Local community colleges were once absolutely free. When I was in college a course ranged from free to $5o bucks at the local college. I could have completed two years of advanced education for less than $1,000.

That's over. They are removing advanced education from the grasp of most of society to allow not only for a dumbed down population but to provide the labor for the society they're creating. Young people with advanced degrees can't populate the Wal-Mart cash registers all over this country. We need workers. Poorly educated workers.

Police are arresting and attacking student protesters on University of California (UC) campuses again. “Why did he beat me I wasn’t doing anything,” screamed a young Cal Berkeley women student over KPFA radio on Friday evening November 20. Students are protesting the 32% increase in tuition imposed by the UC regents in a time of severe state deficits. The Board of Regents claims that they have no choice. Students will now have to pay over $10,000 in tuition annually for a public university education that was free only a few decades ago.

The corporate media spins the tuition protests as if we are all suffering during the recession. For example, the San Diego Union Tribune November 20 writes, “These students need a course in Reality 101. And the reality is that there is virtually no segment of American society that is not straining with the economic recession. With UC facing a $535 million budget gap due to state cuts, the regents have to confront reality and make tough choices. So should students.”

Yet, the reality is something quite different. Our current budget crisis in California and the rest of the country has been artificially created by cutting taxes on the wealthiest people and corporations. The corporate elites in the US, the top 1% who own close to half the wealth, are the beneficiaries of massive tax cuts over the past few decades. While at the same time working people are paying more through increased sales and use taxes and higher public college tuition.

The wealthy hide their money abroad. Rachel Keeler with Dollars & Sense reports that over the years, trillions of dollars in both corporate profits and personal wealth have migrated offshore in search of rock-bottom tax rates and the comfort of no questions asked. Offshore banks now harbor an estimated $11.5 trillion in individual wealth alone, and were a significant contributing factor to the international economic downturn in 2008.

We're being conned. The media is participating wholeheartedly. They are complicit as are the politicians. It's a scam of vast proportions and it is but the harbinger of things to come.

College degrees are only for the wealthy elite.

Well, of course that doesn't make sense right now. But in 20 years it surely will.

How many of you between 20 and 40 have kids or are expecting to have kids?

How many of you between 20 and 40 have career positions that will allow you to pay for college educations for your kids that cost between $10,000 and $100,000 per year?

That's what I thought.