And furthermore...

Concerning Wall Street: You can have your wealth. I don't really care. It's all just numbers anyway, right?

But it's a hard blow to suddenly realize that I'm not gonna be able to follow my dreams like everybody always said I could. Instead, I'm gonna make a dollar over minimum wage and pay most of that to some organization I couldn't tell you the name of for the better part of a decade. I can't protest it because I can't get the time off of work, and I need the work so I can pay you, my school, my landlord and my utilities company (and pay for food, but that's a distant priority for some reason.)

It's a hard blow to realize that I can't be anything I want to be, because of the system we have in place. And it makes me mad that there are people who can be anything they want to be, but they're all in congress or they're CEOs of a company, and for the most part they act like children (Holy shit does that make me mad. To those in power: Grow. The fuck. Up.) And the part that makes me more angry than anything else, is that I've got a pretty good deal going. There are so many people out there who have it worse than I do, and I have it pretty bad (It was a wake-up call for me when I realized that, as well-off as I thought I was, I still qualify for free food at the food bank.)

It's a hard blow to find out that freedom is for the rich, I guess.
Maybe I'm overstating it. I always do. But it's a hard blow to find out that I can't be free.

I feel like I should say...

I feel like I should say this: I don't like the protest culture. I really, really don't. I grew up in Boulder, and for as many signs as I saw held up on the side of the road that said something worthwhile, there were twice the number supporting something inane and unimportant that only someone with trust-fund money would care about. In a climate like that, it's hard to support something like a protest. There are so many associations between protesters and the ignorant, dogmatic and idly wealthy that--even if you do have a legitimate point--it's hard to take a protest seriously.

But that's the problem. If there's one thing we should take seriously, it's our right to protest. I don't care if you think that the people who do it are worthless (I mean, some of them might be. We can't all be perfect, right?) But if you care about an issue, say something. Don't dismiss your right to speak because you don't like some of the people who use it.

Your message is your responsibility. If you don't like the image of the protester, it's your responsibility to change it. If someone you hate has something to say, that doesn't mean you should hate speaking. If you have something to say, say it.

Don't leave the talking to the people you disagree with. They'll just win the argument.