In response to several incidents of racism, homophobia, and hatred on SLU’s campus, several students have independently organized a demonstration against hate on campus. They will meet outside the College Church on the corner of Grand and Lindell at 10pm (after mass) and process towards the West Pine Mall crosswalk. This is an important opportunity to stand up for a more open and welcoming SLU community.
See the Facebook Event for more details.
SLU’s Amnesty International is putting on their annual SLAmnesty event in the Billiken Club tonight at 8pm:
The theme of the event is based on Amnesty International’s Demand Dignity campaign. This campaign focuses on education people about economic, social, and cultural rights. We strive to educate people about these rights and hold related institutions accountable when these rights are excluded, abused, or violated. When we do this, we hope we can lessen poverty. This campaign’s definition of poverty transcends the typical definition. Poverty is essentially the exclusion and violation of basic human rights. So for event think about what living with dignity means to you? If you want more information about the campaign, you can visit demanddignity.amnesty.org
———————————————-Featured poet and host: Shihan
Poets: WU-SLAM and local St. Louis poets: FoFeet and Surreal SistaThis event is sponsored by the Black Student Alliance, Billikens After Dark, Cross Cultural Center, Filipino Student Association, Marchetti Towers, and Amnesty International.
This event is FREE!
Check out the Facebook Event for details!
We will have a meeting tonight at 6:15pm in Beracha Hall 121. We moved it back so that we can all make Political Round Table’s Don’t Ask Don’t Tell debate at 7pm. We will be discussing E-board for next year and taking nominations. I have listed all the positions below so that you can all give them some thought! Elections will be held on March 2nd at our regular 7pm meeting.
1. The President shall:
a. Be the chief executive officer
b. Define the agendas during his or her tenure
c. Preside over all meetings of the College Democrats
d. Carry out all mandates, policies, and directives of the executive board
e. Fill vacancies in officers’ positions and name event chairs with 2/3 of the executive board’s approval
f. Act as the official representative of the College Democrats to other groups, organizations, and the media
2. The Vice President shall:
a. Assist the President in the performance of his or her duties and perform such duties as the President may assign
b. Assume the office of the President upon the Presidents death, resignation, removal, or inability to perform duties
c. Will keep and have available current copies of the constitution and bylaws
d. Take on projects of his or her choosing
3. The Secretary shall:
a. Be responsible for keeping minutes of all meetings and distribute them to members in a timely manner
b. Communicate with individual members through campus e-mail
c. Assist the Publicity Chair with the design, production, and distribution of all advertisements for College Democrats activities
d. In the event of a major club activity and under the direction of the executive board, notify media in an attempt to ensure media coverage.
4. The Treasurer shall:
a. Keep a current record of all financial transactions by managing the bank account and budget
b. Will be responsible for checking the accuracy of all bills and invoices and paying them correctly and on time
c. Draft the annual budget for the Saint Louis University College Democrats
d. Apply for funding for through the annual Student Government Association Budget Process
5. The Programming Chair/Social Action Cabinet Rep. shall:
a. Work with other board members to plan events; both political and social;
b. Acts as a liaison between the organization and other campus groups in order to coordinate joint events and co-sponsorships
c. Create strategy to increase and maintain membership, and work with other members of the executive board to carry out this plan
d. Work with executive board on annual club t-shirt process
6. The Publicity Chair shall:
a. Coordinate all publicity of activities, meetings, and campaign opportunities
b. Formulate and communicate the message of the College Democrats and the Democratic Party
On Wednesday (2/24) and Thursday (2/25) at 7:30pm, members of Una, SLU’s feminist organization, will perform Eve Ensler’s revolutionary play, The Vagina Monologues, at The Sheldon Concert Hall (map below). Tickets may be purchased at slumonologues.com. Proceeds will benefit efforts to end violence against women here in Saint Louis and around the world.
On Wednesday (2/24), in Busch Student Center room 247, the All of Us Campaign will hold a photo shoot for their upcoming poster project. SLU’s Rainbow Alliance started the All of Us Campaign last year as a way to empower straight allies in the movement to eliminate injustice, oppression, and violence against the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) community. In the coming weeks, they will design and post hundreds of posters around campus that feature pictures of SLU students and faculty who identify as straight allies, with the goal of creating a more welcoming and safe campus environment. Stop by the photo shoot anytime between 11am and 4pm to be a part of this great campaign!
For more info, check out the Facebook event, or go to the All of Us Campaign website.
UPDATE: THE POLITICAL ROUND TABLE EVENT HAS MOVED FROM BSC 251 TO BSC 253.
On Tuesday, 2/23, Political Round Table, a recently chartered student organization, will have an exciting discussion about Don’t Ask Don’t Tell:
Topic: “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” Repeal Policy
How do you think the issue of civil rights is treated in the U.S. today? Are gay rights civil rights? Should the military even be concerned with such issues when the idea is to be one unified, uniform unit and not a group of unique individuals?
This should be a spirited conversation, so don’t miss out! It will begin at 7pm in Busch Student Center room 253. Check out the Facebook event for more details!
From the pages of The Progressive Billiken:
While watching the State of the Union last Wednesday night, I cried, I laughed, I boo’ed a few members of Congress and I cheered for our President. I left the Organizing For America watch party feeling patriotic, inspired, and hopeful. Not only was his speech moving, I was proud of the community that gathered at the OFA office who worked together to elect Obama and now reunited to watch his first State of the Union.
Then I thought of my neighbor, who has been out of work for 6 months. I thought of the woman behind me at the watch party who yelled “I still need healthcare” at the screen. I thought of the closed bus lines in St. Louis. And I wondered how we got here.
In the past year, Obama’s administration has made significant progress. The Recovery Act has created jobs, the bailout – whether you agree with it or not – saved our country from a depression, and a healthcare bill has passed the House and Senate. And yet unemployment is over 10%, people are uncertain about Afghanistan, and weary of the bitter bipartisan political process. It’s been a tough year and the American people are still looking for answers.
Some may say Scott Brown’s recent election in Massachusetts – to Ted Kennedy’s seat no less – was a mandate on the Obama administration. Martha Coakley was certainly not our ideal candidate. Her strategy of inevitably was completely out of touch with the voters. (And she could have at least faked being a Red Sox fan.) The election proved that people are looking for leadership and new ideas in these tough times. The Democrats need to step up, fight hard for each race across the country, and regain the trust of the American people.
We cannot expect the same voters of November 2008 to show up again in 2010. Democrats have to give us a reason to keep them in office. Students flocked to the polls for Obama because he offered a new vision for America. We need that inspiration again, a change of politics as usual, and to take control of the issues back from the Republicans. This is our chance to be truly progressive and enact the policies that will make America a better place for all – like a real healthcare bill, strong environmental policy, and a commitment to the gay rights movement.
But that depends on us. And how much we are willing to work for the change we seek.
I’ll admit that I can be somewhat idealistic – some would say corny or perhaps naive – when it comes to politics. As cliché as it sounds, I believe in the power of millions calling for change. I believe in the community who gathered last Wednesday night at the OFA office. Because if nothing else, the American people can come together for our country like we did in 2008 and like we will in 2010. As Obama said at the end of his speech, “The spirit that has sustained this nation for more than two centuries lives on in you, its people. We have finished a difficult year. We have come through a difficult decade… Let’s seize this moment — to start anew, to carry the dream forward, and to strengthen our union once more.”
From the pages of The Progressive Billiken:
Anyone who’s had their ear to the ground this past year knows that the Democrats are looking for signs of a comeback. President Obama’s declining poll numbers, along with election losses in New Jersey, Virginia, and most surprisingly, Massachusetts, have many pundits predicting a pendulum swing and major Republican gains in the 2010 congressional elections. While the accuracy of any prediction this early is questionable (a lot can happen in 9 months), the current trends do not bode well for Democrats.
But as bad as things have been for Democrats, things have been worse for everyday Americans. The challenges facing our country have never been greater. The economy is crippled, 1 in 10 American workers are unemployed, we are caught up in two wars, we face new threats to our national security, our planet is in peril, and millions of Americans have no health insurance. People are frustrated. They want their leaders to take real action.
Democrats have addressed these problems with a pragmatic and empirical mindset. Upon taking office, Obama took immediate action to fix the slumping economy in the midst of financial crisis. He and Democratic congressional leaders enacted wide-ranging tax-cuts and infrastructure investment in the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act. Martin Feldstein, the former chief economic advisor to Ronald Reagan, supported the stimulus in the Wall Street Journal:
…countering a deep economic recession requires an increase in government spending to offset the sharp decline in consumer outlays and business investment that is now under way. Without that rise in government spending, the economic downturn would be deeper and longer.
-Wall Street Journal, 12/24/08, Page A11
Despite this, Republicans responded to the stimulus package with cries of “socialism” and “big government.” The GOP ideologues did not and cannot accept that government spending can be an effective economic stimulus. Their rhetoric consistently returns to a demand for tax-cuts, which seem to be the GOP’s cure-all. Democrats, on the other hand, have welcomed both targeted tax-cuts and infrastructure investment as part of their plans to combat recession. In fact, tax-cuts make up about 40% of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act.
The GOP’s dogmatic economic policy agenda has further obstructed efforts by Democrats to enact common sense regulations for the banking industry to end the dangerous and risky behavior that led to the current recession. In the GOP ideologue’s warped perspective, regulation always impedes economic growth and deregulation always creates growth. This is a belief once held by former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, who, in the aftermath of the current recession, admitted to having “found a flaw” in his ideology.
Democrats, by comparison, are not ideologically opposed to deregulation. They acknowledge the potential for regulatory red tape to cause unnecessary bureaucracy and waste. However, they also understand that some targeted regulations are necessary to ensure stability and prevent risky and predatory lending. Rather than dealing in absolutes of good and bad, they demonstrate an understanding of the contextual elements of policy making.
GOP ideologues have further impeded Democrats in their attempts to reform our broken, unsustainable health care system. The GOP’s unrealistic beliefs in an infallible free-market have blinded them to the market-failure at the heart of the health insurance industry. Democrats have outlined a centrist solution that, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, ends insurance company abuse, insures 96% of Americans, and reduces the deficit. They have included GOP ideas, such as interstate insurance exchanges and tort reform, in their proposals. Sadly, GOP ideologues’ blind hatred of any government action has resulted in outlandish attacks against reform. Their misinformation campaign spread myths about “death panels” and “health care gulags.” As the president recently observed, “if you were to listen to the debate…you’d think that this thing was some Bolshevik plot.”
Perhaps most disturbingly, Republicans have developed an ideological opposition to scientific findings. These ideologues insist that everything from evolution to climate change is a part of an elitist, liberal indoctrination plot. Such a belief would be funny if its consequences were not so dire. The resulting misinformation has seriously impeded efforts to pass market-based cap-and-trade legislation to combat the dangerous effects of climate change.
The rhetoric of the GOP ideologues, while counterproductive and extreme, has succeeded in its purpose. The GOP has effectively incited an uprising against the Democratic Party. They have succeeded in stalling government, demonizing Democrats, and winning elections. They have even convinced some pundits that Democrats need to moderate. But that would be a mistake. The GOP may have succeeded in shifting public opinion with fear tactics and false populism, but it has not changed the reality of our situation. If we want to fix the problems facing this country, we need bold leadership, not dogmatic partisanship. We need new solutions, not recycled talking points. We need pragmatists, not ideologues.
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