First off, I will preface this article by saying that I’m well aware we at The Daily Campus already offered an opinion about the Occupy Wall Street protests in an earlier edition this week. At the risk of beating a dead horse, I thought I might add some extra insights in light of more recent developments surrounding the protests.

On Oct. 6, in downtown Dallas outside the Federal Reserve Bank, protestors will be converging on our city to further denounce economic injustice and political action that continues to serve the needs of the wealthiest in this nation while burdening the country’s lower classes. For those who thought that these protests were an isolated event consisting of college-age Marxists with nothing better to do, it appears you might have to think again.

I’m highly conflicted in regards to my feelings towards these protests. On the one hand, I admire those who are willing to stand up to injustice and make their voice heard in the midst of intense opposition. We certainly saw an example of this in the Egyptian uprising in Tahrir Square earlier this year. Sometimes when powerful interests become too ingrained into a system active protest and solidarity is the only way to fight repression.

But is it fair to say that we, as American citizens, have been politically repressed? As negative of opinions as we might have about the president and our members of Congress, we can at least say that we chose them in free and fair elections, and we can also vote them out next election if they continue to ignore the needs of their constituents. Many repressed democracies really can’t say the same thing.

That’s not to say that this apparent American unrest is unwarranted. Recent census data is showing us that the poverty level in this nation is at one of its highest levels in nearly 20 years. Moreover, this country has reached a level of income inequality that looks more characteristic of a developing third-world country than one of the richest nations on the globe.

One need only look at the watered down Dodd-Frank regulations passed last year or President Obama’s cabinet (consisting of such folks as Tim Geithner and Hank Paulson who share a degree of blame for the economic collapse of 2008) to see that Wall Street has considerable sway in government legislation and that big-time investors don’t have that difficult of a time articulating their interests in comparison to “the 99 percen

t.”

Now before you get on me for my neophyte undergrad economic analysis skills, let me be clear that I really don’t think that the protests occurring right now are the appropriate avenue to effect change. To me, it seems as if the message that the Occupy Wall Street members are promoting is that bank owners and other big-time investors just shouldn’t be making money. And this isn’t exactly a feasible or wise goal to be working toward.

As many before me have indicated, one of the biggest problems with these protests is that there’s not really a clear objective. I don’t think that’s entirely the fault of the protestors though. When a nation violates political rights, be it Egypt in 2011 or the U.S. back in the 1950s in regards to Jim Crow legislation, there’s a highly clear goal to be working toward: elimination of political barriers followed by guarantees of representation.

When it comes to economic protests like this, you can’t argue that rich people should have all their money taken away from them and be redistributed fairly. Well, actually, you can certainly argue that, but even I’m not comfortable with a level of socialism like that. There’s a huge difference between proposing more fair tax legislation and just outright stealing people’s money.

So what does that mean the protestors should be doing? First of all, I think if we’re going to get serious about economic justice, it’s time we came up with a clear set of demands. For instance, the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act is purported to be one of the biggest reasons behind the housing collapse in 2008, and it doesn’t look like anyone in Congress is interested in reintroducing the law. Personally, I think it could do us a lot of good. I don’t think moneyed interests in the government are necessarily evil, but I do think that we could assuage many of this nation’s economic problems through serious talks of closing tax loopholes and imposing tougher regulations on banks. Or I suppose we can shout very loudly and hope for the best.

Brandon Bub is a sophomore majoring in English and edits The Daily Campus opinion column. He can be reached for comment at [email protected]