Occupy Wall Street? Not me. I have to work.

We've hosted this image before here on PTU. But what does it really mean?

I think it's the proper image for this movement, but for the wrong reasons: The bull is still strongly raging as if the ballerina atop it isn't even there. She's graceful, but enigmatic and inconsequential.

The basic premise for the Occupy Wall Street Movement is that things aren't economically "fair".

I think George Orwell said it best in Animal Farm: All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.

Let's not forget that social structures are not based on the idea that everyone should start off with the same things, rather that everyone is entitled to the same things given their contribution to that said society. For example: The country of Japan owes me nothing because I'm not a part of their "society". That is to say that for one, I don't pay taxes (participate) to Japan. In effect, I'm not entitled to the same rights a Japanese citizen in Japan would have. In fact, I'm most likely not entitled to any.

That being said, these people are not fighting for rights, per-se. Their fighting for what they believe are their rights - for what they believe they deserve as a consequence of just plainly existing. They're fighting for something that was never theirs in the first place.

Sometimes I hear things like: "Man! AmEx won't cut me a break on my credit card bill." Well, guess what? AmEx didn't force you to charge (not buy) a round of Patrón shots for your buddy's birthday. Some of these protesters seem to want to have their cake and eat it too. This is of course a generalization, but it's my belief that it's a mild assertion at most.

Look, I get it. Even I think that some high level corporate officers should be in jail. I'm not called the Motown Marxist for nothing. Sure, I would like to take a private Jet to Monaco every weekend where I can then drive my Maserati down the coast with my supermodel [wife]. And sometimes it sucks to think that a dude living 2 miles away actually does this. But that's never been the life I was sold/given/knew I had to adopt. Maybe my social status and personal handicaps taught me at an early age that fair isn't about getting what everyone else gets, fair is about given the opportunity to fight for what everyone else gets.

So when you do finally NEED to fight, have a good reason with purpose. It would also help if your actions didn't contradict your motives. That is, you don't actively participate in the very behavior you're rallying against. For causes like these it helps to be selfless... when it's sincere.

Occupy Wall Street: A Disgrace To Real Hippies Everywhere

Some of us at PTU got into a vigorous debate today about the merits of the "Occupy Wall Street" protest. While most of PTU probably agrees with the majority of what I'm about to write, I'll be fair and say that Bottle vehemently disagrees.


Take a look at the image above that this group has on their own Facebook page and it highlights the main problem with this movement: they have no actual idea what their goals are. The only goal seems to be to complain about every liberal issue all at once while sleeping in the street without showering. Of course there are problems with corporate domination of American politics along with lots of other important issues, but these people aren't going to accomplish anything the way they are going about this.


Unfortunately our generation has turned into a bunch of whiners who like to blame everything on someone else. How can someone living in the U.S. possibly compare the challenges and oppression they face to someone living under a dictatorship in the Middle East? How does anyone who contributes anything meaningful to society have time to spend a month sleeping in a park and protesting every random issue known to man? Sure life isn't fair, but unfortunately the new norm is to sit around and blame everyone else for your problems instead of putting in some good old fashioned hard work to better yourself and achieve real change.


The hypocrisy is also rife among this group. Probably the best quote I've seen that sums this up comes (surprisingly) from the usually left leaning NYTimes:

"One day, a trader on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Adam Sarzen, a decade or so older than many of the protesters, came to Zuccotti Park seemingly just to shake his head. “Look at these kids, sitting here with their Apple computers,” he said. “Apple, one of the biggest monopolies in the world. It trades at $400 a share. Do they even know that?".


Now, let me say that I think many of the issues that some of these "protesters" want to raise are quite valid. We do need to make sure we are enough of a civilized nation that we don't let people die from a tooth infection because they don't have insurance. We have to think logically and objectively about how our actions contribute to and modify the natural climate change that occurs over time. Unfortunately it seems like many lazy wannabe hippies are taking advantage of these problems to have an "experience". Someone should tell them that is what Burning Man is for, real problems need to be solved by real leaders with clear goals and objectives.


This gets me to my final point, which is that these people can learn something from keeping it real hippies back in the day. They were able to set clear goals and contribute to meaningful outcomes such as the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the withdrawal of American troops from Vietnam. These modern day hipsters should take a lesson from the keeping it real hippies and actually get something done instead of blogging to their friends back in Kansas about the cool experience they had protesting nothing. Anything else is a disgrace to the original hippies they idolize.