Nus Extra or: How I learned to stop worrying and love the Card (part 3)

So having lulled you into slumber, will i actually make a point, well yes, hopefully, here it is.

I have come to find meaning and significance to NUS extra. It shocked me as i sat daydreaming on the train home to suddenly find a more inspiring raison d’etre for the much maligned NUS Extra card.

My epiphany was simple. the NUS Extra card was a way of strengthening the bongs between the NUS and it’s constituent student unions, and between the NUS and it’s disparate apathetic students. I suddenly realised that innumerate fools who have driven the NUS to the brink of collapse may have been the mere finger of fate, allowing the NUS Extra card it’s fiery birth.The card turns metaphysical whispers of a common success into a tactile experience.

Put simply it shows starkly how the success of the NUS, and the success of student unions are bonded together. It sells the idea of shared future, of a shared success, or of the potential for shared failure. It rekindles a sense of togetherness by acknowledging the failure past, and forges the identity of a shared future.

That the student unions share in the finical benefits of the card gives them a stake in its, and through that the NUS’s, success. The end user, the student, can quantify to themselves the benefits of the NUS, can see how that only a functioning NUS can continue to deliver benefits, and only an NUS of decent individuals can extend the discounts further.

A part of me will always hate NUS Extra cards, seeing them as mortgaging the crown jewels of the NUS to satisfy creditors at the gates. But a larger part of me hopes that since history is written by the victor, we can retcon the story of NUS extra to contain chapter and verse about finding the idea that inspires every member to see that everyone has a stake in a shared future. Hopefully a future of success.

Nus Extra or: How I learned to stop worrying and love the Card (part 2)

pro scribo, The following does not pretend, nor intend, to be some historical treatise or analysis of a hugely complex and nuanced affair, but it serves a purpose and is a simplified opinion

Tony Blair has his faults. People could toss out events such as Iraq, shameful acts like not calling for a ceasefire in Iraq, and the dreadful inaction over Darfur. Some people might point to ’sofa-government’, style over spin, Alistair Campbell. But perhaps selfishly i will always admire him for working with Clinton to bring an end to the struggle in Northern Ireland.

Since the Creation of the Irish Free State, the progenitor of the modern republic, there has been an open wound to many Irish, both those in Eire, and those in the province. The iniquitous solution to an unenviable problem of a divided population in the 6 counties, would always ferment trouble, and over the course of the 20th century the victims of British pride have been various, a multitude of innocent civilians on both sides, the innocence of civilians who were stuck in a wretched and inhumane system, and the ideals of Liberté, égalité, fraternité were conscientiously thrown away in favour of control, iniquity, and divide and rule.

By handing control to one religious group to the complete exclusion of another, there was created a sense of divided, diverse futures. You knew if you were born into a catholic job, there were far far fewer jobs that were open to you, based solely on your religion. Whilst those born into a protestant family had the confidence of having the establishment on their side.

This created the insipid pandemic of disparate futures that occurs in every occupation vs occupier, entrenched majority vs oppressed minority, fat cat boss vs factory floor peon. The creation of the sentiment of two communities, two futures, the reconcilable differences were ignored and grew a suffix. With no shared stakes in success, it seemed to be more beneficial to close down, retract into enclaves and islands, and put up fences. And if you barely share a single street cobble with the other side, where can you see benifit in compromise? all you see is an ever more divided past, present and future.

The spark of genius, the golden thread running through the 1990’s negotiations was presenting the narrative of a bonding of futures. The idea that sharing a bond of any kind, to the respective hated enemy of either side was enough to make many balk. But slowly and surely, both sides came to see that since they shared the same space, and were inflicting the same wounds on each other, they did indeed share things, not least of which was a future.

Realising that neither side could unilaterally succeed by very definition of the conflict, the vision of the shared future, prosperity and peace was what ultimately brought the troubles to an end. And peace in Northern Ireland has been (hopefully) found. A pax Blairus.

So strong is the pull of buying in to a shared success that it can eventually lead to then end of a protracted, endemic, aged conflict between two very different and divided groups. This yearning for success, when harnessed, can be amazingly productive.

And success is all the easier when every one plays a part, and knows the dividend shared is the dividend desired

part 3, actually turning all this parable-ised preamble into a point, is really just a click away. If you’ve hung in thus far, the pay-off is a-coming

Nus Extra or: How I learned to stop worrying and love the Card (part 1)

Cast your minds back to the heady days of early 2005. We had all become catching fleeting glimpses of those telltale white earbuds that marked someone out as an Apple Acolyte, as a proud owner of the much desired iPod. It seems odd to many of us now, but a mere two years ago There was only one iPod. No mini, no nano, no shuffle. But what an iPod? Colour screen, photo displaying, 30gb. Though the iPod had been around for 4 years by this point, they were still highly desirable, and with features and style that no-one else seemed to be able to match, Apple was printing money.

But not everyone had iPods, starting at $349 for the 30gb, that amazing style and Apple ethos was out of the reach of most non-working people, and a healthy majority of those who did work. It still seems slightly ludicrous when you say it out-loud, but who pays hundreds of pounds for a simple music player?

At this point in time, even with the iPod at dizzying heights apple spotted a gap. They had securely locked down the market for affluent enough people who didn’t mind shelling out considerable abouts of money for a music player that had 3 times more space that many audiophiles required. But there was still the vast market of people to whom the idea of spending so much on something so seemingly frivolous made them nauseous. These were the people stuck with the many many flash-based mp3 players.

These little things are still around today, normally in pound shops and the like. You know the things i mean. plasticy clunky, cheap little 256mb slightly enhanced usb sticks. Just enough to fill up for that morning commute. But cheaply made, lacking in design, no value added.

What someone clever at apple realised is that there were literally millions of people who desperately wanted to buy into the Apple image. The smooth, round corners, the super cool silhouette adverts, the whiteness.

A simple man would have designed and built the iPod Shuffle (the first device that turned a lack of control into a selling point), and put roughly the same margin on as it’s big brother. But the true genius at apple was the man who said, “No”, for he had true insight. Sure the iPod only cost $30 dollars to make, but people weren’t going to buy it for what it was, but what it represented.

It represented all that was holy with Apple, and people wanted to buy in to that vision. They wanted so badly to buy in to apple that they were prepared to pay over the odds for that apple brand. Apple had found success, and pretty soon 10million people bought into that sense of success by buying iPod Shuffles.

part 2, where we start to tangentially approach the point, coming right up

p.s. the tittle is of course a reference to Dr. Strangelove in case you were confused

The new P2P?

Interesting blog post about the limited capabilities for the internet to transfer large amounts of data, I never knew google used fedex rather than gmail to send files!

FedEx Faster than t’Interweb

You really do learn something everyday.

While I should’ve been Revising: NUS Extra?

While on tour in the wonderful city of bath, a fine place to be when England makes it’s brief foray into summer, I found a whole new bunch of people to bore with the antics of the NUS. The conversation arose after a Bath student complained that for the first time since they started university this year, they were refused their student discount as they didn’t have the NUS Extra card.

 

This started a flat wide discussion as to student discounts in general, and NUS Extra discounts in particular. Of the 6 people in the flat, only one had the NUS extra card, and complained that having invested the £10 at the beginning of the term, he had to date used it only once, and half-heartedly complained that the ‘extra’ discount was being given away to any student. He felt lied to by his student union and by the NUS into believing that the hallowed student discounts offered by this card were in fact not ‘extra’, but standard.

 

This stirred the others into fierce criticism of the whole practise of having to pay for ‘what students have had for decades and what rightly or wrongly consider an inalienable right as a student’. As an NUS delegate I feel some kind of collective cabinet responsibility for NUS policy decisions, and am more than happy to act as a quasi-ambassador at spreading the reasoning behind the policies to the members we claim to represent.

 

As a side note it becomes clearer every day that the NUS does a shockingly bad job at cascading it’s reasons and arguments down beyond the many, rather hackish, delegates who take part, this is a failing of the NUS, the various Student Unions, and of course ourselves as delegates-cum-ambassadors.

 

The first argument wheeled out was the main one put forward by the NUS itself, that the financial security required by both individual student unions and the NUS can only be found through NUS extra. Quick as a flash they came back with, ‘So basically we are having to pay for the past years of financial mismanagement? How exactly is that fair?’. I floundered. What response is there to that? Had the NUS kept a handle on it’s finances instead of being run by a bunch of numerically dyslexic monkeys with little real concern for the union they were handing down, would we now be in a position where we are mortgaging the family silver of student discounts in order to pay the bills?

 

Reeling from this exchange I brought out the oft repeated phrase of ‘Student discounts are a privilege gained by the NUS negotiating on students behalf and not an automatic right’. This was met without incredulity bordering on out-right hostility. “If the NUS can’t even provide the most simple, most expected, and most used benefit to it’s students for the price already paid, what on earth is it doing?”, said one. “At a time when most people only hear of the NUS when proceeded by the words ‘bloody useless’, ‘waste of time’, or ‘out of touch’, why on earth would it seek to add further barriers to it’s acceptance as an essential-to-students organisation” added another.

 

With the conversation becoming more animated a rather calmer individual stepped in with “why is it that what has always been a two way relationship between student and retail business, has now become a three-party relationship with the NUS acting as some kind of conman middle-man telling both sides that without it there could be no student discount, and trying to make money out of both.”. This person was a management student.

 

What to say? When put like this does not the NUS sound like some shifty back alley phone card seller, convincing you that by using HIS card you will be able to call Zimbabwe or somewhere for the lowest rate around. For an organisation full of people who merrily chant ‘no to the marketisation of education’, it seems odd that many of the same people are content to accept marketisation of our membership. It would seem hostility to ‘right wing’ ideas, and to standing on principle, evaporates under fiscal pressures.

While I should’ve been Revising: Concerning the NUS

While it is certain that some delegates who rock up to conference come wearing t-shirts daubed with absurd tribal markings such as ‘punks for socialism’, and ‘RESPECT [our right to hate Gays, Jews, and anyone with more than £10, while ducking under the banner of islamophobia every time opposition is encountered]‘, many arrive fresh faced and eager to do right by the students they seek to represent. A surprising number don’t walk into every vote knowing how they’ll vote. They listen to the debate, to the points made, and to the overheard chit chatter of surrounding delegates before making a decision (unless they are whipped, a most abhorrent process).

The problem is that, by and large, the NUS is run by the few who can convince themselves they know how they’re going to vote before a debate and exposition of reasoning. Most speeches have electoral tinges, and many consist of faction-pleasing axioms like ‘we must not let the right-wing prevail’, or entirely vacuous mob-pleasing statements like ‘I’m against racism’ or ‘I’m against Fascism’, or, ‘I’m against bad things, and approve of good things’. These oft-repeated catchphrases get the roar, but certainly bore.

An interesting outcome of the most recent London Regional Conference was that NUS ‘fresher’s’ decried the power and interference of factions, while the self-defined ‘hacks’ applauded it and pooh-poohed the ‘fresher’s’ calls to try and weaken their grip on agendas and votes. One anonymous source was quoted as saying NUS National President Gemma Tummelty  “scoffed” at the idea.

At first I was entirely clueless as to the cause of such a response. I wondered why delegates who surely stood on a platform furthering a better life for their members could use compositing as a playground tussle, which is ultimately won by the biggest bully. Why didn’t really pragmatic, useful ideas like “why don’t we put all the uncontensious motions, that we can all agree on, at the top of the motions list; and allow ourselves the rest of the session to discuss the exact semantic meaning of ‘anti-Semitism’.” rather than letting what amounted to constitutional boxing match for more hours than i care to remember. Eventually my rusty cogs strung together a hypothesis based on experience and inference.

The natural reflex of many of the careerist-cum-hacks is to assume, naturally, that in an NUS setting, most people have made their mind up, and it’s very much a ‘you are with us, or you are against us’ attitude. This makes sense to them as by and large most of the so-called ‘players’ within the active body politic of the NUS do fit this mould. So these people get used to most things being done by securing factional support, circling the wagons, and calling the opposition ‘right wing’. Both sides do it, and it’s a whoever-has-the-biggest-faction-wins kind of game.

As people become involved, the tend to face a moral dilemma, familiar to many a Westminster MP of the governing party entering parliament. Does one a) stay independent, make up ones mind after a healthy, rational, and informed debate as best one can in the best interests of one’s members, or b) take the Crown’s coin, become a minister, and sign on to the ‘message’; for the only way to ensure advancement within the ranks of the NUS, is to take the factional coin, sign up, sign away your individuality and independence, and use the factional vote to secure election.

So for one group of people within the NUS, the abrasive, black & white, winner-takes-all attitude becomes engrained to the point where all students encountered on the political scene are treated uniformly.

But it is often forgotten that there is a vast pool in the middle, a group of individuals who try to listen, understand and then make a decision. A group who become nauseated and thoroughly turned off by internecine squabbling and constitutional tennis. A group who if treated as intelligent, free-thinking adults will always be won over by strong argument. A group who have no aspirations for office and therefore do genuinely tend to try and strive for the best outcomes.

Sadly, as regional showed, while those in power owe their place to those whose coin they took, they will never have an interest in unsullied debate

A letter to a friend: BNP, Just say no

Dear Darien,

You’re deliberate misunderstanding of the situation shows that what you seek is not true freedom of speech for all, but simply a cutailed ‘freedom’, to be used soley for your, and the BNP’s, own uses. Genuine free speech is the single greatest weapon to be wielded against the racists and bigots who make up the BNP Having extensively researched their manifesto and policies when crafting a paraticular policy for my union, I can quickly and easily see how riduclous, hate-filled, and disgusting their policies actually are. Freedom of Speech means giving me the right to stand up and say that.

Free Speech gives everyone and anyone who disagrees with the policies and methods of the BNP the oppertunity to show them up for the ignorant racists they are. Freedom of speech allows us to ridicule them for their backwards small minded beliefs. Freedom of speech means that every time Danny Lake stands up to spread hate, 100 intelligent people can stand up and call him out for what he is.

What Danny Lake propsed at your campus is not freedom of speech, so don’t dare take such a sacred, fundamental, and ancient principal, and debase it by trying to use it to defend what is by and large a recruitment drive for the BNP. If you, or the BNP, really believed in freedom of speech, there would be no need to have a closed, invitation only event. Denying others the chance to call out Nick Griffin & Danny Lake for the racists they are by ensuring there is no opposition IS NOT FREEDOM OF SPEECH.

Have you heard of a little thing called RedWatch.org? If not I suggest you check it out before you continue your association with Danny Lake and the BNP. The BNP believes so feverently in freedom of speech that it has a whole website dedicated to cataloguing it’s detractors and critics, and providing photos, names, and address so that the thugs can be sent out so attack them. This is the freedom of speech the BNP believes in.

I would happily commend the idea of bringing Nick Griffin onto my campus, but only if there was open debate and questioning of his views, where he had to try and defend his views to someone who disagreed with him. It is disgusting to think that he can be given a free pass to talk to students, and say what he likes without anyone to point out the lies, inconsistencies and tabloid-esque blood libels he perpetrates.

I respected you Darien for having opinions and voicing them, for appearing to have some sound principles, but the more you sympathise with the BNP, the less weight I feel you can give to your other, much more valid, opinions.

How can you hate someone who’ve not met? How can you wish ill of another human being? How can you judge someone simply on their appearance, place of birth, origin or religion? There are plenty of criminal white people around the world for me to use the BNP’s extrapolation methods to call all white people criminals. There is nothing in your DNA, my DNA, anyone’s DNA that makes them better or worse than anyone else. The amount of melanin my skins cells secrete does not impact on any aspect of my personality.

Judge people by their actions, not their ancestry. Fight for true free speech during a time when it is genuinely under threat from an impish desire to mortgage our liberties and freedoms out of fear of terrorism (a by product of civilisation as old as civilisation itself). Do not fall for the buzz words and intellectually vapid chants of the thugs hooligans and racists of the BNP.

Yours Hopefully, your friend,

Chris