This is just wrong on soooo many levels…
As reported by Calstuff and Beetle Beat, Student Action is attempting to win the hearts and minds of the Berkeley City Council in an unbelievable web of lies and manipulation. While I’m not shocked by this move, I’m saddened by it, as I’m finally forced to believe what I have known for all too long: that 3 people are being led by a pawn who’s parents believe it is his divine right to rule the students of Cal. This means this whole debacle won’t truly end until SA gets their way, and for no better way to put it, they really are acting like spoiled toddlers, who for the first time, have been told no and are grasping at anything to get some form of their original demand.
SA keeps contesting that the will of the student body was made known when students "overwhelmingly" voted in all four of SA’s execs and that is basically all that should matter. There is one sad reality to this statement though. The student body elected people that they believed they could trust and who would, IN ANY SITUATION, BE PUTTING THE STUDENT BODY WHO ELECTED THEM FIRST.
If things could be done over, with the student body knowing what they do now about the SA executives, I think there would be an overwhelming move to make sure SA does not get elected. SA’s recent behavior shows that they are not only grasping for any support they can get, since they have none from those associated with the school. It also shows the lengths that desperate people are willing to go to win. This is disturbing in the respect that NONE of these executives, to this day, believe that they have done anything wrong and that they are still very much so entitled to the posititions that they ran for.
Believe me, I know how hard they worked for months leading up to the election, but maybe, beyond learning that hard work pays off, there is a greater lesson to be learned. Perhaps this is a lesson about dignity, grace and true leadership. If the SA execs could just truly look at what they have been doing since elections have ended, they might realize how rediculous, pathetic and power hungry they look. They are becoming perfect examples of what elected leaders should strive to not be and at the same time, explain why so many on our campus don’t care about student politics- they see what the SA execs still don’t, that this entire time, it has been about them, not the students that they swear to represent.
True leaders do what is best for those they are leading, even if the right choice is not favorable for themselves. Perhaps that is why real leaders are so hard to find. This type of leader must possess many unselfish qualities that allow them to look out for the future well-being of the greater good, or in the least, be able to, in the present, protect the greater good from people willing to use them as a means to an end. That seems to parallel the situation that we all find ourselves currently in.
Simply stated, it comes down to one painfully obvious and over-simplified truth:
SA is willing to sacrifice both the ASUC and Cal students as a means to an end, an end that they may never actually get…
No matter who’s side you are on, it should be obvious that the above actions are not, by any definition or stretch of the imagination, the actions of someone who claims to be a leader or a responsible individual. Rather, those are the actions of a very confused person.
