April 2008 - Binghamton Review

April 2008

The Latin American Student What Keeps This Campus Union is a Disgrace to Latin Apart? Multiculturalism Culture-Campos and the VPMA-Powell

B inghamton R eview Thirsty?

BR Investigates the Killer Coke Campaign and Reports On What Really Happened In Colombia

Plus an Exclusive Interview With UPD! Binghamton Review, April 2005

Truth and two staples

Binghamton Review Editor-in-Chief Robert Edward Menje Managing Editor Adam Shamah

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Founded 1987 o Volume XXI Number 7 o April 2008

Features

Editorial: Robert E. Menje knows how to solve the world’s

Editor Emeritus Christopher Powell

problems

Business Manager Michael Lombardi

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Treasurer Michael Calabrese

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Letters: Our crazy readers, they love us and hate us

Campus Presswatch

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“Killer” Coke

Staff Writers Ryan Dunham, Paul Liggieri, Thomas Shannon, Nehemia Stern, Daniel Rabinowitz, Rod Alzmann, Michael Lombardi Contributors Eugenio Campos, Samantha Mickle, Michael Saltzman, Alex Paolano, Ben Stein Friends of the Review Dr. Aldo S. Bernardo Mr. Michael J. Hayes Mr. Robert Larnerd The Leonini Family Mr. Michael O’Connell Mr. Tony Potochniak The Powell Family Mr. Conrad Ross The Shannon Family Mr. Bob Soltis WA2VCS The Shamah Family The Menje Family Binghamton Review is printed

by Our Press, in Chenango Bridge. We provide the truth; they provide the staples.

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Centerfold: Michael Lombardi puts an end to the liberal rumors about

Special: Exclusive Interview with UPD

Contents

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Rod Alzmann opens up on Eliot Spitzer

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Rod Alzmann addresses freedom and Barack Obama

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Eugenio Campos on LASU’s fake “latin” culture Chris Powell on multiculturalism and the VPMA

Sam Mickle tells us why she wants to stay in the kitchen Daniel Rabinowitz wants us to live the American Dream

Adam Shamah thinks liberals want blacks to be poor Alex Paolano calls out back-stabbing Democrats

Binghamton Review is a monthly, independent journal of news, analysis, commentary, and controversy. Students at Binghamton University receive two copies of the Review free of charge (non-transferrable). Additional copies cost $1 each. Letters to the Editor are welcome; they must be accompanied by the author’s current address and phone number. All submissions become the property of the Review. The Review reserves the right to edit and print any submission. Copyright © 2008 Binghamton Review. All rights reserved. Binghamton Review is distributed on campus under the authority of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. Binghamton Review is a member of the Collegiate Network and is a Student Association-chartered organization. Binghamton University is not responsible for the content of the Review; the Review is not responsible for the content of Binghamton University.

Binghamton Review thanks the Intercollegiate Studies Institute.

Binghamton Review Binghamton University PO Box 6000 “It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both.” -Niccolò Machiavelli Binghamton, NY 13902-6000 binghamtonreview@gmail.com www.binghamtonreview.com

Past Editors of Binghamton Review: John Guardiano, Yan Rusanovsky, Kathryn Doherty, Ephriam Bernstein, Michael Malloy, Paul Schnier, Adam Bromberg, Bernadette Malone, Michael Darcy, Nathan Wurtzel, Amy Gardner, John Carney, Paul Torres, Jason Kovacs, Robert Zoch, Matthew Pecorino, Michael O’Connell, Louis W. Leonini, Joseph Carlone, Christopher Powell, Nathaniel Sugarman

Binghamton Review, April 2008

Editorial

Democracy For the Win!

hat is new in the world? Not much.

There is another corrupt, married, Democratic politician (Eliot Spitzer) who indulges in the red light district and enjoys the company of “working girls”. Hillary Rodham Clinton (actually she is back to using just Hillary Clinton) still has a snowball’s chance in hell of ever having the word “President” as her official title. Barack Hussein Obama is still an under qualified black man running for President who is just three years out of the Illinois State Legislature. The Democratic Party still has never heard about this thing called “policy,” and still only knows about “hope” and “change”. The surge in Iraq is still working flawlessly and the liberal media still will not report on it. The price of gas continues to rape my wallet harder than the IRS does. Former New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevy is still a flaming homosexual, especially after new details of his marriage came out which include him and his wife having a ménage a trios with another man (and his wife claimed she didn’t know he was gay… right). President Bush is still the devil according to most liberals. And finally, Al Gore is still preaching to the world about the problems of “Global Climate Change” (formerly known as “Global Warming”) yet he flies around in a private jet and owns a house that uses 13 times more kilowatt hours of electricity than the average American’s home.

In the short term, the world we live in is not changing much.

There is stability in much of the world in places that have never before experienced it. What is bringing about this stability? The answer quite simply is: democracy.

There are more democratic nations in the world today than ever before. At the turn of the 20th century, only France had a republican form of government in Europe. Today, almost every

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country in Europe has a government elected by the people. Less than 20 years ago, half of Europe was under the dictatorship of the communist Soviet Union. All of those nations today, including Russia, are democracies.

Ever since these great changes in the world 20 years ago, the world has been stable. Diplomacy has been keeping the peace. It is a historical fact that democracies have never had a major war with each other. War seems to always be dictatorship vs. dictatorship or dictatorship vs. democracy. With that being said, Americans should be proud of the fact that we as a nation have created two new democracies in the world, Iraq and Afghanistan. If we help them organize and stabilize, this can create a precedent in the region, a region where dictatorship runs supreme. Remember in the movie Superbad when Officers Slater and Michaels cock-blocked McLovin?

After realizing their mistake, Officer Michaels exclaimed, “We shouldn’t be cock-blocking McLovin, we should be guiding his cock.” The lesson to learn from this is that America needs to be guiding young democracies’ “cocks” and encouraging them. It should not sit back and allow dictatorships to get a free ride. Sure we need to be realistic and understand that we can’t change every nation, but we should be placing more pressure on the dictatorships that don’t want to play nice, places like Iran, North Korea, and Cuba.

The only way a place like Cuba will succeed is if they get rid of the Castros and move toward democracy. Democracy, in all of its forms, is the solution for much of the world’s ills.

Officer Michaels exclaimed, “We shouldn’t be cock-blocking McLovin, we should be guiding his cock.”

The lesson to learn from this is that America needs to be guiding young democracies’ “cocks” and encouraging them...

-Robert Edward Menje, Editor-in-Chief

Binghamton Review, April 2008

Letters To the Editor Dear BR,

Although I consider myself to be staunchly liberal, and usually find myself disagreeing with most of what your publication has to say, I had to chuckle when I saw your sign in the New Union in support of Coca-Cola.

In a world where poverty, genocide, and tyranny reign, the cause the student activists take up is one against a soft drink company? Surely there must be some better way to spend time, like getting fellow students registered to vote, or doing an event for a local charity. It’s really quite laughable. Although I cringe at the names of corporatesponsored arenas and stadiums and am on the fence about high schools receiving corporate contributions, I support the sponsorship of college campuses. If the money Coca-Cola gives to my school provides me with better food and better facilities, I’ll try to drink the occasional Vitamin Water. Hopefully student activists can wake up and fight for causes that truly deserve their time and energy. After all, someone has got to be buying all of those “Free Darfur” shirts.

-Jack Balikilis

for the Dinesh D’Souza event in your last issue, and I am greatly offended. D’Souza is a bigot; he just plain hates Muslims. The Review often complains of unfair accusations of racism, but inviting a speaker like Dinesh D’Souza to our campus doesn’t help. Maybe you really are a bunch of racists like everyone says. Die.

-Clark Kent So “Clark,” you must have special powers so why don’t you use

Maybe you really are a bunch of racists like everyone says.

Die. -Clark Kent them to kick D’Souza off campus? Maybe you should read some of Dinesh’s books before you call him a racist. And at least have the balls to use your real name next time you decide to write to us.

-BR Dear BR,

Clearly Jack, you are one of the few liberals on this campus with a shred of common sense. Binghamton Review applauds you for your ability to reason and not embrace the mantra of the campus left. Check out page 16 for I would like to respond to Jason more on “Killer Coke.”

Birriel’s article on “socialized

-BR medicine” in your February issue, first by responding to what Dear BR, is essentially a factual error. He

I saw your advertisement claims that the higher tax rates Binghamton Review, April 2008

of countries with single payer health care “is detrimental to economic growth”. In fact, average annual growth rates for the period of 1990-2001 in the US and Canada were effectively equal (2.2%, according to the UNDP). The other countries Birriel listed were not far behind in this same indicator, and it is by no means conclusive that this slight difference was caused by the difference in tax rates or the availability of universal health care.

Ironically, the kinds of national health policy plans currently proposed by the Democrats might ultimately encourage support for the kind of free market ideology Birriel espouses. His somewhat valid argument to reform state-by-state regulation goes against the popular conservative mantra of state’s rights. It is also not incompatible with the goal of expanding government subsidies and moving toward universal coverage. No Republican has expressed any intention of accomplishing that goal, even though Governor Romney did it at the state level in Massachusetts, based largely on private insurance. If the Democrats succeed in applying a similar plan at the national level, the US could become the first nation in the history of the world to provide basic near universal health care coverage based overwhelmingly on private health insurance. This is a big experiment, compared to the tried and true single-payer systems of other countries. But as the US system stands now, and would continue to stand under a Republican president, it simply exposes the tragic failure of profit-driven health care to

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meet people’s basic needs.

-Brian Zbriger Jason Birriel responds: Let me start by saying that I visited the website which you used to state that my data was not factual. You are correct sir in stating that Canada and the United States did grow at an equal rate (2.2). The United Kingdom actually grew faster than us at 2.5%, however this is largely due to the free market reforms enacted under Margaret Thatcher’s government. Her reforms privatized most state owned industries, which at the time were running the British government into Debt and were turning the United Kingdom into a second rate power. Thatcher privatized assets like British Steel, all nonmilitary airports and seaports and British Rail. However, you claim that the other countries are not far behind, but according to your source not far behind is 1.5% in the case of France and 1.7% for Sweden. While only .7% and .5% does not seem far behind mathematically, it is enormous when measured in terms of economic growth. Economists consider 2.0% growth moderate and 2.5% and above good,

anything under 2.0% is considered poor. So with this in mind, France and Sweden performed poorly throughout the 1990’s.

When measured in dollars, the .7% and .5% that those economies grew less by comes to hundreds of billions of dollars, so in conclusion these countries performed poorly compared to our own country. Any economist will tell you that the difference between 2.2% and 1.5% (France) over the course of a decade is enormous, and you saying that they were not far behind is simply a “factual error.”

Secondly, I was not arguing that it was the socialized healthcare system that created low growth. It is the high tax rates needed to fund socialized healthcare which is detrimental to economic growth. This is economics 101, higher taxes result in lower economic growth. An excellent example that supports this notion is the recent economic stimulus package that was passed by congress. In an attempt to avoid a recession, congress passed a package to give tax rebates to people, essentially returning money that government took. Why would both Republicans and Democrats pass

a package that consists largely of tax rebates if they did not believe that doing so might keep the economy out of recession?

The fewer taxes people pay the higher our economic growth will be. In this case it is being done to avoid a recession, the only time the democrats believe in lowering our taxes. Mr. Zbriger you might be right when you say that a socialized healthcare system does not hamper economic growth, but you are wrong if you think higher tax rates do not as well. Universal coverage via private health insurance is another debate for another article.

All I will say is that I disagree with Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts health plan and Hillary Clinton’s idea that you mandate health insurance. In both plans you punish people for not having health insurance. Since it is a personal matter, you should not have to pay a fine for not having it, it is a victimless crime and another example of our government overstepping its boundaries. Government exists to protect us from each other and it goes over its authority when it tries to protect us from ourselves.

Binghamton Review:

We already control campus. Soon it will be the world.

Join us before it’s too late.

Weekly Meetings: Thursdays, 7:30 P.M. in our office, WB05 (basement of the New Union below the food court).

E-mail: binghamtonreview@gmail.com Website: www.binghamtonreview.com Binghamton Review, April 2008

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Campus Presswatch

Keeping an eye on the left wing campus media by the Editors

“[The Review] singles out a Pipe Dream article on Hillary Clinton, claiming her

”

main objective is to ‘steal our liberty’…[T]he statement is quite laughable.

-Free Press March 6th, 2008

Maybe these quotes straight from the horse’s mouth will convince you otherwise: “We’re going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good.”

-Hillary Clinton, 6/29/04 “(We)...can’t just let business as usual go on, and that means something has to be taken away from some people.”

-Hillary Clinton, 6/4/07 “I certainly think the free-market has failed.”

-Hillary Clinton, 6/4/07 “I think it’s time to send a clear message to what has become the most profitable sector in (the) entire economy that they are being watched.”

-Hillary Clinton, 9/2/05

Special:

National Presswatch Source: Newsbusters.org Binghamton Review, April 2008

“And in the more blatant attack on liberals (“Don’t Listen to Those Liberal Liars:

Conservatism is Alive and Well”), author Adam Shamah asserts that “conservative principles are derived from the very nature of God’s universe and mankind.” First of all, there are plenty of conservatives who do not believe in God, nor align themselves with the so-called Religious Right. In fact, the Republican alliance with the evangelical community is a fairly recent phenomenon. Secondly, if conservatism embodied the nature of God’s Universe, we would be living a very different world. Thankfully, biblical laws like stoning sinners and the prohibition on eating shellfish are not part of secular law today. Conservatism is not all about God; it is about remaining faithful to the principles that started the nation and following a strict interpretation of the constitution.

-Free Press March 6th, 2008

”

After reading this I honestly wondered if Irina Kaplan had even bothered to read my article before writing her ‘response’ to it. First I’d like to say that I agree that there are plenty of conservatives who do not believe in god. I agree that the Republican alliance with the evangelical community is a relatively recent phenomenon. And I agree that laws banning the consumption of shellfish should not be on the books. So what then, you may ask, is my problem with Irina’s “review”?

My complaint is that Irina is responding to things that I did not write. It seems the liberal knee jerk reaction to the very mention of the word God is to assume that the writer is calling for the criminalization of atheism and stoning of homosexuals. Nowhere

in my article did I mention anything at all about the religious right or social conservatism, and my comment that “conservative principles are derived from the very nature of God’s universe and mankind” was completely misconstrued by Free Press’ opinion writer. My point was (and I’m sure this was quite clear to those who actually read my article) conservative principles are based on things like natural law and human instinct. For example, man’s yearning to be free.

That’s why I said they are derived from the nature of God’s Universe, meaning they are natural and instinctual. They do not embody God’s biblical laws and nowhere in my article did I ever claim that they do.

-Adam Shamah

“Despite having a 3.85 GPA and three majors, I received several rejection letters last

week from various grad schools. As I watched my academic career flounder, however, I found that physically I have potential...The gold standard for a woman’s integrity is to earn money or have a fabulous career or whatever based solely on intelligence, hard work, and determination. Except that’s not working out so well for me, so what kind of person does it make me if I instead use my looks to earn cash...

”

-Pipe Dream March 7th, 2008

We at the Review feel your pain. Good looking people do deserve better. Luckily for you though, we have heard that Eliot Spitzer is looking for someone to work under him... literally.

Binghamton Review, April 2008

Client #9

The Resignation Defense Spitzer Deserves No Sympathy

by Rod Alzmann

“Learn to…be what you are, and learn to resign with a good grace all that you are not.”

–Henri Frederic Amiel

Many men of great political stature have resigned their offices over the years. John Jay, Martin Van Buren, John F. Kennedy, and many others all resigned their positions in order to move onto bigger and better things, or simply a new position.

Yet these are not the resignations that bother both myself and other members of the public, no; it is the resignations of men such as Richard Nixon, Bob Packwood, James McGreevey, and now Eliot Spitzer that infuriate and enrage the public.

When citizens break the law, they face the facts in court and either fight for their innocence or declare their guilt.

Even high-ranking corporate officials face this dilemma when they commit crimes. They may have more resources to fight with, but the case is eventually resolved in court. So why is it that politicians seem to use the tender of their resignation as an escape from criminal charges?

The prospect of being charged with a felony is no small matter. You can lose your reputation, your licenses, and even your right to vote. Senator Bob Packwood was being probed under allegations of sexual misconduct and his efforts to stall the investigation. The Senator resigned in late 1995 with evidence that he had been changing the facts of his story, and the

DOJ (Department of Justice) “declined prosecution.”

Often politicians who are caught with their pants down try to escape with whatever shreds of dignity they can latch onto, as Packwood did. But when you’re a man who built his entire career on having no sympathy for those who you charged, what kind of leniency can you hope for? Eliot Spitzer’s career as New York State Attorney General was considered by some a huge success and by some a huge abuse of the Attorney General’s power. Spitzer went after many corporate chiefs using either ancient laws, such as the Martin Act, or by leaking allegations to an eager press, and allowing the media to do the rest. Even when there was little merit to a case,

Binghamton Review, April 2008

Spitzer would be able to attack the target when he was down and get a settlement kill.

By crafting a career out of using any means necessary and launching personal vendettas against his opponents, Spitzer has made many enemies along the way. Revered by some, despised by many, the public wants him to receive his just desserts.

Hopefully the public is finding out what Spitzer really is: a bully who broke the rules himself and now needs to be punished.

Whether found guilty or not, his resignation should not remove his obligation to stand in the courtroom and be dealt the hand he deserves. Hopefully for the public, the deck is stacked against him.

Binghamton Review, April 2008

Latin American?

You Call This Culture?

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LASU’s Dirty Secret

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ur campus is constantly trying to promote diversity, but what happens when the diversity it promotes is nothing but a farce? Being both Latino and American, and having been raised in a culture that encompasses both, I have been instilled with a respect for the freedoms and rights present in this country but denied in others, specifically Latin American nations such as Cuba and Venezuela.

Here at Binghamton, the Latin American Student Union (LASU) is an insult to Latino culture and it is a crime that Binghamton University allows it to use the word Latin in its name. As far as I am concerned, I’ve always considered my father sitting on our balcony in his guayabera listening to Justo Betancourt while slowly smoking a cigar to be quite more Latino than a self-declared thug wearing Eckō and sporting a flag the size of a door over every inch of his body.

Before anybody seizes the opportunity to play the racism card—a strategy employed by many organizations on campus to combat something they are fully aware is true—I’d like to start by saying that I am a proud Latino with many different European backgrounds, as well as a descendant of the indigenous peoples of Latin America. To start out, a clear difference must be drawn between what is genuine Latin culture and what LASU

by Eugenio Campos

fabricates and promotes as Latin culture. I suggest taking a look at the most popular band in Latin America: RBD. RBD’s music is a personification of the Latino culture and our upbeat, passionate rhythm. If you watch any of the telenovelas from Latin America you will see that Latinos are both trendy and preppy.

[LASU] should be forced to change its name to “Latinos Who Have Lost Their Culture Student Union” (LWHLTCSU), though this name is most likely too long to be printed on a shirt alongside a terrorist quote.

Many very talented Latin artists, politicians, and authors have shown that Latinos put class, education, and self respect on high pillars. These attributes of being stylish, preppy, intelligent, classy, and respectable are true characteristics of Latin culture, and should be seen as what is authentically Latino in lieu of the false image that LASU attempts to burn in your mind.

Using genuine Latin pop culture icons, such as RBD, as a window into Latin American culture, it quickly becomes clear Binghamton Review, April 2008

that this accurate portrayal is by no means reminiscent of any stereotypical Latino Reggaeton or hip hop artist. Having said this, someone from the opposite camp will inevitably claim that using RBD as a window into Latino culture is simply the propaganda promoted by “white elitist Latinos.” I urge anybody reading this article to go research record sales, radio requests, and ticket sales in Latin America; you will find that the population of Latin America much prefers the so called “white elitist Latinos” brand of music and culture over the inner city American pseudoLatino culture.

The following are facts that LASU (and to some extent, LACAS, the program spawned

by LASU) deny about Latin America. First, the majority of Latin Americans can be labeled Mestizo, that is, a mixture of European and indigenous American descent. In some (but not all) countries, there is an AfroLatin element that stems from the blending of Europeans and African slaves. LASU would have you believe that the European element of Latin America represents only a very small elitist group. The truth is quite the opposite. Of the entire Latin American population (about 550 million people), approximately 34% is of European descent, not including those individuals of mixed descent. This European element is present in the majority of the populations of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica,

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Puerto Rico, and Uruguay. A significant portion of the populations of Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, and Venezuela are of European descent as well. With such hard facts readily available, how can one say that an evaluation of the Latin American population as being 34% white is racist? In reality, such a statement is perfectly justifiable and not based in prejudice or racism. It is an inconvenient truth that hurts LASU and LACAS’s agenda.

I have been to many LASU meetings, and LASU has, and in its current situation, will continue to go out of its way to keep this information from its general body and the campus as a whole. It is a major problem when LASU facilitates an environment where a person who is incapable of speaking a word of Spanish can claim that they are part of a flourishing Latino culture, and is permitted, and possibly even prompted, to scream at an exchange student right off the boat from Puerto Rico, accusing him of being white and consequently not Puerto Rican.

The fact of the matter is that LASU doesn’t want the campus to know the true cultural heritage of the Latinos, a people whose diverse history encompasses the achievements of the Aztecs as well as the elegant, sexually-charged European Tango. Instead of embracing this rich heritage, LASU oversimplifies it and degrades it into a single statement: “cruel white people enslaved Africans and forced them to speak Spanish.”

If you look at LASU’s workshops from this year, the two most notable were “Shorty vs. Wifey” and “The Evolution

of Hip-Hop.” What do either one of these have to do with Latino culture? Inner-city urban culture is not in any way Latino culture, and should not be even associated with it. If LASU is going to continue to bastardize Latino culture, then it should be forced to change its name to “Latinos Who Have Lost Their Culture Student Union” (LWHLTCSU), though this name is most likely too long to be printed on a shirt alongside a terrorist quote. And, not surprisingly, these quotes are taken most of the time from Che Guevara, who, according to LASU, was not a terrorist, as he only killed white Latinos, Jews, homosexuals, capitalists… the list goes on and on. Apparently, those oppressed by Che Guevara are, in LASU’s opinion, not human.

I fully support events such as Afro-Latin, an annual event that is supposed to showcase the influence of African culture on Latin America. The problem I do have is that this is the only huge cultural showcase made by LASU, and it only represents 20% of Latin America.

20% of Latin America? What happened to the remaining 80%, the indigenous and European elements? The truth is that LASU has no problem with, and even encourages, lying about the true Latin America to promote a Latin America that doesn’t exist! No one is saying that there isn’t an African element to some parts of Latin American nations, but to enforce beliefs which, in reality, are deconstructionist lies is a shame, and to do so through an SA-chartered group is an abomination. I hope that in the future, Binghamton Univer-

Binghamton Review, April 2008

sity will try to facilitate a more truthful image of Latin America, portraying Buenos Aires and Mexico City instead of Spanish Harlem and the South Bronx.

We need a Latino organization on campus that will educate our students on the European, indigenous, and African aspects of Latino culture instead of one that only tells us if “papi’s” girl is his “shorty” or “wifey”!

-Eugenio Campus is a sophomore Political Science major. The Coalition Against Hate has classified him as a “level two racist.”

Mortgage Bailouts

The Audacity of Freedom

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Barack Obama’s Flawed Logic

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reedom. It is a term that is thrown around so lightly it seems as though it doesn’t carry much weight anymore.

Yet, at its core, it is the definition of America. We the people, we born and bred Americans, we first and second generation immigrants, we lovers and defenders of our country both new and old; we take this great right for granted and don’t recognize its importance anymore. It appears that freedom has been diminished, that we are losing our liberties in the name of security, order, and “the common good.”

Now, don’t get me wrong, while this is a right leaning monthly, I will not pull punches. The rightists are guilty of as many crimes against our liberty as the leftists. Men such as George W. Bush have espoused laws such as the PATRIOT act, which tears from us the constitutional freedom of privacy.

Sacrificing our liberty for a sense of safety is not a worthy exchange.

Yet as much as I may disagree with people who trade liberty for a false sense of security, at least they are open about their intentions. What I cannot stand is the modern American populist, also known as the economic liberal. His thinly veiled hatred of capitalism is coupled with his lust for redistribution of wealth.

The modern economic liberal is willing to steal our financial freedoms to achieve this.

by Rod Alzmann

Barack Obama wants to increase the tax on capital gains (the income earning on investments longer than one year), which currently stands at 15%.

It has been shown over the years time and time again that by increasing the tax on investment (which constitutes a significant portion of Gross Domestic Product) you discourage

Obama’s characterization of the federal government as “our larger American family” is truly a disturbing proposition.

individuals, banks, and foreigners from placing their wealth in America, and instead in nations that are friendlier to investors and businesses. Obama believes that because “[w]e are taxing income from work at nearly twice the level that we’re taxing gains for investors” we should raise the capital gains tax to a level that is equal to or higher than regular income. His logic Binghamton Review, April 2008

is severely flawed. With fewer investors, we weaken expansion, and without expansion we cannot have more jobs for the economy. Without these jobs, it won’t matter what the tax rate is because the workers will be unemployed anyway.

Mr. Obama further believes that “if fate causes us to stumble or fall, our larger American family will be there to lift us up.” According to that, if someone takes massive risks, becomes completely overleveraged and insolvent, the government should pay his or her debts.

Mr. Obama’s characterization of the federal government as “our larger American family” is truly a disturbing proposition. With a theory on risk as Mr. Obama holds, any mistakes that an American makes is not the individual’s responsibility, but the responsibility of society and in turn the government. This is absolutely wrong. Americans are blessed in having the freedom to enter into contracts, both beneficial and not. No one enters into a contract with the expectation of coming out with less, but this sometimes happens. This is the exception to the rule however, as freely entered contracts and agreements generally yield positives for all parties involved. By revoking the freedom to contract, as Mr. Obama wants to do for persons entering into mortgage agreements, he is saying that you have these rights…as long as the government says so.

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I for one cannot subscribe to the belief that the government knows better than I do. In a country that values individuality and freedom so highly, taking away the fundamental right to take risks and better oneself seems a far more egregious offense than the limitation of certain social actions. Ideally I would love for everyone to be able to enjoy the full extent of his or her social and economic freedoms, but what really bothers me is when people are willing to give up these freedoms for the promise of nothing in return. That is what Mr. Obama’s policy holds in store for America.

-Rod Alzmann is a freshman at Binghamton University.

He recently defaulted on his mortgage and is looking for someone to help bail him out.

Send In Your Nominees For Our Annual ‘Best and Worst Professors’ Awards.

All submissions should be sent to binghamtonreview@gmail.com and must include a brief explanation of why he/she deserves to win.

“Many libertarians are basically conservatives who are either gay or druggies...”

-Dinesh D’Souza Binghamton Review, April 2008

Diversity

A

A House Divided

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Multiculturalism and the VPMA

by Christopher Powell

t the time of his famous “house divided” quote, Abraham Lincoln was looking for a way to heal a country that was deeply divided over issues of slavery and race relations. Although we have seen significant improvements in race relations in this country and around the world, we have not fully healed those wounds yet, and the evidence is everywhere.

Race struggles are visible across the country and throughout the world.

From the Sunni/Shiite struggles of the Middle East, to the radical ranting of Barack Obama’s pastor and the frequent allegations of law enforcement biases and brutalities, it is clear that something has to be done. In order to fix the racial problems of our world something radical must change, but how? In the words of Chief Justice John Roberts, “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”

That means endemic changes to the way that all people approach race relations, both positive and negative, and it can start on this campus.

The history of our SUNYB is rife with stories of racial struggles and misunderstandings. These incidents include muggings, the shooting of a student, and the impeachment of an SA President; just to name

a few. Although the campus has made great strides towards understanding, openness, and racial harmony, there are still strong divisions between social, economic, and ethnic groups (as

evidenced by our pitiful “diversity” scores in the Princeton Review). So you might ask, what is Binghamton missing in the diversity department?

Although Binghamton is known for having an extraordinarily diverse student body, reviewers criticize the lack of interaction between members of different groups. Who amongst us hasn’t seen cliques of students who are obviously from similar backgrounds huddling in the dining halls? It’s easy to understand why international students would want to form exclusive social circles to ease the Binghamton Review, April 2008

transition, or why upper-middle class Jews from Long Island would want to form Newing to insulate themselves, but who do these cliques really benefit?

One of the central reasons that Binghamton forces students to spend at least one year on campus is so that they are fully immersed in the world around them. In order for the campus’s diversity to improve students’ worldliness and perspective, the students must interact with others from different backgrounds and learn to appreciate the similarities and differences between them. To this end, your student activity fee money is used largely to subsidize cultural organizations whose purpose it is to celebrate their heritage and educate others. These organizations are wonderful, but they could be so much more.

The primary problem with our campus’s cultural organizations is the same problem we see in the dining halls: homogeneity. When one attends a meeting or event hosted by the Black Student Union, one encounters nearly all Black students. Hillel events attract primarily Jewish students and Latin American Student Union events attract Hispanic students.

Binghamton University has tremendous resources in terms of facilitating racial harmony and understanding: Including a sig-

nificant international population, a diverse student body and extremely successful cultural organizations. So what keeps us at the bottom of the diversity scale? One word: multiculturalism.

Multiculturalism is seen as a blessing by most, as it is the push towards understanding and acceptance of all cultures by all people. However, the enactment of multiculturalism has always been shaky at best, and often rife with problems. The reason for this is two-fold: First, multiculturalism often looks to focus significantly more on differences across cultures than similarities.

This approach perpetuates distinction and discrimination between groups as it drives people to recognize themselves as fundamentally different from others. If we were to alter that focus to celebrate our common bonds through the human condition and preach a culture of understanding rather than a “multiculture” of acceptance, then it might be possible for people to begin erasing the distinctions and stigmas associated with race, creed, orientations, religions, etc. Secondly, any legislation or action related to multiculturalism is primarily aimed at “protection” of the “weaker” groups from the powerful, a ridiculous and feardriven approach. So who is the primary offender in this case?

Your Vice President for Multicultural Affairs (VPMA).

The VPMA position is one with a short and sordid history. Initially the position was a simple appointee of the cultural organizations with no real power or responsibilities. However, many SA leaders saw the unfortunate truth that this position

15

would only further fuel hatred and divisiveness on campus and moved to destroy it. The backlash was strong enough to turn the appointee into a full-fledged SA Executive board member with no real power or responsibilities. In the spirit of Chief Justice Roberts it is time to stop discriminating on the basis of race or any other factor and start uniting our student body.

As it stands the VPMA’s sole end is to work with and advocate for the cultural groups on this campus. Unfortunately there is already another E-board member charged with that responsibility, the Executive Vice President (EVP). The EVP is the primary point of contact with and advocate for all student organizations on our campus. However, he or she has limited contact with the cultural organizations because the VPMA claims that responsibility. This organization effectively cleaves the cultural groups off from the rest of our organizations and demonstrates the poor consequences of self segregation. If these groups could become more equal to the rest of our student organizations and more willing to work with others on our campus, then we could start to see the end of homogeneity on our campus, at least at the student group and performance level. The exciting events of our cultural organizations are perhaps the most interesting experiences available on this campus, from Chabad dinners to the Muslim Student Association banquet to the Philipino American League’s Barrio, these events can teach students from other backgrounds an awful lot if they would just show up, but the VPMA blocks a lot

of the communication between these groups.

The other argument that many present on behalf of the VPMA is that the position should remain to act as an advocate for students from less fortunate or minority backgrounds.

However, the best advocate for those students would not be the VPMA; it would be students from less fortunate or minority backgrounds! There is nothing stopping these students from becoming more involved with the Student Association in any capacity, from the Student Assembly, to a chartered organization, to the E-board. Just because students are unwilling to enfranchise themselves, it is not the duty of the rest of us to support them through additional SA infrastructure and bureaucracy.

We must level the playing field; it’s already been opened up to all students!

Binghamton University has a wealth of cultural resources available to broaden the minds of all the students who matriculate.

However, those resources are grossly under appreciated and under utilized simply because of a backwards, protection-minded approach to diversity and understanding. Although the VPMA will still exist come my commencement, I hope that some of the readers of this article will first go out and enjoy some of the rich cultural activities available here on campus, and then begin the struggle to heal the divides on this campus by overhauling our student body’s approach to diversity.

-Chris Powell is the VicePresident for Finance of the Student Association and is Editor Emeritus of the Review.

Binghamton Review, April 2008

Killer Coke?

The Truth About Coca-Cola

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You CAN Handle the Truth!

A

s I sit at my keyboard, one of my favorite beverages resides right beside me on my desk.

This drink is something I have loved ever since I was a small child: Coca-Cola. You would expect that I would have recoiled in horror when I learned from an ongoing campus campaign that I might have the blood of Columbian workers on my hands. This is the backbone of allegations made against Coca-Cola by the “Killer Coke” movement. Led by Ray Rogers and his for-profit Corporate Campaign Inc., members of the “Killer Coke” campaign contest that Coca-Cola was complacent in the deaths of nine trade unionists that worked in one of their Colombian bottling plants.

After researching the facts of the case, I have been able to sleep at night with my soul free of guilt. This is for the fact that “Killer Coke” is just another product of the anti-corporate left. It is simply a smear campaign against the Coca-Cola Corporation. The true facts surrounding what happened in Colombia are a lot less exciting than what those rabble-rousing liberals would lead us Binghamton students to believe.

Ray Rogers’ Colombian “client,” a union known as SINALTRAINAL, has charged that Coca-Cola was involved with the murders of nine of its em-

by Michael Lombardi

ployees over the thirteen-year period between 1989 and 2002.

They hope to use this charge to pressure the company into a collective bargaining agreement. In essence they are using the “Killer Coke” movement to gain political clout in the world of international labor relations.

In addition, Ray Rogers is demanding that Coca-Cola pay

It is simply a smear campaign against the Coca-Cola corporation.

192 million dollars, and SINALTRAINAL is demanding between one and two billion dollars.

The claims brought against Coca-Cola were filed in a U.S. Federal Court in 2001.

Coca-Cola was dismissed as a defendant from this case in 2003. Furthermore both the Colombian courts and the Colombian Attorney General rejected the cases involving Coca-Cola bottlers in Colombia. Due to the Binghamton Review, April 2008

fact Rogers and SINALTRAINAL have no evidence to seek legal recourse, they have turned to a groundless grassroots political campaign. The goal of “Killer Coke” is to damage the public image of Coca-Cola to such an extent that Coca-Cola would be willing to cede to Rogers and SINALTRAINAL’s demands.

Perhaps of the most importance, the International Union of Foodworkers, which is an important global coalition of labor unions whose members include thousands of Coca-Cola employees, refuse to support this “Killer Coke” movement.

The coalition issued a statement saying, “We have no evidence of complicity by Coke in the killing of the workers. Sweeping, unsubstantiated allegations and assertions of the type found in the boycott appeal do nothing to help the cause of unions that organize and represent Coca-Cola workers around the world.” The eleven other unions present in Colombia have also not stepped forward to back the accusations presented by SINALTRAINAL. In fact one of these unions issued a statement reading there was “not a single indication” that any Coca-Cola bottler had links to armed groups.

Colombia is without a doubt an extremely violent country. Over the past forty years an ongoing civil war between the Colombian govern-

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ment, Marxist guerillas, drug cartels and right-wing paramilitary forces has clamed the lives of over 35,000 Colombians. It is an especially dangerous country for political activists and trade unionists; around 2,500 trade unionists have been killed in Colombia since the mid-eighties. In a country of such chaos, the murders of nine union workers are less than likely to be tied to the company that employed them, and probably had more to do with the political forces in play.

“Killer Coke� has been expressively targeted at college students due to both the presence of Coca-Cola on a huge number of campuses nationwide as well as the political influence of liberal organizations, such as United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS), on these campuses. Shockingly enough,

this campaign has actually been succeeding in some cases such as at the University of Michigan and NYU.

What people fail to realize, and this is key, is that CocaCola itself does not manufacture the products delivered to colleges. They only produce the syrup and are responsible for marketing. The drinks themselves are manufactured and distributed by independently licensed local bottlers. Our University buys Coca-Cola products directly from a local bottler based in the city of Binghamton. In Colombia, Coca-Cola is produced and bottled by Fomento Economico Mexicano, S.A., which is based in Mexico City, and several other independently owned companies. If this campaign were to succeed here in Binghamton, the only people who would be severely impacted would

be the employees of the Binghamton bottling plant, not the Coca-Cola Corporation itself.

Our bottling plant employs hundreds of local workers and is vital towards the economy of the city of Binghamton, which over the past few decades has fallen into dire straights. In essence all the campaign will accomplish is the further damage of a troubled city.

We cannot allow this to happen here at Binghamton.

Smear campaigns like this, which contain little or no substance, must never be allowed to perpetuate.

-Michael Lombardi is a freshman at Binghamton University. He plans on starting the Coke black market if they get kicked off campus. Look for the two-for-five special.

Binghamton Review, April 2008

Women’s Studies

The Changing Role of Women Force-Fed Feminism

I

n 1963 Betty Friedan wrote a controversial book that would forever change the way women perceived their lives and their roles in society.

The Feminine Mystique pushed the women’s rights movement into the public eye, helping it grow to its peak in the 1960’s and 70’s. The Equal Rights Amendment, bringing complete equality for men and women, was first proposed in 1923, and has since been ratified by thirty-five states. It is possible that the ERA could become the 28th amendment if just three more states choose to ratify it. But is that really what we want?

It would be absurd of me to say that I don’t care about women’s rights at all, because I am, after all, a woman. I do have plans to be a Spanish language interpreter, or a teacher. I am majoring in Spanish, and I am considering a minor in anthropology. But is this what I really want? After high school, the next logical step for the majority of students is going to college. In high school, there was no doubt that college came next for me. Yet in the back of my mind, I just want something different. Something that is more old fashioned. Something my parents would not approve of.

My mother can be called a feminist. She and her girlfriend

by Samantha Mickle

(yes, my mother is a lesbian) are pro women’s rights, and all for equal opportunity. When I told them just a few weeks ago that I don’t think women should have to work, and that I just want to be a housewife, my mother responded with, “Who are you? Who raised you? How

Is the United States as a whole against women being in the kitchen and the bedroom? What if that’s where they want to be? could you possibly be my daughter?” Not exactly the response I had hoped for. But is this what our entire society has become? Is the United States as a whole against women being in the kitchen and the bedroom? What if that’s where they want to be? I don’t think that women who want to proudly get married, have babies, and take care of their family should be embarBinghamton Review, April 2008

rassed to say so to anyone who asks.

People ask me all the time, why would I want to stay at home and take care of a family? The real question should be, why wouldn’t I want to? I’m not saying I’m ready to now, because I’m not. But when time comes for me to get married, if my husband and I are able to financially, I would like to stay home and take care of my children as well as my husband. I want to greet my husband with dinner every night. I want to be there for my husband and my children all day, every day. That is what I want.

Cooking, cleaning, laundry, I want to do all of that.

Sixty years ago, it was taboo for women to want to leave the home to join the workforce. Is the opposite in effect today? Have the days of Leave it to Beaver escaped us completely? Is June Cleaver no longer the quintessential mother figure? Come on, it’s better we look up to her than look up to someone like Britney Spears or Rosie O’Donnell.

-Samantha Mickle is a freshman at Binghamton. She makes an excellent PB&J sandwich. Just ask Randal Meyer.

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American Studies

The American Dream

19

Liberals Hate It...

I

n 1959 a modest family, living in Elmont New York, welcomed their third child. The child was named Mitchel Rabinowitz, who happens to be my father. Twelve years later my grandfather tragically died, and my father was forced to start working to help support the family. For the next six years, my dad woke up at 4 am every morning to deliver newspapers until school began.

After school my dad worked multiple jobs, scraping together as much money as possible. At 18, my dad got a full ride to York College, and went on to become an Occupational Therapist. Today, he lives with his wife and four children in Great Neck, the town famous for its rich non-taxpaying Persians and the home of the Great Gatsby.

This story is not a fluke occurrence in today’s world; these incredible stories are plentiful all over the United States. The “American Dream” is a concept that underlies the foundation of this country. Our founding fathers managed to establish a country in which ordinary men can achieve greatness; a country that, throughout its history, has provided millions of people with opportunities that no other country in the world can provide. “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses

by Daniel Rabinowitz yearning to breathe free” isn’t just a phrase inscribed on one of our national monuments; it is a way of life, an illustration of what this great country stands for. If one works hard, the sky is the limit to what one can achieve.

Recently, however, there have been people, mainly politicians, who are trying to get rid of this beautiful concept. These politicians think they can destroy over two hundred years of history and implement their “revolutionary” (aka Marxist) health care and taxation policies. Take for example Hillary Clinton and her plan to “restore fairness to our economy.”

In a recent speech in Ohio, Mrs. Clinton claimed she will take back 55 billion dollars from drug companies, oil companies, and firms that ship jobs overseas. She will allow you to work hard, earn money, and achieve the American Dream, but eventually she will steal your money and take away your sweat and hard work, and use it to further her Socialist agenda. Many of these people, who Hillary is looking forward to taxing, did not grow up rich. They sacrificed their whole lives to get to where they are.

Healthcare is another opportunity for politicians to chip away at our god given liberties. By supporting socialized healthcare, these Binghamton Review, April 2008

people are opposing the coveted concept of the American Dream. It doesn’t matter how much money you earn or how many hours a week you work, everyone will be given the same dreadful healthcare plan. To many Americans, the American Dream means providing your family with the best possible life. Health is one of the main components of this Dream. These people think they have the right to take away one of the most sacred notions in our countries history.

They want to take away your ability to protect your family’s health and prevent you from achieving your Dream.

The American Dream is as important in United States history as the Declaration of Independence.

Without it the United States of America would not be “the land of the free and the home of the brave.”

We would be a socialist utopia, where all of us would work and die in the rice fields. Do not allow these politicians to determine the extent of your liberties.

-Daniel Rabinowitz is a freshman Engineering major at Binghamton University. His nose is a sophomore at Yeshiva University.

African-Amercan Studies

Holding The “Brothas” Down

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Liberals Exploit Race (Duh)

by Adam Shamah

T

he United States government invented AIDS as a way to kill unruly black men.

Crack cocaine was invented by the CIA for the same reason. America—excuse me— Amerikkka deserved 9/11.

The paranoid ranting and cries of victimization by Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama’s pastor, make Al Sharpton look like Clarence Thomas.

Yet in the speech he made two weeks ago as an attempt to respond to criticisms of Reverend Wright, Barack Hussein Obama felt he needed to include the following: “I can no more disown him [Wright] than I can disown the black community.”

Rather than plainly denouncing the values of his pastor, Obama chose instead to bring them into the mainstream, to tell the country that while he disagrees with Wright, his views do represent significant portions of an entire community. For someone who is supposed to be the “third way” candidate, a man who wants to “bring us all together,” legitimizing the bigoted, hateful, anti-American views of this racist pastor seems like a bit of a contradiction.

The truth is, Barack Obama wants blacks to be as angry as Reverend Wright.

Liberalism is all about exploiting voters’ angers and jealousies. This has been especially effective in the black community, where for the past forty years liberals have turned anger about poverty and “racism”

into votes.

In the ‘60s the left created an entire voting bloc based on the idea that blacks, because society is racist, can get nowhere without the help of liberals and their big government solutions. The only problem is, when poor families begin to prosper and move up the eco-

they encourage welfare dependence. They promote the lie that without liberals and their affirmative action policies, blacks and Hispanics would be unable to find jobs because of the racist white man.

But now that it is becoming unmistakable that society is not inherently racist, and more and more Americans are realizing that they can prosper on their own without help from the government, liberals are beside themselves. 9 out of 10 African Americans vote Democrat, so if even a small percentage defect, the results for the Democratic Party would be devastating. That’s why liberals are attracted to people like Reverend Wright; people like him perpetuate a false picture of our society. He gets the members of his congregation, made up mostly of poor black men and women, to believe that uncontrollable factors like racism make it impossible for them to prosper without the government. We’ll never get beyond race as long as there are still black leaders whose minds are living in the era of nomic ladder, they tend not to segregation, and liberals are need liberals anymore, though just fine with that. liberals still need them. To combat that, liberals support -Adam Shamah is a policies that keep minorities freshman at Binghamton and poor and dependent on their is the Managing Editor of BR. Government. They force inner He plans to run for office somecity minorities into horrible day as a Democrat, simply to public schooling and are not get the black vote. even open to the idea of school choice. Instead of promoting economic growth and job creation in poor communities,

Wright makes Al Sharpton look like Clarence Thomas.

Binghamton Review, April 2008

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Binghamton Review, April 2008

Party Of Defeat

Failure At Any Cost

22

What Happens When an Entire Party Stands For Defeat?

by Alex Paolano

P

erhaps unlike any other time in this nation’s history, politicians in our own government have been aiming to stab Americans in the back. With the senate voting overwhelmingly to authorize the use of force in Iraq, American politicians came to a bipartisan decision to overthrow Saddam Hussein and his Baath party. Obviously some Democrats were opposed to the war, but many (i.e. John Kerry) were for it. When the invasion and subsequent aftermath ran into difficulties, the Democratic Party jumped off the bandwagon like a hooker should do when in a car with Ted Kennedy, subsequently leaving our military men and women overseas with a government here at home that doesn’t fully support their efforts. Now that the John McCain envisioned surge seems to be working, the Democrats still seem to be sticking to their politics of cut and run and failure.

Why is that? Perhaps it’s because when we succeed in Iraq the Democrats will have to admit that they were wrong. They will have to admit that democracy can succeed in the Middle East. They will need to explain to the world why they wanted failure.

Congressional Democrats, at every chance, have said that the war is lost, that we have no attainable goals, and that our boys are dying for nothing. John Murtha, a Pennsylvania congressman, was quoted as saying “The Army is broken, worn out... living hand to mouth.”

This doesn’t seem like a message we want to send to not only our military personnel, but also to our enemies. One of my best friends just left with the United States Army for a tour of duty in Iraq, and he sounded anything but broken or worn out.

What these Democrats, and the people who support

In Iraq, as it stands now, we have a Middle Eastern country that can be an example to all those who yearn for freedom in that region.

them must understand, is that a pullout from Iraq does not mean peace. It means chaos, civil war, an even more powerful Iran, and our enemies, in al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups, being emboldened. Emboldened like they were after our failed mission in Somalia, as well as after our reaction, or better yet, lack of a reaction, to

their attacks during the 1990’s under President Bill Clinton. In an audio tape released in 2006, Osama Bin Laden said the following; “We will continue, God willing, to fight you and your allies everywhere, in Iraq and Afghanistan and in Somalia and Sudan, until we waste all your money and kill your men and you will return to your country in defeat as we defeated you before in Somalia.”

Whether Hillary Clinton stays viable in the Democratic primary race is irrelevant. Her message is one that is at the heart and soul of the liberal agenda. She said in an interview that no matter the situation on the ground on the day of her inauguration as President of the United States (a scary thought), she would look to bring the troops home in sixty days. Our military has fought so hard to free the people of Iraq from the grips of tyranny. They fought a bloody insurgency and warded off a civil war, but now that they have the upper hand, and are winning the war, Clinton and her Democratic colleagues want to pull them out before we can assure a stable Iraq.

Let us look at this from a distance. The Democrats are elected into office and we begin withdrawing our troops. Wonderful, like every American, I would prefer our troops at home and out of harm’s way. Oh wait!

Iraq falls into civil war and a possible genocide occurs. What happens after that? The Democrats will be quick to say that if it weren’t for the policies of

Binghamton Review, April 2008

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President Bush, this situation would never have occurred. What they’ll neglect to say is that we were in fact winning the war before they pulled our troops out. So yes, if you vote for a Democrat, it is important to know that you are also voting for cut and run policies that will ensure a future of civil discourse and utter chaos in a region that doesn’t need any more of it.

In Iraq, as it stands now, we have a Middle Eastern country that can be an example to all those who yearn for freedom in that region. It is a symbol that Democracy can take hold in even the most volatile of regions, and people can have an option of how they want to live. It shows the terrorists that America will no longer be pushed around, and that if they hurt us we will hurt them. In Iraq we have a place in the center of the Middle East to launch our retaliation. So while the Democratic platform may sound wonderful, and may say all the pretty things that people want to hear, it is faulty. What the Democratic platform fails to do is understand the consequences of failure and retreat. This country must not allow people from within to stab it in the back, especially not now, as we are on the brink of victory.

-Alex Paolano is a sophomore History major at Binghamton. He’s a guido and his dad owns a garbage truck company... don’t mess with him.

The irony clearly escaped this hippie from last month’s anti-war protest.

Agree with us?

Disagree with us?

Write us a letter to the editor and send it to binghamtonreview@gmail.com

Letters may be submitted at any time and must be limited to 600 words Binghamton Review, April 2008

TASERs

Exclusive: BR Interviews UPD

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Assistant Chief of Police William Dunn on TASERs

BR recently sat down with Assistant Police Chief Dunn to discuss the TASER controversy.

Here is what we learned: BR: How many students on campus have been tased since you’ve gotten TASERs? Dunn: No students have been tased.

BR: Has anyone at all been tased?

what is called probable cause— that means, given the facts and circumstances available to him at the time, he has reason to believe that a particular person is committing a particular type of crime—he is authorized under article 35 to use deadly force to stop the progress of certain felony crimes—one of them is burglary. So in this situation, the officer could have used his pistol. Not only could he have used his pistol, but he was at-

Dunn: Yes and I can elaborate to a certain degree. I can tell you that we arrested a person that was a former student. He was burglarizing the registrar’s office. That young man fought violently with the officers. He was tased.

BR: In that situation, would an alternative have been the use of a pistol?

Dunn: Let me tell you about the laws in New York State regarding the use of force. Article 35—every police officer is bound by that statute. We are all trained in it, and I am the state trainer for the SUNY system.

Article 35 says that there are certain crimes that can be stopped in their progress by the use of deadly force. If the officer has

tacked. He was assaulted.

BR: One thing that opponents of TASERs have been saying is that police are going to be using TASERs as an alternative to “talking.”

Dunn: Let me explain our use of force policy model. It happens to be the same use of force model that is used by the federal Binghamton Review, April 2008

government—the FBI, the Drug Enforcement, all of them. Every officer here has to understand that model, and every year we recertify them. It’s a color-based pyramid, and the broad base of that pyramid is blue. Blue is the way most people are—cooperative. Most people that police encounter are cooperative. The controls that the officers are allowed are what we called compliance controls, which are verbal commands to persuade and convince a person to comply. At that level if an officer were to decide to hit somebody, or tase somebody, or spray somebody, that would be a use of force. We would not condone it, nor would a judge condone it. And we would come down on that officer very severely.

The next level up is the green level. A passive resister is someone who does not comply with lawful orders, nothing more. Our officers are permitted at that level to use hands on, in the sense of pick up, carry, drag, push a wheelchair—no pain, no TASERs.

The middle level is yellow. That’s what we call the level of active resistance. Active resistance is when a person does not comply with a law-

25

ful order and he enhances that through certain physical means such as: walking away, running away, walking past the officer, grabbing a hold of something and saying “I’m not coming with you,” enhancing his resistance, not assaulting. That’s the level that we permit a number of things to be used. The officer can use any number of control holds, pepper spray, or a TASER. It is his or her choice whether or not he is going to use it. A TASER might be used; then again a joint lock might be used.

Pepper spray might be used. If, when they write their report, and they have to write what we call a physical encounter report anytime an officer puts their hands on someone, I get it, and what I do is I use their report to document whether or not what the officer did was proper. If an officer says to me “he didn’t agree with what I wanted to do so I tased him,” I would probably bring department charges against him for that.

The next level up is orange. This is where the person becomes assaultive. It is more serious, and we tell our officers at that level, when someone is trying to hurt you or hurt another person physically, you’re justified in using a baton, or anything lower than that: a TASER, hands on (punching, kicking) etc.

Red, the top level, when an officer feels his life is in danger, or he feels that the life of another is in danger, he is justified in using a firearm.

At any level you’re at you may have to immediately jump up,

or if you gain compliance by tasing or by verbal communication, jump down. If you don’t go down once you’ve gained compliance, that’s abuse of force.

We are very tight with how we control our officers.

BR: It seems that students on campus have a problem with TASERs, but don’t have a problem with police carrying batons—which are one step

If we had a TASER, we could have ended that before the possibility of that man killing himself... higher, blunt force trauma is more damaging than an electrical shock. Why do you think that is?

Dunn: I think it’s the mystery of the electricity that scares people. I really think that’s what it is.

BR: Tell us a little about the history of how you decided to bring TASERs onto campus.

Dunn: I am the chief defensive tactics instructor for the SUNY system. I certify the instructors at the other schools. I believe I know weapons, and I know use of force; I’ve been on this job for 37 years. Most of that time I’ve been teaching defensive tactics—baton, pepper spray, a lot of other things—to police all over the United States. I think I understand them pretty well. As time goes on, I see different control devices become what I call the ‘flavor of the month.’ Something is popular today, it’s not nearly as popular tomorrow. A big deal was pepper spray. Now it’s the TASER, before the TASER was the side handled baton.

We began to hear about the TASER back around the year 1998. A few agencies were using this thing called a TASER but we didn’t know much about it. Then around 2005-2006, the police in this area began to talk a lot about them. My chief, John Schwartz, went to a chief’s meeting and one of the topics that came up was the TASER. Binghamton police were researching the TASER heavily.

In 2005 or so, Binghamton Police had a mentally disturbed man. The mentally disturbed man had a knife, and several patrolmen encountered him on the street, and he was thrusting the knife at the officers. Now, despite what a lot of people think, nothing beats a knife but a gun. Gun beats knife, pepper spray doesn’t beat knife, TASER doesn’t beat knife— TASER maybe beats knife... sometimes. The Binghamton police had pepper spray, ba-

Binghamton Review, April 2008

Interview Continued tons, and pistols. They couldn’t get near enough to spray him, they couldn’t get near enough to hit him with a baton. They had their pistols out and were trying to talk him down. They didn’t want to shoot him but he attacked one of the officers so they shot him. That made Binghamton think “if we had something else, we might have saved that man’s life.” That’s why they were looking at TASERs. My chief came back to me and said “They’re very interested in it, you ought to look into it.”

I said “okay” and began to do some research.

Then we had the flood of June ’06. We had a bad flood up here; people were driven out of their homes.

The only refuge they had was the events center so we opened our doors to 3000 people. They came from everywhere. They were lodged up in the events center for about a week.

We had a domestic dispute. A man and his wife, who hadn’t been getting along out there, didn’t get along in here and he beat her. We provide police protection and she called us, so we responded. Her husband left the event center and went onto the playing field. On some of those playing fields they have lights for night games. On one of those poles there is an electric

26

box. Somehow this man got the top off the electric box, stuck his hand down into the box, took a knife out of his pocket, and said “Don’t come near me, I’ll kill myself if you do, and I’ll cut you if you get too close.” So we had a standoff. The officers drew their weapons because he had a knife. They weren’t going to shoot him because he wasn’t attacking them. He said he was going to kill himself by shov-

self or hurting one of our officers or getting shot. So we put together the Binghamton issue, and our situation; that’s what inspired me to do the research that I did, and I concluded that although there were some incidences across the country where people have died after they had been hit with a TASER, that there were no conclusive results that the TASERs had caused the deaths.

BR: So the deaths were caused by something else that was not the TASERs?

ing his hand further down into the box. There we were—what were we going to do? Well, he was too far away to spray with pepper spray, we didn’t want to shoot him; there was nothing to justify shooting him. Luckily, one of our officers was able to smooth talk him, we ended up taking him to Binghamton General Hospital, the psychiatric unit.

That’s when we really began to focus on the TASER. If we had a TASER, we could have ended that before the possibility of that man killing himBinghamton Review, April 2008

Dunn: I believe in my research.

My conclusion was strengthened because when I researched Pepper Spray, exactly the same criticisms of pepper spray were being used—“People die when they’re sprayed, this is a deadly weapon”—and yet everything I read indicated that even though some people had died, there was no conclusion by medical experts that it was the pepper spray that did it. It could have been a previously existing medical condition such as an aneurysm in the heart or brain, a heart condition, they were almost always on drugs or alcohol, and they had always been fighting violently with the officers who sprayed them. The same arguments are now being used about the TASERs.

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BR: Is a TASER more danger- potent as an AED. my officers to carry a TASER ous than a baton or a nightNow, am I downplaying the unless they get tased first. I did stick?

TASER? No. You know why I’m not enjoy being tased. Even though it is not nearly as potent Dunn: We wouldn’t use a baton as an AED, it disrupts the electriDo you know how at the same level we would use cal coordination of the muscles, a TASER. We’d use a TASER it hurts. Its primary effect many joules a and before we’d use a baton. We’d is that it disrupts the electrical use a TASER at the active resis- TASER produces? coordination of your muscles, tance level, we’d use a baton at and when it does that you can’t .036. So if an AED move—for five seconds. Now, I the assaultive level.

We have Automatic Exknow it has been said that it’s an ternal Defibrillators. We have is certified to be instrument of torture. I would be some now, we’re going to get used on a human the first to agree. But so is that a lot of them soon. An AED, (points to a pen), if you have the which is certified to be used by body and produc- intent to use it that way. But my the American Medical Associaofficers aren’t going to use it tion to be used on people who es 400 joules, and that way because they’re going have pacemakers, can produce to be fired if they use it that way. a TASER producup to 400 joules of electricity.

So it is an instrument of torture, 400 joules. Do you know how es .036 joules, that I’m sure it is, if some jerk wants many joules a TASER producto use it that way. But that isn’t es? .036. So if an AED is certi- tells you some- going to happen at Binghamton fied to be used on a human body University. thing. and produces 400 joules, and a TASER produces .036 joules, that tells you something. It tells not downplaying it? Because you a TASER is not nearly as I’ve been tased. I won’t allow

TASERs: Just the Facts -A study on TASERs done at Wake Forest University concluded that TASER use is safe. Researchers examined 1000 cases in which someone was tased. Of those 1000 people, only three had injuries severe enough to require hospitalization.

-Two subjects died, but the autopsies showed that neither death was related to the use of a TASER.

-That same study showed that a baton can be up to ten times more lethal than a TASER. -The Potomac Institute examined the 72 cases in Amnesty International’s 2004 TASER mortality report and found that in no instance was the use of a TASER the single cause of death.

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Binghamton Review, April 2008

Darwinism = Nazism?

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Darwinism: The Imperialism of Biology

L

et’s make this short and sweet. It would be taken for granted by any serious historian that any ideology or worldview would partake of the culture in which it grew up and would also be largely influenced by the personality of the writer of the theory.

No less a genius than the evil Karl Marx noted that even after capitalism succumbed to Communism, society would still be imbued with the class artifacts and cultural values of the system that preceded it.

Much smarter analysts than I have noted that the whole system of Marxism, especially its sharp attacks on capitalists as a class, was motivated by Karl Marx’s envy of the much wealthier industrialist/capitalist members of the Marx family.

In other words, major theories do not arise out of thin air. They come from the era in which they arose and are influenced greatly by the personality and background of the writer.

(In law, this theory is known as “legal realism”. Judges make

by Ben Stein

up their minds on the basis of their prejudices and then rationalize their decisions by pretending to be bound by prior case law. One might call what happens with ideologies “political realism.” Persons make

Darwinism offered the most compelling argument yet for imperialism...a system that took no account of the realities of the human condition. up their ideologies based on their times and their life situations.)

Darwinism, the notion that the history of organisms

was the story of the survival of the fittest and most hardy, and that organisms evolve because they are stronger and more dominant than others, is a perfect example of the age from which it came: the age of Imperialism. When Darwin wrote, it was received wisdom that the white, northern European man was destined to rule the world.

This could have been rationalized as greed–i.e., Europeans simply taking the resources of nations and tribes less well organized than they were. It could have been worked out as a form of amusement of the upper classes and a place for them to realize their martial fantasies. (Was it Shaw who called Imperialism “…outdoor relief for the upper classes?”)

But it fell to a true Imperialist, from a wealthy British family on both sides, married to a wealthy British woman, writing at the height of Imperialism in the UK, when a huge hunk of Africa and Asia was “owned” (literally, owned, by Great Britain) to create a scientific theory that rationalized Imperialism. By explaining

Get it Straight: A response to John Blatchford’s September article on Women’s Sports at BU Before I begin, let me just point out that student-athletes have to stay on campus over breaks and during the summer to get the living daylights beat Binghamton Review, April 2008

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that Imperialism worked from the level of the most modest organic life up to man, and that in every organic situation, the strong dominated the weak and eventually wiped them out,

Darwin offered the most compelling argument yet for Imperialism. It was neither good nor bad, neither Liberal nor Conservative, but simply a fact of nature.

In dominating Africa and Asia, Britain was simply acting in accordance with the dictates of life itself. He was the ultimate pitchman for Imperialism.

Now, we know that Imperialism had a short life span.

Imperialism was a system that took no account of the realities of the human condition. Human beings do not like to have their countries owned by people far away in ermine robes.

They like to be in charge of themselves.

Imperialism had a short but hideous history–of repression and murder.

But its day is done.

Darwinism is still very much alive, utterly dominating biology. Despite the fact that no one has ever been able to prove the creation of a single distinct species by Darwinist means, Darwinism dominates the academy and the media.

Darwinism also has not one meaningful word to say on the origins of organic life, a striking lacuna in a theory supposedly explaining life.

Alas, Darwinism has had a far bloodier life span than Imperialism. Darwinism, perhaps mixed with Imperialism, gave us Social Darwinism, a form of

is dead everywhere but on university campuses and in the minds of psychotic dictators.

Maybe Darwinism will be different. Maybe it will last. But it’s difficult to believe it will.

Theories that presume to explain everything without much evidence rarely do. Theories that outlive their era of conception and cannot be verified rarely last unless they are faith based.

And Darwinism has been such a painful, bloody chapter in the history of ideologies, maybe we would be better off without it as a dominant force.

Maybe we would have a new theory: We are just pitiful humans. Life is unimaginably complex. We are still trying to figure it out.

We need every bit of input we can get. Let’s be humble racism so vicious that it coun- about what we know and what tenanced the Holocaust against we don’t know, and maybe in the Jews and mass murder of time, some answers will come. many other groups in the name of speeding along the evolu- -Ben Stein is a genius. tionary process.

That is all.

Now, a few scientists are questioning Darwinism on many fronts. I wonder how long Darwinism’s life span will be. Marxism, another theory which, in true Victorian style, sought to explain everything, Binghamton Review, April 2008

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