This can be moved, I really debated which thread this belonged in and just couldn't decide....
How long before we see the kind of protesting that is/was going on in Egypt and Libya here in the US?
Quote from: Khara on February 28, 2011, 06:38:01 PM
This can be moved, I really debated which thread this belonged in and just couldn't decide....
How long before we see the kind of protesting that is/was going on in Egypt and Libya here in the US?
It's already happening, albeit in a wheezing, half-hearted way.
To be quite honest, I don't see it happening. While some circumstances are similar, the US populace just can't generate the critical mass needed.
LMNO
-has become a bit of a cynic.
Not just that, there's still enough faith in what the US government is doing. People can still work their jobs, get their cookies on the weekend, recieve some level of services from the gov't, and be OK with it. For all the shit that does go wrong, things seem generally right enough to work with.
When that perception drops enough, if people are willing to get off their asses, then it's on.
This may sound cliche at this point but as long as the U.S. are glued to their American Idol, it ain't going to happen. That is, I think things are hitting the fan in Egypt and Libya and Tunisia because the young people there see there is pretty literally nowhere for them to go in life and that those conditions were created by their government.
Basically what I think it boils down to is as bad as the economy has been on people here in the U.S., it apparently hasn't been THAT uncomfortable. OR it hasn't been that uncomfortable to enough people.
I think it's really a critical mass thing. It is a little heartening to see what's going on in Wisconsin. But they have two things going against them. A GOP controlled government AND a populace who seems apathetic, at best, to their plight. Meanwhile, our media here seem to want to do fuck-all to get to the heart of matters and continue to play into the superficial, polarizing, bullshit arguments. So I don't think the American people really know or understand what's at stake in Wisconsin and other states looking to bust the unions.
Anyway, to make a long story short, I'm afraid I'm in the same space as LMNO. When you have a significant chunk of the population applauding gridlock and against compromise, it seems like nothing is really ever going to happen, and that not enough are going to get pissed off to do anything about it.
Plus, the people that feel the need to get off their couches and protest don't blame the "right" kind of people. They ask questions like "who's going to shoot Obama?" of those who perpetrate the worst against them. True, Obama's not a stellar job of fulfilling his campaign promises, but the current hot, farting wind blowing through the bowels and out the anus end of the country seems to smell of dissidence against those who'd fund help for them, not against those who are perpetuating the mess as it stands and continues to progress through the current time span.
I fear we're in for a long haul of malcontent that no one can do anything but bloviate ineffectually about. This is not the time of Right-wing compromise. And the current Democratic factions in power have all but insured that they will never have to.
Television had made the "circuses" half of bread and circuses easier than ever to deliver.
A Boston Globe article by James Carroll shined a light on our repressive regime:
"... as federal corrections budgets increased by $19 billion, money for housing was cut by $17 billion, 'effectively making the construction of prisons the nation's main housing program for the poor.' State budgets took their cues from Washington in a new but unspoken national consensus: poverty itself was criminalized. Although 'law and order' was taken to be a Republican mantra, this phenomenon was fully bipartisan."
http://ampedstatus.org/analysis-of-the-global-insurrection-against-neo-liberal-economic-domination-and-the-coming-american-rebellion-we-are-egypt-revolution-roundup-3/#centrally
Why there won't be a revolution. America™ is proactive about these things.
So, there is no hope.... :cry:
Quote from: Khara on February 28, 2011, 10:13:01 PM
So, there is no hope.... :cry:
3 hots and a cot, free education and cable TV. No bill collectors. Why bitch?