Letters

Collapse of college activism

Well, OSPIRG is no longer a student group. Do we celebrate now or wait until the other universities follow suit? Maybe they have yet to find out how much of a sham they are. As if giving money makes that low gas mileage SUV acceptable again. Thanks to their dismissal, we have $128,000 of our student fees “freed up.” Let’s just hope it’s not spent on something frivolous. What isn’t might you ask? Would you deny that Food for Thought might need a new P.O.S. system? But this would eliminate the wait for the archaic dot matrix printers and old-fashioned tills to start. Perhaps that’s too bearable though to be “sustainable.”

But wait, what does this say about our college activism scene? Have the conservatives won over the college liberal movement? If so, maybe our allegedly progressive cabinet can kick it up a notch and make some noise. They won’t though, good riddance anyway. The last thing this university needs is to fund another corporation. Maybe these nonprofits are a reason why Thomas Friedman called us “The Quiet Generation” in an Op-Ed on Wednesday, too distracted to be political and too moderate to be outraged.

Jesse Anderson

Who has the authority around here?

Since when did students give SALP the authority to wave their wand and clarify who is a student group? Something drastic would have to change for a 30-year-old chapter to lose their status. Even more disturbing is that students were not a part of this decision. Not a single student leader is claiming that OSPIRG is not a group, and furthermore they were never directly asked. It’s funny that the people who claim to be the most qualified to make these decisions are the ones who are not paying student fees, and don’t sit on the fee committee. If I were other student groups, I would seriously start to worry about control over my status. I would question why there hasn’t been a conversation with the whole student group community. Knock on wood to see that you don’t receive a memo taking away your status. This is absolute silencing of student rights by the “adults” who don’t know how to let us maintain them.

Courtney Morse

(Im)peachy keen

I read your large article “Worst-ever president needs no reminder” [Oct. 9] and couldn’t help but shake my head. I am not old enough to have been fully aware of politics, but I remember Mr. Thiessen’s argument (not worth the trouble) being used for a president who had committed multiple felonies including perjury (Bill Clinton). Interestingly enough, no one who has screamed “impeach!” has had the stones to allege what high crimes and misdemeanors Bush has committed. Interesting, isn’t it … makes it sound like, oh, I don’t know… a political ploy rather than a serious idea?

Keith Moore

Unstoppable Bush

This is all sort of funny, if you think about it. The Democrats and their cheerleaders are going nuts over Bush because they are powerless against him. His opinion polls are low, he doesn’t have a supporting majority in Congress, he’s mindlessly alleged to be a major threat to world peace and civil liberties, but the Democrats can’t stop him from going to war (with their votes and approval, by the way), can’t override his vetoes, can’t arm-twist him into signing their pet legislation, can’t stop his Supreme Court nominees … in short, the Democrats hate Bush so much because they can’t defeat him. Even in his disgrace, they can’t stop him. And you know what? You people who call him names and call him stupid can just put that in your bongs and smoke it. If you’re having your butts kicked by an idiot, what does that say about you?

Anonymous