Welfare. Food stamps. Bankruptcy and minimum wage. Those are a few of the complaints of those in We Are the 99 Percent, a Tumblr blog recording the stories of those who sympathize with the Occupy Wall Street protests.
But wait. Those are also the complaints in We Are the 53%, a counterblog that is meant as a conservative retort to the protestors. The site, which mimics the 99 Percenters by having people write out their stories and hold them up to be photographed, says it is by “Those of us who pay for those of you who whine about all of that.”
What’s with all the percentages? The 99 Percenters are objecting to the fact that 1 percent of Americans control about a third of the country’s wealth. The 53 Percenters are portraying themselves as the responsible citizens who pay federal income tax, as opposed to the 47 percent of Americans who don’t. (Most who don’t are exempt because their incomes are too low or they get tax breaks aimed at low-income working families and other groups.) At The Washington Post Wonkblog, Ezra Klein pointed out that that many people paid no taxes because of conservative pressure to lower them.
The 99 Percenters, who have given a voice to the decentralized protests, tell of accumulated student debt, unaffordable health insurance and a sense of despair. “I followed the rules … now here I am,” wrote a 30-year-old unemployed woman who said she could not afford marriage or children.
The 53 Percenters, on the other hand, say things like, “My faith in God has always helped me weather the storms of life, not a government hand out.”
But the 53 Percent do not seem, by and large, to be doing much better than the 99 Percent. “I work 60+ hours a week with no guarantee of a paycheck,” wrote one contributor. “I didn’t blame Wall Street when I couldn’t find a living wage job or make it as a musician.”
Another self-employed man wrote, “I don’t get vacations, sick leave or comp time.”
The 53 Percent site was the brainchild of Erick Erickson, a CNN commentator and editor of RedState, Josh Treviño, a co-founder of RedState who is now at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, and Mike Wilson, the filmmaker behind “Michael Moore Hates America,” who started the Tumblr site after #iamthe53 became a popular Twitter hash tag for critics of the Wall Street protests.
“The distinction is that the people on the 99 side are saying, ‘We need to change it so that my life is easier,’ and the people on the 53 side say, ‘My life may not be easy, but it’s mine,’” Mr. Wilson said
Do the 53 percent find no fault with the banks? “A friend of mine said is best — he’s a conservative,” Mr. Wilson said. “He said, ‘They’re mad because these corporations got bailed out. We’re mad because our government bailed out the corporations.’”
Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=248bdcc54f476306da76cf3944f9e58f
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