By Lindsay Renner, Copy Editor
As a college student, the tradition dictates that I should be broke beyond all measures of sanity and reasonability, and I certainly am. I make a salary that is firmly planted in the single digits, as this is all that’s really available to me, given my age and status as a full-time college student. When I graduate, I will likely end up for a time among what the New York Times cites as the 25% of Humanities majors who find themselves unemployed, or even potentially among those 29.4% who have found themselves working a job they could have held without obtaining a degree, which will undoubtedly leave me questioning my decision to attend a university at all. My student loans are many and only grow the longer I stay in school. My future, in short, is debt-ridden and uncertain.
It then stands to reason that I should identify wholly with the “99 Percent”, the colloquial name for the group of Wall Street-based protesters whose events have grown to span the globe in just over a month’s time. They rally for all that is just and fair in the world: a better future for generations present and as yet to come, tougher taxation for the 1% that controls the lion’s share of all the wealth generated within the United States, and general economic equality for all, regardless of class, sex, race or income.
But I don’t trust them, the 99 Percent, and I don’t identify, or at least not fully so.
There are several reasons behind my distrust of the 99 Percent, and they’re not necessarily all related to one another, but they do relate to current trends. First of all, it goes against my better judgment to fully support a protest or cause that seems to have generated most of its support from news and social media presence. The 99 Percent can be seen all over the Internet, and has a forum for support on every popular social media tool available.
Most notable among these in forming my opinion is a Tumblr page simply called “We Are the 99 Percent.” This page is remarkable in its simplicity: the whole blog is little more than cell-phone quality pictures of individuals holding up signs sharing their reasoning for identifying with the cause. The owners of this blog operate others for an international audience, which can be obtained by visiting the URL wearethe99percent.tumblr.com. The stories shared are moving, no doubt, and they are certainly universal. However, it is this very universality that veers my opinion away from the positive side. The stories shared here could be anyone’s story. None of them are particularly striking, which leads me to feel that any number of these situations could be overturned with perhaps a little more effort than what is currently being exerted.
Furthermore, the 99 Percent have failed to identify a truly clear end that they hope to achieve through their actions. The desire for a better world is honorable, to be sure, but it is so vague, and they offer no means as to how to actually arrive there. The fervor and sheer strength of will that many of the protestors have shown over the last several weeks is certainly honorable, but leads one to question where these protests will actually go with no clear objective. The 99 Percent have a whole declaration chock full of the problems that they are rallying against, but fail to identify any clear potential solution to these problems. This, then, comes across as simply protesting for the sake of protesting.
The 99 Percent is not all comprised of members of my generation, to be sure: its supporters come from all walks of life, as anyone who has observed the situation unfolding over the last few weeks should have seen upon observation. Many of the protestors hold college degrees, and have for quite some time. 8% of them have, at best, a high school degree, which is a sobering statistic in its own right to consider that in this era, some still go without a proper education. According to Democraticunderground.com, half of the identifying respondents hold a job, and many of the very same people protesting could be affected by the tax cuts for the rich, as thirteen percent make over $75,000 annually. It seems to me, then, that these protests are another manifestation of the love of complaining that seems to be ubiquitous to this era.
It is certainly true that most people in this day and age are not doing as well as what was promised to us so long ago in a brighter time. However, protesting just to protest won’t accomplish anything. If the 99 Percent wish to actually accomplish anything, they need to identify what exactly they want to see happen before continuing to occupy various spots around the globe.
