Newspapers / North Carolina School of … / Sept. 1, 2000, edition 1 / Page 2
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page 2 September 00 If You Don’t Want to Support Another Rich White Man for President... Igor Gorodzky As the November elec tion draws closer, a great deal of recent research exposes un pleasant realities about Ameri cans’ attitudes towards the political process. Viewing of the major parties’ national conven tions hit reeord lows, and the number of non-voters is in creasing each year. In our own state, 80% of registered voters chose not to vote in the presi dential primaries. One conclu sion is that Americans today seem rather disillusioned by modem politics. It is in this era, however, of a deeply entrenched establishment that third parties begin to play a much more sig nificant role in the political arena, fueling the democratic process by providing alterna tives to the sometimes shady bureaucracy of the two party system. An informed citizen of any age is paramount to a suc cessful democracy. The party that has re cently been getting a great deal of attention is the Green Party. With the nomination of Ralph Nader, the famous consumer advocate, as its presidential candidate, the Green Party shed its radical image and entered the lexicon of American politics. The party itself is founded on a very leftist platform of grassroots democracy, social justice, decentralization of wealth and power both corpo rate and political, and ecologi cal responsibility. Nader himself centers his campaign on his forte; consumer rights and lim iting corporate influence, espe cially through campaign finance reform. Though Nader and the Green Party are not a natural match, Nader most likely chose it as his political spring board because they share many sig nature leftist ideologies. If the Green Party receives more than 5% of the national vote this election, it will qualify for pub lic financing in the next election. Nader is already polling 9% in some parts of the country, but in others he is practically ig nored. An established third party, the Reform Party, has also been making headlines recently, though for less encouraging reasons. The original Reform A New Hope: Meet Hope Gregory Shaina Schmeltzle Her name is Hope Gre gory and she is the new SLI on the Reynolds IE, 2D, 2E halls. Hope is from Hillsborough. Her main interests are music, psy chology, and young people. She enjoys read ing Flannery O’Connor and Joyce Carol Oates. She also en joys working with young people. Wilmington, “[It’s] a tourist town, so everybody who’s there is obligated to make it seem nice to everybody else.” Hope also lived in San Francisco for a month where she says she most enjoyed the diversity. Hope does have one Hope is happy to be here Tired of working as a waitress at the Under- ground Sandwich Shoppe in Wilmington, which was actually decked out like the underground in London, Hope found the job through an Internet job listing for North Carolina. She says it was really a stroke of luck. Eventually, Hope is headed toward going back to school so she can be come a guidance counselor. Hope attended Orange High School and later UNC- Wilmington. She says of slight regret about coming to Durham. “I think it’s unfortu nate that Mika is twenty min utes away.” Mika Bousnikans is the very interesting name of her cat at home. “I am absolutely in love with this school. I think it rocks,” says Hope. “Students don’t just excel at science and math—they excel in everything they do!” Let’s welcome Hope into the NCSSM community. Party was founded to serve as a means for those dedicated to democracy to catalyze reform in our government and redistrib ute political clout from the two major parties. The party itself defied classification as either lib eral or conservative, since it re fused to take a position on social issues. Their purpose was sim ply to correct what seemed as unfair or inefficient laws, enact ing among other things cam paign finance reform and reform of the immigration policy. After H. Ross Perot’s 8% showing in the ’96 election, the Reform party qualified for $ 12.6 million in public funds. However, the party has recently undergone a division, with the established leadership supporting former physicist and Natural Law party member Dr. John Hagelin, and with a large crowd supporting former Republican and reaction ary Pat Buchanan, who contrary to party policy takes an outspo ken conservative stand on so cial issues. The two groups even had competing national conventions. As of the writing of this article, the two groups are in court to determine which group is the ‘true’ party, and which will receive the millions in public funding for its cam paign. Following the semi-suc cess of Ross Perot’s running in 1996 the Reform Party has $ 12.6 million dollars in federal assis tance for their campaign. It will be important to see which fac tion gets the money that is guar anteed to the Reform Party during the 2000 election because it will impact future third parties. Another third party, which has a rather large pres ence in North Carolina, is the Libertarian Party and their presi- dential candidate, Harry Browne. The party claims to rep resent traditional American val- ues of liberty, private ownership, and individualism, and has a very economically conservative platform. The Lib ertarian Party supports the free market and free trade including associations such as the World Trade Organization and the World Bank. Many liberals op pose these due to the signifi cant power they give to global corporations. The Libertarians also support deregulation, a for eign policy of non-intervention. and large tax cuts (some to be replaced by user fees). Their support of personal liberties in cludes legalizing all firearms, and pardoning non-violent drug offenders. More and more people are turning to third parties as remedies to some of the faults in our two party system. Even members of the traditional par ties are leaving on ideological grounds; Buchanan is a perfect example. Our own state is very hostile to 3"* parties; the Nader campaign was forced to sue in order to put the Green Party on the ballot. They will also need to collect over 51,000 signa tures. There is a certain stigma associated with third parties, both in our state and through out much of the country, but one which must be overcome if Americans are to participate in a truly democratic process. Some information was compiled from the article “Hit ting them back; an interview with presidential candidate Ralph Nader,” published in the May 10-16 issue of The Inde pendent. Allen Garber = 3rd West SLI Katie Watlington Allen Garber recently took over the job as the SLI on Hunt 3rd West. The hall had been without an SLI, since Ben Rowland left NCSSM in the first weeks of school. Allen, originally from South Boston, Virginia, enjoys snow skiing, tennis and golf He attended college at NC Wesleyan. There he received a BS in Business Administration. After graduation, Allen moved to Raleigh, NC to get a masters in education atNC State Univer sity. His degree got placed on hold, however, when he became the Relationships Manager for First Union Mortgage Corpora tion. While attending NC Wesleyan, he befriended Kristin Marsh. Kristin is the new SLI this year for IC, 2C, and ID. The two have been close friends for quite a while; Allen even visited Kristin at NCSSM long before the posi tion for an SLI opened up. “He was really im pressed with the school and the people here, so when there was an opening for an SLI I called him” said Kristin. Allen has always been interested in working in the aca demic field and with student life/services. One of the things at NCSSM that really surprised and impressed him was the di verse student body and the ac ceptance of this diversity. He enjoys the people here and their receptiveness. “At traditional board ing schools everyone is the same,” says Allen. That is cer tainly not true of the NCSSM community where students come from many different back grounds and walks of life. Allen is excited to be here so if you see him around, introduce yourself and make him feel at home at NCSSM!
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