Week in Review

Wednesday, November 19, 1997

Nail in the Coffin

Montgomery Fellow William Sloane Coffin, former Yale chaplain and 'freedom rider,' continued his crusade against ignorance with 'The Politics of Compassion,' a lecture conducted last Wednesday.

Due to time constraints, Dr. Coffin was compelled to confine his remarks to the essential ingredient in correct Christian belief, the appropriate nature of love, the flaws of charity, the mistakes of the Christian Coalition and other like minds on the religious right, campaign finance reform, crime prevention policy, and economic injustice.

Dr. Coffin's theme centered on the necessity for us to love everybody. Simplistic and Apolitical? No. Christian Love apparently includes a responsibility to change society so that it is 'just' to the people you love. Christian Love, in Dr, Coffin's eyes does not necessarily apply to the rich and those 'lapdogs of the rich,' the politicians.

Coffin is not one to miss an oppurtunity to link a feel-good concept like universal love to a multitude of political points, and he started by condemning charity as a form of 'limited love' because it did not attempt to change the status quo and the causes of poverty. It is simply a way to make things a tiny bit better while assuaging guilt feelings among the well-off. Unconfirmed reports claim that this opinion has been influenced by the guilt stricken Yale students he put up with for eighteen years.

'Limited love' also stepped up as the definition for and the flaw in movements like the Promise Keepers and the Christian Coalition, who emphasize personal responsibility and virtue as a way to cure social ills. Once again, according to Coffin, this is just a way to maintain the status quo and make people feel better about it.

Next up was the American public's ignorance of its many defects, most noticeably its inactivity in forcing campaign finance reform, obviously leaving all politicians mindless servants of the interests of Corporate America.

Society's responsibility for crime and poverty were central topics in the lecture as well. And of course our failure to accept that responsibility. It seems 'we're not tough on crime, we're tough on criminals.' The concept of our being 'tough' on poverty was not deemed worthy of discussion.

To start off the lecture Dr. Coffin informed us that he believed that socialist questions needed to be raised even if socialist answers weren't necessarily the right ones. While we waited anxiously to hear what the right answers were, we really ended up with only two: reform campaign finance; check out Maine, they've got some great ideas, and give money to our communities cause they're in shambles. And of course, tax the rich to get the money. Otherwise, we heard nothing but a multitude of questions and a few vague notions of how one might answer them. No doubt this was due to time constraints.

Crimson Porno

Leaders of the Radcliffe Union of Students attacked Harvard University's investment policies Tuesday after discovering that the University owns stock in Playboy Enterprises. Documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission indicate that Harvard owns 22,700 shares of class A stock in Playboy, valued at approximately $320,600. Harvard also holds 21,300 additional shares of Playboy Enterprises class B stock. Dartmouth's own connection to the porno industry is limited to President James Freedman's cameo appearance as 'The Bashful Bookworm' in the current box office hit, Boogie Nights.

The Laogai Archipelago

In a lecture entitled 'Laogai: The Chinese Gulag,' Chinese human rights agitator Harry Wu attacked the People's Republic of China for its systematic abuse and execution of political opponents. Speaking in Dartmouth Hall on Wednesday, Wu explained that the Laogai prison camps represent both the central human rights issue in China today and 'the system supporting Communist rule' in China.

In 1960, Wu criticized the Chinese government at student-organized political meetings and was subsequently jailed as a counterrevolutionary activist. He spent the following nineteen years in the Chinese labor camp system. During his incarceration, Wu was tortured so severely that Laogai officers prepared a coffin for him.

Wu estimates that there are currently 6-8 million people imprisoned in 1,100 Laogai camps under conditions of slave labor. He compared the circumstances in China with the systematic persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany. Referring to the film Schindler's List, Wu said, 'Everything you see in this movie is happening today in China.'

Wu extended the analogy by saying that the current U.S. policy of 'engagement' with China is 'very similar to the appeasement policy' toward Germany before World War II. China, he explained, uses money and technology from the West to expand its military. Wu argued that the U.S. policy is based solely on money. Historically, he added, the United States has not pursued engagement in foreign policy, citing conflicts with South Africa, Cuba, and North Korea as examples. 'It is difficult to make businessmen care about human rights,' Wu said. 'Investment from the United States is supporting the Communist Chinese.'

Wu further criticized the U.S. government's inattention to the Laogai issue. If President Clinton is serious about human rights in China, he said, 'Laogai should be on the table.'

Today in China, according to Wu, 'the majority of people don't believe in Communism at all.' Laogai is China's tool for maintaining totalitarian rule and 'your money,' Wu told the audience, 'is driving the Communist vehicle.'

Sometimes You Feel Like a Nut . . .

A student who attends a school in the University Hills District near Rochester, NY has an allergy to peanuts. Though none of the other 440 students in the school shares the affliction, administrators decided, in order to avert a potential problem, to voluntarily ban peanut butter and all other peanut products from the cafeteria. When questioned about the curious new policy, school officials were unable to explain why the allergic student is imperilled by the mere presence of Planter's in other students' lunchboxes. They then proudly added that a ban on air to aid the asthmatic is currently under consideration

All the News That Fits We Print

An article appearing in Monday's New York Times has Dartmouth's Jewish community up in arms.

The article, authored by William Hozan and titled 'Dartmouth Reveals Anti-Semitic Past,' chronicled President Freedman's revelation of a series of letters from the 1930s and 1940s that describe anti-Jewish sentiment among College leaders.

President Freedman read the letters, recovered from Dartmouth College archives at a dedication for the new Roth Center for Jewish Life.

The objection stems from the Times' implicit characterization of Dartmouth as unfriendly to Jewish Life.

'Hozan took one small piece of one speech vastly out of context and made it seem like a series of letters exchanged half a century ago characterize Dartmouth's contemporary attitude towards Jews,' said David Levi '00, President of Hillel. 'We're making a sincere effort to get people to look beyond the old stereotypes that judge Dartmouth a bastion of anti-semitism, and the Times sets us back years by irresponsibly reaffirming the prejudices many American Jews have traditionally held about the College. The dedication of the Roth Center was a great moment for the development of the Jewish community at Dartmouth. We don't need these nasty accusations and trite stereotyping detracting from the event.'

The Roth Center, financed in large part by a gift from Steven Roth '61, is to house the local sanctuary as well as provide a permanent cultural home for Jews of the Dartmouth and local communities.

Oh Christmas Tree

Center or off-center? That was the big question surrounding the now-infamous Dartmouth Christmas Tree at a meeting held Wednesday night by members of the Committee on the Christmas Tree.

Rabbi Daniel Siegel, Reverend Michael Fonner, and Dean Scott Brown of the Tucker Foundation invited students and faculty to an open discussion held in the Tucker Foundation Lounge.

Rabbi Siegel opened the discussion by clarifying the intent of a Letter to the Editor, which he co-authored with Rev. Fonner.

The letter, which appeared in The Dartmouth in October, suggested moving the Christmas Tree a few feet from the center of the Green. Rabbi Siegel told the group that the letter was meant to appear as a column so that readers would understand that their opinion was not that of the entire committee.

Rabbi Siegel also tried to describe the history, and controversy, of the Christmas Tree over the last ten years. No one, however, seemed to know when the Christmas Tree was renamed the 'Holiday Tree' or who was in charge of making that decision.

Someone in the Office of Public Programs apparently made the decision, possibly in conjunction with a representative from Hanover — the College must coordinate any Christmas Tree issues with the town as well — but no one seems quite certain. The answer seems to have been lost in a muddle of administrative hierarchy and college bureaucracy.

The three members of the committee told those present that the Committee agrees wholeheartedly with all of the concerns that were voiced during the discussion. Among those concerns were the adamant and unanimous cries to return the Christmas Tree's proper title, to leave the tree where it has always stood, and even to maintain the Glee Club's place in the festivities, if for no better reason than to cherish college tradition.

The report of the Committee on the Christmas Tree has been forwarded to the Office of Public Programs where the final decision will be made. But again, no one really knows how or when the decision will be made.

Week in Review

Article Tools

Related Articles