Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Are we seeing a global rebellion against governments?

Thanks Bruno for sending me this link!

I'm not going to spoil this by posting pictures here but you must see this story about Chinese people reacting to government abuses against them.  As usual, LEOs are the strong arm of the state and they pay the price.

Read the story here.

Bigger question.  We've seen rioting in S. Europe, throughout the Middle East, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines and we've seen the recent incident in Bundy, Nevada.

Something is going on worldwide.  I thought that it had to do with economics but now I'm not so sure.  I still believe the economy is part of it, but something much larger is also happening.

Stay tuned.

9 comments :

  1. Its mainly economic ,but in any case society with unemployed jung parts of the population is a definition of unstable i bet politicians are for once glad to have aging populations otherwise unrests would be much more common in western world. Middle class is disapearing and rich are becoming filthy rich by rigging the system so we are definetly not in for a smooth sailing.

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  2. As they say in political science, the pendulum swings back and forth. The economy is part of it, I agree. Happy people with food on the table and money in the bank will tolerate quite a lot. But I also think we are seeing the pendulum starting to naturally swing back to the Right. It's just that it's swung so far to the Left, for so long, we're seeing resistance to the swing from the powers that be.

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    1. Since most Center Left and Center Right parties in the West have been co-opted by corporations, this isn't Left vs. Right. This is old fashioned Haves vs. Have-Nots.

      Capitalism, the Adam Smith kind, has been replaced by Free-marketeering, which places a premium upon devaluing labor costs at the expense of entire industries within nation-states. Our economy was once based upon manufacturing, where people have good paying jobs, which keeps the tax base diverse and strong. Entire industries within the US have been offshored to China, Vietnam, etc.

      Now our economy has become more and more service-based which pays lower and places the middle-class in more precarious position. Middle-class wages have flat-lined for 40 years while the wealth they helped create has been hoovered upwards and then offshored in places like the Cayman Islands. Multi-billion dollar corporations no longer pay income taxes because of loop-holes.

      http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/22/us-offshore-wealth-idUSBRE86L03U20120722

      governments are short of money for health-care, defense, infrastructure, but they turn a blind eye to all the money offshored.

      hey, but don't worry, because in America, money equals free speech. We have the best political system money can buy.

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    2. Max the case could be equally made that the pendulum has swung far to far to the right. Its important to remember that the times considered to be the most prosperous in US history has top margin tax rate almost 100% higher than we currently have.

      The major issues affecting most of the world are wealth disparity and power disparity. As far as left vs right, these are issues that historically the left has been fairly concerned about and the right has ignored.

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  3. It is just like old times: bread and circuses! With the Chinese making more money, they are buying more farmland: 5% of Ukraine, a good chunk of Sir Lanka and Mozambique with lots of other purchases. The Chinese are not they only ones buying farmland too. It is going to get worse.
    http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MF01Ak01.html
    http://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2013/mar/06/food-riots-new-normal
    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-04-15/soaring-food-inflation-full-frontal-beef-and-shrimp-prices-explode
    http://necsi.edu/research/social/food_crises.pdf

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    1. alot of people on other sites that i visit are speculating that we're seeing the move from "imaginary assets" to hard assets like real estate because the financial situation is poised to deteriorate even further.

      i'm not sure but something is going on there. we're seeing a RUSH to buy land by governments and the rich. what do they know.

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  4. Economics, failing belief systems both social, religious and governmental.
    The wants and the needs are harder to come by, fears of war, plagues and natural disasters.
    Governments to hide their intentions and failures resort to lies and propaganda which are easier to see through.
    Morale suffering due to the same, a feeling that everyone but the rich are on their own, sink or swim.
    Rural fears the cities and the cities fear the rural, both want the rules to aid their lifestyles and laws.
    The high cost of just getting up in the morning with no chance to over come poverty and joblessness.
    Overall feelings that our leaders are stupid, evil or just don't give a rats derriere about their citizens.
    Events such as A senator threatening a voter, citizen, land owner with "bad things will happen" publically with no redress or legal ramifications while if the reverse were true the citizen would be in jail.
    I believe everyone is fearful of a world war so big it causes civilization to backslide into the dark ages.
    Fear may be the biggest cause of unrest.

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  5. Last week I started rereading my old copy of Starship Troopers, I knew this all sounded kind of familiar-
    "With national governments in collapse at the end of the XXth century, something had to fill the vacuum, and in many cases it was the returned veterans."
    "But it wasn't revolution; it was more like what happened in Russia in 1917 - the system collapsed; somebody else moved in. The first known case, in Aberdeen, Scotland, was typical. Some veterans got together as vigilantes to stop rioting and looting, hanged a few people (including two veterans) and decided not to let anyone but veterans on their committee. Just arbitrary at first - they trusted each other a bit, they didn't trust anyone else."
    Heinlein is a bit more optimistic than I am some days.

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  6. It's economic, it's geopolitcal realignment, it's resource control, it's power elite and the masses.
    Yes, there does seem to be a growing trend towards rebellion against governments. The reasons for it vary among countries, but the common thread of connection seem to be the availability of information and access to it through social networks and the internet. Many of the Arab springs are also known as the Twitter revolutions. The internet and it's "apps" has fundamentally changed how humans interact. The other truth is that humans have always been in conflict with each other, and as the global dominance of the US recedes we may actually just be returning to normal, which is conflict most of the time.

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