There’s Hope for These Occupy Wall Streeters!

I actually have hopes for the Occupy Wall Street movement. Now, before you dismiss me, let me explain.

I hope that one of the things we’re seeing down at Zuccotti Park is the first rustlings of what will eventually (though maybe not in our lifetime, comrades) become a full fledged revolution — not against capitalism but against what Rush Limbaugh likes to call Big Education and Michael Medved calls the Educational-Industrial Complex.

This is really what most of these kids are angry about, isn’t it? Most of them — except for the usual complement of old lefties and sundry off-their-meds street people — are, as many reporters have noted, college grads.

They’re mad that they “can’t get jobs.” As Herman Cain points out, surely they can get some kind of job right now — just not in a trendy place like New York, Boston, or Seattle (cities where the Occupy movements have sprung up). In that time-honored Grapes of Wrath–esqe tradition, they could put Ma in the flatbed and set off cross-country to look for work. The job will probably be a low-paying one, and conservatives would do well not to sugarcoat this fact. Wages for entry-level and semi-skilled workers have barely budged in ten years. I credit this to employer’s wariness about hiring anyone at all. Hiring people (and all the litigation risks they present) is simply too risky unless that hire is obviously going to enhance the bottom line. In short, if an Occupy Wall Street kid is ever inclined to look for work, the job he finds is not likely to be the groovy one he and his beleaguered parents envisioned when that $200,000 was shelled out for a four-year degree in poli-sci or women’s studies.

I sincerely doubt businessmen with entry-level job openings will open their doors to over-educated, arrogant, self-serving, anti-capitalist, mind-numbed jerks. I wouldn’t and I’ve done my fair share of hiring during my business years. If one did it would be on a qualified basis for some months where the boss had the option of termination at will.

In this NRO piece Stephanie Gutmann essentially nails it. As many of us have noted, this protest against capitalism is mostly misguided...the people doing the protesting are aiming at the wrong target. However, by making a big noise about the supposed evils of ‘Wall Street’ (translation: capitalism) these hardly-spontaneous protests serve Obama and the left quite well as they deflect blame for the sour economy from where it belongs: on Obama, his anti-jobs policies and inchoate spending. I doubt most Americans are going to be swayed by these privileged college graduates whining about not having a job but it is the kind of distraction the left thrives on. Note the quick and enthusiastic approval from Obama and ditzy Nancy Pelosi. This is obviously one of the Dems election strategies for overcoming Obama’s rotten economy (’blame Bush’ having long since expired) and shifting the blame to ‘capitalism’. It will fail. The leftmedia doesn’t own the information flow any longer. Obama can run away from responsibility for the bad economy - but he can’t hide.

It's a teachable moment... If they'd just read the writing on the wall instead of just smoking dope and "silent dancing" their way past it like they did the last time they were here...

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