Senate misguided on recovered funds

    Democracy on campus is in trouble.
    You want proof? Just look at your (I would say beloved, but I know as well as you do that that is simply not true) Tufts Community Union (TCU) Senate.
    Imagine an organization that you "elect" and that you expect to take your sentiments into account when deciding what to do with your tuition money. Now imagine that that organization just gave $230,000 to an organization that there's a decent chance you're on the e-mail list of, but an even better chance that you've never participated other than signing up.
    I can understand giving the Tufts Mountain Club (TMC) a lot of money, but $230,000? That's ridiculous. If they needed the money so badly, maybe they should have transferred some of it from their fund to randomly place pumpkins in front of buildings or even from their fund to plan fake protests against the cutting down of trees that are not in jeopardy of being cut down. Couldn't the TMC at least let the student body use the Loj for free?
    I'm not going to tell the TCU Senate how specifically to spend their money because I don't think that the money should be theirs at all. The system just doesn't work for college students.
    How many college students do you know that would vote to pay for some student publication that is nationally or internationally known? I know a few, but they aren't on the TCU Senate.
    How many college students do you know that have the time to run for office and have a need to lead people they don't have a desire to know? I know a few, but not very well; their organization is called the TCU Senate.
    How many college students have that kind of time and also really have a beat on the pulse of the student body? Recent events show the vast majority of the TCU Senate either has no idea what the student body wants or just doesn't care; I'm not really sure which is worse.
    It's time that we stop giving all of the power over our money to the winners of a popularity contest, because most of us who don't have time to run sure as hell don't have any desire to vote for a candidate who wouldn't listen to what we have to say anyways.
    Maybe there can't be a revolution where the students overthrow their "elected" leaders and maybe we can't force the school to make changes, but we as students have to make our voices heard, to take a stand, to put the TCU Senate on notice, because we definitely can't go on like this.
    In conclusion, I ask the student body not to vote in the upcoming election. Just don't vote, because we can't make our voices heard by voting. Instead of voting, I ask that, whenever you see a member of the TCU Senate or one of the class councils or executive boards, heckle them and make sure they know your opinions on issues. And if you don't have opinions on the issues they vote on, heckle them anyway so that they have to be conscious of the fact that they should be thinking about the student body, not just some club that doesn't need the money anyway.