To the Editor,

I was so proud of my fellow students March 4 when I witnessed a much larger than expected protest. So many times I’ve been convinced that my generation was apathetic to anything other than electronic products (as another letter pointed out), but Thursday the participation I saw made me smile when the protesters occupied the intersection of Prairie and Reseda. What struck me as odd though was that there was no “connecting the dots” between national and state problems.

Here we are in 2010, seven years after the start of the Iraq War, still attempting to build a nation for a culture our government can’t understand, yet our own citizens are being denied an education in their own country. According to The National Priorities Project, the state of California has spent $90 billion dollars towards the Iraq War. The state of California has also paid $32 billion dollars on the Afghanistan War. One recent poll by CNN shows that the approval ratings of the Iraq War is as low 39 percent, and a Gallup poll shows that the war in Afghanistan’s approval rating is also 39 percent. But how could we forget the seven hundred billion bailout in 2008 from the government to companies, who, out of their own failed business practices, near bankrupted their own companies?

So keep shouting, protesting and chanting, but let’s not forget where our government’s priorities lay: corporate bailouts, imperialism, and funding failing wars. Where’s education in that agenda? If the government can’t fit education in its budget, we will just have to vote out those who stand in the way. Keep protesting: Your voices will be heard.

If you want to know more, join me and the CSUN Greens on Thursdays at 3:30 p.m. in Sierra Tower room 503.

Andrew Farwell
Junior, History and
Political Science double major