In the Sept. 26 Registration Issue of the Daily Bruin I found a wonderful article on the evils of the carpool lane, (“Carpool lane a vehicle of socialist ideology”). Not only is the carpool lane evil, but as the author Garin Hovannisian argues, the lane has become a vehicle for social change – it is a way for this obviously left-leaning government to promote a socialist ideology. Hovannisian clearly had too much free time during the summer.
There are two major problems with Hovannisian’s article. Granted, the lane rewards a select number of people while excluding others, yet this is not a socialist concept. Rather, this is the concept of rewarding a few select individuals at the expense of others, which is a product of our capitalist society and Hovannisian’s beloved Republican party.
This party has continually rewarded the top tier of American society (who control the vast majority of our nation’s wealth) while excluding all the rest. The overall power of the Republican party is shown by their ability to draw young, intelligent individuals, like Hovannisian, into their fold.
Hovannisian needs to realize that his right-wing bias has begun to affect his thinking. He has managed to take something as innocent as the carpool lane and turn it into a vehicle of socialist propaganda.
As if he hadn’t already gone far enough, Hovannisian commits his second major flaw when he manages to brand John Kerry as a socialist – putting Kerry in the same category as Pol Pot and Fidel Castro. Kerry is not a socialist, he is a left-of-center Democrat. If Kerry were as liberal as everybody seems to think he is, he would not be the Democratic presidential candidate.
All one has to do is look at the rise and fall of Howard Dean. Dean was the early Democratic front-runner, yet he was too liberal and this ultimately cost him the chance to be the next president of the United States. Kerry, on the other hand, ultimately won the nomination by taking a more conservative stance.
Espiritu is a UCLA student.