Nothing to fight for
by Matt Worley

When the most burning political question revolves around the right of a sitting president to have groupies, something is wrong. When two neighboring countries are involved in a pissing contest over the ability to destroy one another, something must be terribly amiss. And when the university dissidents are fighting for their right to get really drunk, one must ponder the state of the world. Or at least the world next door.

One of my favorite movies as an aging teenager was Pump Up The Volume. A little ditty about a shy high schooler who broadcast an outrageous pirate radio show to his neighborhood in an Arizona suburb. One of the many rants in the movie revolves around the subject of having nothing to do, coupled with the paradox of having the tools to do anything. "All the good themes have been used up, turned into theme parks," the isolated radio voice mutters in dripping sarcasm.

Today's high school and college students have found this perceived dearth of protest material to be true. And nothing illustrates this point better than the students themselves--who find they are at a time in their life when they can protest anything they want, but have nothing of substance to believe in.

Nine months ago, a middle school in Albuquerque instituted a strict dress code (as many schools around the country have done in response to the strict dress code of many gangs), causing an uproar from a few dozen suddenly oppressed pre-pubescents. The dress code called for black pants and white shirts, with no athletic clothing logo being over three inches in diameter. The students wanted to wear the BIG swoosh. Apparently manhood, as perceived in the minds of the young, is being able to wear the biggest corporate logo one can stretch across one's chest. The protests only lasted a few days, and students actually seem to enjoy not having to think about what to wear in the mornings now. More time to play the GameBoy, I guess.

College students don't seem to have much of a world view either. Or they seem to want to obliterate it entirely. During the last few months, clashes with police over college-aged (many underage) drinking have occurred. Apart from the ten or so dissidents at an Ohio State war rally headed by the Secretary of State in February (an attempt to whip the fires of war into the minds of the young), most of the college students in this country seem to be mad they can't get drunk wherever they please.

Riots over this "right" have occurred. Riots. What the hell is going on?

When the United States was on the brink of war with Iraq in 1991, I was a college student. There were a few protests at the University of New Mexico, the strangest being the guy who stripped naked for peace. Being 19, I was really hoping the ground war didn't last too long. Draft paranoia had my heart, and the easiest way to get rid of it was to drink way too much. But the thought of protesting the drinking age, or the "dry" campus laws, or room searches by R.A.'s for illegal substances never crossed my mind. After all, I was underage, and the point of drinking when you're underage is not only to get drunk, but to sneak around while doing it.

So sneak around we did. Somehow we found ways to get those 1.75 liter bottles of rum and tequila into the dorms. And cases of cheap beer. And other stuff. Anything we knew how ingest and procure was game. It was a game, a test of authority, and it was necessary in our minds.

But that doesn't mean it's a right. This isn't something to get all worked up about. Getting blotto, turning over cars, and fighting the cops might seem like fun, but it's not a protest. It's not one of those "inalienable rights" described in the constitution. And it's certainly not something to base your entire student protest life fighting for.

I swear, there are tons of things a student can speak out against and feel good about protesting. There is the rampant corporate sponsorship of colleges around the country. Many colleges only sell one type of soda (Coke or Pepsi) on their campuses because they've been paid off. What happens when a student really likes to drink Coke and the only thing he can buy is Pepsi? This certainly will affect his studies. And this is just one of the evils a current college student can protest.

I'm sure there are more, but I'm kind of drunk right now. And there's another rally at Johnson Field soon. I plan to throw up on the riot cops, and meet the girl of my dreams on the way to jail.

Matt Worley remembers being told he and his friends were "more like Kindergarten students than college students" by campus police in the early 90s. Of course it was the cops who were hiding in the bushes when we were pissing off the SUB balcony--talk about being childish.

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