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Blog PostsLondon: 'Schock Doctrine' Is a Two-Way Street
By Carl Davidson at Aug 10, 2011 |
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The Approaching Winter of Our Discontent
By Carl Davidson
Keep On Keepin' On
Watching the rebellions of the young and poor continue in London and now spread to other industrial centers in the UK raises an interesting question: Will the Arab spring and the European summer lead to a fall and winter of discontent here in the USA?
All the makings for it are there. We have impoverished communities of the unemployed were there are huge numbers of young people who have never had a regular job of any sort. Now that any form of taxing the rich for funding a jobs program like that proposed by Rep. John Conyers' HR 870 has been declared 'off the table,' it doesn't appear likely to change, either.
Add to that the GOP-led 'Shock Doctrine' (with an assist from the White House) of creating a neoliberal deficit hoax to take from the working class and give to Wall Street, and you spread deeper misery across all of Main Street.
Now the AFL-CIO, thank goodness, is calling for a new round of mass actions against austerity and in defense of the tattered safety net. Add to that the October2011.org project, where the peace and justice movement is planning to camp out in downtown DC's Freedom Plaza until all the troops are brought home from the wars.
It's a perfect storm shaping up. Any police outrage could set off a chain reaction.
We have a few decent politicians facing up to the problem, like the 80 votes of the Congressional Progressive Caucus behind the People's Budget. But our top political class has declared their efforts 'off the table,' too.
In brief, they're telling us our views don't count and we have nowhere to go.
That's what the bigwigs in London thought, too. Now they're all in a tizzy about riots and violence. In contrast, in one NBC report, a young man in Tottenham was asked if rioting really achieved anything:
"Yes," said the young man. "You wouldn't be talking to me now if we didn't riot, would you? Two months ago we marched to Scotland Yard, more than 2,000 of us, all blacks, and it was peaceful and calm and you know what? Not a word in the press. Last night a bit of rioting and looting and look around you."
Street heat is best when the target is narrowed, and you keep the moral high ground. That way you can draw even more millions into relatively peaceful assembly with powerful and lasting implications. But when long-ignored social dynamite explodes, things don't always work out that way, with the niceties of a tea party, no pun intended. The 'Shock Doctrine' is a two-way street, and once it erupts, more than you might think will know which side of the barricades to gather on.
