Page 2/The Battalion/Tuesday, June 30, 1987
Opinion
Immorality and the downfall of the New
The New Right.
It came to save our
morally
deteriorating
society.
Yes, friends we,
as a nation, were
at the threshhold
of liberalist HELL. But, praise God, we
were saved, yes, that’s RIGHT saved.
And I’ll tell you, friends, it wasn’t an
easy task. There were small Caribbean
nations to crush, reactionary right-wing
dictators to support and deficits to
expand exponentially.
Fortunately, it’s almost over. In fact,
outside the Brazos Valley the term New
Right has almost become a political
cliche.
impeached but in the wake of his fall
from grace, the New Rightists will be
left drifting in a sea of ultra
conservatism, with only a Supreme
Court ruling to damn to hell every now
and then.
What’s most interesting however, is
the movement’s fall may come from its
own lack of morality.
Their fearless and senile leader,
Ronald Reagan, may actually be hung
by his own words, or lies. With the
Contragate hearings heating up, the
light can be seen at the end of the
tunnel.
Are Americans finally aware that we
as a nation don’t own the destiny of the
world simply because we have a higher
fat content in our diet? Most polls taken
since the revelations of the Oliver North
for World Emperor campaign show the
New Right falling flat on its ever-so-
RIGHTeous face. But before it takes its
leave. I’d like to ponder what it’s
meaning was.
The New Right. It’s not just the
Moral Majority. It’s an uninformed
group of narrow-minded commie-
bashers.
Join the New Right. Go to exciting
rallies to touch the Ayatollah Ron. Meet
other conservative hypocrites and tell
each other how wonderful it is to be
upper-middle class, white, and
American.
This nation of sheep has seemingly
awaken.
Granted, Reagan will not be
Almost enough to make a
fundamentalist weep (or speak in
tongues) with joy.
The New Right, Moral Majority and
the Reagan era fell upon us with
promises of revived spiritualism for our
once holy nation.
And with Reagan’s election in 1980
they were off and running, or is it
praying. Suffice it to say they had the
nation by the throat.
Did they deliver? Of course not.
There was nothing from which to
deliver us. To insinuate that America
was, is, or ever will be morally corrupt is
absurd.
This nation never had a more
Christian president than Jimmy Carter.
Unfortunately, Carter refused to trade
on the nation’s gullability. Instead of
talking morals, he actually spent his
administration living them. Peace is
what Carter strove for. He risked his
entire foreign policy on the Middle East
intitiative and hammered out a treaty
through diligent work. It’s ironic that
one of the most important peace
accords of the 20th century wasn’t
morally righteous enough for the U. S.
of A. But for Americans in 1980 peace
was simply not morally chic.
Reagan, in all his self-serving political
rhetoric, went for what was morally hot.
Not something so inanely liberal as
peace, instead the nation threatening
issues such as prayer in schools and
abortion were his well chosen targets.
Suffice it to say that neither Reagan
nor Jerry Falwell, the movement’s other
main proponent, has ever been
pregnant. As for prayer in schools, well,
I’ll leave that to the Supreme Court.
At the same time he was SAVING our
country from demons within, Father
Ron was supporting oppressive
governments around the world. All in
the name of Democracy, of course.
After all, the blacks in South Africa have
neither the intelligence or the drive to
run their own government. Or that is
what the president would like
Americans to believe, considering he
has repeatedly sold arms to the Botha
government in clear defiance of a
United Nations arms embargo against
South Africa. PRAISE THE LORD!!!
Reagan’s morality, or lack thereof, is
most evident in his ever-expanding
defense budget. I’m sure that God
appreciates the president’s help in
preparing the world for Armageddon.
In fact, Jack Kemp’s or Pat Robertson’s
new campaign slogan could be Nukes
for Christ. After all, what this planet
really needs is a good thermonuclear
cleaning out. GLORY BE!!!
What’s even more annoying about the
administration’s holier-than-thou
posturing is while complaints of a
budget crisis rings fromeveryci
the legislature, the bible-beating
conservatives have chosen to buy
defective B-l bombers rather than
for social programs.
Very nice. Star Wars rather than
college educations for the poor,or
The
funding Sandinistas ratherthanjo!| ocean-dril
programs for the unemployed. JOIDES R<
HALLELUJAH, Brother!!! jated by the
However, our Brazos bastionof ?! exas ,
voung conservattst ignorance still J n about s
breeds at an alarmingly commiet| ■
rate.
The days of the litmus test forII
AGS being utter political apathyait|
naivete are to be hopelessly upomii
Of course, that was the neartofi
New Right. Democracy thriveson
information. The New Rightthrinj
a lack of it.
Fortunately, with thedetailsof
Con tragi
severalh
closer to the witnessstand.:i I0nM,I !. Rlin 1
Tun. fund
Bg Progn
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for Deep E
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ITen maj<
Ins from t
ing A&M
-iy. , _
ate filling the national ah Ipas, fori
ours a day and OllieNottf|M‘ tut ! ons
is nownere for the administratioim
hide. The New Right and itsdeard
beloved leader stand on the thresh]
their ow n judgement day. AMEN
Robert Morris is a seniorjouraaJiii
major and a staff writer for The I
Battalion.
nal Scien
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The five
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It had to be bad
to be so good
€>(<167 ho^tdn rc^r
This is the last
column I’m
going to write
about Jim and
Tammy and
Jerry and Jimmy
and Oral and
Gary and
Donna, et al., for
at least a while.
Lewis
Grizzard
But I must admit the scandals of
’87 have been the best thing to
happen to me in my 10 years of
getting up in the morning, making
the coffee, reading the latest of
those mentioned above and
watching as the column literally
writes itself.
It’s time, however, to go back to
the struggle and the bleeding. I feel
I have grown fat and lazy writing of
television evangelists and
presidential candidates who can’t
keep their pants on. They are such
easy targets.
But before passing onward, there
are some loose ends, so allow me to
clean out the notebook with the
following retrospective:
BEST ORAL ROBERTS LINE:
“God has told me if I don’t get a lot
of laughs during this monologue,
he’s going to call me home.” —
Johnny Carson.
MOST MEMORABLE QUOTE
FROM TAMMY FAYE: “Shopping
helps me ease my tension.”
MY REACTION TO THAT: “So
that’s why my three ex-wives always
seemed so relaxed.”
BEST HEADLINE THAT
PROBABLY NEVER RAN: Rice
causes Hart problems.”
PERSON I’D LIKE TO SEE GET
HIS BEFORE THIS WHOLE
THING IS OVER: Jerry Falwell.
ANONYMOUS ON GARY
HART: “What does he say in a
singles’ bar? ‘Your house or the
White House?”’
BEST T-SHIRT: One with a
picture of a lot of goo with the
caption: “I ran into Tammy at the
mall.”
BEST LINE TO REMEMBER
WHENEVER THINKING ABOUT
SENDING MONEY TO AN
EVANGELIST: “They all ask you to
send your money to the Lord, but
they give you their address.” —
Hank Williams Jr.
GOOD POINT: “It’s great the
Gary Hart story broke when it did.
Now we can get sex out of the pulpit
and back into politics where it
belongs.”
INNOCENT PERSON HURT
MOST IN THE SCANDALS OF
’87: Lee Hart. May she make her
husband’s life as miserable as
possible for the damage he caused
her.
WHO JIM BARKER WOULD
LOOK LIKE IF HE HAD RED
HAIR AND FRECKLES: Howdy
Doody. Falwell could play Clarabell.
BESIDES TAMMY, BEST
TEARFUL BEGGER ON THE
TELEVANGELIST CIRCUIT:
Jimmy Swaggert, but I hate to see a
grown man beg.
BEST LINE ABOUT WHY ALL
THIS MADE SO MUCH NEWS:
“It’s like an automobile accident.
You can’t stop yourself from taking
a look.” — In essence, Ted Koppel.
BEST JOKE YOU CAN TELL IN
A FAMILY NEWSPAPER: Jim
Bakker and Jerry Falwell are seated
together on an airplane.
The stewardess asks Bakker if he
would like a drink. He orders
scotch.
She turns to Falwell for his order.
Says Falwell, “I’d rather commit
adultery than partake of alcohol.”
Says Bakker, excitedly, “Me, too,
but I didn’t know we had a choice.”
Amen.
Copyright 1987, Cowles Syndicate
Pope’s meeting
church’s silence
with Waldheim echoe
on nazi atrocities
Every New
Year’s, the pope
issues a call for
world peace and
every year the
world ignores
him. The papacy’s
sorry record in
this area is never
taken into account
by the world press.
It always carries
were some clerics, such as the Berlin
priest Bernhard Lichtenberg, who in
1941 publicly prayed for the Jews. For
this, he was jailed and then transferred
to a concentration camp.
Richard
Cohen
his message and it does so for two
worthwhile reasons: The pope is both
the leader of the Roman Catholic
Church and a figure of towering moral
standing. When it comes to peace,
would that his wish were our command.
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But the present pope, John Paul II,
seens to have lost sight of his special
responsibility as a universal moral
figure. He met with Kurt Waldheim, the
president of Austria — a Catholic head
of state of a mostly Catholic nation.
Waldheim is also a man who lied about
his past, who covered up and denied his
participation in — and unbelievably
even his knowledge of — Nazi atrocities,
in the very areas where he served as a
German army intelligence officer. He
professed an ignorance as a German
army intelligence officer. He professed
an ignorance so absolute as to make the
three monkeys — hear no evil, see no
evil, speak no evil — seem like
investigative reporters.
A pope has many obligations. During
the Holocaust, a timid Pope Pius XII
felt his primary obligation was to the
church. Genocide was a secondary
matter and so the pope remained silent.
He failed to rebuke the Nazis. And even
after they occupied Rome and deported
Italian Jews to their death, the pope
held his tongue. This was largely true of
the church in general, although there
As a consequence, some believe the
church has a special obligation to the
Jews — to both make amends and
reassurances. John Paul II seems
mindful of this. He has reached out to
the Jewish community and last year
made an unprecedented visit to Rome’s
main synagogue. And as a Pole, he
needs no lessons about the horrible fate
that befell his country during its
occupation by the Nazis. Millions of his
countrymen perished. Among them
were three million Jews.
Little wonder Austrians elected
Waldheim their president. Their
presidency is a symbolic office and
Waldheim is a fitting symbol. Mosi
Austrians supported unificationM*
Nazi Germany (the Anschluss)
out of 7 million Austrians were Nad
Party members and Austriansplajti year was :
disproportionate role in the killing
lews. Austrians commanded fouro; i 7 11
J . • , , , j eath-row
six mam deatli camps and comprise cation eai
one-third of the S.S. extermination p^O robfc
units. If the occasion was anti-Sen® 011 c °nve
won a sta
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History both recent and ancient
provides the context for Waldheim’s
meeting with the pope. But Waldheim is
not a major historical figure. He is a
marginal — a weak, slippery man whose
role in wartime atrocities was,
unfortunately, both ordinary and
routine.
It is a bit late to punish the Austr»
nor should one generation payfoi
sins of another. But acknowledge!
is a different matter. That wouldli<
ensure that sons do not repeat the
mistakes of fathers. It would proved
the Holocaust, like the genocidesd
Armenia and Cambodia, arenotlh (
works of a few diabolical men,but i:
millions who participate and miP
more who do nothing. Kurt Wall'
was a little of the former and allo( ;
latter.
His real importance is contemporary
because his crime is a contemporary
one: denial. Waldheim’s denial is so
absolute, so bald, that he claims not only
innocence but epic ignorance. The
gruesome transport of Greek Jews from
Salonika in Greece to Auschwitz in
Poland, the massacre of Yugoslav
partisans ... all this was news to
Waldheim, even though he served in
those areas. In his autobiography, he
lied about his wartime service, denying
truth to advance his diplomatic career.
Now exposed, he concedes he was an
officer in the German army but denies
what our own J ustice Department —
much as it wanted otherwise — could
not. It has banned Waldheim from
visiting this country.
Baseball
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rains whicl
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T here is no institution more
dedicated to memory than the Cl
Church. But in agreeing to see
Waldheim, the pope lent hismori I f ac ^ Uate s
1 K ^ are experii
& r °tea pe
amnesia. Waldheim is notjustaiK 1 '®
abhorrent head of state who the
must dutifully see, but one whose
of his wartime activities is an echo 1 uwin
church’s own silence duringthatp^ based Zoec
mfestat
Unless the pope rebuked Wall'
when they met, the audience pro!
only two results, both of them
unfortunate. The standingof
Waldheim was increased and thao
pope diminished.
Copyright 1987, Washington Post Writtf
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