Submitted by David Steier:
The majority of your alternative campus newspaper is written by MU Republicans who aim their articles directly at what you consider the masses of liberals at Marquette who are impeding your freedom of expression. You are only adding to the animosity between Democrats and Republicans, of which I wrote about in the Nov. 29 Tribune, for reference. Debating political, economic, and social issues is healthy, so I agree with the concept of a paper that speaks for those who are silenced or ignored by the mainstream press. The truth is that you, meaning at least five MU Republicans members that I counted and probably more who are currently a part of the Warrior, should accept the critique that this campus is making about this “alternative” news source, that you are Republicans who are trying to combat the Tribune because you think it’s catering to Democrats.
You are in essence a conservative newspaper, written by conservative-minded people who mostly care about asserting conservative views. You will argue that the Marquette Tribune is basically a liberal newspaper. That is not true. I have seen articles by MU Republicans’ own Daniel Suhr in the Tribune numerous times over my two and a half years here. He is very conservative. Other articles have appeared over the last two years that I could easily label “conservative.”
Your most recent paper ran two articles in your Entertainment section about recently published books that bash liberals, and your previous issue ran one. Yes, liberals often let emotions take control of their logic and reasoning and end up sounding crazy. Watching a conservative government lead our country to a war that has led to over 2,000 American deaths will do that; emotions are a part of war and of politics. If your paper is concerned with anything beyond just expressing your political stance, my guess is you would not have simply plugged whichever Republican propaganda you happen to be currently reading. The Tribune is not currently publishing book reviews by Michael Moore-types. The reviews were perhaps well-written, but that doesn’t make them appealing to those of us interested in something other than partisan mickeymouse. I use my political and ethical beliefs to do something. I don’t consider myself a Democrat so I can absorb myself in a community of liberals and try to attack conservatives. Your entertainment section did not entertain me, and the books you promote will not either.
You ran an article, also very well-written, that implies the actions of School of Americas protesters are meaningless. Correct me if I’m wrong, but the concept of this article was intended as a counter-protest. You include information from the US government and the WHINSEC (the new moniker for the SOA) that denies any involvement in training Latin American killers and argues that the WHINSEC is improving their focus on human rights. There is no evidence of this. Your paper refuses to provide any information about the motives behind the thousands of protesters that make the pilgrimage to Fort Benning in Columbus, Georgia each year. People trained by the US have killed other people in order to suppress revolution in governments propped up by the US. That seems unjust to me because it appears the US will kill civilians in order to make things go smoothly their way. And from friends who visited the former SOA and researched its activities, I have learned that things have not significantly changed since it took on a new name. Your paper taught me nothing about this dilemma besides the fact that the WHINSEC denies human rights abuse claims, which is a given.
Liberals are not crazy. They are not your enemy. I am friends with several of your staff writers, and they would hopefully agree to that, though I indeed consider myself among those “sliding down the slippery liberal slope at Marquette,” according to a reader opinion published in your last issue. Do us a favor and report the news- sports, entertainment, politics, cool things happening on campus from an alternative angle without flaunting and parading your smug political beliefs.
On to that Terror statistics box. I think it’s terrible, actually. It gives the impression that 2,000 dead Americans in Iraq is insignificant compared to Sadaam’s crimes. People are not statistics in war, they are living, breathing, affecting creatures like you and I- until their bodies are mangled by insurgents. Stop glorifying the Republican stance on Iraq by celebrating the void of terrorist attacks since 9/11. A brief examination of the spike in terrorist activity in Iraq since 9/11 would put your fact box to shame. Thank you for pointing out the atrocities Saddam committed, but please stop humoring us all and report the news. Put your clumsy statistics charts on a blog where they won’t influence fickle, pseudo-intellectual college students like me who are attempting to take a stance on a war that is looking more and more like Vietnam with each roadside bomb’s blast.
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