Nov. 3 will mark one year until Presidential Election Day 2008.
With Election Day approaching fast and primary elections approaching faster, candidates are frantically refining how they “play the political game.”
A game of voter pawns hungry for a candidate whose eloquence in speech and decisiveness of promises fulfill their immediate needs at the time. As the game heats up, the play gets nastier, the promises more compelling but less realistic, and the speech more driven toward distinguishing one player from another than the authenticity of the true individual.
Yet what this leads to is an inauthentic brand of buying and selling candidates rather than striving to find the best possible leadership for the country. It is not uncommon to hear that political campaigns are decisive promises almost never fully deliverable.
One candidate has recognized this. Barack Obama’s campaign of hope calls for a change in this political game. A politics less defined by party lines and more by individuals, for individuals.
Yet even a candidate in favor of refining the way this game is played is criticized for not playing the game and will suffer votes because of it.
Many, even of his own party, have questioned whether his promise to pursue a brand of politics that transcended partisanship disabled him to compete in the most partisan of arenas. That he hasn’t taken a hard enough stance on issues that starkly define him from others.
In response Obama has said, “The notion that somehow changing the tone means simply that we let them say whatever they want to say or that there are no disagreements and that we’re all holding hands and singing ‘Kumbaya’ is obviously not what I had in mind and not how I function. And anybody who thinks I have, hasn’t been paying attention.”
In an interview transcribed in a New York Times article, Obama acknowledged that he had “held back” a little, until now. He asserted that it was a planed decision to introduce himself and his values authentically, before engaging opponents, responding to their stances and catering his own to distinguish himself. “At times, he said, he has taken lines out of speeches prepared by his campaign that he felt were “stretching the truth,”’ according to the NYTimes article.
This is the political game that should be played. A game of authentic honesty from candidates that reveal the decisions they will actually make.
Yes, this is idealistic. No, I don’t think that the “game” will ever stop being played. But a candidate who perceives the need for this change, regardless of whether he still must be a player in this election season’s game, is hope for the future.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Monday, October 22, 2007
A Spooky Story for a Spooky Sweet
With Halloween just around the corner, costumes are being created and America is stocking up with candies and chocolates to satisfy the anticipation of children and adults alike for a night of sweet spookie treats!
Yet as you indulge in rich sweet creamy chocolates you probably don’t think about the hands of who picked the cocoa beans that made your chocolate. You don’t see the face of a child, only six years old, who spends all day, every day carrying bags of cocoa beans, bigger than they are, across the plantation and is barely given enough food to survive in return. You don’t think about the 12,000 children in Cote D’lvoire alone who are child slaves to the chocolate industry.
Well, maybe this year, you will.
Almost half of the world’s chocolate is made from cocoa beans grown in Cote D’lvoire, Africa where over 12,000 children have been trafficked to work as slaves in the cocoa farms. Some of them were kidnapped, some sold by their parents…but all of them robbed of their childhood, robbed of their self worth, and robbed of their rights as a humans.
The good news is you can still indulge without the guilt (at least not of supporting slave trafficking). In the southern California region four chocolate companies are certified as “Traffik Free Guaranteed” chocolate with no involvement by trafficked people in the harvesting of the cocoa beans according to Stop the Traffik organization (www.stopthetraffik.com). These chocolates can be found at five different easily accessible locations.
With the upcoming holiday seasons take a stand against the modern day slavery throughout the world. Only support chocolate companies who can guarantee they are traffic free.
Here’s where you can buy “Traffik Free Guarantee” chocolate:
Trader Joe’s
-Trader Joe’s Swiss 71% dark Chocolate
-Trader Joe’s Swiss Milk Chocolate
Target
-Green & Black’s Maya Gold Organic Dark Chocolate Bar
Ten Thousand Village’s in Pasadena, CA
-Divine Bars
-Divine Milk
-Divine Dark
-Divine Milk with Hazelnut
Equal Exchange
-Organic Very Dark Chocolate
-Organic Dark Chocolate with Almonds
-Organic Chocolate Espresso Bean
Whole Foods Market
-Green & Black’s Maya Gold Organic Dark Chocolate Bar
Yet as you indulge in rich sweet creamy chocolates you probably don’t think about the hands of who picked the cocoa beans that made your chocolate. You don’t see the face of a child, only six years old, who spends all day, every day carrying bags of cocoa beans, bigger than they are, across the plantation and is barely given enough food to survive in return. You don’t think about the 12,000 children in Cote D’lvoire alone who are child slaves to the chocolate industry.
Well, maybe this year, you will.
Almost half of the world’s chocolate is made from cocoa beans grown in Cote D’lvoire, Africa where over 12,000 children have been trafficked to work as slaves in the cocoa farms. Some of them were kidnapped, some sold by their parents…but all of them robbed of their childhood, robbed of their self worth, and robbed of their rights as a humans.
The good news is you can still indulge without the guilt (at least not of supporting slave trafficking). In the southern California region four chocolate companies are certified as “Traffik Free Guaranteed” chocolate with no involvement by trafficked people in the harvesting of the cocoa beans according to Stop the Traffik organization (www.stopthetraffik.com). These chocolates can be found at five different easily accessible locations.
With the upcoming holiday seasons take a stand against the modern day slavery throughout the world. Only support chocolate companies who can guarantee they are traffic free.
Here’s where you can buy “Traffik Free Guarantee” chocolate:
Trader Joe’s
-Trader Joe’s Swiss 71% dark Chocolate
-Trader Joe’s Swiss Milk Chocolate
Target
-Green & Black’s Maya Gold Organic Dark Chocolate Bar
Ten Thousand Village’s in Pasadena, CA
-Divine Bars
-Divine Milk
-Divine Dark
-Divine Milk with Hazelnut
Equal Exchange
-Organic Very Dark Chocolate
-Organic Dark Chocolate with Almonds
-Organic Chocolate Espresso Bean
Whole Foods Market
-Green & Black’s Maya Gold Organic Dark Chocolate Bar
Legal Murder
Almost every third baby conceived in the US is killed by abortion. That is approximately 1,700,000 legal murders of innocent blood every year. 1,700,000 children robbed of their childhood, robbed of their opportunity to make a difference in this world.
The fight to end the legalization of abortion began in 1973 when the U.S. Supreme Court legalized abortion nation wide. Pro-life vs. pro-choice. The right of the child vs. the right of the mother.
Yet the debate over the morality of abortion is a moral question that has taken the political world by storm. It has become a heated topic of discussion during political campaigns and one of the traditional defining differences between the conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats.
I believe strongly that abortion is murder. Regardless of the situation and circumstance, every child conceived should have the right to enter this world. We as women are merely the vessels God has chosen for his children to enter this world. The right of a woman to choose to become a mother should come after the baby is born, not before. Whether by a mistake or even rape, unwanted pregnancy should in no way be a justification for murder.
Yet the political aspect of this issue is much more complicated. The legalization of abortion allows for hospitals, doctors offices and private clinics to perform the procedure. If outlawed, women seeking the procedure will still find places willing to perform it, underground and without safety regulations protecting the women.
In a New York Times article, Legal or Not, Abortion Rates Compare, Elisabeth Rosenthal reports on a compilation of global studies that determined “abortion rates are similar in counties where it is legal and those where it is not.” Unfortunately this shows that outlawing the procedure is not necessarily the answer to this problem. The studies also concluded that where abortion is legal it is performed with less harm to the women having the procedure.
Maybe we shouldn’t be making this such a political issue. Maybe we won’t conquer this problem through Supreme Court decisions or candidate stances.
Pregnancy is an extremely intricately complex emotional issue. It changes lives forever. I cannot understand the responsibility that comes with pregnancy, and therefore I feel very inadequate to tell a impregnated women what to do. But I can understand the value of a life, and I believe the women’s life is just as valuable as the child’s life.
What we need is a shift in focus. A shift from focusing on the fight for making abortion illegal to supporting and encouraging pregnant women as the valuable life they are and the valuable life they have growing inside. We need to focus on the fight for the life of the women and the life of the child will be protected. Through love and care, sympathy and forgiveness, emotional encouragement and financial support, we can help to make other options just as easy and worthy an option as abortion and with much less damaging consequences.
The fight to end the legalization of abortion began in 1973 when the U.S. Supreme Court legalized abortion nation wide. Pro-life vs. pro-choice. The right of the child vs. the right of the mother.
Yet the debate over the morality of abortion is a moral question that has taken the political world by storm. It has become a heated topic of discussion during political campaigns and one of the traditional defining differences between the conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats.
I believe strongly that abortion is murder. Regardless of the situation and circumstance, every child conceived should have the right to enter this world. We as women are merely the vessels God has chosen for his children to enter this world. The right of a woman to choose to become a mother should come after the baby is born, not before. Whether by a mistake or even rape, unwanted pregnancy should in no way be a justification for murder.
Yet the political aspect of this issue is much more complicated. The legalization of abortion allows for hospitals, doctors offices and private clinics to perform the procedure. If outlawed, women seeking the procedure will still find places willing to perform it, underground and without safety regulations protecting the women.
In a New York Times article, Legal or Not, Abortion Rates Compare, Elisabeth Rosenthal reports on a compilation of global studies that determined “abortion rates are similar in counties where it is legal and those where it is not.” Unfortunately this shows that outlawing the procedure is not necessarily the answer to this problem. The studies also concluded that where abortion is legal it is performed with less harm to the women having the procedure.
Maybe we shouldn’t be making this such a political issue. Maybe we won’t conquer this problem through Supreme Court decisions or candidate stances.
Pregnancy is an extremely intricately complex emotional issue. It changes lives forever. I cannot understand the responsibility that comes with pregnancy, and therefore I feel very inadequate to tell a impregnated women what to do. But I can understand the value of a life, and I believe the women’s life is just as valuable as the child’s life.
What we need is a shift in focus. A shift from focusing on the fight for making abortion illegal to supporting and encouraging pregnant women as the valuable life they are and the valuable life they have growing inside. We need to focus on the fight for the life of the women and the life of the child will be protected. Through love and care, sympathy and forgiveness, emotional encouragement and financial support, we can help to make other options just as easy and worthy an option as abortion and with much less damaging consequences.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
“If you love the creator, take care of the creation.”
While the site of this bumper sticker on the back of one of the most environmentally damaging modern day amenities as a stream of exhaust is released from below may be paradoxically amusing, it does raise a most pertinent issue in the increasingly important conversation about environmental issues among evangelical Christians.
Yet although the discussion is heating up even in the political arena, as people are beginning to understand that the drastic consequences of climate change are not a hoax, why are evangelicals about as lukewarm as the oceans are becoming?
While it is hard for us, as middle class evangelical Americans, to feel the direct impact of climate change, just ask one of the 1,836 people who lost everything, including their lives, to Hurricane Katrina; or the 20,000 people who lost their lives to the 2003 heat wave in Europe, both of which are scientifically believed to have been intensified by climate change.
The scientific community is more and more definite that the longer we wait to take action to reduce and reverse global warming the harder it will be and the more drastic the consequences. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2001 report stated, “There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities.”
Over the last 30 years, ocean temperatures have risen by one degree. While this may seem insignificant, the IPCC has released that the number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes worldwide has more than doubled.
As temperatures rise and natural disasters continually increase in intensity, the urban poor are those most greatly affected. Droughts are dryer, floods fiercer and hurricanes more devastating. And as seen in the impact of Hurricane Katrina, the poor suffer most, for they are most often lack adequate resources to cope with intensifying conditions. The 20,000 killed in Europe’s heat wave were mostly the poor and elderly. Summers of increasingly intense heat, are projected to be typical in the next 50 years.
The first commandment says it all. Love your God, and love your neighbor. Ignorance of the necessity for drastic action to address the environmental crisis of climate change violates this basic and underlying tenet of the Christian faith.
The problem is real. And we as evangelical Christian Americans have a mandate to address it.
Not only is our beloved God the creator of the very earth we are exploiting, His call for us to care for our neighbors should cause us to see this devastation as a mandate to get involved. Now. Not tomorrow, or next month or next year—because that may be too late.
While individual actions such as replacing energy expending light bulbs for those more energy efficient, and committing to recycling, are necessary and helpful, larger scale creation care action is required from businesses, organizations and institutions to seriously combat climate change, insuring our world will last as long as the Creator intended.
Universities have a unique responsibility as role models in their communities and in training their students to be leaders in developing solutions to stop and even reverse global warming. Azusa Pacific University is an institution with not only this humanitarian responsibility to each other but a sacred responsibility to our Creator.
Styrofoam still overflows trash receptacles multiple times per day alongside recyclable paper, aluminum, glass and plastic, and florescent lighting still illuminates campus housing.
The consequences are deadly. If we as evangelicals don’t also start taking significant action now, we may be eager for the cool climate of heaven sooner than we think.
Yet although the discussion is heating up even in the political arena, as people are beginning to understand that the drastic consequences of climate change are not a hoax, why are evangelicals about as lukewarm as the oceans are becoming?
While it is hard for us, as middle class evangelical Americans, to feel the direct impact of climate change, just ask one of the 1,836 people who lost everything, including their lives, to Hurricane Katrina; or the 20,000 people who lost their lives to the 2003 heat wave in Europe, both of which are scientifically believed to have been intensified by climate change.
The scientific community is more and more definite that the longer we wait to take action to reduce and reverse global warming the harder it will be and the more drastic the consequences. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2001 report stated, “There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities.”
Over the last 30 years, ocean temperatures have risen by one degree. While this may seem insignificant, the IPCC has released that the number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes worldwide has more than doubled.
As temperatures rise and natural disasters continually increase in intensity, the urban poor are those most greatly affected. Droughts are dryer, floods fiercer and hurricanes more devastating. And as seen in the impact of Hurricane Katrina, the poor suffer most, for they are most often lack adequate resources to cope with intensifying conditions. The 20,000 killed in Europe’s heat wave were mostly the poor and elderly. Summers of increasingly intense heat, are projected to be typical in the next 50 years.
The first commandment says it all. Love your God, and love your neighbor. Ignorance of the necessity for drastic action to address the environmental crisis of climate change violates this basic and underlying tenet of the Christian faith.
The problem is real. And we as evangelical Christian Americans have a mandate to address it.
Not only is our beloved God the creator of the very earth we are exploiting, His call for us to care for our neighbors should cause us to see this devastation as a mandate to get involved. Now. Not tomorrow, or next month or next year—because that may be too late.
While individual actions such as replacing energy expending light bulbs for those more energy efficient, and committing to recycling, are necessary and helpful, larger scale creation care action is required from businesses, organizations and institutions to seriously combat climate change, insuring our world will last as long as the Creator intended.
Universities have a unique responsibility as role models in their communities and in training their students to be leaders in developing solutions to stop and even reverse global warming. Azusa Pacific University is an institution with not only this humanitarian responsibility to each other but a sacred responsibility to our Creator.
Styrofoam still overflows trash receptacles multiple times per day alongside recyclable paper, aluminum, glass and plastic, and florescent lighting still illuminates campus housing.
The consequences are deadly. If we as evangelicals don’t also start taking significant action now, we may be eager for the cool climate of heaven sooner than we think.
Call for Creation Care
Go Green, or Go Home!
Here’s what you as an individual can do to care for creation:
Do the little things:
- Change electrical sources, such as light bulbs, to more energy efficient ones. Compact fluorescent light bulbs last up to ten times longer and use 2/3 less energy!
- Unplug chargers, appliances, and other electronic devices when not in use. Although they may not be turned on, just having them plugged in uses energy.
- Only use the dishwasher and laundry machines when necessary for a full load.
- Recycle! And use recycled materials. Bring your own mug to Starbucks and Tupperware when you go out to eat and know you’ll have leftovers. DO NOT USE STYROFOAM! Styrofoam cannot decompose and will continue to fill up our landfills and hurt not only the environment but animals in the area as well.
- Bring a cloth bag to the grocery store or at least ask for paper.
- Find other ways to travel. Walk or ride a bike and when necessary use public transportation or at least carpool.
- Plant trees! It’s fun and it’s great for the air! Those of us in southern California know the importance of cleaner air.
- Don’t litter!
Educate yourself!
Knowledge is power, and knowledge will help us to not only know what to do but why we should do it.
- Research products and companies that promote energy efficiency and are environmentally conscience. Buy organic produce and meat from local markets that don’t use pesticides or hormones and feed their animals vegetarian diets. Find local businesses that use bio-degradable and bio-compositable packaging materials, such as 21 Choices Frozen Yogurt!
- Public Policy: Read up on environmental initiatives and vote on them! While individual action is extremely important the biggest difference we can make is by pushing for political attention.
Why Go Green?
There are many answers to this question but the most significant are:
- Preserving the environment not only makes the world a better place to live today, but for our future generations as well. Cleaner air and oceans mean better quality of living for people and animals!
- Climate change is scientifically proven to increase in intensity of extreme weather conditions such as flooding, hurricanes, and heat waves. Thousands have died already from conditions we are inadequately prepared for. The poor are the most drastically effected.
- Energy efficiency cuts energy and gas costs!
- Energy independence decreases US dependency on foreign oil and increases national security.
Here’s what you as an individual can do to care for creation:
Do the little things:
- Change electrical sources, such as light bulbs, to more energy efficient ones. Compact fluorescent light bulbs last up to ten times longer and use 2/3 less energy!
- Unplug chargers, appliances, and other electronic devices when not in use. Although they may not be turned on, just having them plugged in uses energy.
- Only use the dishwasher and laundry machines when necessary for a full load.
- Recycle! And use recycled materials. Bring your own mug to Starbucks and Tupperware when you go out to eat and know you’ll have leftovers. DO NOT USE STYROFOAM! Styrofoam cannot decompose and will continue to fill up our landfills and hurt not only the environment but animals in the area as well.
- Bring a cloth bag to the grocery store or at least ask for paper.
- Find other ways to travel. Walk or ride a bike and when necessary use public transportation or at least carpool.
- Plant trees! It’s fun and it’s great for the air! Those of us in southern California know the importance of cleaner air.
- Don’t litter!
Educate yourself!
Knowledge is power, and knowledge will help us to not only know what to do but why we should do it.
- Research products and companies that promote energy efficiency and are environmentally conscience. Buy organic produce and meat from local markets that don’t use pesticides or hormones and feed their animals vegetarian diets. Find local businesses that use bio-degradable and bio-compositable packaging materials, such as 21 Choices Frozen Yogurt!
- Public Policy: Read up on environmental initiatives and vote on them! While individual action is extremely important the biggest difference we can make is by pushing for political attention.
Why Go Green?
There are many answers to this question but the most significant are:
- Preserving the environment not only makes the world a better place to live today, but for our future generations as well. Cleaner air and oceans mean better quality of living for people and animals!
- Climate change is scientifically proven to increase in intensity of extreme weather conditions such as flooding, hurricanes, and heat waves. Thousands have died already from conditions we are inadequately prepared for. The poor are the most drastically effected.
- Energy efficiency cuts energy and gas costs!
- Energy independence decreases US dependency on foreign oil and increases national security.
Sunday, October 7, 2007
Where’s the peace in the Middle East?
Violent conflict in the Middle East is not a new story. It is so frequent that suicide bombings and civilian casualties rarely constitute as a news value worthy of front-page attention. With weak leadership in both Israel and Palestine, and United States attention spread thin over the War in Iraq and concerns in Iran, little has been heard recently in the fight for peace in the Israel-Palestine conflict. But that doesn’t mean that peace has been found.
Israeli-U.S. relations have traditionally held a strong importance in U.S. international policy. Since Israel declared its independence on May 15, 1948 as recognized by President Harry Truman, U.S. presidents have always stood by Israel’s side. Israel currently receives about $3 billion in economic and military grants, refugee settlement assistance and other aid. In my opinion, three billion U.S. dollars to support terrorism, maybe not the official Al Qadea type, but terrorism all the same, of the Palestinian people.
To his credit, President Bush has taken a stronger initiative to push for peace rather than solely a concern to maintain an allegiance to Israel. Yet even so, attempts are regarding the doctrine as progressive despite the hurt it causes the Palestinian people.
The “security fence” constructed by Israelis beginning in 2002 was designed to mark the definition of the “boarder” with the West Bank. While proposed by Israelis and supported by Americans as a form of defense which seemingly has reduced violence, it has also made for a huge inconvenience for Palestinians forced to cross checkpoints on a daily basis making it sometimes impossible to return home to be with their families. The fence, which is called by many the ‘apartheid wall,’ has been constructed through villages, cutting them off from their farmland and bulldozing anything in its path.
This week, Israel declared Gaza an “enemy entity” to justify new sanctions imposed in an attempt to keep Gazans on the edge of a humanitarian disaster, in hopes that they will turn against the militant group Hamas which gained a majority in the legislature after the January 2006 elections. The American-Israeli plan is to improve life for Palestinians in the West Bank, boosting the image of democratically elected President Abbas, of the Fatah party, while creating unlivable conditions in the Hamas controlled area of Gaza.
Again, while doctrine may seem good, at what expense, must be considered.
People are people, whether boarders, or walls separate them. Peace in the Middle East is a cry that should echo across all regions—Iraq and Iran included. Yet in America we seem to think that in order to achieve peace, violent terrorism of people, is justifiable.
The political conflict over land rights and occupation in the regions of Israel and Palestine have a deep religious significance as well, which should be even more reason to attend to humanity rather than good or logical doctrine. The conflict remains a constant battle for the Holy Land and a battle that continues to spill blood on the very soil upon which Jesus walked.
Israeli-U.S. relations have traditionally held a strong importance in U.S. international policy. Since Israel declared its independence on May 15, 1948 as recognized by President Harry Truman, U.S. presidents have always stood by Israel’s side. Israel currently receives about $3 billion in economic and military grants, refugee settlement assistance and other aid. In my opinion, three billion U.S. dollars to support terrorism, maybe not the official Al Qadea type, but terrorism all the same, of the Palestinian people.
To his credit, President Bush has taken a stronger initiative to push for peace rather than solely a concern to maintain an allegiance to Israel. Yet even so, attempts are regarding the doctrine as progressive despite the hurt it causes the Palestinian people.
The “security fence” constructed by Israelis beginning in 2002 was designed to mark the definition of the “boarder” with the West Bank. While proposed by Israelis and supported by Americans as a form of defense which seemingly has reduced violence, it has also made for a huge inconvenience for Palestinians forced to cross checkpoints on a daily basis making it sometimes impossible to return home to be with their families. The fence, which is called by many the ‘apartheid wall,’ has been constructed through villages, cutting them off from their farmland and bulldozing anything in its path.
This week, Israel declared Gaza an “enemy entity” to justify new sanctions imposed in an attempt to keep Gazans on the edge of a humanitarian disaster, in hopes that they will turn against the militant group Hamas which gained a majority in the legislature after the January 2006 elections. The American-Israeli plan is to improve life for Palestinians in the West Bank, boosting the image of democratically elected President Abbas, of the Fatah party, while creating unlivable conditions in the Hamas controlled area of Gaza.
Again, while doctrine may seem good, at what expense, must be considered.
People are people, whether boarders, or walls separate them. Peace in the Middle East is a cry that should echo across all regions—Iraq and Iran included. Yet in America we seem to think that in order to achieve peace, violent terrorism of people, is justifiable.
The political conflict over land rights and occupation in the regions of Israel and Palestine have a deep religious significance as well, which should be even more reason to attend to humanity rather than good or logical doctrine. The conflict remains a constant battle for the Holy Land and a battle that continues to spill blood on the very soil upon which Jesus walked.
Saturday, October 6, 2007
Columbia's unwelcome invitation
Columbia University President Lee Bollinger may have allowed an unworthy man freedom of speech, but he denied his students the reason this freedom should exist.
Freedom of speech in an academic forum is not about always agreeing, it is about seeking understanding. It allows for one to engage in learning from multiple perspectives and gain insight from those perspectives, regardless of whether they are our own.
On Monday Sept. 24, a man who crossed into very dangerous territory when stepping foot on American soil, was invited to partake in a freedom he doesn’t even allow his own people, in an attempt to learn and better understand. The President of Iran, Mr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was invited to speak at the World Leaders Forum at Columbia University during his visit to America. Despite Columbia’s “long-standing tradition of serving as a major forum for robust debate,” according to Bollinger, Ahmadinejad’s invitation did not imply a welcome one. In fact, Bollinger made it clear that Ahmadinejad should not even be considered a part of the World Leaders Forum, but rather in his own World Dictator’s category.
The extensive introduction of Ahmadinejad consisted of a chain of criticizing statements referring to not only Ahmadinejad’s atrocious actions in governing his people, but his overall “fanatical mindset.” His invitation to free speech was therefore not one without strong preconceived notions of the absurdity for anything he was to say.
What I don’t understand is why then was Ahmadinejad invited in the first place? Despite his record of inhumane actions toward his people and appalling political doctrine, as clearly pointed out by Bollinger, wasn’t he invited so that we may hear from him, his side of the story? I wanted to hear the ideas that provide the root for these actions I cannot understand. But instead a preconceived attitude toward the words that would follow caused my ears to be tainted rather than open to hear.
While Bollinger himself was partaking in free speech, his insults completely distracted from the ideas, in an environment where open-minded learning should have been the goal.
To his defense, Bollinger has been criticized for honoring academically, “ideas of those whom should not be honored,” and he was clearly attempting to appease his critics in this introduction.
“It is a critical premise of freedom of speech that we do not honor the dishonorable when we open our public forum to their voices; to hold otherwise would make vigorous debate impossible,” Bollinger said.
Yet you should be able to respect without honor, if honor is truly not due. There was no respect for Ahmadinejad, and he, respectfully, pointed this out.
He later proceeded to address his criticism of America as a bully trying to “manage the world.”
He received no respect from his bullying American host, as the world receives no respect from a bullying America.
Thank you Bollinger for proving President Ahmadinejad correct.
Freedom of speech in an academic forum is not about always agreeing, it is about seeking understanding. It allows for one to engage in learning from multiple perspectives and gain insight from those perspectives, regardless of whether they are our own.
On Monday Sept. 24, a man who crossed into very dangerous territory when stepping foot on American soil, was invited to partake in a freedom he doesn’t even allow his own people, in an attempt to learn and better understand. The President of Iran, Mr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was invited to speak at the World Leaders Forum at Columbia University during his visit to America. Despite Columbia’s “long-standing tradition of serving as a major forum for robust debate,” according to Bollinger, Ahmadinejad’s invitation did not imply a welcome one. In fact, Bollinger made it clear that Ahmadinejad should not even be considered a part of the World Leaders Forum, but rather in his own World Dictator’s category.
The extensive introduction of Ahmadinejad consisted of a chain of criticizing statements referring to not only Ahmadinejad’s atrocious actions in governing his people, but his overall “fanatical mindset.” His invitation to free speech was therefore not one without strong preconceived notions of the absurdity for anything he was to say.
What I don’t understand is why then was Ahmadinejad invited in the first place? Despite his record of inhumane actions toward his people and appalling political doctrine, as clearly pointed out by Bollinger, wasn’t he invited so that we may hear from him, his side of the story? I wanted to hear the ideas that provide the root for these actions I cannot understand. But instead a preconceived attitude toward the words that would follow caused my ears to be tainted rather than open to hear.
While Bollinger himself was partaking in free speech, his insults completely distracted from the ideas, in an environment where open-minded learning should have been the goal.
To his defense, Bollinger has been criticized for honoring academically, “ideas of those whom should not be honored,” and he was clearly attempting to appease his critics in this introduction.
“It is a critical premise of freedom of speech that we do not honor the dishonorable when we open our public forum to their voices; to hold otherwise would make vigorous debate impossible,” Bollinger said.
Yet you should be able to respect without honor, if honor is truly not due. There was no respect for Ahmadinejad, and he, respectfully, pointed this out.
He later proceeded to address his criticism of America as a bully trying to “manage the world.”
He received no respect from his bullying American host, as the world receives no respect from a bullying America.
Thank you Bollinger for proving President Ahmadinejad correct.
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