GAP sickens students
Justice For All wants to try again to completely disturb and disrupt its fellow students by bringing the Genocide Awareness Project back to campus next year with the intention of making it an annual event. Did JFA not learn its lesson and realize how damaging and threatening the GAP presentation was? They do not realize that students were not only mentally and emotionally troubled by the graphic display but were also physically ill and unable to attend their classes. The GAP presentation also inconvenienced University child care because of the inappropriate location of GAP: in the middle of campus. Is this really something JFA wants to inflict onto its campus, again?
The tactics of GAP did not work to get people discussing the issue of abortion, as JFA claimed it would. Instead, it simply enraged people. And furthermore, the GAP presentation was not even a factual presentation of abortion, but it was instead a far stretch of attempting to correlate the atrocity of genocide with a woman’s right of obtaining the legal and safe medical procedure of abortion.
I strongly encourage JFA to reconsider its plans of bringing GAP back to campus. Wasn’t the students negative response to GAP last fall proof enough that the display should never come back? The presence of GAP on campus created a lot of division and hostility. This tension on campus has done nothing but prevent further education on the issue of reproductive health. An education, after all, is why we are at the University.

Corina Alexander

political science, women’s studies

Christians wasting energy
I appreciate the recent eagerness of Ryan and friends to share with us the faith that they hold dear to themselves. And I too honor Jesus Christ (balanced, of course, with a sense of Buddhist ecofeminism). However, I am at direct odds with post-modern Christian faith.
I contend that the term “Christian Right” is paradoxical. A profit-driven economy cannot be openly supported by the values of loving God. Too much life is being exploited by the system that many Christians willingly adhere to. I have heard no loud Christian voice resisting the timber industry, genetically modified foods or sweatshop abuse. All of these are cases of the profound rampant everyday exploitation of “God’s creation.”
Christians now waste energies fighting homosexuals and abortion, while entire cultures are being eradicated by globalized capitalism. We have the responsibility of challenging, and even jeopardizing, our status (mostly middle-class white Americans) for God’s will. It is all too comfortable to point fingers at things that do not directly effect our daily lives. Our efforts would be best directed at defying the military budget, not teenage mothers. It is a sacrifice to defy a regime. Our lives are at stake when we do so. It is weak to accost a child.
Christ was revolutionary. He challenged the fundamental nature of the system he was born into by devoting his life to spreading a message of simplicity, humility and faith. He challenged the greed of the Roman Empire and was crucified for it. Society today is equally repressive. Resist; Christ did.

Nick Vaughan

music

University is political
Until now, I have personally decided to stay out of the fray regarding the University’s recent decision to join the Worker Rights Consortium and Nike CEO Phil Knight’s announcement that he was no longer going to “donate” money to the University. However, I must respond to one phrase that has been used repeatedly in regard to this issue: “The University should not have assumed a political position in this matter …”
I wonder if any people who have used this phrase in their letters and/or comments have actually taken the time to sit down and think about what they are saying. Regardless of what position the University would have taken in deciding whether or not to join the WRC, that decision would have reflected a political position. If, according to the anti-WRC crowd, the University would not have joined the WRC, then we would not have this “problem” now. Granted, but would we rather bear the guilt on our shoulders with the knowledge that we are being irresponsible with our privilege by simply ignoring the mistreatment of others? Do we really want to pimp out our University to the highest corporate bidder? Supporting the status quo is a very political position to take.

Christina Humbert

sociology, political science

Frohnmayer insulted Knight
I got a kick out of your editorial (ODE, April 28). I agree with you, I do not blame the students for their decision. However, here is my big problem. Why does a state-funded institution have the right or reason to join a political group? What is the University going to next? Endorse political candidates?
Why does the University feel it needs to join the Worker Rights Consortium? The University is not privately owned; it is supported by taxpayers, alumni and boosters. For this reason, it should be strictly apolitical! If students want to protest or join the WRC by themselves, then more power to them. But the University, unless privately owned, should not be involved in politics or religion.
And one last thing I found very funny: Because of University President Dave Frohnmayer’s busy travel schedule, he regretted not being able to contact Nike CEO Phil Knight prior to his decision to join the WRC. Hasn’t Mr. Frohnmayer ever heard of a cell phone or e-mail? This lame excuse is nothing more than a slap in the face to Mr. Knight. The truth would have been better.

Christopher R. Pellico

University graduate, 1983

Figures incorrect
When it comes to understanding the concerns of sweatshop workers (i.e. barely subsistence living, forced birth control and abortion, constant fatigue and harassment, two bathroom breaks during a 14 to 16 hour work day and relentless political, social and mental oppression), we, living relatively cozily in Eugene, are all naive. The protesters outside of Johnson Hall as well as other students, faculty and administrators across the United States understand the complexity of this issue and have been doing considerable research (including the reform policies being carried out by Nike) in drafting their various licensee codes of conduct. I have personally learned first-hand (during a trip to Indonesia in September of 1999) from Reebok and Nike about the hardships they face. I have shared my experience with the Licensee Code of Conduct Committee and many students.
One letter claimed that, “COVERCO does monitoring for the [Worker Rights Consortium]” and the University membership to the WRC will cost us “$50,000” (ODE, April 24). If the author would have looked more closely at the WRC Web page, he would have noticed that COVERCO and the other monitoring bodies are listed there for readers to do further comparison research if they so desire; these organization do not monitor for the WRC, however. The annual WRC membership fee for the University is $3,000.

Agatha Schmeadick

Licensee Code of Conduct Committee and Human Rights Alliance

member

Music world changing
Oh what a sad, black day that a musician would have to play a live concert to receive a paycheck. How obscene to deny Capitol, Virgin, even Def Jam their eternal skimmings of profit. Intellect is property, and property has owners and owners must be paid to own.
The Internet provides an exciting venue to distribute and sell for the marketeers of
the brave new capitalism. U
nfortunately, there is no store door to lock, no security guard to watch the thief/customer, no cash register to collect the purchases.
Distribution becomes dissemination, and soon the printed word is freed from the page, then the recorded event is freed from the confinement of the recording. For every Napster that is destroyed, 10 million Nutellas are born. My advice to the recording/software/publishing world is finding a new way because your day is nearly done.

Gary Malcolm

CIS