To the protestors without a cause

Sean Oakley

One of the most important things my father ever taught me while I was growing up was that family always comes first.

Family, he said, will always be your family, and your first and foremost allegiance is to your own blood.

That is what I think about while I listen to misinformed students and faculty of Appalachian State University protesting the U.S. military strikes in Afghanistan or using U.S. foreign policy as some sort of excuse for killing 5,000 innocent civilians who at the time probably couldn’t have even told you the capital of Afghanistan.

My hero through this whole thing must be New York Mayor Giuliani. Refusing a $10-million check from the Saudi Arabian prince who criticized U.S. foreign policy, Giuliani understood what my father taught me, and he decided that the blood of the American dead could never bear a price tag. For that I applaud him.

See, for those of you who haven’t quite figured this out, the people who died on Sept. 11 were our brothers and sisters. They were our family.

Giuliani understood that in time of life and death you stick by your family; you don’t criticize previous decisions or question responses.

You stick by your own, you protect your own and you stand by your own. Even Congress understands this, united for the first time since I can remember. But still there are those who want to accuse the United States of oppressive foreign policy, citing independent news sources that are probably more one-sided than the mainstream media and are attempting to spread their propaganda.

Now is not the time. We are at war; there are American lives at risk. While the rest of the country is rallying behind our cause, our freedom, some of you want to take a conceited approach in which you know everything and everyone else is wrong.

You expect everyone to listen to you, usurping the power of the First Amendment, which millions of Americans have given their lives for, yet you rarely ever listen to the other side. And you also don’t understand the First Amendment doesn’t require me to agree with you, and that just as you have the right to protest American policy, I have the right to consider you cowardly traitors.

You, the ones who portray America as an evil, imperialistic force, don’t often complain when you are reaping the fruits of this oppressive government. Instead of supporting the country that gives you the opportunity for a college education and the liberty to protest against the government, you attack the government while American lives are being lost.

Though I fear many of you see this as your chance to follow in the footsteps of the Vietnam generation, this is not Vietnam.

This is not a foreign war, fought over foreign ideologies.

This war began in Manhattan and the Pentagon. Don’t you dare forget that. And don’t you dare give excuses to the people who did this.

Passivists scream of sanctions on Iraq while Iraq’s poor are starving, despite the fact Hussein still has the money to continually strengthen one of the largest armies in the world. The upper and middle classes live in wealth, while the poor starve.

We bomb Iraq because they continue to produce chemical and biological weapons.

Now are you going to try and tell me Hussein won’t use them?

I would remind you that not only did he use them in his war against Iran, but that he dropped chemical weapons on his own people, a minority group known as Khurds, simply to see how they worked.

Five thousand civilians died choking on Hussein’s gas.

After all of this you would like to portray the United States as the oppressor, trying to portray Hussein as innocent.

Did we sympathize with the Japanese after Pearl Harbor because of the oil embargo we had placed on them?

Did we sympathize with Hitler because of the obviously unfair reparations Germany was forced to pay after World War I?

Some try and say we are waging a religious war.
Though this could not be farther from the truth, I’m sure this must be right since they are so enlightened. Though the Middle East is an area ravaged by religious wars waged against each other, and the fact that Bush has explicitly explained this is not against Islam, there are those that know the truth.

The Israeli-Palestinian issue is another misconstrued aspect of the Middle East. When was the last time an Israeli walked into a Palestinian disco, bomb strapped to his back, and killed 30 Palestinians?

What country, other than the United States, has held multiple peace talks between the two factions? And who, WHO, do you think stops Israel from waging a complete war against the Palestinians?

You don’t stop terrorists by giving them what they want. This only encourages them.

Believe it or not, the answer to this is not for the world to join hands and “talk about it.” There are evil people in this world, whether you understand that or not, and there is only one way to deal with them.

So I would encourage you to drag yourself out of dreamland, look at the facts, research other news sources than those that support your opinion and stand beside your brothers and sisters.

Don’t be the waste product of democracy, ranting and raving about things you don’t understand.

Support this country, your country, the one that millions before you have died for. If you still hate this country so much, if you still sympathize with the terrorists, then go join the Peace Corps. Leave.

Because now is a matter of life and death. Now it is hit or be hit, kill or be killed. Now is the time to stand beside your own, support and protect your own.

If you don’t understand that, then you don’t deserve the privileges of a country others are dying for, and you are simply criticizing.

You can attempt to twist the facts whichever way you want, staining the truth with your ignorance, but the fact is that we were attacked.

The World Trade Center is not there anymore.

Stand beside your brothers and sisters or admit that you aren’t family at all. You are nothing more than selfish idealists who don’t have the courage to live in the real world, make real decisions, or stand beside the real deaths of more than 5,000 of your own.

Our Perspective ...

Budget priorities
Faculty showed poor judgment in turning meeting into salary increase discussion

Appalachian State University —along with all other state agencies—will be forced to cut an additional 4 percent from its operating budget, state lawmakers announced last week.

This latest cut comes just weeks after the North Carolina General Assembly slashed Appalachian’s annual state allotment by 2.3 percent as part of an overdue state budget package.

Faced with the task of eliminating an additional $3.5 million from the institution’s spending plan, administrators gathered a group of faculty members in I.G. Greer Auditorium Thursday afternoon to discuss the dismal Raleigh-issued order.

State lawmakers furthered the ever-worsening financial situation by issuing the order with one stipulation—guidelines on how budget operators were to implement the 4-percent cuts would not be given until today.

Faculty members listened intently as Vice Chancellor for Business Affairs Jane Helm and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Dr. Harvey Durham attempted to explain the rather vague set of circumstances for almost 30 minutes.

A single question regarding the fate of the monies generated by the first installment of a two-year tuition increase earmarked for faculty salary-increases altered the course of what was touted as a meeting to discuss the 4-percent budget cuts. After Durham cleared up the confusion by stating only university expenditures funded by state-appropriated dollars—not students’ tuition or fees—were subject to this second round of budget cuts, one would have expected the conversation to return to the bleak subject at hand.

We are extremely concerned by the fact it did not.

Instead, faculty members used the remaining minutes of the meeting to lob a relentless salvo of salary-increase related questions in the way of Helm and Durham, completely taking the focus away from Wednesday’s ordered budget cut, a reduction we view as a substantial blow to Appalachian State University when added to the 2.3 percent reduction handed down in late September.

While we support the campus-initiated tuition increases approved last spring by the UNC system Board of Governors on the basis of maintaining competitive faculty salaries, we question the commandeering of a meeting of such importance when an institution charged with educating the state’s future leaders is facing a 6.3-percent reduction in its budget with the threat of future cuts still looming.

Thursday’s meeting was neither the time nor the place for faculty members to put their respective interests before that of the proverbial hand that feeds them.

If this is the mindset Appalachian administrators will face in the weeks to come as they begin efforts to slash the needed $3.5 million from the budget, we are genuinely concerned about the short-term future of this university.

Internet messengers: pick your poison

Carrie Baker

It is 2 a.m., you are up, and you are staring into a computer screen. Yes, sure there is that five-page paper due tomorrow at 8 a.m., but what has really captivated your attention at such a late hour is the Instant Messenger.

Most understand what I am talking about. They too have been the hapless victims to online communication.

America Online (AOL) Instant Messenger, tagged “AIM” for short, tops the list of Internet messengers. Microsoft (MSN) Messenger and Yahoo! Pager are also available and are free to download from the Internet.

So pick your poison. And they really can be poison. As AIM is the most prevalent on this campus, I will be highlighting a few of the many evils of said messenger.

If you are among the few who are not familiar with AIM, the concept is really quite simple. You download AIM and choose a screen name. A screen name is usually a word made up of interests, inside jokes, nicknames and random numbers.

Some people attempt to shade their personal image through their screen name. “SexyGuitarGuy231” is a completely fictitious example of someone going too far to create a certain connotation of his or her own image.

The numbers at the end of the screen name come into play when a certain name has already been chosen. Since “SexyGuitarGuy” was a popular name, the person choosing the name is asked to pin some random numbers on the end thus creating a different name.

The next order of operation is to fill up the Buddy List. One’s Buddy List is composed of the screen names of friends and family who also use AIM. Using this list you can see who is online, who is away, and maybe when they will be back.

From there, you can contact those people online by clicking on their name and typing in the little window that pops up. Voila! You are online with AIM.

Students first download AIM with the good intention of “keeping up” with friends and family far away. I agree it is cheaper communication. Most students cannot afford to talk with someone on the phone for the same amount of time they spend chatting to that person online.

So there is one pro, cheaper phone bills. But the cons are many.
First, there is simply the amount of time that can be spent talking over AIM. While it is important to stay in touch with friends miles away, too much time spent staring into a computer screen cannot be healthy. People need verbal communication as well as natural sunlight to stay lively.

The time spent talking on AIM can also place a dent in the time one should be using to study. Those who are the AIM victims know how easy it is to begin talking to someone then glance at the clock to see that an hour has passed. It’s a terrible feeling to realize that you have just spent an hour of your life staring at a computer screen.

It’s not only the time spent talking. Away messages can also consume an AIM user’s time. You cannot simply write, “I am away from my computer right now,” you must be witty, cute and interesting in your away messages.

It takes time to come up with the perfect away message. Time that is perhaps better spent doing what it is your away message says you are doing.

Second, there is the fact that online conversations can be easy to misinterpret. You can’t hear voice inflection or know when an individual is being serious or speaking jokingly unless they tell you.

This can create huge amounts of miscommunication. The receiver can take something typed in by one person in a totally different light. This is why “emoticons” are so popular. Little faces that are meant to show one’s mood and intention can be used by forming a series of colons, commas and parentheses. For example, “You’re dumb J” is meant to appear nicer than “You’re dumb.”

Another con would be the freedom people feel when they talk on AIM. Typing as opposed to speaking face-to-face or conversing over the telephone gives people a sense of security they may not otherwise possess.

You are allowed to be vague and evasive. There are no audible awkward pauses, no give away visible facial expressions, just words on a computer screen. This can be dangerous. Without the normal fear of what you should and should not say, people are prone to actually say what is on their mind, causing any number of problems.

Instant Messaging is a strong force and cannot be taken lightly. Using AIM can turn people into friends, change them to enemies, and I have even known people to become “more than friends” due to the power of Instant Messenger.

So please, feel free to use AIM, but remember the health there is in moderation. Instead of talking to friends online, use the telephone for once, or if you can, go out with them and take in the beautiful fall scenery.