As you've probably heard, the Occupy movement is promoting a general strike on May 1st -- a day when we, the 99%, don't work, shop, go to school, or dump a week's worth of wages into a slot machine that hasn't paid out since Nixon was in office. Many of you have regretted not being a part of the Occupy movement. Many of you have said how much you support the idea of changing this system, of fighting the goons who are sucking away the last vestiges of a normal life. You've said you would be down there protesting if it weren't for your job, your allergies, your newborn kid or your broken down car, your lack of money or your standing body paint class every Tuesday. And a lot of those reasons are valid -- I, for one, would never thumb my nose at body paint.
But now on Tuesday, May 1st, YOU can be a part of Occupy, a part of changing this world without doing a damn thing. In fact, that's exactly what you have to do -- Not a damn thing. Join the millions across the world who will not be working or shopping, toiling or purchasing on May 1st in order to send a shot across the bow of this corrupt and infested, stinking, rancid, and evil, putrid, pissed-on, noxious, repulsive, obnoxious, and... and... SILLY system! That is to say -- I don't think it's working properly.
Need more reasons to strike? Here are a few:
1) We can prove the power of the 99%. It doesn't matter whether you're a Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, Rastafarian, Bolivian, or Romulan. We're all getting screwed unless you're making over half a million dollars a year. And I know you're not because if you were, you wouldn't be reading this post right now. You would have hired servants to act it out in your living room, and rather than giving it a thumbs down, you would just have their bodies dumped in a river somewhere.
2) It's a free day off. How about that? We take days off to celebrate things like mass murderers, or, as they used to be called, "explorers." We take days off for a well-cooked turkey or a bunny rabbit that poops eggs. So why the f**k not take a day off in honor of resisting the extraction of the world's resources at the hands of a select few ***holes?! You have to decide whether the bunny-rabbit-pooping thing is more important to you than a sustainable society! Is it?! Is it?! For f**k sakes, I can't believe you're still trying to decide!
3) You won't be lying if you call in sick to work because our way of life is sick; it's ill; it's dying. Trying to make sure a company doesn't have to pay for the cancer treatment of its workers -- THAT's sick. Raising taxes on the poor while most of the biggest corporations hide their income tax-free on islands that nobody's ever been to -- THAT's sick. (Ever heard of the island of Maku Maku? Me neither. The only things that live there are two coconuts, a hermit crab and $7 billion of Bank of America money. That's one filthy rich hermit crab!) OR Kicking people out of homes because you'd rather have the structure sit there empty than help out a fellow man who's only in this position because of YOUR fraud -- THAT's sick. That's beyond sick. That's ebola sh**.
4) Some of you don't march with Occupy because you don't like pepper spray. That's understandable. It's an acquired taste. But now you can support the 99% without even risking the possibility of being brutalized by police. As far as I know, no one will mace your face for not going shopping. We might not be far from the days when not consuming gets you tasered, but for now, you're fine.
5) And the most important reason to take the day off May 1st? Because there's something the top of the 1% has forgotten -- This world functions because of us. It functions because of you and me and everyone else who doesn't own a helicopter or lose count of how many houses we have or spend enough money on a few bottles of wine to put a kid through college. This world keeps running because of us. If we want it to stop, we have the power. So tell your friends and family, and this May 1st reclaim your dignity.