So back around 1998 I was getting, and passing on, BBS delivered messages on feminist lists pointing out that the Taliban sucked and we should really push our government to stop supporting them. My journal entry from 2011/11/11 says I'm really sad about what's happened, but I'm also worried that the way our country reacts might cause more problems than it solves. In 2006 I started trying to convince my mother that she had too much debt to support her house / lifestyle and she ought to cut back and simplify. The bulk of my career so far has involved tech support for efforts to fix Native American and USA government relations, and then reshape how we deal with poverty, and there's the whole Free software and did activism in West Philly thing, blah... Blah. Blah.
You know something? It's nice that the protesters finally decided to get off their ass and take note of the fact that "it is up to us, the people, to decide our future." You know what else? You asked for this crap. Every time you skipped the PTA meetings, and treated your teachers like poorly behaved babysitters, and decided it was easier to watch another movie than volunteer for anything at all, to drive instead of biking, to buy the sweatshop sneakers, to work for that shitty boss instead of risking a pay cut to do something worthwhile, to vote for someone in the two party system, to live on credit cards, and to throw every dollar you ever made at people who were producing what they thought you wanted at (human) costs that you were only too happy to ignore, you said "please sir, can I have some more" to the stupidest vision of what our species can be.
Oh. So now that you can't actually afford an X-Box to piss your life away on, you want to do something that matters?
Fine. Good. But let's not stand here and pretend that it's Wall Street's fault. Whether you knew it or not, this is exactly what you've been asking for. When you're done with the pity party, please have enough sense to go home and create something better.
Yes, that was me having a pity party of my own. It's all very ironic. I was promised that the beatings would continue until morale improved, and that I could listen to Ani sing Recoil in between.