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EDITORIAL
Elect the
MSG PRESIDENT
Today and tomorrow, students will be able to vote on a
variety of offices and a pair of referendums. One of these is
a non-binding resolution to have the Memorial Student
Center president be an elected office. Students should vote
in favor of this measure. It is meant to make the MSC more
accountable to the student body and even its own members.
Negative events in recent years, such as those surrounding
Josh Rowan and Chris Duke, have been unfortunate, and
they have harmed the reputation of the MSC and its open
ness. The MSC president and Council also oversee a large
budget and receive student service fees.
The current process, where a committee appoints the
president, does not give average students a voice. The posi
tion does not require any skills beyond those required to be
a good leader in any organization — hard work, integrity, an
ability to make tough decisions and a willingness to listen
and learn. The MSC Council would have to agree to any elec
tion process and would set eligibility requirements, allowing
them to make sure candidates have a working knowledge of
the MSC as well. By electing the MSC president, accounta
bility and transparency issues could be addressed for MSC
members and the student body as a whole.
This resolution presents an opportunity for the MSC to
move toward greater openness to students while shaping
that force to help it achieve its own ends. The MSC Council
would be well advised to cooperate with other bodies on
campus, administrators and the average student to move
forward in adopting this resolution if it passes.
The Battalion
EDITORIAL BOARD
Editor in Chief
Managing Editor
Opinion Editor
Metro Editor
Elizabeth Webb
Kendra Kingsley
George Deutsch
Melissa Sullivan
Opinion Asst.
Member
Member
Member
Matt Rigney
Chris Lively
Collins Ezeanyim
David Shoemaker
Ik Battalion encourages letters to the editor. Letters must be 200 words or
lessand include the author’s name, class and phone number. The opinion editor
reserves the right to edit letters for length, style and accuracy. Letters may be sub-
milted in person at 014 Reed McDonald with a valid student ID. Letters also may.
bemailed to: 014 Reed McDonald, MS 1111, Texas A&M University, College
Station,TX 77843-1 111. Fax: (979) 843-2647 Email: mailcall@thebattalion.net
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Opinion
The Battalion
Page 11 • Wednesday, March 31, 2004
MAIL CALL
The solution to racism is not to ignore it
In response to Matt Maddox's March 30 column:
If Abraham Lincoln had ignored slavery in the 1860s, would slavery
i just disappeared? If Lyndon B. Johnson had ignored civil rights vio-
tions and not pushed the Civil Rights Act in the 1960s, would those
vil rights violations have just disappeared? If our society today choos-
i to ignore current racism and its devastating legacy, will racism just
(isappear? The answer to the last question, like the first two, is "No!”
: Maddox, though, believes that the solution to racism is to ignore
II guess that’s an easy position to take when you’re not on the receiv-
jigend of it. I have trouble ignoring that the percentage of African- and
pispanic-Americans in poverty is three times that of whites. I have trou-
i ignoring that a job applicant with a traditionally white name has a 50
icrcent higher chance of being called in for an interview than one with
I traditionally black name. All Aggies should have trouble ignoring the
(act that African-Americans make up 12.3 percent of the college-aged
opulation in Texas, but only 2.3 percent of A&M, and that Hispanic-
Jmericans make up 40 percent of the college-aged population in Texas,
futonly 8.2 percent of A&M.
Vlatt Maddox also feels that he is being slighted by affirmative action,
he calls it racism. He ignores that fact that racism is a system
(esigned to advance the majority at the expense of the entire minority,
! affirmative action is a system designed to bring the minority up at
expense of no one. For example, if A&M increased its African-
nerican population by 50 percent, while keeping its total enrollment
[lesame, the white population would decline by less than 1 percent,
i addition to the need to address current and past racism, we need
i improve our diversity efforts to create a more global community at
something that we can all benefit from. So much of our education
|akes place outside of the classroom, and there is so much we can learn
i those of different backgrounds. I find it hard to believe that some
> would sacrifice all of this for false cries of “reverse-discrimination,”
specially when we are just considering actively recruiting minority stu-
Jents, not even race-based admissions.
Nick Anthis
Class of 2005
Texas Aggie Democrats president
Tough on terror?
Clarke's claims } unanswered questions haunt Bush
N eal Boortz, Texas
A&M Class of
1967, said he
thinks President George
W. Bush is the best man
to handle the war on ter
ror and argues this point
almost every day on his
national syndicated talk
radio show. Most
Americans agree with
him. A recent Associated Press poll showed
that 58 percent of Americans trust Bush to
protect the country as opposed to only 35
percent who trust Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.
But what Boortz and other Bush sup
porters may not realize is that the president
has made several major mistakes with
regard to the war on terror. An appraisal of
Bush’s action before and after Sept. 11
reveals that he is actually weak on the ter
ror issue.
It is impossible to talk about Bush and
terrorism without mentioning former coun
terterrorism Chief of the National Security
Council for the Bush White House Richard
Clarke. Clarke caused a firestorm of media
coverage last week with the release of his
book, “Against All Enemies.” Clarke makes
some disturbing charges
against the Bush admin
istration, including the
charge that the admin
istration ignored the
al-Qaida threat that
was supposedly made
months before Sept. 11
because it was obsessed
with taking out Saddam
Hussein. Former
Treasury Secretary
Paul O’Neill also stat
ed that Bush sought to
attack Iraq from his
first days in office.
Clarke was a
holdover from the
Clinton administration, and it is clear from
the congressional Sept. 11 commission
hearings last week that during that time
period, mistakes were made regarding how
aggressively Osama bin Laden and his ter
rorist network were pursued. However, the
Bush administration also did not treat al-
Qaida with the seriousness it deserved.
Clarke said that when he tried to warn
Bush officials about al-Qaida in April
2001, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul
Wolfowitz said, “Who cares about a little
terrorist in Afghanistan?” according to
Newsweek. While the Bush administration
made mistakes before the Sept. 11 attacks,
it was afterward when its actions truly
became disturbing. For example. Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has admitted to
Newshour’s Jim Lehrer that he said
Afghanistan didn’t offer “decent targets for
bombing” shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Clarke alleges that Rumsfeld
added, “We should
do Iraq.” Clarke
also claimed that
Bush sought evi
dence of an Iraq-
al-Qaida con
nection,
even
though
n
S-J it was apparent
there was none.
^ A major
/xfjl component
Jr#/' of the war
on terror
involves discov
ering the holes in U.S. intel
ligence that allowed the Sept.
11 attacks to occur so that any
future mistakes may be avoided.
This is the job of the congressional
Sept. 11 commission. But Bush and
his administration have been hindering
the progress of the commission from its
beginning. In fact, the Sept. 11 investi
gation panel’s review was delayed for
months because it had to battle Bush
officials for access to documents and wit
nesses, according to The Associated Press.
This is outrageous, but it is not surpris
ing that Bush would want to avoid
answering tough questions from the com
mission. One of those questions would
almost certainly be why his White House
granted flying privileges to about 140
Saudi nationals in the days after Sept. 11
— a time when all private air travel was
grounded. According to a Washington
Times story, about two dozen of these
were members of the bin Laden family,
and they were allowed to leave the coun
try with practically no interviews by the
FBI. An all-out effort to pursue bin Laden,
which has only started recently, was
delayed because military resources were
tied up in Iraq, according to Paul
Krugman of The New York Times.
Most Americans would agree that pub
lic officials must treat the war on terror
with the utmost seriousness. Boortz and
many of his listeners certainly do.
But one week ago at the annu
al Radio and Television
News Correspondents
Association, Bush made
fun of the inability to
find weapons of mass
destruction in Iraq, show
ing pictures of himself look
ing behind White House furni
ture and joking, “Those weapons
of mass destruction have got to be
somewhere... nope, no weapons
over there... maybe under here?"
This is completely reprehensible
from a president whose biggest
mistake in the war on terror was
spending the nation’s most valuable
resource — American blood —
while he hunted phantom weapons
in Iraq.
A
Collins Ezeanyim is a senior
computer engineering major.
Graphic by Chris Griffin
Despite threats, students must
vote against fee referendum
Traditions will continue without increased fees
I t is campaign season again and, as usual, everyone is
out with big promises and questionable claims to
ensure victory. But the campaign to get the student
service fee increase passed is rife with implied threats and
confusion. Signs around campus imply that traditions will
end if the fee referendum fails.
But if students look at the Student Service Fee
Advisory Board’s recommendation online at
http://ssfab.tamu.edu/recommendations.htm, they can see
where the money is going. And they can see for them
selves that there is no need for the fee to go above the
cap, or for the aggressive and misleading campaign in favor of the
fee increase.
That marketing campaign has included ads in The Battalion,
stickers exhorting others to vote “yes” and signs around campus. All
of this marketing takes money. The question is, whose money is it?
The cards on the backs of the signs say
they are the responsibility of MSC
Marketing. That would lead one to think
that MSC Marketing had purchased the
signs with its own funds. But at the fee
forum on Friday, Memorial Student
Center President Elizabeth Dacus claimed
that the campaign was funded by its sup
porters personally, and no funds from the
student service fee were used. It is unlike
ly, however, that supporters of the fee ref
erendum purchased ads in The Battalion
and stickers on their own. But that money
had to come from somewhere.
If the money came from outside the
MSC, then the organization should not
attribute materials it purchases and uses
to the MSC. If one looks at the conces
sion permit on any of the signs around
campus, he will see it is permitted by the MSC. If those signs are
paid for from personal funds, then they, as well, should not be
attributed to the MSC.
But it is not just who has been paying for the campaign that is a
problem, but also what is being said. Signs ask if students want
traditions such as the Aggie Band and Muster to continue, and
then advise to back the fee increase if they do. Although those
backing the increase, especially those in the MSC, claim this is not
blackmail, when you look at the numbers, it basically is.
In the fee recommendations made by the SSFAB, $27,000 extra
will go the Aggie Band, $5,000 to CARPOOL and $15,000 for
Choral Activities such as the Singing Cadets. But by far the largest
appropriation will go to the MSC, for $178,812. In fact, of the
total recommended increase for all areas of $620,818, the MSC
DAVID
SHOEMAKER
Signs ask if students want
traditions such as the Aggie Band
and Muster to continue, and then
say to back the fee increase if they
do. Although those backing the
increase, especially those in the
MSC, claim this is not blackmail,
when you look at the numbers,
it basically is.
gets 28 percent, or about a third of that. Within this
amount, only $35,662, or 5 percent, of the total SSFAB
recommendation will go to salaries there.
The remaining $143,150, or 23 percent of the entire
recommendation, will go toward programming at the
MSC. Most notably, $90,000 (or 14 percent of the total
recommendation) will go to Aggie Nights. That basically
amounts to a $2 per student subsidy. If only other depart
ments had the luxury. In fact, most of the other groups
recommended to get an increase will have to spend it all
on structural improvements or staff compensation.
If continued levels of funding for activities such as Muster are in
question, why did the SSFAB recommend funding for things such as
Aggie Nights when faced with serious payroll concerns? It seems as
if the SSFAB decided that there was no need to try to meet its needs
while staying under the cap and avoiding a referendum.
And even if the referendum fails and
cuts are made, administrators will have
the final say. The Office of the Vice
President of Student Affairs will make
the final approval of the submitted budg
ets, and the Office of the President will
have to approve them afterward.
Although the administration usually fol
lows the recommendation submitted to
it, it seems unlikely that the administra
tion will allow deep cuts to be made to
programs that support key Aggie tradi
tions. And the criteria for evaluation at
that level have likely not even been
determined yet. This is because the
budgeting process will not be finished
until May or June. So to predict that
major traditions will suffer if the
increase fails is somewhat misleading.
Although it may be a possibility, ask
yourself if administrators wish to do something that will directly
antagonize students and alumni. The greater likelihood is that other
programs may be cut or curtailed. If this happens, it should be done
with objective criteria and explained openly to the student body.
But when times are tough, priorities must be established, and
that which is most valuable must be preserved. Thus despite the
inflammatory claims of the supporters of the fee increase, Aggie
traditions will continue. Students should weigh carefully the
options before them on this matter and vote for what they feel is
right, not for what they are afraid of.
David Shoemaker is a junior
management major.
STv