12 minute read
Opinion & Editorial
EDITORIAL
Let’s Learn From the Past
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BY JOHN JOHNS
Believe the military pundits on cable TV as they argue for an aggressive and violent posture toward Russia at your country’s peril.
It has been said long and often that truth is the first casualty of war. Except for World War II, Americans have been hoodwinked into every war since the Spanish-American by a plausible-sounding lie.
It turns out the Maine wasn’t blown up by the Spanish in Havana Harbor, the Huns did not pitchfork Belgian babies, the North Vietnamese did not attack the USS Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin and contrary to what Colin Powell claimed at the U.N., Saddam did not have weapons of mass destruction.
So, should we believe President Biden?
Russian security or insecurity (especially that of the guy in charge) is the root of the Russian psyche as well as the cornerstone of foreign policy-no matter who is running the show in the Kremlin.
Consider the history of the last century. Germany attacked Russia and the ensuing conquest ended in the Russian Revolution which cost Czar Nicholas II his crown, his family and his neck, and the lives of millions of Russians.
Josef Stalin, who was the poster child for paranoia, faced total war with the Nazi invasion of 1941 when three million German soldiers carried out a scorched earth policy that cost 30 million Soviet lives. This of course underscores the reasons behind the Warsaw Pact and Soviet control of Poland, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Romania and the Baltic States. In short, Russia for obvious reasons completely distrusts Germany.
Given this history, when the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1989, an enlightened American foreign policy could have facilitated Russia’s full political and economic integration into the West. Instead, beginning with the Clinton administration, the United States pursued high-handed policies that ignored Russia’s legitimate fear and ultimately culminated in a new cold war with Moscow that has grown into today’s crisis.
Serious problems began when Clinton’s foreign policy team pushed for the expansion of a U.S.-dominated NATO eastward toward Russia. Washington successfully campaigned to bring three former Warsaw Pact countries, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary, into the Alliance in 1998.
Worse, that development proved to be just the first stage of NATO’s encroachment into Russia’s security sphere. Given the lack of financial and military support by our European NATO partners, NATO in effect is almost entirely an American enterprise. Sen. Bernie Sanders, speaking recently in the Senate eloquently framed the crisis.
“Clearly, invasion by Russia is not an answer; neither is intransigence by NATO,” he said. “It is important to recognize, for example, that Finland, one of the most developed and democratic countries in the world, borders Russia and has chosen not to be a member of NATO. Sweden and Austria are other examples of extremely prosperous and democratic countries that have made the same choice.”
Colégio Estadual do Paraná, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
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Editor-in-Chief SORINA SZAKACS
Graphics Layout Editor BEATRICE ALCALA
Copy Editors SORINA SZAKACS ANGELA JOHNSON DANIEL MARLOS
Opinions & Editorial Editor KATHRYN FORD
Broadcast BEATRICE ALCALA
Photo Editor LOUIS WHITE
Photographers CHRISTIAN CHAVEZ DANIEL MARLOS LOUIS WHITE
Illustrators MICHAEL SITAR JOSE TOBAR
Reporters MATTHEW RODRIGUEZ, JUAN MENDOZA, KELIYAH WILLIAMS, JOHN JOHNS, SORINA SZAKACS, BEATRICE ALCALA, CHRISTIAN CHAVEZ, LOUIS WHITE, POUPY GAELLE NGUESTOP, DIANA CAMPBELL, DULCE GALVEZ, LARA BARNEY
Faculty Adviser RHONDA GUESS
Mr. President, Keep Your Promise!
BY BEATRICE ALCALA
All presidential candidates run on a cornerstone campaign of slogans and promises. I am old enough to remember George H. W. Bush Sr. who ran on the slogan, “read my lips, no new taxes.” Then, in the 1990 budget, the United States had one of the largest tax increases in history after voters elected Bush president.
Next term, Bill Clinton ran with the slogan “Healthcare Reform,” which meant health care for everyone.” It never happened.
What happened to those pledges? These are both examples of promises candidates did not keep.
On a cloudy day sometime during November in 2019 at Los Angeles Trade Tech College, everyone there heard candidate Joe Biden’s promise to offer free community college tuition for all. This was a very catchy slogan for anybody who attends community college and pays tuition and other fees. It is a struggle for some who enroll. The college also ads other fees, such as the “health fee.” Where do those fees go?
The California community college student count surpasses the 2 million mark. This is the number of students who seek a better future. For many, Biden’s promise offered hope their lives would improve. His broken promise ended those dreams.
It is clear that community colleges provide a vital pathway to higher education for those who cannot afford education at a four-year university. I am a product of the California community college system.
Since 2007, community college fees have gone up from $11 to the current $46 per unit. Also, we should not forget to add the price of books and other materials required for courses.
In some cases, books require an online component that adds extra costs. This can drive the price of a single course close to $500.
Many industrialized nations offer free tuition. Those nations value education over ignorance. Knowledge means power. The United States should do the same. We are importing doctors, scientists and other skilled workers from nations that embrace the idea of an affordable education.
Joe, where’s the promise you made? Did you do this to gain the college population vote?
Mr. President, give us what you promised! If not, we cannot promise you our vote for your second term.
Joe Rogan? Leave the Guy Alone!
BY LOUIS WHITE
“The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast is great, if you like that sort of thing. I am not a Joe Rogan fan. Leave the guy alone and let him do his dumb show. We are getting painfully close to shutting down free speech through corporate means. More and more people get their news and information from social media, and sadly, more than from traditional sources of news information. I watched clips from “The Joe Rogan Experience” show when it was on YouTube.
Mostly, it was in the same way you slow down for the aftermath of a car crash. I found the show interesting for a dark chuckle. It usually resulted in an eye roll and a head shake.
I never considered the show a source for anything aside from a digital sideshow. It is funhouse-level amusement for “bros” and “dudes.”
Personally, I never took Joe or his guests seriously. He is a mixed martial artist and is very involved in the UFC. Full disclosure: I would rather mop the Pacific Ocean than watch a UFC fight.
Joe Rogan is also a stand-up comedian and not a very funny one. So, why am I saying leave Joe Rogan alone? The virtue signal is he said the “N-word”!
On his past shows, he has spread COVID-19 misinformation. Well, that is all true. Spotify removed over 100 episodes from their platform, apparently to rid the bad-word episodes from their servers. Joe also called model, social media and body positivity activist Tess Holiday a “Beast” when she appeared on the October 2018 cover of Cosmopolitan magazine. Holiday does not serve the needs of the male gaze that Joe and his audience demands. There was barely a ripple from the insult and no Twitter rage, certainly not at the level to dare say, “cancel Joe Rogan.”
Fat shaming a woman is not yet on the corporate list of worthy virtue signal issues to be outraged. Please, let’s admit that this Joe Rogan outrage is not about the “N-word” as much as it is about momentary rage and corporate pearl clutching.
The same word heard in most popular music is also heard on Spotify and Apple Music. I am personally offended when I am called that epithet. I have been called that many times in my life. I hear it used on campus by students all of the time with impunity. So, which is it? Are we offended when we hear the “N-word” or not?
Rogan has said many controversial things on his shows and so have his guests. They have every right to say all of the dumb and stupid things they want. I have every right not to listen or watch. Artists like Neil Young that disassociate from Spotify have the right if their contracts allow to de-platform.
Spotify knew exactly what kind of show they paid to procure. You cannot yell fire in a crowded theater. It does not matter what color you are, it is just wrong to say and do. So, leave the guy alone, stop saying or singing the “N-word”. Stop shaming people who are not that very different from you. Protect all of our rights to free speech, even when you do not agree or like it.
Deriving Comfort from Peasant Food
BY DANIEL MARLOS
To avoid all responsibility one morning, I decided to make a batch of pyrohy.
Pyrohy, pirohi, pirogi, pierogi: How ever one spells or pronounces them, they remain starchy stomach stickers, a staple in many Slavic cultures and a strong childhood memory of mine from the 1960s in a steel town along the Ohio-Pennsylvania border.
No Marcel Proust madeleines jog my memory. A plate of steaming pyrohy will always be accompanied by a side of nostalgia for me.
My grandparents had married and begun construction on their home when the stock market crashed in 1929. My mother was born four days later in a neighbor’s house. Meanwhile, my immigrant grandfather was building a home for his bride on his steel mill salary.
My grandmother, daughter of Slovak immigrants, did not know how to cook. My grandfather paid a woman from the Ukrainian church to teach her to cook the food he preferred. Pyrohy was an economical meal for a family of four during The Great Depression. A batch of pyrohy could be made from items in a sensibly stocked pantry and shopping prior to cooking was not required.
I did not need to eat pyrohy several times a week for dinner to conserve money as a baby boomer in the economic prosperity of post-World War II. We ate well, but pyrohy were always a treat for me.
I watched my grandmother cook. I listened to her talk about her memories of standing for hours in a bread line. She almost never cooked pyrohy at home anymore because twice a week, from September to June, she volunteered at Holy Trinity Ukrainian Catholic Church for the weekly pyrohy sale. The women were spared from working in the basement kitchen in the midsts of pots of boiling water during the heat of summer. Grandma brought several dozen pyrohy home each week, and I would eagerly eat them with butter and onions.
Other Slavic churches in the Mahoning Valley had their own sales with their own uniquely spelled signage. I attended a Polish grade school and the church ladies sold pierogi to the children during lunch on Fridays. They were a ridiculous five cents each and after finishing a plate of 10, I would often return for a few more.
When I moved to Los Angeles in the 1980s,I missed my peasant comfort food. So, Grandma sent me her cookbook and her rolling pin, and I struggled for years to make the perfect soft dough from flour, cold water, salt and an egg. For just a few dollars, I could make a hearty meal and still have leftovers.
Knowledge of how to cook good food for a minimal amount of money served me well during my student days when I lived away from family for the first time in my life.
Now, I can afford to have food delivered using an app and a car service with questionable employees, but just the thought of the amount of plastic that will magically appear in the hands of a masked stranger after I interact with my cell phone turns my stomach. I listen to the news about global warming, and I cannot help but think that if more people cooked mindfully at home, the world would be a better place.
I am thankful that in a few hours, I can cook myself a big bowl of nostalgia, served with a healthy dollop of sour cream.
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