The system is broken! Occupy UMD and Occupy Wall St and why I support them

We're very privileged to be in the 28% of Americans who can go to college (an abysmally low number) and most of us are in the upper-middle class. But I know of the struggle my friends who are not in this group encounter on a day-to-day basis and I will not let them be denied the same opportunity I had because I'm at a higher socio-economic standing than they are. That's simply wrong, and goes against everything I see as moral.

 I'm supporting this here because of that. Universities increasingly choose candidate's family background over academic ability and it needs to stop. They increasingly put their bottom line over the quality of education they provide. my family is paying tens of thousands of dollars a year for me to go here, and I'm grateful I won't have a mountain of debt, but I know of countless others who will, they'll spend 20 years paying it off. It's simply wrong to burden future citizens with that all because they need a degree to advance in this world. While I'm on the subject of exploding tuition costs, I pay that money, but I don't see much to show for it. We have a well-known housing problem here, and yet I've seen 1 new building go up, teachers still use outdated technology that has a bad habit of breaking when you look at it.

There's also little investment in the community around campus, the campus is independent of College Park entirely, if you go to State College, for example, the entire community is virtually dependent on Penn State with student run businesses and organizations. College Park has very few, if any, student investment in it and remains run-down.


On the broader scale, sure I'm jealous of the money the top 1% makes, and I strive to achieve that myself (knowing full well I will never make it there), but I worry that others who can make it there, won't be able to because of extreme competition in the labor market, especially from the global arena. America's failure to invest in it's future has resulted in European and Asian students being better informed about the world and smarter than Americans. If you want America to be the greatest nation on Earth, you need to start with it's youth.


And speaking of investment in ourselves, will you, for the love of god, support the investment enormous resources in this country. We're a first world nation with a third-world infrastructure (I know, 1st and 3rd world are not PC). Most bridges, tunnels and roadways in this country are in desperate need of renovation or repair, schools NEED better technology, our rail system is laughed at by the rest of the world. Unless we turn our resources away from fighting pointless wars, the rest of the world will rocket ahead of us and we will head down the same road as the British Empire.
 
On the topic of becoming irrelevant, American politics are going to drive us into the dirt, and here's one of OWS's main greivances, corporate influence in politics has made the government less responsive to the people and caters to corporate and special interests. I challenge you to find one national politician who hasn't received a corporate donation. Oh wait, you can't. Corporatism has infilitrated every aspect of American democracy. Corporate-financed lobbyists can push for more de-regulation that led us down the road to disaster beginning in the 1990's. They buy and sell elections like commodities, making your vote essentially worthless after Election Day. You really think petitioning Congress or the President does anything? You're dead wrong! I'm nearly sure any petition that does make it to a Congressional office is promptly trashed. Congress only cares about you during the election cycles every other minute, it tells you to f**k off and let me listen to my corporate lobbyists.

These corporate and special-interests favored policies have resulted in income inequality exceeding that of some African countries and the lowest tax rates in 50 years. The real disgusting part is this, thanks to all the deductions and special loopholes, effective tax rates, the actual % of income given as taxation for the middle class is HIGHER or approaching that of the top tax brackets.

Those corporate influences have also hit the Supreme Court, especially with its goddamned Citizens United v. FEC decision ruling that in effect corporations are people. No, corporations themselves are not people but they are run by people. It also costituted, what I consider to be the largest attack on American democracy ever by ruling that money equals speech. You've got to be joking! Nice job SCOTUS you've just silenced a massive section of the population. Consider this, you're a candidate in a very tough race, you get a donation from an individual of $150 and another donation from a PAC that helps you buy that needed air time to unleash a devastating attack on your opponent. Who are you going to give precedence to? In an ideal world, you should give more attention to the small donor, but our society isn't idealand more often than not, the PAC and its donors get preferential treatment.

Enough negativity! Time to propose solutions!

...and that is a post by itself

What's It About? A Look at the Occupy Movement

I hope people start to see beyond the wall of talking points regurgitated by the mainstream media and political establishment about Occupy Wall Street. It's not about trying to impose a radical leftist agenda on the country

• It's about corruption and the removal of money (at least corporate) from politics
• It's about the restoration of a government responsive to the people and not just the wealthiest interests.
• It's about restoring the tax system so that the middle class doesn't pay an ETR higher than that of the upper brackets.
• It's about reducing the income disparity, which is now worse than some African States
• It's about making sure the destructive practices that brought down the economy in 2008 can't happen again.
• It's about making sure those who brought down the economy are not rewarded for it
• It's about protecting students from deceptive banks
• It's about reducing the debt load on students and graduates
• It's about protecting homeowners from deceptive banking practices
• It's about protecting consumers from deceptive credit card companies
• It's about Wall Street giving back to Main Street
• It's about CEOs receiving pay more comparable to that of their workers
• It's about so much more than FOX, CNN and MSNBC can understand
• It's about restoring the neutrality of the media
• It's about restoring the fairness of elections
• It's about eliminating corporatism in the educational system
• It's about making American students competitive in the global stage
• It's about ending the assault on worker's rights
• It's about ending the assault on democracy
• It's about investing in our country
• It's about investing in our people
• It's about eliminating corporatism in Washington
• It's about eliminating corporate influence on Capitol Hill
• It's about turning a culture of greed into a culture of responsibility
• It's about protecting consumers
• It's about ensuring fair treatment of workers around the world
• It's about helping the poor, not leaving them to rot away their days
• It's about reducing America's staggering poverty rate
• It's about protecting our environment
• It's about ending discrimination
• It's about protecting homeowners
• It's about giving everyone a chance to succeed
• It's about ending unnecessary aggression
• It's about ending the buying and selling of elections
• It's about ending the buying and selling of politicans
• It's about making healthcare effective and affordable to everyone
• It's about making the world a better place for everyone

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