In a Political Science 466 lecture last semester, Professor Kenneth Mayer displayed a graph of information on Democratic and Republican federal candidates. When asked to explain the absence of third-party candidates from the data, he explained matter-of-factly, \I apologize if any of you are Green or Libertarian or socialist, but nobody cares about you."" It was one of those moments when you had to raise your eyebrows at the audacity of such a statement but also had to chuckle because you knew it was more than a bit true.
Unfortunately, the far left has proved once again-this time with the recent hunger strike in support of lower college tuition-exactly why it is not taken seriously in politics.
There's no problem with the motive of the demonstration. Rolling back tuition to 2002 levels is a fair demand given the vital importance of education to a growing economy. UW-Madison has been forced to cut programs due to state budget cuts, so why should students have to pay more than before for a less comprehensive education?
Groups of the sort that participated in the strike are usually done in not by bad motives, but bad methods.
Anyone with a shred of political savvy would realize intuitively that hunger-striking is not the way to get attention for affordable tuition. Gandhi refused to eat until Hindus and Muslims in his country stopped fighting. Mitch Snyder nearly died of hunger to keep a homeless shelter in Washington, D.C. from being converted into luxurious new housing for the wealthy. Former U.S. Rep. Tony Hall, D-Ohio, fasted for 22 days to protest the dissolution of the House Select Committee on Hunger. By comparison, a few dozen perpetual protesters hunger striking for only three days and, at least visibly, only in a public place during business hours is downright frivolous.
As important as tuition is, it is not an issue that directly relates to hunger or death, and fasting for it is as silly as fasting to promote tax cuts, tort reform or more nutritious food at the Rathskeller. What did these strikers expect to accomplish? Did they think Governor Doyle would get on the phone to the legislature and roll back tuition because a handful of people were visibly not eating in the rotunda for a few days?
If student activists on the left ever want to participate in actually creating social justice, as opposed to simply railing from the fringes about the lack of it, they need to learn how to play politics.
The first way they can do this is to choose their battles. Time and again, events centered on student issues like tuition are thrown off-course by the usual array of signholders featuring anti-Bush, pro-choice, anti-corporate, pro-environment, anti-Iraq war, pro-labor, anti-capitalist rhetoric. Of course all of these issues fit together, but when advocating for lower tuition, a unifying issue among students of all political backgrounds, it becomes temporarily necessary to shut off the stream of side issues that only serve to distract and divide potential supporters.
Second, liberals need to participate in the political process as a united force. The Progressive Dane, Green and Socialist parties all seem to possess more or less the same vision of what America should be. Why don't the members of these parties all just become Democrats? If they're so upset with the Democratic Party's supposed sellout to corporate interests, they should all join the Democrats and work to get rid of those interests. Remember, the Republicans would not be running the country today if religious conservatives had decided to form their own party instead of joining the Republican Party and taking it over. As long as liberals are bogged down by relatively minute differences with one another, they will continue to be a divided and conquered minority.
Third, the left needs to broaden its appeal, not by changing its principles but by being more appealing. This can be accomplished by casting aside the satisfying but ultimately self-destructive vitriol of the street protester and replacing it with the passionate but amiable reason of someone who is genuinely interested in convincing other people that liberal ideas are right.
Let us hope that social justice groups, like the ones present at the tuition hunger strike, learn from their past political ineptitude in time to keep college affordable in the state of Wisconsin. Effective communication will determine whether these groups begin to show up on political radars or continue to be dismissed as irrelevant extremists.
Nick Barbash is a sophomore majoring in political science and international studies. Send responses to opinion@dailycardinal.com.
