As U.S. citizens, revolution is in our blood. Our nation was born in the cradle of revolt against British oppression, an origin that has led our government to support all manners of revolutions around the world in the pursuit of a better democracy. We even love the idea of revolution within our democratic system, with some of the most popular political figures in history promising internal revolutions through New Freedoms, New Deals and New Frontiers.
It is no surprise then that the dissenters within and outside the Associated Students of Madison, stirred to rage by the irregularities in the ASM election, would cloak themselves in similar rhetoric. What better way to tap into the hearts and minds of students across campus than to tap into their most primal of democratic American impulses? The issue here is not with what the Student Government\ is trying to do, but the practices they are using in tapping this revolutionary image, an image they are using to manipulate the student body to pay them heed, for better or worse.
The sensationalism began in excessive reaction to the halting to the ASM elections running last week. Regardless of feelings on either side, the halted election last week—and for that matter this week—were not the will or even direct fault of the ASM— a technological society invites technical failure.
However, to the would-be revolutionaries, this could not be as simple as a technical error in the voting system, nor as innocent as trying to preserve the few votes accurately cast and ease the strain on the voting system by separating the referenda from the ASM candidate elections. This was the halting of freedom. Stopping democracy implies oppression, it incites rage and it brings in supporters hoping to get on the revolutionary bandwagon. Outraged students like David Lapidus, Steve Schwerbel and Sol Grosskopf realized this and channeled the energy generated by governmental failure. All they had to do was head to Memorial Union and draft their manifesto: ""ASM has forfeited its right to be taken seriously. Atlas has shrugged—Student Government.""
Student Government continued this campaign by leading a vicious attack on the problems within ASM —the heavy bureaucracy, lack of transparency, resume-padding candidates, and so on. The official Student Government weblog is full of incendiary remarks about how much better the revolutionaries will be: ""If ‘student power glory' consists of petty bureaucratic wrangling and wasting student fees on exorbitantly expensive student groups, I'll take something else, please. Perhaps... Student Government glory."" Similar media events that were announced soon after the election controversy, like the open constitution sessions and the resolution signed by six ASM members, exist for one sole purpose: to keep the students angry enough to engineer a regime change.
The ultimate point has nothing to do with what the Student Government is trying to accomplish in the end; it is a question of means. There is no question that some change in Student Government needs to be made —claims of a lack of efficiency are easy ones to levy on any government, and ASM is no exception. But no lasting changes can be engineered so rapidly; they are not adequately thought out. Maybe ""town hall"" meetings conducted by the Student Government will actually work to make for a more efficient constitution. But as it stands, all the organization has done is exploit and perpetuate widespread discontent with ASM and used it to popularize its own conceptions of what a new student government ought to be.
Lasting governments cannot be based solely on pointing out the failures of their predecessors—they need to have real answers to real problems. In this case, one can only hope that the ends do justify the means. Hopefully the Student Government uses its revolutionary rhetoric to attract attention to a platform that is well considered and represents the majority of this campus population, not a narrow and uninformed perspective rushed into power. But unless care is taken to evaluate what this new government wants to do with this campus by each and every student who votes for them, we will likely end up handing the reins of power from one group to another under the American delusion of supporting revolution without consideration of the aftershocks.
Mark Riechers is a freshman studying English and journalism. Send comments to opinion@dailycardinal.com.
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