Is the Base actively recruiting new members?

The Base is recruting new members ?!?!?!?! Nahhh, it couldn't be? Or could it? With the majority of the "Base" members in the final stage of their university careers, might they try to prolong their legacy by recruiting new, younger members?

And after having been named in Amy Kishek's recent blog amykishek.blogspot.com/2009/03/base-revealed-anecdotes-of-voiceless.html, some new names have come to my attention. It's again quite disappointing because although I already knew most of the "Base's" members, I was somewhat surprised when I recently found out that more names were to be added to this list. Much before Amy published her latest blog, I was well aware of such a "Base" and of it's workings. At first, I wasn't exactly sure what to think of it. It didn't seem wrong to share a commun idea or goal as a group of student leaders. It didn't seem wrong to have one of those student leaders be THE leader of this group.

Now that many more people have found out about this group, it's no big surprise to many of them. Will this recent discovery (of the "Base") discourage it's members to recruit new, younger members? I highly doubt it. It would seem highly unlikely that such a tight knit group would just let themselves shrivel up and disappear.

I for one do not support such a movement. After having recently read the Discourse on Voluntary Servitude by Étienne La Boétie, I found a great similarity in what he explains and the way the "Base" functions and has functionned in the past. In this essay, La Boétie talks about absolute monarchy and tyranny. He says that slaves give up their liberty to the tyrants voluntarally thus serving one man for the rest of their lives without any attempt to change the way they live. La Boétie also mentions near the end of the essay that most tyrants were eventually killed by the ones who were the closest to him.

What is kind of ironic is that the author states at the beginning of this essay that LIBERTY is a natural caracteristic of man and so is his willingness to fight for it at all costs. What seems somewhat odd about this group of so called "student leaders" is that they don't seem to be fighting for their liberty. In fact, they seem to be fighting for the complete opposite thus preserving the Patriarch's position as the "Base's" leader. When he failed to be elected in last year's SFUO elections, he was quickly brought back into the inside by being hired by the SFUO executive to the position that he currently holds.

To get back to my initial subject, I am almost certain that they will secretly continue to recruit young, influencial student leaders into their group and that scares me. As a current sitting executive member for PIDSSA, it scares me to think of how easy it could be for any executive member of any federated body to be swept up by this group thus further corrupting student politics on the University of Ottawa's campus.

Let this be a warning to all of you student leaders out there who still cherish their integrety, who still believe in transparency, and who have always very well represented their student peers. Don't get yourself caught up in this group because, in the end, A LIAR WILL ALWAYS GET CAUGHT. Is it really worth the public humiliation, the risk of having people who looked up to you in the past quickly write you off as a sell out?

Think about it before you fall victim to the Patriarch.