by Vincent J. Narducci
Daily Lobo
Sociology and philosophy honor societies joined forces for the first time Wednesday evening and sponsored an open discussion over the looming war in Iraq that had a decidedly political themedespite efforts intended to make it less so.
The meeting was in Dane Smith Hall and featured speeches from Bob Leonard and Faculty Senate President Beverley Burris.
Eric Berman, president of both societies, the sponsoring organizations, said at the beginning of the assembly that it was difficult to get professors to agree to speak because they were concerned the seminar would become too political.
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"This forum is not intended at all to be political," Berman said. "It was intended to be informative and to allow people to engage in a discussion about the issue of the war."
He also stressed that the forum and Wednesday's protests were in no way affiliated, although the meeting did have an anti-war edge.
In the opening speech, Leonard lauded the walk-out protest as an important event and said that American power lies more in its labor than in the right to vote.
"I vote religiously and it makes a difference, but the real power lies in our hands," Leonard said. "If we all stopped working for half an hour a day the American government would take notice."
Leonard's lecture tackled the war from an anthropological perspective, his field of study. He touched on the aggressive ways male children are raised, the historical roots of war and joked about the development of the human brain.
"The mind evolved in the Pleistocene, so we have Stone Age brains -- not a good thing to tell the Philosophy and Sociology Honors Societies," he said.
Leonard also criticized U.S. Rep Heather Wilson's call for new nuclear weapons, and questioned the goals of international governments.
"Governments exist to serve the needs of the elite," he said. "Laws are written by elites, to assist elites."
Burris, a sociologist, delivered the second speech of the forum. She chose to address issues from her own personal experience, rather than from a sociological viewpoint.
"I think the war over Iraq is partly about oil, but not only about it," she said. "I think it is more about Bush trying to build an empire."
Burris also condemned the media for perpetuating misconceptions about the impending conflict and called the link between the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, and Saddam Hussein a myth.
"Whatever happened to Osama bin Laden?" she said. "I guess we can only take on one arch-bad guy at a time."
Burris made it clear that she did not support Saddam Hussein, but added that he is not an imminent threat to the United States.
She also suggested that attacking Hussein would provoke him into using terrorist tactics, rather than impede him.
About 20 people attended the seminar.
