These elections aren’t worth my time

I have been implored by the Viewpoint editors to write the “negative USAC” column, given that the rest of this week’s coverage of the undergraduate student government elections in the Daily Bruin are by and large very enthusiastic about the candidates and the voting process.

Before I plunge too far into USAC too quickly, I just want to make it abundantly clear that I do not hate USAC. The word “hate” implies that I invest enough time and thought into USAC to actually have an opinion about whatever it is USAC officials do.

I harbor no animosity toward anyone or anything associated with our student government, and I’ve been largely indifferent to the trivialities that define their “election platforms.” I don’t socialize in the same circles as our undergraduate politicians ““ another example, I suppose, of how the Daily Bruin does not function as a real newspaper, considering that the incestuous nature of Washington, D.C., is comprised of one continuous cocktail party in which journalists mingle with the politicians they are covering.

USAC President Gabe Rose lived on my floor in Dykstra Hall three years ago, and if it would be presumptuous of me to refer to him as a friend, then I can certainly think of him as a friendly acquaintance with whom I’ve had the opportunity to discuss our shared appreciation of Barack Obama. Gabe has always come across as a very self-aware person, so I will not go into a diatribe about how USAC officials think they are more important than they really are.

All I want to stress in the allotted space I’ve been given, in stark contrast to the energetic USAC coverage readers have seen in the Daily Bruin over the last couple of weeks, is my own ambivalence toward the entire useless process.

Maybe I am wrong, but I have the feeling that the overwhelming majority of UCLA students feel the same way I do. The student government is fine for those who are interested in participating in it, but I find it to be a complete waste of time and would much rather spend my college experience reading and writing about far more intellectually stimulating topics.

So the goal of this column is to try and bring some semblance of perspective to this newspaper’s USAC coverage by getting away from the in-depth coverage of Bruins United and Students First! in order to speak for most of us at UCLA to say that I honestly couldn’t care less about these elections.

I consider myself to have high political awareness, but even I can’t find the time to care about what our student representatives are doing with their seemingly powerless roles.

Yeah, yeah, I have heard all the arguments about the roles these people play in representing the student body on important issues such as student diversity and university fees. But aren’t I stating the obvious by saying that I don’t think the UC Board of Regents gives a damn about what some pimple-popper living in an overpriced Midvale apartment has to say about UC policies?

If USAC can’t even get an on-campus bar, how naive do we have to be to think they can solve much more glaring systemic problems in the UC system? All I want is for these USAC candidates to treat me as if I have a semi-functional brain and to stop telling me about all the great changes they are going to make to student life. But that just won’t happen. Idiot wind, blowing every time USAC minions move their mouths.

It is not as though I think that what I am doing with my time is somehow better or more important ““ after all, I spent most of my four years in college working for this newspaper. It is just that I don’t understand the fascination with student government, when one could take advantage of the tremendous intellectual resources at UCLA to examine the human condition and our place in a vast and complex physical world. I don’t understand why people would unnecessarily butt heads in USAC meetings, as if they were preparing for the combative nature of the real world, when the nurturing environment of university life is fleeting.

I am not encouraging apathy. If you want to care about USAC, by all means go ahead. It’s just that I don’t understand USAC people, just like I don’t understand the ORL people, or the people who say they don’t like beer or “The Great Gatsby.” So vote or don’t vote. I don’t really care. I have never voted for a USAC election. I don’t even know how. I’ve been told that it has something to do with logging onto to MyUCLA.

Who knows? I might actually vote this time. After all, college is about experimentation.

E-mail de Jong at [email protected] if you shot a man named Gray and took his wife to Italy.