Posted on 10/08/2011 10:29:46 AM PDT by Kaslin
The “Occupy” protests have now spread to Austin, home of the very liberal and extremely expensive University of Texas. My friend Robbie Cooper at Urban Grounds picks out a photo of this fellow:
As Robbie says, this protester is “so eminently mockable.” I agree, but I’m going to take a different tack.
I don’t personally know the man in the photo, but it’s not difficult to figure out a few things about him. One, like many in the occupational protest army, he probably considers himself a non-conformist. Hence, all that expensive ink on his arms. Question: Did any of his student loan money pay for any of that ink? If so, his government loan shark might like to have words with him.
Non-conformists can be an entertaining lot. Like the gentleman above, in order to demonstrate their non-conformity to the society that they believe owes them so much, they rebel against it. They denounce it. They show their non-conformity by conforming to something else, something edgier, but no less predictable. They’re not really non-conformists, then, but just conformists of a different stripe. And having chosen their brand of conformity, they bristle when the society they rejected rejects them right back.
In this case, it’s not at all clear why the young man piled up student debt. What sort of job did he expect to get, with his arms covered in tattoos? Who would hire a CPA or lawyer who went around choosing to look like that? Who wants that look in their elementary schoolkid’s classroom? The young man’s appearance works for some businesses, but not most, and that’s just reality. What was the goal of piling up all that debt? What was the end game? What sort of career did he hope to land? His choices seem to be poorly thought through.
Apple visionary Steve Jobs passed away this week. The founder and leader of the company that taught the tech world to “Think Different” didn’t walk around with a ring in his nose and tattoos up and down his arms. He tended to look pretty boring, actually — a black turtleneck, jeans, short hair, wire rimmed glasses. Steve Jobs didn’t rack up student debt during his college years. When confronted with the possibility of saddling his parents with his debt, in fact, Jobs really did think different.
The lead mind behind the most successful company on the planet never graduated from college, in fact, he didn’t even get close. After graduating from high school in Cupertino, California — a town now synonymous with 1 Infinite Loop, Apple’s headquarters — Jobs enrolled in Reed College in 1972. Jobs stayed at Reed (a liberal arts university in Portland, Oregon) for only one semester, dropping out quickly due to the financial burden the private school’s steep tuition placed on his parents. In his famous 2005 commencement speech to Stanford University, Jobs said of his time at Reed: “It wasn’t all romantic. I didn’t have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends’ rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5 cent deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the seven miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple.”
I doubt that Steve Jobs, at least the young Steve Jobs who made hard choices and took risks and followed his own path and changed the world, would think very highly of the non-conformist conformist occupiers who seem to be demanding handouts. Perhaps our friend in the photo, reading this on the iPhone he probably can’t afford but can’t seem to live without, will ponder that.
The fact is, indebted students like the man above and the ones who are still posting their pictures at the “We Are the 99 Percent” site have been scammed. That much is true. Or rather, they bought into a scam and are now reaping their reward. The scam wasn’t perpetrated by the corporations, and not by the banks, but by the educational establishment that keeps coming up with ever more irrelevant degree programs to keep more and more professors tenured and insulated from the real world. The benefit to students and to the future of the nation isn’t even close to being an afterthought in most of the ivory tower.
As Jamie Cullum sang in “Twentysomething“:
After years of expensive education
A car full of books and anticipation
I’m an expert on Shakespeare and that’s a hell of a lot
But the world don’t need scholars as much as I thought
Our twentysomething considers traveling to find himself, and considers love and career, before concluding as the tattooed man seems to have –
Love ain’t the answer, nor is work
The truth eludes me so much it hurts
But I’m still having fun and I guess that’s the key
I’m a twentysomething and I’ll keep being me
Keep being you, that’s fine. It’s a free country. But choices have consequences and life isn’t risk-free. Just don’t expect the world to pony up and make your life comfortable because your bad moves have left you unprepared for life. Own your choices. Live with them.
They’re probably all you’ll ever have, unless you get your mind right.
(Read the first open letter here).
“Master’s degree in Minority Women’s Studies”
ROFL!!!!! Who in the hell gets a degree in something as completely useless as Minority Women’s Studies and then wonders why nobody wants them? SSSSTTTTTUUUUUPPPPPIIIIIDDDDD!!!!! What a colossal waste of an opportunity.
A left-wing lunatic?
That first dude probably has a year’s worth of college tuition tied up in tattoos and piercings.
The dirty little secret is, diplomas don’t impress many employers anymore because EVERYBODY has one. Employers are looking for people who want to work, not just show up for work, and who also have at least some knowledge about what they are supposed to be doing.
The lower picture says all you need to know about an worthless education. I wonder if that person ever stops to ponder the waste of $150,000 dollars?
YEP! Total corporate greed there. Though, admittedly, if DeVry or a similar technical school suckered students into that size of debt, they'd likely have been hauled into federal court by now. But hey, it's universities, so they get a free pass at draining huge sums from families and giving absolutely nothing useful in return.
The girl in the second photo has probably been fired for stealing by now. The last person is just plain stupid!
If they feeeeeeeeeel oppressed by the student loans and don't want to pay 'em.. burn 'em!
That's what real "resisters" did.
(Yes they will still be obligated to pay the loans and usury. The draft "resisters" were not excused and faced major penalties until Carter excused them all -- hey there's an idea. Where's the smelly demonstrations pestering Obama personally and demanding that he forgive the student loans?)
"twenty years of schooling and they put you on the day-shift." The simple fact is thousands of college students are pursuing worthless degrees. Liberal arts degrees are limiting enough. Anyone majoring or minoring in any Women's, Minorities, Gay, or whatever studies ought to have their heads examined. If I was a parent and found out my child was majoring (or even minoring) in any worthless study, I'd threaten to cut off all their funding until they changed to legitimate studies.
Looks to me like “Minority Women’s Studies” is a Freeper infiltrator.
I am part of the 50% ( that pays taxes)
“....especially when added to the two different child support payments I am forced to pay by our corrupt legal system”
I see a string of bad choices that this person has made
These jerks could take a road trip to North Dakota if they were REALLY needing a job, not just a paycheck.
These idiots should be angry at the big government-college complex that screwed them, not corporations. College tuition costs have outpaced inflation by at least an order of magnitude for more than 20 years. During the same period, the quality of education has decreased. Meanwhile, many universities are sitting on mountains of money and many in the college administration rake in big salaries. Mediocre professors are tenured. The scam continues unabated.
O.K. for those that may not be able to read this poster, how about a sad laugh. I would beat the shit out of my kid if they ever thought this way. Just saying!
I am DETERMINED to break the racial mold and the American racist cycle, so I earned a Masters degree in Minority Women’s Studies. I owe $150,000 for my EXCELLENT education, but the corportate fascrets ? (not sure) refuse to acknowledge the legitimacy of my scholarly efforts when considering me for a job.
My high-speed internet and new car loan are likewise CRUSHING me - especially when added to the two different child support payments I am FORCED to pay by our CORRUPT legal system.
I don’t know if I can keep this up. I’m at the end of my rope.
I AM THE 99%!
Well, well, well! You my dear boy are less than 1% as far as I am concerned.....
What, exactly, do they think they are referring to when they say they are part of the “99%”?
If they were as smart as they think they are, they would have done a bit of research before choosing a college major. I’m betting the girl who got a BS and couldn’t afford an MS chose a major that has no practical use whatsoever. (Plus, she’s posted a picture of herself admitting to stealing from her employer—stuff like that looks *great* on the resumé.) And the guy who got a master’s in Minority Women’s Studies really has to look no further than the mirror when he’s looking to assign blame to someone.
I love French language and culture. I love science. A little bit of research before I chose a major informed me as to which major would be more employable. At that, a person majoring in French is probably infinitely more employable than the “minority women’s studies” major. But I digress—it really doesn’t take much effort to determine what is employable, and what is not.
Why do these people blame corporations and not Big University? Because they are being used by the aged 1960s Marxist-Alinsky campus spoiled brats (who used the draft back then) and their spoiled-brat ideological offspring arguably now the Establishment - media, universities, foundations, government.. just about every aspect of society.
” But I digress—it really doesn’t take much effort to determine what is employable, and what is not.”
Yea, it’s called work ethic. Most of these protestors don’t have it and thus are not employable, regardless of the type of degree their parents bought for them.
Each and every one of these worthless little turds needs a good old fashioned slap upside the head.
Disgusting little cretins!
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