#studentloanforgiveness

Rep. Jared Golden Steps In An Enormous Pile Of BS On Twitter

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My representative, Jared Golden of Maine’s 2nd District (we only have two) is pictured here with two of the other three members of our congressional delegation plus their party leader President Biden. (Senator Susan Collins is missing.) Collectively these people have sent $160 Billion to Ukraine.

Here’s what he posted to Twitter yesterday, getting thoroughly roasted by his own party. It appears to be in response to this follow-the-money article: “Golden’s Blue Dogs Get Money From Sallie Mae After Opposing Student Debt Relief” by Dan Neumann in the Maine Beacon.


The ratio on this (negative comments vs. supportive comments) was enormous. It sounds ignorant enough for me to believe that Golden actually wrote it himself, but such tasks are usually done by comms staffers.

Let’s break down his arguments.

The phrase “radical leftist elites” caused equal parts of hilarity and pushback. In Maine??? Super old, super white, and, in the district he represents, super conservative demographics. Some comments waded into the oxymoron of “leftist elites” but I’m going to give Golden a pass on this one because of years of corporate media claiming that people like him and Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-CD1) are “leftist” have deliberately confused many about the meaning of that word.

I am an actual leftist, and I don’t believe in elites. Mostly because this is the kind of garbage government they produce.

Next point: “silence and destroy anyone who disagrees with your views and goals.” This one is highly ironic coming from a person who takes big money from tech giants like Apple who are in the business of silencing dissenting speech at the behest of the federal government. But it’s a dog whistle for his largely MAGA electorate.

He stands by his vote against a paltry $10k student loan forgiveness bill. It’s not unusual for him to vote against the Democratic herd (unless it’s on wars or military, that is). Maybe Golden plans to drop the D in 2024 and run as an “independent” since that’s worked so well for Senator Angus King?

Here’s where the comments really went nuts: “They [college loan recipients] were privileged to have the opportunity and many of them left college well-situated to make six figures for life.” Bre Kidman, an attorney who doesn’t live in Golden’s district:

https://twitter.com/beekayesq/status/1692679705848111520

Okay here’s where he really goes off the rails: “The Twitterati can keep bemoaning their privileged status and demanding handouts all they want…”

Some are opining that an intern wrote this but use of the absurd and laughable term Twitterati implies to me that an older conservative author was responsible. Also who “bemoans” their “privileged status”? The bemoaning I hear in Maine is from people living on the streets who’ve got nothing to eat, or are about to get evicted because their rent has skyrocketed, or can’t believe their insanely high grocery bills. Or can’t afford medical care they desperately need. (Golden abandoned his first campaign promise to support Medicare for All after taking money from the health “care” industry plus tech firms looking to expand into health “care”.)

“…but as far as I’m concerned if they want free money for college, they can join the Marines like I, and so many others, have done in the past and many more will in the future.” Now we arrive at the real point of this ungrammatical post (maybe he did write it himself): making college debt prohibitively high, with no escape route via bankruptcy, is a strategy to boost military recruitment. 

Was Golden supposed to say the quiet part out loud?

https://twitter.com/cokes311/status/1692610578139803660

In any case it’s been an abject failure because currently only 9% of those in the right age band will even consider military enlistment, and the Pentagon is struggling to find enough recruits. Their own research found the reasons that so few want to follow Golden’s example: they don’t want to die or be injured, they don’t want to leave friends and family, and they don’t want to put their lives on hold (in that order).Maybe the decades of U.S. wars where the only winners are the military-industrial complex are a factor? Either way, literate young people who qualify want nothing to do with the U.S. military.Also, much of the pushback on this notion came from disabled Mainers.

https://twitter.com/tahjhebert/status/1692596498851131644

Meanwhile, over on reddit, even his fellow veterans weren’t buying it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Maine/comments/15uto1q/jared_golden_twitter_statement_about_radical/

Finally, there was a lot of pushback on Golden voting to forgive PPP loans that corporate entities like (checks notes) the biggest law firm in Maine took out in 2020.

All in all, beating up on a generation shackled by predatory loans in an economy where most can’t make a living wage, afford homeownership, or start a family is bully behavior. Way to punch down, forgetting (?) that you represent one of the lowest income areas in the nation. 

But not to worry, he’s fundraising in the rich part of Maine.

https://twitter.com/CollinsWatch/status/1692646506103259203

Divide & Conquer, Part 1: Higher Edu For You v. For All

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Besides beefing up militarized police departments, what else can U.S. oligarchs do to keep the masses from revolting? Divide and conquer! Today I begin a series on some of the many false divisions being actively sown by our corporate overlords.

My first topic is in the news due to promised cancelation of a small fraction of federal student loans. It’s hot now because the pandemic pause on loan repayments was set to expire (and has now been kicked down the road to January 1, 2023.)

Supporters of student loan cancelation v. those who think it’s unfair

This one pretty much boils down to an argument about whether you believe that higher education benefits individuals or benefits society as a whole. Talk about a false dichotomy! It benefits both, but you might miss that in the harsh exchanges about Biden’s promise to cancel student loans if elected.

Lots of real people plus a legion of trolls are attacking those promised a paltry $10-20k of debt relief in an era of predatory student lending with interest rates so high the principal lingers for decades.

And, unlike other forms of debt, there is no relief possible via bankruptcy (thank Senator Biden c.2015 for that one).

One big objection seems to be that being coerced into the military in order to pay for college is no longer working as well as it did. 

So, where’s the cannon fodder going to come from?

Such are the concerns of our corporate overlords.

I was once in an emergency room doubled over with pain from diverticulitis. Another woman was sharing loudly that her daughter, a special ed student, had left school in 9th grade because, “they weren’t teaching her nothing, and she weren’t learning nothing.” I was too sick to voice the thought in my head: “Aren’t we lucky that the nurses and doctors we’re waiting to see didn’t feel that way?”

A few years later, the RN at my primary care doctor’s office recognized me and introduced herself as a student from my very first year of teaching. She was happily married with two kids and had fond memories of our school year together.

“In a study done by the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) in 2017, 50% of nursing graduates said their number one concern was their ability to pay their loans back.” Source: StudentLoanPlanner.com

I didn’t ask about her student loans but she was from a low-income family and I doubt she got a nursing degree without debt in some form.

I took out federal student loans for a masters degree in education in order to become a teacher, and part of the focus in those years (early 90’s) was improving science education at the elementary school level. Not my area of strength, so I put more effort there. I also completed the Ms.Ed at my employers’ expense, and paid off the student loans just about as my oldest child entered college.

Who benefited most from education in this situation?

Me? My son? My former student? Or the community she serves as a health care provider and I served as an educator?

Also, right around when a college education started being pushed for everybody in order to benefit wealthy owners who needed high quality workers trained at someone else’s expense is when predatory student lending took off. Clueless boomers like me thought going into debt for a college degree was a good investment in yourself and your future ability to feed your family. That’s because we were able to pay off our student loans in a decade or so without breaking the bank.

A recent flame war on Twitter was set off when an elder commented that millenials seem “cavalier” about the decision to not have children.

This is a nice segue to the next divide and conquer strategy I’ll address: sowing discord between generations.