Saturday, February 20, 2010

As Public Outrage Grows, More Turn to Violence and Destruction in Protest


We'll be seeing more videos like the one above. An estimated 6.1 million delinquent homeowners will lose their homes in the near future.

Financial blogger Yves Smith discusses the possible beginning of a violent backlash, the most notable example being the man who burned down his house and flew his plane into a federal office building in Austin on February 18th:

Note that he sees his violent response to his economic plight as a political act, a blow for freedom. I am certainly not advocating this course of action. But others start connecting at least some of the dots this way, seeing their financial stresses not as the result of bad luck or lack of sufficient effort, but as an indictment of the system. Given the breakdown of communities (for instance, the fall in involvement in local civic groups and shortened job tenures, both of which lead to weaker social ties and greater isolation), the odds that the disaffected will turn to violence is greater than in past periods of stress.

Violence certainly is not the solution to our problems, but that isn't to say that the growing anger in the U.S. isn't justified. If more isn't done to stimulate the economy and create jobs, desperate people angry over the nation's economic inequality will take matters into their own hands and the results could be disastrous and deadly.



2 comments:

  1. Did you hear about the guy in Texas who rammed a small plane into a federal building which housed a branch of the IRS? It happened a couple of days ago. They said he left a note behing citing that the government has changed nothing, cited sections of the IRS code and told them "take my flesh" and "sleep well." People are fed up.

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  2. Society at large is lucky my career is going well. If it weren't, I'd be helping to organize the mass uprising. When a person has nothing, that means there's nothing for him/her to lose & no reason not to break society's rules.

    For years, I've been saying that there will be massive civil unrest & a complete societal breakdown. As long as I have a future, I just observe and wonder if there are any thinking people left or if everyone's just a pack of sheep that should just lie flat on the highway to be killed. I applaud people who stand up & say "Enough is enough." That's the only way you make any progress.

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