I've been chewing on this since I saw this picture posted by a tattoo artist from Philadelphia that I greatly respect. It is a picture from the protests going on in New York right now regarding our out of control government, and the general culture of greed in our country. At first I was a bit disappointed. I thought being a tattoo artist he'd be all, "down with the man", and such. It has these captions pointing out things such as a camera by nikon, hat by J. Crew, a shirt from the Gap, and you can see various fancy cell phones and such. The idea, I suppose, is how the protesting against government and corporations is kind of being brought to us by corporations.

Now before I get too far I want to make it clear I'm not a corporatist, and I'm personally appalled at jobs being shipped overseas and the disappearance of a substantive middle class. I'm also neither democrat or republican. I don't really identify with any political party too well. There are parts of the republican, democratic and libertarian platforms that I agree with. I find myself feeling like some sort of grouchy old man though, because of what I think about a lot of what's going on. The protesters in other parts of the country, I can't speak for at all, but the protesters in this area I do know something about. What I feel like I'm seeing is kind of a generation of children. Groups of 20 and 30 somethings with nothing better to do than stand around day and night holding signs and complaining about the state of things. Posting from their Chinese slave labor made iphones to their favorite corporate entity social network how fed up they are that corporations are taking over the country. Collecting an unemployment check or going to walmart with their food stamps or attending university on a government backed student loan while complaining how horrid and evil the government is. Yes, I fully understand that the ability to spend day and night hanging around around is contributed to by the utter shit the economy is. My argument though isn't that we shouldn't be complaining or doing anything, I just think it needs to come from a bit of a different direction.

I work for this giant cell phone company, and have had the opportunity to see a microcosm of this over and over again in the last few years. Customer says, "I hate your company, and think you're evil and you should all die". I tell them I'm terribly sorry to hear that. They reply, "so when does that new gotta-have-or-I'll-look-like-a-chump phone come out? If I don't get it my life will so totally just be over". Here's the problem. Hate a company? Think they're evil, immoral, or just a bunch of assholes? Don't buy their products. I love a good public protest, and I certainly agree it's the best vehicle to bring about certain sorts of change. However, I'm also quite sure that there is a BOA exec somewhere right now having a good laugh because some protester somewhere is buying a case of bottled organic green tea from a chain store he owns stock in and paying with their BOA card.

Even at almost 30 years old I feel like a bit of a child myself. My wife and I both work full time. We have a solid roof over our heads. We have everything we need, and some of what we want. We pay our bills and taxes and don't need any handouts from the government. What I have to admit, and why I still feel like a bit of a child, is that this has only been a development in the past few years. I know what it feels like that you've been sold a bill of goods you're not satisfied with. I can't help but feel that there is a flip side to it all though. Part of being sold something is buying it. Some of it I understand has been forced upon us, much of it though, we eagerly bought up trying to fit in or measure up or to try to find something that would identify us since we didn't know who we were.

It's sad to say, but we're not going to kill this beast by over-powering it. We'll only defeat it by starving it. Take your money out of national banks and move it to local credit unions and privately owned banks. Quit complaining about all the dangerously shoddy Chinese shit you buy at walmart and just quit buying it. Don't stand in line for 4 hours to buy the next gimmicky electronic garbage that's being built by 11 year old children in China. These companies haven't and won't listed to our physical voices. The only voice any of them have ever, or will ever listen to, is the voice of our collective pocket books. It's our responsibility, not the government's, to change the future for ourselves.