Just thought I'd post this article, with special reference to the last sentences:

Who Are the 99 Percent? Story #13


We are lucky. My husband has a full time salaried position with the county government that pays slightly less than $22K a year, and the SSI three of our four children receive for being autistic means I can stay home and be there for them. I tried working, when there were more jobs, but we had severe discipline and anxiety problems. Our girls seem to fall apart right now when I’m not home. So I stay home.

We own a trailer, and rent a lot in a trailer park. In the past year, people have been moving out because they can’t even afford mortgages on cheap mobile homes. In the summer, if you looked out the window, you would see a procession of guys pushing lawn mowers down the streets. Those were residents who were looking for odd jobs because they had hit rock bottom, and mowing lawns was preferable to outright begging. They never seemed to get work, maybe because nobody could afford to hire a lawn mower.

I was raised upper middle class, sent to private schools, went to a private undergraduate institution (graduated cum laude), did my master’s work at the University of Oxford, and after working in an industry that imploded (mortgages) wound up as… a professional telemarketer. My husband was told, when doing his paralegal studies degree, that the average paralegal starts at $35K to $40K and can make up to twice that amount. Statistics showed this to be true. His college did also have a near-100% placement rate… but when he graduated, few law firms were hiring. He got hired by the county department of probation at a salary usually associated with entry level receptionists. He was one of the lucky ones.

There are homeless children in the school our daughters attend.

And yet we are told, “Hard work pays off. If you are not successful, you have only yourselves to blame.”

And the children who have no home? No food aside from what they get in the school cafeteria? What are they being told?

WE ARE THE 99%. WE ARE NOT FAILURES. WE ARE NOT LAZY. WE ARE NOT STUPID, OR SPENDTHRIFT, OR FREELOADERS IN SEARCH OF HANDOUTS. WE ARE HUMAN.

occupywallst.org



Read more: http://www.care2.com/causes/who-are-...#ixzz1bcNpHW83