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6* L A CKAMA Priait January 26, 2005 Commenta Face Off: Has America done enough to help tsunami victims? U.S. financial contributions to tsunami victims is insufficient Student Po How goes fin® aid? Our country has been generous; it’s time to look at our own needs Jacob Ray Elizabeth Tobey The Clackamas Print The Clackamas Print Granted we sent some money Only a month ago we witnessed perhaps the worst natural disaster of over too. We even raised the amount our time, but it appears that provid from $35 million to $350 million ing aid is not a top priority for the after criticism that the original amount was, well, not even close United States. Immediately following the hor to enough. “[It] gave the wrong impression rific earthquake and tsunami in the Indian Ocean countries around the to the rest of the world,” Sen.. world, individuals and various relief Patrick Leahy said. Perhaps $350 million is enough organizations began working to pro vide aid to the victims. That work to buy a better impression, but it continues and is far from complete. doesn’t come close to providing Yet in the United States our finan relief to five million victims. cial focus already seems to be else It is estimated that emergency where. aid will require just shy of $2 bil We have witnessed the most lion. Rebuilding efforts will need extravagant and heavily guarded more than that. presidential inauguration in history. As a country that prides itself on With everything that is happen being one of the most powerful and ing in the world around us, our influential in the world, we ought government chose to put their time to be able to contribute a little more and money into a celebration. It’s a than $350 million. Other countries choice that was made despite much certainly are. Japan has pledged $500 million criticism. “Precedent suggests that inau and intends to send more. Germany gural festivities should be muted pledged $651 million. Australia if not canceled in wartime,” said topped it all, promising a $764 mil Rep. Anthony Weiner in a letter to lion aid package, more than twice President Bush last week. what the United Stated has offered.. But unfortunately, like planning i In another letter, eight congres sional democrats stated that the an expensive inauguration during a inauguration was causing an unfair time of natural disaster, Bush shows financial burden on the District of us time and again that his priorities Columbia. are not oh a global level. This celebration cost so much Just a few weeks before the that money was taken out of our tsunami hit, Bush made the deci Federal Homeland Security Fund to sion to cut our 2005 contribution pay for it. to The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, We redirected government Tuberculosis and Malaria. The fund spending to provide amenities such is currently one of the organizations as bottled water, box lunches and hard at work providing relief to the granola bars for the extra security tsunami victims and they have no officials who will be on duty. financial support from us. Approximately five million peo Out of the 22 wealthiest nations ple have had their homes, families in the world, the United States ranks and lives taken from them by the 19 for overall foreign aid giving. tsunami. They are fighting disease And now we are buying box lunches and hunger while they try to rebuild instead of helping to rebuild a coun what they have lost, and the United try. States is buying granola bars for We may be rich, but we need to learn how to share. police officers. Another natural disaster hap pens and of course America jumps in to save the day, I’m talking about the tsuna mi that hit southeastern Asia last month, quite possibly the worst natural disaster to happen in this young decade. Americans, being the nice people we are, just rolled our sleeves up and dove right in. On top of the $350 million of the taxpayers’ money that the government decided to contrib ute, it seems like every charity ip America has a tsunami relief raBL Tjherf there ate the private donations, and I don’t know if it’s just me OTt it really scares me to see both. Because of this, it has somehow been imposed that we, as Americans, owe it to ourselves to help out. I mean, I’m not trying to downplay the devastation of the tsunami, but this country already has enough problems of its own, so why should wc be worrying about other countries’ problems? Well we do have a “knack” for “helping” other countries, but that’s another story. The national debt is somewhere around $7 tril- lion dollars (and growing by $2 billion dollars per day), this coun try is at war, the unemployment rate is at an average of five-and-a- half percent, one out of six people in Oregon don’t have health cov erage, and we’re expected to give away money to help rebuild other countries when ours isn’t doing too well? People are donating money to this cause who would just walk by a bum on the street. There is a lot of money donated to the relief effort and I think that is awesome. But with the contri bution from the government, the charities, donations from celebri ties, and the $15 I donated, I’m starting to think America is donat ing the most. The Washington Post notes that the current amount committed for tsunami relief and reconstruction is about 4 to 5 percent of the $70 billion that was spent on all for eign aid last year by governments and multilateral agencies such as the World Bank. “That’s pretty big, so I think there is reason to believe that maybe at least some of this money could be productively used elsewhere,”- said Steven Radelet, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development, a Washington think tank, who warned that “there is a real poten tial here for [the tsunami dona tions] to squeeze other aid, par ticularly in the U.S. foreign aid budget.” Now I know that just a cou ple hundred million is not even close to enough to build back up those countries hit by the tsunami, but that is more than enough to give to another country. I mean, Florida got hit with three—yes, three— hurricanes in a month, and I didn’t see a worldwide effort to help out. Yes, there is a difference between the hurricanes and the tsunami, but it’s just the thought. It’s a shame about the destruc tion and fatalities caused by the tsunami and my prayers go out to all those affected. My whole point is just that, yes, we are doing enough to help out, which is great, but we must draw the line somewhere. This whole thing has shown that as a country we are very generous; now it’s time to use that generosity to help out the less fortunate of this country that we so dearly love. “I just got the form am need to fill it out.’ Rosaline Worslr “Once we got it, it was But it took it a billion y get there.” J Christina Boon Regulation of violent media violates rights N.P. Delzell The Clackamas Print “The Constitution is a fig ment of your imagination, held up to make people believe they have rights,” said Ice T, con troversial rapper/actor. “I don’t believe anybody in this country has rights.” Media violence is only a problem when it is takeh the wrong way. If conservatives start messing around with the independent media, they will be infringing our first amend ment rights, just like my boy Ice stated. Ice gained mass popularity with his hardcore band Body Count after dropping the single “Cop Killer” in the early ‘90s. Ice has been involved in a num ber of right-wing attacks since then, and he has said a number of times that his song in no way advocates the killing of a police officer; it’s a song he wrote after watching the Rodney King beating, which was flossed all over mainstream prime time news. Society needs people like Ice to show ignorant, uninformed people that violence is real. It makes the world go around. Violence is in no way a good thing but it will always be here. People who are influenced to act out in a violent t^ay after watching television, playing video games, and listening to music have issues that go way beyond violent media. According to www.gatnes- pot.com, the Federal Trade Commission reported that par ents are involved in minors’ video game purchases 83 per cent of the time, and the U.S. Court of Appeals released a statement regarding legislature of this nature. “We do not mean to deni grate the government’s role in supporting parents, or the right of parents to control their chil dren’s exposure to graphically violent materials,” the state ment says. “We merely hold that the government cannot silence protected speech by wrapping itself in the cloak of paren tal authority ... To accept the county’s broadly drawn interest as a compelling one would be to invite legislatures to undermine the First Amendment rights of minors willy-nilly under the guise of promoting parental authority.” I don’t care if it’s a song or a video game that has peo ple in an uproar. This assault on peoples’ basic freedoms is whack. If society gave a dang about real-world issues, no one would care about fictional vio lent video games and songs. We are a world at war and these “violent” video games and songs don’t cause violence, a violent world causes violence. If society puts the potato on the barrel and silences violent forms of media, the First Amendment will be sacrificed. “This quarter sucks bee didn’t get any.” Jesse Freegrai\ “Ridiculously slooooooooooooow.. Samantha Cod This week’s poll compile the, CLACKAMASprint 19600 S. Molalla Ave. Oregon City, OR 97045 (503) 657-6958 ex. 2309 The C lackamas Print is a weekly student publication and is distributed every Wednesday except finals week. E ditor - in -C hief : Isaiah Creel C opy E ditor : James Tombe N ews E ditor : Ben Maras C ommentary E ditor : Shannon Armstead F eature E ditor : Karlin Johnson A&E E ditor : Hilliary Ferguson S ports E ditor : N.P. Delzell P hoto E ditor : Joel Gaynor A d M anager : Ben Holm D esign E ditor : Michaele Cooper S taff W riters : Frank Jordan, Cassie Mathieson, Mike McCormack, Joe Piazzisi, Amanda Polopolus, Jacob Ray, Jeff Sorensen, Jadon Triplett, Katie Wilson, Laura Cameron, Christa Danielson, Jeremy Freid, Mike Guidice, Jason Pirtle, Amy Sandell, Kyle Slate, Elizabeth Tobey, Norma Martinez P roduction A ssistants : Jesse Arguello, Stephen Bostwick, Myque Obiero, Gregg Radspinner, Ryan Richards, Monica Gizowski, Madeleine Atwood P hotographers : Brie Daykin, Angela Gerhart, Stephen Hayes D epartment A dvisor : Linda Vogt D epartment A ssistant : Pat Lichen Pia^yi^i and Norma M G oals : The C lackamas Print aims to] the news in an honest, unbiased, manner. The opinions expressed doij essarily reflect those of the student w| lege administration, its faculty or l*lil E-mail comments to chiefed@<M edu.________________ J
