Page 2/The Battalion/Friday, September 13,1985
—
Watch out for liberals
Colleges and universities should be a forum for free express
ion and innovative thought. Groups such as Accuracy in Acade
mia find this type of expression dangerous. AIA is an organiza
tion which has taken upon itself the responsibility of making
people aware of liberal bias in college classrooms.
AIA doesn’t plan an immediate attack on Texas A&M. They
do plan to observe classes at the University of Texas.
AIA uses groups such as the Young Conservatives of Texas
at UT to audit classes and report liberal bias. Professors are sup
posed to keep an eye on one another and take note of liberal
classroom behavior.
The liberal monitoring system could be headed our way fas
ter than a swarm of killer bees — and twice as deadly.
Luckily, A&M President Frank Vandiver said this week he
strongly defends keeping our classrooms free of such “moni
tors.” Vandiver compared the observers to George Orwell’s
Thought Police and infamous commie-hunter Joseph McCar
thy.
“It turns colleagues against each other,” Vandiver said.
AIA believes many university faculty members are Marxists,
communists, leftists or liberals. This is a sweeping generaliza
tion. The organization is imposing its definition of “liberal” on
campuses.
Expressing different thoughts, attitudes and values does not
constitute liberal bias. It puts people in touch with the way oth
ers think — an important part of the educational process and
the living process.
Students decide what classroom presentations, if any, they
adopt as personal philosophies.
Monitoring by the AIA represents hypocrisy. By “protec
ting” us from the horrors of liberalism, it is imposing a bias of its
own.
Bias monitoring, liberal or conservative, should be repulsive
to anyone believing in the democratic ideals of this country.
The Battalion Editorial Board
Now is the time
for revolution!
Students of
Texas A&M unite!
How much longer
are you going to
let this atrocity be
perpetrated?
I am talking
about the most
horrible and inhu
man practice ever
to be condoned by
this University.
I am talking about eight o’clock
classes —eight in the morning!
When I was a freshman I was sen
tenced to two semesters of eight o’clock
classes. Every day I was forced to wake
up at an ungodly hour and walk to some
classroom clear across campus.
If I wanted to shower and eat break
fast before class I would have to get up
even earlier.
I would often ask why and for what
was I being punished, but I never got an
answer. I could have protested this un
reasonable practice by boycotting these
classes but my professors/wardens made
sure I “payed my dues” by taking atten
dance.
For two entire semesters I suffered
through this mindless oppression; get
ting up around 6:30 a.m., taking a cold
shower to help wake up, pouring
enough coffee down my throat to keep a
heard of elephants on the run for 29
years, walking to class and promptly
falling asleep once I got to my desk.
The rest of the day was spent dozing
off in other classes because I hadn’t got
ten much sleep the night before.
Back then I lived in a dorm and it
would be easier for a camel to pass
through the eye of a needle (or for Jerry
Falwell to enter the gates of heaven)
than to get some sleep before midnight
in the dorm.
As I grew older I freed myself from
this oppression. When I would work out
my schedule I would make sure that my
classes didn’t start until after ten o’clock.
For the next two years I could stay up
late and make sure that everyone else
didn’t get to sleep until after midnight. I
grew to enjoy the freedom of not wak
ing up until I was good and ready.
But now, my senior year, for some
sin, real or imagined, I was forced to
take another eight o’clock class. There
was no way around it, there was only
one section. It couldn’t wait until an
other semester because this class is a
prerequisite for another class and my
plans to graduate would be screwed up
if I waited.
So now I must get up at the god-for
saken hour of 6 a.m. so that I can
shower, eat breakfast, catch the shuttle
bus (I live off campus now) and run off
to a class that I am not able to cope with
at such an early hour.
After two weeks of this cruel and un
usual punishment, I am tired and I am
mad. I propose to end this atrocity. But
I need your help.
Students of Texas A&M, I ask you to
join me in my fight to end the most
unspeakable horror to be thrust upon
us since we became Aggies.
There are many of you who, like me,
are forced to wake up at an unnatural
hour and go to a class that you are not
mentally, physically or emotionally pre
pared for.
Faculty of Texas A&M, I ask you to
join us also. I am sure that you have not
enjoyed waking up early in the morning
to teach a class of near-zombies.
The rights of all students and faculty
are on the line here. If we all stand as
one our voices will be heard and we will
be delivered from our oppression.
Here’s the plan:
Step one: Petition. Circulate petitions
throughout the entire student body. If
we get enough signatures the admins-
tration will know how we feel and may
meet our demands.
Step two: Boycott. Don’t go to your
eight o’clock class. If enough students
boycott their classes, the administration
will realize that we are serious about our
cause and give into our demands. If that
doesn’t work, we’re going to have to get
tough.
Step three: Protest. We will all meet at
President Frank Vandiver’s house at 6
a.m. We will sing “Good Morning to
You” until Frank wakes up. This will
show Frank how much of a pain getting
up early can be.
Step four: Revolution. When an ad
ministration no longer represents the
needs and desires of its peoples, it be
comes necessary to dissolve the bonds
which have connected one body to an
other. A revolution is a drastic measure,
but if civil disobedience doesn’t work we
may have to resort to violence to insure
our liberty.
It’s time we all join together. Once we
do away with eight o’clock classes we can
go on to solve the rest of the world’s
problems. We can change our world
and make it a better place for the gener
ations to come.
Karl Pallmeyer is a senior journa
lism major and a columnist for The
Battalion.
i—
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WHAT HATPeM^ if ^boMerH/A*. Goes
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By M.
Neoring point of no return
Is Star Wars the answer?
When Gen.
George S. Patton was"
leading the U.S.
Third Army on its
extraordinary end
run around the Ger- :
Robert J.
Mrazek
Guest Columnist
are falling over each other to jump
aboard the Star Wars bandwagon but
also are being asked by the Pentagon to
assess its chances for success. Talk about
the foxes guarding the henhouse ...
'of ala
man flank in 1944, he suddenly found
himself facing an unsuspected obstacle.
Ironically, the resistance came not
from the Wermacht of the Third Reich,
but from Patton’s own military superi
ors. Gen. Omar Bradley informed Pat
ton that he was temporarily cutting off
gasoline supplies needed by Patton’s
tanks.
Patton was livid. “Right now, the
weak spot is here,” he thundered to
Bradley. “. . . Today I have precisely the
right instrument at precisely the right
moment in exactly the right place. With
a few miserable gallons of gasoline, we
could be in Berlin in ten days.”
Bradley replied, “What about the
German fortificatons at Metz and Ver
dun?”
Patton then pounced. “Fixed fortifi
cations,” he replied, “are monuments to
the stupidity of man. When mountain
ranges and oceans could be overcome.”
The course of military history pro
vides ample evidence to support Pat
ton’s assertion. For every wall, humans
have built a battering ram. And, despite
what some of the brightest military
minds in America are telling us today,
there is no reason to think that things
will be any different with the Reagan
administration’s Strategic Defense Ini
tiative — better known as Star Wars.
Few of us in Washington took great
notice in March 1983 when the presi
dent announced his dream of making
nuclear weapons “impotent and obsole
te.” After all, the U.S. government had
once considered and dismissed the pos
sibility of defenses against nuclear
weapons and in fact turned toward
forging with the Soviet Union the 1972
ABM Treaty. The treaty stands today as
one of the few steps away from our spe
cies’ slow descent into what Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr. called “a militaristic
stairway into the hell of nuclear destruc
tion.”
But the Reagan magic held on Star
Wars, and we now find ourselves dan
gerously close to a point of no return on
another questionable weapons system.
However, Star Wars is more than just
another missile or tank or aircraft car
rier. It represents nothing less than a
fundamental reversal in geopolitical
strategy, an evolutionary journey into
the next — and perhaps last — arena of
human conflict.
If the arms race is to ascend toward
the stars, it would be only proper in the
world’s greatest democracy if that deci
sion was the result of a reasoned public
policy debate. Unfortunately, I see no
evidence that this has occurred. The
people, in general, have little idea of
what Star Wars really means. Until the
president announced his vision, the
Pentagon had no idea what Star Wars
meant. And they’ve been scrambling to
make it up as they go along, without
“torturing the facts too badly,” as one of
my colleagues has noted.
One thing that Star Wars means is
money. This immutable fact has hardly
escaped the notice of the nation’s lead
ing defense contractors, who not only
. . . learn what role your school
may be playing in changing Star
Wars from popular science-fic
tion celluloid to orbiting battle
stations, supercomputers and
laser beams — all of which will
function without the “bother” of
a human being at the controls.
The financial aspects of Star Wars
also have not gone unnoticed by the na
tion’s leading research universities. In
these times, research money is scarce.
Now the Pentagon is dangling buckets
of it in front of our universities.
The result of this financial bonanza
would have been predictable except
for the eccentricities of the human
conscience. It seems that, after getting
a good, hard look at Star Wars, some
of those entrusted with making Star
Wars a reality are deciding that they
will fight it.
The first blows came almost simul
taneously. First, David Parnas of the
University of Victoria, British Colum
bia offered his resignation from the
government panel overseeing the
computer aspects of Star Wars.
Parnas, who took pains to point out
that he had no objections to defense
efforts or defense research, and who
had previously acted as a consultant to
the Pentagon, had a simple explana
tion: Star Wars won’t work. “I am will
ing to stake my professional reputa
tion on my conclusions,” he asserted.
Next, Larry Smarr, the director of
the National Center for Supercomput-
-ing Applications at the University of
Illinois spoke for a group of 47 physi
cists at the school who stated they
would not apply for or accept Star
Wars grants. His reasons were equally
simple: “. . . It will not do what it was
meant to do, and it will not anticipate
everything the enemy might throw at
it.”
Pity that Patton is not alive to give
his thoughts.
Those of us who came of age in the
1960s may have different ideas about
the authority of government and the
ability to promote change than today’s
college students. That was then, this is
now.
But as the civil rights movement
and the Vietnam War protests and the
environmental re-awakening of
America showed, the students of the
earlier era did not back down from a
challenge. Often, the results they real
ized bordered on the amazing.
In the Strategic Defense Initiative,
those of you looking for an issue for
the 1980s have just been handed one
on a silver platter. Perhaps you will
come to totally different conclusions
about Star Wars than those I have
reached. But you owe it to yourselves
and to future generations to familiar
ize yourselves with the issue and to
learn what role your school may be
playing in changing Star Wars from
popular science-fiction celluloidloi
biting battle stations, supercompuit
and laser beams —all of which
function without the “bother”
man being at the controls.
In the days of reassessment fo!
ing Hiroshima, Albert Einstein
fered two thoughts for the ages,
nuclear weapons, he said, “... then
no defense, there is no possibilit)
control except through the arous
understanding and insistence of li
peoples of the world.”
He also said, “The unleashed
of the atom has changed everythi
except our way of thinking.”
Now, President Reagan has oflen f
his version of changed thinking, h f
the right way? Can we afford non
know?
U.S. Rep. Robert J. Mrazek, fro
Long Island's Third Congressiot
District serves on the House Appn
priations Committee.
The Battalion
USPS 045 360
Member of
Texas Press Association
Southwest Journalism Conference
The Battalion Editorial Board
Rhonda Snider, Editor
Michelle Powe, Managing Editor
John Hallett, Kay Mallett, News Editors
Loren Steffy, Opinion Page Editor
Karen Bloch, City Editor
Travis Tingle, Sports Editor
The Battalion Staff
Assistant City Editors
Kirsten Dietz, Jerry Oslii
Assistant News Editors
Cathie Anderson, Jan Peri)
Assistant Sports Editor
Charean Williams
Entertainment Editors...
Cathy Riely, Walter Smith
Staff Writers Tamara Bell,
Meg Cadigan, Ed Cassava'
Cindy Gay, Doug Hal
Paul Herndon, Tammy Kirk,
Jens Koepke, Trent Leopold,
Mary McWhorter, June Pang,
Tricia Parker, Brian Pearson
Lynn Rae Povec, Marybeth Rohsner,
Gigi Shamsy, Kenneth Sur)
Copy Editors Rebecca Adair,
Mike Davis, Sarah Oates
Make-up Editor Ed Cassavoy
Columnists Marcy Basile,
Camille Brown, John Hallett,
Karl Pallmeyer
Photo Editor Wayne Grabein
Photographers Greg Bailey,
Anthony Casper, Frank Hada,
Kyle Hawkins, Jaime Loper
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