Forum Post: Only 1% of NY voters voted. Where's the 99% ???

As a twenty-something liberal it’s incredibly frustrating that young people are willing to sleep on the streets but won’t read 848 pages of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform And Consumer Protection Act, available on the same interweb utilized by social network savvy protestors, under serious threat of repeal or flaccid implementation, yet disturbingly absent from the dialogue of a protest that’s presumably about problems with Wall Street.

ABC News reported that #OccupyWallStreet participants hit around 5,000 on the busiest day, and crowds have continued to gather daily for three weeks now. Yet out of the 12.5 million voting age citizens of New York, only 72,187 voted in the last election. That’s less than one percent. Something is out of proportion when the stamina of our civic duties is puny in comparison to the enthusiasm for making a scene.

We have to pay attention when the Durbin amendment, that was intended to put bad banks in line, inadvertently caused that pesky Bank of America fee. Instead of blaming government for the $5 on your debit account, spend an hour to switch banks. We have to pay attention to Ron Suskind’s claim in Confidence Men, that Timothy Geithner essentially told the President that he’s not his real mom and disregarded “an order from President Obama calling for reconstruction of major banks.” Go yell about that. And please, stop comparing #OWS to the Arab Spring. The protestors in Tunisia literally would have died, and are dying, to have what we have—a democracy. The next general election is November 8th. No one should have the right to protest that didn’t exercise his or her right to vote.