Occupy Wall Street: Protest as Volunteer Work

As you can imagine, I've been watching the Occupy Wall Street protests in downtown New York, and it got me to thinking about activism as a form of volunteerism. Perhaps they are one in the same--two beasts from the same bushel. Donating your time to benefit the common good. Sounds about right.

Unfortunately, when you really get down to it, a lot of volunteer jobs should be well-paid and insured government jobs or something similar. If we had a tax structure that supported the community good instead of corporate interest, we'd all be looking a whole lot better. Lots of our hard work and dedication would be rewarded with, what it should be, money. Or perhaps even better: our schools & healthcare would be paid for, and would be able to free up our own resources to become donors & volunteers.

I'd have to say, that occupying downtown New York for 12 days now is quite a long-term volunteer experience.

And as follows, my volunteer project for the next couple months will be: Occupy Portland - beginning October 6th. I'll be there. I'll have to see who I can gather. I think this is a group volunteer activity.

"activism is my rent for living on this planet" - Alice Walker