An informed journalist makes for a good journalist. However, basing your opinions off of flawed news coverage in your own paper does not lead to that. You clearly did some research to criticize these two events, but maybe you should have figured out what exactly you’re criticizing.

While you briefly mentioned the SLAC action, you clearly had no idea what you were talking about, and chose to invent your own truth.

“More recently, enraged protestors have stormed Bascom Hall twice in the past few weeks attempting to occupy the office of Chancellor Wiley. One of the demonstrations included students condemning The Badger Herald, while the other group of incensed activists fired out ultimatums demanding the chancellor adopt a new policy for University of Wisconsin-licensed clothing.”

It didn’t really matter whether the Chancellor was in or not, since he’s usually busy somewhere else. The whole point is to disrupt business as usual, and force administrators to actually listen and confront the problem. It hasn’t been all that newsworthy, or at least your paper has chosen to ignore it, but individuals have been meeting with Wiley for over 6 months now about this sweatshop policy. SLAC has seen nothing but foot-dragging and stalling since then; even after Wiley “proposed” a pilot-program, it was nothing but a press release and there has been no action from the Chancellor’s Office to make it a reality. Faculty on the Labor Licensing Policy Committee (who have done extensive field research on factory conditions) have even fully supported SLAC’s proposal, and think that the Chancellor’s press release is ineffective. Clearly, students exhausted all diplomatic efforts, and have seen more meetings as nothing but a waste of their time and a means to stall them past exam week. But you wouldn’t know that, would you, since you didn’t bother to interview anyone, or even look more than 3 days back in your own paper’s archives.

There was no attempt to occupy his office. I know you haven’t been around long enough to actually see a real sit-in, but if there happens to be one, you’ll know. I know the subtitle of the “Wiley rebuffs SLAC efforts,” a finely crafted, unbiased piece of journalism, was “Student group stages sit-in.” Just because you called it a sit-in doesn’t mean there was really an attempt to lock down and occupy. You don’t just do that, you gotta build up to that. But you wouldn’t know, since your idea of democracy is rolling out of bed on election day, and thinking about voting, but opting instead to eat a burrito and watch Family Guy while you burn down a bowl.

Under your logic, you would have been complaining if there was more than one protest a month in 1775 America. I can see you writing, “I’m no Tory, in fact, I support the Yankees just as much as the next guy. But these protests are just unnecessary—think of all the tea that was wasted just to make a point! The rest of the country sees these people as whiney and out of touch. Why can’t they just shut up and pay their taxes like everyone else?”

I know you like to pass yourself off as a liberal, since that is the trendy thing to do in Madison. But whining in an editorial column that most people don’t read doesn’t really accomplish anything. It certainly doesn’t bring about the social change you have claimed to support in previous articles.

you write like someone who grew up with a silver spoon in his mouth and who will ultimately end up working in some blah blah job and then die an irrelevant lemming who made zero impact on the world. this is an article that should have come from a burned out liberal, not a young, arrogant fool who really knows jack about anything he didn’t pick up in some lame poli sci class. you are little more than a poor regurgitator of blah blah from smarter, less boring robots than yourself.

The horrible awful leaders of S. Vietnam had more in common with the horrible awful leader of S. Korea during that time in history. I for one would rather live in Seoul than Pyong yang or Saigon, and yes I realize the commies renamed it Ho Chi Minh City. The protest of the 1960-70’s actually prolonged the Vietnam War and as noted in Vietnamese muesums, Americans like John effing Kerry gave them a path to destroy S. Vietnam.

Besides Bob Gould said sang it best. “I like to protest but I’m not sure what its for. I guess I have no control over the threat of nuclear war. I wrote a sign to show to show that I really care. I hear it does some good if the television people are there.” From Deadly skies.

Most men who go on these goofy liberal protests are chasing some tail in the crowd, and like PJ O’Rourke grow the hell up once it is their money that the state is confiscating.

The only reason protests fail to attract attention is not their frequency, but their size. And In a political climate where the average student cares more about how wasted they’re going to get tonight than how those in power are destroying the planet, it is no surprise that these demonstrations fail to attract great numbers. However, I guarentee that if every protest garnered thousands of students, the public and lawmaker would pay attention. Also, its interesting how the author comments on how the Vietnam war was unfair to the poor, while arguing that today our volunteer service somehow fosters equality. I guess it must be mostly the affluent who are signing up to fight in Iraq, while those who can’t pay for college or find good jobs are staying at home.