SOCIAL JUSTICE: I resolve to become an active participant in the Occupy Wall Street movement, through Occupy Boston

Has it occurred to anyone else who isn't actively participating in OccupyWallStreet, OccupyBoston, Occupy Chicago, Occupy New Orleans, et al., how we're all trapped in this dehumanizing, oppressive capitalistic system by the long, long hours at our jobs for which we receive economically-depressed and gendered wages, the exhausting commutes with the impending gas guzzling, the second jobs we DON'T want but need and that we're afraid of losing because of v. high unemployment rates, caused by housing crisis caused by greedy banks....

While many of the rest of us, like me, are students following conventional wisdom that says "Invest in yourself, educate yourself," sitting here with not enough time to read the news, do all I need to do to finish school, and participate in the social justice and economically-aimed protests, so that I can get out of school finally only to be trapped into a lifetime of student loans payments at a rate of at least 25% of my salary and be fearful of losing an exhausting job with depressed wages that leaves me no time to participate?

Doesn't this obviously transparent and oppressive cycle of gendered, capitalistic greed that we're trapped in make you duped and angry enough to prioritize getting down there to be at the protests?  Maybe put down the beer on the weekend, turn off the TV or movie, and take a trip down to the rally on the weekend to gather with others who need this societal change just as badly as you do?

I have gotten really sick of this and of seeing the police brutalize people (who I'm not there with) who ONLY want to be seen and heard to make a change.  I am done with being a bystander and being cowed into feeling as if I just don't have enough time or the energy.  I am done with bending like the reeds in the river, while someone else makes the decisions for me.

And, it's time that I put away all the excuses of why I just can't do it, how I don't have time, and I can't make any difference.  I resolve to SHOW UP in-person for my future and for yours.  I WILL BE THERE at the rally this weekend in Boston, I WILL walk out of school one day this week with other students.  I WILL sit out there with my sign that says: "Never forget the role of $$$ in Hurricane Katrina."

I WILL do my homework and readings, and write the damn papers so I can make sure to stay in the Social Work school - which is strangely silent about this political movement by ordinary citizens to affect social and economic justice.

SILENCE = DEATH.  I will no longer be silent, I will no longer sit out on the sidelines in something that determines my future and yours.