NSA - NATIONAL BOONDOGGLE
Davis, Jefferson S.
INCITES (Continued from Page 2 II Yet the pupil senate is not the only campus organization affected by silvercloud, for his miraculous fumes influence stupid people everywhere. Members of...
...Most students clearly felt the recent chancellorship election a fraud, yet the Stupid boomed it as the dawn of a new democratic era, fawned over the three mountebanks contending against R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr...
...In short it would mean someone in Ernie Pyle's Tabernacle would have to leam to write, edit, produce and market...
...Evidence of its arrogance staggers the imagination, but consider the most recent examples...
...T o join N S A is sort of like buying stock in Edsel Racing Division — good luck sucker...
...who asked those supporting his view not vote), refused to publish that great American's epistles to the editor, and in the end saw 28,500 people endorse Tyrrell's position that it is not democratic for a full time administrator to be elected by a transient constituency of faculty and student which changes by as much as fifty per cent yearly...
...How else to explain the highflown preachments of a handful of trade school undergraduates to a community of thirty thousand scholars (give or take a few conspirators) ? Scribbled by an elitist clique of pompous hinds and literary dwarves the Stupid has in this past year shown that it lacks both solicitude and capacity for serving the majority of Indiana students...
...It would m e a n that the laziest reporters in Christendom could no longer cover their stories by telephone...
...It would be the end of everything...
...has three times affiliated only to later rejoin eightyfive per cent of America's schools by withdrawing from N S A . Since its founding NSA's elitist nature appears as its most enduring feature...
...Oscar Wilde "The Waters are out and no human force can turn them back, but I do not see why as we go with the stream we need sing Hallelujah to the river god...
...N S A has claimed to have reformed its constitution by inserting the line ". . . no more than two members in a delegation m a y be selected by means other than a democratic election by their entire student body as long as this procedure does not conflict with the constitution or by-laws of the member school...
...While Y A F recognizes the legitimacy of any individual's or group's holding political opinions, such stands as 1) advocating ghetto riots, 2) asking the U. S. Governcauses as the United Negro College Fund...
...The Stupid does not report campus news unless it concerns some radical's seance or "relevant demonstration...
...Long opposed by student pragmatists regardless of ideological persuasion, N S A has been axed by a number of student bodies on the obvious grounds that it was ineffective and expensive...
...Last year TAe Alternative coordinating with the Yale Daily offered the pupil senate a splendid plan for weaning the Stupid from the university's bosom and operating it independently...
...seized upon Ramparts' charges for an effective counteroffensive, resulting in the only time in the past ten years N S A has significantly increased its membership...
...Mixing pathos with absurdity the Stupid informed Dave Byrne, chairman of Campus Chest, that they would not publish a picture of the Union Board delivering its check, for the Stupid judges such stories unnewsworthy...
...A Purse of $100 has been raised by a number of patriotic citizens to reward the individual who shall first lay violent hands on Thompson so that he may be brought to the tar kettle before dark...
...Notice in Boston Transcript, October, 1835 "Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people, by the people, for the people...
...Involving itself in politics and assuming an ever further left-leaning posture, N S A has over the years been ousted from many campuses under conservative leadership...
...The only decent course is for its officers and staff to resign, for its representatives abroad to be recalled, for its programs to be suspended...
...Raymond W . Mack Transforming America (New York, 1967), p. 26 // N S A - National B o o n d o g g l e " by Jefferson S. Davis The National Student Association, in spite of increasing attacks leveled against it from all reaches of America's political landscape, is once again attempting to claim the right to speak for America's college students...
...LOYAL READERS, M Y CASE RESTS...
...Continually spuming reform and democratic procedures, most N S A representatives junketing on their fellow students' money are appointees...
...But the left's attacks on N S A have been most damaging...
...And how many students followed the Stupid's exhortations to vote in the election...
...Less than 1500 — in fact more pupils watched the main library bum and twice as many drank free coffee in the Commons during final week...
...Since its inception N S A has been a self-perpetuating bureaucracy living high on the hog from the involuntary contributions of students attending member schools...
...Lewis further indicates the hollow nature of the reform inasmuch as a great number of NSA's member schools have enrollments of less than two-thousand, qualifying them for only two delegates — who, under the terms of the reform, could still be appointed...
...That infamous foreign scoundrel Thompson will hold forth this afternoon at The Liberator office no...
...With typical duplicity, officials represented N S A to unwary moderates and conservatives as a respectable organization — cleansed of its left wing activities by the abandonment of Ramparts and the N e w Republic...
...And as it gossips only about the more bizarre campus follies, it is more than an extracurricular activity — it is a hoax and a nuisance...
...i###^^##j»#<»####»##^>#^#»#i##^#^^sr#^^'^#^^#-#.»^'#-»^#.».#'#^ ment to propose the admission of Communist China to the United Nations, and 3) condemning the "agression of the U . S. Government against the people of Vietnam" hardly represent student opinion and ought not to be financed through student fees or taxes...
...INCITES (Continued from Page 2 II Yet the pupil senate is not the only campus organization affected by silvercloud, for his miraculous fumes influence stupid people everywhere...
...A n d the liberal N e w Republic contended N S A ". . . ought to be disbanded at once...
...Naturally, as the conspiracy has thoroughly infiltrated the Daily Stupid, it comes as no surprise that that organization is thoroughly enervated by herr silvercloud's risibiUc vapor...
...At the same time, armed with the usual bait of free tickets, impressive titles and jobs in NSA's bureaucracy, N S A presented itself to leftists as the injured party, viciously raped by the CIA, and demanded an apology from the CIA's guardian, Uncle Sam...
...Simply stated, the Stupid with its stipend of $250,000 is little more than an extracurricular activity for lamebrains and ideologues with a penchant for gossip...
...The present is a fair opportunity for the friends of the Union to smoke Thompson out...
...Members of The Conspiracy (here the Reverend Nathan refers to The Conspiracy of Stupidity which he described so eloquently in an earlier essay) have shockingly low tolerance...
...Roaring away about everything from how gosh-awful sensitive our generation is to the exigency of racial discord, the Stupid offered but perfunctory support to Campus Chest which donates to such worthy — though unglamorous — <<#^#^»##^-##'^^»<»##^#'^####^^^^#»»»##^^^^S#'»^^N»^#»^^^*>#^^#»#^^^'#»»<*»#^'##'»»^^^^#^*^^^#^^#^»#^^^^^^^^^»#-»^^»#-^# Kelley's C o m m o n - P l a c e B o o k by John Kelley "The conjunction of dreaming and ruling generates tyranny...
...Pleading ignorance regarding the source of its funds, NSA's public relations men, faithful to Plunkitt's law ("I seen m y opportunities and I took 'em...
...46 Washington Street...
...While the Stupid chased all those sensitive students about, donations fell from 1968's $6000 to this year's exiguous $3500 (including the Union Board's generous grant of $1800...
...It just does not respect what Irving Kristol would call I. U.'s passive majority...
...James Fitzjames Stephen Liberty, Equality, Fraternity (1873) p. 242 "The standard research techniques of the sociologist — observation, interviewing, and the questionnaire — are peculiarly unsuited to the study of people who have committed suicide...
...It sent Stupid editors into catatonic trances, for they realized that if cut from the university's apron strings they would either fulfill the university community's needs or fail...
...N o longer could they oogle around their A P teletype witlessly anticipating news of falling skies, invasions from Mars and the resurrection of george lincoln rockwell...
...Rather than report campus social, cultural and athletic events, the Stupid patches its pages with A P and U P I releases on squat-ins at Queens College...
...Washington Star Syndicate, Inc...
...Fortunately these are not the traits of conspirators...
...Fulton Lewis III, remarking on this reform, parallels such qualified N S A democracy to a hypothetical ruling of national scope, asserting that such a qualification in the federal Constitution might read so as to assure ". .. civil rights for all citizens unless this statute is in conflict with the laws of Alabama...
...The University of Southe m California's withdrawal was instructive, though that university must sport a fantastic array of the most gullible student politicians yet known to pupildom...
...NSA's jump in membership was short-lived, however, as the disillusioned once again began to withdraw from the organization...
...Michael Oakeshott, Rationalism and Politics T H O M P S O N T H E ABOLITIONIST...
...Friends of the Union be vigilant...
...In what constitutes a record of some sort, U.S.C...
...Y A F attacks NSA on the grounds that while N S A supposedly represents only student governments, in issuing various resolutions it claims to represent America's students...
...Ridgeway and Kopkind...
...The Stupid editors did suggest Byrne might make the story a little more newsworthy by "whipping up a demonstration for Campus Chest...
...Thus, N S A is: 1) unpalatable to liberals and conservatives, 2) an undemocratic, self-perpetuating bureaucracy, 3) an organization in decline...
...The left-wing magazine Ramparts discovered whence came all the bread to support N S A bureaucrats' world tours: studying a ten year period they discovered N S A financially bound to — lo and behold — the CIA...
...Chartered as a non-profit and non-political organization designed to provide services for university student governments, N S A has consistently failed to act in a manner commensurate with its charter...
...It will be a contest of the Union...
...The conservative Young Americans for Freedom (YAF) and the Students to Oppose Participation in NSA (STOP NSA) have traditionally served as amplifiers for anti-NSA sentiment...
...In fact the Stupid failed so totally in this area that no less than three off-campus publications must compensate for its shortcomings...
...N S A followed none of the exhortations of the N e w Republic's Messrs...
...For instance, one group of students at a small Ohio university successfully campaigned against N S A by calculating the cost of membership as equal to one Hudepohl beer per student...
Vol. 2 • May 1969 • No. 4
