aliens and strangers

last night jarred and i went to a "1920s murder mystery party" to celebrate halloween with some friends here. jarred's assignment was to be notorious nick nemetz, the northside mob boss, and i was his fiance, molly moll. the whole thing was awesome. i can't tell you how many times over the past 2 weeks i said "UGH, we have the perfect (fill in the blank) for my costume just sitting in the dance costume closet at my parents' house." those tacky things my sisters and i wore for years would have come in handy. well, those, and the prom dress i wore in 9th grade that looked more like a mermaid's costume than a prom dress- kat and laura, how did you ever let me where that?! but, i did manage to find a black sequin dress, fishnets, a red boa (that scared the daylights out of max to the point where he went and hid from it), some red danglies (not quite actual fringe) for the bottom of the dress, a red beaded necklace, and some sequin fabric and feather for a headband. and i was proud to win best dressed. and jarred, as you can see below, was awesome in his black suit, a toy gun i bought for $1.50 that max loved, the perfect gangster hat, a disgusting cigar he hated even having in his mouth for pictures, and a marker mustache (the real one he tried at first was too gross for me). unfortunately, jarred was the one murdered at the party. and also unfortunately, none of the 10 of us that survived were able to solve the murder. dang. but it was really really fun and the perfect halloween celebration for adults who live in a country with no good candy. enjoy the pics:

the 6 girls.

us as nick and molly.

I try my best to keep up with the news in my homeland from the other side of the world, but these past 2 weeks have been busy, so I fell behind. As I was catching up the other day, I saw that apparently people had been occupying Wall Street. I was immediately concerned, seeing that the last time I was on Wall Street during a tour of NYC with my dad, there was a police officer with a machine gun protecting the NYSE.

So I was wondering who could possibly have occupied Wall Street. A terrorist attack? A foreign nation invading Wall Street? Tanks from our own military overthrowing the government? I clicked to discover it was actually none of the above, but a large number of protesters. And man are they angry! After reading, I couldn’t quite figure out what they were angry about. Something about being part of a large majority and being angry at Wall Street. In order to discover more, I typed “Wall Street Protest” into Google and the official Occupy Wall Street webpage came up. I figure there is no need to let the liberal media tell me what they were talking about, and Fox News was busy figuring out who won the like 98^th who is going to take on Obama debate, so I figured the best way was to hear it was from the protesters themselves.

On an interesting side note, the official website is occupywallst.org. I found this strange that they couldn’t get the full name “street” and had to abbreviate it. I typed in “occupywallstreet.org” to figure out who had purchased that domain name and I was redirected to occupywallst.org. Looks like they have purchased both just in case some imposter other 99% of people want to use the full word. Smart move.

It turns out that they are protesting neoliberalism. They had a link to the word “neoliberalism” on their webpage, so I clicked to get their official explanation of what “neoliberalism” was. They had done extensive research on the topic. I was sent to Wikipedia. Realizing I needed look no further, I decided to read up on this neoliberalism. Here are some facts about neoliberalism from wikipedia’s webpage:

“There is considerable ambiguity in the definition of the term and whether it refers to fiscal or monetary policies; to policies impacting income distribution or intervening in the business cycle; or even to political liberalization and the degree of such liberalization. The term is not associated with any specific ideology, belief or system of thought: rather, instead of being used to describe one's own beliefs, it is usually used to criticize one's ideological opposite in an accusatory and derogatory way. ”

Well so far I was on to something. It doesn’t really mean anything, it is just a term used to criticize someone who is different from you. I then proceeded to read. Here are some other facts that I discovered about this neoliberalism evil:

1. Neoliberalist ideas stem from the University of Chicago School of Economics. When I heard this I immediately thought to myself: “wait, isn’t the University of Chicago one of the best economics schools in the world?” Wikipedia confirmed my suspicion: “Approximately 70% of the professors in the economics department have been considered part of the school of thought (neoliberalism). The University of Chicago department, widely considered one of the world’s foremost economics departments, has fielded more Nobel Prize winners and John Bates Clark medalists in economics than any other university.”

2. The list of countries considered “neoliberalist” includes: Australia, Canada, Chile, Hong Kong, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, the Scandinavian Countries, South Africa, the UK, and the US.

3. It encourages public spending in areas like education, health care, and infrastructure.

So what you’re saying is that neoliberalism is the school of thought of the best economists in the world and is present in the most developed countries of the world, and it encourages development in education, health care, and infrastructure. I was still confused as to what there was to protest here. Luckily, Wikipedia tells us why people are protesting neoliberalism. Here are a few examples:

1. It isn’t realistic because it demands growth and our growth is limited to the size of the world. If we keep growing we will eventually run out of earth to grow on. There is an environmental issue at stake.

2. “Exploitation: critics consider neo-liberal economics to promote exploitation.” No further explanation given.

3. It increases the power of businesses by promoting the idea that businesses should make money.

4. It encourages the government to encourage business growth and thus make policies that favor the upper class against the lower class.

I think reason 4 explains why they are protesting Wall Street, but apparently this protest has expanded beyond Wall Street to the world! CNN reported that it was spreading like wildfire. 200 people in Tokyo were protesting! 200! That’s like, .0099% of Tokyo. They were angry about neoliberalism in the form of “No more nuclear weapons” and “free Tibet.” Apparently Reagan and Clinton weren’t the only neoliberalists. Mao was too. In Indonesia, they were protesting neoliberalism at the US Embassy, oh wait, that was US imperialism.

It would make sense that anti-neoliberalists would be from the lower class who have been exploited by the government. You know, the 99% of Americans living in dire poverty… but these protesters are all apparently middle class citizens. They are angry that Wall Street is getting rich and they aren’t! They are out of work (I can’t tell if that means they don’t have a job or if they are skipping work to protest) and out of money (which didn’t stop a large number of them from owning a $1600-a-year iphone to tweet from).

The other day I saw a guy on the street who had no arms and no legs. He wasn’t in a wheelchair. He was inching his torso along the ground. He hadn’t showered in months, and hadn’t had a haircut in that long either. He was begging for money. He had done about 47 US cents for the day according to the money in his box. There is no government aid to help those in need of medical care here. No unemployment or disability.

In an apartment in my complex that hasn’t been built past its concrete shell, there are 13 men living crammed together doing construction work. Most of them used to be farmers. The prospect of making a dollar an hour in a developing city hundreds of miles away from their family was a better wage then they were earning as farmers. And, the construction company was even willing to give them a place to live. Movin on up! The construction company who hired them probably won’t pay them. The foremen wait until the job is over, take the money they promised the workers and run. How did a construction company like this get a contract you ask? It probably took some mid-level government officials out to a decadent lunch, got them drunk, sang Karaoke, and probably followed that with a large cash bribe, and bam, contract signed. These marginalized people aren’t the 99% here, they only make up about an honest 60% of the 1.3 billion. They don’t protest. They can’t protest. They wake up, go to work or go to beg for their 14 hour day, and go home. There is no other way for them.

One of the things you gain from living overseas is perspective. I am sure that 99% of Americans aren’t out protesting foundational economic policy (Occupy Wall Street boasted 3000 today, which isn’t even 1% of New York City), but we should be thankful that we belong to a nation that allows protests, that provides for the unemployed, and where even the out of work can own top of the line technology which probably hasn’t even been fully paid for yet. I have several friends who are out of work right now. I have family who have lost their houses. It has been very difficult for their families. It isn’t fun. They have responded bravely, by finding rental houses, by looking for jobs, or by going to school to get their masters. That is the great thing about America, in the face of these difficulties, there are opportunities to respond in that way. It is something unusual and special, and honestly if the government and Wall Street are to blame for that… well, it ain’t that bad of an accusation. We didn’t do anything to deserve to be born in America, into the richest country in the world, into a stable economy (yes, it is still stable when compared to the other 5 continents with people on them in the world) and the top 5% of wealthiest people in the world (just being an American puts you in the top 5%). We just were. Thank goodness. Other than Hawaii, there isn’t another country like it in the world, and now America even allows our presidents to come from foreign countries like Hawaii so long as they can produce a birth certificate. Really, what’s to protest?