Last edition

Dear readers,

This will be the last edition of the Clarion for spring quarter.

Clarion editors

Follow the leader?

Dear Editor,

I grow alarmed not only at the “my ‘leader’ right or wrong” attitude observed of late, but even more so at the stance whereby the media, especially in print, are expected by some to “toe the line” or adhere to some “standard.” How dangerous. Even if we allow ourselves to continue to vote with our limbic nervous systems (leaving two levels of the higher brain idle), our system encourages us to be tolerant. I do defend the right to say outrageous and even incautious things. But, to paraphrase that old liberal Thomas Jefferson, when it comes to our government, it is our right – no, our duty , to question and criticize it, to secure redress and hold that body and all who serve it to the highest standard. Secrecy, subterfuge, and sacrifice of the many for the few just will not cut it. But it may make some feel “safer,” or as though they “belong.” Party on. Let’s see, where did I put that armband?

Gregory Isan

Doctoral Candidate

ANWR: Not the answer for everything

Similar to how President Bush initiated a “pre-emptive strike” on Iraq, domestically we need to initiate a pre-emptive strike on oil dependency; not just of foreign oil but oil in general.

That is because we can not drill our way to self sufficiency with petroleum as Conor McGahey hints at in the April 26 Clarion editorial “ANWR is the ANsWeR.”

The United States consumes a quarter of the world’s petroleum yet produces less than a 20th. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is no Saudi Arabia, and its average estimated reserves will only last the United States less than 3 years at current rates of consumption, even if it supplied only 20% of our total oil.

No matter what the Energy Policy Act of 2005 does do, the Republicans in congress staunchly resist raising the fuel economy standards.

Doing so would create a level playing field for the auto industry to apply already available technology in their cars and could save far more barrels of oil than we can recover from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

The Bush administration plans to phase out the modest tax credit for hybrid vehicles while leaving in the near $100,000 tax break for buying Hummers that use four to six times more gasoline; and to de-fund the energy efficient Amtrak to boot.

So instead of putting the pressure on the “pine-cone eater” environmentalists to be less sentimental about drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, how about putting the pressure on President Bush and Congress to take a “pre-emptive strike” in initiate policies that will reduce our use of oil.

Lee Samelson

10 Judicial

nominees vs. 204

I would like to Respond to Conor McGahey’s editorial piece on the filibuster from the May 3 Clarion and state that it is not a “grudge match” against “proposals of Republican origin” that compels senate Democrats to filibuster judicial nominees.

Far from being dangerously obstructionist, the Senate Democrats have been actually been generally cooperative, confirming 204 of President Bush’s judicial nominees in the last congress while filibustering 10 of 34 of Bush’s nominees to federal appeals courts.

These 10 were the judicial nominees who were so obscenely right-wing that the senate Democrats reached a broad consensus that they have no place on the federal bench.

More specifically they were concerned that as judges they would be insensitive to people like the legal claims of teenagers seeking abortions, minorities who want redress for injustices and consumers who want to sue corporations.

One of them, William Myers III is a notorious anti-environmental former mining industry lobbyist.

Yet instead of taking a cue from the filibustering of these 10 nominees, President Bush has re-nominated 7 of these 10.

The double standard I find infuriating about the clear 1 to 2 minority of Americans who favor what I call the “Billifrister” over the filibuster:

They hold senate Democrats up to the most impossibly rigorous criteria for fairness, balance and not being obstructionist but insist that the Republicans be given free reign to be as uncompromising and extreme as they merrily please.

The bottom line is, if one does not like the filibustering of judicial nominees, which is understandable, then how about putting the pressure on President Bush and the Republicans to choose more moderate nominees that both side can agree on.

Lee Samelson

Both sides need to simmer down

It would be great if I could get through at least one day where I didn’t hear “conservatives saying this,’ and “liberals are saying that.” I do not care if you think your certain political party is the right way to go. If you’re bothering me about your ideals – you’re wrong. However, you do have the Constitutional right of the freedom of speech.

Please keep in mind of what Oliver Holmes, a US Supreme Court Judge, said: “The right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins.”

I become irritated when I am prevented from being able to live out my day because someone wants to complain to me about politics, explain to me why their political party is the right one, and I am a fool if I do not make “stand up and get the word out.” You might not have hit me but you have prevented me from being able to live out my life.

If a person wants to take part in the election process- he will do so of his own freewill. He does not need someone intimidating him to have an opinion.

What is worst then saying you’re a liberal/conservative is saying you are non-partisan. When I say I am non-partisan, both sides of the fence get the impression that they can get me to change my opinion. You can torture me with constant television propaganda, billboard ads, and the never ending complaining but I will not change my opinion that political parties are corrupt and should not exist.

Politics are no longer about important issues, it’s about which political party is more powerful. Instead of a person voting for a person’s stance on issues- they vote for which political party they were affiliated with. Our elected representatives are supposed to do exactly what their job title is: they are supposed to represent the people. Elected officials have never represented the people- they have represented political parties.

You do not have to take my word for it. I suggest you read our First President’s Farewell Address. George Washington said, “Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of [a political] party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.”

I am hesitant to give my voice in this subject because I could be looked at as being hypocritical to my own opinion. I am even more hesitant because I am sure to read negative comments from the political nut jobs. However, you should remember that I just don’t care what you say – I just wish that you would shut up.

Asa Clinch

“Never again” an empty phrase in Darfur

Here we go again with the “never again” cycle. Because we, the world community, have decided that a mournful, post-facto “never again” pledge is simply more convenient than the action required, Darfur will take its place in history. History textbooks will find “Sudan” between “Rwanda” and whatever site the next genocide will ravage as we busy ourselves watering these most recent killing fields with our crocodile tears, long after the chance to save a single life has passed.

Athough Sudan has been plagued by civil war since its independence in 1956, this most recent outbreak of violence in Darfur dates back only to February 2003, when rebel groups began to instigate attacks against the government in Khartoum, which, in turn, dispatched the Janjaweed militia as a counter rebellion force.

The wrinkle in the conflict that is so deeply divisive for the Sudanese is the racism that divides the two sides. Since February 2003, a militia known as Janjaweed (men on horseback) has been engaging in a genocidal campaign to displace and wipe out communities of African tribal farmers in Darfur, Sudan.

More than 1.5 million people have been displaced, forced from their homes as their villages are torched, water supplies poisoned or destroyed, livestock stolen or killed, and women raped and murdered. Government air raids have frequently preceded or followed militia attacks. This is the stark reality created by the international community’s refusal to act in this crisis.

Unfortunately, most of the discussion surrounding Darfur revolves around what we should call the crisis, rather than what is actually happening. In September, the US government labeled the crisis genocide, but the international community has done little more than to call on the government in Khartoum to end the conflict and threaten the use of sanctions. Thus, while the international community wastes time on semantics, genocide continues.

Certainly we could be doing more to end this violence, but many governments, with the US at the forefront, seem content merely to label the situation as genocide. Even invoking the Genocide Convention has not spurred the rest of the world to take decisive action. Could this mean that the U.S. views the Genocide Convention as just another meaningless agreement?

But in the end, the burden is, and can only be, on the leadership of the international community. The US resolution is certainly a step in the right direction, and the Bush administration must take even further stewardship on the issue by publicly and openly pressuring member nations to TAKE ACTION.

What’s going on in Sudan isn’t only Sudan’s problem. It is humanity’s problem, and certainly it doesn’t hurt to remind our elected officials of this fact. Each orphan that starves in a refugee camp, each woman that survives a brutal rape, each family that is destroyed by the murder, displacement and savagery that has enveloped Sudan underscores the hypocrisy, the cruel mockery of the “never again” memorials we place on the headstone of each Holocaust past.

The time for “never again” is too far in the past, and too far in the future. If the day eventually comes and genocide in Sudan ends, will we regret our inaction?

“Never again” means to act now, in the present.

We welcome editorials of 500 words or less and letters of 150 words or less from all views. All submissions should be made to clarioneditorials@yahoo.com

The letters will not be printed until the start of next school year.