Pam Brown's Blog l emission - control. net

The Student Debt System: a Critical Juncture in the Production of Inequality

The following article contains thoughts that I would have liked to have shared on Democracy Now!, but didn't have time for.  Here's the clip of the interview with the article below:

 

 

For most Americans student debt is a simple matter: you got the education, you agreed to pay for it, you can't give back your brain, so suck it up and get to work.  Unfortunately, this sort of logic fundamentally misunderstands the systemic sources by which so much student debt has been incurred, and the long term inequality this debt is creating.  The misunderstanding most Americans have of the student debt cycle is particularly dangerous now that the amount of education debt is about to pass the 1 trillion dollar mark, which amounts to about four thousand dollars for every man, woman and child in this country.  According to the Project on Student Debt, of the class of 2008, 41% are either delinquent or in default.  Many recent reports have already begun to theorize student debt as the next bubble about to burst.  Unfortunately, this bubble has the potential to slowly ooze, causing unrelenting suffering for a generation, and even greater economic disparity for the 99%.

When you look carefully at the student debt crisis, you can see that it has been caused by complex relationships between four distinct types of entities:  governmental agencies, lenders, educational institutions and consumers.

Now is the Time to Refuse Student Debt (Part 1)

Later on today, the #OWS Empowerment & Education Working Group will launch a national campaign that will challenge and draw attention to the growing problem of student debt.

Student loan debt represents the largest portion of all "consumer" debt, and will exceed 1 trillion dollars by the end of the year. Currently, about 67% of students incur debt at the college level. In 2008, approximately 1.4 million seniors graduated with an average of about $26,000 dollars of student loan debt.

In spite of widespread use of loans to finance education, most Americans are unaware of the true nature of these loans, and some of the important issues around our pay-for-diploma education model. The layperson views student loans as a benevolent government program designed to help citizens move into the middle class by attending college. Unfortunately, the sad reality is that student loans have helped to create an education industry that now operates at the expense of our society.

The Ironic Shadow Cast by Steve Jobs' Death

The irony of Steve Jobs dying on the same day as the major Occupy Wall Street protest and march in New York City can’t be overstated, even though it has been completely overlooked by both mainstream and alternative media.  News stories celebrating Steve Jobs as the creator of a technological revolution trumped even local coverage of thousands of OWS supporters marching in the streets.  Of course, Steve Jobs' death and the occupation of Wall Street are unrelated events, yet together they represent the fundamental tension currently at play in American society today:  the crisis in our understanding of who we are as individuals and who we are as part of society. 

The underlying idea behind the OWS protest is that economic inequality, produced by the belief in the individual as able to function separately from the human collective, is misguided, unethical and unsustainable.  The cultural battle being fought at OWS seeks to reprioritize collective needs over individual desires by arguing to end the exploitation of the lower and middle classes by a small elite.  It is this exploitation that has produced economic pain in the form of lack of jobs and loss of economic resources for all but the top 1%.  It is this “failure” of capitalism to produce happiness and security for the majority, as well as its ability to camouflage the relationship between the 99% and the 1%, that calls attention to irreparable problems with the system, itself. 

Why it's Time for New Yorkers to Demand that Mayor Bloomberg to Step Down

I have started a petition demanding that "Mayor" Bloomberg resign from his position as mayor of New York City in hope of drawing attention to and remedying the fascism we are living under here in the Big Apple.  Fascism sounds like a strong word, but it is actually the most accurate description of what has happened in New York City.  We typically view fascism as a kind of nationalistic regime that happens at the point of a gun.  But in reality fascism is something that happens slowly.  Fascism can be described as a tendency toward autocratic control.  In our neoliberal capitalist world, often times guns are unnecessary to achieve control, because money can be used instead. This is what has happened in New York City.

New Yorkers had a law limiting any elected mayor to two terms.  In fact this law was voted on twice in recent elections.  Unfortunately, this law did not apply to Bloomberg.  Why not?  Because he believed he was above it, and had the money to thwart it.  Bloomberg was able to convert his billionaire level economic status to political power by influencing the City Council to change the law.  He argued that his leadership was necessary to restore economic order to the city and nation due to the economic crisis on Wall Street.  Evidently, in the minds of the individual City Council members, the consequences of resisting a change to the term limit law outweighed the consequences of going along with the billionaire Mayor.  But why was the City Council able to change a law voted on by the people of New York City?  The intellectual history of this law is actually quite fascinating.  Since the French Revolution, laws have been carried forth to prevent violent revolution except when absolutely necessary.  The law that allowed the City Council to make this change originated with the need to prevent an arrogant and powerful leader from taking over a government in a violent coup d'tat.  The calculation was that by granting an additional term, the leader might be persuaded to step down at the end of that period, and if not, then violence might be necessary to maintain democracy.

Even though he was able to thwart the two term limit, many New Yorkers were so against Bloomberg's manipulation of the system, that he was forced to spend millions of his billions of dollars in personal wealth to drown out his democratic opponent.  Not surprisingly, some of that money was spent in possible violation of campaign finance laws.  And in the end, he spent so much money that even President Obama did not bother to take a strong stand for his democratic opponent, who most certainly would have won had Bloomberg not been able to use his personal wealth to spend $102 million dollars - about $174 per voter - to win the campaign.  To put things in perspective his opponent spent less than $10 million.  In other words, Bloomberg had no problem using his economic power to change the law to enable himself to run for a third term, and also to use incredible amounts of personal wealth to further subvert the system by drowning out his opponent.

Thoughts on Representing the West

Recently, I was in Denver, Colorado for a wedding and had the opportunity to visit two museums with radically different ideological projects:  The Black American West Museum and the Denver Art Museum.  It was interesting to have the opportunity to view these museums both on the same day and also with a group of lay people (my family), who had never thought about the role of museums in constructing a particular sense of history.

The Black American West Museum was founded in 1971 by Paul Wilbur Stewart, and developed out of his personal mission to uncover the history of black cowboys.  He began simply by speaking to patrons at his Denver barbershop, who began to bring him memorabilia and family photos, which he kept on display.  Once his collection out grew his barbershop, he established the museum by fusing his project with the project of commemorating the life of the first African-American female physician licensed in Colorado, Dr. Justina Ford.