It’s not just corporate greed, its also about the education system and this strange belief that has overcome the nation that everyone has to have a college education to make a difference, when in fact it really can be better made by taking advantage of our natural gifts and talents. Why should a gifted artist need a degree? Why should a musician need a degree? Why should a person who does IT Technical support need a degree? Who really needs degrees? What mold of measurement does this hold a person up to except the hierarchy of the University structure? A structure which has capitalized greatly on the greed factor with amazing advertising campaigns stating that give the impression that *You are NOTHING without a degree!* – one that the government has gleefully saddled millions of otherwise intelligent Americans with insane amounts of debt to show how smart they were to get this degree in a field they usually don’t care anything about or aren’t passionate about but it pays well… right?
In doing so it’s absolutely depleted the creativity of the individual. If you read the signs of that so many of the 99ers hold up.. Really read.. Then read signs and pages held up on the blog site.. so many are “educated” and unemployed. They’re airing frustration at a SYMPTOM that has been created by this archaic educational structure that was developed during the INDUSTRIAL age to create good industrial employees. Their creativity has been quashed. Their individualism has been geared toward weekend busts of freedom. Their identity has become a title on a business card. Slowly, we’ve become USA, INC. – with banks as faceless, uncaring investors run by groups of people with no individual accountability and with the voracious appetite of a locust to consume everything it can. In as androgynous a fashion as it can, these faceless entities grow by taking on a customer base to feed the profits to its investors and shareholders.
You see.. The creative person inside feels they must conform. This conformity has left jobs that they were working to be outsourced to another location because it was cheaper, and yes, the Corporation will do that. Now.. that trained, educated person is lost.. the system they played the game is has failed. The education they received did not prepare them for the society of today. Their gifts, talents and dreams are left in their heads because they’re so well trained to suppress these thoughts because it *does not fit the industrial mold* they can’t see how to get past the current problems. Even our own elected legislature can’t see that. This is what the Occupation is really about.. an awakening that the Industrial Age of America has passed and its time for the individual talents to come back. It’s time to create a new age that embraces our creative roots while embracing all the global reach that technology has made smaller for us.
Aside from my own life experiences, these are some recent references and inspirations:
We Are the 99%
Sir Ken Robinson
I am Colin Bulla – I am the 99% – I am awake!
