Re: <nettime> Debt Campaign Launch

["Sascha D. Freudenheim" <sascha@sascha.com>]

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 in the billions, could do more
to offset the cost of education with some of that banked money.

But if one opted to go to an expensive school over, let's say,
a lower cost state school--and one agreed at the outset to the
contract involving loans because you believed it was worth it--I
don't have a lot of sympathy for a movement to arbitrarily not pay
back that debt. That money may seem outrageous to the debtor but
it's also connected to the broader economics of our society. The
consequences of not paying it are more than just less-debt-for-you and
stiffing-the-rich-school-you-went-to. The school, after all, already
got paid. Much of that debt is subsidized by the taxpayers, the 99%,
through lenders who (yes) make money off that subsidy.

This is where my sympathy for the Occupy [you name it] goes down the
drain. Plenty of people in the 99% were looking for free money when
they took out mortgage and other loans they *knew* they couldn't
afford to pay back. Are the banks guilty of predatory practices?
Sure. But that doesn't excuse individual people from poor (or greedy)
decision-making.

So, I'm sorry but "Occupy Student Debt" just proves the worst things
about right-wing perspectives on this whole series of movements:
that it's not about the 99% taking some responsibility for the mess
they're in, but instead trying to explain why they should claim no
responsibility for anything.

Sascha


Sascha D. Freudenheim
Doubt is humanity's best friend.
http://www.thetruthasiseeit.com/
http://www.sascha.com/

On 11/20/11 9:59 PM, Andrew Ross wrote:
> Occupy Student Debt!
> National Campaign Launch
> www.occupystudentdebtcampaign.org





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