the asheville citizen JAM wti som miinn sphri I JAMES B. WILSON JOHN Q. SCHELL Civil Rights Leaders Find A New Symbol Executive Editor JAMES B. BANKS, Vice President, MarketingDevelopment WILL CURTIS, Editorial Page Editor BILL MOQRE and JOHN PARRIS, Senior Editors LARRY POPE, Managing Editor Page 4 Wednesday, Dec. 12, 1984 An Underrated Ally Gives Us Some Help By MARIANNE MEANS WASHINGTON The civil rights movement, after years of political setbacks and Increasing national apathy toward racial difficulties, suddenly has a public relations tiger by the tail in its crusade against apartheid in South Africa.
It is not clear that the rash of demonstrations will do much to change South Africa's Inhumane policy but it is already having an impact on the civil rights movement itself, which had been showing signs of age and ennui. Black politicians in recent years have tended to trivialize the continuing social problems that stem from racial discrimination by crying "racist" too often in situations that patently have little to do with color. They have lost their sense of purpose, equating progress with simply the spending of more federal money on programs targeted to blacks or the election of more blacks to public office. They have increasingly lacked a sharp focus since the civil rights reforms of the mid-1960s eliminated the obvious public forms of discrimination and shifted the struggle to more complicated questions of affirmative action and social, as opposed to legal, justice. The presidential candidacy of Jesse Jackson this year inspired millions of blacks to go to the polls, but he got few while votes.
Ronald Reagan, whose policy toward blacks has ranged from hostility to benign neglect, was thunderously re-elected amidst evidence that Jackson had actually driven millions of whites away from the Democratic party. As a result, the Democrats are now talking about downplaying the party's traditional alliance with black leaders and its emphasis on help for poor blacks. Nationally, black political influence, in fad, is at its lowest ebb in 20 years. There are ominous signs that vast numbers of white Americans believe the federal government has done enough if not actually too much for blacks at the expense of whiles. In short, the civil rights leaders were badly in need of a symbol of If the publicity attracted by the demonstrations puts more pressure on South Africa to treat its blacks more humanely, they will have been worthwhile.
But Congress should be cautious about enacting the specific goals being requested. The demonstrators are demanding a boycott of South African imports, a ban on American investment there, and an end to trading in kruggerands. Economic boycotts are never a good idea. They don't work, as both Presidents Reagan and Carter have discovered when they tried them. They tend to backfire and prove expensive to the perpetrators.
They worsen diplomatic relations and reduce rather than expand the boycot-ter's influence. Yet the demonstrators have already accomplished something by reminding us of the importance of standing up against racism, sexism and all other forms of bigotry, wherever they exist. bigotry around which to rally anew. They seem to have found it in South Africa. It is ironic that a protest against the evils of another country far away has been able to stir hearts and minds, to say nothing of the television cameras, in a way that no recent effort to battle discrimination here at home has been able to do.
But South Africa, which treats more than 70 percent of its people as little more than slaves, is a clear-cut example of how not to run a country. No ambiguities here. No arguments about whether federal help merely perpetuates black poverty or whether affirmative action, simply to meet color quotas, promotes employees who are unqualified for the job. No civilized soul can approve of apartheid. The Reagan administration has not pressured South Africa to grant more rights to Its blacks in any visible way, preferring Instead to practice what it calls constructive en When Americans think of Italian police they see smartly dressed officers wearing long white gloves directing traffic.
And failing to do so. Or they might remember seeing an officer riding a motor scooter through the streets of Rome. Like a lot of foreign things we don't understand and hence cannot evaluate, Americans tend to compare Italian law enforcement with the Keystone Kops. Well, it just ain't so. It wasn't many months ago that the effective intelligence work of Italian police located and rescued unharmed a kidnapped American general serving on the NATOstafr.
And now the Italians, in cooperation with Swiss police, apparently have saved the American Embassy in Rome from the fate of the U.S. Embassy and the Marine compound in Beirut. Italian counterterrorist operations obviously are head and shoulders above anything we have developed on this side of the Atlantic, or in the rest of Western Europe for that matter. When Swiss police discovered a traveler with a suitcase full of explosives, they notified Italian aulhorites that the man's He Made A Hal Corv, who died here the other day, spent a full and useful life in Asheville, and his obituary noted a long list of activities and involvements. But it -took a call from Frank M.
contribution of which many of today's Ashevilleans mav be un- urn Parker, who retired as a -IIIirilllJCTi ui luc mjl Lit vcuuuild Appeals Court in 1980, recalled opening his law practice in Asheville in the winter of 19.16, the heart of the Great Depression. -Asheville already pnrliired nine years of hard times, the local economy having collapsed here in 1927, two years before the Wall Street crash. In spile of bleak prospects, the YMCA had launched a fund drive, which Cory was leading. Parker said that Cory asked leaders how much money they needed and that he did not ask them to hold down the renuest. then went out and helped A Taxpayer Advises: uenerm Manager accomplice was believed headed for Rome.
That put the Italian secret service into full operation. Agents raided suspected apartments and hit pay dirt. Arrested were seven Lebanese students. Among the confiscated items were detailed plans of the U.S. Embassy in Rome, including the schedule of watch changes by Marine guards.
Also found were propaganda tracts from Islamic Jihad, the group claiming responsibility for the Marine massacre in Beirut. Italian counterterrorist specialists think the group was a suicide cell dedicated to an attack on the American Embassy. When American authorities were contacted, it was the first they had heard of the danger, even though evidence points to a year-long surveillance and planning project. While the adminslration juggles assigning levels of responsibility and while State Department officials plan to strengthen embassy defenses, our Italian allies soive two dangerous anti-American plots. What can we say? It is best said in one word: Grazie! Difference raise the funds," Frank Parker said.
The significance of that achievement should not be underestimated. Its value was measured not merely in the fact that a community goal was reached. The achievement, in Frank Parker's judicious words, "began to work a change in this community's altitude. People began thinking again that they could do things" as individuals and as a community. What a wonderful tribute and contribution that was.
Few among us really have the chance or the capacity to make that kind of impact in our time. Hal Cory had the capacity to make things also happen in such diverse organizations as the Asheville Community Concert Association and Kelly Services. In finding his own chances to serve, he made a difference for good in the life and culture of the larger Asheville and Buncombe communitv. Sydney Harris to our own views. That no one can achieve a character by adopting a set of mannerisms, for eventually Ihe mannerisms become a substitute for character.
That it Is absolutely impossible for others lo respect you if you lack basic self-respect. That much of what looks to us like sophistication when we are young and far removed from It looks more like feverish desperation when we are older and closer toil. That the trouble with cleverness is that understanding a thing too soon often prevents one from ever understanding It thoroughly enough. That when wc tell ourselves we are choosing the lesser evil, we are Invariably choosing only the more comfortiible one. That those who marry mostly lo escape an unhappy home soon find that they have just added one more lo the total number.
That ambiguity has Its own uses, and it is better lo be vaguely right than precisely wrong. It's been just about a year since the stale Legislature voted to make it legal for all counties in the slate to add on Ihe half-cent sales tax and already local officials are wanting lo add another half cent. Mr. Wayne Hooper, Jackson County commissioner and chairman of the N.C. Legislative Goals Committee, and other members of the committee voted to support the optional additional sales lax.
In other words, repeal the dangerous trends of the past by overspending at the local government level and feeding the fires of inflation that will ultimately lead lo a recession. It's awfully easy when using lax-payer money to add one low-priority program after another lo cater to social minority groups. Jackson County is as guilty of this as any of the other 99 in the stale. It's true, we probably do need extra revenue lo help pay for some of those frivolous projects, but somewhere, somehow we have got lo put a halt lo such extravagance and say NO! This is the lax reform era as mandated by the consensus and vole of the people and should be adhered lo, not more lax increases. The Legislature should enact a law protect- gagement, working behind the scenes to Improve relations between that country and its black-governed African neighbors and in the process stablize its leadership so that racial progress might be possible.
Meanwhile, the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Bishop Desmond Tutu and his current attention-getting visit to this country have heightened interest in South Africa's policies. And the November arrest of 21 labor leaders after a two-day strike in which a million black South Africans stayed away from their jobs prompted new concern in the AKL-CIO about South Africa. The labor organization has dispatched leading officials to join in the demonstrations now spreading around the country. The AFL-CIO is also in need of a rallying symbol after the embarrassing rejection of Walter Mondale, one of whose major campaign handicaps was his identification as labor's candidate. Listen To take part in Kstelle Schneider's gala at Pack Square and the Inn on the Plaza on Dec.
12, when we have little to celebrate. We are being forced, without choice, lo surrender a building which has housed our business for over 35 years, to IIU1), the city of Asheville and Estelle Schneider's company. David and Lynne Gabai Asheville Keep Death Penalty I take strong exception to the article on capital punishment by the Rev. Fredrick Dennis, associate rector of All Souls Episcopal church, in the Citizen-Times of Nov. 25.
To begin with, he should do isome research on now many murderers, rapists, etc. have been turned loose on society and have done the same thing again, one or more times. In my mind, when enough of these people have been pul to death, they will think twice before killing or murdering someone. Can he condone Ihe enormous expense to keep these people in jail for many years, and the expense until they have exhausted all the appeals allowed by the courts? This a posl-eleclion Texas Poll, conducted by Marie-Hanks Communications and Texas University's public-policy resources laboratory. It showed 49 percent of the 807-person sample called themselves strong or weak Republicans or Republican-leaning independents, while only 33 percent were inclined or committed to the Democrats.
Republicans also had a learj among straight-ticket volers of 26 to 21 percent In the survey. A variety of measures suggest that the trend in this vital state really is toward the GOP. In 1982, Democrats congratulated themselves on a successful voter registration and turnout program that carried White and others into office. They may have bragged too soon. This year, again, there was a higher turnout, but it worked massively lo the Republicans' advantage.
Waller F. Mondale received 68,000 more voles in Texas than Jimmy Carter had won in 1980, but Ronald Reagan's vote jumped by Post-election studies show Republicans ran best in the the most rapidly growing counties of the state, among newcomers to Texas, among young voters and among first-time voters all pointing toward further trouble for the Democrats. The GOP's success is likely lo feed on Itself in at least some' respects. After 1980, for example, Republican computers had Ihe names, addresses and phone numbers of 535,000 pro-Reagan households. Now, thanks to a bigger organizational push and a bigger Reagan majority, thai pool of computerized Republican names has grown to 1.9 million ready for 1986.
Two factors may help the Democrats survive at the state level in 1988. Mark White is a political moderate and he will not have liberal presi Jim Martin money could be used to help with the huge deficits facing this country, or lo improve the conditions in the jails. If he would take some of these criminals into his home and show that they can be rehabilitated, then I might agree with him. Very little thought is given to the families of the victims and the fact they have to live with these vicious crimes the rest of their lives. By the way.
how many prayers are said for them, and would any amount of prayer help Ihis type of criminal? John Hinckley, who tried lo kill President Reagan, has asked lo be exchanged for Sakharov. That is the greatest thing thai could happen. He would very quickly learn what life in Russia is all about. Clifford M. Lawson Pisgah Forest Want To Write? Letters to Backtalk should not exceed 300 words, should be signed by the writer and should include a street or rural route number.
If the writer has a telephone, he should Include his number. Street, rural route and telephone numbers are not published. In Texas dential and senatorial candidates above him on the ballot as all the 1984 Texas Democratic candidates did. Because Ihe Republican wave is still a new phenomenon in stale politics, the GOP is not yet producing credible statewide candidates from the ranks of its own local and legislative officials. So the Republicans are looking outside to businessman T.
Boone Pickens lo former Cowboys' quarterback Roger Slaubach or to White House chief of staff James A. Baker III for the name they may need to head the 1986 ticket. THE ASHEVILLE CITIZEN smam lurirrecdiFq Published Mch morning Monday thrown Friday at 14 0. Henry Asheville, N.C, 2U07 ROBERT RUNNILLC RICHAROB. WYNNE The Asheville Cltlten tUSPSOUHOQQ) IS published Monday through Friday for 153.00 par vnr by TM Athevlllt Cltlien-Tlmts Publlthlrto Compony, 14 O.
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Ah, Ye Callow Youth! Party Realignment Proves Real Backtalk ing the taxpayers by slating, "No state sales tax andor such local levies shall exceed 4 cents on the dollar." This should also be one main goal Ihe new Martin administration, as well as to repeal the recent half-cenl sales tax and completely ignore the latest commission proposal. Already this group that Hooper heads is talking about working against instead of cooperating with Republican Gov. Jim Martin. It's a shame these officials don't listen to' Iheir constituents! Let them put lax increases before the public in Ihe form of a referendum and see what Happens, rather than Impose higher taxes by majority vote of county commissions. Bennie C.
Reese i Dillsboro Not Celebrating After reading the article "Pack Plaza Developers Throw Party" in The Asheville Citizen of Dec. 5, we felt strongly compelled to comment. It would be ludicrous for us to David Broder and beyond. John Maxwell, Ihe director of Ihe Texas Republican Parly, said in a recent Interview that the pendulum theory "Is factually wrong. In 1982, it was disappointing to see Gov.
Bill Clements (R) lose lo Mark While (D). Bul we lost no House scats lhat year, only three seals In the Legislature, and we actually gained in local offices. "If you look at the record," Maxwell said, "it's been a constant progression, not a pendulum at all." Maxwell's thesis gels a powerful endorsem*nt from Austin Democratic lobbyist and polillcal consultant George Christian, a former Lyndon B. Johnson press secretary who has become a pillar of the conservative Democratic establishment. "For the first time since Reconstruction," Christian said last week, "Ihe Democrats have become the minority party in Texas.
This state is on Ihe verge of becoming a Republican slate. The Democrats may be able to hold on lo stale office In 1986 (when White and the other Democratic Incumbents face re-election), but it looks more and more Uke 1982 was the aberration and 1984 Is the trend." Christian's view Is supported by While Sydney Harris Is on vacation we are reprinting favorite columns from his latest book, "Pieces of Klght." Wish 1 Ihul Known ui Eight- i'vn: the most fatiguing activity in the world is the drive to seem other than you are; it is finally less exhausting to become what you want to be than lo maintain a facade. That the familiar phrase "the pursuit of happiness" should be reversed lo read "the happiness of pursuit." or there is more pleasure lo be round in the quest than in the goal. That you can sometimes change the mind of a person who possesses an idea, but never the mind of a person who is possessed by an Idea. Thai those people will not believe we are acting decently and honestly if they know they would not he acting decently and honestly in our place.
That although everyone holds up justice as a model, what we really wanl is something less than justice for those we dislike and something more than justice for ourselves. That careful observation of others can leach us to avoid their mistakes, but no observation can prevent us from making our own mistakes. That only shallow people imagine they really know themselves; and perhaps Ihey do, if there is little to know. That youth finds no value in the views It disagrees with, bul maturity Includes discovering lliut even an opinion contrary to ours may contain a vein of (ruth we could profitably usssimilate DALLAS This was the year that Republicans in the Lone Star State discovered the lever and Democrats were left praying thai it would turn into a pendulum. Thanks lo a rush of straight-' ticket voting in urban counties like this one, where thousands pulled the parly lever or punched Iheir ballots for ihe whole GOP ticket.
Republicans shaltered Ihe reputation of' Texas as a domlnantly Democratic stale. Republicans scored record margins of 64 and 59 percent In the presidential and senatorial races, gained four U.S. House seals, 16 statehou.se seats and more than 100 local offices. Here in Dallas, where as recently as 1978 Democrats monopolized the county judgeships, 61 of the 69 judicial posts are now held by Republicans. The election sent the Democrats reeling and caused many of them to see pendulums in their dreams.
"It was an awful night for Democrats," said Rep. Martin Frost (D-Texas) in a typical comment, "Bul I think the pendulum could easily swing all the way back in 1986." The Democrats argue that It took only two years lo recover from the previous worst debacle the Ronald Reagan rout of 1980. In 1982, they point out, Democrats recaptured the governorship and elected a solid stale of mostly liberal newcomers to other state offices. As the anchor of Sunbelt politics, an electoral-college giant and the home slate of both Vice President George Bush and House Majority Leader Jim Wright (D-Texas), Texas' future is a story of obvious national Import. A lot of smart people here think the Democrats' pendulum theory is poppyco*ck that Texas has lo be considered clearly a two-party stale and perhaps a Republican-leaning slate In 1986, 1988 CARRIER SUBSCRIPTION RATBS Ltnttf) Dally Mon.
Man. Sot. tun. fTlmi ft Sun. Sat.
Prf. BSun. Only 1 Ytor IS 40 57 30 53.00 S3 00 3 .00 Months 44.30 3tM MOO 100 If .50 JMonths 73.10 14.10 13.00 00 T.75 1 Month 4.77 4.35 4 35 1.25 IWeek 1.70 1.10 1.00 1.00 .75 Newsstand and itrtot salt prict 35c dolly, 75c Sunday. Moll subscriptions or subltct to N.C. state ond county soles tax.
ALL TBLBPMONBB 353-511.
