Dear Anarchist Aunt Abby,
I am so tired. Not only did I work almost 100 hours this week, but my colleagues and I had to spend the entirety of our remaining leisure time campaigning for a fee referendum, attempting to convince our fellow students to keep our penniless student union alive. We were so close, but the students betrayed us, and we failed.
Abby, where did we go wrong? Why did it have to be this way? We’ve given our all for the students we represent, and this is how they reward us? This is simply not fair.
Please help me. There is no meaning to my life anymore.
—Overworked SHMU executive
Dear Overworked,
Let this be a lesson for those who still hold liberal sensibilities. You only wanted the best for your student union – but capitalism harshly punishes the communitarian impulse. The life of a McGall student is a precarious one; it leaves no time for political aspirations. Past the Roddick Gates, it’s every student for themselves, their lives nasty, brutish, solitary, and short.
Under these conditions, trying to overcome students’ total alienation from their student union is a near futile endeavour – though I’ll say that I admire your attempt. Your ambitiousness was truly without par, and the movement you have built is impressive indeed.
But mark my words, Overworked – there can be no political revolution without a radical attack on the upper classes of this institution. Without such an assault, no attempt to build a mass movement against the establishment on its own terms can ever hope to succeed. The master’s referenda will never redress the master’s underfunding.
Luckily, you don’t have to play into their games. What you lack in strength you must make up in cleverness; you must employ the tried and true techniques of radical direct action.
Your student union needs money; go after the 1 per cent and take the money where the money is.
The deep-pocketed barons in the Hotel Motel Faculty of Predatory Capitalism are an obvious target. Infiltrate the Predatory Capitalism Undergraduate Board’s weekly 4à7 and sell a strangely addictive drink (inconspicuously costing $5.50). Even better, set up camp by the James Defenestration building and lure in the upper administrators with irresistible soup and breadsticks (conveniently priced at $5.50).
These measures should give you the necessary resources to continue operating the student union, until you gather the revolutionary strength necessary to turn the university into a self-managed commune, and truly take matters into your own hands.
Desperate times call for desperate measures, Overworked. You must lead this charge, and be the leader that your union needs, not the one it deserves. I predict doom shall fall otherwise. From the ashes must rise a flock of phoenixes, to shatter the chains of power, to annihilate hierarchy, and establish the rule of all by all for all.
In the meantime, I wish you luck.