10 Thoughts About Occupy Wall Street

10 Thoughts About Occupy Wall Street
By John Hawkins
10/11/2011

1) If you're serious about going after Wall Street, it's hard to see how you could vote for Barack Obama who ladled out billions in taxpayer dollars to Wall Street corporations. "Wall Street (also) donated twice as much money to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign in 2008 as it did to John McCain’s." How much sense does it make to protest Wall Street and then vote for the guy who is doing more to help Wall Street at America's expense than anyone else in the country?

2) The Tea Partiers have been called racist because there aren't a lot of minorities who show up at the protests. Yet, judging by the pictures, there aren’t any more minorities at Occupy Wall Street. Does that mean they're racist? In fact, given that black Americans vote Democratic 9-to-1 and Hispanic Americans vote Democratic 2-to-1, shouldn't there be a lot more minorities at Occupy Wall Street than at a Tea Party?

3) If you "occupy a job," you don't have time to spend weeks "Occupying Wall Street." If you don't "occupy a job," it would make more sense to put in resumes with Wall Street firms than protest them. If you don't have the skills to get a job on Wall Street or anywhere else, you should "occupy" a university or a training class to build some marketable skills, rather than sleeping in the park like a hobo and blocking the Brooklyn Bridge so that working people can't get home.

4) Liberals have claimed that Tea Parties are violent mobs, but there have been more arrests, violence, and attacks on police in just the Occupy Wall Street protest in New York City than in every Tea Party combined nationwide. Also, if reports are to be believed, I'm pretty sure there have been more people relieving themselves in alleyways and on police cars, too.

5) Although the reasons behind the Occupy Wall Street protests are extremely fuzzy, which is pretty weird if you think about it, the most common theme that has come up is a complaint about the bank bailouts. First of all, it's worth noting that unlike many of the Republicans in D.C., much of the conservative base was opposed to the bank bailouts right from the start. In fact, back in September of 2008, 71% of conservative bloggers were opposed to the bailout. Additionally, the economic collapse that led to the bailout was caused by the government, not the banks. The government bent the banks over a barrel, forced them to make risky loans, and then when those loans eventually went bad, the same people who created the problem pretended they had nothing to do with it. So, you can protest Wall Street all day long, but the real culprits are in D.C.

6) The word "astroturf" keeps falsely being applied to Tea Party protests by liberals. Meanwhile, there are actually ads on Craigslist offering to pay people to go out and protest at Occupy Wall Street.

7) There are a lot of college students protesting that they have huge student loans to pay off, but they can't find a job that pays enough to do it. For some people, this may be a short term problem. Know where my first post-college job was in a crummy economy? Wal-Mart Portrait Studios. What a wonderful use of my four year degree that was. That being said, if you ran up $60,000 in debt so you could get a degree in philosophy or lesbian studies at a private school, whose fault is that? Certainly not Wall Street. If you rack up huge amounts of debt so you can get a degree that qualifies you to spend the next 30 years as a convenience store clerk, that was YOUR dumb decision and how you take care of it should be YOUR problem.

8) As more Democrats like Nancy Pelosi start to associate themselves with Occupy Wall Street, it seems fair to ask these politicians to answer two basic questions. Will they give back the campaign contributions they've already received from Wall Street? Will they continue to take campaign contributions from Wall Street?

9) Nobody, not even the Occupy Wall Street protesters, knows exactly why they're protesting or what they're trying to accomplish, but the general idea seems to be that the people who aren't paying income taxes are complaining that the people who are paying taxes aren't handing over enough of their money. Apparently, the phrase, "The world doesn't owe you a living" needs to make a comeback in homes across America.

10) As Herman Cain said, "You can demonstrate all you want on Wall Street. The problem is 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue!" The solutions to America's problems aren't going to be found in punishing corporations, the rich, or the successful. They'll be found in shrinking the government, giving more power to the people, and getting more Americans to form corporations, become rich, and become successful.
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To read another article by John Hawkins, click here.
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To read more about the Occupy Wall Street protests, click here.