Despite my support for some of their positions, there are an awful lot of others espoused by the 'Occupy Wall Street' protesters that I can't support. In fact, I doubt whether any logical, rational being could support them! Mary Beth Hicks points out a few facts that may have escaped their notice.
Call it an occupational hazard, but I can’t look at the Occupy Wall Street protesters without thinking, “Who parented these people?”
. . .
Here, then, are five things the OWS protesters’ mothers should have taught their children but obviously didn’t, so I will:
• Life isn’t fair. ... No matter how you try to “level the playing field,” some people have better luck, skills, talents or connections that land them in better places. Some seem to have all the advantages in life but squander them, others play the modest hand they’re dealt and make up the difference in hard work and perseverance, and some find jobs on Wall Street and eventually buy houses in the Hamptons. Is it fair? Stupid question.
• Nothing is “free.” Protesting with signs that seek “free” college degrees and “free” health care make you look like idiots, because colleges and hospitals don’t operate on rainbows and sunshine. There is no magic money machine to tap for your meandering educational careers and “slow paths” to adulthood, and the 53 percent of taxpaying Americans owe you neither a degree nor an annual physical.
While I’m pointing out this obvious fact, here are a few other things that are not free: overtime for police officers and municipal workers, trash hauling, repairs to fixtures and property, condoms, Band-Aids and the food that inexplicably appears on the tables in your makeshift protest kitchens. Real people with real dollars are underwriting your civic temper tantrum.
• Your word is your bond. When you demonstrate to eliminate student loan debt, you are advocating precisely the lack of integrity you decry in others. Loans are made based on solemn promises to repay them. ... Also, for the record, being a college student is not a state of victimization. It’s a privilege that billions of young people around the globe would die for - literally.
• A protest is not a party. ... Serious people in a sober pursuit of social and political change don’t dance jigs down Sixth Avenue like attendees of a Renaissance festival. You look foolish, you smell gross, you are clearly high and you don’t seem to realize that all around you are people who deem you irrelevant.
• There are reasons you haven’t found jobs. The truth? Your tattooed necks, gauged ears, facial piercings and dirty dreadlocks are off-putting. Nonconformity for the sake of nonconformity isn’t a virtue.
There's more at the link. Recommended reading.
I still maintain that the 'Occupy Wall Street' protests are highlighting important stresses and tensions in our society, and that we need to give serious attention to the reality that they represent. Unfortunately, there are many other elements of that reality, such as those highlighted by Ms. Hicks, that do their movement a grave disservice. They distract people from focusing on the real issues by diverting their attention to the stupidity of the 'fringe' protestors. That needs to change if OWS expects to achieve any sort of success.
Peter
4 comments:
OK. Mostly, we agree.
But there's an aspect of the student loan debt that they do have a right to complain about.
See, the existence of these government-backed loans radically jacked up the price of education in two ways:
1) Most "education facilities" (private and public) jacked up their prices to match the available loans. Basically, the existence of the loans radically increased the total debt.
2) State governments that support colleges and universities cut their support knowing that rising student debt could make up the difference.
These factors conspired to raise student loan debt to a point where it exceeds all the US credit card debt.
And then, in 2006 when the really major financial market players knew that the credit crunch was coming, those major players lobbied to eliminate student debt from any possible bankruptcy.
So the Occupiers see things this way: their debts were super-boosted by the financial sector and government together, and then when the banks were bailed out any possible bailout for them was eliminated by the same government and financial sector working together.
They kinda have a point.
The problem is, a lot of 'em got in debt getting degrees in stupid stuff like "Latino Lesbian Poetry Studies" or the like...but not all. Not even most. Those "weirdo degree" cases are of course what the media and critics of the Occupiers latch onto of course...
It pains me to see normal people dress up like idiots. Even looking for a job as a laborer I would tried to look clean and neat.
As for their expressions, sure blame Wall Street when they are riding the currents that Congress/regulations have forced the river.
I'll put it this way; put a notch in the dike because your buddy needs water in his field, after awhile the water will gouge out that notch. Do you blame the river or the guy who put the notch in the dike.
Several years ago Tony, my son-in-law, went back to school for certification which he needed for his job. He took out a student loan. He got the certification, the company went bankrupt during the housing bust and Tony lost his job. No work for two years. Their savings ran out. He took a big cut to get his current job, but the Freddie Mac loan was still there. In order not to default, I'm paying off the loan. It's almost done. :)
What irritates me so much is that Freddie Mac paid their point people $10mil in bonuses with tax money - my money. That is sheer chutzpah!
I'll agree that life isn't fair. Thor's teeth, it ought to be the motto of the human race. It's the only universal constant known. I'll also agree that nothing in life is free, especialy the free stuff.
While yes, your word is your bond (debatable anymore) loans are not made on solemn promises of repayment. If they were I'd just go get a million dollars to start a business with no collateral. Loans are made on the strength of your collateral, your credit rating (how fiscally trustworthy you are, nevermind if you're a complete bastard in all other matters) and the laws that allow the loan companies to seize your assets in case of failure to repay. It's been some time since money was loaned on the strength of a man's word and a handshake.
OK, OWS isn't much of a protest, technically it's a protest, but they're not real agro about it. Yeah they're doing it for a cause, but after what, 3 weeks? a month? You get bored, and hoarse, and stinky. Mostly from logistics failure, but no one has accused these people of wisdom, OK. What do you expect from folks majoring in "Left-handed Lesbian Albino Eskimo Midget studies"? Excuse me; "Left-handed Lesbian Albino Eskimo Little People studies".
Dismissing someone as irrelavant is the surest way to provoke a violent response. If they really are irrelavant, do something about it. If they don't matter, empty the parks, plazas and streets with firehose and rubber shot and be done with it. Either accept that they are relevant (if misguided) or break their bones and send them packing.
Conformity for conformity's sake is no good thing either. Plenty of places will hire people with guages and odd peircings and neck tattoos (sure sign of a douchbag though). It's not the nonconformity that discommends most of them, it's the shit-ass degrees they were allowed, even encouraged, to get. Honestly, what kind of job do you get with a degree in Underwater Basket Weaving? Most of the degrees aren't even worth the cost of the synthetic sheepskin.
What they should be exercised about is that they were lied to about the value of a college degree and the importance of a white collar job. Politicians and bankers and CEOs don't build and maintain a society. Welders, carpenters, plumbers and tinbangers do. Someone should have told them "If you must get a degree, make it in something like Civil Engineering or Nursing. Y'know, actually DO something useful."
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