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”
That has to be a joke.
Parasite: An organism that grows, feeds, and is sheltered on or in a different organism while contributing nothing to the survival of its host.
When I was in boot camp, our platoon commander used to talk about the “ten per-centers”. his theory was that you could count on the fact that 10% of our platoon would not be able to make it through boot camp. He also stated that no matter where we ended up in life, there would always be those “ten per-centers”. His conclusion was that you could take ten percent of the world’s population, line them up against a wall and just shoot them.
I have grown to be in complete agreement with that fine man.
Semper Fi, Gunny Thommason where ever you are!
Agreed. Did you catch the part about the High Speed Internet and new car payment?
The girl is just sad. She claims that she can't find a decent job but my guess is that she would never consider doing anything too menial because she's 'educated'. She obviously assumed that her degree was the ticket to a comfortable middle-class (or better) life and her expectations were quickly destroyed by reality.
The third person (a female, I guess) is almost ridiculous. A useless degree ('Minority Women's Studies') and angry that no one is interested in her as an employee. How naive is that? Her sign mentions owing child support indicating that she was promiscuous and resents the consequences but blames the allegedly 'corrupt' legal system. The part of her little screed that mentions 'high speed internet' and 'new car payments' as a crushing financial burden demonstrates the 'entitlement mentality' writ large. A new car and high speed internet are great but no one needs these things. That this protestor believes she does while complaining about the cost is, well, pathetic, even annoying.
These young people are simply demonstrating their poor educations, entitlement mentality and total lack of connection to reality. They blame 'the system' for their financial woes instead of (a) looking realistically at their past choices (useless degrees, huge debt) and, (b) seeking ways to better their lives by hard work and some sacrifice, apparently a concept unknown to these folks. The leftists are using the poor economy to manipulate these narcissistic people into blaming 'greed' and 'the system' i.e. society.
In fact, they should be angry at the university racket that convinced them degrees in something as nebulous as 'Minority Women's Studies' was a viable path to financial security. Of course, that same higher education system brainwashed these people into believing that America is 'unfair', etc. so, like good little lemmings, they naturally turn their anger to 'Wall Street' because, they've been taught, this is the home of 'corporate greed'. Of course, these same people apply to such 'greedy' corporations for what they expect to be high-paying jobs, never considering that, if hired, they would be paid from the profits of the same corporations they revile. Their ignorance is staggering.
It's a great cover for Obama and the left, the real architect of the current economic malaise. I doubt many Americans will be in sympathy with these foolish people or blame the poor economy entirely on 'Wall Street'. I hope Americans are smarter and better than that. Then again, they elected Obama.
That is probably up to 20% now!
Semper Fi,sir!
Remember Ira Magaziner? Hillary's health-care genius? The guy behind the failure of Wang Computers? The guy that got Brown University...and subsequently all the others...to take student input on curriculum? His efforts are bearing fruit. Fruits, anyway.
so will you denounce these protests and protesters now?
Will you tell us what your last username was before you had to re-register?
Will you tell us why you were involved in the anti war group ANSWER?
actually, you’re part of the 18% of the population ... paying for everyone else
(140m tax filers...70m pay the taxes... for the 310m citizens + 20m illegals)
The last pic is either the dumbest person on earth or a lousy Freeper troll. No one can be that stupid. LOL.
OooooRah!
Nah, it’s still the same worthless ten percent. It’s just that the media focuses on them. You know. Turds of a feather stick together.
The rest of us really do outnumber them. They keep pushing and we will show them the error of their ways.
That can’t possibly be a sincere post, can it? Surely it’s parody....
Ooooooh, yes they can.
There are only two things things that are infinite: human stupidity and the universe, and I'm not too sure about the universe."- Albert Einstein
LOL.
Where’s the student loan bailout? These people have no shame. Leeches.
degree in minority women??/
WTF is that and no wonder they can’t get a job with that and was they forced to get that loan, was they forced to go to school?
NO course not and now they complain about having to pay back money which they signed and took.
SELF RESPONSIBILITY YOU FOOLS
where on earth are their parents for crying out loud.
My oldest son is 13, he cuts peoples grass to make money at weekends because he wants extra games for his PS3.
Why does a 13 year old kid know you have to work for what you want and yet these idiots have non clue and think now mother and father have stopped paying their bills then someone else should .
Why does a 13 year old kid know you have to work for what you want and yet these idiots have non clue and think now mother and father have stopped paying their bills then someone else should .
simple you taught your son if he wants something you have to work for it. My parents taught me the same
True
How anyone can complain they have to pay back loans they had signed for and that they made the decision to go to college astounds me .
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