Consumer Fraud?

[celphone]

What's so funny about it? I mean, I understand why yahoo would think it's funny, but you're not a yahoo, are you?!

[klinex]

Shame on these stupid m u t h a @ # ! * i n g racist law students!!!

[quidpro]

To the original poster, get real and stop trying to create a race issue where one does not exist.  Black, white, yellow, green --- work hard, you'll graduate.  As for the person who made the statement about law school being a big lie and lawyers not making money and government lawyers, yada, yada, yada --- boo f**cking hoo!  If you do well in law school and continue to work hard into your career, you'll earn a decent living. 

yea right

[inny]

TNT = erapitt!

[momknowzbest]

Another fallacy that prospective law students hold onto is that the law degree has some kind of value outside of law. They think, "if I don't practice law, at least it's a prestigious degree that will help my non-law career." This is completely false. Having a law degree hurts your chances of getting non-law jobs. No one wants to hire you if you have a law degree. Because "everyone knows" that lawyers make so much money, they can't understand why someone with a law degree would want to do anything else but practice law. If you say "I couldn't find a job practicing law." which is probably the truth, they will think "this person is a loser because everyone know how easy it is to find a job practicing law, and we don't hire losers around here." If you say "I was just exploring my options but decided I didn't want to practice law," then they will think "this person has no idea what he wants to do, we want to hire people who know where their career is going." There is absolutely no way to spin the law degree in a way that it helps you get a non-law job. [...] The only way I have been able to find any jobs outside of law is to leave the law degree off my resume. Whenever the law degree has been on my resume, it has been the kiss of death that prevents me from finding a job.

Many believe that a person with a Master's degree, and in particular, a Doctorate should "absolutely" be able to find a job. It is not true. Often a higher degree acts as an impenetrable wall against employment.

In a study done by the American Institute of Physics, one-third of its members who received their Ph.D. were unable to find permanent employment within the first year after graduation. Even in the long run, some Ph.D.s are not able to find employment. A small number of Ph.D.s looking for work are still not able to land a job after 10 years of effort. Even Ph.D.s in Computer Science face a difficult future. 6.1% of new computer science Ph.D.s can not find stable, full-time employment. The rate is significantly higher than the jobless rate for the entire American workforce.

Our society promotes education as the road to success. It is often reported that college educated workers make significantly more money than non-college educated -- referred to as an education "income gap." But has the effort of those going to college paid off? The income gap has been shrinking since 1989, not growing ... Further, the percentage of U.S. men holding B.A. degrees but earning poverty-level wages (about $13,000 per year) has doubled to 6%. A recent MacArthur Foundation study found that in Chicago, fully 9.2% of the working poor hold B.A.s. In January 2004 it was reported that there were more unemployed workers 25 years or older with college degrees than there were unemployed workers without high school diplomas. A college education does not automatically translate into higher levels of employment or greater financial prosperity.

[mailbonding]

Many believe that a person with a Master's degree, and in particular, a Doctorate should "absolutely" be able to find a job. It is not true. Often a higher degree acts as an impenetrable wall against employment.

In a study done by the American Institute of Physics, one-third of its members who received their Ph.D. were unable to find permanent employment within the first year after graduation. Even in the long run, some Ph.D.s are not able to find employment. A small number of Ph.D.s looking for work are still not able to land a job after 10 years of effort. Even Ph.D.s in Computer Science face a difficult future. 6.1% of new computer science Ph.D.s can not find stable, full-time employment. The rate is significantly higher than the jobless rate for the entire American workforce.

Our society promotes education as the road to success. It is often reported that college educated workers make significantly more money than non-college educated -- referred to as an education "income gap." But has the effort of those going to college paid off? The income gap has been shrinking since 1989, not growing ... Further, the percentage of U.S. men holding B.A. degrees but earning poverty-level wages (about $13,000 per year) has doubled to 6%. A recent MacArthur Foundation study found that in Chicago, fully 9.2% of the working poor hold B.A.s. In January 2004 it was reported that there were more unemployed workers 25 years or older with college degrees than there were unemployed workers without high school diplomas. A college education does not automatically translate into higher levels of employment or greater financial prosperity.

Assuming some B.A. earn less than the average blue collar guy out there, what's your point? Everyone knows that blue collar jobs are characterized by lack of mental stimulation, not to mention the toll daily physical exertion will take on you in an assortment of weather conditions ... Blue-collar work has downsides that the white-collar type never has to worry about ... whether you wash the windows of a skyscraper or mine coal, carpal tunnel syndrome is the least of your concerns.

And then it's the social prejudice -- like it or not, many people look down on blue-collar workers. And yes, the first person anyone calls when they have a problem with their house, car or appliance is a blue-collar worker, but the hypocrisy steps in. Many blue collar types, though, go ahead and choose this career path, being aware of this injustice and ignoring it while making enough money to afford a bigger house, better car and nicer appliances than the ones they renovate, repair or maintain. That evidently shuts mouths and changes minds fast enough.

[harris]

And then it's the social prejudice -- like it or not, many people look down on blue-collar workers. And yes, the first person anyone calls when they have a problem with their house, car or appliance is a blue-collar worker, but the hypocrisy steps in. Many blue collar types, though, go ahead and choose this career path, being aware of this injustice and ignoring it while making enough money to afford a bigger house, better car and nicer appliances than the ones they renovate, repair or maintain. That evidently shuts mouths and changes minds fast enough.

Waiters are pretty much in the same position ... they're being looked down by customers who may earn less than what the person serving them does.

[qmo]

niki, Freudian theories do not necessarily rule out a free, non-repressive society. Freud's speculation that civilization is originally based on a necessary sexual repression recognized for its merits, it has been suggested that:

(1) only a part of this has come from the conditions of scarcity which obliged humans to work, with another part coming from living in class-divided societies where ruling classes impose an extra repression over and above that arising from natural scarcity,

(2) with the coming of automation and the like, scarcity has now been conquered. This being so, sexual repression - that imposed by natural conditions as well as that imposed by class-divided society - is no longer necessary. Civilization need no longer be based on sexual repression. A free, non-repressive society is possible.

Herbert Marcuse has in fact explained why people accept capitalism -- they have been psychologically manipulated into wanting it. In other words, their basic "instincts" have been remoulded so as to fit in with capitalist society. The issue now is how will such people come to want to get rid of capitalism.

[...]

It could not be otherwise. If the humanization of the oppressed signifies subversion, so also does their freedom; hence the necessity for constant control. And the more the oppressors control the oppressed, the more they change them into apparently inanimate "things." This tendency of the oppressor consciousness to "in-animate" everything and everyone it encounters, in its eagerness to possess, unquestionably corresponds with a tendency to sadism. Fromm maintained that,

The pleasure in complete domination over another person (or other animate creature) is the very essence of the sadistic drive. Another way of formulating the same thought is to say that the aim of sadism is to transform a man into a thing, something animate into something inanimate, since by complete and absolute control the living loses one essential quality of life - freedom

Sadistic love is a perverted love -- a love of death, not of life. One of the characteristics of the oppressor consciousness and its necrophilic view of the world is thus sadism. As the oppressor consciousness, in order to dominate, tries to deter to search, the restlessness, and the creative power which characterize life, it kills life. More and more, the oppressors are using science and technology as unquestionably powerful instruments for their purpose: the maintenance of the oppressive order through manipulation and repression. The oppressed, as objects, as "things," have no purposes except those their oppressors prescribe for them.

[...]

http://www.lawschooldiscussion.org/index.php?topic=3003847.msg5399988#msg5399988

I would like to comment on the above part of copain's post -

Marcuse basically says that, 'surplus repression' designates sexual repression beyond that's necessary for the civilization; being the result of social domination in an economically and politically authoritarian society. Capitalism, as a system dependent on extracting surplus labor from workers, so that the latter will produce more value for less cost, must pull from somewhere the extra physical energy necessary for this exploitation. That "somewhere" turns out to be the most marginal aspects of our sexuality, specifically non-genital and "perverse" sexuality, or those kinds of sexual activity that are designated as taboo by the patriarchal, monogamous family structure because they are unnecessary for the biological reproduction - the form of sexuality considered "necessary" by the capitalism.

It appears, at least according to H. Marcuse, that the repression of sexual energy not necessary for monogamous, heterosexual family life, is diverted into labor; simultaneously [/b]people's erotic lives are shaped to conform to the demands of a hierarchically organized, patriarchal society[/b]. As a result, "perversions" such as homosexuality are, for Marcuse, at least potentially encouraging signs of rebellion against repression, rather than symptoms of excessive repression. He says that the perverts express rebellion against the subjugation of sexuality under the order of procreation, and against the institutions that guarantee this order.

So, while some sexual repression is necessary for the building of civilization, capitalism requires an extra degree of surplus repression in order to extract a greater amount of labor from people and to blunt their capacity for pleasure, since an understanding of pleasure can fuel one's desire for liberation. Sexual deviants, including homosexuals, are thus part of a vanguard rejecting the surplus sexual repression of capitalism.

It stands, thus, to reason, that the non-productive act of anal sex and the unrestrained promiscuity of "cruising," stand as examples of the boundlessness of human desire and possibility for bodily fulfillment. This unregulated pleasure, he argues, is too disruptive and too undisciplined to be conducive to authoritarian society or capitalist production. Gay men, through guiltless cruising and hook-ups, exemplify a free sexuality that's incompatible with capitalism and that is more natural and freer than mono heterosexuality.

[g a u s s]

niki, Freudian theories do not necessarily rule out a free, non-repressive society. Freud's speculation that civilization is originally based on a necessary sexual repression recognized for its merits, it has been suggested that:

(1) only a part of this has come from the conditions of scarcity which obliged humans to work, with another part coming from living in class-divided societies where ruling classes impose an extra repression over and above that arising from natural scarcity,

(2) with the coming of automation and the like, scarcity has now been conquered. This being so, sexual repression - that imposed by natural conditions as well as that imposed by class-divided society - is no longer necessary. Civilization need no longer be based on sexual repression. A free, non-repressive society is possible.

Herbert Marcuse has in fact explained why people accept capitalism -- they have been psychologically manipulated into wanting it. In other words, their basic "instincts" have been remoulded so as to fit in with capitalist society. The issue now is how will such people come to want to get rid of capitalism.

[...]

I would like to comment on the above part of copain's post -

Marcuse basically says that, 'surplus repression' designates sexual repression beyond that's necessary for the civilization; being the result of social domination in an economically and politically authoritarian society. Capitalism, as a system dependent on extracting surplus labor from workers, so that the latter will produce more value for less cost, must pull from somewhere the extra physical energy necessary for this exploitation. That "somewhere" turns out to be the most marginal aspects of our sexuality, specifically non-genital and "perverse" sexuality, or those kinds of sexual activity that are designated as taboo by the patriarchal, monogamous family structure because they are unnecessary for the biological reproduction - the form of sexuality considered "necessary" by the capitalism.

It appears, at least according to H. Marcuse, that the repression of sexual energy not necessary for monogamous, heterosexual family life, is diverted into labor; simultaneously people's erotic lives are shaped to conform to the demands of a hierarchically organized, patriarchal society. As a result, "perversions" such as homosexuality are, for Marcuse, at least potentially encouraging signs of rebellion against repression, rather than symptoms of excessive repression. He says that the perverts express rebellion against the subjugation of sexuality under the order of procreation, and against the institutions that guarantee this order.

So, while some sexual repression is necessary for the building of civilization, capitalism requires an extra degree of surplus repression in order to extract a greater amount of labor from people and to blunt their capacity for pleasure, since an understanding of pleasure can fuel one's desire for liberation. Sexual deviants, including homosexuals, are thus part of a vanguard rejecting the surplus sexual repression of capitalism.

It stands, thus, to reason, that the non-productive act of anal sex and the unrestrained promiscuity of "cruising," stand as examples of the boundlessness of human desire and possibility for bodily fulfillment. This unregulated pleasure, he argues, is too disruptive and too undisciplined to be conducive to authoritarian society or capitalist production. Gay men, through guiltless cruising and hook-ups, exemplify a free sexuality that's incompatible with capitalism and that is more natural and freer than mono heterosexuality.

qmo - interesting points -

1. You mention the monogamous patriarchal family - nowadays, we are all aware that 50% of marriages end up in divorce, so it's safe to say that the traditional patriarchal family is in decline.

2. You also point to procreation and biological reproduction, happening as the result of the "normal" heterosexual relationship between a man and a woman, one that's promoted by the society (for that very reason) - well, these days there's widespread dissemination of birth control (condoms/female condoms, IVRs) - meaning, for instance, that the couple can choose exactly how many children wants to have, planning beforehand how to raise them, thus allowing the woman to go to work just like her husband, and become economically self-sufficient.

Not to mention these days' liberation of sexuality from necessary association with reproduction (IVF) - I bet you can just imagine how women too "cruise" nowadays - for all kinds of things, you know, the tallest guy, the most well-endowed one, the smartest one, or just-the-average-one, when it comes to making babies, since you do not know how the genes will mix up - or do ya?!

I would say today's norm is anonymous sex with multiple partners, having, as we are, as much quick sex (unfortunately without the necessary accompanying affection), pretty much anywhere we can. It's about time that that "purposeful subversion of moral order" will show itself for what it really is.