Memoirs of a White Woman
This probably won't be very eloquent...but there's a lot goin down on this whole Occupy Wall Street business. My initial thoughts were "Ok...we're protesting...but what are your demands? Is anyone in charge? Can you seriously not afford to buy posterboard? Oh is that what you're protesting?!...wait, what? " One of Cameron's lovely colleagues explained the OWS as this: "the people are pissed that they're suffering for the mistakes of the wall street guys, when the wall street guys aren't suffering."
So that totally makes sense, right? I can hop on board with that. BUT NONE OF THEM ARE SAYING THAT! I read an article that was supposed to be the OWS demands and it went like "blah blah blah, this is our one demand, on a completely different note, blah blah blah, this is our one demand, blah blah. blah. blah. This is our one demand. There is no correlation between our one demands."
Don't get me wrong, I'm not bashing the OWS. I'm always up for a good protest, and yeah...why is rent so expensive?! Whats up with all of this bureaucratic bull honkey? Why can't we all just get along? Why can't we pass laws that make sense? Why do all senators have some weird sex thing? I'm on board! [cue cardboard sign with angry demands on it.] But it looks like these protests are a little too grass roots. No ones in charge, everyone has their own list of demands and complaints and worst of all, the people being interviewed are idiots. I'm absolutely positive there are intelligent people out protesting on the streets, but the media loves to interview idiots. Like the kid demanding to have all of his college tuition paid for...because, well he doens't know, he just wants someone else to pay for it. The best is an old man who's sign said "Keep your dirty government hands off my medicare." Oh, sweet heart...just go home. Take a nap. Watch Frasier for heaven sake (ugh Kelsey Grammar you cheating whore) just don't make signs.
And here's a question: is the "I'm the 99%" campaign PART of the OWS or is it tagging along like an annoying younger sibling? The first time I saw the 99% thing I didn't get it. Maybe its because I'm a middle class white woman who is married with a child and stays at home. So, does that make me in the 1%? I pay my rent, I graduated from college and I have no debt. Does that make me in the 1%? And why does everyone have so much freaking debt?!
Logical/moderate political center of my brain kindly reminded me that my parents paid for the first 2 years of my tuition, and then I got pell grants for the last 2 years. My husband was on scholarship and got pell grant money. And BYU is ridiculously cheap if you are LDS. Like $2,000 a semester when I went. Oh, and its centered in Utah where the cost of living is a lot lower than a lot of the country. SOOOO yeah. Of course we were debt free when we graduated. If we weren't then we were idiots. College is freaking expensive. Even moderately priced state colleges require taking on debt unless your parents help you out (and sometimes even when your parents help you out you'll still take on debt.) So we should probably not set fire to the grads who say they have a lot of debt.
And omg, if you tell people who are currently jobless to go "reinvent the wheel" by "inventing the new twitter or facebook" you are so high up in your ivory tower covered in gold you can't even see the world anymore. Creating a start up is near impossible. Oh of course people have done it! They had creativity and more importantly they had funds. Cash money. Thats what it takes to start a new business. [cue angry emoticon.] Was that too liberal sounding?
So lets empower the people! Fist pumps in the air! But let's get organized and protest against the right people and try to enact laws through the right channels to get there!
p.s. I realize as I'm writing this that my husband might be considered "the man." Or he works for "the man." Either way we are really grateful to the man for hiring Cam and giving us a steady salary. So...does that make us the 1%? Seriously! I need to know if I'm in the 99% or not!
So that totally makes sense, right? I can hop on board with that. BUT NONE OF THEM ARE SAYING THAT! I read an article that was supposed to be the OWS demands and it went like "blah blah blah, this is our one demand, on a completely different note, blah blah blah, this is our one demand, blah blah. blah. blah. This is our one demand. There is no correlation between our one demands."
Don't get me wrong, I'm not bashing the OWS. I'm always up for a good protest, and yeah...why is rent so expensive?! Whats up with all of this bureaucratic bull honkey? Why can't we all just get along? Why can't we pass laws that make sense? Why do all senators have some weird sex thing? I'm on board! [cue cardboard sign with angry demands on it.] But it looks like these protests are a little too grass roots. No ones in charge, everyone has their own list of demands and complaints and worst of all, the people being interviewed are idiots. I'm absolutely positive there are intelligent people out protesting on the streets, but the media loves to interview idiots. Like the kid demanding to have all of his college tuition paid for...because, well he doens't know, he just wants someone else to pay for it. The best is an old man who's sign said "Keep your dirty government hands off my medicare." Oh, sweet heart...just go home. Take a nap. Watch Frasier for heaven sake (ugh Kelsey Grammar you cheating whore) just don't make signs.
And here's a question: is the "I'm the 99%" campaign PART of the OWS or is it tagging along like an annoying younger sibling? The first time I saw the 99% thing I didn't get it. Maybe its because I'm a middle class white woman who is married with a child and stays at home. So, does that make me in the 1%? I pay my rent, I graduated from college and I have no debt. Does that make me in the 1%? And why does everyone have so much freaking debt?!
Logical/moderate political center of my brain kindly reminded me that my parents paid for the first 2 years of my tuition, and then I got pell grants for the last 2 years. My husband was on scholarship and got pell grant money. And BYU is ridiculously cheap if you are LDS. Like $2,000 a semester when I went. Oh, and its centered in Utah where the cost of living is a lot lower than a lot of the country. SOOOO yeah. Of course we were debt free when we graduated. If we weren't then we were idiots. College is freaking expensive. Even moderately priced state colleges require taking on debt unless your parents help you out (and sometimes even when your parents help you out you'll still take on debt.) So we should probably not set fire to the grads who say they have a lot of debt.
And omg, if you tell people who are currently jobless to go "reinvent the wheel" by "inventing the new twitter or facebook" you are so high up in your ivory tower covered in gold you can't even see the world anymore. Creating a start up is near impossible. Oh of course people have done it! They had creativity and more importantly they had funds. Cash money. Thats what it takes to start a new business. [cue angry emoticon.] Was that too liberal sounding?
So lets empower the people! Fist pumps in the air! But let's get organized and protest against the right people and try to enact laws through the right channels to get there!
p.s. I realize as I'm writing this that my husband might be considered "the man." Or he works for "the man." Either way we are really grateful to the man for hiring Cam and giving us a steady salary. So...does that make us the 1%? Seriously! I need to know if I'm in the 99% or not!
haha I love reading your blog/rants! From what I've heard/read, OWS and "we are the 99%" is based off of big companies (aka the 1%) getting out of paying taxes through loopholes and tax deductions while the rest of the country (aka the 99%) is supporting the country through their tax dollars. This is why they are mad at wall street--because they are 1% that doesn't pay taxes. While I do not agree with govt bail outs of big companies (cough GM cough) nor do I think it is right for big companies to evade taxes through govt loop holes, quite frankly I think the whole thing is pretty stupid. 1) we have a bracket tax system in which the wealthiest can pay up to 50% of their salary in taxes 2) saying the 99% of the American people are supporting the country is incorrect seeing as how those who make below a certain threshold pay none to very little in taxes--and these are the people that seem to be protesting the most, at least as the media portrays--3) like you said, a lot of these people just want someone else to do the work for them
ReplyDeleteAlso, I don't think you should cut short your out-of-debtness! Sadly, I know WAY too many people that have gotten into quite a bit of debt at BYU (or even worse, BYU-I...how does that even happen? I don't know). And yes, the tuition at pretty much every other school is higher than BYU and the cost of living is pretty low in Provo, BUT it all comes down to the decisions that someone makes. Most of those who are in debt at BYU are trying to live a lifestyle they simply can't afford-from nice clothes to brand name groceries (I recall reading a post once about Odwalla juice--ain't no way I'm buying that with my meager little salary!). I believe the same goes with those that have debt at other institutions as well. They have either chosen a school they can't afford, or are trying to live a life style out of their economic reach (booze costs a lot these days..giggle...). There are always cheaper options, sometimes people just aren't willing to sacrifice for those options. I should probably clarify that I'm talking about undergraduate work here where most of the time the "prestige" of your school of choice doesn't matter as much as long as you get the grades and take the appropriate course work. Grad school is a whole different octopus, but I won't go into that. And then, just to keep people from getting mad at me, not all cases of student loans are bad...I'm just saying most of the time.
Whew! That was long. Sorry about that. Maybe its just because I don't quite feel like getting started at work yet, or maybe it's because I felt like writing my opinion down for some odd reason. Anyway, hope all is well! Love that cute boy of yours (err...Josh...not Cameron..that is)
I just love you
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