Opinion
Protesting With A Purpose
Last Friday, the Radical Cheerleaders held an anti-inauguration rally in White Plaza, complaining about the type of America that they claim President Bush represents. Dressed up as "billionaires", four girls stood on a table to incite the rallying cry, "People don't vote, money does." In jest, the girls then suggested that tax loopholes and benefits for the rich are the solutions to the majority of the country's problems. They mockingly called themselves "Billionaires for Bush" and tacitly insisted that the whole country is all in for four more years of elitism.

They may be right. But they're not right to blame Bush for the problem. The problem with this rally was not that students are concerned with the dominant role money plays in national elections. Thus, the problem with the rally is that the Radical Cheerleaders were targeting Bush for exacerbating a problem that is decidedly not just a Republican problem. The students who attended this rally might be interested to learn a fact revealed in the most recent Harper's Index. That is, of the ten top donors to last year's political campaigns, six gave money to both major parties. Microsoft, for instance, knows that both parties are quite capable of representing its interests, and whichever party is in power will pay pretty strict attention to who funded their campaign. If America is a bastion of elitism, overrun by corporate interests, it's certainly not the Republicans' fault. Whoever thinks otherwise ought to reconsider the role Hollywood moguls play in the success of most nationally elected Democratic officials.

Unfortunately, the Radical Cheerleaders are not alone. More than just a few Stanford students headed to San Francisco on Saturday to protest Bush's inauguration for other reasons. Among the most popular points of controversy: Bush did not win the popular vote. I'd love to know if even one protest would be taking place if Gore had not been popularly elected. The electoral system is again an issue that both sides denounce and praise alternatively, depending on the outcome of the election. The same system that allowed Bush to be elected without the popular vote regularly gives an electoral bias to the rural poor, who often live in smaller states,and who are almost always Democrats.

Yet another point of controversy is the nomination of Linda Chavez as Secretary of Labor. She ultimately refused the nomination amidst accusations that she unlawfully housed and employed illegal immigrants some years ago. Well, in California, it was a mass of Democratic voters who voted down the proposition that penalized illegal immigrants for the very behavior that Chavez condoned. Had she been a Democrat nominated to Al Gore's cabinet, she may well still have been forced to withdraw her nomination.

None of this means that Republicans would not be protesting had Gore been put into office. They probably would be protesting, as it turns out, for the very same reasons. Which highlights the idiocy of this all. Stanford students have been protesting the electoral process and inauguration, it seems, for the mere thrill of protesting something. It is very understandable - from a certain point of view. There is a certain satisfaction in becoming very indignant about some issue, whatever it may be. It would all be acceptable too, if there was a shortage of more legitimate problems to spend our time protesting. But there is no shortage of problems to protest. In fact, there is a surplus, and that is what makes these inauguration day protests so discouraging.

Whoever really believes that President Bush has been unlawfully placed in office may continue to protest for the next four years. But the contingency of such believers certainly cannot represent a majority of rational thinkers. It seems only clear that the problems we inherited with Bush's oath of office are the same problems that we would have inherited with Gore's oath of office.

What are the problems, then, that we should be protesting? A large group of Stanford students did a pretty good job this autumn when they protested Stanford's land use policy in the foothills. Not everybody agrees with the students who attended the protest, but it is at least a relevant problem, and one worth protesting to those who feel strongly about it. The Stanford Green party has raised awareness about problems that the both Democrats and Republicans are responsible for and they should continue. There is a political science professor at Stanford who says that the University can not progress without students and faculty who constantly criticize the administration. While we should be wary of the most extreme implications of such criticism, we should also heed his advice. Protest and change is essential, but not in the case of Bush's inauguration. I wish I would have seen the Radical Cheerleaders at the celebration of Bush's inauguration in the Law School. There, we could have embraced the reality of our new president, and we could have begun to discuss protests that actually matter.

Matthew Barrett is an undeclared sophomore. He would have been there protesting had Gore not been popularly elected.

Page last modified on Wednesday, 01-Mar-2006 23:57:07 MST.