BS: Students march against tuition fees UK

Subject: RE: BS: Students march against tuition fees UK
From: Leadfingers
Date: 16 Nov 10 - 09:39 AM

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Subject: RE: BS: Students march against tuition fees UK
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 16 Nov 10 - 11:27 AM

"Don't be so utterly stupid. "
In the face of that overwhelming argument, I'm sure you've convinced us all.
You've had the facts - greedy bankers and investors bringing the economy to its knees, corrupt, indifferent and incompetent politicians now undermining the social infrastucture of Britain with their cutbacks which will inevitably bring about closures, re-possession of homes, increased unemployment, reduced care to the elderly, the reduction, and even withdrawal of pensions - where's your response to that?
So far, all you've suggested that anybody who opposes the establishment should be dealt with as the Argentinian fascists dealt with their opponents.
IS THAT IT??
"doesn't blind you to the fact that a malevolent yobbo who deliberately and with malicious intent throws a heavy object from a high building into a crowd of people below is also a criminal...."
Of course he is Mike, the operative part of your statement being "ALSO a criminal" - what do you propose should happen to his fellow criminals who created the mess? His behaviour pales into insignificance next to the real damage that has been done to the country.
Cutbacks in the health service will lead to increased ill health and even death among the more vunerable members of our society, cutbacks in education will not only affect adversely the future of those effected, but will also reduce the ability to get out of the mess created by big business and government..... pensions, carers, social workers, employment..... need I go on; I'm sure you are as aware as I am of the damage that has been done to our society by 'the great and the good'. I am also a follower of Question Time and some weeks ago I heard a woman firefighter tell the audience that she and her colleagues were all due to be dismised from their work and re-hired at reduced wages and conditions - were's your outrage about that - or has it all been expended on a missile-throwing yob?
I'm more than a little surprised that you, who seem proud of and grateful for your university education, are not defending the rights of others to have the same advantages.
Nobody here appears to be putting up any sort of a defence for the scum who created this mess, not here certainly. Personally I find them equally as malicious and malevolent as any missile thowing yob - the only difference being that the effect of the former's maliciousness is more far-reaching and damages us all - oh, and he will probably be punished by the law, while the others will continue receiving their obscenely inflated salaries and awarding themselves with large bonuses for a job well done.   
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Students march against tuition fees UK
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 16 Nov 10 - 12:50 PM

Well, Jim, one wins some & one loses some: indeed I was fortunate in the time I received my university education {it wasn't, tho, of course, just the present lot that you are inveighing against that made such privilege a thing of the past}, I greatly appreciated it and could not have been more grateful. But I belonged also to the generation expected to pay for it by that time-wasting period of boredom [when not worse: three of my basic-training platoon were subsequently killed in action & a friend at my college had one leg + the MC thanks to a spell in Korea] known as National Service.

What would I do with this lot? you ask. Why, if I thought like you {not saying whether I do or don't} about them, campaign to get them voted out of office, of course: a privilege we all have is the ability to do just that. But it is just rather silly & pathetic to denounce them as 'criminals', a word of precise legal application, when you know as well as I do that they are not in any possible legal sense anything of the sort. I mean, name what Act Of Parliament they have breached. Go on. We're waiting...

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Students march against tuition fees UK
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 16 Nov 10 - 01:32 PM

"But it is just rather silly & pathetic to denounce them as 'criminals',"
You are right of course Mike; it is criminal to throw stones and damage property, but not to bleed a nation dry so people go hungry, die of neglect and lack of adequate medical cover and are made homeless and jobless - funny old world you seem to be in favour of.
"campaign to get them voted out of office"
And replace them with what? A bunch of your conservatives (under another name) have just been voted out and replaced with an equally privelege-driven bunch - Thatcher's offsprings supported in office by a party ready to sell itself to the highest bidder - which leaves the rest of us where exactly?
By the time the next election comes around (and just assuming we are not presented with another Tweedledum-Tweedledee choice) the homelessness, inadequate health, eduaction, pension will be a done deal and those who have had no part in the present mess will have been milked dry in order to pay for the excesses.
Are there none of you supporters of the status quo with the bottle to defend the past few years behaviour by those you so keenly support, or is it just "ah well, what's done's done" - or maybe, to borrow an old Liverpool phrase "Ding-ding, I'm on the bus"?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Students march against tuition fees UK
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 16 Nov 10 - 02:09 PM

I haven't said I am 'in favour of' anything, Jim, or 'keenly support' anyone; except precise use of language, please ~~ apart from everything else, words used loosely and hyperbolically notoriously lose their effect, which is what has happened to the word 'criminal' as you are using it ~~ it has, in your & your compeers' writing, lost any effectiveness as a precise term & become a mere boo-word.

It is rather harsh to denounce as 'in favour of the status quo' anyone who doesn't actively militate against the present situation. In return, I would suggest it is a bit vain to try and emulate the famous countryman in the old Punch cartoon, who, asked the way, replied "Well, you can't start from here".

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Students march against tuition fees UK
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 16 Nov 10 - 03:28 PM

Don't forget common law crimes as well as statutory ones.

Well, although the fine print of the definition does not help, I'd have thought there was something of a ring about "obtaining pecuniary advantage by deception".

Subject: RE: BS: Students march against tuition fees UK
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 16 Nov 10 - 04:01 PM

Mike - you are defending the status quo by your joining those who would make the only target of their bile the violent tiny minority, and appear to see nothing wrong with the events leading up to the situation that brought about these protests.
If I have misjudged your stance, I apologise, but I see no evidence here.
In the next few years, the lives of close members of my family will be thrown into turmoil by the economic situation - I make no apologies for feeling angry about this and am happy to point the finger at those I feel are the cause.
As there is no chance whatever that the guilty will be punished for the damege they have inflicted on people's lives, I dearly hope the next few years sees the streets of Britain congested with protesters there is no sign whatever of support from the politicians you say we should vote for.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Students march against tuition fees UK
From: akenaton
Date: 16 Nov 10 - 04:53 PM

You can't vote out the system Mike.
The financial crash was a SYSTEMIC failure. Mr Brown, whom I would describe as centre left, a believer in govt control, oversaw the further deregulation of banking not because he personally liked the idea, but because he was obliged to stimulate growth in the economy.

We were uncompetitive, and the system hates people who are uncompetitive, it leaves them to rot and moves on to easier pickings....it has always been so....it is a fact of political life.

We have two choices, we either slash the living standards of the poor and middle class, making the national gap between rich and poor twice as bad as it is now, with all the associated problems that will engender, hoping to turn the clock back ten years and reset this system so that it can fail again in another five.

OR
We can make a start on constructing a fairer society, allbeit with a lower but equitable living standard for everyone.....I dont pretend that this will be easy or pleasant, but if we are being serious, I dont believe we have any other option.

The very rich and their mercenaries will do everything in their power to smash us to pulp....As they have tried to do with other dissenting regimes...(Cuba for example).

Our defence will involve violence, and if anybody thinks capitalism can be defeated or even affected without violence they are living on a totally different planet.

Subject: RE: BS: Students march against tuition fees UK
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 16 Nov 10 - 05:31 PM

You know, it's kind of odd, but apart from his homophobia and racism, Ake is starting to make more and more sense.

Subject: RE: BS: Students march against tuition fees UK
From: andrew e
Date: 16 Nov 10 - 06:34 PM

All You Need Is Love.

But it ain't gonna happen.

Governments have no idea what that means.

But we can still see things with love.

Subject: RE: BS: Students march against tuition fees UK
From: akenaton
Date: 16 Nov 10 - 06:43 PM

When one is incapable of recognising the nature of homophobia or racism, his views on the validity of diverse socio-economic systems must be taken with a degree of scepticism.

So for your qualified support Richard, thank you, but no thank you.

As Mrs Palin says ""When the Left pat you on the back, quickly reassess where you are and readjust, for the liberals' praise is a warning bell you must heed,"

Subject: RE: BS: Students march against tuition fees UK
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 17 Nov 10 - 02:51 AM

"Ake is starting to make more and more sense."
Not come across the racism - but seconded - though I'm sure my opinion is equally unwelcome.
It would be helpful if one of these tame Tories would put up some sort of a defence and explanation for the abject failure and excessisive behavour of the system that has created the present state of affairs, but I suppose that would be stretching it a little - far easier to rally round the flag.
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Students march against tuition fees UK
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 17 Nov 10 - 06:00 AM

>>>Mike - you are defending the status quo by your joining those who would make the only target of their bile the violent tiny minority, and appear to see nothing wrong with the events leading up to the situation that brought about these protests.<<<
========

No, Jim; like you, I think this a dire government, out to ruin the respectable hardworking part of the populace and the unfortunate who have not that opportunity; which I join you in deploring. (But the word 'criminal' in connection with this, for reasons I have explained above, nevertheless seems to me counter-productive).

But I cannot thereby associate with what seems to me your most odd inference, that these governmental shortcomings somehow *excuse* the sort of destructive & criminal yobbery to which we have all been witness. Could you perhaps expound your rationale a little more clearly, please?

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Students march against tuition fees UK
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 17 Nov 10 - 09:06 AM

I don't believe they 'excuse' the yobbery in any way, nor have I said so. I just believe it disingenuous to make that your main (only) target of attack and ignore those who have deeply damaged our society with their greed and mis-government.
Such tunnel vision has been a diversionary tactic as long as I have been interested in politics - "the great unwashed of Aldermaston" made sure we 'layabouts' were in the limelight rather than the cause we were espousing. Similarly with Viet-Nam, the miners, the Poll Tax..... name any cause that has brought people out on the street exercising their democratic right to protest.
Re my use of the word 'criminal'. It seems a little pedantic to dismiss the use of a term which is in general use in a wider (albeit less-accurate) sense. Crimes against society; humanity.... real enough although, in many cases, out of the reach of the law.
Thatcher used her influence successfully to prevent Augusto Pinochet from standing trial for torture and mass murder, which, in my book, implicated her in his crimes against humanity - not technically a criminal but......
The greed that brought about the present crisis will almost inevitably lead to reduced life style, increasing bad health, even death for some of the more vunerable members of our society, yet, far from being punished, those responsible will be bailed out with our taxes and will almost certainly continue to receive large bonuses for their work. Not criminal, of course, but I can't think of a better word to describe it.
It is now recognised without doubt that a significant number of politicians have been making false claims for expenses over a long period of time. Had I made similar false claims when filling in a tax form or an accident report, I would have faced a hefty fine and maybe even imprisonment. I would be a criminal, they are not. Buggered if I can see why, can you?
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Students march against tuition fees UK
From: gnu
Date: 14 Dec 10 - 02:48 PM

Haven't read the thread.

I just heard that tuition has been tripled.

Now, if that is required, I do not understand why the government would not make the hikes apply to those entering uni NEXT year and hold the fees at present levels for students already attending. At least that would allow those who have already committed to certain expenditures to continue and not lose their expenditures to date.

Perhaps this has already been suggested. If so, I apologize. If it hasn't been expained to the government, which should have had the common sense to do same in the first place, I hope some of you UKers lash them in the newspapers for their idiocy.

Subject: RE: BS: Students march against tuition fees UK
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 14 Dec 10 - 04:16 PM

The increases commence in October 2012 I believe, but I'll listen to 6 Kate Rusby CDs if I'm wrong!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Students march against tuition fees UK
From: gnu
Date: 14 Dec 10 - 05:09 PM

2012.10? Not good enough. Perhaps a class action lawsuit might be in order. If the government - the politicians and the silly servants - haven't the brains to get this right they should be sent back to school. The students themselves should have the brains to think this through and go about mitigating the problem without resorting to this silly ass marching and resulting violence. It all seems so silly that, again, IF it is required, NOBODY can see how to do it properly.

I keep saying "if it is required" because it is easily proven that it is not required. It's a simple cost-benefit analysis which one can underline emperically by citing the example of the benefit of just HAVING children and nurturing them. If you educate the young, they provide economic benefit in future. If you do not educate the young, they provide little except cannon fodder. Ahhhh, there it is. Yeah, I'll say it for the thousandth time... the rich subjugate the poor. In order for them to wage war to save their richess, they need a hungry, young populace which they can manipulate.

But, if the students (poor) were smart, they would sue the politicians for breach of contract, trust and deriliction of duty. After all, the politicians are paid and, thus, they have a contract to uphold a reasonable duty of care that does not bring financial hardship such as is being forced on students already attending uni. It's just common sense.

The only other recourse is to lynch the fuckers... as Marie Antoinette the T'ird said, "Let them eat shit... and die." Seriously, if someone fucked you out of a huge amount of coin wouldn't you be a tad pissed? I can understand their anger, not their violence... unless it becomes necessary.