Senate candidate dismayed with disenfranchisement
The exclusion of UR students from the U.S. Senatorial debate held on their own campus is an indication of the undemocratic character of this entire event. Also excluded were all candidates except the Democratic incumbent Senator Clinton and her Republican challenger John Spencer.
I was placed on the ballot by 25,000 New Yorkers and, according to the state Board of Elections, am every bit as legitimate a candidate as either of them.
Yet I and others were denied the right to debate. As a result, the public heard only two candidates, both backed by big business and both of whom support a continuation of the war in Iraq and the attacks on democratic rights at home.
When Green Party candidate Howie Hawkins and I attempted to distribute our respective statements condemning this exclusion outside Strong Auditorium, security guards ejected us. Students who came to protest were similarly ordered to leave. Thus, sadly, the event at UR represented a violation of the democratic rights of us and of the public as a whole.
-Bill Van AukenSocialist Equality Party Candidate for United States Senate
Fair Traders do not give Starbucks enough credit
I am frankly disheartened, if not surprised, by the minority of the student body who continues their relentless attack on Starbucks’ corporate practices. For these students it seems like any coffee that isn’t marked “Fair Trade” is tantamount to having been created in a sweatshop.
What these students fail to realize is that Fair Trade isn’t all it’s chalked up to be. To get a coffee Fair Trade Certified you need to pay the certification organization a hefty sum, a sum that Starbucks would rather deliver directly to the farmers. Starbucks invests thousands of dollars back into those communities from which they get their beans, and they do so in order to ensure the quality of their product.
What is perhaps most disheartening is that if any of these students had gone to a local Starbucks and asked a partner, or even called Starbucks Corporate Headquarters, they would have told them exactly what I’ve said today.
It isn’t an issue of not knowing, it’s an issue of not wanting to know. Why be correct when you can rally bravely against the corporate behemoth?
-Ben Snitkoff Class of 2006
