Welcome To Social Unrest

Back in 09 I wrote a couple of Blogs about the roots of Social Unrest, SU. Now here we are with SU. shaking much of the Arab Middle East right down to its bones. Back in 09 I was trying to show how SU. can effect change. Capitalists were really scared when the masses took to the streets. It was seen as a direct challenge to the very existence of the system in power. Back then the underlying fear was over a takeover by left wing organizations to establish a socialist system of government.

In the case of the present Middle East SU. the issue is not a threat of an alternative system of government. It is primarily a notion that if we throw out the Dictators in Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt Jordan and Yemen etc. somehow, maybe, things might get better. As my Tunis born barber says, “listen things couldn’t be worse.” That’s the threat to the long time rulers.

However there is a real domino effect here. If Mubarak in Egypt goes down the US. and Israel lose their major Middle East supporter. Remember we give the Mubarak government $I.6 Billion a year for him to be nice to us and our ally Israel. What happens if the street protesters chase him out of country? (He will find somewhere to live happily ever after on the money he’s probably got socked away in a Swiss Bank?)

Oh, man this puts Obama once again between a “rock and a hard place.” If he supports the very justified protesters he is undermining our old, maybe only, Middle east ally. If he even appears to be supporting Mubarak and his oppressive regime he will lose all credibility as champion of Democracy. So, he tries the tightrope walk. “Now Mubarack we understand the spot your in just, please don’t start shooting the protesters. That would be shades of the Chinese tanks in Tiananmen Square running over student protesters. Yee Gods we don’t want that.

In case you haven’t noticed we are living in extremely volatile times. We now have many countries with emerging economies. They are the ones with a disproportionate number of young people looking for work. Their job markets are simply unable to absorb the millions in need of jobs. The anger of the frustrated gets directed at the corrupt dictators and their cronies. The basic problem however is the lack of a feasible alternative. That is exacerbated by the absence of any organized left
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Here’s my “light bulb minute” (Thanks Miss Friedmen my 4th grade Public School teacher.)

In the good old USA it seems we have solved the above problem with the Two Party System. When the Dems are in power and folks get mad, ie The Tea Party Crowd yells, “THROW THE BUMS OUT.” Okay, in 2010 we throw them out. Maybe they even keep up their run and in 2012 they throw Obama out.

Hold on now. Comes 2014 the Dems.Coffee Party Crowd will yell "THROW THE BUMS OUT." And that's how the political dance of Tweedildum and Tweedildee came about. You’ve got to admit. For the Fat Cats it works pretty good. For an Old Geezer like me it remains a mystery why folks can’t see through it? My departed historian friend Herb Gutman would remind me how we suffer from “social amnesia.” Nobody remembers what happened two weeks ago. What happened two years ago? Ancient history, gone and forgotten.