Letters to the Editor

Boycotts aren’t McCarthyism

I am personally disheartened by what I read in Rachael
Sizgorich’s column, “Celebrity boycotts act against
free speech,” published April 4.

To suggest that a boycott, generated by sentiments of American
citizens, is a throwback to the days of McCarthyism is a farce and
flat wrong.

Boycotts have been a tool of public criticism for years, some of
the most successful having achieved necessary changes for the
better during the Civil Rights era. However, the linchpin of
Sizgorich’s argument, that a public boycott will lead to a
fascist police state, offends me and should offend anyone who
professes to love our Constitutional rights.

In the McCarthy era the Senate undertook a campaign, in the name
of protecting “American” ideals, that served to fully
contravene Constitutional rights and cast a shadow on the past of
this great nation that we should never forget, lest we repeat our
mistakes.

However, current boycotts have little in common with
McCarthyism. The First Amendment protects those with minority
views. However the First Amendment is not a bullet-proof vest.

Everyone can and should be held accountable for their views,
especially if they use their celebrity status to reach the entire
nation. In this country people have the right to be racist, but
that doesn’t mean you have to let someone who is racist shop
at your store or dine at your eating establishment.

Furthermore, the existence of libel and slander laws is evidence
of our country’s support for holding people accountable for
their words.

The purveyors of those Web sites criticizing celebrities for
their anti-American sentiment believe that celebrities who say
things deemed inappropriate should at a minimum be held accountable
for their words. The important fact here is that American citizens
are making this call; the government is not. The government is not
pulling Dixie Chicks CDs off the shelves; the government is not
pulling the plug on Susan Sarandon movies. If the government was
hosting boycott Web sites, then Sizgorich would have a cogent
argument.

Marc D. Nickel Alumnus, Class of 2002

Jason Liu distorts reality

Jason Liu’s editorial cartoon, “The average Iraqi
war experience” (Daily Bruin, April 8), is perhaps the most
ridiculous and baseless in his long line of distortions. Although
pictures are worth a thousand words, his is worth only one:
bull.

Is “the average Iraqi war experience” really that of
a woman clutching a child in a bombed-out building, as an imposing
soldier towers over the two? Or is it one that involves showering
American troops with flowers, yelling “Bush, yes!” and
raiding humanitarian supply convoys for the water and food in large
lack under the Baathist regime?

In reality, the towering soldier in the cartoon would no doubt
stoop down to help the Iraqis and then get them medical care and
food.

Sadly, the daydreams of the campus left remain mired in a
cartoonist version of reality.

David Hackett Fourth-year, political science and
French

BruinGo! is solution, not problem

As a fifth-year graduate student in UCLA’s history
department, I am well aware of the traffic problems and parking
shortage on the UCLA campus. I am also concerned about
students’ tight budgets, since registration fees increase
faster than teaching assistant’s salaries and fellowship
grants.

BruinGo! represents an opportunity for the university to address
all of these problems at once, at relatively low expense.

UCLA Transportation Services has made two proposals to reduce
the service on BruinGo!. The first is to cancel service on weekends
and holidays. The second would charge riders 25 cents per ride.
Both of these proposals would prove costly to UCLA students and
staff, particularly those who cannot afford to own cars, or to pay
for parking on campus.

Canceling service on weekends and holidays would be particularly
challenging to graduate students, who often are expected to work on
both weekends and holidays. Although the demand for parking is
sometimes reduced on weekends, the cost of daily parking passes is
beyond reach for me and many of my peers. Similarly, charging 25
cents per ride would increase the cost for students to commute via
the bus system, and reduce the financial appeal of the program.
Both of these proposals would substantially reduce the
program’s incentive to rely on public transportation.

UCLA should do everything possible to maintain BruinGo! service
and not resort to either proposal.

Cynthia Culver Ph.D. candidate, history