Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1970's

,, gam b -II"'" by Ron Schneiders In last week's Cycle News, Mr. J, G, Krol made a rather roundabout pitch for Richard Nixon. As I read the article I was consciQ.us of the fact that I was very disturbed by it, without being immediately able to pinpoin t the cause of the disturbance. Others, particularly those ,in the AM{\ camp, have written urging support for Nixon and my reaction has been a kind of "That's typical," shrug of the mental shoulders. While I was thinking about Krol's article, trying to decide just what it was that bothered me, my thoughts kept flicking away to a seemingly unrelated subject: a bit of "fan" mail I'd received a week or two before. A fellow named J.D. Martin had laboriously hand·prin ted a letter denouncing my morals, ethics, reportorial ability, and sundry other aspects of my character. This isn't very unusual. Any co'lumnist who writes on controversial subjects can expect two or three such lellers each week. But Martin's letter started off with the sentence, "You are not trul a motorcyclist in make-up ... H Now that was a shocker. As one who makes his living writing about motorcycles; rides 30 or 40 events a year; does most of his maintenance and modification; has roughly 100,000 road miles under the seat of his pan ts and such,l had automatically assumed that 1 was at least "truly a motorcyclist", not only in make-up but in calluses, broken bones, Gatorade consumption, and by inclination. But according to J.D. Martin, that alone was not alone to qualify. And after further reflection on Krol's article, I concluded that maybe Martin had a point. Mr. Krol has a very strong argumen t. While conceding that Nixon is no friend, "offering us nothing more in return than the opportunity to choose the music at our funeral," he seems to feel that he is not an enemy either. He is, according to Krol, a pragmatic politician who can be bought. "He is a friend to whomever possesses the most political clout, and that's that.. ...We can expect Nixon to do business with us if motorcycling is able to implemen t some of its potential political c1oul.,." Now Mr. Krol has given us a pretty fair description of Nixon as a corrupt politician; a political criminal. If he were a mayor or councilman we might, on the basis of Krol's description, attempt to put him ip jail rather than re-elect him. But Krol proposes that re-elect him because the alternative, the election of l\1cGovem, threatens our "survival'-' as motorcyclists. All arguments rest on some premises, i.e., statements that the proponent of the argument asks you to accept as being self-evident. not needing proof. 1 can make a very strong argument for sPree exploration as a solu tion to the world's food problems if you will allow two simple premises: That the moon is made of swiss cheese and the surface of Mars is coated with Heinz catsup. Of course, you wouldn't allow such absurd premises. But if I repltrased them, if I started my argumell t with "The ultimate answer to man's critical shortage of agricultural products may lie in the vast regions of outer space, a region which we have only begun to explore and which we now have the capability of, indeed the responsibility to, explore to the fullest..." you might be well on your way toward accepting my argument· without even realizing that I was expecting to find catsup on Mars. The most dangerous premises :n any argument are those which are only implied and which you accept· almost unconsciously. The first such premise that Mr. Krol expects us to accept is that we will vote for a president solely on the basis of his attitude toward motorcycles, or more precisely since neitlter candidate has any firm attitude toward motorcycles, on his ability to be boughl. I spend about 75 percent of almost every day of the year doing something in connection with motorcycles, riding them, reading about them, writing about them, fixing them and photographing them. They are both my livelihood and my hobby. If motorcycling, as a sport, were to go under, I would lose my most enjoyable pastime, my ability to make a living, and probably my home and truck as well. J have quite a vested interest in keeping it alive and well. But suppose one day as I w as working on my motorcycle in the open garage, I heard a metallic scream from the sky and saw the kids who were playing on the sidewalk, of them mine, blown into a dozen flaming pieces? Suppose the dog who sits happily watching me work suddenly had both his legs blown off by a burst of rocket fire? Suppose the trees and bushes that surround my house were turned in to lifeless sticks by defoliants? Suppose my house were washed down' the street because someone blew up Hansen Dam in Hprotective retaliation." I dare say il would be quite some time before 1 could think seriously about motorcycles again. The difference is that these things have been happening halfway around the world instead of to me. Somehow a Vietnamese kid is remote, an abstraction, while Mark is real. I'm not much of an intellectual, and I don't understand things like "protective reaction" and "defensive air strikes" but sometimes I'm mature enough to be able to make the translation from Vietnamese child to my child and sometimes when I read about the "pacification" of a village, 1 wonder if among those dead and mutilated children there might have been a Billy Barkfeather who would hav'e enjoyed riding a mini-bike. Richard ixon has dropped more bombs on that tiny country in four years than have been dropped by all the countries of the world combined in recent. history. He has protected military personnel who are guilty of such hideous atrocities that we can't even bear to read about them. The man who bombed the dikes, in direct contradiction to the few rules that exist in this massacre, Ge";eral John Lavelle, is being allowed to retire as a Lt. General with a $27,000 a year pension. In the same paper ("L.A. Times", October 25, (972) that announced this sad fact, it was also announced that American B-52's Itad in one day dropped 1500 tons of bombs on South Vietnam, the country we're supposedly saving for Democracy. There are no . military targets left in Vietnam, only a few homes and kids. There is no doubt in the minds of most politically. savvy people that if, by some strange fluke, the U.S. actually were to lose this war, if the North Vietnamese were able to invade and conquer us, Nixon and his generals would stand trial in world court and take their places alongside Hitler and Goering as war criminals. But it may be necessary to vote for Richard Nixon to, ensure the su.rVival of motorcycling. Since it's hard to relate to things happening far away, I'd like to bring it closer to home. I'd like to talk about your life and friends, but I don't know you, so I'll tell you something about mine. Before I was involved in motorcycling as a profession I worked in an electronics plane: Two friends'and myself were laid off as the defense priorities of the company shifted, It took me a year to find another job. One of my friends was IU'cky. He was hired by a firm that made the same things he had been making, the only other such firm in existence. The firm is about 35 miles from his house and he lost all of the benefits of 12 years with the first company, but he counts himself lucky because he discovered very quickly th at he was unemployable in any other line, even at a drastic cut in pay. He would like to move nearer to his job, but he can't afford it. The other friend has been out of work for two years now. A fter searching the entire L.A. area for a job, without success, he tried to start his own business on practically zero capital. It didn't make it. His wife works. but her salary is not enough to make the house payment. If something doesn't happen very soon they'll lose the house they have been buying for 'the past 10 years, A widow lived downstairs from us when we had an apartmen l. She and her husband had been productive members of society all their lives, and both wer slaunch, patriotic. conservative American]. Now, as a widow, living on social security she has a choice. She can keep her 100 a month apartment or eat regularly, but not both, he fOWld a doctor to treat an illness she suffered ., . but can't afford to fill the prescription he gave her. My wife works. There's no ceiling on the profits her firm can make and theY"re doing quite well. But there's been a limit of five percent on her annual raises. The cost of living is going up much faster than either of our earnings. . As I look around me, I see that half of the things that I buy are foreign made. My motorcycles, test instruments, cameras, hi-fi equipment, dictaphone, tools, even the shitts that I get from Sears. Every other car that you see on the streets was made outside this country. Yet while we're buying everything from overseas, our working people are unable to find jobs. Why? Are we so dumb that we can't compete technologically with the Japanese and tlte Germans? We're told it's -because they have cheap labor, but I've got news for you. Some of the people I know who are ou t of work would be happy to work at German wages. All our sophisticated technology is now going to produce weapons. Most of our bright people are producing weapons. They've been doing it for 20 years now and our consumer technology is way behind that of Japan and Germany. We can't build a good mo torcycle or a good camera at a competitive price, or maybe even at any price. As the demand for weapons rises and falls with the political game of the moment, our people become pawns, pushed off the board when their specialized and limited usefulness is over. If bombs cost $ 1 a pound, a rather conservative estimate, 1 expect, then $3,000,000 worth were dropped on Vietnam yesterday. That's more than enough to 'build a good motorcycle plant. Just one day's supply of bombs. And I know some people who would be happy to work at it. But Krol tells us that we must re-elect Nixon to ensure the survival of motorcycling. But what, you might ask, of the alternative: Senator McGovern? What's his stand on motorcycles? Quite frankly, I don't know. For two months I've been trying to get a statement from him without success. When everything else failed I wrote one myself and asked if he'd sign it. He didn't. He's been too busy with his primary issues: the war, the economy, and the environmen t, to consider motorcycles, and he won't sign anything he hasn't thoroughly researched. So I just don't know. He's a quiet, comtemplative type person. I doubt that he likes bikes very much, if indeed he's thought of them at all. But at least, in this instance, he seems honest. My editor promised front page space [or any statement from him, and I told his campaign leaders about it. Most politicians would jump at that opportunity. It made no difference. And so far, at least, he hasn't sold us lock, stock and barrel as Nixon did with his Presidential Order 11644. Krol says, "Because Mr. McGovern is so deeply committed to all the (righteningly irrational forces of eco-freakery which if unleashed would so eagerly destroy motorcycling, he must be voted against." Are we to assume from Krol's statement that the forces of "Eco-freakery" are now under some sort of leash? Wlten the Sierra Club can join forces with the commander of a bombing range to prevent a motorcycle event 200 miles outin the middle of the desert, as they did in the case of the Golden Bear enduro, what sort of constrain ts are they operating under? The only thing standing between us, the off-road riders, and the forces of "eco-freakery" if a statement by the Forest Service which goes, "'Ve recognize the use of off-road vehicles as a legitimate recreational use of the National Forest," and that statement did not originate \vith Nixon. In fact, he did his best to cu t the ground from under it, both literally and figuratively, with Presidential Order No. 11644. The BLM has since picked that up as a stateJTlent of their policy and 1 think, as policy, it will survive either Ni.xon or McGovern. When it comes down to specific cases, it's another story. Mr. Krol told us quite plainly that Mr. Nixon was for sale to the highest bidder. Let no one believe that we can outbid the Sierra Club for the fickle affection of Nixon. But there is more to it than simply the unleashing of that which is not leashed. Burn your Cycle News if you wish, but believe that I regard the ·'focus of eco-freakery" as basically beneficial, not harmful. It is my con tention that motorcycling and ... C'l g, 0N .... Cl -' ~ 2 ~ w 2 w ..J U >- U (Please tum to pg. 48) -~'''''- <)ii~ ~ID ::i 0 ~'-IO~ \ -...;;:: SALES SEPVICE Welding Porting Accessories ~-_. BAY AREA ~ine • RICK!~ BULTACO * Inc. AI~geres * lJS2 Centlnela. W. Los C0rllcr of Santa Monica BJvd. & Centlnela Open 9 ~Hn to 6 pm Mon thru Sat. JXl - - :.. - Sdnta ~tonica l:llvd. N ~W+E ~ S.lnLa S ~lnni(':'1 ;., ~- :.. ;;. .:: = rl. Frwy. 213 826- 7856 1230 FLlP·UP GOGGLES Sold Through Authorized M!C Dealers Only For dealer info. write or call: 5345 Timken St" La Mesa. Cal. 92041 (7.14) 460·1402/ (714) 460-6234 OAK HILLWHEEL WORLD CYCLE PARK .... 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