Tag Archives: politics

Campus Life, Features

Andy Vargas Visits NECC

 
vargas sign

Andy Vargas, 22-year-old candidate for Haverhill City Council, came to NECC on Friday, Oct. 23, to speak to a classroom filled with faculty and students.  Vargas ran against 14 other people in the election.  He spoke about the changes he plans on bringing to Haverhill if he is elected to City Council.  

“The City Council,” Vargas said, “is like Congress.”  Two things the Council does is make decisions involving budgeting and also on “zoning,” or what is going to be built where. The Council focuses on the goals for the city and improving the community growth.

“I’m a newcomer, a young guy, and I need to prove that I can do something for the city,” he said.

Vargas was raised with the mentality that after graduation, he wanted to go away to a big, exciting city.  One of the reasons he’s running for city council is because he doesn’t want kids in Haverhill to grow up wanting to leave the city.   A way of getting students more involved with their community would be through civic engagement.

“I want civic engagement to be a high school education requirement,” he said.  Since government affects almost every aspect of your life, Vargas is “trying to get people to understand that politics is for everybody.”

His goal is to try to get students involved in campaigns they care about and get hands on experience.  

Another plan he hopes to implement would be to change the way we are handling the heroin crisis in our city.  

“We’re just jailing people and expecting it to work,” he said.  “We need to confront this as a mental health issue.”

He used Gloucester as an example for how he thinks Haverhill should be treating the situation.  Gloucester is going to one of the roots of the problem, which is addiction.  Instead of treating people with heroin addictions as criminals, the police are treating it as a disease.  If people come to the police and say they need help, they will get help with a treatment program and will not get a criminal record.  Even if they walk in with the drugs on them, they will not be charged.  Last year, 72 people enrolled in it and more than half completed the treatment.  

Vargas also recognized how small the voter turnout has been in comparison to the number of people registered to vote.  To tackle this issue, he thinks we should make it easier for people to access information about the candidates and also market what the city does and can do for them.  Currently, the public has access to the minutes from the City Council meetings at http://www.cityofhaverhill.org/government/city_council/index and can actually watch the meetings at haverhillcommunitytv.org.  While it’s easy to find the names for the candidates online, it takes a bit more research to actually find out what each one represents and supports.

“We need to do a better job at marketing and informing people,” he said.

A practical way of providing the public with additional information on candidates, according to Vargas, would be to create a graph and put it on Facebook, because there is such a large number of people active on social media.  

Editorial

Two-Party System Undermines Democracy

 

Jill_Stein
Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Foundation
This year we have the largest, most diverse group of presidential candidates I’ve ever seen. They vary from uber-conservative to bleeding-heart liberal and fill the entire spectrum in between. It seems as if there are far too many to fit them all comfortably into the two-party system that we demand. I’m not sure why we limit ourselves to two parties, anyway. It seems like a flaw in our so-called democratic system that allows this limitation. How democratic can our election process be if it forces everyone to choose between one side and the other, when every issue has more than two sides and so many people feel that the truth and the solutions lie somewhere closer to the middle.

Bernie Sanders, who is an Independent senator, knew that he couldn’t go any further as an Independent. If he had any chance at being taken seriously, he needed to run for president on the democratic ticket. Jill Stein, on the other hand, has very similar ideas as Sanders, is the nominee for the Green Party. If you have never heard of Jill Stein or the Green Party, it’s because they receive absolutely no media coverage. Since Stein did not defer to the Democratic Party, she may as well not exist for all of the attention she has received in the news. I mean no offense to Sanders but he doesn’t fit very neatly into the Democratic box that we are used to. He even refers to himself as a democratic socialist, a risk nearly, but not quite, as big as if he had run as an independent in the first place.

It seems to me that regardless of what a candidate wants to call themselves, or what party they choose to run for, they should be given the chance to speak to the American people. In order to facilitate a true democracy, it falls upon the media to offer equal consideration to all candidates, ensuring that voters are truly educated about their options. For this reason, I have decided to dedicate a few lines of this issue introducing the NECC community to Jill Stein, and the Green Party.

Features, News

Mock Election

 

In the last edition of the Observer, we asked our readers to participate in our mock elections. 54 people sent us their responses.

With a whopping 63 percent of the vote, Bernie Sanders is the clear winner.

Sanders, who is currently running for President of the United States under the Democratic Party, is well-known as the only democratic socialist candidate; a fact that’s creating some waves in both of the mainstream American parties.

He says he wants to provide protection for working-class and middle-class families, as well as work toward a true single-payer healthcare system that allows people to get the care they need no matter their economic class or status.

Dr. Ben Carson, from the Republican Party, came in second with 9.3 percent. Other candidates that got less than 5.3 percent were Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, Jill Stein, Rand Paul, Scott Walker, Jeb Bush, Lawrence Lessing, Marco Rubio, and Vermin Supreme.

Some of the students of Northern Essex have expressed and shared the reasons why their preferred candidates should win.  

Michael JW Ross, who is a Theatre Major at Northern Essex,  expressed that he will be voting for Bernie Sanders in the upcoming election.

“I am voting for Bernie Sanders because out of all the candidates he’s simply the one that’s going the way I believe.

“He is actually looking towards the future. He is a student’s best friend,” Ross said, referencing Sanders’ plan to make higher education free for American students.

Another student who has shared his candiate choice is Jake Soraghan. “I am voting for  Rand Paul, who I feel has a sense of not only social freedom but physical freedom.

“I also like how he is fighting against the NSA Spy program,” Soragham said.

 Voting is one of our fundamental rights as American citizens, but some people even consider it one of our responsibilities. Many people feel that we should work harder to get informed about the people running for office.

“We live in a democracy. Citizens have the responsibility to be informed,” said Amy Callahan, professor of Journalism/Communication.

It’s very important for the young generation to vote because they are the future voices of this world.

It’s also important for the young generation is that they find a president who will to listen to their voices.

People fought years for the privilege to vote, and it’s our responsbility as a democracy to choose a leader for our country.

Make sure to keep paying attention to the upcoming election and don’t forget how important it is to cast your vote. If you believe in change, you should do something about it!

 

The total number of votes each candidate received (out of 54):

Bernie Sanders, 34 votes

Ben Carson, 5 votes

Hillary Clinton, 3 votes

Donald Trump, 3 votes

Jill Stein, 2 votes

Rand Paul, 2 votes

Marco Rubio, 1 vote

Scott Walker, 1 vote

Jeb Bush, 1 vote

Lawrence Lessig, 1 vote

Vermin Supreme, 1 vote

 

Features

Over 4,000 attend NH Democratic Party State Convention

 

By Richard Padova and Andrew Morse

Special to The Observer

Two Northern Essex professors, Andrew Morse and Richard Padova, were among more than 4,000 delegates and guests, respectively, on Saturday, Sept. 19 when New Hampshire Democrats held their annual state convention at the Verizon Arena in Manchester.  These gatherings provide a forum for the party’s candidates for Congressional and state office.  This year’s convention, however, was highlighted by the appearance of five of the six leading Democratic contenders for New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation presidential primary, tentatively scheduled for Feb. 9, 2016.

Professor Morse was most impressed by the speeches given by Hillary Clinton and her main rival at the moment, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.  “Hillary gave a terrific speech,” commented Morse.  “She really sounded the note that so many of the convention members wanted to hear.  She blasted the Republican opposition, and praised the accomplishments of the Obama administration.”

Morse was equally impressed by the thunderous ovation given to Senator Sanders.  “Bernie hit hard at the inequalities of wealth in America.  The crowd loved his message: ‘The billionaires can’t have it all their own way.’  The theme of economic redistribution is a Democratic favorite.”

Professor Padova, an unenrolled voter in Massachusetts and author of the 2007 book, First In The Nation: One Insider’s View of the New Hampshire Presidential Primary, was impressed by the common themes outlined by most of the candidates.  “Only one of these six candidates is going to be the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, and it’s expected that the other five will endorse him or her.  Therefore, it’s good that they’re all sounding the same themes and espousing the same or similar positions on major issues.”

The themes most often heard from the candidates speaking at the convention included free college tuition at public colleges and universities, raising the minimum wage to a “living wage” at $15 an hour, equal pay and equal rights for all, affordable child care so that everyone can work, limiting CEO pay and taking big money out of politics.

Besides Clinton and Sanders, the other Democratic presidential candidates who spoke included former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley, former Rhode Island Senator and Governor Lincoln Chafee and Harvard Law School Professor Larry Lessig.  Absent was former Virginia Senator Jim Webb.

Besides the presidential candidates, other speakers included Governor Maggie Hassan and Senator Jeanne Shaheen of N.H. and a host of Democratic candidates for other offices.

“I urge NECC students and faculty to attend these conventions,” said Morse.  “They can provide us with a real political education.”

Features

Elections are Coming, and Your Vote Matters

 
campaign poster copy

The Presidential Election is coming next year, which brings about some important questions. Are you registered to vote? Are you aware of the history of voting? Do you know why it’s so important to our democracy?

Voting has been part of our political history for over 200 years. After the Declaration of Independence signed in 1776, we elected our first President, George Washington, in 1788.  

Voting rights have not always been as open as they are today. In the past, various laws dictated what kind of people could go to the polls.  At first, only white men who owned property had the right to vote. In 1889, Wyoming was the first state to allow female citizens to vote, and by 1965, the Voting Rights Act was signed and allowed anyone to vote.

It’s common to feel a bit disenchanted with politics, but casting your vote is critically important: as a U.S. citizen, you should care about who is running our country.

“I think it’s more important for 18 to 25-year-olds to vote. . . They typically don’t vote, which is why politicians don’t care (about appealing to them),” said Professor Tom Greene of the English department. “People in their 50s . . . vote a lot more, which is why get a lot more of what they want out of our government.”

Unfortunately, we do live in a society where older people are more involved in the political process. Hearteningly, though, a fair amount of 20-something students at Northern Essex are actively following the upcoming elections.

Parker Moody, who is a History major at Northern Essex, has been very passionate about politics. “During the election back in 2008, when it was McCain vs. Obama, my teacher and I would have heated discussions on our disagreements. I was for Obama while Repucci was for McCain,” he said. “One thing I really appreciated . . . was how he never discouraged me from what I believed.”

As the upcoming election is fast approaching, I decided to ask the students of Northern Essex if anyone is following the current candidates. From what it looks like, the top 3 candidates mentioned (in no particular order) are Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

Michael Ross is a theatre major at Northern Essex who has been registered to vote as an Independent since the age of 18.  Ross has been following the current election today and is not afraid to state his opinion; he is all for Bernie Sanders.

“There is not much a chance for the Republicans to win,” said Ross. “The only nominee that is getting any attention is Donald Trump.”

Whatever your opinion, always remember: your vote counts, whether it’s for a Student Senate election on campus, a local election in your town of residence, or for the President in 2016.