Un-occupy Wall Street

The Occupy Wall Street movement has been effective in doing one thing, nothing. Occupy does not support any political candidates, without any leaders, the occupation’s small work groups and offshoots are also just too unpredictable and risky to support. How is a group of young people supposed to be effective in changing anything if there is no leader for the movement? I think that the Occupy Wall Street members are just wasting their time, if they’re part of the 99% why aren’t they working? Being part of the 99% as much of us are, I have to work every day just to pay for college and living expenses. Occupy members should be concerned with what they could do to change their lives and not with what they want the government to do to change their lives, the occupiers could benefit from associating with the tea party in another, personal way. A great many occupiers complain that their college degrees in feminist literature have not gotten them jobs that make enough money to support them in style. The tea partiers, some of whom are managers, could teach the occupiers how to network, how to dress for and behave at job interviews, and how to start at the bottom of the corporate ladder and work their way up. If the occupiers were to do this they would help themselves from being unemployed at least. The Tea Party has been somewhat effective in its protest. Tea Party members at least are respectable members of society unlike the Occupiers.

It would be an interesting development if the tea party could co-opt the occupier movement, teaching it how to be an effective protest movement. The adults in the tea party could teach the kids in the Occupy Wall Street movement how to bathe, dress and to behave in public, something apparently their parents failed to impress upon them. The occupiers could learn the mechanics of voter registration drives, annoying corrupt congressmen at town hall meetings, and other aspects of political strategy. Only 24% of the 18 to 29 year old Occupiers voted in the 2010 mid-term elections and they still complain that their voices have not been heard. The government is no doubt unresponsive to the Occupy Wall Street movement when only a quarter of them voted. The Occupy movement by be more effective in the 2012 election if more that 24% vote, but they still won’t be happy with whoever wins the election. In all reality most of residents in the United States will not be happy with whoever the president is after a couple months in office.

Burke Lienemann