Misspent Youth

Yesterday I touched on a lot of topics but, I don't think I've quite done them all justice just yet despite my best efforts. Today I'm going to go over two that I slightly touched on because I think they are worth a better look. I'm not entirely certain how long this one will turn out so, as usual, get coffee.

Unless you've somehow managed to avoid the news since roughly September or October of last year, you've probably heard about the Occupy movement. Depending on who or what you listen to, this might have colored your opinion one way or another so, before we really start digging in to the dirt here, let's start with clearing the air. This is going to require some assistance from you. You are going to have to put aside any bias you may have to one side or the other, pretend that you've heard nothing about it prior to this. Ready? Yes, I'll give you Midwestern folk some more time.

Occupy Wall Street (or the Occupy movement) started with an idea that came from the group Adbusters. It honestly doesn't matter who they are but, I'll explain that in a moment. Hang in there. Adbusters comes up with this idea, this little spark of a thing round about July. Now, this is important. Think back for just a moment and consider the scope of the world as a whole. What else was happening in July? Syria, Libya (mind, these are the only names you generally heard in the news but check this out), Bahrain, Yemen, Morocco, Cairo, Tunisia, Algeria, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and the Western Sahara. I'm sure I've probably missed a few, but fucking hell that's a lot of places. These places underwent a revolution. At the time, the news spent a lot of time advertising these as disparate elements instead of one giant cascade (this, you will come to find, is a familiar tactic. Again, more on that in a few). This was the Arab Spring, or Arab Awakening, depending on who you ask.

One small problem. Most traditionally western countries don't have dictators, do we? Well, not in the traditional sense certainly. We have hundreds of them if you ask me, but you didn't so, I'll move on. We have the Middle East nations in an uproar and we want in on the action, but we lack the common dictator to unite against, but fortunately for us, there is still an 'evil' for us to rail against.

Money.

The economies of most Western nations are shit. Utter, complete and wholly. There are a lot of reasons for this. I mean by a metric that is immeasurable even by those buttons you're not supposed to push on a scientific calculator. Well, what caused this galactic level of fuckup? There are as many reasons and causes as there are people around the world. That's not the point of this particular blog and for this, I'm going to count on you to do a little independent research. Here's a little help though, confirm sources. Pretend you're a reporter yourself.

So, we have a revolution in one half of the world and the other half is, as TvTropes puts it, a Crapsack World. Adbusters comes up with this idea to head out to Wall Street and protest because they believe that the money needs to get out of politics. Now, this is an admirable goal, one that I agree with since my Utopian dream of removing politics from life will likely never work. They set up the protest to go out in September and put out the call along the net tubes. Anonymous catches wind of this and expands on the idea to do more than protest. They (collectively) decide to push it further, from a protest to a full fledged occupation. That's right, this is likely what you remember about the event (and shame on you, I told you to forget about it for a minute).

A lot of news organizations at the time attempted to make this appear to be nothing but an uncoordinated callback to the '60's with a bunch of freeloading, lazy and dirty hippies. Or hipsters. I forget. It doesn't matter though. The news slanders them on one side, then the government (both locally, and nationally, no, I mean it, n-a-t-i-o-n-a-l-l-y) starts shoving the protesters along, forcibly. But wait! These are a bunch of uncoordinated hippies or hipsters or something that are just camping out and have absolutely no agenda or goals so, what's with the huge push? Is it because they smell funny? Is it because they're the only ones getting 'teh lulz' from this now? Maybe it's because of something far worse, far more insidious.

Maybe, it's because they are right.

The gap between the 'haves' and 'have nots' continues to grow, but monetarily and in ability to influence. I told you to look at your paycheck. I want you to do that again. Now, while you're looking at it, think about something for a minute. How much did that check used to provide. How much does it provide now? This isn't a matter of handouts. The purchasing power of your dollars continues to slide down, leaving you needing more and more of them just to handle your day to day life, but your job doesn't grow in pay with inflation proportionately to the shrinkage of purchasing power. This is not a matter of 'class warfare' as many have claimed. This is pointing out facts. I don't care if you are jealous of those who've got the money to move continents or not. What matters is that You. Will. Never. Reach. That. Level.

What does that really mean for you? It means that your voice doesn't matter. What you think, what you feel, what you need, what you want. These things do not matter. What matters is that you continue to plug away with the dream of being that far ahead of the game. How, exactly, is this game rigged? Let's take a look.

Right now jobs remain scarce. Assume you need a job (everyone needs a job, realistically, this is just how our world is set up and is step one). You need a job along with everyone else. My standard disclaimer here, I've done a moderate amount of research for these numbers, but as with everything else on the internet, don't take them at face value. Do the research yourself. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are 200,000 jobs available. Unemployment is currently 8.5 percent. The current population of the US is roughly 307 million people (a little higher, but I round). What does this mean in real numbers? There are 24,560,000 people without jobs (that are still looking, not counting the ones who have given up), and only 200,000 jobs available. I'm not sure, but I highly doubt of those 200,000 jobs, any of them is for a CEO, so let's assume these are the most menial jobs available. Of those 24,560,000 people, 40% have a college level education, or 9,824,000. This presents the dilemma of that age old mantra "You have to go to college to get a job." Because a company will hire a college graduate before they bother with a high school graduate. The former have the 'guts' to 'stick it out' for the long haul. So you have to go to and complete college. Sure, fine, what's wrong with that? Well, nothing at face value. I believe everyone should go out and continue their education, in school and out.

It's decided then, you have to go to college. You could go to a public college and spend roughly $8,244 which, isn't so bad. Mind you, these colleges are run almost exactly the same as every other public school you've been to and their degrees are worth about as much as your high school diploma. Public education is right out then. A private institution is what you need. Average cost there? $28,500 per year. Don't have that on you? Noooo problem! If you get yourself a loan you can totally pay for it, and, it's cool because it's a government secured loan. This is awesome, isn't it? Oh, and you don't even have to worry about paying it back immediately, not until you graduate. At the end of four years your total will only be $114,000. You can pay that at $7.50/hr, right? I'm sure you can. But that's not the end all-be-all of it. Don't forget about your books, food, place to live and so on. Let's conservatively call the final after four years $122,876. So for that cheap-ass low-level job, you'll only have to work for 682 days straight. But you don't want to work 24 hours a day without a break, do you? No, of course not. So lets give you an eight hour day, no days off and no vacation time. You're now at 2048 days. That's five years. That's not so bad is it? Right. But there's that thing about Annual Percentage Rate. Because you have to pay for generosity. Now, I've done my calculations at 4% because I'm a generous son of a bitch (I've seen averages around 7%). Alright, no problem, we'll just tack on another 409 days to the 2048, again, no vacation, no days off. But fuck! That's more than another year..

I'm sure by now you get the idea and if not, there's no help for you, I'm sorry.

Yeah, yeah I'm sure many of you worked your way through college and paid for it all yourself. How much was it in total again? Right. You don't mention that bit, do you? Or how about exactly which college? Truthfully, it would be more intellectually honest if you just admit that you like the feeling of a collar around your neck. The choices boil down to heavy debt, or no job. Either way, you're getting no money. Not really. And in either case, you're not going to get richer or approach the levels of those who actually matter. This is a part of what the Occupy movements have been talking about (only a part though, go read their website, seriously), not asking for handouts and being lazy.

This is apparently a dangerous message. One that has been spread by the internet while being muddled up by the regular news organizations. This is why the Department of Homeland Security had to intervene in the protests, why they had to be shown as a public threat and nuisance. Because they dare approach the fundamental flaws in the system.

How do you stifle this message though? How do you, as Mr./Ms./Mrs. Government Person keep people from spreading the word, from turning things into a full revolution? Step one, discredit. Go back and watch news reports. Always showing them as selfish, greedy, dirty, jobless bums that want nothing but to have everything handed to them on a silver platter. Never allow them to be seen as a unified front, never show that they have any sort of singular message or demand. How many places are 'occupied'? Cairo, Cape Town, Durban, East London, Grahamstown, Johannesburg, Tunis, Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver, Victoria, Winnipeg, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Ontario, Quebec, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Columbia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, and I haven't even reached the US yet. Get the picture? Step two, show force. Remove them from the public sight once you've swayed public opinion your way. Receive cheers for 'doing something' about 'those bums'. Then step three.

Shut down the lines of communication.

How do you shut down the internet though? The major source of communication and collaboration among 'the enemy'? You look for something that may (arguably) be wrong with said communication lines. It's already monitored, we know this. It was a part and parcel of the Patriot Act. But monitoring isn't enough. You need to be able to kill it. Enter the false flag of 'online piracy'.

Does piracy exist? You betcha. Is it damaging? That's a damn good question. Find me a group that has been actually harmed by the practice. But does it make a good bogey man? It does. Thus you push through a law under the guise of stopping piracy but with the intent of being able to place control mechanisms on the lines of communication and stop those sorts of communication that you deem 'dangerous'.

This is SOPA and PIPA.

The mistake was being too overt with these bills and trying to shove them through quickly. Not quick enough though as everyone has caught on to this particular bit. The people have spoken and they have been shelved. Wait what? Shelved? Not rejected categorically? That's right, because we need to be able to pull this card again. We have the time and patience and as long as none of the people running for offices talk about it, we can bide our time and push it through later.

The failure in all of this logic is that it will not work. That is my hope at the very least. I think I am far from done with this topic, but I am done for the moment. I will leave you to think on this.

Ash-shab yurid isqat an-nizam
(The people want to bring down the regime)

I only hope it's true.