Comments

1
Re: letter to Sam

Why do activists make it so hard to like them?
2
Don't like a law? Bang a pot, go on a hunger strike, or camp in a park.

I just don't understand people any more. Why doesn't anyone seem to understand cause and effect? It's like they think they're doing magic.....like making a new law is pretty much the same as bringing Tinkerbell back to life. "If we all just clap hard enough...!"
3
@ 2, I guess it's more fun to bang a pot than to get capable legislators elected who share your aims.

I'm also not sure what's being protested. There are roughly a jillion options for getting a college degree in this country. Some cost more than others. While it's true that 18 year olds by and large have no real concept of the reality of a long debt repayment, it's also true that it doesn't take a genius to figure out if the total cost of their education is something that will be manageable given the (very general) type of career they are seeking.

I'll agree that parents, schools and colleges have done an absolutely abysmal and often counterproductive job at aiding young adults making this decision.

Still, the whole thing smacks of entitlement to me, as if it's the government's job to provide a magically low-cost Fancy Four-Year College Experience to anyone interested.
4
even if education were cheap there's hardly any freaking jobs out there. all these schools pushing degrees that have little to no use in the real world anymore. college is becoming obsolete, at least a lot of the mediocre majors are. i have an idea. let's bang on a bunch of pots, yeah!
5
Why shouldn't it be the government's job to provide high quality public education? It has been for the last 50 years. Except in the last 15, there has been a dramatic increase in tuition costs because rich people need more tax cuts.

It's not just university students who are in trouble either, they're coming after public education for kids too. It's an "emerging market" for private companies to come in.

In addition, the quality of education suffers when you have a corporate model guiding the way you do things. You do research for pharmaceutical companies instead of for the sake of science. You create economic theories that will get you speaking gigs in corporate conferences instead of being a critical analyst.

It's a scam -- worse than that which caused the housing bubble -- and only the ahistorical or willfully ignorant can't understand why people have a problem with it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNM7nvcVm-0
6
"This event will be safe because we, the organizers, will ensure the safety of the people who choose to attend it against any and all people who choose to disrupt it."

Ooooooookay. And how will you...no, what am I thinking, questioning the assurances of "The Organizers"?
7
Occupy Portland here :since we see yet another chance to get media coverage from the local rags and an opportunity to annoy average passer bys we have jumped upon this chance. We really don't care if it has little to do with us and is taking place in another country. That never stops us. We didn't bother to get a permit, and secretly hope the police do come, as this will give us more opportunities for lawsuits, pissing , moaning and whining. @ CC and reymont....you are assuming they are being logical. Mistake. While I agree education is a farce in this country this does NOT allow you to have a sense of entitlement. So very Portland. Yes, it's "unfair"rich people get the educations, housing etc. It's also called life. Get the fuck over it and do what you can to improve it for the deserving. Demonstrations and bitching is not accomplishing that. Or anything else.
8
Don't be an idiot, Colin.

We've created a society where having a college degree is all-but-mandatory if you want to be anything besides poor all your life - thereby forcing whoever can beg, borrow, or steal the money to go to college to have any hope of a prosperous future. Yet at the same time, many people with college degrees (yes, including some practical ones, it's not just the Philosophy and English majors) either can't find work in their field at all, or end up having to work for less than they expected, with less job security, and no likelihood of moving up in the foreseeable future. Oh, yeah, and add to this the fact that real income for most of the population is falling while tuitions are rising much faster than inflation, and that student debt typically can't be discharged by any means whatsoever, thereby ensuring that anyone who doesn't win the career lottery spends the productive years of their life struggling to survive as a debt slave.

You're damn right those students are entitled - they worked to earn those degrees and took those loans because we promised they'd be better off for it. Now we owe them good jobs and comfortable middle class living, because that was what they bargained for, and if we can't give them that, then they ought to get their money back, because they've been cheated.

Beyond that, though, it's ridiculous that anyone should ever end up in this position to begin with. Education is an investment on society's behalf, society profits from it, and that means that society should pay the cost for it. The businesses that are able to start up and prosper because we have a highly educated population owe part of that prosperity to that educational investment, so they should be paying taxes (or something similar) to support it. It's outrageous that we're still saddling individual students with the responsibility of paying for something that any reasonable person would want them to have.
9
@7L "We really don't care if it has little to do with us and is taking place in another country." Privatization of education and ever-increasing tuition to college has nothing to do with us? Interesting!

"While I agree education is a farce in this country this does NOT allow you to have a sense of entitlement." Entitlement = to use public space for public purposes? Do you know what the word means? Look it up.

"Yes, it's "unfair"rich people get the educations, housing etc. It's also called life. Get the fuck over it and do what you can to improve it for the deserving." This is an apt description of why things have come to the point they are at. There's inequity and I can't do anything about it! I just have to take it! Why don't other countries experience the same inequity we have?
10
@8 and 9: Amen. People who don't think demonstration and protest accomplishes anything need to take a history class. Go ahead. Step right up and shell out the ~$750 (undergrad) to $1500 (grad-level) to take a single fucking class at PSU. Then tell me about the land of opportunity.

Students in French Canada are 100% right to reject these tuition hikes. The fact that Americans have been taking this BS for as long as we have only signals how docile we've become. American students, grow a pair.

11
Wow what a bunch of group think. "occupy portland here:" yeah right. step one is to not accept. you accept that a person has to go into crippling debt to have an education- why? because you're brainwashed because our whole society is lacking the education to discriminate good and bad information - to hold media accountable for being more than a circus. as a result, we've lost the entire institution of independent journalism and investigative reporting. you're bitching because our noisemaking doesn't do anything. that is like bitching because someone who yells "fire" when there is a fire didn't yell loudly enough for your liking. we shouldn't even have to be spending time on this step of rousing the public to start questioning hardships that don't have to exist. every persistent mass suffering such as homelessness, unaffordable education, debt, foreclosure, lack of access to healthcare, lack of clean food and water, environmental poison sickness, loss of wilderness... haven't you noticed someone out there is keeping it this way because there's money in it? and that if communities try to organize solutions they are actively stopped? and that the only way to win is to bring in others to the cause to reach that critical amount of awareness for the media to even report this problem? so we are literally banging on pots and pans to wake you up and you sit here from your lazy judgmental couch throne and criticize us because its not effective on YOU? don't you dare tell me how i should better save the heritage of my country which includes human rights, freedom and a livable society. we're only trying to call attention. and sadly we're stuck at this first step of asking you to not accept what we don't have to because you're so eager to defend tyrants. you want to look at history? nothing was ever improved by content people who accepted overlords like you are. and i'm not going to point to any one person here. you'll know who you are if the shoe fits. for the others of you i hope you can understand how sick i am of hearing criticism from people who do NOTHING about problems it only takes a large number of people caring to solve. communities have answers if the crooked members of government and the businesses that buy them get out of the way but that takes many voices to speak before they will be heard over the well-funded machine. we're so desperate for your participation. it's discouraging to see so many people not care- so many people convinced this is all fine and victims are at fault and corporations have no responsibility and politicians can't be held accountable for epic failures. step one is "don't accept" and after we bang on enough pots and pans for you to wake up and investigate for yourself, we'll proceed to step two because one should never underestimate what a community can accomplish together. just try saying that you don't accept that our nation's kids and young adults can't be educated without possibly sacrificing their future from debt- that there has to be another way and you're committed to finding it with others who care- then find those people and TRY. these folks are also networking and having discussions and showing their kids caring counts- they are making a commitment to working for change. just because all you see is pots and pans being banged doesn't mean it is nothing. we got you talking about it- you're reading the idea that it doesn't have to be this way. we got into the media and into your eyes and minds and someday one of you might join us in some attempt to change things. maybe you could make it a little easier for us to get you to care more instead of criticizing how we appeal to you for help. gads

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