By Megan Perry
A disappointing display of student activism, resulting from a poor showing at the Occupy ELAC protest, raises the question of students’ priorities. Occupy ELAC is a movement of students who are tired of the fee hikes and who feel they deserve a free higher education.
So, one would think that students would show up to support one another and demonstrate to the government that they are tired of having to pay more and more for an education. But that is not quite what happened on Monday. There was minimal attendance at the demonstration. It seemed as if the only ones who showed up were the few that organized it, and some people who wanted to hold a sign on their way from home to school or in between classes.
For the people who did attend, the passion and intensity was felt. Other than that, it was not nearly as loud as it should have been. All students should have been down on those steps, rallying and voicing their opinion on what they feel should be done.
There is a problem, and this is something we can all agree on. The problem is that California, more specifically Gov. Jerry Brown, is trying to raise fees on education. That is something that affects all ELAC students. Yet, students at ELAC disregarded the importance and the significance behind the message that was supposed to be demonstrated.
Students seemed to more focused on Halloween costumes and parties rather than the higher issues of tuition, education and a future. Halloween is only here for a day, but this issue could effect students for the rest of their lives.
How could the issue of a free higher education not be on the minds of students? There is a $400 million, potential loss of funding for full-time equivalent students. This would affect about 80,000 students in California. It is sad to see students not care about something that will directly affect them, and this budget cut will do just that. It will affect everyone.
A two-year institution will soon become four to complete. Not only were students not present, but faculty and administrators were absent as well.
The point of the event is to get acknowledgment from Brown. If nobody on campus cares about the cost of education, then why should he? If students are not willing to stand up and fight for themselves, they will be forgotten and pushed to the side.
Students seem to lack the motivation to want to make a difference, yet they are the faces of the future. The lack of faces at the demonstration shows that students just seem to not care. The future looks grim with these people running the world.
Students need to be more passionate about the issues. It’s like everyone just got lazy and doesn’t care whatsoever about their future. They are clueless to what is happening around them. Students need to open their eyes and make a choice. The problem is not going to solve itself, so be the voice that makes a difference.
It’s not too late. Occupy ELAC will take place until Brown acknowledges what students are saying, so pitch a tent and stand up for what students should believe in. Stand up for an education.
In your poli-sci or econ classes, there are ideas and philosophies that make the U.S. function. And what both studies teach is the economics of a British gentleman named John Maynard Keynes. Economists like Dr. Ravi Batra of SMU extols the values of Keynesian economics. The way Keynesian economics work in a nutshell is: You pay someone to dig a hole and then you pay someone to bury the hole. Sounds silly, but both the digger and and the person who covers up the hole that was created gets paid. So what does that do? It stimulates the economy.
During the depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt used the Keynesian (pron: Ken-Zee-An)economics by hiring people to build: roads, bridges, schools, hospitals, parks, dams and other publicly-owned infrastructure under his New Deal. ELAC was the byproduct of the New Deal as it was built in 1945. But to understand his demand-sided economics work, lets look to building a school.
A school, lets say, cost $30 million to build. Its tuition free as are the computers, books, JOURNALISM classes cost nothing to the student. The student goes to school for two years, attend a four-year University, gets a job and pay taxes. Guess what? The tax you pay is paying down the $30 million. A good 70% of people who graduate from the elementary school they attended usually rents or buys a home within the vicinity of the school. So that 30 year loan the district paid out will be paid off in 30 years, plus the interest off of it would mean that more school would be built.
when the school is finally paid off, you have a neighborhood full of well-educated/working class. So even more money will be spent, schools will be built, the students will become smarter and your schools, roads, highways, first responders and so on will function freely.
Yet there is an issues. There are some, well a majority in the house who detest this. They call it socialism…well, it is and the fact that it is, will only make it tougher for the commons (commonwealth). The way the RNC feels about socialism, is that by giving a tax break for major corporation, corporation would hire more people. That’s a lie.
When a member of Congress retires, they end up as a lobbyist. A good example is former member of Congress Mitt Romney. After he retired, he went lobby for Bains Capital. What he did was, he bought a corporation like media giant Clear Channel (http://1.usa.gov/rKtCzp), laid off the workforce, doing so shot the stocks skywards and made millions. Now imagine running for president of the United States, having a Republican Congress and a sympathetic Democratic Party? China would probably own the U.S.
As for your comment: “There is a problem, and this is something we can all agree on. The problem is that California, more specifically Gov. Jerry Brown, is trying to raise fees on education. That is something that affects all ELAC students. Yet, students at ELAC disregarded the importance and the significance behind the message that was supposed to be demonstrated.”
Gov Brown is a victim of Jude Wanninski’s Two Santa Claus (http://bit.ly/151lB) and with Mitch McConnell’s goal of making Obama a one-term president, they’ll stop at nothing to end the Democratic control of the Senate and even the state level at any cost…which includes California, whose GDP would make California, if it were a country, #6 wealthiest in the world, to end. California after the last election, became the ONLY state to have all Democrats running the state (http://1.usa.gov/uGJS3t).
So with budget cuts, what can a Governor to do? I suggest follow the North Dakota plan and create a state bank: (http://bit.ly/o9gAcg) and what has it done? Kept the unemployment rate down to 3.5 percent. How? By investing in the state, giving low-interest loans and reinvesting into the state. Can California do the same? (http://bit.ly/rTdEsb)Yes we can. But that means to vote out all the do-nothing Republicans and vote in the do-as-we-say Assembly members and Senators in the State of California.
As for the apathy? Maybe the student don’t know. Did you Megan know about Jude Wanninski? Mitt Romney? State bank? Don’t feel badly, neither did I. I used to blame the governor, but our previous governors were in bed with the corporation (http://bit.ly/uOPgAK)and the Senate and Assembly literally allowed our state to go to Hell back in 200, 2001 with the electricity…unless you lived in a City-Controlled power company like: Los Angeles, Pasadena, Glendale, Anaheim. And the private power corporation pushed for Prop 16 (http://lat.ms/pTr3kV) but lo-and-behold, 52.5% of the people of the state of California collectively gave the corporation the bird…I being one of them.
But apathy is the result of an ill-informed public. The truth must be told so that apathy would wane. I’m glad you took up the challenge and hope Campus News the best. Please keep the student body informed.
Sorry, but nobody wants to sleep in a tent at school. That’s pretty much what it comes down to.
Some of us have money, so it doesn’t really matter if the tuition goes up, so long as it stays reasonable for a community college. Now if they started charging University prices then, sure, everybody would be up in arms. But as long as most of our middle class families have money to pay for school and the poorer classes can get by on Financial aid to pay for class then nobody is really going to care.
Actually, because. Everyone does care about their education it is that they were not out there yelling and making a fool out of themselves like a crazed hippy