Political

Welcome to the political page, where you will find any all updates related to the political aspects of VSU. In addition, we will try to keep you in tune on various political articles and news stories from the community! Check back for more updates here!

Friday, May 29th, 2009

Hey all,

As you may know, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is proposing to cut Cal Grants during a recession in which the University of California and California State University have both decided to raise fees. The elimination of the program will be detrimental to the underrepresented communities that we serve to provide access in higher education for as it will eliminate financial aid to hundreds of thousands of students across the state who relies on Cal Grants as a form of financial aid.

Furthermore, USAC's EVP office have been meeting on a regularly basis to discuss the actions that we as students can take to stop the Governor from making these cuts. If you would like to get involved, then contact me for more information.

Original article may be found at http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-calgrants29-2009may29,0,694495.story

Monday, May 4th, 2009

JOE FRIESEN
From Thursday's Globe and Mail
April 30, 2009 at 4:21 AM EDT

KESWICK, ONT. — The 15-year-old black belt thought he was doing his tormentor a favour when he elected to fight back with his weaker left hand.

He had heard his white classmate throw an angry racial slur in his direction after an argument during a gym class game of speedball, and now the student was shoving him backward, refusing to retract the smear.

The white student swung first, hitting the 15-year-old with a punch to the mouth.

The 15-year-old heard his father's voice running through his head: Fight only as a last resort, only in self-defence, only if given no choice, and only with the left hand.

His swing was short and compact, a left-handed dart that hit the white student square on the nose.

The nose broke under his fist, igniting a sequence of events - from arrest to suspension to possible expulsion - that has left the Asian student and his family wondering whether they are welcome in this small, rural and mostly white community north of Toronto, one that has been touched by anti-Asian attacks in the past.

The 15-year-old, the only person charged in connection with the April 21 school fight, faces one count of assault causing bodily harm.

But a remarkable thing happened this week.

On Monday, 400 of his fellow students, wearing black in solidarity and carrying signs of support, walked out of Keswick High School to rally in protest in front of their school.

Organizer Mathew Winch, a Grade 12 student, said the school has fewer than 10 Asian students, but everyone wanted to stand up against bullying and racism. The story even hit the front page of local newspapers.

After the public outcry, the York Regional Police hate crimes unit reopened the case. Although the other student has not been charged, further charges are possible, a spokesman said yesterday.

The case is particularly sensitive because of a series of attacks on Asian fishermen in the same area in 2007 - given the name "nipper tipping" by locals - which led to a high-profile investigation by the Ontario Human Rights Commission.

Five such cases in 2007, ranging from violent car chases to fishermen on piers being pushed into the water, led to criminal charges. As a result of the publicity, many other Asian anglers came forward to say they had been abused or harassed while fishing in the Lake Simcoe area.

The Asian boy's father is a martial-arts master who trained with the Korean national team. He brought his family to Canada in 2004.

They settled in Keswick in 2006, and his son, who is still learning English, has studied hard to become a top student.

He proudly showed off a report card with a 90-per-cent average. The boy has struggled a little socially, his parents said, which makes the outpouring of support from his classmates all the more remarkable.

"It's the first time in my life I ever fought someone. I've been trained not to attack. It's total self-defence," the boy said. "I felt sorry because I broke his nose, but I can say he deserved it because he called me the racial comment. He started the fight, he punched me first."

He said the boy called him a "fucking Chinese," a comment he instantly knew was far from a joke.

"It's upsetting," he said. "I don't know how better to tell it."

For the moment, both students are suspended from Keswick High School, but the Asian student's parents have been told he could be expelled and forced to find a new school.

They are shocked and saddened by the ordeal.

The day after the fight, an older cousin of their son's antagonist approached him in the school cafeteria and uttered a similar slur, compounding their sense of despair.

"He said, 'You punched my cousin you Chinese fuck,' " the 15-year-old said. That student was overheard by a teacher and suspended.

His father explains that the easiest course would be to move somewhere else and get a fresh start for his son. But he can't do it.

"I don't want to run away. If another Asian kid comes to this school, what happens to him? Will he run into problems? Will they think they can just kick him out? I don't want to set that example," he said.

"Personally, for my kid, I should move. But as a Canadian I cannot move."

Original article may be found at http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090430.wkeswick30art22312/BNStory/National/home

Tuesday, April 21st, 2009

Thailand Cancels Summit After Protests
By THOMAS FULLER
Published: April 11, 2009

PATTAYA, Thailand — A summit meeting of Asian nations was abruptly canceled here on Saturday after hundreds of protesters forced their way past security forces into a convention center where leaders were preparing to discuss the global economic crisis.

About half of the leaders at the meeting were evacuated by helicopter, including those of Vietnam, Myanmar and the Philippines, Thai officials said. Some officials fled by boat.

Abhisit Vejjajiva, the embattled Thai prime minister who has faced a week of large-scale street demonstrations, declared a state of emergency to secure the departure of leaders from Southeast Asia, China, South Korea and Japan. The emergency decree was lifted once the leaders had safely left Pattaya, a resort town about 90 miles southeast of Bangkok, officials said.

The cancellation of the meeting, involving leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or Asean, was deeply embarrassing for Thailand and a missed opportunity for Asian leaders to discuss the severe economic downturn that is causing some of the region’s export-dependent economies to contract.

Ban Ki-moon, the secretary general of the United Nations; Robert B. Zoellick, president of the World Bank; and Dominique Strauss-Kahn, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, were among those scheduled to attend the meeting over the weekend.

The ability of protesters to breach security at a location relatively easy to protect — the venue is on a bluff overlooking the Gulf of Thailand and accessed only by two roads — raised questions about the functioning of the Thai government and its ability to manage its security forces.

The spokesman of the prime minister’s party, Thepthai Senpong, said Saturday that the “work of the police and the military did not meet expectations.”

Mr. Abhisit apologized for the cancellation of the meeting but did not take responsibility for the breach in security, which he said was “not the act of the government.”

Shouting “Abhisit get out! Abhisit get out!” protesters entered the compound in the early afternoon by pushing past the thousands of military and police personnel guarding the resort. Once inside, the demonstrators paraded through the hallways of the site, the Royal Cliff Beach Resort, chanting, cheering, blowing whistles and waving Thai flags.

Diplomats and other officials fled at the sound of shattering glass.

A small group of demonstrators reached the section of the complex where leaders of Asean were eating lunch. Videos showed protesters there being stopped at gunpoint by commandos and dropping to their knees.

Arisman Pongruengrong, one of the protest leaders, said the goal was to force the resignation of Mr. Abhisit, who took office in December.

In a measure of the animosity between the government and its opponents, Mr. Arisman said he had instructed his followers to “catch” the prime minister. “When you see him, catch him and do whatever you like to him,” he said.

The shutting down of the summit meeting was the latest bold gesture carried out by street demonstrators in Thailand. Royalist protesters, the archrivals of the group that raided the beach resort here, shut down Bangkok’s two airports late last year, severely damaging the economy and stranding hundreds of thousands of foreign visitors. Both groups have separately succeeded in blockading the prime minister’s office, the seat of government.

The subtext of the country’s political crisis is an ailing king and disagreements about the future of the monarchy, friction between opposition politicians and a powerful influential military and, not least, an ailing economy.

The country’s political crisis, now three years running, pits lower-income supporters of Thaksin Shinawatra, the prime minister ousted in a September 2006 coup, against the royalist elite that backed the coup.

The protesters who raided the venue on Saturday wore red, the color of backers of Mr. Thaksin, who since being convicted of abuse of power in a highly politicized trial last year has remained overseas.

Protesters said they were angered after being confronted early Saturday by pro-government demonstrators, and clashes ensued.

Mr. Arisman, a former member of Parliament and a onetime pop singer, displayed bullet casings that he said came from at attack by pro-government demonstrators. Two anti-government protesters were shot, and one of them died, he said.

Suphachai Jaismut, the government’s deputy spokesman, denied that anyone had died and said that 13 people had been wounded in clashes, all of them government sympathizers.

The meeting might be rescheduled for later in the year, officials said. In addition to the 10 members of Asean, the meeting was to include Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea.

The prime ministers of China and Japan and the president of South Korea were in hotels several miles from the venue when the meeting was to begin. Protesters successfully blocked their paths on the way to the meeting. They allowed the leaders to be driven to a nearby airport once the meeting was canceled.

“If you compare it to a boxing match, we won the first round,” said Prasong Hassanoi, a 55-year-old cabdriver who is from northeastern Thailand who drove his taxi to the protest. “We are now more confident.”

Janesara Fugal contributed reporting.

Original article may be found at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/12/world/asia/12thai.html?em

Tuesday, April 14th, 2009

Last Tuesday, State Rep. Betty Brown (R) caused a firestorm during House testimony on voter identification legislation when she said that Asian-Americans should change their names because they’re too hard to pronounce:

“Rather than everyone here having to learn Chinese — I understand it’s a rather difficult language — do you think that it would behoove you and your citizens to adopt a name that we could deal with more readily here?” Brown said.

Brown later told [Organization of Chinese Americans representative Ramey] Ko: “Can’t you see that this is something that would make it a lot easier for you and the people who are poll workers if you could adopt a name just for identification purposes that’s easier for Americans to deal with?”

Yesterday, Brown continued to resist calls to apologize. Her spokesman said that Democrats “want this to just be about race.”

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/04/09/brown-asian-names/

Wednesday, March 4th, 2009

San Jose Councilwoman Madison Nguyen has fended off a recall effort by winning 55 percent to 45 percent of a 38 percent voters turnout. As many of you guys may remember, Madison Nguyen is the lone Vietnamese on the city council who was being recalled because of the naming of a San Jose district that have many Vietnamese owned businesses. She preferred 'Saigon Business District' over 'Little Saigon' and this caused a stir of protests and anger from the Vietnamese community in San Jose. Her opponents and supporters have been fighting for the past two years over this issue. The grassroots movements by her opponents, lead mostly by Vietnamese Americans, shows the influence and impact that Vietnamese Americans have in San Jose's politics.

http://cbs5.com/politics/san.jose.councilwoman.2.949912.html