Well, Ed, that was worth waiting for, as Brian said. It may seem churlish,
after your generous remarks, to harp on the one point of apparent
difference between us, but I do so because, while I share many of your
views on monopoly capitalism and bureaucracy, I believe that sharpening our
historical
ei folks --
To refer back to the title of this thread, why exactly should people
reimburse their loans to these Monopolists? What exactly is their
moral obligation to Justice and Equality before the Lord God of
Almighty Debt?
which begs the question, for me, why they decided to participate in
Ed:
> The only entities that outflank or can outflank the oligopolies are
> the people both in and out of the large bureaucracies who are truth
> starved enough to light out, the new distributists: the mariners,
> castaways, and renegades.
Brilliant -- ain't it the TRUTH (or at least 99% of
Ed, you get the prize for the most considered, long-ranging reflection
ever performed around a set of nettime posts!
Plus I would like to point out in your favor that the Monopoly sector
exists, despite the supposed magic of the marketplace, and that yes,
indeed, the absence of competition like
I've been chewing over and ruminating on this conversation and on some
of the posts that Brian Holmes linked to from another list, and I'm
asking myself what some of the broad themes are and what kind of
idiosyncratic foray I might make that could add to the conversation.
Ted always contributes wi
Thanks for this, Ted. I enjoyed Mark's rant, although I knew it played to
my old fart tendency. It was well-written too. Brian did a great job of
reasoning with people of unlike mind. But your post and Ed's (which is on
the other half of this split thread) both cranked up the intellectual and
poli
I don't have time for a lengthy reply, but I think that most of the
responders are missing the thrust of the movement on student debt renunciation.
As I've hinted, it, like the Occupy movement itself, has most value as
consciousness changing. That's why it's nonsense to criticize the Occupy
m
Thank you to everyone who has contributed so far to this thread. I'm
not satisfied with any of your responses. Perhaps Brian's come
closest, however, to capturing how difficult the situation and the
subject is.
Mark presents an interesting and, I think, ultimately too one-sided
answer. Perhaps he
Unless I missed it, no one in this thread seems to have noted what might
be the most significant factor in this ~debate -- that edudebt used to be
dischargeable in the US. This was a bete noire of the financial industry,
which since the late '70s has pushed to make it inescapable. I remember
sus
Thanks for answering, Sascha. It's better to have a debate of ideas.
Here's something I think is really important:
if we're doing an analysis of the systems and structures responsible
for the mess our society is in, don't we need to include "the
academy" too? Colleges and universities are (just
Martha:
Living "outside" the LAW means DROPPING *out* of the "system" of
WAGE-SLAVERY -- which is the basis of going to college (where little productive
is
learned) in order to get your "ticket" to the RAT RACE.
Why do you need a college degree other than satisfying the "rules" put in
p
that nails it, Mark --
So, give up your plans for "radical change of the system we live
under" and *just* STOP living under that system (at least for the
better half of your life)!
I recall in the Reagan era, that every time someone would use his name
in a critical art work, or radio piece, o
Martha:
To live outside the law, you must be honest . . .
Mark Stahlman
Brooklyn NY
In a message dated 11/22/2011 3:44:08 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,
na...@earthlink.net writes:
do you feel that the artists' efforts to "occupy museums," and the
efforts of union leaders to become part
Brian:
Now you're getting somewhere -- but not nearly far enough!
Another 100,000 students defaulting on their loans won't "change the
system" but only screw up their "credit ratings," just as it does for the many
who default today. They are still *trapped* in the system, which was built
two tiny remarks in the train of Brian's wonderful, clearly outlined
explanation of the reasons to support the debt campaign.
Suspension of acquiescence in unjust, indeed, unworkable, rules must
be part of any movement for change, and the present, mulitifaceted
movement for change seems l
I appreciate Brian trying to make a more serious case for the
radicalism of this debt "campaign"--and his thoughtfulness deserves a
thoughtful reply in kind. So I guess I'd say that...
...I agree with the possibility (though I consider it less likely)
that by walking out on debt one sets off a c
do you feel that the artists' efforts to "occupy museums," and the
efforts of union leaders to become part of OWs and call attention to
labor demands, are "stealing" the movement?
What about the calls to occupy everything, including college campuses?
what do you think of the actions of the stu
On 11/21/2011 11:30 AM, Sascha D. Freudenheim wrote:
this feels less like a protest of and for the 99% and more like
"entitlement" under another name.
Sascha, you may or may not be interested in a radical change of the
system we live under, but consider the views of someone who is.
Student
In this country (US) we agree by law that 18-year-olds do not have the
judgement to drink alcoholic beverages, yet we let them join the military
possibly to kill or maim or to be killed or maimed and we let them sign up for
possibly a lifetime of student debt repayment "of their own free will."
There are logic flaws here.
If system X is found untenable by its subjects because of the demands it
imposes on those subjects, then requiring that the departure from X must be
conditioned by first fulfilling all these demands first, is ... silly.
Incidentally, X does work like Hotel California,
to demand debt cancellation is a radical demand to shut down the
exploitative system in which people are forced to incur debt in order
to gain entry to a lifetime of employment. Just as debt relief and
writing down of loans was demanded for those who were rooked into
impossible mortgages, and the
Folks:
Let's say that *all* the demands of the Debt Campaign were met, that
federal taxes were used to provide "free" college education (at public
institutions), as a "right and public good" -- then what?
Would this do anything about social and economic INEQUALITY? No.
Would this do any
at last some sanity on this.
[To Mark Stahlman: When I went to Brooklyn College it was entirely
free; now fees are about 10k a year. That's because the state had
realized the need for a professional class beofre but esp after the
war. When the attendees at public educational institutions be
The funny (?) thing is I don't disagree with much of this. Or, to put
that in the positive, I agree with a lot of this. At least as far as
rhetoric goes.
You may see education as a consumer good for which one must pay - I
don't agree - but the current system of nearly enforced higher
education,
Sascha's comments represent a vast and very problematic oversimplification
of things. The oversimplification is itself, offensive, seeing as it
steamrollers over the actually existing conditions of student loan debt
today.
So let's go through some of those conditions and issues, shall we? For the
s
Five fingers up for two pretty good parodies of offendees pretending
greviousness.
Crossed-arms for the parodies of the deeply serious remembrists
and the sagely wise gerontists and the when-we-were-young-idealists
nostalgiaists.
Ridicule the little fuckers if you can't understand them -- or if y
Sascha:
Exactly! You can't OCCUPY the *moral* high-ground when your own personal
"morals" are dubious to idiotic to plain-and-simple selfish.
Furthermore, the CAUSES of income-and-rights inequality are not being
examined in any depth, so the INTELLIGENCE high-ground isn't being *occupied*
I'm sorry, but this is ridiculous--and offensive.
I agree that income inequality is a huge issue in our country. I also
agree that the cost of private college/university tuition is (too)
high. And certainly one can make a cogent argument that schools (such
as NYU, Harvard, etc.) with endowments
Occupy Student Debt!
National Campaign Launch
www.occupystudentdebtcampaign.org
On Monday, November 21, Occupy Student Debt is launching a national
campaign of student debt refusal. This campaign is a response to the
student debt crisis and the dependency of U.S. higher education on
debt-financin
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