Dally wrote:
A salutory lesson to the OPer and all (including Russell Brand) on the importance of voting. If you don't vote against a daft motion then you only have yourself to blame. It's a form of self-censorship in this case! (Is that the same as idicocy?).
It's not practical for students to attend every meeting and vote on every issue. Student's unions from a political point of view are often run by people who are into politics for its own sake. This was certainly a big turn-off politically for me when I was at Uni as it was the first time I came across politics for the sake of it rather than politics with a specific set of aims. I am not saying they are all like that but there is certainly a fair amount of this that goes on in my opinion.
When I was at Aberystwyth the Welsh Nationalists were active and once vote in support of the IRA (This Union supports.... kind of motion). They often hijacked meetings to pull stunts like this including less serious ideas stating all bands who came to play at the Union 25% of them had to be Welsh speaking (despite far fewer than that % of Welsh speakers at the Uni). I didn't "self-censor" myself on either vote. I didn't know either was happening and don't feel its a students duty to monitor the goings on of the Union so they can troop along to meetings to vote the latest idiotic motion down.
In that particular case with the IRA it made the front page of the Western Mail (Wales very own and widely read back then newspaper).
Once we found out about it virtually the rest of the entire Uni student population trooped up the hill to rescind the motion. That got a column inch on about page six of the Western Mail.
at a WH Smith shop in Huddersfield.
