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'Manbeef' gives student indigestion
I just happened to notice a couple of articles in your Dec. 10 issue. I was shocked when I actually saw the articles “ManBeef Hits a Meat Market Near You” and “Consumerism.” I’m sorry, but I could no longer continue to read the swill in your paper without saying anything. Does the principle of real journalism completely evade you? What kind of newspaper decides that it is a good idea to run commentaries talking about the horrors of some website that sells human meat? Granted, eating people is not my idea of Sunday afternoon fun, but the Puritanistic and nearly fascist viewpoints expressed are unnecessary. I can almost even understand the writer telling people what to think about movies and all other kind of media. The problem that I really have is the audacity it took for the writer to just assume that everybody that reads the University Chronicle agrees with her particular views on human morality.
Second, the article, “Consumerism,” is not only ridiculous, but also insulting. The writer is obviously a card-carrying member of some ultra-right Libertarian party. I found even the suggestion that America’s consumerism is healthy to be both ridiculous and laughable. Apparently, our friend does not realize that Americans represent only four percent of the world’s population and still somehow manage to consume almost 25 percent of its resources. The logical conclusion here is that if we, as Americans, use so much of the world’s resources then there are people in the world that have to go without these things. What makes us better or more free than the people of Third World countries around the world?
I also find the suggestion that all of this Christmas consumerism is voluntary preposterous. Of course, economics classes don’t generally teach you about these things, but Americans are culturally Christian. All of our national holidays and school breaks just happen to coincide with Christian holidays. Thus many of the impressionable young capitalists in America grow up with the assumption that this kind of holiday consumerism is compulsory. It’s called social construct. Ridiculous, scathing commentary like that of the column entitled “Consumerism” only serves to perpetuate the same American attitude that has our country virtually enslaving workers in over 100 countries around the world.
In short, we work wage labor so that we can afford to perpetuate the neocolonialism necessary to support our “consumer society.” A very wise man once said, “One form of wage labor may cure the ills of another, but no form of wage labor can cure the ills of wage labor itself.” I think we could all learn something from the words of Karl Marx.
So, in the future, do me and all other educated people on this campus a favor. Either find some sort of news, story, or commentary worth printing, or don’t print anything at all.
Gordie Loewen
Sophomore
undeclared
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