Occupy Wall Street is increasingly getting more and more coverage as labor unions and other organizations have begun to get involved with the thousands of youth occupying New York’s financial district. With all the coverage as this movement begins to spread to other cities (I heard Friend Micah Bales on NPR for Occupy DC this morning), people are asking what this loose coalition of people believes in and what they hope to accomplish. No answer has been forthcoming other than a general expression of disgust with broad concepts like corporate greed and unchecked capitalism.

While I share many of the sentiments that the protesters are voicing, I fundamentally disagree with the way that they have decided to go about it. Don’t get me wrong, protest can be a powerful way to make change as the movements of the 1960s showed us. They are a powerful way to give a voice to people who have none in the political system. However, I would argue that the crowds of people on the streets of New York, many of whom belong to an educated privileged class that has the leisure of being able to take a break from their lives to protest, are not the voiceless disenfranchised classes that took to the streets fifty years ago.

I believe the Wall Street protesters are largely petit bourgeoisie in the grooming looking for a way in which to feel good at expressing their anger at a system that is chipping away at their privileges. It feels good to protest, to be angry and to yell and obstruct the people who you believe are doing you wrong. It is much harder to sit down and make change.

Her name was María. Not unlike many girls and women in Latin America who are named after the patron saint of their country and mother of their savior, Jesús. She was 22 years old, the same age that I was at the time. I met her in Nogales, Mexico, at the ‘Comedor,’ a soup kitchen run by a resilient group of Jesuit nuns that provide meals to recently deported immigrants.

My memory of that morning’s science class – I was thirteen years old at the time – is only vague. The rumors started circulating as soon as parents began arriving to take their children home. Living in a Connecticut suburb just an hour from Manhattan, I slowly learned that many of those around me were directly affected by the day’s tragedy; I, though, remember feeling somewhat detached – as if the event were one that, like many, would not make the transition from media reports into my immediate life. The students still at school remained unsure of the details, hearing only sparse pieces of information on planes and towers and, without explanation, terror.

9/11 was picture day at my middle school. I was thirteen years old. I had my most awkward picture of the Awkward Years taken right around the time when the first plane struck. The days after 9/11 were an education for me—I was developing an awareness of U.S. foreign policy, but the immediate impact of 9/11 for me was an awakening to the reality of hatred.

In the weeks and months after 9/11, I think my related thoughts were mostly limited to these themes:

I am considered an American by the global community, and it turns out that comes with some baggage. There are people in the world who’d like if I died. (Why do some people hate us so much?)

As children, we’re filled with myths about how safe our world is. It’s important that children feel safe and don’t lie awake at night panicking about foreign policy. I spent many nights as a child worried about the future—I loved being a kid! I had a pretty strong suspicion that life would be less enjoyable as I gained responsibilities. On bad nights, I asked my parents to talk me down by “reminding me of Christmas” or other great things in the future.

This is all to say I was very sensitive, and I know I wasn’t alone. Luckily I’d grown out the most extreme elements of this by 2001, but on 9/11, schools with young children struggled with the responsibility of communicating news of the attacks to their students, often choosing to leave that to parents. I remember resenting this at the time, but looking back, I see that it must have been terrifying to explain the events of 9/11 as they unfolded to a few thousand young people who were privileged to have little context for such a thing until that time.

“Why do some people hate us so much?” This is the question that can lead a person to a constructive perspective, or a destructive one. This is a short, simple question with a long, nuanced answer. Our craving for a simple answer is what motivates us to rally behind war. In times of fear and confusion, revenge feels like a simple answer. Now, as was the case ten years ago, those working for sustainable solutions must continue to advocate for peace in a climate more amenable to soundbites.

The Senate Subcommittee on African Affairs’ recent hearing on responding to famine in the Horn of Africa reiterated just how devastating – and pervasive – the effects of long-term conflict can be.

During a hearing held last week in response to the worsening conditions in East Africa, representatives from the Senate, State Department, USAID, and three NGOs emphasized the nature of the food crisis as one with complex political and environmental roots. As the challenges to delivering immediate assistance and building long-term resilience within communities were discussed, each panelist stressed the debilitating impact of conflict on achieving sustainable food security.