It’s kind of funny to me to see this occurring now because in 1992 during my freshman year in college, I tried to stage a protest and boycott of my college’s clubs and student organizations due to the offensive mascot of the school, and it’s woefully stereotypical yearly activity of beating a war drum for 24 consecutive hours as to mock the culture of the native American tribe for which the school’s mascot was named. I was ignored and ostracized from my academic department, and subsequently identified by the faculty as one who wouldn’t be considered for any benefit of having attended the school through issuance of recommendation letters or invitations to symposiums on graduate study and professional opportunities. The friends I had, in retrospect, were only concerned with graduation, the perfunctory socialization one receives in college, and securing social and financial standing—cultural ills and divisive inequalities be damned! How absolutely regretful some of my classmates must be now, that they not only didn’t heed the warning of my naive example, but that the course of their lives was being constructed by someone other than themselves?

This protest is too little too late, because after my experience in institutions of higher education with the diverse demographic group that is now the constituency of American university education, I have found that most of these, albeit studious people, are simply vacuous, selfish, servile, consumerists, waiting to buy into, or in effect, rent their independence within society from the financial-governmental-military complex. They will try to trade on what they perceive as knowledge gained in university, or social skills honed, to participate in a worldwide corporate culture of greed, and self-aggrandizement. Now that the lifeboats are full in our corporate state, metaphorically speaking, the high authorities of all institutions across the spectrum are trying to prevent entry and, maintain their own positions and that of their closest allies and relatives. The silly students and most of their haphazard parents couldn’t, or didn’t care to see this trend formulating, which has been building since 1980. We as a culture have continued to procreate wantonly, lead atomized lives fearful of organization, and have been heavily dependent on superstition to explain our predicament. We have abdicated our inalienable rights for a hot dog that can be bought at a local convenience store 24 hours a day. Now, we are seeing the consequence. There is no reason for anyone in government from Obama on down, nor is there a reason for the corporate structure to do anything to benefit the people. They know they can give us spoiled meat and contaminated blankets, and we won’t say anything. But, if someone jeopardizes the dreams of our most self- interested youth to enter the upper tiers of society, then this younger sector of society will react because their whole identity is contained within the idea that they deserve, or are better than their societal counterparts. The only difference in this mindset and those at the highest levels of power is the fact that the former hasn’t yet attained the authority to act in a similarly brutal manner. There are too many people in the world who want to live the American dream. Therefore, as is done in the stock market, one must manipulate the activity, information, and accessibility to the stock or commodity in order to displace all of the small players and preserve the large amount of profits for the insiders. The same is happening not only in our educational system, but in all sectors of our organized society.

So this is what it takes to get an apathetic student population to put down the game controllers and take it to the streets…

Hit them in their pocketbook!!

Nevermind the two wars,down economy,government corruption and OBAMA and you name it…

Nope,they could give a crap about that stuff,heads down, on their way to the corporate middle..

Its hard to believe that Berkeley was ground zero for the 60’s revolution and the brief attempts at freedom..

Nope they are just the kids of the flower children who soon sold their souls to become the generation who will instead be remebered for being totally consumed by their greedy desires..

So buck up kids, get out your checkbooks, and welcome to the real world..