AMY SALISBURY
PRIDE STAFF WRITER

Occupy Wall Street brings to mind three things: protest, politics, and pepper spray. I could have included police brutality in that list, but I couldn’t think of a synonym for “brutality” that started with a P.

Anyway, Occupy Wall Street is indeed the sticky-sweet topic of choice on every American’s lips right now, especially considering the movement’s expansion to downtown San Diego.

The Civic Center lay empty in the early hours of Oct. 28 after San Diego police took 51 campers into custody for a variety of charges—unsanitary conditions damaging city property, illegal lodging, encroachment and curfew violations—according to the Union Tribune.

The journalist writing the Tribune article interviewed many protesters, but only one of them—the event organizer—directly commented on the purpose of the evening’s sit-in: they were protesting a plan to spend $200 billion over the next 40 years on transportation projects.

Occupy Wall Street’s origins have little to do with California building projects. In fact, every “Occupy” incarnation has a different aim. While the majority of its related demonstrations have something to do with American finances (thus the use of the 99 percent versus the one percent idea), there is no collective objective that occupiers can name.

I have little faith in a nationwide movement operating under a shared name that can’t explain what a successful result of said movement would be. Sure, protesters want less corporate fingers in their pockets, but there is a way protesters could have prevented that in the first place: by having a bit of foresight.

A lot of civil unrest is directly related to banks offering loans to people who can’t make the payments— quite reflective of the Californian foreclosure disaster a few years ago. It was stupid for banks to offer $500,000 home loans to people making a $30,000 a year salary. It was equally stupid for people making $30,000 a year to take a loan of that size to pay an epically large mortgage.

Likewise, it is stupid for students to take out loans to go to college if paying it back is not something feasible within the next couple of years. However, many occupiers cite the difficulty of paying back student loans as one of the many items to protest.

If occupiers really want to shake up the system, they need to pull their money out of the banks that have done them wrong. Loans are the lifeblood of banking; without them, the banks will have to find another way to survive. Living outside of your means, as many Americans tend to do, will bite back faster than you can hang up on a collections call. Take this opportunity to fight the one percent with what they love most: your money.

At any rate, the irony of Occupy Wall Street exists in the youth of the nation passing along information about sit-ins through Facebook and iPhones. As much as people are protesting the system, they have to realize that their actions keep them comfortably tethered to it.