Rabbits, Blinkity

I don't have much more to say about this myself, but we'd all do well to listen to this:

I am so damn sick and tired of Occupy Wall Street. Every so called “progressive” I know of is riding the #OWS dick like it is going out of style. Me? I can’t stand the shit. For the most part, I see most of the protests that have been inspired by Occupy Wall Street to be strictly the work of some spoiled little (previously) rich brats who can’t handle the fact that the college education that mommy and daddy paid for did not get them the high paid cushy job that they truly believe they deserve. I would be willing to bet that almost all of those who are running around with signs about being the 99% would not give a FUCK about economic injustice if they were not directly impacted by it in the present moment. And I bet in five years, most of them will be sitting in some multinational corporation’s headquarters shaking their heads and chuckling about the days when they were “radicals”.

Yes, yes, and yes. And this is basically my problem with the whole thing, said much better than I ever could. Here's a hint for my peers: it's okay not to make so much money. You're making too much already. Get over yourselves. Yes, it's "hard" to give up your privilege; I'm certainly still not there yet. But I've definitely got better things to do than whine about it. Not to say that Occupy* is all bad; just that once again, privileged people need to be very, very careful.
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This is an important thing to note:

I also am concerned about the 99 percent slogan, which lumps together people in households that take in $593,000 a year or less. Perhaps the guy earning $500,000 a year isn't doing as well as before, but I question how much he has in common with a woman who has spent her adult life among the working poor. A college graduate who can't find a job is in a different position than a convicted felon battling a drug addiction who can't find steady employment. Someone losing his $300,000 home is not the same as someone losing her $50,000 home.
-- Suzie @ Echide of the Snakes

I (sort of) fall into the 'college graduate' group - I have no idea if I would have much trouble finding a job (probably not, my field is pretty safe), but even if I did, I'd still have the option of doing what I'm doing now. Thanks to the obscene amount of knowledge, experience and education (much of it centered around working the upper-class system) that goes in to graduating from college, you just can't compare groups that easily. Sorry.

So here's something to think about for potential supporters (Via autostraddle). If Occupy Wall Street accomplishes absolute nothing besides shaking up the worldviews of a bunch of privileged-to-various-degrees people, it will still accomplish something very, very worthwhile.
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The protesters on wall street have a problem. The rest of us don't know what they want, which means they don't know either. And this means they won't get anything done. The curse of true democracy, if you will.

That this is the case was made quite clear by this NPR story, but there were signs of it before. For instance, look at this list of "one demands". There are two real demands in there:

• Ending capital punishment
• Ending American imperialism (By this, I assume they mean a large scale troop withdrawal)

But I don't think that these are really the focus of the protest. The rest are either too vague ("Ending the modern gilded age"), impossible ("Ending war"), or such that nobody can actually agree on how to accomplish ("Ending joblessness", most of the rest). The official declaration is equally problematic. It's patterned after the Declaration of Independence, including a list of grievances, most of which are clearly true. But one thing is missing. The Declaration of Independence contained this:

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, .... solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States...

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