People are marching on Wall St in NYC with further plans to march across the nation and my heart pangs from wanting to be there with them. I am crossing my fingers that change is really going to happen, the only way that it has successfully in history: through a revolution by the people.
If you want to feel angered, ashamed, outraged, or sympathetic for 30 minutes, read the posts here:
http://wearethe99percent.tumblr.com
While downright depressing, it's empowering to know that so many people are in the same boat (99% of us Americans) and ready to do something about it. While I count my lucky stars every day for my life in Korea, I can relate to so many people who have spoken out on this website. Graduating in spring of 2008 right before the financial crisis, I had no idea how hard it would be to survive. After my first summer of applying to every teaching, ed-teching, and substitute job I could find with no luck, reality set in. It just got worse from there. I struggled to pay my monthly student loan payments on top of my car payments and living expenses, and this was when I was living at home! I have memories of scrounging around in the backseat of my car trying to find spare change to pay for gas to get me to my job cashiering at the grocery store. Many months went by where I was late paying my loans or didn't pay them at all.
The time I spent after college before coming here to Korea was the scariest year and a half of my life. I can't imagine being in that position for years and years on end, with much less.
I respect all of these Americans to the highest degree, who have worked so hard to provide for their families. Many hard-skinned people have the mindset that the majority of those protesting are fat, lazy hippies who want to live off of free government money, and to that I am so disgusted.
Here is a quote from the website I listed above, that speaks out to me:
“This is about people who have done nothing but bust their
asses and it has gotten them nowhere because they are busting their
asses for a false promise, getting nothing they are told they
will get. They have the education, the work ethic, and receive nothing
but the bare minimum needed to survive for it, or less. They are indeed
slaves to the noble class. You can’t “work your way up” if there is no way up.
But there is. And it requires a lot more bravery and a lot more work
and a lot more sacrifice. If everyone in the United States were to turn
off their televisions and walk outside today and chant in unison and
refuse to comply until a simple demand is met, they would either have to
arrest everyone (impossible) or agree to change.
We aren’t lazy hippies asking for handouts. We are tired and sore and beaten down and angry because we do exactly as we’re told, and receive nothing but the minimum amount of money for room and board for it, the very definition of a slave.
Even people with higher powered jobs are losing any hope of retiring, their pensions taken, and any hope to receive what they are entitled to for THEIR HARD WORK is dwindling. The top 1% act with impunity and the 99% are punished for even the slightest infraction, sometimes just for fun or “because we can”.
And most importantly, voting will not and does not work, because they own the politicians too. They fund the campaigns (most of the Dem/Rep campaign funds are from corporations), so you only ever see _their_ picks on TV, and then they buy them off on every important issue through lobbying, and they own the news, so you hear what they want you too. This isn’t even about getting a cut. NO ONE SHOULD HAVE THAT MUCH POWER.
Why do you think this hasn’t been covered by the news hardly at all, while a bullshit tea party protest of half the size with no spread to any other cities with a confused and irrational message was front page shit on just about every rag and news channel in the US?
I’m hopeful because people are starting to realize that freedom is about freedom, not about working forever until you die with a vague promise that you might get to do some cool stuff eventually someday, when you pay off that student loan debt. Which is impossible.
Oh. And you don’t own anything. The bank owns your house, your car, and all of your money in the bank. And now that they have person-hood, they can and will take it all when the coup is ready to go.
And the world banks own them.
In effect by transition, the world banks own you. And they are biding their time. And we are going to lose.
The only time anything has ever changed, ever REALLY changed, it changed with a revolution, and sometimes it was bloody, but it has never, EVER, in the known history of human civilization, when people mostly consented to the establishment for now, biding their time, “busting their asses,” and then losing hope, and then dying that way.
If you don’t act right this second, with God as your witness, justice on your side, and the willing spirit to die for a cause, who will? There has to be a beginning. There has to be a first. And we will be the first. And more are following. I don’t want a handout. I want a life.I am the 99 percent.”
We aren’t lazy hippies asking for handouts. We are tired and sore and beaten down and angry because we do exactly as we’re told, and receive nothing but the minimum amount of money for room and board for it, the very definition of a slave.
Even people with higher powered jobs are losing any hope of retiring, their pensions taken, and any hope to receive what they are entitled to for THEIR HARD WORK is dwindling. The top 1% act with impunity and the 99% are punished for even the slightest infraction, sometimes just for fun or “because we can”.
And most importantly, voting will not and does not work, because they own the politicians too. They fund the campaigns (most of the Dem/Rep campaign funds are from corporations), so you only ever see _their_ picks on TV, and then they buy them off on every important issue through lobbying, and they own the news, so you hear what they want you too. This isn’t even about getting a cut. NO ONE SHOULD HAVE THAT MUCH POWER.
Why do you think this hasn’t been covered by the news hardly at all, while a bullshit tea party protest of half the size with no spread to any other cities with a confused and irrational message was front page shit on just about every rag and news channel in the US?
I’m hopeful because people are starting to realize that freedom is about freedom, not about working forever until you die with a vague promise that you might get to do some cool stuff eventually someday, when you pay off that student loan debt. Which is impossible.
Oh. And you don’t own anything. The bank owns your house, your car, and all of your money in the bank. And now that they have person-hood, they can and will take it all when the coup is ready to go.
And the world banks own them.
In effect by transition, the world banks own you. And they are biding their time. And we are going to lose.
The only time anything has ever changed, ever REALLY changed, it changed with a revolution, and sometimes it was bloody, but it has never, EVER, in the known history of human civilization, when people mostly consented to the establishment for now, biding their time, “busting their asses,” and then losing hope, and then dying that way.
If you don’t act right this second, with God as your witness, justice on your side, and the willing spirit to die for a cause, who will? There has to be a beginning. There has to be a first. And we will be the first. And more are following. I don’t want a handout. I want a life.I am the 99 percent.”
Kudos to these brave people who are fighting the good fight. It makes me want to rush home and march on Washington. If things haven't changed by the time we go home in early 2013, then I certainly will.
No comments:
Post a Comment