DONALD DUCK IN DELH

The Film As A Weapon

(an note: Stephen Nunn, class oi
'73 is attending American Univer-
siw in Washington, D. c. this sem~
ester as a participant in the Wash
ington Semester program. At the
request oi the benigerent editor he
has consented todonatennoccaslon»
al few hours or his time to con-
tinue writing tor the son, albeitat
long distance. This will be the iirst
in a series oi columns irom Wash»
ington.)

by steve Nunn
sub woman. on. can

Academicians are amazing in the
value they can place on the trivial.
They only sometimes miss the for»
est for the trees, but are frequently
distracted from the trees by a min
nute examination of the leaves.

For instance, a panel of very dis»
tinguished and learned gentlemen
assembled last Saturday in the Was-
hington Hilton to spend the morning
debating one oi the more intriguing
questions oi modern politics and
could reach no conclusion more subs
Stantive than that Donald Duck may
be banned in Bolivia.

This is not to disparage Donald
Duck, who like his colleague Mickey
Mouse has made important contrir
butions to American culture. It may
even be that Duck has been more
successful than Mouse in this re—
gard, hut Mouse is oi course name
pered by his color, and clearly Duck,
being white, is seen by the Bolivians
as an embodiment of our capitalise
tic racist society, which favors white
ducks at the expense of black mice.
Thus he is banned while the other
is not.

Washington
Report

This is very astute ofthe Bullvians
ls U.S. society, after all, known for
heating a path to the door of the
inventor oi a better duck trap”
Hardly.

But to return to the Hilton, where
these gentlemen have cometogether
from all over the United States to
locus the powers of their collective
mind on The Film in Mass Politics,

Lenin is said to have believed that
the cinema had the greatest revolu-
tionary potential of all the media.
ln these hard days and dark nights,
when it is sometimes hard to tell
whether the medium is the message
of a mass age, or a massage or the

mess age, one might therefore, not
without logic, expect iilm to be
among the loremost successful de-
vices of mass politics.

That it is not provided the prin-
cipal stumbling block to what might
otherwise have been a most inter
esting and stimulating seminar.

The panelists, attending the 68th
annual convention of the American
Political Scientists’ Association, did
not iail to make a number oi very
good observations during the dis-
cussion.

But In addition to Donald Duck’s
difficulties in Latin America, these
observations were mostly oithe type
that would lead one to conclude--
and indeed ledthis panelto conclude,
after 2 1/2 hours of deliberation"
that film has been less successful
than Lenin perhaps envisioned as a
motive iorce in politics, though it
has served well as a reinforcement
device ior ideas already implanted
and, perhaps less frequently, as a
catalyst ior change.

For example, in Cuba, wherethere
was no film industry at all before
the revolution, there is now a hate
ional Film Institute, which has been
putting out iilms or a heavy ideoe
logical cast. The problem is, the
films have not been too Successful,
because the Cuban people do not
seem to want to see iilms ofaheavy
ideological cast, and the Institute
has been forced to shift to enter-
tainment films, tinged with poli-
tics.

In India, which possesses in Madras
the second largest nlm center in

(continued on page '1)

$92 fleagd Merriam: 911% in foam.

(Ed. note: Shelley Floyd, 1911~72
SGA President at Grinnell, grad-
listed in 1972 and is now working
in the college Development office.
This summer she ran for state re—
presentative from this district and
was defeated in a close race by
230 votes. At the request oi the
5&3, she kindly consented to write
her political memoirs, which ap-
pear below.)

by Shelley Floyd

Some people thought it was great
and quickly oitered their support.
Some thought I was crazy. Others,
In the best tradition of male par
ternalism, were worriedthatl would
get my feelings hurt. There was,
after all, good reason to suspect
that a young female, from another
part oi the country and just out oi
Grlnnell College, would have diffi—
culty winning any kind oi race in
this area.

Despite the skeptics, however,l
decided to give it a try and an-
nounced my candidacy for state
Representative from lowa’s’llstRe-
presentative District. The 7lst DISr
trict, recently reeapportionedbythe
Iowa Supreme Court, includes about
hall at Tama County, half oi Power
shiek County, a handiul oftownships
In Benton County, and one township
In Iowa County. Those of you uns
familiar with the layout of cDunr
ties will perhaps recognize the
names of the metropolitan areas in
the district: Grinnell, Belle Plaine,
Tama, Toledo, Malcom, and
Chelsea.

I decided to run at the very end
of May, only two months before the
August 1 primary. Being virtually
unknown and beginning with somany
marks against me, I hzld to get
busy. My strategy was to rely heas
vily on personal contact andtocam»
paign the hardest in Poweshiek
County, especially Grinnell. The
personal contact was the best way
oi convincing people that l wasn’t
wildreyed and reckless. By concen-
trating on Poweshiek, I hoped to be
able to use the heavy bloc of votes
from therer-Grinnell is the largest
population center in the district--
to offset the support my opponent
would almost surely get in his home
county of Tama. Finally, I hoped to
get about 200 absentee ballots from
college students.

And so I set out knocking on doors
and accumulating lists at names to
contact. With the help of some gen—
erous people, I set up a series of

coffees, at which I spoke and anss
wered questions. l also spoke at
numerous Democratic gatherings"
committee meetings, Democratic
club meetings, fund-raisers.

One of the beauties of Iowa Is Its
assortment of summer festivities. l
spent a lot of time at such events
as the Malcom Centennial, the Belle
Plaine Fourth of July celebration,
the Tama County Fair, the Powe-
shiek County Fair, The Baptist
Church ice cream social, Toledo
Ridiculous Days, Belle PlaineCi‘aZy
Days, and the Chelsea Bohemian
Band Music Concerts.

This was one of the most enjoy
able aspects oi my campaign. Most
of my exposure to rural America
comes from Oklahoma, where the
land is played out, the people bits
ter, and the iuture bleak Here in
Iowa the farms are Clean and fern
tile, the people funrloving, and the
atmosphere healthy.

cue oi the skeptics’ predictions that
was the most quickly disproved was
that people In the community would
not take well to such a young per.
son running for ciiice. I was con.
tlnually amazed at how many people
went out of their way to say that
they were glad to see young people
involved, even to say that youth was
our only hope. Whereas l hadthought
originally that my youth would be
my biggest debit, it became, Ibe-
Iieve, my biggest asset. Ii nothing
else many people figured my youth
to mean that l was probably not
yet so corrupt and deceitful as all
the other politicians they were so
tired of.

This distrust ofpollticians was
something I encountered every
where. The race was a primary,
of course, so I was talking almost
exclusively to Democrats, which
limited my sample But almost all
those I talked to viewed politics
as a dirty, dirty business Theywere
tired of listening to politicians lull
oi hot air, and they felt that they
were quickly iorgotten by politicians
after election time. “You couldn't
be any worse than what we have
now,” I was told on repeated our

CBSIOIIS,
One man in Belle Plaine expressed

not only this belief, but also went
on to Say, "I don’t honestly see how
the women could be as corrupt and
dishonest and mess up things so
badly as the men have, Ilustdon’t”,
For the most part, my youth seemed
to overshadow the fact that l was
a woman. If anything people saw

me more as a hard-working little
girl than as an aggressive woman.
There were, of course, outstanding
exceptions where all people could
see was that l was an eligible wom-
an But that you can encounter any-
where,

I was continually dismayed at the
role of women in political work.
Women mostly did the nitty-gritty
work for my campaign and for the
Partyeethe typing, the calling,plan»
nlng parties [it coffees, cooking,
stuffing and licking envelopes. (This
is not to say that there were not
men who pitched in, for whose help
I am deeply grateiul.) Yet the ex-
tremely rare exception was the
woman who was working in an ad-
ministrative position or as a field-
person for a candidate.

The paucity oi women was true
among the younger people too. Toe
ward the end oi July, for example,
the State Party had a workshop in
Des Moines for all .the state con-
gressional candidates. Everybody
there was commenting on the sur-
prising number of young people
seeking office in the state Senate
and House oi Representatives; prob-
ably somewhere around hall of the
candidates there were under thirty.
Very few people, however, seemed to
notice or care that mostoftheyoung
people were men.

My impression from my brief exr
perienoe here in Iowa is that pols
itics IS a malerdominatedfield from
top to bottom and irom young to
old. It's a tough field to crack,
but there are lots of opportunities
waiting for you women whoare will—
ing to try,

The doorsknocking, coffees, and
advertising coupled with an exten-
sive election-day getroutrthe—vote
campaign worked well in Poweshiek
County, I carried the county about
3.1. But it was not enough to over-
come my opponent's strong showing
in Tama Mr. Husak conducted an
impressive getsout-the-vote cams
paign in the ruraltownships in Tama.
Usually farmers don’t vote in prim
lnai‘ies. The average turnout in the
rural townships in Poweshlek was
between 10-25 voters. Mr Husak,
however, was able to pull blocs of
between 4080 votes in the rural
townships in his area, all ot which
added up to a considerable sum.

All In all, the campaign was a tre-
mendous experience, and Ihave no
regrcsts about the endeavor. The
campaign was a clean one, so that
I have no bitter feelings toward

mar. étorltt alto alolntli

Pletlel Runs

by Michael Breed

SGA kicked off the year with its
iirst regular meeting last Wednes-
day night. They touched on all
the bases, most of them somewhere
in left field.

The meeting opened with a plea
from Vice-Presldelit Pfefter for
people to show a little considerar
lion around campusespecialiy atthe
weekend movies at ARH. Last Sa-
turday night somebody (meaning the
janitors) had to pick up 219 beer
cans and I 1/2 gallons oi cigarette
butts after the movies.

The conversation then degenerated
into a discussion of the perennial
pet problem which, after a round of
BSing by Michael Falk, was iinally
referred to the Social Policies and
Regulations Committee.

Illegal room changes, another pe-
rennial problem, were touched on,
and then came what might havebeen
the big issue of the evening w The
lntiatiVE.I Fund. Al Rosenfield br-
ought what might be called a tenta-
tive policy statement for this year's
Initiative Fund, He didn't want a
vote, but wanted what he called a
consensus.

Unfortunately for him, the hall
presidents could agree on only one
thingssnone of them liked it. NOV
body really agreed about what they
didn’t like, though many thought the
money should be more directly av.
ailable to the halls (this sounds
perfectly natural, coming from hall
presidents). Pfetfer cut the dis-
cussion short, In his usual busir

September l5, l9"

A light Ship

nesslike manner, and no conclusion
was reached.

The next topic on the agenda was
Judicial Council reform. After a
short discussion about some con-
fusion surrounding the guidelines
each hall has to hand in, the pro»
blem was also referred to a com-
mittee (I lorget which one). So:
four issues, four committees,

A. spokesman for the lettuce boycott
then appeared and gave a ratherlen-
gthy rationale ior not eating Iceberg
lettuce. They were asked to pass a
resolution asklng SAGA either to
serve UFW picked lettuce or to
change to a different van‘ety of
lettuce in their salads.

Unwilllng to take the responsibility
ior anything so weighty as what kind
of lettuce the campus eats, the hall
presidents spent about twenty
minutes (the longest discussion
allowed all night) trying to iigure
out a way to get around having to
make a decision, They iinally
tabled the issue until next week.

At this point I leIt, not being too
curious as to which committee the
next issue would be referred to.
Somewhere I'm going to have to dig
up something besides the SGA meet—
ings to write about, as I’m sure no-
body wants to read a play by play
account oi this same stuii every
week It seems to me that decir
slons should be made by the elected
declslonsmaking body, but somehow
that Just hasn't come across to the
hall presidents yet.

inoto bv Nnnrv riotcher

SHELLEY FLOYD

Mr. Husak. My experience was so
enjoyable that I would, ior several
reasons, encourage students to in-
voIve themselves In the political
activity in this area. There are
many good candiddates on the state
and local ticket, in races which offer
clear choices, People like Dick
Clark, who is running Ior the U 3.
Senate, or Ed Mezvinsky, candidate
for this area for the U S. House,
or Joan Orr, candidate Irorn Grin-
nell for State Senator. A slate of
candidates like this can offer (I re-
freshlng change ior those olyou who
come from areas where there Is
little choice, areas like my home
state where the candidates nearly
all fit the ‘Southern Democl‘at' mold,
Moreover, the concentration of
your votes and your work can go a
long way in getting candidates elects
ed. Whereas an individual vote might
be a iutlle one in some states,
here the combination oi your vote
and work with that of other students

can swing the election returns for
this area. Some of you may come
from areas where you cannot even
be sure that your absentee vote will
be counted. others oi you may come
lrom areas where there IS very little
activity for McGovern, Others may
not be interested in McGovern, but
Inay find a dearth of good candidates
for other offices in your home state.

Finally, escaping for a while the in—
trospective myopia of campus life
and getting out and working withpeo-
pie in town and In the ruralareas can
be a very stabilizing experience.
We too often become so mired in
the campus community that we lose
our ability to discern important irom
minor things and to maintain a View
of tllings in some sort ofperspective.
This of course is not a new obser-
vatloil. But for those of you who are
still seeking a solution to this old
problem, i recommend getttlng out
and around in Iowa politics.

 

