THE Seahawk/Aubust 24,2DDD
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Editorial Viewpoint.
Clinton’s words out of touch with reality
by Pamela White
Colorado Daily U. of Colorado
By all accounts President Bill Clinton
delivered a fine speech at the Demo
cratic Convention in Los Angeles. Too
bad it had nothing to do with reality.
“My fellow Americans, are we bet
ter off today than we were eight years
ago? You bet we are,” Chnton said to
applause.
He must have been referring to him
self, his family or perhaps rich white
people in general. Globally speaking,
we’re worse off than we were in 1992.
Clinton brought us NAFTA, and he
brought us GATT, both globalization
nightmares. He brought us welfare “re
form,” filling urban homeless shelters
with poor women and children. He
squandered our best chance in decades
to build a system of universal health
care. He caved to the timber industry,
allowing the so-called salvage timber
rider through. He failed to bring us any
kind of sustainable energy program.
For a man who campaigned on envi
ronmentalism and human rights, Clinton
has been an abject failure. Some people,
however, are better off under Clinton.
They're the same people who will be
better off under A1 Gore or Dubya.
The fat cats are fatter The lords of
industry, whether that industry is war or
wood pulp or widgets, are throwing their
support behind the two-headed
Republicrat monster because they know
their position is secure no matter who
wins.
“Remember, when you think about
me. keep putting people first,” Clinton
told the crowd in an absurd moment of
self-aggrandizement and faux nostalgia.
This was absurd for two reasons.
First, whenever we think about Clinton,
we'll think about Monica and blowjobs
and stained blue dresses and abused ci
gars, not service to the people. Second,
the “people” Clinton refers to are those
he has failed — the poor, the medically
indigent, workers, youth, drug abusers,
minorities, women.
In fact, while Clinton spoke, “the
people” were on the street being gassed
and shot with rubber bullets. Most were
peaceful demonstrators who were gath
ered to hear Rage Against the Machine
and Ozomatli perform. Some were
young children. Some were elderly. But
nowhere in his speech did Clinton men
tion them or their concems, which range
from globalization to deforestation to
poverty to animal rights. It was as if they
didn't exist.
But they do exist. More than 50,000
converged on Seattle. Some 20,000
gathered in Washington, D.C. They
joined hands again in Philadelphia, and
yet again in Los Angeles. Each time,
they were met by a brutal police re
sponse, as hundreds of non-violent pro
testers were made to pay for the violence
of a few with pepper spray, beatings,
twisted arms, and false arrests.
A worthwhile Democrat, a man who
is remembered for his contributions to
humanity, once said, “Those who make
peaceful revolution impossible will
make violent revolution inevitable.”
DNC organizers had the audacity to dis
play his photograph and parade his
daughter on stage as if resurrecting his
ghost could somehow give the today’s
Democrats moral authority.
It’s pretty clear, however, that few
Democrats remember John F. Kennedy’s
words about revolution. It would be
ironic of those words were to become
the Democratic Party’s epitaph.
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During the 1999-2000 academic year,
80 percent of all UNCW students re
ceived some sort of financial aid. This
equals roughly 8,CXX) students who are
looking to Financial Aid services to
“show them the money." However, un
like NFL Sports Agent Jerry Maguire,
UNCW Financial Aid officers are unfor
tunately not receiving large commission
from the student loans and grants that
they helps students rcceivc. This factor
however, should not reflect in the ptx>r
manner in which many students are
treated and spoken to when dealing with
the Financial Aid office for answers to
questions and concems about their de
ferments and loans.
However, if the majority of all stu
dents receiving financial aid would lake
the initiative to educate themselves to the
whole financial aid process, then perhaps
many stressful trips and phone calls to
the Financial Aid office could be elimi
nated. Every UNCW student receives a
Financial Aid package which contains a
lot of fine print. However, this is your
money that this fine print is talking
about. READ IT!! It is not put there to
fill white space. It is put there so we
know what our responsibilities are as
students and what we need to do to en
sure that we are receiving the proper
amount of aid or loans. Skipping over
this important step can lead to the po
tential dropping of classes, or extensive
delays of those ever so important refund
checks.
Let's look at the reality. Many stu
dents do not read the fine print, and in
some cases classes are dropped, and re
fund checks are withheld from students
for what is hopefully only a small pe
riod of time.
These situations are very frustrating
for students who are attempting to earn
an education and are having to jump
through too many hoops to do so. When
students miss important paper work be
cause it is mailed to a previous address,
or is mailed three days before the return
deadline, it is very hard for all financial
aid deadlines to be met. This can be
tragic for a student when it leads to the
dropping of their classes, especially if
they don't even know their classes are
gone until the day before classes start.
And forget gelling those classes back.
Now that UNCW has peaked to just over
10,000 students, adding classes is at an
all time high of impossible.
Students nol complying with dead
lines (which in some cases is not the fault
of the student) in mosi cases is because
the student casually skipped over a criti
cal step in the process. However, it is
unacceptable when students suffer at the
hands of the Financial Aid office because
their fax machine is broken. UNCW is
a state institution which, thanks to tax
payers, has hundreds of fax machines on
the campus. When a student's classes
are dropped because an essential fax
from a loan company cannot be received
because the lime was nol taken to find a
replacement fax machine, something is
wrong.
Students at UNCW deserve to be
treated with the same amount of respect
that Jerry Maguire showed his clients.
We are in fact the rea.son this institution
exists, and when they are mistreated and
misspoken to, their academic career here
at UNCW suffers. Then again, if stu
dents could take some incentive and read
the fine print in their financial aid pack
age, cross all the T's and dot all the I's,
then maybe 8,000 students wouldn't be
lined up outside the financial aid office
the first week of school. But the Finan
cial Aid office should know that in real
ity, this is not going to happen and should
be prepared to deal with each and every
student that walks through their door m
a respectful, decent manner
m
MSStNS TME TtiBCM
LETTERS TO THE EDnX)R POLICY'
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