ASM is Chaos - NEW GOVERNMENT FORMING

There is a coup at UW Madison and it could not be more apparent. I am not a conspiracy theorist and I may begin to sound like Bill A., but it is apparent that something is happening behind the scenes and it is not pretty.

I am not going as far as the SLAC folks, but one of their statements in the Herald was interesting.

“It looks awfully shady,” SLAC member Ashok Kumar said. “The election that is asking the most money out of students — the most important election [is cancelled] … by the power invested in Tim Leonard.”

It does indeed look shady. It is time that students stop just taking this abuse from the government. The power of government needs the consent of the governed and I no longer consent any power to this so called “government.”

I am by no means an anarchist, but I am a realist. This “student” government has become far too powerful and as finally broken the preverbal camel’s back. Instead of looking after all students, they protect an elite few. Instead of collecting seg-fees for the many, they collect it for the few. They are willing to do whatever it takes to pass this Union Referendum including destroying the democracy here at UW Madison. Don’t give ASM your consent any longer. Their vote is invalid and their leaders are inept (Eric Varney excluded). The day of ASM is beginning to set and in the twilight students will find a new voice.

Update: New Student Government is rising to power. The Daily Cardinal has a story that some students are getting together to form an alternative to ASM.

Citing “evident corruption and general incompetence” among other grievances against ASM, the group of students, including UW-Madison freshman and Dane County Board candidate David Lapidus­, said they plan to meet tonight at the Rathskellar to formulate the new government.

Nice!

ASM chair and UW-Madison senior Eric Varney said the movement would need signatures from 10 percent of the student body to get a new student government proposal put on the ballot. If the new government wins by a two-thirds majority, ASM will be forced to disband, but only if 10 percent of the student body votes.

Here, Eric Varney is wrong. The vote only has to happen if Lapidus and the rest of the separatists hold the ASM constitution as valid. My inclination is that they don’t and therefore, they don’t have to follow ASM’s rules. Nowhere in state-statues does it say that ASM is the official Student Government of UW Madison, therefore, their rise to power is based largely on the consent of students and the lack of real competition has made them the default power in Madison. If the separatists do not recognize the ASM constitution, the “poison pill” option does not exist.