Megan Rosker responds to the #OccupyWallStreet protests from her POV as an advocate for educational change.
What does a 23-year-old college graduate have to look forward to when they leave the comfort of the college library, the routine of going to class, hot pockets at midnight and juggling a part time job? Debt? An entry level job? Going back to school for more education? High taxes? A middle management white collar job that will enslave them further in a potentially unfulfilling life?
We shouldn’t be surprised these young people have taken to Wall Street to protest the fact that 93% of wealth is controlled by 10% of our fellow countrymen. It’s a ridiculous and staggering statistic and our current educational system only encourages this great divide. The educational assembly line we churn out millions of people who are competing for the same level of middle management jobs. Jobs below that level make it difficult to feed the family and those above middle management are seldom given out to the average middle class student. Instead they are reserved for the well connected, wealthier class.
These young people look to the preceding generations that have been caught in the hard working middle class trap that has allowed for so little pleasure in life and they want nothing to do with it. They are sick of being screwed out of having a life they can enjoy.
Out of pure frustration they have walked to Wall Street, sat down, yelled, chanted for some financial equality. They kneel at the shrine of American wealth and beg for some empathy, for a better life, for a life they can enjoy and know that when they get to the end of it something will be left for them. Will there will be some shred of support for them after they have given the best years of their lives to working for our society? There is little left for their parents or grandparents as we have all watched 401ks and pensions evaporate. They have every reason to be frustrated, worried and angry with the twists of financial success and downfalls that have brought us to this stunning point.
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photo: ology.com/politics
About Megan Rosker
We need to hear more of your perspective…great work.
Megan, what may surprise many of the protestors is that there are possibly many sitting inside the buildings of Wall St wishing they had the courage to join the protest – things are not pretty for them either. Morale is rock bottom.
“beg for some empathy, for a better life, for a life they can enjoy and know that when they get to the end of it something will be left for them.”
Beg? I don’t think beg is the appropriate word to be using in this insistence. This is a struggle – the people of the Arab Spring didn’t beg their governments so stop the tyranny, they demanded through revolutionary action.
Secondly, you also, unfortunately, are perpetuating a misperception about the protests – that these are “young people” leaving university and entering the work force. Please do a little research before you making over-generalizing statements about of a whole movement that, while i understand your concerns and empathy, will ultimately delegitimize it by making it seem like something the young kids are doing.
A sample of the protests: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4tM2r7jZl8
To earn a living, as opposed to demanding one be given to you, you need to be able to do something somebody finds useful. If these kids don’t know how to do something useful, it’s their own fault. On the other hand, they might want to look sharply at the universities which gave them useless degrees on credit–non-dischargeable through bankruptcy.
And now they’re asking, among other things, for those who didn’t go to college to take the hit for their debts.
Sorry for being so hard-assed about this. Not.
Thing is, lots of people lied to them, and the liars are probably thinnest on the ground on Wall Street.
Yeah, what we need are a bunch of folks living lives of joy on somebody else’s money. Do the math. If you take the richest folks in this country out and shoot them–Hey, Bill Ayers, wipe your chin–you couldn’t give people lives of material wonderfulness without them doing something to earn it.