European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - November 29, 1990, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 10 columns the stars and stripes thursday november 29,1990paul f. Eckstein Arizona needs King Day not moral lesson with the rejection of a paid state Holiday honouring or. Martin Luther King jr., Arizona once again has become americans favorite political football. The sports world the Media and other leading ethicist have pronounced Arizona a racist state a virtual South Africa in an otherwise racially enlightened nation. While much has been said and written about Why Arizona voters rejected the Holiday most of the commentary has been uninformed and nearly All of it has been laced with doses of Sanctimony and hypocrisy. It is not As if this National scolding is wholly unwarranted. After All despite protestations to the contrary some arizonans plainly rejected the King Holiday on racist grounds. A poll conducted by the behaviour research Center of Arizona put that number at 6 percent Well in excess of the 1 percent margin by which the King Holiday was Defeated. But racists alone did not keep Arizona from joining 47 other states in celebrating Kings birthday. Nothing is easy in this state. In May 1986, nine Days after the Arizona House of representatives Defeated by a single vote a Bill that would have followed the Federal Model of a King Holiday by combining Washington s and Lincoln a birthdays into a presidents Day then gov. Bruce Babbitt issued an executive order declaring the third monday in january a paid King Holiday for state employees. When Evan Menam succeeded Babbitt in january 1987, he promptly rescinded babbitts order. Now it gets complicated. After Mecham was impeached and convicted by the Arizona legislature and with inordinate pressure from the Phoenix business Community which was trying to land the 1993 super bowl the legislature caved in. It passed a Bill in september 1989, which created a King Day and eliminated Columbus Day As a paid Holiday for state employees. That angered the italian Community which joined forces with the evaristas Mecham loyalists to circulate petitions to place the question on the november 1990 ballot. They Quicley and easily gathered enough signatures. Realizing that a King Day without a Columbus Day was doomed in May of this year the pro King Day forces persuaded the legislature to restore Columbus Day while leaving King Day in place. Once again the evaristas took to the streets with their petitions securing enough signatures to place a second King Day proposition on the ballot a this time with Columbus Day. In a rational world the second act restoring Columbus Day would have rendered the earlier legislation removing Columbus Day moot. However the attorney general ruled otherwise. Thus there were two King Day propositions on the nov. 6 general election ballot one without a Columbus Day proposition 301 and one with a Columbus Day proposition 302. Voters rejected both versions. However subsequent polling confirms that More voters in Arizona wanted some sort of King Day rather than none at All. A poll last week found that 63 percent of voters supported one of the two versions of the Holiday. The split vote is not the Only reason Arizona does not have a paid King Holiday. On the sunday before election Day sports commentator Greg Gumbel on the to program a the nil today Quot disclosed the existence of a draft press release from the nil stating that Arizona would lose the 1993 super bowl scheduled for the Arizona state University stadium if its voters rejected the King Holiday. There is no doubt that Many voters who were on the Fence changed their vote at the last minute to Send a message to new York that no one was going to bludgeon arizonans into voting  according to the behaviour research poll As May As 60,000 voters changed from a a yes to a a not just before the election As a result of the nil Story. Reflecting the schizophrenic nature of Arizona politics the vote was highly fragmented. King Day carried in two thirds of the states legislative districts and passed by margins in excess of 65 percent in Many of the precincts in Central Phoenix and Tucson. It failed miserably however in the counties particularly those along the Colorado River and populated largely by retirees unable to afford housing in California. There the margin against was 2-1 and More. Arizona senior citizens in general opposed the King Day in a big Way. Not a single precinct in Sun City voted above 36 percent a a yes on proposition 302 a one managed Only 8 percent. No doubt those who live several Hundred Miles from Phoenix resented the boosterism that pervaded the King Day Campaign. Rightly or wrongly Rural voters perceived that the Holiday was being promoted solely for the economic Benefit of the Phoenix business establishment. Within hours of the final tally showing that proposition 302 lost by 17,000 votes statewide out of 1.1 million votes cast nil commissioner Paul Tagliabue announced that unless Arizona changed its mind and did so quickly it would lose the 1993 super bowl. Shortly thereafter the National basketball association threatened to pull the 1992 Aba All Star game and the University of Virginia where King shares his Day with noted civil rights activists Robert e. Lee and Stonewall Jackson a pumped an invitation to the 1990 fiesta bowl. Also conventions were moved elsewhere and the National Media resoundingly condemned the outcome. In football this is called piling on. Lost in the cacophony of Sanctimony and hypocrisy Are several salient facts. New Orleans site of the 1992 super bowl is located in a state that does not mandate a King Day but rather depends on an annual declaration by the governor. San Diego site of the 1988 super bowl voted by a 60 percent margin to change the name of Martin Luther King or. Way Back to Market Street in 1987, without any untoward consequences. The nil itself has Only one Black head coach and no Black owners. Phoenix Tucson Tempe and 18 other cities in the state adopted a paid King Holiday for their employees before anyone in Arizona even dreamed of hosting the super bowl. Arizona does not need lessons in political morality from the nil. On that last score Arizona should withdraw any bids for special events dependent on the outcome of the King Day Issue a thereby sending a message to the nil the Aba and anyone else trying to buy arizonans morality that it is not for Sale. In the meantime advocates of King Day must go to every Comer of the state with the message Arizona needs the Day not to secure a super bowl. It should rather to Honor a Man who through dogged persistence steadfast courage and stirring rhetoric brought an end to our National shame and led us a Long Way Down the Road to becoming one people. Eckstein la a Phoenix lawyer and was co prosecutor in the 1988 impeachment trial of former gov. Evan Mecham Carl Rowan War of magnitude probably in the future a Are we going to War with Iraq a i hear that question Many times every Day from a lot of people who Are fearful and a few who Hope we Are. A yes a i reply. A the Odds Are at least 20 to 1 that Only military Force can push iraqi tanks and troops out of Kuwait and make up for the atrocities of Saddam Hussein. �?ounless.,and then i add three very important caveats. Unless Saddam turns sane and accepts the reality that he cannot survive militarily and pulls his forces Back to just the Northern edges of Kuwait where he can then try to bargain to retain a couple of islands and land sitting atop a great Oil Reserve that have Long been reason for territorial disputes Between Iraq and Kuwait. President Bush and soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev have both said adamantly that Iraq must not gain anything that Saddam must not be rewarded in any Way for brutal aggression against Kuwait. There is a Chance that under United nations pressures and concern about rising anti War movements in the . And other places Bush and Gorbachev might throw Saddam a Crumb As a Way of avoiding the carnage of War. Unless the iraqi dictator is assassinated and someone a More reasonable assumes Power. Because political murders Are double edged swords and for other reasons they offend american sensibilities we have prohibitions against carrying out or paying for the assassinations of foreign leaders. But a lot of people Here and abroad Are now saying that wiping out Saddam Hussein makes a lot More sense than engaging in a War in which Poison gases brutally murderous bombs and even a Small tactical nuclear weapons might be used. Unless members of the iraqi military decide in the face of a massive . Offensive Force that they do not want to die in a hopeless War. And they overthrow Saddam. The dispatching of 200,000 More to saudi Arabia is based in part on american Wishful thinking that this will frighten iraqi military leaders into abandoning Saddam and staging a coup. What Are the chances that any of these three a unless est will become reality the soviet Union has tried hard to get Saddam to pull Back to Northern Kuwait in the Hope of gaining some territory through negotiations. The iraqi Leader has refused to Bend one Whit insisting that he will never withdraw from Kuwait which Saddam Calls a part of  As for killing Saddam you can bet that agents from several countries including. Some International free Lance assassins Are trying to do that. But even if one succeeds who believes that this will produce a a sanity in Iraq or the islamic world assassinating Saddam could Lead to a greater War and human suffering beyond our imaginations. A military coup against Saddam seems the most plausible of the a unless is a but even that would not guarantee that iraqi military units in Kuwait with suicidal devotions to Saddam would not precipitate the War that the coup masters hoped to avoid. So steel yourself to the reality that my a unless est will not occur and that a War of serious magnitude is probably in our immediate future. C North America Syndicate