Why is a right-wing student group being promoted on rabble?

Evidence is mounting rabble........

spatrioter is pointing out, quite rightly, that there is nothing "radical" about the very centrist platform of OUSA. The concern in the OP is not about the platform per se, but that rabble seems content to publish a centrist, not particularly progressive group's press releases as is without any in-house critical analysis. Worse, to colour a platform that advocates tuition increases (which is exactly what OUSA is doing, whether adjusted to inflation or not) as "radical" is a serious disservice to more progressive and revolutionary student groups who believe that tution should be going down, not up.

It's a good question, and should be answered.

Hehe.  Evidently, students suggesting that anyone who's a student should pay more toward their own education are right-wing, and students suggesting that everyone who's not a student should pay more are left-wing.

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which is exactly what OUSA is doing, whether adjusted to inflation or not

Is it?

When a (real) right-winger complains that unions get guaranteed raises every year, and someone points out that a COLA is just an adjustment to keep real wages from actually [i]decreasing[/i] then we all seem to understand that in real dollar terms, this adjustment is pure status quo.

You seem to be saying that tuition indexed to inflation is, regardless, an actual increase in tuition each year, which is exactly the opposite of the logic above. Have you thought this through, mathematically??

What a bizarre, nonsensical argument. Do you have a point, Snert?

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If a group advocated for user fees for health care, and that these fees should increase with inflation, and that people should have access to "health care loans" to help them pay for it, wouldn't you call that right-wing?

User fees like prescription costs, eye exams, various "co-pays" and so on? Well, honestly if someone suggested indexing those to inflation, I don't know that I'd be calling them Glenn Beck or anything.

I just always find it funny that, as I said, the "left wing" response to tuition fees is to expect more from those who will never use them.

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What a bizarre, nonsensical argument. Do you have a point, Snert?

Sure, in a nutshell: things indexed to inflation do not get more expensive over time. Suggesting that indexing something to inflation raises its cost demonstrates an inability to do math. Howzat? Still want to maintain that this group is advocating for higher fees?

Snert wrote:

Sure, in a nutshell: things indexed to inflation do not get more expensive over time. Suggesting that indexing something to inflation raises its cost demonstrates an inability to do math. Howzat? Still want to maintain that this group is advocating for higher fees?

Hmm. Let me be clear: I am invested in this conversation because I have concern over how a progressive news organization presents education issues. You have no such concern, as you are interested only in gamesmanship and sophistry, neither of which you do very well. That is what I mean when I say you have no point, no principles and no reason to be in this conversation other than to ego-stroke and agitate. I can't see any other reason for you to be in this thread, and your further postings do nothing but reinforce this understanding.

You are the one who introduced "expensive" into this discussion, probably because of your faulty analogy with wages, which must, by definition, include real economic costs and values. Spatrioter obliquely made the point that asking to pay more tuition is asking for a tuition increase. The progressive student groups of which I am aware and of which I have been a part ask for decreases, in tution--indeed, free tuition is the ultimate goal. Therefore, any movement in the opposite direction, irrespective of tution's "real" economic cost, is unprogressive.

But don't let that get in the way of your red herrings and parlour tricks.

I personally arrive at the conclusion of tuition increases from a progressive perspective. Students are not only primarily privileged, but they are upwardly mobile. IMO, cutting wages for university workers or raising the GST to pay for lower tuition is no different than providing tax credits for buying a home, it primarily benefits the better off.

"Catchfire" wrote:

You are the one who introduced "expensive" into this discussion, probably because of your faulty analogy with wages, which must, by definition, include real economic costs and values. Spatrioter obliquely made the point that asking to pay more tuition is asking for a tuition increase. The progressive student groups of which I am aware and of which I have been a part ask for decreases, in tution--indeed, free tuition is the ultimate goal. Therefore, any movement in the opposite direction, irrespective of tution's "real" economic cost, is unprogressive.

The impact of free tuition would negatively impact lower-income students a lot more than higher-income students.

An example would be educational assistance. Students who fall behind can sometimes afford private tutoring, and sometimes not. Universities provide some equalization for this. They have teaching assistants giving tutorials, they have tutors on site for departments such as English and Math. That would no doubt go quickly if funding dried up, and poor students would be a lot more effective.

I did both kinds of tutoring as an undergraduate. I offered private tutoring for $20/hour, of which there was no shortage of demand, and kids from well-off families would be able to pull of B+ and A- performances with my help even if they were challenged at the start or they skipped the first 4 weeks partying away. I also worked in a department help desk, where the department paid me money and I gave help to anyone who walked in. That would be cut if funding dried up, and you'd end up with a situation where wealthy kids can get help but poor kids cannot.

Student unions are primarily staffed by students from well-off families who have ambitions of power in the business and political world. They discuss issues of student poverty from a theoretical perspective, they don't really understand them. They don't get how critical ancillary services are for example. Who do you think would be more affected by eliminating the housing office - students who pay rent or students whose parents buy a downtown condo as an investment?

Who would be more affected by eliminating mental health services?

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I realize my view is not the fashionable one, but imo what we need are schools that empower students, that give them a good and complete education. We're not concerned with medical students taking on $50,000 in debts because we know they'll have the means to pay them off. That should be the norm. I think that's preferable to an alternative system, where people graduate without debt, but without much education and a lot of problems.

Even if tuition were free, students would still need $10k-$15k/year just in living expenses, there are broader problems here.

Well, from reading Stephen Gordon (ex of babble), I understand the thinking behind seeing free tuition as a "cash handount to the middle and upper-class families," but the idea of free tuition would hopefully be accompanied by a progressive tax structure that would take appropriate funds from upper- and middle-class families already. A free-market solution is to facilitate loans (and debt) to less well-off students, presuming that they will make it up in the hypothetical future. Since student debt is at an all-time and crippling high, this system appears to me to be deeply flawed.

One of my starting points is that while it may not be health care, post-secondary education is nevertheless a human right, and it is of paramount importance that it is accessible to all: poor, rural, marginalized. Education at all levels is a good in and of itself, and this belief needs to be enfranchised in our laws, best accomplioshed, I believe, through fully state-funded programs, including, like they have in Scandinavia and Finland, a stipend for living expenses.

At least the argument raised by A_J and Apples are rooted in an ostensible concern for the subject matter, rather than, like Snert, simply interested in scoring points, feeding their egos, or "winning."

But the benefit of free tuition has been raised many times on babble. I don't mind bringing it up again, but I think it is off topic. Unless I'm wrong, spatrioter is not (only) concerned with babble publishing the "wrong" or "unprogressive" opinions, but that a conspicuously right-wing organization (although I would characterize them as liberal or centrist) is given free and uncritical voice on rabble, supposedly a place of progressive politics--furthermore, the fact that the blogger calls this mealy-mouthed group "radical" is also disturbing. The question of the deleted comments is another problematic concern.

spatrioter wrote:

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I personally arrive at the conclusion of health care user fees from a progressive perspective. People with better health are not only primarily privileged, but they are upwardly mobile. IMO, cutting wages for health care workers or raising the GST to pay for free health care is no different than providing tax credits for buying a home, it primarily benefits the better off.

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Even if health care were free, people would still need $10k-$15k/year just in extended health benefits and drug costs, there are broader problems here.

There's so much fail in that analogy.

Biggest error:

Rich people are not more likely to get sick than poor people, like you assume.

Thanks for your kind words, George.

When Quebec students voted to strike to fight the tuition hikes, I was one of the minority of McGill students who joined the protests, because I think the lack of funding in Canadian schools (which is true not just at McGill, incidentally, but across the nation) should be repaired by public money, not from debt off the backs of students. I respect the position articulated by Gordon and others here, mainly because I also agree that a progessive tax that would make free tuition feasible is unlikely in Canada in my lifetime. But la lutte continue...

A word on "the language of human rights" and the courts. I wish skdadl wasn't beaten off by some of the braying gadflies on this board, because she would give us an eloquent lesson on what a "human right" is in the eyes of the law. I have to say I am delighted to hear the objection you have, Apples, because I might agree with you halfway. You are right that when a "human right" is designated by the West as some inviolate commodity to be forced upon the masses, that this is a tool of the oppressor and counter-revolutionary. But that is not what I mean when I invoke human rights, nor is it what Canada's esteemed Supreme Court meant when it enfranchised SSM rights in our law--the Supreme Court is not, theoretically, an enforcer of the law, but an interpreter of the law. And as such, they have the weight of history behind them. They have the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and all of its great cousins. They have the social reality of LGBT folk, and their real desires, demands and voices. And it is those voices, those narratives, that compelled the court to give a name to what was really already there. A true "right" comes from below, not from above.

So too with education. Our society has valued education for centuries, and the enfranchisement of all classes and people to enjoy what education they may has been recognized across the globe, at least in name,  as channelling this power of history. Again, education is a social good, point. It is not a means for better citizenry, for better economic standing, for better cultural capital, although it can afford all of these things. It is a good in toto and per se, and should be treated by our governments as such.

As far as I can tell, John Bonnar's blog posts consist entirely of regurgitated press releases from NGOs and advocacy groups. He could be replaced with a PHP script.

500_Apples wrote:

spatrioter wrote:

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I personally arrive at the conclusion of health care user fees from a progressive perspective. People with better health are not only primarily privileged, but they are upwardly mobile. IMO, cutting wages for health care workers or raising the GST to pay for free health care is no different than providing tax credits for buying a home, it primarily benefits the better off.

There's so much fail in that analogy. Biggest error: Rich people are not more likely to get sick than poor people, like you assume.

No--but where health services are expensive, rich people will be much more represented in hospitals than poor people.  It's not about who's likelier to get sick or who's likelier to want to study, it's about who is more likely to be able to afford the services.

That same argument is currently being made in the US right now.  Right wingers are arguing that the public option or any move towards greater accessibility of health services would have a negative effect on Medicare services.

Do you think the upper class in the US are purchasing medical services in the states at the same rate as everyone else?

ETA: sorry for the thread drift, this thread isn't directly about tuition fees.

I was CFS-O Chair in 1992-3 at the time of the birth of OUSA. Although not an academic source as my good friend Al-Q points out Wikipedia does a good job of discussing the formation and early years of OUSA. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontario_Undergraduate_Student_Alliance

I strongly believe that education is a right and therefore support the abolition of tuition fees. They and the subsequent debt incurred by students are an impediment to working class children pursuing pse. Not all student leaders are from the upper middle class; my background is solidly working class.

Rabble should be promoting CFS and CFS-O not OUSA.

Ah no worries..... apparently some of the educational elite want education to be elite and just for them and their classist regurgitated musings, no competition allowed and they are even prepared, it seems, to argue that  human rights guarantees them of the right to face no competition from their "lessers".

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Does that mean people should have to pay for the health care they receive, because they get a personal benefit out of it? Should people have to pay for high school education because they get a personal benefit? And so on...

We already do pay (directly) for a portion of our health care (including prescription drugs, dentistry, eye exams, delisted procedures, cosmetic surgery, and so on). The state pays some, and we pay some. I'm not sure why, in principle, the same strategy applied to education is so reviled.

And as noted above, even if tuition were free, "going to university" would still not be free, nor anything near. Better you leave tuition untouched and lobby for free rent and books for students. Anyone who's been to university should know that that's far more expensive than an undergrad tuition.

Catchfire wrote:

Speaking of that, any mods reading? Any news on that front?

There are some more comments up on John Bonnar's latest piece, and kim elliott has responded to the concerns there:

kim elliott wrote:

As is common with blogs, the author controls comments. As a result of posting anything about OUSA this blogger has been subjected to viscious personal attacks by email and in comments. As a result, he (I presume - I've been in touch with him to verify this) has been deleting all comments - not just yours, but comments also criticising  your comments. 

As the author of the blog, he is within his rights to do this, though clearly it isn't the usual rabble practice.

Your concerns are noted however, and other CFS supporters have also noted this concern on our moderated discussion boards.

OUSA was actually advocating tuition increases in the early 90s, arguing that they were necessary because universities were underfunded. This was during the Rae government and it was fatal since it gave them the wriggle room they needed whereas if the student movement had been united in its call for tuition cuts it would have been march harder for the NDP to do the opposite. I heard a story at the time that Floyd Laughren was actually pushing to eliminate tuition in order to emulate what Ireland had done (many credit Ireland's economic boom in the 90s to this policy, at least in part) but he was overruled by Rae - so the NDP was actually at least thinking about free tuition and a had there not been a split message from students - who knows what might have happened.

Of course, that was almost 20 years ago and OUSA's position and personnel have changed in the meantime but, still, I don't think I'd ever call OUSA "left wing" or even progressive. They are basically wannabe lobbyists trying to impress politicians and bureaucrats rather than influence them. Indeed, OUSA EDs and researchers have been more successful at getting themselves hired by the Harris, Eves and McGuinty governments than they've had in changing policy.

Of course you can, George.  Of course you can.

Anything I could write would be off-topic in the way that Catchfire warns against @ 24, and nowhere near as good as what he then writes off-topic himself.

I think it is always good to be reminded, though, that progressives can be srsly derailed when the politics of resentment leads us to endorse anti-intellectualism, just as when we find ourselves on the defensive in the face of attacks on organized labour as elite, or when some progressives lose faith in civil liberties because they are supposedly dated bourgeois values.

There are no genuine democracies anywhere. Some societies have been able to go a good long distance towards giving life to the underlying structures and principles of democracy, and we are lucky to be living in one of those places, damned lucky and dumb lucky. We still have a long way to go, but it is never progressive to start clawing back the just advances that we have made, even if it's only some of us who've been lucky enough to climb another rung.

Me, I find the utilitarian discussions of education just *this* short of obscene. If people with degrees -- but c'mon, now: some degrees but not others -- are making a lot more money than most of us, that has next to nothing to do with learning, and it is not a reason to bar anyone from the special kind of education that university is supposed to be, the place where you learn that you are actually not a student any longer but a peer. (Ok: you're also a student for life. But you're supposed to learn that you are free of your teachers, and if you have a teacher who isn't trying to waken you to that, you have a bad teacher.)

That learning, or organized labour, has produced financially privileged groups is obviously a problem, but the problem is not labour or learning. Of course tuition should be free. Our skilled crafts and trades should be running decent apprenticeship programs that guarantee satisfying work. Do we live in a world anywhere close to that? No. Do we stop fighting for it? Why would we?