Interesting links.

Two Putt Tommy's recent posts. MPP, sample things there. While there are only a few sites I read almost every day, these two are bookmarked and frequently accessed. Check Digby's recent posts too. That site merits reading deeply into threads not seen before, although some of the things are so clearly focused that they can be more dispiriting than angering. But you need the anger against the abuses and abusers, or the stalking wolves will continue trampling about the nation as if they alone are its owners, trampling on us with impunity. Quebec students, do a web search "quebec students maple spring," plus Globe and Mail, here. You have to go to Canadian sources, with the near total Stateside press blackout on the Canadian students still having spunk and courage, not yet steered into being sheep - or steers. Guardian covers it. Democratic Underground. Wariscrime.org. Market Oracle. Rabble.ca. And if you look at the amounts at issue in Quebec, you get a clear picture of precisely why the student-loan-get-them-on-payments while young-and-fresh-and-possibly-spirited constituency may worry; and why, equally, the university education pricing folks here want to keep that Canadian situation really, really quiet. Lest students in the States find out, and go ballistic over the comparative student hosing going on Stateside. CYNICALLY: Let the students be gamed into general Occupy unrest, and let them be unaware of educational programs elsewhere such as Brazil, where meritocracy not theocracy nor deep pocket access rationing is the rule. Let Col. Klink and cohorts play divide and conquer, posing false dichotomies, such as do we give student debt stability [at the inflated levels now prevalent], or increase the burden; the suggestion being generational strife is inevitable. That is a lie, propagated in terms of where senior entitlements or healthcare spending "needs" somehow for "austerity" reasoning would have to be sacrificed in order to treat students decently; when the truth is tax-the-rich is off the table and insufficiently mentioned in mainstream media as the obvious, sane and easy option to keep all needed social programs funded. The game is posing a false either-or juxtaposition, designed and marketed with evil divisiveness in mind. Troops overseas is another drain that seems off-the-table sacrosanct. Especially questionable, is maintaining those encampments overseas but not in active war zones. World policeman days seem over, or they should be. The Roman legions spread themselves thin over that empire and drained the fiscal homeland AND the extended imperial economy dry. It was unsustainable. Much to think about. Outside of the mainstream grist of the corporate media mill.