Johnny Guitar wrote:Sonic Youth wrote:Riiiight...
And we've also had sweeping statements like "you can see how cleverly the fat cat has secured himself against radicalism", which then mysteriously disappear in the course of the discussion once they're challenged. A form of backpedalling. And if backpedalling was truly your new cause, you'd go after it whenever applicable.
The issue has nothing to do with 'personal causes.' I'm pointing out your backpedaling because we are (I think) on different sides of a debate. I didn't see Aakash's (?) alleged "backpedaling" (or "editing") so can't say anything about it. (But the clause you've excavated seems pretty reasonable to me anyway, and it looks like it's still there in Aakash's post anyway--not edited out.)
Oh, we're still going to debate insignificant tangents, are we?
I never said it was editing. My meaning was, that particular point wasn't addressed once I brought it up. But I can see how it might read that way.
But YOU said I said it was editing. You quoted "editing", as if I had said it and you were using my own words back at me. But I never said it was edited. Well, if we're engaging in blatant conflations, it was only a matter of time before unattributed quotations came up.
I pointed out your contradiction because you played hardball in your first statement, which was just point blank off-base and easily refutable from a number of personal testimonies on this board, and then you played the, "Hey I'm just being reasonable here guys, all I really said was..." card.
What posts are you reading? I never backed down at all or changed my position.
We live in the biggest debtor nation in the world. Americans have more personal and household debt than at any time in the nation's history. As a whole, Americans have no savings whatsoever. In the late 90s, exuberant investors (and college graduates, I'd assume) got caught in the burst tech bubble after foolishly putting too much of their savings into stocks that went bust. Right now, we're in a housing crises and foreclosures have tripled. Very soon, we're going to have a credit card crises with defaults and delinquencies going through the roof. And since there is no savings, too many people don't have adequate contingency plans to cover their asses for such disasters-waiting-to-happen. Good lord, we live in a country where radio and TV commercials advertising "Foreclosed Houses at Low Rates!" are simply the norm, and where unscrupulous fake companies prey on senior citizens gullible enough to fall for them despite their life experience. You can give me all the anecdotes you want, but the facts suggests that most Americans AREN'T expert financial planners in their student years, because that would mean their skills drop off precipitously after graduation. So okay, it's maybe not never. But it's so so so much closer to 'never' than never's polar opposite, 'always'.
Of course, I've no doubt that there are those who major in business because they're worried about their financial status after graduation. But that only shows they have the aptitude for such a major. Then again, it could be they want to get filthy rich.
Oh, according to this survey taken by the Dept. of Education, it is true that Business is the most popular major. But do the math. What percentage of college students major in business? Nearly 21.7%. It's an epidemic!
YOU said otherwise.
On "our" side of the debate, we have loans --> nickel-and-diming --> keep people from meaningful political action. Nickel-and-diming is a form of repression.
I said:
"There are probably hundreds of reasons why there is no true left in America today, and if the student debt program is one of them, then it's a small factor at best."
You said: "Nickel-and-diming people is precisely one way to repress them from rising up."
To repeat, there are probably hundreds of reasons. Different forms of economic repression is a goodly number of them, but even that tends to backfire. And the student loan program would be only one of them.
Which you say in your premise you don't agree with, that it's one (n&d-ing) but not the other. Or at least not "meant" as the other.
Sorry, not understanding that.
Though when I bring it up you're all, "Who's disagreeing?" So is the loan program (which we both agree = nickel-and-diming) repressive and pulverizing to the populace, or not?
"Today's student loan program is a scandal. The skyrocketing of tuition costs over the past few decades is criminal. And everyone knows finanical institutions love to draw blood."
However...
"the student loan programs were not created with the purpose of repressing a radical-left movement in mind,"
That said, don't mistakenly think that I believe...
"no nefarious intent is exactly the same thing as denying consequence"
Is your only grievance one of delineating the particulars of intent?
"Now, just to make sure we don't go so far off-track - as we are - I'll just restate the two premises of my argument. It was nothing more than a). the student loan programs were not created with the purpose of repressing a radical-left movement in mind, they were just created to nickle-and-dime everyone;"
(In which case ... what, do you think we're saying that bankers and politicians meet up in the Skull & Bones tower and sacrifice an infant before outlining the student loan program that will specifically keep people off the streets and out of meaningful action or dialogue?)
To Akash and only Akash: "Maybe I read it wrong, but you seemed to strongly suggest that the student loan program was created with the purpose of tamping down any emerging radical, anti-capitalist movements."
Who said you denied that student loan debt exists? Who accused you of denying that financial repression doesn't exist?
Akash: "I don't know what your socio-economic background is, but"... followed by a very brief disquisition of the financial straits middle class and poor students face after graduation, presumably under the assumption that I needed one.
Nik: "Sonic Youth, most kids are on financial aid and graduate with, etc.", "I think you might be dismissing the pressure that's on middle and lower income college students to get a job."
Why would anyone tell me this unless they felt I didn't know and it needed to be told? In any event, it had nothing to do with the points I was making.
You're being paranoid here, and keep pushing into vague generalities rather than keeping to the specific points.
"Now, just to make sure we don't go so far off-track - as we are - I'll just restate the two premises of my argument. It was nothing more than a). the student loan programs were not created with the purpose of repressing a radical-left movement in mind, they were just created to nickle-and-dime everyone; and b). the student loan program is not the primary, or even a significant, contributing factor to suppressing a radical-left movement."
Specific enough for you?
The point in question had to do with the functions of student loan debt as a systemic thing, and whether or not its repressive effects are an implementation in service of ruling, moneyed classes and exploitative of everyone else (including the middle class who help keep it going, as clerks and aspirants) ... which Aakash and I seem to think is pretty obvious, and which you seem unable to make up your mind on yet, depending on how we "accuse" you.
"And I'll repeat that for as long as it needs repeating, i.e. once the concept sticks in someone's mind. And once we've finally stopped conflating my specific point with general accusations of... me believing no nefarious intent is exactly the same thing as denying consequence."
Not sure what more needs to be said. I was clear enough in my earlier posts.
Edited By Sonic Youth on 1199153427
