Declaration of Occupy Wall Street

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TheWriteAlex said:
If you're having a hard time making sense of Golfer's attitude, read this. It's spot-on:

Occupy Wall Street: Why Baby Boomers Don't Understand the Protests - The Daily Beast
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And their parents fought hard to gain the advantages back in the 1930s and the 1940s so they could provide their baby boomer kids with the advantages that they didn't have when they came of age. I see history repeating itself all over again.
 
deafskeptic said:
And their parents fought hard to gain the advantages back in the 1930s and the 1940s so they could provide their baby boomer kids with the advantages that they didn't have when they came of age. I see history repeating itself all over again.
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:dunno: My brother, Hubby, and I are Baby Boomers and our parents didn't offer or provide even one cent for us to go to college.
 
TXgolfer said:
Schools are hoarding cash. UT and Harvard have over a billion in cash. UT even switched a large part of it to gold.
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LOL. Yeah, that's it . . .

Harvard does have the largest (by far) endowment of any university in the country (probably the world). It also has a relatively small student population. The result? Harvard provides FULL financial aid to EVERY student admitted if they need it.

The rising cost of tuition has much more to do with fundamental shifts in ideology surrounding education in this country. First of all, colleges are being run more and more as businesses, where financial efficiency is the #1 priority. A large reason for this is that college degrees are now just a stamp of approval for someone who wants to enter the non-manual/service workforce. It's a commodity. The original purpose of the academy is eroding, which brings me to my next point.

The idea of the "academy" and universities being centers for knowledge and intellectualism has been forgotten/ignored. Why? because knowledge and intellectualism aren't valued anymore in this country. The right has launched an all-out assault on intellectualism (after all, college professors are predominantly liberal), which it sees as the perpetrators of socialism, atheism, anti-Americanism, and ever other -ism that gets them frothing at the mouth. Furthermore, young educated intellectuals (a great many of which make up the OWS movement) are viewed by conservatives as just a bunch of entitled, over-educated losers who don't know a thing about the "real world."

Mix all this together, and it becomes very easy to justify reduced funding, criticism of educators, and a view that education is not a universal human right, but a privilege that you must work hard at (often unrealistically) to earn.
 
Jiro said:
um... you did, not me. You're blaming Democrats for amnesty thing even though it never existed and never happened. Republicans twisted it and called it "amnesty".
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So your deflecting from the definition of amnesty and pinning the blame on Republicans too?
 
TheWriteAlex said:
LOL. Yeah, that's it . . .

Harvard does have the largest (by far) endowment of any university in the country (probably the world). It also has a relatively small student population. The result? Harvard provides FULL financial aid to EVERY student admitted if they need it.

The rising cost of tuition has much more to do with fundamental shifts in ideology surrounding education in this country. First of all, colleges are being run more and more as businesses, where financial efficiency is the #1 priority. A large reason for this is that college degrees are now just a stamp of approval for someone who wants to enter the non-manual/service workforce. It's a commodity. The original purpose of the academy is eroding, which brings me to my next point.

The idea of the "academy" and universities being centers for knowledge and intellectualism has been forgotten/ignored. Why? because knowledge and intellectualism aren't valued anymore in this country. The right has launched an all-out assault on intellectualism (after all, college professors are predominantly liberal), which it sees as the perpetrators of socialism, atheism, anti-Americanism, and ever other -ism that gets them frothing at the mouth. Furthermore, young educated intellectuals (a great many of which make up the OWS movement) are viewed by conservatives as just a bunch of entitled, over-educated losers who don't know a thing about the "real world."

Mix all this together, and it becomes very easy to justify reduced funding, criticism of educators, and a view that education is not a universal human right, but a privilege that you must work hard at (often unrealistically) to earn.
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:laugh2: This made my day.
 
California tuition increases likely under budget deal - Sacramento News - Local and Breaking Sacramento News | Sacramento Bee

The 2011-12 plan cuts an additional $150 million each from the California State University and the University of California – for a total loss to each system of $650 million for the year – and creates the possibility of deeper cuts in December.

"Because cuts of this magnitude inevitably will drive up tuition for public university students and their families, we cannot stand silent," UC President Mark Yudof said in a statement Tuesday.

UC and CSU set fall 2011 undergraduate tuition in November, with UC raising it by 8 percent to $11,124 a year and CSU raising it by 10 percent to $4,884 a year. Students in both systems must also pay an additional roughly $1,000 a year in fees charged by individual campuses.

When Gov. Jerry Brown released his budget proposal in January, both university systems said they could take his proposed $500 million cut without raising tuition any further. But university officials have said for months that cuts beyond $500 million would result in higher tuition.

Now facing a cut of at least $650 million, CSU trustees will likely consider raising tuition again before the fall semester begins, said Robert Turnage, assistant vice chancellor for budget. He said the increase could be around 12 percent – on top of the 10 percent already approved last year.

"But I would emphasize that that's a ballpark, and the chancellor hasn't settled on exactly what to recommend," Turnage said.

The budget agreement between Democratic lawmakers and Gov. Jerry Brown has the potential to cut higher education even further in December, creating the possibility that tuition will rise in the middle of the school year at the state's community colleges. The reductions in the current deal represent 22 percent of UC's general fund budget and a 24 percent general fund cut for CSU.

The budget calls for "triggered" cuts if projected revenue doesn't materialize by mid-December. Colleges and universities will be the first in line to take those cuts under a tiered system Brown introduced Monday.
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*GASP* DINO's?
 
Steinhauer said:
So your deflecting from the definition of amnesty and pinning the blame on Republicans too?
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I didn't have to do anything. The facts are on newspapers.
 
TXgolfer said:
Speaking of classy

Fallen Officer's memorial in NC


http://a.yfrog.com/img858/2081/lw3pb.jpg
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Oh those awful protesters!

Just a FYI; it appears they have left the actual memorial untouched. Perhaps this is the best location for the protest in this city. I do not see anything that disgraces the memorial. My thought? That those soldiers being memorialized died to give those protesters the right to protest. I could be wrong, but I don't think soldiers get to choose the freedoms that they are fighting to protect.

Time to address the issue, instead of the protesters, and college tuition, and immigrants, and.....
 
saywhatkid said:
Oh those awful protesters!

Just a FYI; it appears they have left the actual memorial untouched. Perhaps this is the best location for the protest in this city. I do not see anything that disgraces the memorial. My thought? That those soldiers being memorialized died to give those protesters the right to protest. I could be wrong, but I don't think soldiers get to choose the freedoms that they are fighting to protect.
Time to address the issue, instead of the protesters, and college tuition, and immigrants, and.....
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The police had to barricade the memorial...which is clear in the picture.

According to the OP College tuition/loans IS an issue. IMO the behavior of the group goes to credibility. This is a debate thread after all.

Edit: Might add that this was a Police Officers Memorial and not a soldiers memorial.
 
Long righty blog but verifiable by looking at the OB site.

The group now considers calling the cops on other members (who have committed a crime) a violent act.

Occupy Baltimore: Sexual Harassment, Threats and a Culture of Silence | Verum Serum

And this from the Baltimore paper....

Efforts by the Occupy Baltimore protest group to evolve into a self-contained, self-governing community have erupted into controversy with the distribution of a pamphlet that victim advocates and health workers fear discourages victims of sexual assaults from contacting police.

The pamphlet says that members of the protest group who believe they are victims or who suspect sexual abuse "are encouraged to immediately report the incident to the Security Committee," which will investigate and "supply the abuser with counseling resources."
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Occupy Baltimore group discourages reporting rape, health advocates say - Baltimore Sun
 
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