Sunday morning my faith was restored...Well, sort of

But, this morning, there it was - MTV's True Life: Occupy Wall Street. Now first let me say that I have been "pro-Occupy Wall Street" from the beginning. I love to see people getting up off their asses instead of complaining. I've heard all of the nay-sayers "they're dirty, they're lazy, they're hippies - hippies?!? Everytime a camera spans the crowd on TV, for every bearded, raggedy person you see, there are 300-400 white, middle-class people. On MTV this morning, I saw, literally, thousands of young college students out in Zuccotti Park and Times Square holding signs, chanting, and basically, participating!

If things don't change, these kids are going to be hit the hardest. They are entering a workforce that is becoming smaller and smaller. They are going to be saddled with tons of college debt and no way to pay for it. Why on earth would anyone deny them their right to try to affect change when their whole future depends on it.

I guarantee you that every person you hear touting the line "get a job" doesn't know anyone that had a job, got laid off 3 years ago, and has spent every day of the past 3 years sending out resumes. What about the 58 year old man that is let go from the white-collar job that he had for 25 years. Who is going to hire that man? Where is that man going to find a job that offers health insurance. He's 58. Now is the time when he really needs insurance. How is an unemployed man going to pay for health insurance with no job. What if he takes a minimum wage job to afford the basics? What if he has Diabetes or he had a stint a couple years ago. No one's going to insure him. Not only does he lose his job - he has to deal with the degradation of unemployment and he, potentially, loses his life because he no longer has access to healthcare. Sure, if he has a heart attack, they'll take him in the emergency room, but you and I know, that they are going to get him out of there as fast as they can and he won't have the proper follow-up treatment like a person with health coverage receives.

It's so easy to say "get a job". It's much more difficult to really get one.

I didn't know that the Occupy Wall Street movement had organized a Sanitation Department. I didn't know that there were volunteers washing clothes, bringing food, and offering all kinds of housekeeping support to the protesters. The real protesters are dedicated. I'm sure that they would rather be back at home with mommy fixing dinner and catering to their every need.

Before MTV this morning, my opinion of today's youth wasn't the highest. Today's youth are so catered to. They've grown up with parents who want to be their friends. Parents that are so afraid of being disliked that they can't say "no" to anything. I can't tell you how many times I have seen adolescents call their parents every name in the book and finish it off with a big "F---Y--". My parents would have put me on restriction for life, but these parents just go ahead and buy them what they want because "it's just easier to give in" or "I don't want my kid to hate me." Come on people!

I do bookeeping for a small, family-owned retail store in a college town. Our salesmen are college students and over the past 4 years, I have seen them come and go. They all had one thing in common. They all considered themselves ultra conservative. Now I don't mean the kind of conservative that would keep them from getting black-out drunk every night of the week. I mean the kind of conservative that makes each one of them feel that they should not have to pay any taxes. There should not be any governmental regulation (it doesn't matter if the water supply is allowed to be tainted, if you only drink beer), no assistance for the poor, elderly, mentally ill or disenfranchised. They worship the 1%. They all think that the working man is a sucker and that they will be very rich in a very short time and that it is perfectly alright to screw over as many people as it takes to get there.

Now, when I was their age, I have to admit that I had very similar values (or lack of them), but then I saw how things really worked. They teach you in school how things are supposed to work - not how it really does. One of our salesmen actually laughed when told about a small island nation where women are chained to their sewing machines in a sweatshop from daybreak until nightfall with only one 5 minute bathroom break. His sincere reaction was "they're suckers - they shouldn't do it - it's their own fault, not the corporation's". Now, don't get me wrong. I love people with ambition and goals. There isn't anything wrong with someone wanting to get rich. I just don't think that their money should be acquired on the backs of others because of special treatment. There are always going to be workers and bosses. Some people are just born to be innovative and hard working and they deserve anything they can achieve. However, it shouldn't be achieved by paying off government officials to make laws for your own, personal, monetary gain.

The government and the people who choose to dedicate their lives to public service are not supposed to be using their service as a way to get rich. One of the founding fathers (I can't remember who it was) said that public service is supposed to be temporary - not a career. It was designed for people that wanted to dedicate a limited amount of time to help with the betterment of our country and safety of our citizens, then go home and continue your life in the private sector. It's not meant for people to use to buy themselves a multi-million dollar a year job. Look at how many politicians let a corporation buy them into office, are obligated to spin laws to benefit the corporation with the promise of a high dollar job after. Why would anyone who's in government for that purpose be inclined to do anything to benefit small business owners, the middleclass, or the poor. I'm not saying that all politicians are that cold, but there's
enough of them following that path to put our country in the situation that it is now.

For the first time in a long time, I felt hopeful, when I saw those kids on MTV this morning. These are brave people, standing up for what they think is right, instead of being sheep. Isn't that supposed to be the American way?

Then, of course right after, I saw an elephant stick his trunk up another elephant's butt to remove and eat his digested food on MTV's "Ridiculousness". Oh well.