COLUMN: SAC and the Pogo Revolution

From Mark Tonsetic's "Java Daze," Fall '95 From Mark Tonsetic's "Java Daze," Fall '95SAC. The Red and Blue. When Penn last left this story for the Bahamas and less desirable Spring Break haunts, the committee nobody worried about and the publication nobody read had fallen into a swamp of misguided morals and confused politics, and were sinking fast. More appropriately, "he" is the Student Activities Council. Everyone knows the story by now. The Red and Blue pushes a few Haitian-American sensitivity buttons; SAC votes to deny funding to the magazine on the basis that it maintains a political agenda. Shouting ensues, along a theme discovered well before SAC collided with it. Aristotle penned it years ago: "Man is a political animal." Students, much less students in organizations, aren't about to turn that one on its ear. No matter what the organization, students cannot, by nature, deprive its activities from political content. Some examples: Punch Bowl. Twenty pages of penis jokes, along with pro-choice cartoons spoofing the Arthur DeMoss Foundation for at least two semesters. MeChA. Last seen waving a placard against California Proposition 187 on "Good Morning, America." Black Student League. Also known as the Cult of Chaka Fattah, local Democratic Representative. Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual Alliance. Anyone from Colorado? Penn Pro Choice. Too easy. Mask and Wig. Spoofed Bush and Perot during Fall 1992 show. Not in drag. Penn Sporting Club. Try talking to these guys about gun control. Penn Environmental Group. Planning a "Field Trip for Fur" with the Sportsman's Club. The 1994-95 Student Directory includes a list of SAC member organizations; try some other examples for yourself. Unfortunately, SAC did not return my phone calls, so I cannot provide a list of the exact funds (if any) provided to each group. One can even construe the most obscure a cappella group as political, given the right interpretation. And interpretation is precisely what Dessalines, the Haitian Student Association, relied upon in their testimony against The Red and Blue. Say Penn's newest singing sensation decides to cover a Cat Stevens tune. In the audience sits a Gulf War veteran and a Salman Rushdie junkie. Now remember that the post-Islamic convert Cat Stevens both decried American participation in the Gulf and supported the contract taken out by the Ayatollah Khomeini for Rushdie's head. An extreme scenario, true. Yet at what point can any of us draw the line? Here's where SAC fell into the swamp. It can fund all political organizations (hello, Nazi Times), strip 'em all ($500,000+ for the Penn Naturist Society), or draw an arbitrary line. SAC assumes the first two options are impossible, and is attempting to sell students on the third as the only "logical" alternative. Logical doesn't always mean right. It is unethical and should be illegal for SAC representatives, who are not directly elected by the student body, to play Solomon with politics and student money. That money, roughly $60 per student, represents a purchase made by a student for the rights to judge which organizations should receive University recognition and funding. Students delegate this right to SAC representatives in the belief that the council will allocate those funds under a SAC constitution that is both written (no political agendas) and practiced (no groups with direct political affiliations, e.g. College Republicans). An attempt by SAC to discriminate among groups based on its own interpretation of "political" is a blatant abuse of power. Students never sold their right to define politics for themselves. As witnessed in the UA, student politics could be infinitely better without student politicians. If SAC cannot function without resorting to the abuse of power, then we must discard the organization entirely. If students are to retain the right to support the political organizations of their choice, they must retain decisional power over the allocation of their funds. In place of SAC, the Office of Student Life should electronically distribute an annual survey listing SAC's various member organizations. The student would then budget his share of whatever funds go to SAC among the groups listed. Total the shares, and each group receives its budget for the year. The result would subject student organizations to the do-or-die demands of the market and the test of quality that SAC has heretofore ignored. Few would argue that the six a cappella groups under the current planned economy is a surplus Penn could do without. At the heart of a direct market system is a principle that student politicians have consistently sought to keep secret: Their constituents have time and intelligence enough to make decisions for their own welfare. Why the cover-up? The current debate over SAC and The Red and Blue isn't about politics, and only superficially deals with principle. It's about power, and the failure of integrity bred in the lust for more power. It will take a Pogo among politicians to revolutionize a failed system. If SAC proves our own worst enemy, then true student leaders must confront it, kill it, and build anew. Those that have withdrawn from SAC in support of The Red and Blue show promise, and we must reward their own muskrat-like courage with our own efforts and voices. As for the rest -- specifically those 35 delegates so fearful for their seats that they abstained from voting -- this Pogo revolution may make cowards of you all.