Brilliant op-ed, but Eric, if you see this, I think you are missing that CalSERVE already stands for much of what you are calling for, and historically has done so. If you lose, I hope you will get involved with them. They have the passion, sincerity, and numbers to bring your ideas closer to practice, and could probably benefit from your adding yourself to that. Good luck.
Wow, I didn't even know that got published. Thanks Beetle!
And thanks for your support, c. I don't want to get involved with CalSERVE because I don't agree with the way they campaign. It is disrespectful to students, city residents, and the environment.
I don't like SQUELCH! because you guys have allowed the issue of "Lower Sproul" to continue in perpetuity.
My Reasoning: Without SQUELCH! candidates, I'm sure elections would drive students to set fire to all ASUC buildings, forcing insurance to pay and ending a debate that holds little meaning for people outside of the ASUC.
But seriously, did you see me laughing last night? I love you guys. I wish there was a little less cynicism, and more proposals for change because I think your candidates are creative and sincere to students. SQUELCH! points out the incompetence and egoism of self or party-involved candidates, and that's important.
And I can always remember your nicknames. "4sight not 4skin". "Balls Deep". Brilliant.
No one asked, but my opinion of SQUELCH! is that it gets its foot in the door with its humor, but the same humor also prevents enough voters from taking its good reform idea seriously, and also keeps some of those ideas hidden from voters, so that it will ultimately never be successful as a party but will possibly more successful in spreading ideas to other ASUC parties.
Wow, I just made it sound like a coopted social movement ...
Also though, I think SQUELCH!'s program would not be enough on its own without an ideology behind it. It's a reform agenda, not a proactive one. It looks great in comparison to Student Action, but it would still mean an ASUC that was not living up to its potential.
Eric, I would love to hear more about what you mean by CalSERVE campaigning being "disrespectful" to other students, city residents, and the environment ... Maybe you'll have to wait on that until after the election or even after the school year, I understand you have more to do right now than just post on a blog, lol ... If it's flyering on poles and putting masses of flyers on bulletin boards and such, I think that's a situation where they have to do that in order to win because Student Action does it too. Just like in the "real world" the Democratic Party does a lot of annoying things because the Republicans do it to, like support the death penalty and flood people with spam mail and phone calls about donating money. A better test of CalSERVE principles would be to see if they would support bills to limit flyering during election to a modest level. If you can point to a case where they opposed such a bill, then I would feel like you have more of a point.
Also I think you could get involved with CalSERVE and thus be able to take advantage their institutional connections to advance your ideas next year, without necessarily getting involved with their campaigning. That's because unlike Student Action, they don't exist only to win elections, they and their member organizations work on social change within the ASUC and outside of it year-round. That's why CalSERVE has a strong base that has lasted even without reaching the pinnacle of electoral success that much. I keep seeing mention of them having "community meetings" throughout the year. Your passion, sincerity, and ideas combined with theirs would, in my opinion, be dynamite.
Anyway I'll stop, I should really be working on two papers that are past due ... Hope I have not been annoying ...
Here's the thing about SQUELCH! that a lot of people miss. I would have been a bad ass president...right up to the point where I blew my entire stipend on high quality yayo and threw a snow daze party in my office the night before my graduation. But the graduate assembly would also be completely autonomous, Mark Himmelstein would be fired, student fees wouldn't be raised to pay for things that the University is responsible for, and The Daily Cal would be looking for new office space as per EO#1: Revenge for Your Douchey Reason for Not Endorsing Me. Also, the whole campus would look forward to Free Beer Friday.
Similary, RCB would have been a rockin President, Ben a fantastic EVP, J O'C has presented the only sensible proposal for the AAVP office for 2 years running, et cetera, et cetera, ad nauseum. We consistently put up good candidates with good ideas...and consistently lose because (a) we refuse to act like douche bags and (b) yeah, no one takes us seriously.
But the thing is, for us--and this is largely besides me because I have a huge narcissism complex--we're not about the title, position, and oral sex associated with winning office. We're actually about the ideas. So if a major party--particularly CalSERVE this year--wants to adopt our ideas, fantastic, because we think it's the right thing to do.
In the mean time, being funny keeps us from getting our heads stuck too far up our asses to see what the right thing to do is. If the average Berkeley student can't see that, I don't care because I got black out drunk at the Cal Patriot endorsement forum and smoked a cigarette in Wheeler.
And Eric, the simple fact is that Lower Sproul redevelopment is the University's responsibility to students (like many many other things we pay student fees for) and for some reason our student government has volunteered to take responsibility for it...and make students pay for it.
I'm not sure if you read my whole post, or maybe I just have a bad sense of humor.
Your "simple fact" on lower sproul is true and it is a sentiment I have communicated before. However, many students NOT involved with ASUC think "lower sproul" refers to a few benches in a plaza, and are confused why the ASUC is so absorbed with this while there are so many other issues of concern.
