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Inspiration from a Strange Source

By Sam Costello

Being an editor at a publication like Buzzsaw Haircut is a pretty thankless job. We get a lot of criticism, much of it deserved, but very rarely do we receive any positive feedback from those who read the magazine. In fact, that can lead us, sometimes, to wonder if anybody's reading at all, and if not, why are we doing this? It can seem like a waste of time, all the effort we put in, for returns as small as seeing our names in print and having a place to voice our thoughts. It can make one downright jaded, tired and cynical. Bitter, even.

However, I was inspired last week. It's been a long time since I was last inspired. These last few months, my head's been dragging, I spend more time looking at feet than at faces, and I've lacked the energy to hope. But maybe that's all changing. And embarrassingly, it was an SGA meeting that gave me some strength.

Yes, the very SGA that has been ridiculed and mocked in these pages. The same SGA which is not seen as very cool or very effective by many on campus (that's why it's embarrassing). But it was this same SGA which held me enthralled for nearly three hours on the night of Tuesday, February 8.

I'd gone to this meeting to serve as Buzzsaw's representative for budgetary matters. Once that was concluded, though, I stayed to support ICES's (the IC Environmental Society) bid to get SGA to sign onto a resolution opposing the proposed Southwest Business Park development. This development, slotted go be placed on a flood plain behind Wegman's and K-Mart if finalized, stands to add as many as eight "big box" stores to the Ithaca area, and about 55 acres of parking lots. But, on that night, Ithaca Mayor Alan Cohen's dream of this shopping mecca was dealt a bit of a blow. You see, SGA voted overwhelmingly to join with ICES, a number of Cornell groups, and downtown activists and merchants in opposition to the proposal.

This decision was only part of what made the night such a recharging experience for me. Certainly, SGA's decision may well have an important impact on the outcome of this development. SGA, as the voice of the students of Ithaca College (as noted in the resolution), has weighed in on the side of local merchants, not mega-chain stores; on the side of a community, not a corporation, on the side of those area merchants who stood to lose as much as $4 million dollars a year to the proposed shopping area. SGA has come down on the right side of the issue and perhaps begun to build an important bridge between the community and the students of the college, one that may be further solidified in the future. SGA has taken a bold stand, one not normally found at Ithaca College, affirming the college's relationship with the residents of Ithaca, our solidarity and shared interests. Starting here, we no longer have to be the college on the hill, we can simply be another part of town.

As rhapsodic as all this sounds, though, this wasn't the inspiring part. The thing that brought this renewed hope in me was the process that SGA went through to arrive at its decision. This was representative democracy at work. Yeah, representative democracy, an institution much maligned all across the country these days, for its corruption and imprecision. And rightfully so. Do the American people truly have many candidates that will fight for them this election year, or do the rich people in this country simply have two parties, cosmetically different, but substantively the same, advocating for them? Does the voice of the American people matter much, when faced with primaries, the electoral college system, and unlimited campaign fundraising? See why I was so down?

However, democracy at Ithaca College worked very well at that SGA meeting, even if it was only for one night. SGA representatives took turns, discussed civilly, abided by a shared set of rules, and managed to still be effective. There are many organizations and groups in Ithaca which purport to be democratically ordered. And they are, but they lacked something SGA possessed February 8: decisiveness. These democratic groups are long on procedure and philosophy, but often very short on results because people are afraid to criticize each other, and any idea, no matter how extraneous or lame-brained, is seen as crucial to the democratic process. As such, meetings which ought to take an hour will often drag across two or three. And while SGA did take three hours that night, it was necessary. The issue of the Southwest development is a complex one which should not be shunted aside for the sake of expediency, as a number of representatives noted.

Perhaps democracy worked at Ithaca College's Student Government Association that night because there was no chance for the representatives to be corrupted. There were no major campaign donors, no lobbyists, no public relations specialists, no closed-door meetings. Perhaps the relative lack of power invested in SGA means that no one tries to corrupt it or its processes. Or perhaps, that night proved that, at least on the small town meeting-size scale that the founders of the country envisioned, our democracy really does have a hope of working.

Either way, it was a night, and a feeling, I'll not soon forget. And those involved are people you'll probably not be able to ignore on this campus in the next few years. If it was not for the fine, passionate work of Kia Kozun, Anna Ehrlich, Sean Vormwald, and all the other members of ICES and YDS (Young Democratic Socialists [of which this writer is a member, though he did not participate in the project discussed in this essay]), none of this would have been accomplished.

Maybe democracy, on the national level, in our country is just a facade designed to make us average folks feel like we have some say in our lives (the opposite conclusion, that we have no control, is far too scary). Maybe. But, at least for a night, democracy worked at Ithaca College and some good was done. And in the process, my capacity to believe in people, and what they can accomplish, was resuscitated.

Sam Costello is a senior Media Studies major at Ithaca College. Email him to discuss theories of democracy.