We hear a lot about our Anglo Saxon heritage and culture. It's usually to point out the superiority of our legal system to one, say, of stoning adulterers to death.
As we watch England burn, though, it's wise to recall that part of our culture is a propensity to violence.
It's been England who has stood by the US as we bombed, killed, kidnapped and tortured our way through Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa in the last decade alone. Sure, England is a junior partner, not given to the excesses of the US, but-still.
A young woman, hiding in her apartment in London, has this to say about the cluelessness of her ruling class-
No one expected this. The so-called leaders who have taken three solid days to return from their foreign holidays to a country in flames did not anticipate this. The people running Britain had absolutely no clue how desperate things had become. They thought that after thirty years of soaring inequality, in the middle of a recession, they could take away the last little things that gave people hope, the benefits, the jobs, the possibility of higher education, the support structures, and nothing would happen. They were wrong. And now my city is burning, and it will continue to burn until we stop the blanket condemnations and blind conjecture and try to understand just what has brought viral civil unrest to Britain. Let me give you a hint: it ain’t Twitter.
Parts of our population have 40%-50% unemployment and have been living in poverty for years, recently joined by more and more of the formerly employed. Now our ruling class has decided that the paltry benefits that the American working class (including the unemployed) have must stop.
What do they expect to happen?
Well, because the US now has a military command assigned to it, and because the police have been militarized, and the nastiest in each police force taken for special training, (as one of our local police said "I get to wear black pajamas and kick down doors"), because Homeland Security has dossiers on millions of Americans, and enormous prisons are being built, and new "non-lethal" weapons developed....I'm guessing that our ruling class is not clueless about what will happen.
They're ready.
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
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6 comments:
Nope. They're clueless.
They think they can win a general uprising using all their pretty toys. Not a chance in hell.
The people on the bottom, the people with little or nothing have nothing to lose. If they have a job it's a crappy job without the security or pay needed to live independently, get married, settle down. Their bosses treat them like disposable cups because every day ten people walk in the front door begging for work.
They will eventually break and fight if pushed hard enough. They have not spent the last ten years larding their butts sitting in patrol cars. They have the numbers, the weapons and they can find the knowledge.
What's happening in London will happen in a U.S. city soon. Because life sucks right now for the poor. People have NO hope.
I forgot the biggest part of the preparations - the propaganda.
Fox News, 24 hours a day of finger pointing at the powerless as the source of people's misery.
Yep, there are well armed people, pissed as hell, and ready to kill.
And they're angry at welfare mothers, and liberals and environmentalists, and now teachers!
Yep, all those assholes who stripped the country of its assets, moved production offshore and engaged in endless warfare! The teachers!
Get 'em!
They are saying that these demonstrators are bored, lazy people that are expecting more free hand-outs by the government that has spoiled them.
Even a woman from England I met with a friend last night said something to that effect. (lazy is the key word, BTW, its always used against the victims.
Wondering whether anyone's having trouble getting onto Kunstler.com
There are BIG events like these riots, the approval of the "Super Congress," and last week's stock market crashes.
There are also very scary little signs.
I was struck by a recent credit card commercial on television.
It was the old con of a "rewards" card. But the pitch this time was to show a man going through an airport metal detector. Each time he walks through, the machine beeps. Why? Because new coins are appearing in this pockets. This happens so many time that he is eventually lead away by a TSA matron.
God help us - they're still trying to push debt as a means to wealth, and worse (far worse) that spontaneous, warrentless searches are jokes - litte inconviences in life!
I will know that the end has finally come when I see an ad that makes a tag-line out of torture - like "I'd rather be water boarded than stay at that (insert competitor's name)hotel again."
I heard on NPR that they are passing a law in Louisiana (I think) that enables them to block phones.
Re: mortgages. Somewhere I read that 1/3 were speculators, 1/3 were ones who could make their payments but didn't want to pay for something worth less than the purchase price (like their car and toaster) and only 1/3 were people who couldn't afford it...the lowest priced houses at that. Funny how we can got to war or save fat cats in a minute, but debates about most problems take months in Congress.
Great post, Wagelaborer. What happened in Britain will be diminished by what will happen in the U.S.
I agree that the Plutocrats are ready and the brown-shirts (or is it black) are waiting in the wings.
Stay safe now!
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