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Change World communism on the ropes, capitalism need only bide its time Marx talked about "economic determinism" and the inevitability of communism taking over the globe. Now the only place communism is going is into the history books. Yesterday, hundreds of thousands gathered on Moscow streets calling for President Gorbachev's resignation. The Soviet Union might be going the way of China by shutting down demonstrations u/ith militarv fnmp Pvpn if it Hnps hr\u;pupr it ic r\nl\; thp lact ?* *"* IVIWi Vil A* 11 UVVkJj liv "VT Vl| 11 AU V/lll^ U1V AUJl desperate act of an anachronistic regime. . While we should be saddened for the Soviet people if their government is in fact moving back toward repression, we can also be confident that the forces of communism are getting weaker daily. Now there are only a handful of nations that even call themselves communist, even fewer that actually follow true Marxist/Leninist doctrine. We are in the era of capitalism determinism. The Third World looks to the West, not the Communist world, for economic and political guidance. We should give financial assistance to these fledgling states, but it is not necessary to back that aid with military force. What is the point of losing troops to prevent communism when these communist nations will eventually find their way to capitalism anyway? Witness Vietnam's declaration that it wants to be the next Newly Industrialized Country. If only Lyndon Johnson could have seen 25 years into the future, we could have saved many lives. There is something the West can do, though, to ensure the democratization ot the world, the united States, and.the West in general, must behave in a manner fitting a democratic market economy to continue to be an example to the world. For example, it is ironic that a criminal suspect in Czechoslovakia probably is treated better than he would in, say, Los Angeles. FIRST WE POOHV "THEM 1^ SAME AS KI6HT ^ J|k ^^la^T^mc ^ 01991 i(;amec()(!K News: 777-7726 Advertising: 777-4249 Kathy Blackwell Robyn Thompson Editor in Chief Managing Editor Chris Silvestri David Bowden Copy Desk Chief Viewpoint Editor Lucy Soto Kathy Heberger News Editor Carolina Life Editor Steve Johnson Renee Meyer Sports Editor Photography Editor Aaron Sheinin tige Watts Assistant News Editor Assistant News Editor ULTI AVIA W KltiHT PATRICK VILLEG AS Assistant Carolina Life Editor Assistant Sports Editor jennifer jablonski julie boucfflllon Assistant Copy Desk Chief Assistant Photography Editor Eric Glenn Wayne Williams Darkroom Lab Technician Comics Editor Ed Bonza Erik Collins Director of Student Media - Faculty Adviser Laura s. Day Ray Burgos Production Manager Assistant Production Manager Renee Gibson Kyle Berry Advertising Manager Assistant Advertising Manager Carolyn Griffin Business Manager Letters Policy: The Gamecock will try to print all letters received. Letters should be, at maximum, 250 to 300 words long. The writer must include full name, professional title if a USC employee or South Carolina resident, or year and major if a student. An address and phone number are required with all letters sent. The Gamecock reserves the right to edit letters for style, possible libel or in case of space limitations. The newspaper will not withhold names under any circumstance. ' ' * j V ' c. ^ N ^ f a \ c ^ ^ ? s ? -s? ^ / X"' X9 ^ ^ ^ <r * ' s Animal testing As a faculty member and scientist, I was shocked and disgusted at a recent flyer I received in the campus mail. The headline of the flyer, from the Students for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (SETA) begins: "Thousands ? nxpiouea ana /\ousea at uol.: It states, "Did you know that the average I? USC vivisector is pocketing $135,000 of your ?rej tax dollars this year for research on primates, tain cats, dogs and a host of other animals?. .. To- pie day on our campus, more than 19,000 animals ani] are being abused, maimed and killed in 36 dif- paii ferent types of experiments." ji These statements are so untrue they require a nea response. The flyer continues on with such (jen statements and was accompanied by a brochure ratf from the Physicians Committee for Responsible wh< Medicine with the "facts" about animal exper- inv< imentation. Unfortunately, it too has many imp statements that are either totally untrue or dis- am, torted half-truths, designed to excite rather than q to inform, and to obtain the sympathy of most hav people who do care about animals. thai I believe students at a university are inter- Wh ested in a realistic view of the world and should cer not allow themselves to be misled by sweeping statements of the kind given in this mailing. . The animals used at USC are composed of ^ more than 90 percent of "other animals," mostly j rats and mice, with a daily census less than oneovc half of the number given. . . 1Y1U1WYW, II U1C (IVCIdgC V1VISCUIUI IS pocketing this kind of money from your tax the dollars on federal grants, he would clearly be in unt prison. Few of the full-time faculty at USC cou even make this much money. The researchers should have already become millionaires and E retire! that It is true that some researchers have a propor- hun tion of their salary listed on their grant, but this ing. is in lieu of, rather than a supplement to, their havi faculty salary, and has nothing to do with had, whether they do biological research, nuclear the physics or whatever. syst The implication is that the animals are Ii abused, burned, mutilated, etc. and they exhibit one Volunteering g You know, I've come to learn that the most important thing I have is time. M Usually I don't seem to be able to find I enough of it Gee, I don't suppose anyone out U there can relate to that. But I stopped and really thought about it the other day, and I realized that perhaps I have a lot more than I think. It's just a matter of how I spend it Do you know the average American spends I somewhere in the vicinity of three-and-a-half to vice five hours a day in front of a television set? I worl wonder how much we really get out of that time mon (except for when In Living Color is on, of BIN< course). ing i Recently I've discovered a great way to what spend some of that kind of time that all of us impc manage to piddle away doing basically nothing, that I I call it people time. E> Many of us don't realize how many people is re out there would really enjoy taking up one or ings two of those hours in our week we take for ours< granted. whei v.. Ti|i '?n# Mum /Jk AL M..Jf ML A JL- A +A+? II.IIH.I 11 ri. I III i n iniiiiniri mil' Vf fact that homose Homosexuals vi<? sKkm color; Furthermore, I unchristian the persons tnem To the editor: ble to object to tl In her Gamecock editorial individuals whil< March 22, Shelley Magee made of will (I know the presumptious statement that there must not be people are born gay. Where were wills), maintaini the headlines? Last I heard, no. one the homosexual's knew why people were gay. I've I personally b been to a GLSA meeting and beings (even the asked the people there what they in the image of knew or thought about the cause of the person woulc homosexuality and they said no image of God) ai one knew for sure. ings are a wond< It appears to me that Shelley through disobedk Magee's statement was a bit of God, we are propaganda used to associate ho- depraved state, mosexuals with other minorities Have you eve with legitimate complaints (as if to people just aren'l protest homosexuality were in the and peaceful wit same league as to discriminate ought to be? Wh against someone based on the the right thing? color of their skin). This isn't a they don't feel li] reasonable association, for a ra- thing. Which lea tional and moral objection to ho- point, mosexuality can be based on the Your feelings, SfeiilMa necessary ai r t FRANCIS ABEL \ II Guest Columnist [ c iction." While some basic reflexes are main- F ed to very low levels of anesthesia, in peo as wen as animais, u is noi true inai me i nals used on research labs are subject to I lfiil procedures. t t is rare that an animal suffers anywhere c rly as much as a person would visiting his c tist. These statements are designed to excite r ler than deal with the deeper issue of r jther or not one should use animals for any j jstigative work, even though the results are c KXtant to human health and, in fact, also to nal health. f Tie flyer also states that some alternatives c e been adopted in certain institutions and c computers can be used instead of animals, t ile it is true that computers can be used for e iain models, and we already use them exten- 2 sly in our teaching and research, the biologiinformation fed into the computer was ob- * ied from animal research. 1 n fact, any prescription drugs (and most J r-the-counter drugs) that are sold in the Un- 1 1 States have been tested on animals by FDA 2 idate. This has protected us from some of disastrous effects that have occurred when s ested drugs have been used in other ' ntries. c r very time you take a drug, please remember 1 the reason this drug is considered safe for t ian usage is, in part, because of animal testMoreover, "top-flight" medical schools c 5 not "banned" dog labs, as stated, but have , in some cases, to abandon them because of extreme expense of using live biological < ems to teach medical students. i the pounds in most large cities, more than < thousand dogs and cats are sacrificed each i reat way to u 9^ Shelley Magee ? -r- ti : k IT 1 fc have recently become involved with a serorganization that does some volunteer c in the Columbia ai;ea. In the past few ii ths I have done everything from calling out a GO numbers in a retirement home to help- s? lliterate adults learn to read. And you know o ? It makes me feel really good. And more n >rtantly it makes the people I'm spending o time with feel even better. ir /en for the busiest person, an hour a week ally not that much to spare. As human bewe are all guilty of being wrapped up in A slves. I know because I'm no exception. So tli 1 our lives are full, we tend to forget how w h pniTHR JS.nrfMr xuality is a beha- they sometimes seem to b s not a behavior. the final determinant of yo don't believe all vior (though some use thei ct to homosexual final criteria for judgement irily hate or fear cision making). Your will selves. It is possi- are not victims who can i tie behavior of the what we do. It might be 5, through an act that one can somehow in! some of you out mosexual feelings, but I d 'lieve people have how it can be said that om ing a respect for engage in homos personhood. behavior ... elieve all human ,, unborn) are made 1 beh?ve.men 316 God (thus hating men and,vlc? versa' 1 tel I be despising the >sexuahty .<* a perversa id that human be- 3S 3 temPtauon (?P"on lf, ;rfiii creation, but s'sl> '?n 1 "ecessanly w. mce to the will of *"?, ?,35 3 >?h?v,or ? V in a sinful and wlUful|y avoldedIn the United States of / r wondered why j?m exp^ted to tolerate t honest, generous pression of minority beli< h another as they within reasonable limits, i y don t people do behavior. Mostly because Ice doing the right I am, however, not expi ds me to another agree with or support ev< or form of behavior that en as domineering as plurality. I don't believe s id humane nonth; it does not seem unreasonable to me hat a few (less than 2 percent) of these same inimals should be used for medical research ind for teaching medical students about mamnalian systems. The animals are deeply aneshesized, which, on a one-on-one basis, can be ii7uv/ in a inv/AV/ liuiiianv/ iiiaiitiv/i uiaii ill a ound. The real problem is the SETA group and sinilar groups such as PETA (People for the ithical Treatment of Animals) apparently feel hat the use of any animal, perhaps even dead >nes or animal products, for improving human >r animal health is wrong. The argument then nust be whether or not it is ethical to use aninals or animal products for meat, clothing, >ets, work animals, zoos, etc., or if they can >nly be observed in the wild. If the answer is that one may raise animals or human purposes such as food, then the use )f animals, such as rats for medical research, is dearly justified. One of the statements attri>uted to members of this group ? that a rat is equivalent to a boy ? I do not find personally acceptable either as a physician or as a parent. To respond in more detail about the other jrochure, 'The Facts about Animal Experimenation," would make this much too lengthy. It ists the large number of advances that have ? >een made without the use of animals, for eximple, the discovery of human blood groups. But it does not point out that the basic chemi;try related to blood groups, antigens and antiKxlies, structures of blood proteins, etc., were lone using animals in order to achieve the techlology level to study human blood groups, rfany other misleading statements are a part of hat document Under the guise of concern for animals, this >rganization does a misservice to humans, to progress in human disease and to animal welfare, as well as to ongoing research in biology, chemistry, veterinary and human medicine. Francis L. Abel, MX)., Ph.D., is professor and chairman of the Department of Physiology of the USC School of Medicine. ise free time lany people are out there who's lives could use Dme filling. When I was volunteering at the retirement 1VU 11X1\J vt V* '* ?? Alt JUU1 VUIH/1 hat) can ial column on March 27, "Ignorance, not gays, harmful to USC." America Why cannot people accept the ex- ?^iers f?r who they are and the ,fs and differences that each of us portray, minority whether il ^ gender, race, ethnicity, religion or sexuality? Until we proceed to accomplish this, the scted to world will never live in peace and ay idea harmony. ters this Jennifer K. Chambers omeone Political science senior ome today, a sweet little old lady I see every me I'm there said to me, "It's so good of you ids to come out here. I know we're not very luch fun, but you make us feel important You now, that's a wonderful feeling." And you know, she is important. Everyone is nportant. Getting a visit made her day. Think bout this. If all the students of this university it aside the time it takes to watch a TV show nee a week and spend it with someone who eeds it, there would be about 25,000 people ut there who would have a great reason to feel nportant. It takes so little to bring someone happiness, rid you might be really surprised. What you lought would be a chore may well give a hole lot of happiness back to you. 1 J ,1 e, aren't should be labeled homophobic, ur beha- prejudiced or unenlightened beTi as the cause they believe homosexual beand de- havior is immoral, is. We TimMallace not help Jazz and media music junior possible lent hoPrejudice only exuaI blocks peace for woieve ho- To the editor: n which Thank you very much Dan Baryou in- abas for stating everything I have IpH intrt pvpr wanffvl fn cat/ Jn umir ?/1it/w.