Can’t We All Just Get Along?
Recently, someone that I don’t know shared a link with me. 99% Supporters Page Obviously this is a simple page made by a person or group with the blatant goal of demonizing the Occupy movement by association. But let’s take a closer look at some of the heavy hitters on this list.
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Here are some screenshots from my new laptop with Unity desktop. I like its design. It feels new and therefore I am a little confused by it when I try to get in a hurry, but I think its fantastic.
I am the 99% (and you probably are too)
I’ve seen a lot of the hand written 99% images online and I would like to make one as well, but it’s more complicated than that. My wife and I are doing fairly well considering the area we live in and we both have all the insurances/401ks/benefits you can get from full time mid-level retail jobs.
We haven’t made the big mistakes such as buying a home or paying off an expensive car. So we rent a good house in an ok neighborhood and drive shitty cars that cost us less than $2000 combined. We don’t have any children (yet) and don’t have any plans to expand our family until one of us finishes college. We are both full time online students in bachelors programs at 2 different schools that will put us in a household debt of $98,000 when we both graduate. We each got federal stafford loans (FSL) to cover our tuition and the loans do not cover our books, computers, internet access, or any other cost associated with going to college. It certainly does not cover our living expenses, rent, utilities, or vehicles in any way shape or form. We live “check to check” and have no savings whatsoever.
Despite the massive debt we will have in the future, we are a very happy couple. We love our lives and each other very much. We know that unless something changes we will have to work shitty jobs until we can repay this debt. A college degree is not a guarantee that you will be able to make more than 30k a year. We can’t predict what will happen to us but having a college degree will put us (and you) in a better position to make more money.
The cost of education is sickening. If it weren’t for FSL my wife and I would not even be able to attend college at all. We are in that very wide tax bracket of “makes too much to get in for free” but “doesn’t make enough to pay for it”. I appreciate what the FSL can do for me and my wife. It has given us the chance to jump into a bigger pond, but at what price? If there was no interest rate on our loans, and we could pay $5,000 a year, it would take us almost 20 years to pay it off. Over 20 years of massive debt just to be able to make more than what I made last year with only a G.E.D and work experience.
As I typed all of this, I watched a live feed from the Occupy Nashville protesters. It was one guy with a camera, a laptop and the ability to utilize an ad-hoc network, showing how the police swept in and put all the female protesters on one bus and the males on another. What an incredible display of civil disobedience by the protesters. I know it’s not like what just happened in Oakland, (Nashville isn’t looking to put a Marine in the hospital) but it still looks bad.
If you think the protests are a trend and will not turn into anything important then just let them sit and wallow in what various authorities call “unsanitary conditions”.
If it is unsanitary then fine, it’s gross and ugly but you don’t have to be there just like police don’t have to be there when a random family lives in total shit in your neighborhood.
If it’s just a trend then let them play it out and police go on fighting crime normally. The people that can be there have a right to be there and it doesn’t matter if you agree with them or not.
Just like it doesn’t matter if you agree with Fred Phelps and his followers, they have a right to protest all the funerals and gay weddings they please as long as they do so in a civil manner. The Westboro Baptist Church certainly disrupts things. All protests disrupt things, it’s the reason you are protesting! To disrupt the current events!
If you truly believe it’s just lazy, trust funders or hippies and hobos then just let them gather and yell and survive until it putters out. We will all certainly see how dedicated the protesters are in the east coast and northwest by December.
