Occupy Wall Street is stupid and pointless

by Jillian @ http://blueshelled.com . October 9, 2011 . 5:48PM

I think occupy wall street is stupid. That’s going to bother some of you. I am sorry for your hurt feelings but here is the truth as I perceive it: I am doing 2 internships, work a job that pays next to nothing for a lot of effort, am doing a dissertation, am a full-time student, a part-time blogger (which pays enough to keep the blog going and get a few products to review or give away), am a full-time wife and mom and have a husband who hasn’t had a job since April. So to tell me about struggling is futile.

I’ve been out of my mom’s house since I was 20 (12 years now) and I’ve never been on a government program or expected someone to pay me to do nothing. I am absolutely struggling but still working my butt off for a better life. THAT is what it means to live in this country. The hope and chance to make it despite the difficulty. It does not mean I get a handout because I was born in this country or because someone else makes more money than I do. I pay my taxes and I give when I can. Struggling is part of being an adult. Yes, I would like to see our economy change. No, it shouldn’t happen that we all get freebies because life is hard on the dimes of people that have more than we do while we do absolutely little to nothing to earn it.

If you haven’t seen the list of demands from the Occupy Wall Street people, you are in for a treat of epic proportion:

The first demand is that minimum wage be bumped up to $20 an hour. Gosh, we should pay the people who can’t get my order right at McDonald’s or those who didn’t bother finishing high school, the same amount of pay that an entry level engineer might make? You know, the person that had to pay for at least 4-6 years of college education? Uh-huh. Unicorns and rainbows, my friends.

Another demand? Let’s get rid of health insurance because it takes money away from those of us who are health professionals. As a health professional, I don’t personally take health insurance because of the nuances of health insurance and letting a bunch of people who have no business looking through your personal stuff look through it in order to “authorize” your visits to me. However, let’s consider having to pay every single visit out of pocket. In the Nashville area, a single doctor’s visit runs $125-$260 a pop. I can say this after being on crappy COBRA insurance for six months that is bleeding me dry and having to meet a $2500 deductible before they pay anything. My doctor’s visits? Not covered. This means that if I want to go, I pay out of pocket. You accept these demands and you understand that you are going to pay out the wazoo next time you have a respiratory infection. Some of you are prone to them. What if you get a bad rash that just won’t go away? A nasty case of poison ivy? Yep. $300 out the window PLUS whatever the steroid shot costs. See what I’m saying?

Free college education is another demand. Who is going to pay the people that teach you? As an adjunct, I’m not going to put the effort into teaching you for free. I don’t have time. And if everyone has a college degree, guess how much those are valued now? Guess how many people are going to sit their butts in college indefinitely and take out limitless student loans for living expenses?

All these requests for freebies and I’m wondering WHO IS GOING TO PAY FOR ANYTHING? Who is going to pay the $20/hour? The government? The government gets its money from the citizens who plan to sit on their butts doing nothing or getting a free education which will be paid for by…no one because no one will actually be working.

Outlaw all the debt? Awesome. I’m down with that, but how many companies will be going under because of that which means how many more of you will be out of jobs and how much more will our nation be in debt due to the government loans that won’t be paid back?

I’m already bored with this. Seriously, if you are buying into this, you don’t really understand how the system works. Feel free to read through the demands and keep insisting that this is the way to fix everything. Feel free to keep protesting a flawed system. I’ll protest that one with you. But how about using all that free time you’ve got and the brain power you are wasting by coming up with real solutions instead of something that is inherently flawed and would only zap what little resources we have left, eh?

Thanks.

One of the remaining tax-paying citizens who isn’t making much but is still trying

Edit: 11/14/11 I just wanted to note that Occupy Wall street protesters are now upset with Jay-Z, who was attempting to “support” them by creating “Occupy All Streets” T-shirts. However, he chose to do this by embracing capitalism and charging for the t-shirts and then making the large error of not giving any of the profits to Occupy Wall Street. The Occupy Wall Street Protesters saw this as a huge slap in the face and embraced capitalism and demanded some of the profits. Unfortunately, they did not earn them in any way other than by creating the idea, which they didn’t patent. Jay-Z pulled the t-shirts, didn’t give them any money, OWS chants “we are owed this” and the entitlement continues. In all fairness, Jay-Z probably should have given them some of the money. However, had he done it, it would have contributed to the entitled nature of the movement and would have left us without the irony of them demanding money from the capitalist venture. I can appreciate it.

Another Edit 11/19/11: This week, Occupy Nashville protestors invaded Donald Rumsfeld’s book tour dinner in Nashville calling him a war criminal and disrupting a $125/plate dinner. A friend of mine asked if I expected anything different from Occupy protestors and I said, “This is Nashville. We are better behaved folks than most and I EXPECT MANNERS. I expect people to follow the rules of peaceful protest or get out of my city. We are known for being a genial people and if you don’t want to follow the rules you can get out.” I think that what the Occupy Nashville people did by going into Donald Rumsfeld’s dinner and calling him and war criminal was tasteless and tacky. I am vehemently against the Occupy movement and I am disappointed in this kind of tactic. There is a difference between peaceful, non-violent protest and something like this and the things I’m seeing in Oakland and the other areas where things are getting violent. I’m disappointed in us as a people. This doesn’t feel like a freedom and power to the people thing…it feels like an entitlement and attention thing and I’m over it. See their triumphant self-congratulatory after-party here.

Filed under: Anger issues,politics | Tags: economy, occupy wall street

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