the Farabundo Marti National
Liberation Front (FMLN). This front is the
Readers
Forum
speech. It lasted exactly ten minutes,
the other members of the panel, lie prog
spoke too long, some didn’t speal id 10 p i'
enough, but nobody else tinishedine T'clV
10 minutes. This has all the maldnt ^ ra P e '
planned speech. Secondly, nobody)! ^' ycai ’ ( '
the I.S.A.?) knew Samayoa wast»
What was supposed to be a neutral
had become dangerously red. Last!)
panel members had been told not! k.aimi
pare. This left them at a distinctdisa
tage when facing two well-prt| rd. Wit!
spearhead of the communist movement in
El Salvador and has been proven responsi
ble for rampant terrorist activity in that
country including rocket attacks on the
U.S. Embassy in El Salvador.
There are several suspicious circumst
ances surrounding Samayoa’s appearance
here at Texas A&M. First, every represen
tative on the panel was told that they had 10
minutes in which to ask questions. Samayoa
asked no questions, he professed to agree
with Dr. Melville and then began to deliver
what sounded like a rehearsed propaganda
speakers.
Why this imbalance? Whydidtlie
keep the apparance of Samayoa as ^ ir ’
Why weren’t the student represent
notified so they could prepare their
And why, here at Texas A&M, w ; 'ch a rle
conference so blatantly leaned in tlie m t v si
tion of the doctrine that threatenstln
dom of every people in the world?
Gloria Shen
Editor’s note: This letter was accom|
by four other signatures.
The reality underlying all of these con
trasts is that in this time of tremendous
inflation-recession-interest rate pressures,
what we have is not one national economy,
but 50 different state economies, each
going its own direction.
That elementary fact poses a great poli
tical challenge to Reagan’s economic
strategy. The president so far has left no
room in his plan for the strains some states
face in adjusting to the massive changes his
economic policies are generating. Quite the
contrary. When he was asked in an inter
view last week whether he thought it was
“at all the responsibility of the federal gov
ernment to redistribute resources between
states that are relatively well off and states
that are not,” the president said flatly no.
“That is up to the states,” he said. When
someone doesn’t like the situation in which
he is living, he can “vote with his feet —
move away, Reagan said.
It was not the first time the administra
tion had suggested that the answer to in
equality is to move people, not money,
around the country. Earlier, at a meeting of
Reagan’s advisory commission on federal
ism, the speaker of the Maryland House of
Delegates, Benjamin L. Cardin, asked
Norman B. Ture, the undersecretary of
treasury, what he would do about financing
government services “in a jurisdiction that
has one-fourth the fiscal resources of a
neighboring jurisdiction. ”
“You don’t do anything,” Ture said. “You
decide where you want to live.”
There are 36 governors’ races next year,
16 in states now held by Republicans and 20
now controlled by the Democrats. Reagan
pollster Richard B. Wirthlin said here these
contests will open “the great hinge’ of his
tory to the GOP, by providing “the oppor
tunity for a realignment that would make it
the country’s majority party.
If that is true, the Republicans better
hope that the Reagan economic plan deliv
ers more Nevedas than Oregons in the au
tumn of 1982.
0
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Bugle stand taken after
|Ryan \
m, be
lie be
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Editor:
At 6:50 a.m., 6:20 p.m. and 11 p.m.
every day of the school year, bugle calls are
blown by the Corps bugler. Since about
1936, these calls have been blown through a
bugle stand that was originally dedicated to
Edwin O’Brien Bellinger ‘36. The original
stand stood in front of the Academic Build
ing and was then moved to the Quad where
it stands now and is used every bit as much
as it used to be. It is almost entirely in its
orginal form because of special care and a
new paint and sandblasting job every sum
mer given by the new bugler.
Sometime last Friday night after the t.u.
game, the megaphone was stolen. This let
ter is written to ask for any information as to
the whereabouts of the stand. Something
this old is of priceless value to A&M and is
not a thing to be played around with. We
therefore ask for a quick return of this im
portant monument that has become such an
integral part of our school.
Jim Williams ‘84
Kieth Mays ‘82
Paul Brown ‘83
nuclear weapons and the political power
that they have. But, I have also seen the
threat of Russia’s nuclear strength and
dominance they have over smaller coun
tries.
Our only hope of not having a nuclear
holocaust is if Russia decides not to throw
away their country on our retaliation attack.
They might call this some kind of stalemate,
but if this will keep my children and their
children from seeing world wide annihila
tion, it will be worth it.
Disarmament would be the next answer,
but would either side trust the other in
knowing if they had really disarmed all nuc
lear weapons? Would you really feel safe if
the United States had disarmed all nuclear
weapons but have Russia just say that they
did?
I am not the “John Wayne type as what
most civilians think of Marines, but I am an
American. I have been to different coun
tries and I found that even though the Un
ited States has its problems, there is still not
a better country around.
Also, in the time of trouble, as many
millions of fellow Americans, I will stand to
defend it.
If you live off campus you’re ini
rochu
11 versify
anis,
Hand,
by default, and you can attend any
function. ■,)!
— We will have two bands that willpf»' iy and
C&W, jitterbug, rock and roll plusab# Re sen
sound system.
— A free buffet table of meats, breads
cheeses will be provided. Also drinks
be purchased.
— You can wear anything you want,ils
why it is called semi-formal (sportsjack
suit and tie, etc.).
— Information is available at the (l
cubicle, 1st floor MSC, and theRuddef!
Office. Tickets will be sold at the door
at the MSC Rudder Box Office.
Paul Bettenct
OCA Presiit
Fun dam en talism
Nuclear power
PFC John Robinette
USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, USMC
Howmetown, College Station
Editor:
In regard to Doug Wenzel’s and Jack
Seifert’s letter of ending nuclear weapons, I
think morally I would agree with them, but
in reality I find it would never work.
I’m not a college student in the United
States, but I’m in a security detachment as a
U.S. Marine on board the nuclear power
aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhow
er. I have learned firsthand the threat of
OCA dance
Editor:
I would like to answer some of the ques
tions being asked about the Off Campus
Aggies Semi Formal coming up this Friday
the 4th of December.
Editor:
I tend to agree with Jim Mazzullo’si
cle in the Nov. 20 Battalion; howevei
was a bit harsh on our fundamenti
Christian brothers and sisters. There!
minority of Chrisitians who believe in
literal interpretation of the Bible
they obviously feel the “word of God
being attacked whenever true scieii
facts and theories are expounded. Altk*
they endanger our learning of the uni' 1
and how God operates it, they do have
right to search for evidence for their bell
Their attacks on scientific truisms also!
us on our toes, demanding hard evide
for theories which are taken for grant*
Mark Baud