[Gunnair]

Quote:

?By Daniel Nasaw

BBC News Magazine, Washington

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has suggested the unrest that rocked the streets of Cairo and Madrid this year could spread to the US. Is he right?

It was a long, hot spring and summer on the streets of Greece, England and Madrid, as protesters and rioters vented their fury at high unemployment, painful austerity measures and following a fatal police shooting in London.

The US, meanwhile, has been virtually free of rioting and even of widespread peaceful political protest.

This is despite some of the highest unemployment in decades, growing income inequality, dissatisfaction with the nation's direction, frustration with its dysfunctional government and the threat of drastic cuts to social programmes.

On Friday, Mr Bloomberg raised the spectre of social unrest amid high unemployment among young Americans.

"You have a lot of kids graduating college, can't find jobs," he said on a radio show.

"That's what happened in Cairo. That's what happened in Madrid. You don't want those kind of riots here. The damage to a generation that can't find jobs will go on for many many years."

In the past century, the US has experienced its share of political tumult and unrest, from the destitute "Bonus Army" veterans of World War I who clashed with federal troops in Washington in 1932, to the urban race riots in the 1960s and the Rodney King riots in 1992.

And in interviews with the BBC, analysts, writers and historians feared the US was ripe for some sort of social upheaval, but said a lack of social organisation and a sense of despair had prevented social movements from coalescing.

"It's amazing to me that Americans are so slow to rise collectively... not only against unemployment but against the quite identifiable forces that are responsible for it," said sociologist Prof Todd Gitlin of the Columbia University journalism school.

"I'm not predicting that such a thing will happen, but it would not in the slightest surprise me if there were some burst of street expression, some street rage."

'Quiet riots'

Gary Bailey, a professor of social work practice at the Simmons College School of Social Work in Boston said "draconian" austerity cuts contemplated in the US Congress could eventually spark unrest if young Americans felt their future was being taken from them through cuts to education and jobs programmes.

"We are inevitably at risk," he said. "We're not immune to what's happening in the world. The bigger the city and the larger the youth population, the greater the risk.

"What Mayor Bloomberg was warning of was that this disenfranchisement, for lack of a better word, leads to despair and unrest.

"He makes the point of the Arab spring, which came out of what happens when you have disenfranchised youth.

"When they look at power being vested in a very few, and very often in whom they cannot see themselves reflected, societies are very much at risk."

But Peter Dreier, professor of politics and director of the urban and environmental policy programme at Occidental College in Los Angeles, said Americans do not have the "psychology of rioting", and said Americans who bear the brunt of the economic downturn are "demoralised" and discouraged from taking collective action.

"People are angry, and right now they're taking their anger out on themselves - the quiet riots of suicide and depression," he said.

"It took about three years into the Depression before people overcame this sense of blaming themselves about their plight, before they got angry at the banks and the business community and local mayors, before they externalised their anger and made it a political issue rather than a personal one."

'Anomie'

Even as unemployment hovers at 9.1%, median household income decreases, and more people are impoverished than at any time in the last 52 years, Prof Gitlin said life remains tolerable for most Americans.

That may explain why Americans have not taken to the streets en masse, he said.

"It's one thing to know in the sense of 'I read this in the newspaper' that inequality is at its peak, that upward mobility barely exists, that the public sector is being stripped," he said. "It's not that daily life is unliveable as a result."

Rick Perlstein, a historian and author of Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America, said Americans suffer from a "profound sense of learned helplessness".

"The fact is the American population - even if they rose to that level of anger - they don't feel that they have anybody to address that anger to, any responsive bodies," he said. "That's a function of the breakdown in trust in government. It's a function of anomie and frustration."

But Mr Perlstein pointed to union protests in Wisconsin, Ohio and Indiana this year against anti-union measures in state legislatures there, to a massive strike by workers at telecommunications firm Verizon, and constituent meetings this summer at which voters angrily confronted congressmen about feared cuts to social programmes.

"We are seeing a widespread social movement," he said. "The fact that there isn't a media narrative about interesting things happening says more about the media."

[Macguyver]

It hasn’t?

[Gunnair]

Macguyver wrote:

It hasn’t?

Nope.

[eureka]

It inevitably will!

Though, I have been saying that for several years.

It seems that Americans are slow to anger, as a society, because the institutional propaganda machine is so strong.

[Gunnair]

eureka wrote:

It inevitably will!

Though, I have been saying that for several years.

It seems that Americans are slow to anger, as a society, because the institutional propaganda machine is so strong.

Inevitable. Kind like claiming the 9.1 will hit the west coast.

[MaineUSAGuy]

It has now. The government should fear the people.

[Gunnair]

MaineUSAGuy wrote:

It has now. The government should fear the people.

Terrifying.

[Proculation]

What is happening in Europe is different than in North America. Most, if not all, countries with revolts in Europe are social-democratic. They have a lot of social programs but they are now facing reality that you cannot spend forever on the credit card or the future generations (that will be less that now). So those countries have no choice but to cut those programs hence the social revolts.

North America is mostly based on individualism but, we have our share of social programs and credit cards to buy that paradise of today with tomorrow's money. But, it has nothing to do with Greece, Spain, France, etc. Yes, there will be revolts when America will understand that you can't spend the earnings of your grand-grand-grand-children who might not be there. But, it won't be Greece where people earned a 14-months salary for 12-month of work, almost no taxes to pay, guaranteed pay checks after your retirement at 52, etc, etc.

But, I will add an exception. Quebec. We are living that europeans life style here. We have massive debt, massive social programs, decreasing growth of population to pay the bills, decreasing labor force, almost no more riches to pay the bills. Well, you understand that we live on you, the ROC. And it won't last forever.

I would put some cash on that the first place where there will be massive revolts, it's here, in Quebec. Not, in New York or San Francisco.

Well, maybe San Francisco

[andyt]

Quote:

"It took about three years into the Depression before people overcame this sense of blaming themselves about their plight, before they got angry at the banks and the business community and local mayors, before they externalised their anger and made it a political issue rather than a personal one."

If things keep going as they are, with no improvement or get worse, while the rich continue to feed at the trough, You Betcha! I have a feeling the Occupy movement will peter out for now tho.

[Proculation]

andyt wrote:

If things keep going as they are, with no improvement or get worse, while the rich continue to feed at the trough, You Betcha! I have a feeling the Occupy movement will peter out for now tho.

The rich works to get rich.

The point we agree on, is that nobody should be able to get rich from the behaviour of the State. You wanna get rich ? Work for it. Don't try to lobby Ottawa or Washington to cut down your compiteters.

[Gunnair]

andyt wrote:

Quote:

"It took about three years into the Depression before people overcame this sense of blaming themselves about their plight, before they got angry at the banks and the business community and local mayors, before they externalised their anger and made it a political issue rather than a personal one."

If things keep going as they are, with no improvement or get worse, while the rich continue to feed at the trough, You Betcha! I have a feeling the Occupy movement will peter out for now tho.

Yeah. It's getting cold. Principles don't often survive that first snowfall or west coast gale.

[andyt]

Proculation wrote:

andyt wrote:

If things keep going as they are, with no improvement or get worse, while the rich continue to feed at the trough, You Betcha! I have a feeling the Occupy movement will peter out for now tho.

The rich works to get rich.

The point we agree on, is that nobody should be able to get rich from the behaviour of the State. You wanna get rich ? Work for it. Don't try to lobby Ottawa or Washington to cut down your compiteters.

We do agree. As long as the state collects sufficient taxes, on a progressive basis, to ensure equal opportunity for all. Some right wingers have come out in favor of death taxes, for instance, so that some kids don't start off with too much of an advantage. I don't know about that, people want to leave their wealth to their kids, but if we make sure that the non-wealthy have access to good schooling and enrichment, housing, nutrition etc, we do agree.

[Proculation]

andyt wrote:

Proculation wrote:

andyt wrote:

If things keep going as they are, with no improvement or get worse, while the rich continue to feed at the trough, You Betcha! I have a feeling the Occupy movement will peter out for now tho.

The rich works to get rich.

The point we agree on, is that nobody should be able to get rich from the behaviour of the State. You wanna get rich ? Work for it. Don't try to lobby Ottawa or Washington to cut down your compiteters.

We do agree. As long as the state collects sufficient taxes, on a progressive basis, to ensure equal opportunity for all. Some right wingers have come out in favor of death taxes, for instance, so that some kids don't start off with too much of an advantage. I don't know about that, people want to leave their wealth to their kids, but if we make sure that the non-wealthy have access to good schooling and enrichment, housing, nutrition etc, we do agree.

Add to what I said: no social engineering.

[Proculation]

andyt wrote:

Proculation wrote:

andyt wrote:

If things keep going as they are, with no improvement or get worse, while the rich continue to feed at the trough, You Betcha! I have a feeling the Occupy movement will peter out for now tho.

The rich works to get rich.

The point we agree on, is that nobody should be able to get rich from the behaviour of the State. You wanna get rich ? Work for it. Don't try to lobby Ottawa or Washington to cut down your compiteters.

We do agree. As long as the state collects sufficient taxes, on a progressive basis, to ensure equal opportunity for all. Some right wingers have come out in favor of death taxes, for instance, so that some kids don't start off with too much of an advantage. I don't know about that, people want to leave their wealth to their kids, but if we make sure that the non-wealthy have access to good schooling and enrichment, housing, nutrition etc, we do agree.

I stopped the bold text after schooling because that what comes after is selfish and utopic.

Enrichment, housing, nutrition come with good moral behaviours. They are 'options' of life that you have to get with certain behaviours.

[Gunnair]

Proculation wrote:

andyt wrote:

We do agree. As long as the state collects sufficient taxes, on a progressive basis, to ensure equal opportunity for all. Some right wingers have come out in favor of death taxes, for instance, so that some kids don't start off with too much of an advantage. I don't know about that, people want to leave their wealth to their kids, but if we make sure that the non-wealthy have access to good schooling and enrichment, housing, nutrition etc, we do agree.

I stopped the bold text after schooling because that what comes after is selfish and utopic.

Enrichment, housing, nutrition come with good moral behaviours. They are 'options' of life that you have to get with certain behaviours.