Occupy movement is not a bunch of cry babies

In the past couple of weeks, there have been a number of articles in the mainstream news about the occupy movement participants being a bunch of cry babies (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204485304576640962366762204.html?grcc=c55cb65a12d38771ac008972b7e6dcb1Z3&mod=WSJ_hps_sections_opinion) and that they are just venting their disappointments in life at Wall street. They try to portray the participants as having no practical agenda or suggestions to improve the situation but just a party mob shouting and waving placards against the 1% rich. What is getting lost in the arguments are some of the reasons behind the rise of such a movement. These people represent a voice against the unfairness we are seeing in the current society. Life is unfair and every adult recognizes this and moves on with life, sometimes bitching and moaning about it in private parties and family gatherings. But when the unfairness becomes really stark, then it galvanizes a larger group of people to take their gripes to the public arena.

We all realize that wall street told lies, sold toxic mortgages and brought the US and the world to the brink of a financial collapse and the federal govts throughout the world had to bail out the banks. I believe the bailout was necessary to stave severe depression and to save the banking institutions. but the problem is that the banks have been settling all their charges easily with the SEC - recently citibank - http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/30/opinion/sunday/friedman-did-you-hear-the-one-about-the-bankers.html?_r=1, without admitting any guilt. On the other hand, none of mortgage relief proposals by the US adminstrn have worked - the banks have been really stingy about writing off principals on near to foreclosure mortgages. They hold the moral line as to how the borrowers need to pay in full no matter what, though there was no moral line in their bailouts. This is the unfairness you see in the society and that is what is galvanizing the people to protest.

It is ok for these occupy protesters not to have any agenda or come up with ways to solve the problem. As a sane society, we atleast need to have people protesting gross unfairness. The insititutions are not working and the financial firm lobby groups are as powerful or more than in the past. Obama has not delivered on any of the lobbying reforms he promised. What do the masses do if the institutions don't work? The african americans had to fight for civil rights to get some fairness in treatment - they got derided in a big way in the Southern US states for all their protests. The french poor probably got derided for being a bunch of lazy bums during the french revolution.

Full employment - society must provide it.

There was an article in WSJ with some paragraphs trashing the people at the OccupySF. those paras copied below. It is a baseless statement. Here is my reply to it:

I don't think we can associate the bank's collapse and rescue with the inability to get a job. yes, the banks lied, sold toxic mortgages but when they collapsed, what can you do? Just because a judicial system becomes corrupt, you can't just throw away the institution. All you can do is try to reform the institution - put more regulations, checks and balances etc. same thing with the banks. we need the banks to run the society. you can get rid of the heads but not the institutions themselves.

If studying arts, humanities or gender studies won't get you a job to sustain yourselves, why then allow those degrees to be taught at univs here. how is it then any different from some religious madrasas in pakistan? just inculcating some useless knowledge? Then the society is lying to their children. they restrict the amount of MD degrees in the US based on the demand for those doctor specialities - do it for all other courses of study as well. make art univs have the students sign a beware stmt that their probability of landing a job is very low - like a warning on the tobacco label. The society is indebted to provide jobs to its every member - if not, you don't have a stable society. Unless you can prove all the unemployed are lazy bums, the society has to figure out a way to make them employed - it can't just say that you have got lousy degrees. well, the univs, the accreditation boards, and everybody else were in cahoots to market those useless degrees then.

***********************************************************************************

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204485304576640962366762204.html?grcc=c55cb65a12d38771ac008972b7e6dcb1Z3&mod=WSJ_hps_sections_opinion

Maybe this is all really about disappointment. I spoke to a young woman who had clearly bathed more recently than most. I asked her why she was at OccupySF. She told me she'd done all the right things. Studied hard. Graduated college. (She was an art major.) And now she can't get a job. It didn't matter. It's all messed up. She was lied to.

Of course she was. She's a member of the Trophy Generation. Win or lose, you get a trophy. We embraced mediocrity to an entire generation of kids during good times who are now finding themselves mediocre in bad times. There still is that American dream: Go to college, get a job, buy a Prius. But like it or not, studying art or humanities or gender studies won't get you there. Marissa Mayer at Google complains she can't find enough computer-science majors. Civil engineers are getting hired sight unseen.