2008 Woodie Awards
Editorial
Make Noise
Dylan Breslin-Barnhart
Issue date: 9/20/07 Section: Opinions
- Page 1 of 1
This campus is too quiet. I know that people here have opinions, that's not the question. Anyone who keeps dragging Union students through the mud with the apathy criticism is off the mark. The question is why are we so complacent, content to volley our ideas in class but not in life. This may be college, but it happens to be college in a world of finite time.
Put short, there is only so much time left to protest problems. I'm talking directly to the people who want change in the world. If there were 100,000 people gathered together outside in a cause you support, would you join? If so, then why aren't you outside now? Crowds don't randomly materialize but rather start with the individual, just as reform does.
In this era of war and uncertainty when today's national political debates frame tomorrow's problems, OUR problems, why is this campus so deathly silent? MAKE NOISE. Yell in front of the Nott. Gather 10 people that becomes 250 people that becomes a crowd of 500. Watch the local Albany papers and TV stations scramble to provide coverage and an opportunity to reach far more than the immediate crowd. Start a chain reaction on college campuses and in the streets.
Voting is not effective enough right now. Lawmakers need to know that our generation is serious and committed to preserving a stable, prosperous, and peaceful future and that many of us doubt that many of them are similarly committed.
The consequences of inaction now will doubtlessly be felt later, like say when we're having to deal with the fiscal realities of paying off our current growing war debt. Think social programs are cut now? Just wait.
And we're already feeling the problems resulting from our national turn down sh*t street. Gas doubled from $1.47 when Clinton's term ended. Instead of fund student loans, the government started a civil war in Iraq that now they even admit had nothing to do with 9/11. Some estimates point to hundreds of thousands dead as a result. American troops continue to battle bravely to protect us from a terrorist enemy that becomes more and more real the longer we wage war.
It's a vicious cycle. And I don't know how to solve all the problems. But someone might. That's why we need yelling, protest, and some real dialogue. We need a visceral movement that inspires the natural leaders among us to emerge as the new generation of political alchemists.
-Dylan Breslin-Barnhart
Editor in Chief
Put short, there is only so much time left to protest problems. I'm talking directly to the people who want change in the world. If there were 100,000 people gathered together outside in a cause you support, would you join? If so, then why aren't you outside now? Crowds don't randomly materialize but rather start with the individual, just as reform does.
In this era of war and uncertainty when today's national political debates frame tomorrow's problems, OUR problems, why is this campus so deathly silent? MAKE NOISE. Yell in front of the Nott. Gather 10 people that becomes 250 people that becomes a crowd of 500. Watch the local Albany papers and TV stations scramble to provide coverage and an opportunity to reach far more than the immediate crowd. Start a chain reaction on college campuses and in the streets.
Voting is not effective enough right now. Lawmakers need to know that our generation is serious and committed to preserving a stable, prosperous, and peaceful future and that many of us doubt that many of them are similarly committed.
The consequences of inaction now will doubtlessly be felt later, like say when we're having to deal with the fiscal realities of paying off our current growing war debt. Think social programs are cut now? Just wait.
And we're already feeling the problems resulting from our national turn down sh*t street. Gas doubled from $1.47 when Clinton's term ended. Instead of fund student loans, the government started a civil war in Iraq that now they even admit had nothing to do with 9/11. Some estimates point to hundreds of thousands dead as a result. American troops continue to battle bravely to protect us from a terrorist enemy that becomes more and more real the longer we wage war.
It's a vicious cycle. And I don't know how to solve all the problems. But someone might. That's why we need yelling, protest, and some real dialogue. We need a visceral movement that inspires the natural leaders among us to emerge as the new generation of political alchemists.
-Dylan Breslin-Barnhart
Editor in Chief
Viewing Comments 1 - 1 of 1
Nancy
posted 9/28/07 @ 6:22 PM EST
AMEN!!!!!!
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