[occupy]

i'll admit it: i don't get this whole "occupy" movement.
but i have made some observations...
is having a bunch of people sit on the ground with a poster really making an impact? is it?
yes, it's on the news. i've watched i don't even know how many people get pepper sprayed.
and do you want to know what i thought, as i watched it?
"holy shhh, that would hurt."
i don't walk away from the tv screen, thinking about how important their movement is, because i'm so busy trying to figure out what it would feel like to be pepper sprayed.
effective?
...not really.


& i know what the argument is: this is how people have gotten things done in the past--movements.
but i struggle to see the connection between this and, say, the civil rights movement.
they had structure. they had passion. they were speaking out, not just sitting down. they were more concerned with the end result they were striving for, than how many people they have lined up, posterboard in hand with a catchy slogan.


so, i guess if you want to, go ahead and "occupy". "occupy" those sidewalks to your little heart's content... but i don't expect much change to come from it.


on that note, i'd also like to say that maybe i just don't get it. maybe this is a huge ordeal and i should be more concerned. maybe i should be worried about wall street & finances & corruption.
but to be quite honest, who gives a crap? is that really what we're worried about? is that really what matters?


did you know that something like 30% of children in Buffalo County regularly miss meals?  those are the children in our neighborhoods. that's in the mid-west, which is widely accepted as a hospitable place to be... what do you think those rates are like in inner-cities?
did you know that every 40 seconds, someone commits suicide; were you aware that by 2020, that rate is expected to have risen to one death every 20 seconds? that's three a minute.
were you aware that in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the most deadly war since WWII is happening, right now? did you realize that they are sending boys who are too small to hold a gun with just a whistle, to try to distract or scare their enemies? did you know that every single day, 1,500 people in the DRC die, as a direct result of the war? did you know that sexual violence is more rampant there than anywhere else in the world--that it's been called the worst place to be a woman?
did you know that in the U.S. in 2009, there were 5,016 hate crimes against people of homosexual orientation? that's almost 14 a day. and do you honestly think those rates have dropped since then?


and, what you're telling me, is that we're worried about spending our time and energy on occupying? that that is more important than these real issues? that standing up to some faceless corporation is more important than standing up for the real issues that real people are facing?
i don't know what else to say, other than that those are the most screwed up priorities i've ever heard of. correct me if i'm wrong, but that sounds an awful lot like bullshit to me.