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"The People's Platform" is the name
chosen by the faction that was in power Their name kind
in the student government at Stanford, of says it all.
near the end of my reign as a Graduate
Student. There were some
dark rumors floating
In the last election that they "won", around about them
they did it by changing the rules funneling funds to
midstream. The rule in question some left-wing
requires that the Council of Presient's revolutionary organization.
must win by a majority of the vote,
if not a run-off election must be An interesting These rumors
held. solution to the were never
problem of proved, or
They didn't *quite* get a majority. splitting the vote else they'd
But if you pretended that the in multi-candidate have gone
"frivolous" write-ins didn't elections. Too to jail.
exist, then they would just barely bad the federal
have one. govenment doesn't This is
have something an inter-
They decided to pretend that similar, it would esting
these write-ins didn't exist. be easier for thing to
third parties to think
This move evidentally seemed get established. about
quite reasonable to many people though.
on the inside of the situation.
All that
To people on the outside it student
looked incredibly sleazy. government
money...
I joined a bunch of students in Where does
a "24 hour sit-in" of the student it go?
government's offices (organized
by a different type of sleazeballs:
the people from the campus "humor"
magazine, the "Chaparral").
This was not the most unpleasant
environment to hold a sit-in.
The offices have a huge lobby with
lots of comfortable couches. People
brought in a TV and a VCR so we
could hold a marathon showing of A seperate though related
Simpsons cartoons. And all of us event at this election is
weren't exactly present at the that Bart Simpson got enough
same time... in fact, in many cases write-ins to be elected a
one person was appointed to stay Senator.
behind so we could officially claim He refused to serve.
to have the place occupied.
However whenever there was a rumor that Or at least that's
the police were going to throw us out, what the telegram we
someone would get on the phone and get got from LA claimed.
everyone to come down so there would
be a whole bunch of us. We spent many
hours hovering around playing with
a video camera, hoping that the police
in the parking lot would come on in
so we could get it over with and get
the hell out of there.
Probably my main contribution to this event
was suggesting that the fledgling student
punk band "The Turdgid Miasma of Existence"
(later rechristened "Mindslam", unfortunately
in my opinion) to do a benefit performance
at this demonstration. The people in the band
stayed up late the night before writing
protest songs appropriate for the event (like
"I Can't Get No Fair Elections", to the tune of...
well, you get it). They set up their equipment
on the balcony outside of the student offices
and from one point of view, it was a failure:
it did not attract a crowd of people to the
protest. On the other hand, it annoyed the
hell out of some of the People's Platform types,
and it did get us on the cover of the Daily
for one more day (Jessica Wing, at that time
one of the vocalist/guitarists of the band
eaisly met the Daily's high photojournalistic
standards...).
The first "Mindslam" tape has one of these
protest songs enshrined on it:
This election sucks
And every vote, is a vote cast
This election sucks
And I want my vote to last
The resolution of this controversy?
The Chappie guys went on to collect
enough signatures to force a recall
election. If 2/3 of the people vote
to recall, then the current government
is out of office, and a new election
must be held. A majority voted to
recall, but the numbers fell a bit short
of 2/3.
Had the People's Platform any class,
they would've resigned at that point,
and possibly won the next election.
They didn't. They were voted out the
next year.
(Now in 1995 there's another group calling itself
the People's Platform back in power again.
Student bodies have a cultural memory even
shorter than the American electorate... )
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