To commemorate this worldwide struggle for freedom, TIME magazine honors “The Protester” as Person of the Year, featuring a cover photo of … Sarah Mason, an Occupy L.A. activist who adamantly refuses to pay her credit card bills.

Take that Wall Street.

“I still have debt and I’m not paying it back because I feel like at this point, I have an obligation to try and disrupt and upset the financial industry, the credit industry,” Sarah told 360 Magazine. “Why would I miss this beautiful opportunity to say, ‘no, you don’t get your money back’?”

Despite a valiant effort to lionize her, 360 Magazine acknowledges, “Her unabashed attitude falters slightly, however, when asked about how she incurred significant personal debt.”

“Each paycheck that I would get, I would overspend,” she said “I had already spent all this money on clothes, make-up, accessories, and I got the credit card because I needed to [pay] my electric bill. … And then of course, it turned into I just started using it recklessly.”

That TIME selected a dead-beat American credit-junkie to symbolize the brave souls who risked everything in their struggle for freedom tells us a lot about why the dinosaur media is dying—and quite a bit about the Occupy Wall Street movement itself.

Before Sarah was inevitably identified as the poster girl of the protest movement (you have heard of the Internet, haven’t you TIME?) the type-setters at last century’s leading magazine concocted a flimsy cover-story for their cover story.

“As the artist behind our Person of the Year 2011 cover commemorating this year’s pick, The Protester, Shepard Fairey says his cover image is based on a composite of 26 different photographs of real protests from around the world.” Well, Fairey also said he didn’t steal an AP photo of Obama for his iconic HOPE poster before he fessed up to lying about that and destroying evidence.

Fairey “used a collage of scenes from the Arab Spring to Moscow to Occupy Wall Street as a backdrop, images he said shows the dramatic accumulation of these global protests,” TIME wrote.

But the protester on the cover was, in fact, derived from a single photo of Sarah Mason, who—despite her own dramatic accumulation of accessories—now represents the struggle the world’s genuinely oppressed people.

While not the best person to symbolize the Arab Spring uprising, Sarah an ideal representative of the Occupy Wall Street protest movement, victimized as she was by “the capitalistic system in American society.”

“The reality is that, of course, is what compelled me to buy clothes and make-up and all of these things was insecurity and a feeling of being inadequate … What I also think it was that you’re just surrounded by these messages telling you to buy, buy, buy, consume, consume, consume.”

Most people facing that kind of pressure while deeply in debt would have cut up their credit cards and worked out a payment plan. But Sarah Mason is no quitter. She’s a fighter, and a born leader. “It’s easy not to pay your debt!” she said. “Nothing can happen … if you have assets, people can seize them, but if you don’t have assets, what are they going to take?”

Well, they could start with her tent.

According to 360 Magazine, “The tent that Sarah leaves looks like any other gray nylon camping tent from the outside, of a nondescript size and description; however a quick peek inside reveals a bohemian paradise, complete with tapestries, blankets and pillows in rich earthy tones, candles and picture frames. It’s a cozy haven where one can hide from the chaos of a bustling day in downtown Los Angeles.”

And that, my friends, is the iconic summation of the Occupy Wall Street movement—a falsely humble exterior stuffed with luxury items that were purchased on credit which won’t be repaid.

A footnote. Exactly three days after TIME announced their Person of the Year, thousands of Tunisians gathered in Mohamed Bouazizi Square—named after the young fruit vendor whose suicide “restored Tunisia’s dignity” and triggered a global struggle for freedom—to honor him and to celebrate their new freedom.

Half a world away, Sarah Mason may well have been snuggling under earth-toned blankets in her “bohemian paradise” on Bank of America Square pondering the riches her new-found fame would bestow upon her.

That is the lament of innumerable people staring into a mirror at the garish tattoo they added to their lower backsides the previous night during a spell of misjudgment.

Such tattoos are often referred to as “tramp stamps,” a term that has gained such cultural currency that it was named one of the “Words of the Year” for 2009 by the New Oxford American Dictionary.  Perhaps the best definition, however, can be found atwww.urbandictionary.com:

2.  Tramp Stamp:  “Tramp Stamp” is a derogatory term referring to a tattoo which a woman places on her lower back.  It is especially popular among women born in the late ‘70s, ‘80s, and even early ‘90s.  Fair or unfair, these tattoos have a socially constructed connotation associated with them.  Although these are often biased and generalized claims, there have been sociological studies done by the American Psychological Association, Federal Bureau of Prisons, and other demographic researchers showing strong correlative evidence associating tattoos with high-risk behavior, illegal substance abuse and sexual promiscuity.  These risk factors are greatest in the age range which these types of tattoos are gaining mainstream popularity.  Some have also jokingly stated that by 2050, the “tramp stamp” will be renamed the “gramp stamp.”

What thus seemed at first a hip, daring way of demonstrating individuality to the world quickly becomes a lasting and unsightly cliché of indiscretion.

It seemed so cool at the time.  But now, the cool is gone and all that remains is a silly permanent mark.

Today, one can travel down any busy American street or highway and usually spot the new political equivalent of the tramp stamp.  Namely, the ubiquitous 2008 campaign decal with the cartoonish stenciled portrait of Barack Obama gazing wistfully into the distance above the nebulous term “HOPE.”

Created by “street artist” and George W. Bush antagonist Shepard Fairey based upon the 2006 photograph of Obama by Associated Press (AP) photographer Mannie Garcia, the image became synonymous with the Obama hysteria.

Apparently unconcerned with the sinister association, Laura Barton of the left-wing Guardian newspaper gushed that “Hope” had “acquired the kind of instant recognition of Jim Fitzpatrick’s Che Guevara poster, and is surely set to grace t-shirts, coffee mugs and the walls of student bedrooms in years to come.”

Humorously, Fairey’s imagery ultimately became the subject of a lawsuit when the AP claimed unfair use of its photograph and demanded compensation.

Irrespective of the legal imbroglio surrounding “Hope,” Obama’s disastrous first year has obliterated the cachet the image so recently possessed.  Obama has performed so poorly after entering office with such high (albeit unfounded) accolades that his approval among the American electorate has plummeted more steeply than any elected President in the history of scientific polling.

And justifiably so.

Obama promised to reduce the federal debt by scouring the budget “line-by-line,” but he has instead dangerously inflated spending and debt.  He promised to usher in a new era of international peace and cooperation by literally and figuratively bowing to foreign counterparts, but instead dangerous regimes like Iran, North Korea, Venezuela and Russia have increased their influence and belligerence.  He promised a reversal of the Reagan Revolution that brought a quarter-century of unprecedented prosperity and a peaceful end to the Cold War, but has instead failed so miserably that he managed to see a Republican elected to fill Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat.  He promised to bring bipartisan healthcare reform, but has instead been forced to roll out multiple “one last time” speeches and summits to sell ObamaCare to an unwilling nation.  Just this week, he unveiled ObamaCare 1.0, or 3.0, or 7.0 – it is simply too difficult to keep track.

As a result, the omnipresent “Hope” bumper sticker now possesses approximately the same value as the secret formula for New Coke.

Unfortunately, though, there’s one important distinction between the faded and tattered “Hope” decal versus the larger Obama agenda that it came to represent.  Passé bumper stickers and other fads like the pet rock can simply be relegated to the attic or recycle bin.  In contrast, a garish tattoo is more permanent and removal is painful.

Even more painful will be reversal of whatever items from the Obama agenda America allows to become law.

Whole story of the duplicity here.  Question: Is the Left simply incapable of truth? If you have no philisophical grounding, will you just ultimately end up cutting every corner? Advise…

“ACORN Funded Prostitution Zone” tagged on the wall of the Shepard Fairey-owned Studio Number One.  Fairey became a household name after designing the Obama “Hope” Poster..