Even as the students' and graduates' movement gains force and credibility in that our concerns have been validated by the establishment press and by some figures in the corrupt, parasitic university system, we cannot lose sight of the fact that this fight is about more than just "raising awareness."
We knew we were fucked a long time ago. While this may have been news to our elders, it was a truism for us. Yes, I recognize that there are exceptions. Some of our peers, particularly before we gained mainstream credibility, tried to tarnish us in the hope that they could gain favor with those who hold the golden keys to success. Whenever any suffering grad or student would air her concerns to the press, these turncoats would lambaste and humiliate her, ensuring that fewer would publicly air their grievances in the future. The overeducated/underemployed/"indebtured" class can only defend themselves against a relentless assault on their standard of living by standing united.
Those starting law school this week should know that their schools are cooking the books and ripping them off. Is it time then to pack up our bags and stop writing? NO! Why not? Because the goal is not just to inform but to change the education system from one where students are robbed of their future to one where students hope to gain a better future for themselves. From a system that exists to enrich a parasitic clique, to one that exists for all its stakeholders. And who are the biggest stakeholders but the students themselves?
It's time for students to demand the democratization of their universities, and for graduates to demand a fair deal. Forget about having a clinical "debate" or "discussion" with those who stuff their pockets with our dreams. I have nothing more to say to them, and, in fact, I refuse to address them as moral equals.
We will win eventually. I am sure of it. Because things can't go on like this.
Good Post Knut.
ReplyDeleteEducation leads to ruined financial lives for many, and there is no risk whatsoever for the Universities, and the Lenders.
The restoration of basic consumer bankruptcy protections is one way to change all that.
Why were bankruptcy protections taken away in the first place?
And why do the supposedly learned "Academics" implicitly, by their silence, champion lifetime indentured financial servitude?
Has there ever been a greater Hypocrisy?
Sometimes I think that the Government should have never gotten involved in Higher Ed, in the first place.
All it did was make tuitions go up,and the Administrations and faculties grow wealthier, and wealthier, and the students poorer and poorer.
Knut, the apologist cockroaches always come up with excuses. Some variations:
ReplyDelete"Caveat emptor." (Such dense pigs fail to realize that this does not apply. Furthermore, buyer beware does not give the seller the right to lie.)
"Well, he graduated in the bottom half of his class. How did he expect a job, with that type of performance. Forget this crybaby idiot."
"OK, she went to Harvard Law and is working in a crappy, non-law job. But she has a mustache!"
"Yeah, so what if this guy was an editor on law review? That doesn't teach one how to practice law. Why should firms take a chance on him, when the economy is in the toilet?"
"This guy graduated at the top of his class, and had solid internships. But he is 40! Law firms don't want someone like that. Someone should have told this 'idiot' that before he went to law school. Oh well. It's not my problem."
"She graduated in the top five slots of her class. But she made the mistake of going to a fourth tier law school. Screw her! She has no one to blame but herself."
"Who cares if this guy was editor-in-chief of his school's law review. If he doesn't have a job lined up, that his fault. He probably has bad people skills. Or bad breath. Maybe, he doesn't interview well. Hell, he probably dresses like an idiot, when he does get called in for a job interview."
I imagine we will start to see shills come up with even more outlandish drivel, i.e. "She graduated summa cum laude from Georgetown and doesn't have a job. But her second toe is 1" longer than her big toe."
In the end, all of these idiotic, cretinous "arguments" boil down to the following: "Screw these men and women. They're out of luck. I have no sympathy for them. Forget these losers. They deserve to be in financial hell."
"And who are the biggest stakeholders but the students themselves?"
ReplyDeleteI'll tell you. The biggest stakeholders are the people whose lives and property need the protection of legal rights. Most of them cannot get that protection because the legal cartel prefers to charge prices only the rich can afford. The law school scambloggers never wanted to oppose that cartel, they wanted to join it. You didn't want to become our allies, you wanted to join our enemies. You were only out for yourselves, you never gave a damn about us and our problems, so why should we give a damn about you and your problems?
^ That isn't fucking remotely true.
ReplyDeleteI can speak from personal experience. I didn't want to "join" the fucking law cartel. I wanted to oppose it. THAT'S why I went to lawschool. I wanted to fuck the biglaw trash in this country. The boomer fucks who have literally ruined my generation. THAT'S WHY I WENT TO LAW SCHOOL.
Problem is, it's fucking hard to defend the poor and shit while making a decent living.
I AM DEFENDING THE POOR AND THOSE WHO NEED LEGAL RIGHTS RIGHT NOW IN MY LAW PRACTICE.
As a result I make 15k a year.
Sorry for not wanting to COMPLETELY sacrifice my entire fucking life by defending the poor and defenseless.
And yes, making 15k a year in this SHITTY FUCKING SOCIETY is basically human sacrifice.
I could be working at fucking mcdonalds and make 20k a year full time.
For fuck sakes man wake up?
"The law school scambloggers never wanted to oppose that cartel, they wanted to join it. You didn't want to become our allies, you wanted to join our enemies. You were only out for yourselves, you never gave a damn about us and our problems, so why should we give a damn about you and your problems?"
ReplyDeleteI can't speak for anyone else, but I've advocated complete elimination of the "legal cartel" so long as bankruptcy laws are amended to account for the high entry prices driven by that "cartel." "Your" interests, anonymous tool, are not diametrically opposite to those of indebted law students. Heck, most law school skeptics and scambloggers hate the ABA and everything it's done to legal education.
At the end of the day, all most law students wanted was to come out the other side with a respectable career. If there was no shortage of $50k jobs, there would be no complaining. This idea that bitter law students were all profiteers wanting to strike it rich as part of an antitrust scheme is absurd and completely without support. There are tons of people who wanted legal aid-type jobs to help impoverished jackasses without recompense who are completely unemployed or working in temp or non-law jobs.
Salaries and money are relevant when students are spending 120k for an education, but to claim that law students' consumer fraud claims should be dismissed instantly without sympathy b/c a small minority were bound to benefit from the ABA's market rigging - which no recent law student or graduate has an iota of control over - reveals you to be a true dumbass.
I was only out for myself? That's news to me.
ReplyDeleteWhat law school profs and administrators--and their counterparts in academia generally--never want to acknowledge is that the vast majority of their students are preparing for careers, or simply trying to give themselves a fighting chance of getting a job that pays a livable wage. Most students don't give a flying fuck about their profs' research on gender norms and property law, or Hegel and the common law system.
ReplyDeleteThat is the reason why those profs and administrators blame the students when they can't get the jobs for which they thought they were preparing themselves. Or, those profs and administrators say "tsk, tsk" and wonder why people can be such Philistines that they can't appreciate the beauty of getting an education (actually, more schooling and degrees) for its own sake. The most disingenuous things they say are along the lines of "the disinterested pursuit of knowledge" when all of their research and writing is geared toward getting themselves grants and tenures--and the schools hire PR firms to make the "scholarly pursuit" more appealing to the impressionable young (and desperate not-so-young).
When I was a graduate student and TA, I used to bemoan the "careerists" in my classes. Now there are days I wish I had been more like them.
What kills me, though, is that the people who accuse us of being out for ourselves are the very same ones who benefited from the system as it is because everything they did was geared toward reaping those benefits they've enjoyed.
Yeah Knut.
ReplyDeleteYour reservations about the Law Professors blog were well founded, and thanks for the heads up.
I second the comment of @ Sept. 12, 7:20PM
ReplyDeleteHow bitter it all is.
How Fucking bitter.
Hi
ReplyDeleteDoes anybody else have the feeling that employers are much nastier now than they ever were before? Not only are they paying you peanuts and expecting you to jump through hoops, but they're also increasingly disrespectful, I think because they know that you can't really quit the job like before?
Anyone else experiencing this?
Or to frame it differently of the minority of people on here who are employed (underemployed, whatever you want to call it) how many of you actually have RESPECTFUL supervisors? Does any?
We all wanted to join the punch party. We just didn't pick the right time. It took me about a year to shed all my reservations about lying, cheating, and stealing my way though life to survive. I have gotten so close to being homeless after graduating from a tier 2 law school...its laughable. I'm an average person who isn't particularly remarkable. I am just very street smart because I grew up poor so I have been able find ways to make it.
ReplyDeleteLaw school didn't do anything for me but give me a piece of paper and the chance to pass a bar exam. I could have done that without 3 years of waste. But whatever. Its in the past. What we need to be focusing on is the future of the profession. Where are we going? There is a huge market for merging IT professionals and legal training for Document Management and software development. If you want to try something different go learn how to program python/jde and then put your jd degree on your resume. You will get a call in 5 minutes. There are so few people with that lethal combo. I saw that OPPORTUNITY. I graduated in 2010 from LS, took the bar, couldn't find work - so I spent 8 months doing a cheap cert program on the side. I got a job a month after I got my certification. I'm making more than the associates. I work 9-6 and 10-2 on saturday. I make 48k. My job is retard easy.
The moral of the story is that we can't depend on the old way of doing things. We have to look for new and creative ways to market ourselves. That means learning skills that are in-demand and mesh well with our legal training. Another example would be nursing degree/JD. The healthcare sector is set to expand even more this year. I'm sure more of you guys are smart and capable - break off from the heard. Do something unexpected.