17 CommentsA draft of the USenate’s resolution to condone military engagement and welcome back ROTC has been circulated among faculty caucuses for comment and discussion. This does not mean that the Senate will definitively endorse ROTC’s return, but a similar resolution will be put to a vote before the Senate body (likely in April). Below is an excerpt from the resolution:
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED
That it is in the interest of Columbia University to continue to constructively engage the Armed Forces of the United States and educate the future military leaders, subject to administrative, logistical, and legal concerns; andBE IT FURTHER RESOLVED
That Columbia University welcomes the opportunity to explore further mutually beneficial relationships with the Armed Forces of the United States, including participation in the programs of the Reserve Officers Training Corps;
You can read the full draft here.
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17 Comments
@response from the coalition against ROTC a point by point refutation
http://norotc.wordpress.com/2011/03/23/response-to-senate-resolution-calling-for-return-of-rotc/
@bluflower ROTC is a great idea for Columbia. Many people seem to forget that the military serves many roles. For example, emergency services training is a very big part of today’s military and this can be seen throughout the world in places such as Japan, Chile, and Cuba where a large military effort eases the suffering of many people. Not to mention how much the military has done after 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina. The time has come. Compassionate young ROTC students can do so much good in the world, it is hard to imagine anyone opposing this at Columbia or anywere else. Overall, people need to learn more about the humanitarian efforts of the military and realize just how many good hearted people share universal values with all of us, military and civilian alike.
@are you serious?? you give chile and cuba as examples of where military efforts have done POSITIVE things?
latin american history lesson: pinochet was an army general in chile who led a coup against a democratically-elected president with the support of the CIA. an example of MANY U.S. sponsored military interventions in Latin America.
and cuba… what about the bay of pigs??? what about guantanamo?
seriously, i love how the pro-rotc ppl have tried to re-write history to glorify the role of the US military. if you havent noticed, were in the middle of two unpopular wars right now. iraq and afghanistan are not “humanitarian” missions and 9/11 justified the invasion of a country that had nothing to do with osama bin laden.
i have talked to the vets and active duty soldiers on campus about this and they dont try to deny the fact that they are trained to “kill bad guys.”
and it terms of “universal values,” maybe we should start with… NOT waging war on ppl.
@Sigh. I have an idea. I should hold you as a student of the University for Prezbo’s unethical expansion plans into Manhattanville. Because that’s fair, right?
And even so. Think of all the good things the military has done (winning WWII and stopping the Holocaust, stopping genocide in Bosnia, humanitarian missions in Haiti and Japan after natural disasters) and compare it to the alleged bad things that they have done (which are few to none) and even if I grant you that Iraq was bad–and please note that unpopular doesn’t necessarily mean unethical, immoral, wrong, etc; it simply means unpopular–the benefits of the military institution far outweigh the negative aspects.
And I’m sorry of stopping a mass-murdering psychopath from exterminating a race of people is a glorification of the role of the US Military in your eyes.
@... rotc for rich people is really cute and all, but really the question in my mind is: will columbia and its $6bn endowment step up and cover the shortfall that many returning veteran students will see as part of recent gi bill reductions, or will it leave them out to dry and force them into ridiculously large private loans?
cos quite honestly, the university senate can spew all the rhetoric they want about “military engagement” but in the end it means fuck all if they’re going to leave their veteran students out to choke to death on absurd student loans.
@hehe You can always join ROTC and have it pay for school.
@well columbia doesn’t help normal students who are about to choke to death on student loans. i don’t see why veterans will/should be any different
@Seriously are you fucking serious?
The distinction you fail to see, though it is obvious in your comment is between normal students and veterans. Notice that one party has served in the armed forces and sacrificed a great deal for the sake of this country and the freedoms on which it stands and another party has not done that. With that in mind, please 1) read your comment out loud to yourself 2) become shocked at the pure audacity of it and 3) resolve to sit in your corner and never post on a thread ever again
@... maybe because educating veterans is a public service for which they are not shy about taking kudos for that ultimately helps sustain a decent reputation for the university? maybe because it’s all about public service when it comes time to sweetalking the state into employing eminent domain for private use and well it’s not unreasonable to expect behavior that is consistent with that image?
and well, we’re talking about an expansion of military engagement here. if they are serious about engaging the military in an act of goodwill, then it seems to me that it would entail taking care of the veterans here and now who find themselves faced with a sudden massive cost increase over what they signed up for.
if all this military engagement hullabaloo consists of bullshit PR stunts and cynical federal gi bill raids, they’ll hang ’em out to dry.
maybe they’ll impress me and do something right for once. but honestly, my incredibly cynical view of this place is based on a few years of empirical evidence. i’d be utterly shocked if they did the right thing, even if it is in their interest.
if there’s one thing i’ve learned, the administration of this place operates in two modes, bureaucratic incompetence or well organized and intentional fleecery.
@If Facebook were Invented at Columbia Open on Mark Zuckerberg planning where to live next year. He meets the Winklevoss-stein twins to discuss ConnectU inside their exclusive club.
It is promptly raided by the police.
After not returning emails and saying they’re too swamped with problem sets like ROTC to work on the site, as well as talking about how “open” and “transparent” the code will be, Columbia develops its own rival application called TheFacebook.com.
TheFacebook.com is a worthless piece of shit that doesn’t even work. After consulting with a consortium of businesspeople in the (alleged) student center, Prezbo decides to rename it TheColumbiaCommunityInitiativeToCreateTheFacebookUnderTheOfficeOfAdministrativeAdministration.com, stating simply, “It’s cleaner.”
Zuckerberg, his housing assets having been frozen by his partner University, enters the housing lottery. Close on Zuckerberg hitting refresh over and over on his miserable lottery number.
@dude wrong thread
@Anonymous So tired of this shit
@hip hip hooray
@Forum Warrior I didn’t think the resolution was very good. The entire senate is very talented, but the writing was pretty bad. After seeing four of these resolution, you can see the hackneyed legalise statements coming from a mile away. Both the context and the relaying of the information was very unoriginal, and the subclauses were so disjointed. The ROTC throw-in and the task force story were pretty awful. It made the resolution boring and predictably cheesy. Furthermore, in true USenate tradition, the concluding remarks were weak toward the end, causing me to lose interest. However, the leading remarks saved the resolution from a total disaster, and the charm and talent of the task force carried the resolution, effectively lifting this reader’s judgement from a 5 to a 6.5 out of 10.
@rotc Really
Only
Timmy
Cares
@... “WHEREAS, the 2011 Task Force on Military Engagement has conducted a broad and
representative process, soliciting opinions from the Columbia community, showing widespread
support for expanding Columbia’s ties with the Armed Forces of the United States, specifically
on the question of the Reserve Officers Training Corps. ”
is that what the task force had shown? when had that happened?
@sweeeeeet institutionalized violence!