Hypocracy and Student Politics

Observing student politics in action can be quite interesting. You have your usual crazy zealots and a whole bunch of students that don't give a rat's arse. Very interseting indeed. Where did student politics take me today? The University of Technology Sydney's Haymarket campus.

First of all a little brief on what's going there. The elections are for Union Board, Academic Board and Faculty Board. I have no idea why there are so many boards, but there it is. Polling takes place over 4 days and each day votes can be cast between 8:30am and 9:00pm (I think). Now that is a hell of a long time. If somebody were to ask me: "Where is student money going?" then my answer would have to be "To pay the people manning the election booths".

Hardly anyone voted while I was there as 90% of the people walking past the Union Centre (the minority of people that actually bother to walk past the Union Centre) either didn't care or said that they've voted (a blatant lie for many students).

So anyway, here's an interesting little segment from one of the people working for the Student Power ticket:

Student Power bloke: "We're Student Power - we're exactly about what we are called... giving back power to the Students."
Random Student: "What about these other people"
Student Power bloke: "Well these guys in red are Left Action and they're generally good people, George is an independant and is also pretty nice. Look all of us are progressive and are there for the students... those people over there are Students United and they're not progressive they have an agenda"

What a ripper. George, Left Action, Student Power have done a super-deal and are claiming that their opposition (Students United) have an agenda. Hahah. Classic.

Another classic example is the utter hypocrasy of some people. Gererally if a student is unknown to all of the campaigners then they get hit by everyone. The whole "We are blah and stand for blah, blah, blah - Vote for us". Now, once again i'll take a swipe at Student Power - because they deserve it. When everyone was doing their speil onto the not-so-interested student the same Student Power bloke from the scenario above would call out "You should look at all of the policies clearly and make an informed choice. An informed choice is the best choice" (or something to that effect). However, if he was the first to talk to a prospective voter he would actively promote his policies and then exclaim "don't take that sheet of paper, it's pure propaganda" when somebody from Students United would approach the same student. An informed choice? Yea, right!

I'll finish off with one more rant. Political discrimination. The left claim to be the "defenders against discrimination" or something to that effect. They typically use emotively charged language to further this illusion - stuff like "harmony","unity", "diversity" and "compassion". What bullshit. The left are the masters of political discrimination. Everybody assisting in the Students United campaign, including me, were asked (by multiple people) "Are you a member of the Liberal party? What branch of the Liberal party are you?". It gets worse... people that voted for Students United were also asked if they were members of the Liberal party. Disgraceful behaviour.

Finally, I would like to point out that some of the people that I met from both Left Action and Student Power were quite nice and did not partake in blatantly hypocritical acts. The crazies are the problem.