While the WSB report was a fair and balanced look at non-citizen voters, uncovering dozens of people who cast ballots illegally, the KSU conference featured an array of topics that seemed predictably geared at promoting the left-wing, open borders agenda. You might remember past brushes the university has had with the topic, such as the Vicente Fox-a-pallooza and Jessica Colotl-pallooza.
Don't you just love academia's enthusiasm for left-wing causes and the conspicuous absence of any opposing viewpoints?
A three-day whirlwind of meals, roundtables, panel discussions and presentations, KSU's conference drew some big no-border promoters disguised as sociologists all the way from Nigeria, New York, Arkansas, Texas and California, Brazil, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, and the ubiquitous ACLU, among others.
The conference also offered a warm and fuzzy "teach-in" for students, including lectures (such as "On Becoming the Largest Minority"), films, activities and refreshments. The student-targeted marketing was reminiscent of left-wing tactics used so often by radicals in the early '70s Marxist, anti-war movement - even including lunch passes handed out in the Humanities and Social Sciences Building, "made possible by the generous contribution of Linda Lyons, Interim Chief Diversity Officer."
Feed their stomachs and fill their minds. With propaganda. Wow, what a concept.
But back to the guest speakers.
One interesting presentation was "Social Representations of Mexicans in Gwinnett County" by no less than a Mexican university professor. Of course we know Gwinnett is an international petri dish, but why would a Mexican professor come all the way here to study what she could easily study there? Maybe she needed an excuse to visit relatives and get away from all the corruption, kidnappings and beheadings in her own country.
Who funds all of this? Is it Mexican money, or American? Who benefits? Most importantly, who funded KSU's Immi-palooza, paying for hotels and transportation for these multiple speakers? Georgia taxpayers? Or Big Money donors with an interest in seeing more no-doc people taking the seats Georgia kids only dream about - before having to apply to the University of Alabama?
This is clear: Anyone with kids in high school or college knows Georgia kids who were denied admission to state colleges with as good as 4.2 GPAs and all honors courses. And this issue makes us furious.
Is it right for KSU to continue to increase parking and other fees when its diversity department is obviously ripe with cash? How about spreading some of that wealth where it's really needed?
For that matter, when can we expect the three-day conference on accommodating every aspect of returning veterans' education? Might we see some thoughtful, carefully planned studies on how to help them better fit into the community? Can we analyze and facilitate jobs for them? Will KSU hold panel discussions on the virtues of serving in Iraq or Afghanistan, or offer free lunches for those who did? Maybe the university could solicit big-time donors to sponsor their transitions, or move to accept their service experience in lieu of curriculum hours towards a degree? Maybe the university should give enrolling veterans free books, or free board, or another VA counselor to ease their red tape?
Excuse me, won't you, if I rant just a bit. You see, a veteran I know returned from war wanting to complete a degree, half-earned while on many deployments. Applying to a local university, he was clearly more qualified than the average student, and there was no question he was morally entitled to a spot, any spot, in a local institution of higher learning. He paid his taxes, fought and bled in combat, and his experience was such that he could, in fact, run a department or even an entire university. His last job description was head of the Marine Corps University's enlisted curriculum.
This veteran gave a lifetime of service, unlike the foreign students admitted without question, without background checks, fees waved, whatever.
Yet the veteran was denied admission.
Does KSU care? Does anyone in academia care?
With priorities like we're seeing lately, why would we ever think they might?
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Foreign students pay at least three times more than local students do. Look that up. The diversity department doesn't manufacture its own money. It costs good money for a foreigner to come here and study, so do not ignorantly assume that they live off campus money. Any "benefits" you think they get isn't even close to the fees involved. And 99%, /- 1% of them are completely legal, with I-20s and stuff.And foreigners are rigorously screened at the embassies in their home countries, so your talk about "without any background checks" is null.
And Outcasts united's just a simple book that you have to get over! Not many people, foreigners included fancy it or KSU 1101. Why's the mentioned student even whining about a simple class? We all have bad classes once in a while.
The foreigners are the leading source of revenue among students at KSU. Think about that. And only very few people get waivers, which they do by volunteering for many hours and constantly maintaining a high GPA.
It does not require actual attendance to question why/if taxpayer money was being used to support such a one-sided indoctrination conference.
It does not require actual attendance to point out that KSU has some "diverse" ways in which they deal with prospective students.
Liberal professors are perfectly fine on campus. I had a few myself, and liked them very much. Liberal speakers are fine. The more they speak, the better people can hear who they really are. But let's not pretend something is fair and balanced when it's not. And let's not pretend Mexico is a safe place or that all Mexican immigrants are simply "doing the work Americans won't do." The days of that lie are gone for good.
And evechols, you are darned right I asked questions...the same questions many of us on the pro-law enforcement side are asking. Also the same questions many, many Cobb parents are asking -- parents whose kids are being forced to attend expensive out of state schools because they've been rejected from local ones. Fortunately, I have been given a platform, which is not "op-ed" (that would be on the op-ed page) but is simply an opinion column. I can wax about my five year old, if I want to. Or, I can start a conversation about whether KSU went too far with this conference and ask why combat veterans are being excluded from higher education when illegal aliens with bad driving records are allowed to take their seats.
You included,.. MDJ!!!
You assert shortcomings with Ms. Armstrong's statements, yet provide only a convoluted series of run on sentences that have the barest of tie-back to the article that you are supposedly commenting on.
That said, could you explain just what the heck reductionism is and why we should be insulted or care?
For everyone else out there, just send your kids to the University of Mississippi.
Love you Mom, once again, slapping the libs in the faceeeee
She begs questions, which imply certain things about the univsersity, but never answers those questions. Nor does she explore what kind of conferences the buisness building is putting on... or the education building...or any of the other generally conservative departments. She categorizes all of academia as one way, but never addresses the conservative departments. Who, for the record, should be insulted by her reductionism.
Then she provides the example of the veteran who came back from the war with no explination that this has happened to non-whites and "forigners" as well who came back from WWII expecting the same grants, home loans and scholerships that their white counterparts were getting but who were denied by our own government from those services and amenities granted to persons in the service at the time simply because of their skin color.
Furthurmore she uses anecdotes to conjure up images of illegal immigrants taking our stuff and somehow ruining our country with no actual evidence to suppor these conclusions - no statistics, no facts, nothing.
Lastly, she conjures up images of a violent and currupt Mexico in order that her reader will associate all Mexican immigrants with danger, violence and crimes - an assertion proven false by US crime statistics despite the rhetoric coming from Arizona politicians.
She also asks when there will be a veterans confernece with no research as to if there ever has been or will be in the future. It is really an entirely usless and irrelevant question to her article and serves merely to point out her clear conservative bias and lack of journalistic effort.
The questions I am left with after the article and her discriptions of the events is: Did she even attend the conference? And why should we listen to her in regards to immigration, KSU or conferences? What is her expertise...besides her obvious talent and espousing clearly biased and unjournalistic opinions that are, yet again, consistent with the Marietta Daily Journal's slant?
Soon, the PC police will drive up to Ms. Armstrong's door. This column is far too honest.
I hope that KSU will find new, PRO-AMERICAN leadership and that we can attend a "conference that is proudly advertised and features speakers like D.A. King, Neil Warren and Ms. Armstrong.
These people aren't foling anyone with the use of the word "imigration" - trust me, I am an immigrant - that means we came here the legal way.
sonal rickehl
Your rant is needed & it needs to be heard so that ALL the GA citizens (legal of course) can hear. I am the wife of a Viet Nam veteran, who started his college education at KSU when it was only a junior college & then finished at Southern Tech. Both of these state colleges had many Nam vets. They were welcomed & helped.
I am also the Mother of a KSU graduate, who is not happy one bit with the direction KSU has taken concerning Jessica Colotol and these conferences, which appear to teach how the university and ILLEGALS in general can circumvent the U.S. laws. Thank goodness my child is a business school graduate, but my child definitley encountered the liberal left instructors & professors when my child had to take non-business courses.
I want to know from where the funds came to pay ALL the expenses for this "conference" AND how much. Tell us NOW not next year. Even if there were private donations used to pay any of the expenses for this "conference", you can't say that absolutely no GA taxpayer dollars have been spent for this "conference". The KSU web site was used for advertisement & I don't believe KSU "sells" space on their gov't web site. Unless there is a rental fee collected for the use of the building and the university employees did NOT work on this conference while on the clock at KSU, (in other words, donated their time to work on this "conference" which is highly unlikely), then yes, more GA taxpayer dollars were used. It is just a matter of how much. And for that I HIGHLY OBJECT & RESENT any of my hard earned money being used for such a partisan function.
It is time for GA citizens who want these types of unethical practices stopped, to make their voices heard and their faces seen. Let's organize our own "conferences" with private funds & stop these groups with their far left liberal agendas that will forever change this nation into a place that is unlike the one which was started in 1776.
Thank you Laura for speaking out and thank you MDJ for providing space for Laura's column.
Georgia is represented by too many 'whatever way the wind blows' politicians,... including Sam Olens, Johnny Isakson & Saxby Chambliss! Georgia needs brave leaders like Az.'s Jan Brewer & Co.'s Tom Tancredo! I am sick of the PC politicians! I WANT the TRUTH! I want facts & numbers! I want hospital audits w/ patients illegal status & school rankings by illegal enrollment! I want police reports to include citizenship status & open, honest reports on neighborhood that have turned into barios! The American people deserve it & CAN handle it!
Is there an entity with standing (alumni assoc?) that will defend the conservative cause? I'm ready to pick up the (figurative) arms and enter the battle.
Why not have a litany of Georgia citizens who have been harmed financially because their income has been undercut by illegal labor? Why not bring forth the many Georgia citizens who have lost family members or been severely injured by drunk illegal drivers - no license, no insurance, no problem - for the illegals of course.
Several years ago, Mexican nurses came to the Cobb County Board of Health to teach Cobb County nurses how to best care for the Mexican nationals according to their cultural mores. Care for them for free of course. And, Cobb paid for the Mexican nurses.