getting all facebook-furious

occupyonline:

hobbitesque:

There’s a vicious debate over the #occupy movement going on right now, and essentially, a whole chunk of people (including some of my good friends) are saying that the protestors are just lazy, and that they’d be employed if they were willing to get off their asses and work hard, and that being a part of the 99% is purely a choice, etcetera.

And just—I’ve been personally affected by the state of the economy since I was a little bitty baby, and people are making me so furious. 80% of the people arguing against the validity of the movement have grown up fairly privileged, and don’t seem at all aware of it. And seeing my fairly wealthy friends, who have always been well housed and fed and taken care of, claiming that the protestors don’t have the right to be screaming makes me want to scream. I can’t stand it. I’m privileged, myself—I have a bed and a home and I’m always fed. But there have been times in my life when I haven’t had a home, and I haven’t had money for food without outside assistance. And so when people who I know, and moreover, people who I like, claim that this isn’t an issue, it’s sort of heartbreaking, because it feels like they’re trying to negate the lives of a truly substantial portion of the population. And I hate to think that my friends can think that way.

It can be exceedingly disillusioning to witness the lack of empathy in even decent human beings. What frustrates my soul is that the reason many people are “failing” in this game of the haves and have nots, is not due to laziness. It is access to education, it is access to healthcare, it is that thousands of 20-somethings started university being told it was a worthwhile investment for the betterment of their futures, only to graduate into a crap economy with jobs that do not pay enough money to make monthly student loan payments. That means that people just starting off in life are starting off in debt that cannot be forgiven and will forever be chasing.

Or how about my friend who has mild autism. Smartest guy I know. Amazing at math and science. But he is exceedingly shy, the bustle of urban life over-stimulates him, he isn’t outgoing and due to his autism has difficulty in social situations, so he fails at the schmooze/networking game. But the amount he contributes in his genius and hard work is astounding. The guy lives off ramen, rides a bike, lives with a bunch of assholes because shared living is all he can afford.

Or take someone who is compassionate, giving, kind, who doesn’t like to throw her weight around or make demands. She wants for very little but gives so very much. She would NEVER survive in the business world, a world that requires harsh profit-driven decisions, back stabbing, manipulations, power struggles. Does she deserve to live in poverty because she’s too nice to be a self-serving asshole?

Or take Sam, who is a drug addict living on the streets. We all gave up on Sam the moment he was born. Why? Because his mother was a coke head on welfare. We didn’t care that he grew up in constant fear of his environment, under constant stress of taking care of his little sisters and strung out mother, figuring out what to feed himself. He has a few more things to worry about at 10 than most of us have, but we still punished him when he made D’s in school, didn’t have the money to participate in extra-curriculars or buy clothes that didn’t make him a social outcast, we still punished him when he acted out in the only way he ever learnt how- anger and frustration (seeing as that is all he’s witnessed in how the adults around him dealt with problems - like his mom’s last boyfriend who used to beat the shit out of him for not responding quickly enough). And then we act surprised when he falls through the cracks of the system and takes pleasure in the few things in life that allowed him to escape his misery - sex and drugs. Now he has a STD, two children he left just like his father left him, and a drug addiction he can’t shake. Did he make some poor choices? Sure. Did he deserve that childhood? No. But those are the childhoods we create by supporting this broken and corrupt system. And the worse this system gets, the more children are going to be joining that cycle.

I could go on and on describing the millions of different people who make up the impoverished population of this country. Have I lived any of these lives? No. But I have something called empathy.

I am sick of people dismissing blatant logic with a sweeping bleeding-heart liberal brush-off. WTF? This isn’t political, it’s personal. This isn’t entitlement, it’s survival. It is human lives. It is people suffering. And I will never apologize for NOT being one of the many callous bastards whose selfishness has driven this country into the ground.

Look at me getting all tumblr-furious in response to your facebook fury ;)