end the fed | Shiny, let's be bad guys…

First, my apologies for allowing this to fall behind. There is so much going on right now that I should be talking about. I have been delving into graphic design and tshirt design trying to further my agorism. It’s been intense and I have a massive handicap in that this is new territory for me. I have lots of thanks out to those already in this field for their help and advice! Check the link on the side if you are interested in checking out what I’ve been up to with that.

Now, back to the subject of this post. Occupy Wall Street. Occupy *insert name of city here*. There is even one in my town though I’ve paid absolutely no notice. With trying to run my home as a SAHM and further my agorist efforts, it went unnoticed. I never really heard anything about it in the news and I’m downtown almost every day taking my husband to and from work. I’m sure if it were something significant, I would have seen or heard something. On the surface, it sounds like a decent idea. I have no problem with protesting in general. It is a healthy exercise in free speech. And I don’t care what it is you are protesting – whether or not I agree with your cause doesn’t affect whether or not you have the right to flex your free speech muscles. Do it.

However, it would help to know what you are protesting. It appears the majority of the people involved in these nationwide protests are only protesting the symptoms and are completely missing the causes. In fact, based on their “demands”, it would seem if they had their demands met, we’d be in an even worse hell than we already are in! There are a handful of people out there that seem to get what is going on and I know quite a few activists that are out there on the streets, trying to point out the root of the problems that the protesters seem to be missing out on. However, a lot of these people are not listening. In fact, one of my friends was blocked from Occupy Charlotte’s Facebook page and all her posts removed, not that that is stopping her from hitting the streets… Just kind of proves to me that these protests are more about increased government and not less.

So, for any Occupier out there reading this, please, please understand economics before you protest it! Below are some links and videos that I hope will help you learn basic economics and the root of the problems that we are facing as a society now.

1) Learn Hayek vs Keynes: Basically, as simply as I can state this it’s an economic method vs another. Hayek believed in little to no government intervention and Keynes believed in absolute government intervention. Obviously there is a lot more to that than what I’ve said but it’s a primer. Most Occupiers seem to favor more government intervention so it would help if they knew what that would entail – not just regulations – but economics. Here is an objective debate held recently at London School of Economics:

2) Take a good look at your demands and know the real meaning of what it would be like in reality if they were met:

3) Start listening to those on the streets with you and see their point of view as well. Don’t turn your back on those that have a different point of view. You want your point of view heard, offer that same respect to others around you.