In the time that I have attended this university, I have seen some pretty sick things done and said by various people. But I can say in all honesty that I have yet to see anything that could possibly rival Ben Jones’ column Thursday. In it he complains bitterly about the treatment of The September 29th Movement by the university, comparing the current situation to that of Nazi Germany and the persecution of the Jewish people.

How, Mr. Jones, you can in good conscience compare the deaths of millions to the peaceful arrest of three members of The Movement because they refused to leave the president’s office after the designated closing hour is completely beyond me. Such a comparison is not only absurd, it makes a mockery of arguably the most horrific period in human history. Nothing, Mr. Jones, nothing can or should be put on the same level as the Holocaust, save other forms of attempted genocide. Certainly not some mild student protest. By doing so, you trivialize the suffering of much of an entire race.

As if comparing the arrest of three people who clearly and deliberately broke the law to the deaths of millions of innocents were not enough, you then proceed to compare DPS to the instrument of Nazi oppression, the SS. First of all, Mr. Jones, if you had taken the time to do some rudimentary research, you would have investigated and found out that the German Secret Police were, in fact, the Gestapo, not the SS. Second, how many of us have been awakened in the early morning to the sound of knocking at our door, and then seen our roommate drug out kicking and screaming by DPS officers dressed in black, never to be heard from again? Yup, the way those heinous DPS officers go around ticketing illegally parked cars and arresting protesters who are refusing to leave a closed building really puts them on the level of one of the more despicable police organizations the world has ever known, wouldn’t you agree, Mr. Jones? You know, it seems supremely ironic that you would issue such a broad generalization about DPS. Sounds a lot like the broad generalizations that racists use, wouldn’t you agree, Mr. Jones?

In short, you have disgraced yourself, the Daily and this university with your supremely inappropriate comments. If you have a shred of decency, if you have an honorable bone in your body, you will issue an apology to the student body and resign from your position at the Daily. Your remarks were considered and deliberate. You knowingly trivialized the attempted genocide of the Jewish people. You tried to use the deaths of millions to your own political ends. You have lost all respectability and integrity as a journalist. Wouldn’t you agree, Mr. Jones?

Nathan Ellefson

Sophomore

Chemical engineering