Tuesday, January 17, 2006
How did you vote?
UC REGENTS! DIVEST! WOOO! The Daily Cal tells us how some students cast their vote. That's seriously what they captioned these two pieces. While the case can be made that the description is appropriate for Adam Rosenthal, these other two folks, Jason Miller and Ismail Abdel-Rasoul aren't part of the Regents, so don't cast their vote at all.
I tend to be opposed to divestment beause of my feelings on how government agencies should only do what they are built to do, which takes the divestment decision out of the hands of the Regents and puts it in the hands of the state legislature. But whatever, the argument means nothing to the "use everything in government to get my way, and screw everyone else" folks.
Both of these pieces quote a bunch of people's opinions as arguments, which strongly suggests that they have no original thought of their own.
For the first time in history, the U.S. Congress, State Department, and executive branch have all declared that an ongoing massacre amounts to genocide and that the Sudanese government is directly responsible.
The State Department and the executive branch? Wow! The only thing that could've made this stronger was if the legislative branch was on board.
But whatever, the pro-divestment piece looks like world-class literature compared to the anti-divestment piece. To start with, Ismail is a student at UC Davis and refers to the Sudanese facing the situation as "we." And you know it'll just be going downhill from the opener:
The tragedy of Darfur, for all of us Sudanese, is and will remain a deep scar for years to come. The causes and roots of the conflict are, however, complex and intertwined.
Next we get into an individual-clause analysis. Whee.
The proposal contains a precarious clause: "a policy of divestment from a foreign government shall be adopted by the University only when the United States government declares that a foreign regime is committing acts of genocide." What this proposal consequently does is ignore the findings of many other international bodies and leaves it solely up to the U.S. government to be the "moral compass" of the public.
Because it's important that UC be a slave to not just non-Californians, but to non-Americans. Only then can it represent the needs of... uh... some folks from a certain area I'll decline to name. No, no, it doesn't rhyme with Palifornia...
The fact that the U.S. government alone has declared Darfur a 'genocide," thus contradicting the investigative reports of the U.N., European Union, African Union and Doctors without Borders, should raise legitimate questions.
If there's an objective champion of justice out there, it's the U.N.
The Guardian's journalist, Peter Hallward, wrote: "Bush's opportunity to adopt an election-season cause (in 2004) that can appeal simultaneously to fundamentalist Christians, the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People, multilateralist liberals and the altruistic 'left' ... (was) ...too tempting to pass up."
Wait, wait, are you saying that Bush did something just about every American wanted him to do? That's not the way democracy should work!!!
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