Posts in "St. Cloud State"

By Sam Swedberg at 10:11AM

Oct 11, 2010

It's Been Nine Years...

This past Thursday, October 7th, YAL @ St. Cloud State University held a petition rally to bring awareness on campus about the nine year anniversary of the "war" in Afghanistan. After it was all said and done we collected 450 petition signatures (makes for a great email list).

As you'll notice in the photos, we were able to get a film student (a friend who happens to be sympathetic to YAL) to rent out a camera and take some footage of the event. The video should be edited within the week or two. In the video we ask a few students who signed our petitions how they think America should go about ending the war. It was interesting: Often students wouldn't really take a side either way, often saying something like, "Yeah, I think we should end the war, but I don't think we can just get up and leave yet."

I think this is a sad yet perfect commentary on today's college students and their view on our perpetual wars. There's no draft, so unless they have a close family or friends in the military they aren't personally affected by the war at all. They take the easy route and come down on both sides of the issue. It's this mentality that it makes it so vital to get students engaged and thinking about this issue. Maybe by the next time you talk to them they'll have an opinion of their own.

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Making the Campus Paper

The Middle Tennessee State Sidelines and the St. Cloud State University Chronicle both covered their campus's YAL groups this past week. The papers highlighted the two groups efforts to raise awareness about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Great work MTSU and SCSU.

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By Bonnie Kristian at 9:30PM

Mar 4, 2010

The free market in...Botswana?

This short article was submitted to me by Will Carson, a member of YAL at St. Cloud State. As he explained in his email to me, "After re-reading Ron Paul's first book I wrote an article for class responding to Dr. Paul's mentioning of Botswana as one of the freest economies in the world." This is that article:

When one thinks of individual freedom and unrestricted economic opportunities, a country in Africa might not be top the list.

However, Botswana has emerged as one of the most successful countries to come out of colonial rule in all of Africa. Regarded as a leader in economic freedom and boasting a healthy, competitive business environment, this southern African country has not only a rapidly developing free market economy, but also the lowest tax rates in the region. In fact, according to World Bank statistics, Botswana has outpaced "Asian Tiger" countries in economic growth, with an impressive average of 9% annually since 1966.

Congratulations to Jackie Silseth!

I am pleased to announce Jackie Silseth is the new president of St. Cloud State's YAL chapter. This group has had a number of successful activism events and promises to continue to do good things in the future. Jackie herself has been extremely active and is well-prepared from other activism experience to lead this group.

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By Rachel Kania at 3:01PM

Nov 13, 2009

St. Cloud State YAL chapter gets attention from local news

St. Cloud State YAL chapter has received local attention for their rebuilding the wall event on their campus. Check out the article here.

The YAL chapter made posters and cut fliers Sunday night in preparation for the event to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

St. Cloud State