I'm probably older than you are and hopefully not as heavy. This lady has some wisdom to share, so I'll pass it along:
Call it an occupational hazard, but I can't look at the Occupy Wall Street
protesters without thinking, "Who parented these people?"
As a culture columnist, I've commented on the social and political
ramifications of the "movement" - now known as "OWS" - whose fairyland
agenda can be summarized by one of their placards: "Everything for
everybody."
Thanks to their pipe-dream platform, it's clear there are people with
serious designs on "transformational" change in America who are using the
protesters like bedsprings in a brothel.
Yet it's not my role as a commentator that prompts my parenting question,
but rather the fact that I'm the mother of four teens and young adults.
There are some crucial life lessons that the protesters'
moms clearly have not passed along.
Here, then, are five things the OWS protesters' mothers should have taught
their children but obviously didn't, so I will:
. Life isn't fair. The concept of justice - that everyone should be treated
fairly - is a worthy and worthwhile moral imperative on which our nation was
founded. But justice and economic equality are not the same. Or, as Mick
Jagger [2] said, "You can't always get what you want."
No matter how you try to "level the playing field," some people have better
luck, skills, talents or connections that land them in better places. Some
seem to have all the advantages in life but squander them, others play the
modest hand they're dealt and make up the difference in hard work and
perseverance, and some find jobs on Wall Street and eventually buy houses in
the Hamptons. Is it fair? Stupid question.
. Nothing is "free." Protesting with signs that seek "free" college degrees
and "free" health care make you look like idiots, because colleges and
hospitals don't operate on rainbows and sunshine. There is no magic money
machine to tap for your meandering educational careers and "slow paths" to
adulthood, and the 53 percent of taxpaying Americans owe you neither a
degree nor an annual physical.
While I'm pointing out this obvious fact, here are a few other things that
are not free: overtime for police officers and municipal workers, trash
hauling, repairs to fixtures and property, condoms, Band-Aids and the food
that inexplicably appears on the tables in your makeshift protest kitchens.
Real people with real dollars are underwriting your civic temper tantrum.
. Your word is your bond. When you demonstrate to eliminate student loan
debt, you are advocating precisely the lack of integrity you decry in
others. Loans are made based on solemn promises to repay them. No one forces
you to borrow money; you are free to choose educational pursuits that don't
require loans, or to seek technical or vocational training that allows you
to support yourself and your ongoing educational goals. Also, for the
record, being a college student is not a state of victimization. It's a
privilege that billions of young people around the globe would die for -
literally.
. A protest is not a party. On Saturday in New York, while making a mad dash
from my cab to the door of my hotel to avoid you, I saw what isn't evident
in the newsreel footage of your demonstrations: Most of you are doing this
only for attention and fun. Serious people in a sober pursuit of social and
political change don't dance jigs down Sixth Avenue like attendees of a
Renaissance festival. You look foolish, you smell gross, you are clearly
high and you don't seem to realize that all around you are people who deem
you irrelevant.
. There are reasons you haven't found jobs. The truth? Your tattooed necks,
gauged ears, facial piercings and dirty dreadlocks are off-putting.
Nonconformity for the sake of nonconformity isn't a virtue. Occupy reality:
Only 4 percent of college graduates are out of work. If you are among that 4
percent, find a mirror and face the problem. It's not them. It's you.
(C 2011 Marybeth Hicks)
Columnist Marybeth Hicks, a wife of 20 years and mother of four children,
lives in the Midwest. She is the author of The Perfect World Inside My
Minivan -- One Mom's Journey Through the Streets of Suburbia, a compilation
of her columns. She uses her column to share her perspective on issues and
experiences that shape families nationwide. She currently writes a column
for the Washington Times.
And if the miners union had not done what they did for him he might be dead and the mine owner would not care a little so someone has to stand up and fight or we would all be out of luck I support those DEADBEATS that are trying to get a fair deal for all of us
15.6 million people out of work . Real unemployment at 18.5 % . Your thoughts ? Why not lay off the double dipping government vermin to make jobs for the youth ?