Pictured Above: Greek Citizens Respond To A 'Balanced Budget'
Youth and College Students are always counted primarily among the crowds, who're joined with other interested parties who are against the existing power structure, And who wouldn't be? The existing power structures in all the world(except maybe Bolivia and Iceland) are an old-boys network of exploitative Jingoist old scumbags. This is first and foremost a generational war.
Another standard feature of all the social uprisings are the complaints of lack of job availability, high housing costs, and recent reductions in social welfare. I could say these things are a result of globalization, and I'd be correct, but it's more astute to say they're a result of the globalists patent disregard for the welfare of the working class in developed nations. This is a working class uprising. Clear as day. You'd have to be deaf, dumb and blind not to connect these dots, and even Hellen Keller could see Socialism was a good thing.
And so we arrive in the present day and 'criminal opportunists' are rioting and looting in Britain. Yep, out of nowhere, a bunch of youths decided to cause mayhem.(It's not like a well known drug-dealer was shot dead by police, and it's not as if riots are a common reaction to injustice in order to make the state pay. And no, it's not as if there were previous student protests and very recent anti-austerity protests; but good try.) Portraying these rioters away as simple opportunists is pretty short-sighted.
I'm sure there were plenty of opportunists on the streets of Cairo who just wanted to see what was going on. I giggled at the old media when they'd ask protesters 'what do you want instead?' You can't expect every man on the street to have a brilliant revolutionary agenda. That's not how it's going to happen these days. Modern revolution is as spontaneous as a mass text message. It's messy. If protests fail, the more you can cost the state in reputation and property damage, the more you shake the forces of old and evil. The point is to discredit and topple the existing powers. If you hem and haw about what to put in their place before doing it then you're about as useful as the stinky anarchists down at the bookstore.
Some of the Greek protesters held up signs saying 'We Are Wisconsin,' recognizing that their battle against austerity was similar to Wisconsin's battle to keep collective bargaining rights. The unrest in Israel and Britain show that this is coming to our hemisphere. We have all the same grievances and all the same tools at our disposal. Some American protests are planned for fall.
And when the time comes, Let's be Cairo.
Yeah, I think the Global Young Male Prospects Index (GYMPI) has hit a generational low. To me, that's the root cause of any revolution or uprising in recent memory: "are you a young man? Will you go to college? Probably not, eh? Will it matter if you do? Of course it doesn't. Don't worry, tho. Just wait your turn, and your time will come. In the mean time, narcotize yourself with bad sports teams, Netflix, internet pr0n, and increasingly expensive bottles of beer and liquor. Oh, and if you think about trying the good stuff, we'll call you a good-for-nothing junky, throw you in prison, and ruin whatever pathetic future you might have had."
ReplyDelete