The dumbest demographic is the college educated person with no college debt. I am guessing this is Zachary B. Wolf who wrote the sickening article “The frustrating truth about who is excluded from college debt relief” for CNN.
Let’s keep in mind that corporate media has been against even the smallest form of college debt relief because they say it will wreck the economy. Ironically the economy is so wrecked Brandon needs to bail himself out with a small bailout of students. When this small relief seems set to go the corporate media panics and says it isn’t big enough. Their point is not to be radical socialists. Their point is to stop moderate reform at all costs.
Wolf starts with a cynical view of the American people: “But the overriding question for a lot of people who didn’t go to college, those who already paid off their loans or folks who make more than $125,000 (or more than $250,000 if they’re married couples or heads of households) is this: What about me?” How disgusting. Only Wolf is this selfish. The American people love one another and we love when our neighbor is helped. Fuck your fairness.
Solidarity is stronger than fairness any and everyday of the week. We do not accept division by the ruling class. We stand with every oppressed group and we embrace every effort to help them, big or small. We do not keep score. Rather our love for each other is spontaneous. We help and trust one another. We know the real enemy. The real thief of our wealth is the ruling class.
Somehow the fake universalist Andrew Yang (who embodies the worst of the Republicans, Democrats and post-Marxist intellectuals) is seen as the fair one by Wolf. Why? Because means-testing leads to stigma. Seriously? So someone who can’t pay their bills is more worried about stigma than survival? I wonder what kind of problems the author of this piece has? But no I’m not supposed to ask this because someone will be offended if we address class! Stupid politically correct college educated bullshit.
In the same article Wolf returns to the inflation complaint. But I thought you wanted universal programs sir? So means tested causes inflation but universal programs don’t? Why? Because as the author says universal programs are a thing of the past and therefore should be praised while the present bill on the table must be sunk at all costs, no matter the contradictions of the logic.
Speaking of contradictions let’s touch on capitalism. The social democratic critique of inequality isn’t perfect because it isn’t Marxist. Marx addressed capitalism at the point of production which leads us right to the root of the the social relations and destruction rather than the way this production distributes its profits.
Through redistribution, we could have a fair world but fairness is bad. I know fairness is bad because CNN is leveraging it to divide and conquer the working class. What is good is love and solidarity. What is bad is envying your neighbor for getting help they need. What is bad is to scapegoat your neighbor for a problem caused by the ruling class.
Think about the famous Marx statement: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” This is not about fairness. It is about each of us using the abilities we have to help those who need help, in the way they need help. No questions asked. Why? Because we love each other.
Capitalism as a form of reproduction destroys the workers and environment it uses in order to simply keep itself going. A real critique of student debt relief is that it is merely an expansion of state capitalism amidst the crisis of reproduction that can’t reproduce itself on its own. Love meanwhile reproduces itself quite easily as one good deed upon another person makes both feel good and love spreads exponentially.
The cost of gas and clothing are referenced as another way to pit those who fill up their car or wear clothes against those who go to college. The best part of college is that you don’t need clothes or a car to have fun. I assume the author was making the same sort of innuendo!
The author tries to make it more confusing for us by saying that many with college debt don’t finish college. But in the paragraph above this, the author complained that people who aren’t college educated are left out. Which is it? Do too many people not in college get this relief or do too few?
The same fallacy occurs when they complain about means testing. The author makes the old argument that means testing secretly cuts out the poor. Sure it does. But it also cuts out the rich which was your problem with universal programs. And it’s also true that universal programs cut out the poor, maybe not as much but it has more rich and so on and so on.
Then the author says that making above 125,000 (the means test cut-off) really doesn’t get you far in some places. Huh? If a millennial made this argument we’d hear about how many lattes they drink. But I’ll ignore that line of thinking and just say this once again contradicts the paragraphs above it by making a claim that not enough poor people get the relief.
The author goes on to say that college debt relief makes the races more equal in another attempt to further divide. The author just spent the whole article saying this bill was unfair and now wants to paint it as a bill that disproportionately helps minorities which may be true on its own but read with the rest of the article one sees the author is clearly trying to make the mythic “white uneducated working class” resent the “pampered liberal minority”. An old and tired trope that liberal and conservative corporatists use.
It’s time to get rid of the concept of fairness. Life isn’t fair. We help who needs help. We don’t help who deserves it. If you are helping someone to get something out of it you aren’t helping them. You are helping yourself.
If this all seems too idealistic then fine. But I try to always be idealistic. My problem with CNN is that they only become idealistic when they want to stop moderate reforms and they become moderate to stop idealistic reforms. Calling them centrist isn’t accurate because they are only centrist in the service of stopping the left. Clearly when they need stop a certain sleepy centrist they will use fascist divide and conquer language.