The Rice Thresher, Vol. 94, No. 23, Ed. 1 Friday, March 16, 2007 Page: 4 of 24
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—
THE RICE THRESHER OPINION FRIDAY, MARCH 16,2007
Guest column
I'm waiting for a bloody
revolution of the people
Our government is very proud
of the fact that it has the power
to kill its own citizens. Their
methods are many but equally
lethally effective. I will make no
statement about the war,
health care or the death
penalty — but needless
to say the government
takes advantage of this
systemic power in a
systematic way.
Personally, 1 only
came into this knowl-
edge recently, so I will
repeat my first sentence
because it is rarely ex-
pressed this way: Our
government has the
power to kill its citizens.
However, Peter Parker's uncle
once told me: "With great power
comes great responsibility."
So right now I think it is our
government's responsibility to
watch its back, because it does not
show respect for the capacity of
its citizens to go berserk and kill
everyone else. And by everyone
else, I mean those who face-
lessly represent the hand of The
Man — whether behind a desk,
a gun or an election.
Ian
Ragsdale
Our government
is very proud of
the fact that it has the
power to kill its
own citizens.
For instance, if there were
four million people in active and
reserve duty in our military, then
each one of those would have to
detain or kill one hundred U.S.
citizens to stop Revolution. I
don't care how well you can
march, paramilitary redneck
guerillas are going to TKO your
precious Humvee. Haven't you
seen Demolition Man? In the
future, we will even be taking
scumbags out of cryogenic
freeze so they can fuck with
The System.
The stuff in movie theaters
last year should have made West-
ern governments wet their pants.
Did you see how much trouble
England had keeping their citi-
zens under control in Children of
Men and Vfor Vendetta?
And England is just part of
a bloody little island. We're in
America! Manifest Destiny means
that there are parts of this wide
country that don't even know the
Civil War is over. There are some
ass-backwards folks who would
be happy to march on Washing-
ton, D.C., set up guard around
theTomb of the Unknown Soldier
and to the sounds of fireworks
perform a 535-person execution
in front of a white building on
a hill.
This is not by any means a
departure from civilization's
normal behavior. We especially
are a killing nation. We kill Red-
coats, we kill witches, we kill the
natives, we kill the buffalo, we
kill babies, we kill those who kill
babies, we kill manatees, we kill
criminals, we kill Communists.
And we kill our own."
I would not be surprised if
a bloody revolution occurred
within the next few decades, and
I for one would easily be swept
up by some kind of mob ferocity
and would join in the killing of
everything. Therefore, I have
abandoned any ideas of ever
running for public office. I'm
going to stay on the people's side
of the mob.
Also, why would I run for of-
fice when a candidate's smile is
perhaps the make-it-or-break-it
feature of the election game?
No, Mr. Appeals-to-the-Mid-
dle-Class, I did not read
your autobiography
released on the same
day as you announced
your presidential can-
didacy. I hope you paid
your ghostwriter well,
because he is ashamed
of himself. Or maybe
he is a greedy pig and
has no shame. The
Pope invented Hell for
those kind of people.
Perhaps as the
world coerces me to mature, I
will get the esteemed privilege
of realizing that politics is not
as cheery as it appeared when
I was six and wanted Michael
Dukakis to win because I heard
he spoke five languages. That's
real naive, right?
But anyone who has learned
five languages has surely got it
together enough to at least pre-
tend to be gifted with any sort of
mental development. When our
current president discovered
that singer Charlotte Church was
from Wales, he asked her what
state that was in.
Okay, sure, we are not a na-
tion of philosopher-kings. But
the U.S. president has the ability
to kill his citizens and he doesn't
know what the principality of
Wales is.
However, it is also said that
this brain-dead monkey is not
even making decisions — and
decision-making is supposed
to be his specialty. He is the
Decider, after all. If that is the
case — if we cannot even look
to one individual and say, "Stop
making those goddamn stupid
decisions or we are going to kill
you," then we will have to kill
everyone in government until
those stupid decisions stop.
Still, though, some day they
will all die by the hands of this
nation's citizens. It is part of the
cycle of life. Fertile fields spring
from ashes of the Lost-But-We'll-
Try-Not-To-Forget-You. France
grew from its Revolution and we
from ours. Humans have shown
that we are willing to throw our-
selves into anarchy and commit
mass murder if we think that will
achieve our aims.
Humans have shown
that we are willing
to throw ourselves
into anarchy and
commit mass murder
if we think that will
achieve our aims.
And one day, in the more or
less distant future, we will all
of us be dead and forgotten.
Eventually the sun will implode
and the Earth will boil and
fry and freeze and crack and
disappear in a black hole and
there's not one thing in the
whole wide universe that will
remember us or our planet or
our autobiographies.
So I hope political power
makes people feel good today
and your money makes them feel
safe and loved. That high has got
to last a very long time.
Ian Ragsdale is a Hanszen College
senior.
Guest column
Elevator etiquette exposes social failing
"Mmph."
An involuntary grunt escapes
my lips as I am quite unceremoni-
ously bumped aside by a somewhat
harassed-looking young
man on his way to the
elevator. "I was heading
in the same direction,
buddy," I think scathingly
to myself, seething more
from the lack of cour-
tesy than from the idea
of being made a human
bowling pin.
I, too, am waiting for
the elevator, but dur-
ing the few seconds of
strained silence the young
man exerts no effort to
make amends. I glance at my elevator
companion. He deliberately avoids
my glance as I try to make eye
contact. Thankfully, he has already
pressed the fifth floor button.
In that moment, by which time
we have moved only midway be-
tween the second and third floors,
his phone rings: "Yeah, yeah, I just
finished it... NO! Gah!!! Why would
you think that's the answer? That's,
like, so stupid... Whatever, it was so
obvious. It took me, like, two seconds
to realize..."
My attention drifts from the
Napoleon Dynamite-esque snippets
of conversation as he drones into a
laundry list of engineering-related
rates, theories and equations. As he
makes no secret to hide his disparag-
ing view of his conversation partner,
I make my ultimate judgment: he is
socially inept, merely another ex-
ample of the unnecessarily awkward
Rice student.
He just does not know how to
act — or interact, for that matter. He
hastily cuts in front of me as he exits
the elevator on the fifth floor, once
Anna
Mathai
again sweeping me aside while still
ridiculing his homework buddy.
This is only one example of the social
awkwardness that permeates through
the student body.
We party, we drink — a
lot — and we insist on
wearing rather inadequate
amounts of clothes to eve-
ning parties, regardless
of the weather forecast.
We tout that we are just
like every other student,
just as cool as the other
universities, only smarter.
Well, at any rate, we may
be smarter. Unfortunately,
many lack the tact to
understand that it is not
obligatory to remind other people of
this. We are all smart; if you want to
set yourself apart, display the social
skills that we claim to possess.
You may think that I am putting
one example forth as the norm, bas-
ing an assumption on an inadequate
sample of the Rice population.
While I grant that there are some
students who are perfectly able to
assimilate into normal society and
are able to share a rather pleasant,
or at the least not uncomfortable,
ten seconds in the elevator, I
would in no way call that group
a majority.
"Annaaaaaa!!!! Heyyyyyy!!!!
What's up? I haven't seen you in
foreverrrrr!" exclaims a girl one
night as I walk through the elevator
lobby. My bubble of personal space
becomes nonexistent as she gives
me a sloppy hug. The unusually
rosy cheeks, the slight stumble in
her step, and the pungent smell of
alcohol emanating from both her
breath and the dewy clamminess of
her skin give evidence to what I had
already surmised. She is drunk, and
for that reason, she is much more
animated than usual.
I had previously passed so many
awkward intervals in the elevator
with her. Usually my presence only
warranted a hasty glance followed
by a drop of the eyes to the floor.
My "Hello"s were received only by
slight, forced smiles in return. You
know the kind — the corners of the
mouth turn up slightly, the mouth
remains closed, and the underlying
message is sent out: you have forced
me into acknowledging you. But, in
the present case, her raised blood
alcohol levels act as a temporary
cure for amnesia, and my name,
and the fact that we are at the very
least acquaintances, is suddenly
remembered. She is a stone-cold
quadruple major by day, boisterous
party girl by night.
At Rice, we think we are super-
heroes, using vodka as our capes
and rum as our masks. Students
use alcohol as a social crutch, never
actually learning the intricacies of so-
cial interaction. Many claim that this
student body is full of people differ-
ing only academically from those at
other, larger, universities. Why then
is it so difficult for so many to take a
short elevator ride that is not riddled
with awkward glances towards the
floor and ceiling, as if each look at
elevator interior reveals new, won-
drous exciting things? Stop treating
each elevator journey like a magic-
carpet ride, students, because nor-
mal, comfortable — sober, I might
add — social interaction is where
the whole new world lies. Make
eye contact, take a deep breath, and
say the magic word — by which I
mean "hello".
Anna Mathai is a Lovett College
sophomore.
Guest column
Is the United States fighting Israel's wars?
After the new Pearl Harbor of Sept. 11,
2001. U.S. foreign policy—specifically
the current slaughter in the Middle
East — has been increasingly domi-
nated by a radical group
of Israeli lobbies, think
tanks and former advisers
to the Eikud party in the
Israeli government.
In the case of the Iraq
war, the most influential
manipulators were high-
ranking Defense Depart-
ment officials such as former
Douglas Feith, Abram
Shulsky, William Luti, David
Wurmser and Richard Perle.
While more public admin-
istration figures helped
direct pre-war intelligence fabricate ms,
these lesser-known neo-cons were
the brains, or lack thereof, behind
the operation.
On Feb. 8, the Pentagon's inspector
general singled out Feith, noting he
was "predisposed to finding a signifi-
cant relationship between Iraq and al
Qaeda," using "reporting of dubious
quality or reliability."
But the story on Feith goes far
deeper. Back in 1996, he, along with
Perle and Wurmser, helped to pr< >duce
a document called "A Clean Break," for
then-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu. They advocated target-
ing Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Iran to
ensure total Israeli hegemony in the
Middle East.
Fast forward to 2(X)2. These same
individuals, along with 1 xiti and Shulksy,
were running the Office of Special
Ilans, an ad-hoc unit inside the I )efense
I )epartment that bypassed the CIA. us-
ing bogus Israeli intelligence to justify
invading Iraq.
'Ihe operation was outright crimi-
nal. I^irry Franklin, a top Iran analyst
for the OSP, is now serving a 12-year
prison sentence after pleading guilty
to passing classified information
to Israel via the largest pro-Israel
lobby, AIPAC. Two AIPAC officials,
Keith Wiessman and Steven Rosen,
Dan
Abrahamson
will face trial in March under the
Espionage Act.
AIPAC coalesced with another re-
actionary Israeli lobby, JINSA, whose
board of advisors included
Dick Cheney and fellow
Iraq war architects such
as Feith, Perle, Michael
Ledeen., John Bolton and
James Woolsey.
Additionally, according
to the Associated Press,
the Drug Enforcement
Agency arrested and de-
ported over 100 Israelis
posing as art students in
2001 for attempting to pen-
etrate U.S. military bases.
But despite the scandals,
these lobbies are now successfully
drumming up support for an invasion
of Iran, easily courting politicians from
both political parties.
Read the words of former U.N.
weapons inspector Scott Ritten "Let
there be no doubt: If there is an Ameri-
can war with Iran, it is a war that was
made in Israel and nowhere else."
Or Ray McGovern, a CIA analyst
for 27 years: "No one has more power
than the Israeli lobby."
In their meticulously researched
2006 essay, "The Israel Lobby," Uni-
versity of Chicago professor John
Mearsheimer and Harvard University
professor Stephen Walt detailed the
disproportionate power of extreme
pro-Israel lobbyist groups in directing
U.S. policy.
They concluded the biggest loser
was Israel itself: The Lobby's influence
has been bad for Israel. Its ability to
persuade Washington to support an
expansionist agenda has discouraged
Israel from seizing opportunities—in-
cluding a peace treaty with Syria and a
prompt and full implementation of the
Oslo Accords—that would have saved
Israeli lives and shrunk the ranks of
Palestinian extremists."
Mearsheimer and Walt were
immediately vilified as anti-Semitic,
much like former Resident Jimmy
Carter, who recently had the audacity
to call Israel's illegal occupation of Pal-
estinian land what it is: apartheid.
Sadly, many legitimate criticisms
of Israel are often labeled as "anti-
Semitic hate speech" by demagogic
McCarthyists such as Campus Watc h,
successfully blackmailing and muting
academics, journalists, politicians and
students worldwide.
But does questioning the failed and
often criminal policies of the Israeli
government actually make one a big< >t?
Furthermore, with major polls showing
both American and Israeli Jews divided
on Middle East issues, are such ques-
tions actually anti-Semitic? Does the
Israeli government represent all Jews
any more than the brutal Saudi royals
represent all Muslims?
At present, Israel is the largest
recipient of U.S. foreign aid, totaling
at least $3 billion annually. This while
the Israeli military completes an illegal
wall in Palestinian territory; occupies,
tortures, bulldozes, restric ts travel and
murders with near impunity in the West
Bank and Gaza. Ihe Israeli military
also ignores countless U.N. resolutions
calling for an end to the occupation
and recently dumped white phospho-
rus and cluster-bombs on civilians in
Lebanon. Not to mention expanding
in illegal stockpile of nuclear weapons,
committing espionage against the U.S.
and brazenly pushing for criminal
invasions of Iraq, Iran, Ijebanon, Syria
and beyond.
As Likud party radicalscontemplate
ex| >anding their "Clean Break" ag< mm la
and bombing Iran — potentially start-
ing a world war—now is the time tor a
sober discussion about their policies.
In the end, a Middle East peace
conference that includes direct nego-
tiation with Syria and Iran, an end to
U.S. occupation of Iraq, and a two-state
solution with pre-1967 borders might
be the only chances to stave off global
catastrophe in 2(X)7.
Dan Abrahamson is a Sid Richardson
College junior.
\
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Bursten, Julia. The Rice Thresher, Vol. 94, No. 23, Ed. 1 Friday, March 16, 2007, newspaper, March 16, 2007; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth442993/m1/4/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.