I was talking to a woman from the neighborhood last night – not dumb, just not educated or polished. She said to me, “What do you think is going to happen to our country? I keep wondering when somebody’s going to start setting things on fire, or start shooting at politicians. Because it can’t go on like this. People are hurting.”
This is where I have a problem with political elites, who see political problems as strategic puzzles. They’re sheltered, buffered, cocooned — whatever you want to call it. Maybe they’re just plain blind, or prone to wishful thinking. They have no visceral understanding of how bad it is out here, and how openly ordinary people – people who don’t even follow politics, for the most part – now talk of revolution.
Our cities are a pile of dry kindling, and sooner or later, there will be a match. And then, gated communities become the target zones. What, you think your $15-an-hour security guard will lay his life on the line for you because you tip him at Christmas? Dream on. Sooner or later, there will be a reckoning. People will take sides and it won’t be yours, Mrs. and Mrs. Exploiter.
I was thinking of that when I read Ian Welsh this morning.
Yup. As I posted at my place:
“What the banksters, and the politicians that fellate them, don’t seem to get is that their wealth is a social construct. They have gotten title to assets typically land, but also trademarks, patents, monopolies, oligopolies that would not exist without the social compact/construct of our civilization. Without that social construct, any crowd with pitchforks and torches could break down the gates of their gated suburban communities and just take it from them, as I predict is going to happen in Greece.
You think that they would realize, if not from a sense of humanity and goodness (which they seem to lack) but from a sense of self-preservation and self-interest that making sure that the majority of society functions with a reasonable standard of living makes a lot of sense. Clearly they don’t get it.”
I love the fact that the Greeks rolled out a gallows. I am sad that cops, who are also getting hit with the austerity measures are getting hit with molotov cocktails, when it shoudl be the banksters who are burned alive (warning, kinda graphic). But that’s what you get when you push people too far, and in fact I AM hoping that some ministers wind up being hanged publicly.
one of your best posts.
Ian is always good for getting the blood boiling. (ianwelsh.net) On the foreign policy side try Chris Floyd (chris-floyd.com), if you dare. Man for all seasons: Authur Silber (powerofnarrative.blogspot.com)
And, of course, Susie for those over-the-center-field-wall, glove-held-on-two-fingers, bottom of the ninth leaping catches. If you’re not spitting enraged, you’re just not paying attention (cf Obamabots, KOSmonauts, and other eleventy dimensional players).
Popular uprising? Not holding breath as long as we have bread, circuses and cheap petrol. Clueless politicians are not the problem. They’re doing what our system of governance incentivizes them to do, and many of them know exactly what they’re doing. Blame the media if you want, but the total meltdown of public education is not a bug. It’s a feature.
Popular uprising? I don’t want to see the latest advances in crowd control and “peace keeping.” And don’t forget that the Preznit can order the arrest and indefinite detention or murder of terrorists. What’s a terrorist, really…?
We’ve come a long way since Kent State. American exceptionalism means never having to say you’re sorry.
“What, you think your $15-an-hour security guard will lay his life on the line for you because you tip him at Christmas?”
No, but their $100K/year merc from Columbia via Xe (Blackwater) will.
In many ways the frustration of young poor folks is already in progress. Ckeck out the murders, robberies, and gang violence in your city: the younger crowds of all races and stripes have been making their claims for a good while now. Hell, Obamas’ own home city may soon go up in smoke for all we know; here in Atlanta on any given day/night there are more shootings than is ever actually reported on the local news—–they don’t have the air time to report them all—–the most egregious are the only ones you hear about. Anyone old enough to have actually experienced the nation-wide riots of the late 60’s—–when National Guard Units had to be called in to calm the chaos—-may understand that we may be on the brink once again.
do you really think there’s security guards in philly who still makes the princely sum of $15/hr?
Man, the comments are as good as the blog posts. For me, Ian or Suzie don’t make me angry. Hell, I’m already boiling angry. No, I read what Suzie and Ian just wrote and think, yeah – I’m not the only one. I suppose that is more dangerous for our overlords than thinking I’m alone.
But yeah, I think that guard is going to be the 100k/yr merc from Blackwater. Frankly, now that the police have tasers, I’m not so eager to show up for a demonstration anyway. On the other hand, Americans are heavily armed and we have plenty of vets with combat experience, so who knows. Ian is dead right though about making it cost. And I suppose the entire history of guerrilla warfare is about how to make life impossible for people too dangerous to confront directly.