So, if you’ve been watching the news at all in the last few weeks, you are aware there are big doings going on down on Wall Street, as well as in several other cities. Apparently, the idea is to protest that 1% of the population holds the majority of wealth in this country and yet they pay less in taxes than us working stiffs.

At least, I think that’s what the protests are about. It seems as though if you ask any random ten people involved, you’ll get ten different answers as to why they are protesting.

Here’s what I don’t understand. What exactly is it the protesters are hoping to accomplish? To call attention to the great wealth disparity in the US? Really? Are there folks out there who aren’t aware of this already? The wealthy are sure aware of it and you can be double damn sure us poor working slobs know about it too.

Don’t get me wrong here. I’m with them on thinking something needs to change, and quickly. We should all have an equal say in how things are run in this country, regardless of wealth, social status, or what companies you have in your stock portfolio. But, I fail to see how these protests are going to do much of anything. All they are doing is calling attention to something that is already very well known. As well as incurring millions of dollars in taxpayer expense in clean up, law enforcement, and other such areas.

Kinda like “breast cancer awareness” programs. Honestly, are there slack-jawed mouth breathers out there somewhere who AREN’T aware of breast cancer at this point? Look, I’m all for the “save the ta-tas” initiatives. I’m a straight, red-blooded American male. In other words, I’m a big fan of breasts. But these “raise awareness” programs are just pointless. That’s not putting money towards cure research. All those programs do is make people feel good for a few minutes, making them think they’ve done their part to help.

Companies love to get involved in crap like this too. If you buy their product and send in the special pink label, they’ll donate a half-cent to some charitable organization working towards breast cancer awareness. Great! Get 87 of your friends to chip in with their labels and you’ve covered the postage cost of just mailing in those stupid labels! If a company were truly altruistic, they’d just cut a check to the charity and maybe mention it on their website or Facebook and be done with it. Instead, they want you to buy their product and feel good about doing your fair share towards “awareness.”

The only awareness that needs to be raised is that instead of spending billions of dollars on the ever-more-pointless “war on drugs,” we should be using that money to provide meaningful health care to US citizens. (Hey, if you want to really revamp health care and Social Security in this country, make it a law that ALL politicians must receive the same benefits as everyone else.) Instead of sitting on their collective asses and receiving insane salaries and benefits packages, our politicians should be working around the clock toward creating living wage jobs for our unemployed. And rather than giving billions of dollars in aid to other countries, we should be keeping that money here and work on making sure no child goes to bed hungry, let alone wondering where that bed will be tonight.