I write to offer a few thoughts
on Mr. Kleindienst's speech and Mr.
Giltinan's article in Monday's Cavalier
Daily. Mr. Kleindienst's speech
was exactly what Mr. Giltinan
labelled it: a whitewashing. Hopefully,
all the liberals and radicals in
the audience realized that fact. The
conservatives and reactionaries,
needless to say, did not; and there
lies our central problem: educating
them. But the question we must
then ask is whether the tactics
employed the other night served
that purpose? Or on the other
hand, did they merely serve to
further cloud and polarize attitudes
toward the central issues (those
being the government's use of
violence) by allowing the conservatives
to ignore these issues in the
heat of anger over the yelling and
screaming going on before and
during the speech? I submit that
the answer to the first question
must be an unqualified "no" while
to the second an unqualified "yes."
The glaring weaknesses and absurdities
in the speech could have been,
and in fact were, brought out in the
post-speech session. I do not argue
that this is sufficient - but it at
least has the chance of being more
productive than the methods employed.
I myself have often wondered
whether the massive "reeducation"
of the conservative and
reactionary elements even fails
within the realm of vague possibilities.
But if this be the case, then
how much more ineffective are the
tactics of screaming and yelling.
They serve, as I have said, only to
cloud the issues and further close
peoples' minds. And the clouding of
issues is one thing that the left does
not need.
Steven C. Tabackman
College 3
