USAC inactivity spurs voter apathy

Vik Anand is a UCLA student.  

By Vik Anand

I’ve been at UCLA for a while now. We all expect on the
walk from Ackerman to Powell to have at least 10 flyers educating
us about everything from the existence of a small group of Jews for
Jesus to he horrors of lovable corporations such as GAP and Nike
because they allegedly chain little children on the island of
Borneo at six to a loom when Indonesian laws clearly state only
four are allowed during any given 14 hour shift.

But each year around this time I start being accosted on
Bruinwalk by even more people than normal. All of a sudden I have
74 flyers in my hand telling me to vote for Miranda Applebee
because she is going to “reinstate affirmative action.”
These people clear-cut an old growth forest in order to produce
these flyers each year and yet Proposition 209 is still in effect
and UCLA has the same problems and the same strengths since I
started all those years ago. So what are these USAC people
doing?

USAC stands for the Undergraduate Student something or other …
Who really knows? Who really cares? The one thing I do know is that
some of my tuition money and every purchase of an ice cold pizza at
the Coop are going to support these people and their little club of
representatives, presidents, and treasurers who continue to do
nothing. A recent Daily Bruin article has pointed out that only 20
percent of undergrads even bothered to vote in the last election,
indicating 80 percent share my feelings.

Instead of dealing with affirmative action or other nonsense,
how about the student body elected officials begin to actually do
useful things? Let’s start with a very simple problem: lunch
tables. Why aren’t there enough? After standing in a three
hour Panda Express line I would like to sit down to eat at a table.
But try finding one in Ackerman at 12:30 p.m. After that is dealt
with, we can move onto bigger and better things such as more
Internet computers than the five they have set up for the 8,000
people who pass through Ackerman each day.

If you are still worried about affirmative action, I have a good
plan too. How about we use USAC money to set up scholarships for
economically needy students who are admitted, so they can actually
afford to attend?

Anyway, I’m sure next year at roughly the same time at
12:30 p.m. I’ll be standing in Ackerman holding a Panda Bowl
in one hand and a stack of flyers in the other, which are made from
95 percent paper and 5 percent spotted-owl (interestingly enough
the Panda Bowl probably has the same ingredients). And guess what,
you and I probably won’t vote then either.