It IS as obvious as that but many are reminding us about race issues, unequal representation, slavery, etc. trying to turn a class war into a race war. Or into anything but what it actually is. It's a sign of the times that I needn't even mention the reasonable course of thought here that will enable us to cut through the bull shit. Follow the money. Who are these people and what is their agenda? Who prefers a race war to a class war and why? It's the people who seemingly will do ANYthing to stop the other 99.9% of the world from taking action to amend the social inequalities and the ever-increasing gap between the haves and the have-nots both in the U.S. and worldwide that has created the majority of the world's problems. In a nutshell, it's the haves. A friend wrote on Facebook recently, and I am paraphrasing, “The oligarchs did look out upon the plains of Ferguson and, lo, they did behold that it was good.”
Just after Michael Brown was shot and demonstrations started two things happened: Looting and an increase in police, military and weaponry presence. Though the looters may not have been consciously making a social statement, it was significant. When a white guy shoots a black guy if it had been perceived as a hate crime or a race issue, the obvious reaction would have been to kill a white guy. Now it could be said, maybe accurately, that the looters were looking for ANY opportunity to upgrade their living room electronics but that takes nothing away from the point. It could also be said that the police in Ferguson were looking for ANY opportunity to upgrade their weaponry and their presence in the community, and THAT takes nothing away from the point either.
Many look at Ferguson and see something different than I do. All I see is what Walt Whitman called people being demented with the mania of owning things. Is it demented, maniacal to kill or die to “protect” the things we perceive to belong to us? I say emphatically YES! Yet it's almost a knee-jerk reaction, isn't it? How has it come to this? This is what gives rise to the compulsion in Uncle Walt and myself to just get away from the lunatics who call themselves “normal human beings” and live with the animals. But Whitman was no dummy. He knew that even doing that would require some precaution. “Falling asleep on the gathered leaves with my dog and gun by my side.” Ahhhhhhh...
But rather than escapism, what other alternative is there? There's just no possible way to change our human nature is there? Again, give your head a shake. It's the work of capitalist socialization that makes us think there is any creature in existence that would consider greed on the scale exhibited by humanity natural or normal. It's not normal. Well, how can I say that. If it's not normal then surely there must be people on the earth living in a state of relative equality. Where are they? What jungle tribe or igloo dwellers actually live in a sharing society? Please! That doesn't exist, does it?
Actually while the greedy, or as we euphemistically call them, “developed” countries have been busy bottlenecking their assets to smaller and smaller groups at the top, there HAVE existed several countries that were quite happy, well-educated, healthy and wealthy while maintaining systems of relative social equality. In countries like Canada or the U.S. we just don't learn much about them in our schools or on our media because it could be considered detrimental to the social fabric of our nations.
“And,” says the corporate spin-doctor, “I suppose you are going to say they have no violence and that there is NO chance of anything like Ferguson happening in those countries.” Well, no and yes. In fact I'll attempt to show you.
In 2013 there was a similar situation in Stockholm, Sweden known as the Stockholm Riots. The riots were not caused by any single incident, but rioters were expressing their general discontent with unemployment levels, standards of education and the police force, drawing parallels with the 2011 England riots. A local political group, Megafonen, had proclaimed at the start of the riots that their cause was a police shooting of a knife-armed 69-year-old man in Husby a few days earlier. A psychologist asked about the riots named Sarnecki dismissed this idea, saying that it was at most an excuse. Psychologist Arnulf Kolstad argues that the riots are an understandable and necessary reaction to marginalization.
And what about those England riots? Same situation there. Sparked by the killing by police of Mark Duggan, a black man. Disadvantaged areas, social inequality, again many write off the ensuing rioting and looting as inevitable behaviour that just needed an excuse to be carried out. There are lots of examples worldwide of similar things happening that have not lead to race riots or further violence, rather to a general admission of inequalities that need rectification.
Recently in Iceland had an incident in which a cop shot and killed a citizen. The first since its independence in 1944. They don't need any rioting or looting, nor do they need to bolster their police presence. Why? Just check out the state of education, social programs, average income, health care and social welfare in Nordic countries. That might be your explanation. Now see where they rank on any list of happy countries around the world.
Check out Australia or New Zealand, countries that have followed the Nordic model for more than just prostitution. People are just too happy to kill each other.
It's my, (and Russel Brand's), guess that more rioting will ensue in the States until things are put right. But it will not be easy to convince the hoarding 0.1% to pry themselves away from their extra trillions. If a person has a house packed to the rafters with, I don't know, Styrofoam burger boxes or bottle caps and can't bring him/herself to part with a single one of them, it's understood to be a serious mental dysfunction. You don't need all those bottle caps and burger boxes you've just developed a dementia that somehow makes you believe you do. Demented and maniacal behaviour. How are the super rich different?
It's going to take some of their extra money therapeutically donated to help equalize the people of America. I have no love for those rich scumbags, and although I just said that they are mentally disturbed, I have a really hard time showing compassion to them because they are much like people who commit crimes while drunk. I believe they were in a state of mind that contributed to their crime, but nobody forced them to drink either. Nobody forced the ultra rich to keep hoarding more and more money far past the point of gross excessiveness. And if somewhere along the line they lost all touch with values and the social responsibilities of wealth, well boo hoo. Stop your whinging and donate a billion to the poor and maybe then I will see you making an effort to help yourself.
But in actuality is any significant portion of the ultra rich in America truly so demented. I think a lot of them become rich through security companies, alarm systems, offshore hiding places for money, military equipment, for profit prisons, weapon manufacturing, weapon black marketing, the list could go on and on. These are all industries that will dramatically nosedive in the remarkably crime free environment that inevitably comes with equality. I think you have to look pretty hard to find a person worse than one who looks at cops beating people, race riots, looting, over-incarceration, general chaos and sees dollar signs. Maybe those who look at unstable governments, war, religious conflict, rapes, beheadings, suicide bombings, and see profit. Yes, they are worse and you don't really have to look all that hard to find them. But I would suggest they are part of the same hypocrisy, just on national and global scales respectively. The U. S. of A. needs to reign these buggers in, not treat them like the heroes of their economy. It will be an awfully difficult thing for them to do.
Forget all the ice bucket challenges that we see all over the media these days, I hereby nominate America to take the Ice LAND challenge and try to implement some social programs, funded by the astronomically rich of course, that will bring the rich closer to earth and raise the poor out of the muck. Bernie Sanders recently mentioned a couple things that I like to refer to as Bern burns on America.
“What kind of nation are we when we give tax breaks to millionaires but we can’t take care of the elderly and the children?” Sen. Bernie Sanders asked on Monday. He was reacting to a new report that more than 18 percent of Americans last year struggled to afford food. Republicans in Congress, meanwhile, are calling for deeper and deeper cuts in food stamps, a program that provides help mostly to children and seniors. We are living in “a very ugly moment,” the senator told the Rev. Al Sharpton.
But, as they say, the opposite of progress is congress. THEY are the representatives of the massively rich and it will take some doing to take down the intricate political machine that has created the situation as it is. But, against my nature, I think a guy like Bernie Sanders could help! I hope to see him as the next president of the U.S. I think events like Ferguson, if portrayed in the media as what they actually are, can bring about social change. I suppose we'll see what happens.
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