Anna Lippincott's Wednesday letter to the editor calls the Restart ticket “a bunch of liberal weenies who have no idea what they're doing and definitely do not belong in the big leagues.”
The letter is titled “Restart ticket is unprofessional, unrealistic.”
Ignorant, liberal, unprofessional weenie reporting in.
Lippincott says college is the “time to be more liberal” but that Restart is too radical and idealistic in its belief that it can unionize so-called apathetic students.
Sorry, but college years should not be a temporary and superficial time of politicization. It should be a place of education and gaining the tools necessary to critically engage with the world around us, and these tools should last a lifetime.
By critically engaging in political matters, we can liberate ourselves from what oppresses us. Restart and the Student Union believe that this education is both a personal responsibility and something that we must help each other with as fellow students and citizens of the world.
We want to facilitate an environment that empowers students with knowledge and the capability to act on that knowledge.
It's obvious that the current system is not effective at creating this kind of student power, and if this ineffective, demoralizing and disempowering system is what Lippincott means by "the big leagues," then yes, Restart does not belong there, nor does any activist seeking to create change.
Lippincott criticizes Restart's presidential candidate Megan Marzec for not voting in previous Student Senate elections. She also points to the low voter turnout in senate elections (10 percent of the student body) as evidence of student apathy.
Student Senate is irrelevant and powerless, and that is why only 10 percent of students bother to vote in elections. Marzec abstained from the vote because she knew of senate's inability and unwillingness to challenge the status quo of tuition hikes, isolation of students from university decision-making and detrimental environmental choices.
Speaking of the environment, Lippincott claims Restart's stance on the environment is “irrelevant” to her and the student body. Irrelevant? If we're to avoid ecological travesty that the vast majority of scientists agree is coming and is caused by humans, then everyone must do their part. Change often starts at the university level. It was college students who demanded African-American Studies classes be taught in the 1960s—an important stepping stone in the civil rights movement. So I reject the notion that says challenging our universities to be just and act responsibly is "irrelevant."
Finally, Lippincott says Marzec should not be proud of her politically charged arrest record. She says there is no such thing a “proud arrest” and students should be wary of electing a leader who does not know her “limits.”
Ridiculous.
Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr. didn't know their limits either, then. The point of these sorts of arrests is to highlight an oppressive system. Parks was arrested for sitting in the front of a bus; King was arrested for violating Jim Crow laws; Marzec was arrested for freely speaking against tuition hikes that had no approval from the student body.
Lippincott says she can't believe people are taking Restart seriously. Given the reality of economic oppression/student debt, ecological disaster and an ineffective system for students to be heard, I can't believe people are taking any option besides Restart seriously. The time has come to unionize and jointly fight for a world in which we can live and be happy.
The students united shall never be defeated.
Ryan Powers is a freshman studying journalism and a candidate for East Green senator on the Restart ticket.
