Response to an Open Letter

 Mr. Udargo,

I want to first applaud the sentiments and emotions behind your open letter. I think most empathetic human beings will second your desires for fair compensation for work, for the availability of medicine and care for everyone who needs it regardless of their station in life, and for the American Dream to be a reality.

Open dialogue, including letters like yours, are part of what our country and world needs. Even though it feels like we might sometimes have too much media, in truth, there can never be too much communication. Too frequently it appears that we (myself included) talk at each other instead of with.

However, dialogue is not the ends in itself, but rather the means to an end. Americans, and I would guess the modern world as well, are frustrated by many things. If I have been following correctly, the general complaints are: too much time spent working, too little compensation, student loan debt, credit card debt, health insurance, car insurance, rising cost of living, too much money given to people who already have money, not enough money give to people without money, to name a few.

The overarching theme seems to be money in general, right? Yet, it feels like there is a greater undercurrent. The economy is only the surface. Beneath the monetary complaints is a feeling of helplessness. People feel like they aren't being heard.

How does that make sense? We have the internet. We have cell phones and land lines. We still have the post office, as well as television. With so many outlets for our voice, what is causing this general feeling of powerlessness? I would argue it's a lack of results.

We talk and talk, and nothing happens. Our leaders have too many plans to agree on, and we as a people have too few. Some of the OWS protesters are doing useful things such as "teach-ins," which takes a step toward educating people. Hopefully, with education can come informed decisions.

But that is also where the weakness of OWS, at present, lies. The amorphous nature that one side claims are too many problems, too many demands, and the other side points to as lacking in direction or goals, is hindering the protest more than helping it. Sitting down and camping out on Wall Street is a nice publicity stunt, undeniably it is working to raise awareness, but people are aware now, what is the next move?

As you let people call you liberals, even claiming the title for yourself, you help draw lines. Do not make this a war of liberal versus conservatives. That's not 21st century politics. Fighting amongst ourselves only serves the people who know how to capitalize on war.

Full disclosure: I am neither a liberal nor a conservative. Both labels make me wince. I would love a universal healthcare system, and find it absurd when Republicans fight taxes on the wealthy because 71 billion dollars would not eliminate our debt. I also think people on the 99% tmblr site complaining about money but posting from smartphones with data plans (or even simple personal broadband connections) are absurd.

I think we, the American people, deserve more than a publicity stunt. I think we can do more than a stunt. Using the internet like this, for dialogue, not yelling or complaining, is an amazing step in the right direction.

So we've heard the complaints. Here are SOME of the facts (and I encourage more facts): the U.S. Debt is 14.8 trillion, our Tax Revenue is 2.28 trillion, the GDP is 14.1 trillion for 2009, the unemployment rate is 9.1%, and for employed people the average workday is 7-8 hours long in 2010.

The irony is that the 8 hour day is truly mostly only a reality for the median, the middle-class. It is also a very modern invention, not a right (like you mentioned, less than 100 years old in the U.S., barely older than that in Europe). Eight hours usually maintains your economic status, not increases it. If you're born poor and want to rise above it, you will have to work more than someone born into the middle class who wants to stay middle class.

Isn't that the real American Dream though? Eight hour work days are an invention. The Dream is that anyone can, through hard work, rise higher than the situation they were born into. Money is not a privilege of class, but a privilege (again, not a right) of hard work that earns it. I think that's at the heart of the 53% response, not that they don't want to see hard work rewarded, but that they want rewards to be earned.

So what are the solutions? Part of the solution is hard work, but that's only a part of it. I do not have the other part of the solution, and I admit it. I am a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer. I am not sitting in a park raising awareness, but I do not currently have a job. I am looking for a job, expending nearly all of my energy towards that goal, but I also have a fear that the jobs I want are not there.

Will you help me figure out the solution to our problems or will you waste energy fighting me?

- John

Putting Together 2 and 2 and Getting 99

A friend recently shared a link to We Are the 99 Percent, and I'm beginning to think that all I need for inspiration to post here is Facebook and 10 minutes to scan my news feed. The tumblr account (which is really a blog service for people who like pictures better than words) has stemmed from the Occupy Wall Street movement.

If you missed this display of idiocy in motion, Occupy Wall Street is an exercise in proving that Alexander Hamilton was on to something with Federalism, and that the average human cannot intelligently handle both the responsibility and privilege of democracy.

The Daily Show has covered it (and if you don't see Jon Stewart as at least as viable a news provider as these guys in bow ties, then we really have no common ground to meet on). Stewart does a pretty reasonable job commenting on the ridiculousness - Bonaroo-esque - and then moving past a subject he could just hammer away at. However, maybe he assumes that his colleague on the Colbert Report has covered it, but the absurdity at the heart of the protests is glossed over. These people are gathering, apparently trying to lower or halt the (admittedly low) productivity of Wall Street, without actually having any goals or demands. The know they want things, but are still TRYING TO DECIDE WHAT THEY WILL DEMAND. That is unacceptable. Protests are a result of making decisions, not the process.

To top it off, now WA99P - the website the started this post - has sprouted up in order to apparently put faces on the Occupy Wall Street movement. It features a bunch of pictures of individuals holding up paper with their financial woes written on them. One continual complaint is student loans. These are loans that almost everyone has had to take out. They are also completely voluntary, and usually taken out in spite of options for state and community colleges. It sucks, but education costs. Then, the question arises that if these people have so much debt weighing them down, where are they getting the time and money to post these pictures on what are probably personal internet connections? Finally, what are they 99% of, anyways? Who, then, is the 1 percent? Are they lonely?

The website and movement itself reek of people feeling like they're owed something. What are they owed? They have free speech, as evidenced by the existence of both a protest and online soapbox. Quite a few have jobs, even if they're not making as much as they think they need. So, is that the heart of the problem, money?

Since when did it become okay for Americans to demand money? One of my greatest frustrations in Mongolia was a pervasive mindset that their neighbors with more money and technology owed them handouts. Directors of schools and medical institutions routinely expected money out of volunteers, disregarding any other benefits they could bring. Now I'm back in the States and hearing the same self-interested demands.

Oh and don't even get me started on any of the "creative" people posting on that website. You don't get money for random artistic creations that have little to no market? I'll try to look surprised, but I promise nothing. Find a patron, or find a job. I'm calling you out on this, if you're a real artist, you can't help but create. Work a commercially viable job, and live your art.

Coming up next, finally some of the posts I made before leaving Mongolia,
- John