Letters to the Editor

USAC must serve all students

During the past two weeks, less than a quarter of UCLA
undergraduates elected next year’s USAC council. Though an
improvement over past years, the low turnout is an indication of
the apathy of students, who view USAC as irrelevant to their lives.
They’re right.

In the past few years, USAC councils have wasted their potential
and squandered opportunities to make contributions to student
welfare. Because of partisan politics, stonewalling and other
amateur melodrama, USAC has seemed more like a soap opera than a
governing body.

The level of divisiveness, arrogance and bickering has not been
proportional to the amount of clout at stake. In fact, this
infighting destroys USAC’s influence. Meetings spent trying
to cut through deadlocks or debating meaningless, irrelevant issues
waste time and effort that could be applied to less controversial
goals benefiting all students.

UCLA is still without a coordinated student group and community
activities hub, a comprehensive online resource for Westwood
apartments, or an official position on many important student
welfare issues (the pending decision on a quarter to semester
system switch, for example).

If the new USAC can reach out to all students and realize the
potential of its position, it will become a governing council that
all students would benefit from, participate in and admire. When
USAC shows students it is relevant, we will see real improvement in
student welfare.

Perhaps the Students First! slate will be able to use its new
majority to cut through bickering and infighting, thus improving
the student experience at UCLA.

To do so would buck the trend; Students First! forerunner slates
traditionally limited their efforts to a core of student groups and
far-left political activism (neither of which benefits the student
body as a whole).

To what extent USAC will see another year of business as usual
remains to be seen. Next year, the pressure to affect reform and
change is squarely on the shoulders of Anica McKesey and her fellow
council-elect.
Christopher Golis Fourth-year, Microbiology, immunology,
and molecular genetics student Former Daily Bruin
Contributor

Justice For All only presents one side of abortion
issue

Recently, Justice For All brought graphic abortion pictures to
the UCLA campus. Perhaps Justice For All, in the interest of fair
debate, should also post pictures of the women and girls maimed,
killed and disfigured because of back-alley, underground abortions
that will persist regardless of what the law says. Look at other
countries’ horrifying examples. What you see is women who
have abortions no matter what right-wing moralists tell them to do.
In the process, many kill both themselves and the fetuses these
groups are trying so hard to protect.

There are often desperate and humiliating reasons for such a
choice. Groups like Justice for All make no attempt to discuss
these reasons ““ the complex social, moral and political
reasons for unwanted pregnancy and abortion. Instead, they use
shock to override any attempt at informed debate.

According to The World Health Organization, there are between 40
million to 60 million abortions each year. Twenty million of these
abortions take place in countries where abortion is illegal. As a
direct result, an estimated 100,000 women are killed each year, and
many others are permanently injured.

If you disagree so much with my and every other woman’s
right to choose what happens to her own body, so be it. As human
beings of our own free will, we will continue to have our choice
““ whether or not you and the Bush administration sanction
it.

Live your life as you see fit. Leave my body, my family and my
choice alone. I am speaking for the women and young girls who will
die, along with their fetuses, if groups like Justice for All
prevail.
Kristina Caberto UCLA alumnus 1999

Powell’s letter hypocritical

In his letter, “Bruin Walk graffiti disgusting; messages
are uninformed” (May 15), Russell Powell informs the author
of the slogans that if he doesn’t like capitalism, he can
leave the United States and go to North Korea or Cuba.

First off, as Powell picked up on, the slogans are
anti-capitalism, which would suggest that the authors of the
slogans are socialists or Marxists. Why then would they move to
live in a dictatorship? Secondly, I think Powell fails to see the
hypocrisy of his argument. Powell is complaining about people who
are complaining about the place they live in. He tells them,
“nobody has a gun to your head.”

Well, Powell, nobody has a gun to your head, forcing you to stay
here at UCLA. If you don’t like the graffiti, you can always
move to USC or Santa Monica College.
Tom Berger Second-year, aerospace engineering
student