Talk of revolution and rumors of change

[nadinbrzezinski]

Some folks say that it is well beyond time we take to the streets and demand change...

We are not there...

We have trends that point to this, but it will take decades. Egypt has an unemployment rate, that is close to 50%... many kids (a lot of them actually) have Bachelors, masters and PhDs, they are not working in their fields, but are working as waters... we are having some of that here already. People with Bachelors working at Starbucks, and I don't mean older people... I mean recent college graduates.

I have talked of trends in the past... and while the US is far from the level of desperation in Egypt, some of the trends are there.

So you say you want a revolution... if things stay the way they are... it will be a generation before the pressures are there. For the moment, the middle class has football, a beer, and a full stomach... yeah we know, we are all two paychecks away from the streets, but that has not entered consciousness.

So if you are in awe at what you are seeing, and you should... work to change things before we get there ok.

That said... there are other trends at play here, including our diminishing role in the world (this is part of it) which may accelerate other trends in the US that may lead to this in less than 30 years... but just from the actual social conditions in Egypt... we are not there... not by a far margin of imagination. And to be quite honest lets hope we do not hit that point.

Now what is fun to listen to, is the somewhat surprised reporting from certain quarters... no it could not happen here, but the media elites are having that thought... what if?

Oh and one of the causes for this is... Globalization... how directly I don't know, but it is.

[Leftist Agitator]

1. In the US, as you said, we have our (liquid) bread and circuses...

And that will stave off open dissent for some time to come, but not forever.

Things are only going to get worse here, this fiction that the economy is recovering will gradually be seen for what it is, an utter farce, and slowly but surely, as the mass of destitute, hopeless people aggregates, things will start to change. At first, it will be only the dispossessed who are agitating for anything, and our corporate media will try to marginalize them (and succeed). But eventually, as people get poorer and have less, and less, and less, as they see their children with advanced degrees that they took on a lifetime of debt to earn working at McDonald's and Starbucks, when they see that the rich shitheads who own everything get richer and richer, more powerful, more entrenched, more smug and self-assured, while everyone else loses any slim advantage that they had in the conditions of economic malaise under which we currently exist they will get pissed. Extremely pissed. And when that happens, all bets are off, football, beer and every other distraction aside.

The real problem is that if the U.S. has an experience similar to Egypt, with open revolution in the streets, it will undoubtedly degenerate into a bloodbath, a civil war the likes of which the world has *never* seen. We're too well-armed, our grievances against one another are too long-standing, and there has been no redress vis-a-vis said grievances since the late 1970s. Hell, the political climate today is so polarized that I have a few neighbors who know of my political leanings who, if society were to break down, would undoubtedly try to kill me. They hate my politics that much. I own several firearms of my own, so it would indeed degenerate into a bloodbath, as I postulated before.

Multiply my personal situation by Two Hundred Million, and that is what awaits us.

Not today, not tomorrow, but sooner than anyone, including myself, thinks.

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. That is why I said if we look at the situation in Egypt

it wil be a generation before we are there.

There are OTHER trends (end of Empire) that will accelerate it by quite a bit. But ONLY the situation in Egypt, that be a generation.

I agree with you, it is closer than 30 years. But that is because we have a series of interlocking trends...

:hi:

[H2O Man]

2. The dynamics in the US

are so different that it is unrealistic to think that what is happening in Egypt could happen here. I'm not saying that I am opposed to people trying to regain control of their government from the corporate machine. However, it is essential for people to have a grasp of those differences.

First, our government would be inconvenienced by thousands/millions of citizens marching in the streets. But that alone would not result in a meaningful change. It would require massive labor shut-downs, and citizens being willing to fill the jails (as in Gandhi/King tactics) to rattle the machine to where some gears came loose. And there is no evidence that many people either feel that strongly -- yet -- or have the organizational skills needed, or most importantly, have the strength to accomplish this level of protest.

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. Agreed and we are going to get there

The empire is actually accelerating it's collapses right now, so that will accelerate all trends.

But when people go... look... there is no comparison between a client state, and the imperial capital. Just saying.

[DeSwiss]

3. K&R

- As you say: We certainly are not there. Yet. But we are on course.......

So if we are talking change through revolt, we're necessarily talking about deconditioning because the thing we fear already has a life deep in our own consciousness. Deconditioning from cultural ignorance is at the heart of any insurrectionary politics. Deconditioning also involves risk and suffering. But it is transformative, freeing the self from helplessness and fear. It unleashes the fifth freedom, the right to an autonomous consciousness. That makes deconditioning about as individual and personal act as is possible. Maybe the only genuine individual act.

Once unencumbered by self-induced and manufactured cultural ignorance, it becomes clear that politics worldwide is entirely about money, power and national mythology, with or without some degree of human rights. America still has all of the above to one degree or another. Yet for all practical purposes, such as advancing the freedom and the well being of its own people, the American republic has collapsed.

Of course, there is still money to be made by the already rich. So the million or so people who own the country and the government use their control to convince us that there is no collapse, just economic and political problems that need to be solved. Naturally, they are willing to do that for us. Consequently, the economy is discussed in political terms, because the government is the only body with the power to legislate, and therefore render the will of the owning class into law.

But politics and money are never going to fill what is essentially a public vacuum that is moral, philosophical and spiritual. (The latter was instantly recognized by fundamentalist Christians, disfigured by cultural ignorance, as they may be.) Not many ordinary Americans talk about this vacuum. The required spiritual and philosophical language has been successfully purged by newspeak, popular culture, a human regimentation process masquerading as a national educational system, and the ruthlessness of everyday competition, which leaves no time to contemplate anything.

http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2010/12/america-y-ur-peeps-b-so-dum.html">~Joe Bageant, "America Y UR Peeps B So Dum?"

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. Incidentally I am a fan of Joe too

[DeSwiss]

8. I am not surprised.

- I've found that most Truth Lovers are......

[Hannah Bell]

4. like bailing out banksters.

[socialist_n_TN]

9. Trying to guide this thing in a positive direction ..........

is one of the reasons I spend so much time here advocating for actual socialist positions. This is a pretty left wing site compared to the rest of the country, but even HERE we have a large number of capitalist apologists. People who don't like what it IS, but think that it can be "regulated and controlled". Unfortunately for these folks, THIS IS WHAT CAPITALISM IS. If they don't like this, they don't like capitalism. The New Deal neutered version of capitalism was just as much of a bastard as Stalinism was to Communism or socialism.

The advocating/education part of the equation has to start somewhere. It might as well be with people who don't like what we have now.

As to the OP's main point, no we're not here yet and yes, we're probably a generation away. I hope there's a cadre of leaders by that time that CAN guide us in a saner direction.

[nadinbrzezinski]

10. It will be less than a generation

but that is only because of OTHER elements to this... like our fall from Empire... which just accelerated over the last few days.

[Bluenorthwest]

11. You and the rest of the doomers, you sound like you have

never been to anyplace at all like Egypt. It is sad to me to hear this. I feel as if the Egyptians are starving people telling their plight, and much of DU replies with "I know, it is the same here, we had to wait 25 minutes for a table at Butter!"

[nadinbrzezinski]

12. No, I said that the conditions here are nowhere close

you may want to re-read the OP.

I woud also like to take you on a tour of El Florido in Tijuana... no, nothing close to Egypt, but if you think that I have not seen poverty... I have a bridge for sale in New York, I am willing to make a deal.

[lunatica]

13. This eruption in Egypt is also because food is becoming too expensive

Last Summer's fire storms in Russia burned a fifth or a quarter of the wheat fields and Russia stopped exporting their wheat. This is an indirect result of those fires. Egypt isn't the only country feeling this.

[nadinbrzezinski]

14. I know, predicted result of global weather change

Oh wait that is that evviiiiillll lib'rul science.

Add globalization as well.

[Duwamish]

15. We know the revolution won't happen here on a Tuesday

'cuz that's when American Idol is on.

:sarcasm:

[nadinbrzezinski]

16. sooner or rather, currently later, the bread and circus will

stop working