How thick are students...

[KneeOn]

BBC News - How the student fees protest turned violent

Just to bring this thread back to the topic it started on, read the bit entitled "Pankicy Stampedes"

For those unwilling to follow the link:

There were claims that the damage had been caused by a hard-core of violent protest junkies who had deliberately come for trouble.

But it had been an unlikely collection of people crowding around the smashed glass.

There were young middle class students, perhaps on their first march, alongside anarchists with masked faces and gangs of what seemed like even younger teenagers, swept along by events.

Not everyone was actually rioting.

Oh and I love formatting.

 

[KneeOn]

Degraded? You really do have a very high opinion of yourself, don't you?

I think I'm going down the pub. I've just about read enough of your posts tonight.

Tell me have you EVER worked at mcdonalds? It is pretty horrendous at times.

The way some managers treat you is awful.

So yes, its degrading.

 

[mikeyjh]

The policies make me too angry to comment any more on, I will however make 2 points:-

Firstly, polite, peaceful demonstrations achieve nothing, I admire people who are prepared to fight for what they think is right. There are those people and there are those who'll accept that they're going to get fcuked up the a**e that make me mad.

Secondly, if you think that is the worst you're going to see over the next see over the next few months and years, you're going to be very suprised.

 

[The Ringleader Returns!]

Tell me have you EVER worked at mcdonalds? It is pretty horrendous at times.

The way some managers treat you is awful.

So yes, its degrading.

Nobody is forcing you to work there. You could leave.

I might come visit you at work one day.

 

[KneeOn]

Nobody is forcing you to work there. You could leave.

I might come visit you at work one day.

I know, but the market isn't fantastic and the crew members are quality!

You won't see me, i work in the kitchen (usually on quatre grill).

 

[Dandyman]

1. You do realise that fees are not payable up front - and you get the loans to make the payments?

2. You will have enough to live on as you do now - the debt accrues and you pay it back at a higher threshold of £21K and not £15K.

3. The debt is cleared after 30 years (I know, whoopee).

4. The loans are means tested - blame your parents for earning too much.

You are paying a going rate for a qualification and you don't pay it back until you have qualified and you are earning over £21K. What is really wrong with that?

So students will get a lifetime of debt and (this does not seem to have been mentioned) University will cease to be a "public good" and become sellers of a commodity.

Every piece of research shows that increasing fees and the probability of debt acts as a major disincentive to working class potential students while those from wealthier backgrounds will still apply.

There will still be bright working class kids (like my father) who will take on multiple jobs and work their way through University but many many more will be put off from even applying.

 

[HampshireSeagulls]

Perhaps education should be treated as a commodity once you pass the "compulsory" education brackets. After you have completed compulsory then it becomes optional. Sadly we do see people who try to progress that have no aptitude for study at that time - they sometimes need to mature, to get a job - and we often tell students this. Some come back for the course and some don't. I don't doubt that some people will be put off education by the impending debt and that is a shame, but I also expect that some people that in reality should not be at Uni in the first place will be dissuaded from putting themselves in debt, especially those who fail to complete the course. I still believe that business should be involved in sponsoring people through Uni and there will always be the grants, funds and benefactors who will fund some people - but the "right" to a degree has possibly seen it's day.

 

[clapham_gull]

There will still be bright working class kids (like my father) who will take on multiple jobs and work their way through University but many many more will be put off from even applying.

That's the real sadness actually.

I happened to go to three institutions with a very "liberal" (how ironic) attitude to admission.

I've seen higher education quite literally change people's lives - or the path that society expected them to take.

It's quite something to hear a beer delivery driver talking elequently about Post Modernism after walking in thinking everyone would be actually taking the piss out him.

To some I guess that's quite a romantic view of education, but it's mine born out of experience. I'm not talking about 19th Century Miners discovering Shakespeare - but people in rubbish jobs and low wage in the 90s, who suddenly saw the black clouds opening above their heads.

Still frustrated about their lives - but either given something to take their minds off it or given the confidence/language to express it.

If it can't be afforded - then I'd like to see a work/study way of doing it become the norm and simply double the time it takes to get the qualification.

Doing it like that has a number of benefits in my opinion.

 

[KneeOn]

That's the real sadness actually.

I happened to go to three institutions with a very "liberal" (how ironic) attitude to admission.

I've seen higher education quite literally change people's lives - or the path that society expected them to take.

It's quite something to hear a beer delivery driver talking elequently about Post Modernism after walking in thinking everyone would be actually taking the piss out him.

To some I guess that's quite a romantic view of education, but it's mine born out of experience. I'm not talking about 19th Century Miners discovering Shakespeare - but people in rubbish jobs and low wage in the 90s, who suddenly saw the black clouds opening above their heads.

Still frustrated about their lives - but either given something to take their minds off it or given the confidence/language to express it.

If it can't be afforded - then I'd like to see a work/study way of doing it become the norm and simply double the time it takes to get the qualification.

Doing it like that has a number of benefits in my opinion.

Thats really romantic.


And theres nothing wrong with being romantic... Education can be a real rags to riches (not materially either but self fulfilling for some)

 

[Joey Deacon's Disco Suit]

Thats really romantic.


And theres nothing wrong with being romantic... Education can be a real rags to riches (not materially either but self fulfilling for some)

You still here?

Thank God there wasn't the internet when I was your age. I was a patronising know-it-all too, back then.

 

[clapham_gull]

You still here?

Thank God there wasn't the internet when I was your age. I was a patronising know-it-all too, back then.

The internet didn't exist when I started University (and neither did Windows..) but he does have a point.

Does have to paid for though.. not quite sure how.

 

[Joey Deacon's Disco Suit]

The internet didn't exist when I started University (and neither did Windows..) but he does have a point.

Does have to paid for though.. not quite sure how.

I don't know either but to be honest, after seeing what him and his friends have been up to today, I'm starting not to care.

 

[KneeOn]

I don't know either but to be honest, after seeing what him and his friends have been up to today, I'm starting not to care.

FOR f*** SAKE LEARN TO f***ing READ!

YES: I was at Millbank, YES, I chanted and protested there NO I DID NOT SMASH A SINGLE WINDOW, NOR DID I THROW ANYTHING, NOR DID I CAUSE ANY DAMAGE

f***ing hell. I knew 2 people at Millbank. We were drawn there because a large number were there, swept in and then it got violent. We decided that as the march was over, we'd stay there and protest peacefully as did a large number of the people there.

I WAS THERE. I think I know more about how it went down than you do. So please f*** off, unless you were there as well. Apparantly stewards DID show up at the enterence not long after I and my friends arrived and was shepperding people away.

Its not even like the 1000 or so people there at Millbank were violent, about 300 of them were. Sure its a substantial amount of the 1000, but out of the 50,000?

Like I say. I was tehre, I SAW IT go down, knew what the atmosphere was like, and you were sat at work/home/where ever you were watching updates or catchin it after work on the news.

f***ing scroat.

 

[Castello]

The policies make me too angry to comment any more on, I will however make 2 points:-

Firstly, polite, peaceful demonstrations achieve nothing, I admire people who are prepared to fight for what they think is right. There are those people and there are those who'll accept that they're going to get fcuked up the a**e that make me mad.

Secondly, if you think that is the worst you're going to see over the next see over the next few months and years, you're going to be very suprised.

This

The tragic thing is that as a result of these proposals a university degree, will become a rich persons qualification, for all but the most determined hard working few. If I saw this happening to my future I would be out there doing whatever I could to stop that.

 

[clapham_gull]

We were drawn there because a large number were there, swept in and then it got violent.

Tate Britain is down the road or you could have taken in one of a number of nice bars over the bridge in Vauxhall.

Seriously on reflection this demonstration has done far more harm than good. Watching footage of people dancing inside Millbank - just looked pathetic. If there were dance students I take it all back.

I thought the idea of unseating Liberal Democrat MPs was quite innovative. Today albeit through the actions of a minority, its going to be very hard to find a sympathetic report.

Forget what it was like to be really there, Sky got footage of a fire extinguisher being thrown from the building. Lucky we aren't talking about a death.

Shame.

 

[fataddick]

Fair play to those students that did more than just dress up in costume and wave placards around. Violence? Towards what? A building? One owned by multi-gabillionaire brothers that were amongst the largest donators to the Tories at the last election? Heaven forfend if their insurance doesn't cover it. Of course there were some twats there - as there are in every pub/football crowd/gig audience/whatever - and the one idiot who threw a fire extinguisher off the roof should hang from a lamppost as much as any greedy banker or malevolent politician should (PS these demos tend to attract a fair few far right footie hooligan gangs just there for a fight with the police, just saying), but as for the building? Well, frankly, it's a shame they didn't burn it down (after everyone was evacuated of course). And give it until next Spring/Summer, when the cuts (to all sections of society and many many professions) really start to kick in, the protests then - from everyone, not just students and Swampies - will make the Trafalgar Square 1990 uprising look like a chimp's tea party. And half of you slagging off the students today will be taking part in them. We're too lily-livered a country nowadays when it comes to protest. If an unjust policy is introduced in places like France, Spain or Italy the people riot and the policy most likely gets overturned. (NB Ladbrokes have cut the odds from 20-1 to 5-1 on the tution fees one being scrapped purely on the basis of this one tiny 'riot', case in point). Peaceful protest acheives nothing. Jump under the King's horse you just end up dead, jump on the King you get 10 pages in the paper, and the people who really run this country (the ones who own most of the property in central London, and shat their pants so much at the Trafalgar Square poll tax damage it dominoed into Thatcher being forced out and the tax scrapped) start to panic. And then, well, you can tie as many flowers in your hair as you like, but a Rothschild or a Murdoch or a Windsor cares an awful lot more about their insurance premiums than they do about peaceful folk waving placards. Just saying, like.

 

[m20gull]

Fair play to those students that did more than just dress up in costume and wave placards around. Violence? Towards what? A building? One owned by multi-gabillionaire brothers that were amongst the largest donators to the Tories at the last election? Heaven forfend if their insurance doesn't cover it. Of course there were some twats there - as there are in every pub/football crowd/gig audience/whatever - and the one idiot who threw a fire extinguisher off the roof should hang from a lamppost as much as any greedy banker or malevolent politician should (PS these demos tend to attract a fair few far right footie hooligan gangs just there for a fight with the police, just saying), but as for the building? Well, frankly, it's a shame they didn't burn it down (after everyone was evacuated of course). And give it until next Spring/Summer, when the cuts (to all sections of society and many many professions) really start to kick in, the protests then - from everyone, not just students and Swampies - will make the Trafalgar Square 1990 uprising look like a chimp's tea party. And half of you slagging off the students today will be taking part in them. We're too lily-livered a country nowadays when it comes to protest. If an unjust policy is introduced in places like France, Spain or Italy the people riot and the policy most likely gets overturned. (NB Ladbrokes have cut the odds from 20-1 to 5-1 on the tution fees one being scrapped purely on the basis of this one tiny 'riot', case in point). Peaceful protest acheives nothing. Jump under the King's horse you just end up dead, jump on the King you get 10 pages in the paper, and the people who really run this country (the ones who own most of the property in central London, and shat their pants so much at the Trafalgar Square poll tax damage it dominoed into Thatcher being forced out and the tax scrapped) start to panic. And then, well, you can tie as many flowers in your hair as you like, but a Rothschild or a Murdoch or a Windsor cares an awful lot more about their insurance premiums than they do about peaceful folk waving placards. Just saying, like.

And then opinion of the minority gets to ride over the opinion of the majority.

I'm not going to get worked up over the thoughtless actions of a few idiots who clearly don't consider rational debate and presuasion an acceptable path.

I might suggest they are not the sort of people who I want to go to university paid for with my money.

 

[Stumpy Tim]

I have a lot of sympathy for people who worry education will become a rich mans game. However, that isn't the point. Do those complaining wonder why Uni's in the US dominate the top 20 best Uni's in the world? It's because they're bloody expensive and are paid for by rich people. Unfortunately the top Uni's in the US are basically for rich people.

The question you have to ask is the following. Do you want to hold back clever rich kids so others get the same chances? Or do you want to have all uni's at a particular level that isn't as good as they could be, but everyone gets the same opportunities?

Both arguments have merit, and I don't know what I think really. I lean towards the former view, but think the US have gone too far in that direction

 

[Joey Deacon's Disco Suit]

f***ing scroat.

f***ing scroat? My, you really are the keyboard warrior aren't you? You students really know how to win hearts and minds.

 

[KneeOn]

Tate Britain is down the road or you could have taken in one of a number of nice bars over the bridge in Vauxhall.

Seriously on reflection this demonstration has done far more harm than good. Watching footage of people dancing inside Millbank - just looked pathetic. If there were dance students I take it all back.

I thought the idea of unseating Liberal Democrat MPs was quite innovative. Today albeit through the actions of a minority, its going to be very hard to find a sympathetic report.

Forget what it was like to be really there, Sky got footage of a fire extinguisher being thrown from the building. Lucky we aren't talking about a death.

Shame.

As it happens we just got out of the way, under the bridged bit of Millbank just as the fire extinguisher was dropped.

As a testement to those who were there genuinely protesting a very loud and totally united chant of "stop throwing shit" was sang at those.

I'm not nieve and realize now that we should have tried harder to get out, because we saw it turning violent but thought that stayin as far back as possible we'd be able to protest the way the majority at Millbank and at the march had. The rapid change was what caught many of the teenagers mentioned in the BBC article out including us. Our mistake it seems.

As for the dancing. An example of how the minority that hi-jacked the event screwing up things for the majority. The dancing came from a harge speaker outside millbank and to begin with before things got violent there was peaceful dancing that was good natured. The media are focusing on the anarchists dancing once again ruining the good natured and sometimes carnival atmosphere of the day.