There were riots in Greece last week just four years after Athens hosted the Olympics (and several months after the media started to ask was it worth it? The proximate cause? An incident of police brutality after clashes between police and protesters left one 15-year old teenager dead.
But of course the roots go much deeper.
I asked yesterday for readers to connect the dots for me.
Today I do the connecting.
Bringing together youths in their early twenties struggling to survive amid mass youth unemployment and schoolchildren swotting for highly competitive university exams that may not ultimately help them in a treacherous jobs market, the events of the past week could be called the first credit-crunch riots. There have been smaller-scale sympathy attacks from Moscow to Copenhagen, and economists say countries with similarly high youth unemployment problems such as Spain and Italy should prepare for unrest.
“I’ve seen the future and it will be.”
For an interesting meta-analysis, check out Buster, bout to be added to the RSS feed.
That's why I invoked Grimms…., children have minimal value in those “fairy” tales – think of Hansel and Gretel where they're banished to die for eating too much and are then preyed upon by the ritual cannibal in the cookies and candy house.
The Freeway movies I linked to are Red Riding Hood and Hansel and Gretel updates – both phenomenally entertaining and frankly slightly shocking retellings of the Grimms. What all the stories you linked yesterday had in common to me was the utter devaluation of children and the young, and, the abandonment and devaluation of institutional norms (schools) which allegedly exist to shelter and cultivate children and the young.
Oh, and lest you get hopeful about the organizing potential of the enabling technology in the hands of the young, bear in mind the extent to which its use has been studied VERY carefully for some years now, and, the way in which the parameters of what authority is empowered to do with and to the backend of the technology has progressed very rapidly under Bush/Blair and the total information awareness regime.
I think I have more faith in the resiliency of the US government with respect to managing dissent. Jails may swell. Profs and intellectuals will quietly moderate their views to get on. The underground economy will keep people moving in the shadows, eeking out lives of manageable degradation. I think Obama will even use hope as a way of calling dissent pessimistic.
But no, I don't think that there will be riots.
Global systemic crisis – New tipping-point in March 2009
LEAP/E2020 anticipates than the unfolding global systemic crisis will experience in March 2009 a new tipping point of similar magnitude to the September 2008 one. According to our team, at that period of the year, the general public will become aware of three major destabilizing processes at work in the global economy, i.e.:
• the length of the crisis
• the explosion of unemployment worldwide
• the risk of sudden collapse of all capital-based pension systems
A whole range of psychological factors will contribute to this tipping point: general awareness in Europe, America and Asia that the crisis has escaped from the control of every public authority, whether national or international; that it is severely affecting all regions of the world, even if some are more affected than others (see GEAB N°28); that it is directly hitting hundreds of millions of people in the “developed” world; and that it is only worsening as its consequences reveal throughout the real economy. National governments and international institutions only have three months left to prepare themselves to the next blow, one that could go along severe risks of social chaos. The countries which are not properly equipped to cope with a surge in unemployment and major risks on pensions will be seriously destabilized by this new public awareness.
Speaking of Credit Crunch Riots, a few more dots to connect.
Laid off workers occupy Chicago Factoyr, demand severance
<quote>About 250 union workers occupied the Republic Windows and Doors plant in shifts Saturday while union leaders outside criticized a Wall Street bailout they say is leaving laborers behind.
Leah Fried, an organizer with the United Electrical Workers, said the Chicago-based vinyl window manufacturer failed to give 60 days' notice required by law before shutting down.
During the two-day peaceful takeover, workers have been shoveling snow and cleaning the building, Fried said.
</quote>
Bosch employees express anger over severance packages
<quote>Bosch employees and local business owners are reacting to the corporation’s offer of voluntary severance packages for all 1,380 employees with a mixture of fear and anger.
One, a 49 year-old male with two children who asked that his name not be printed, expressed frustration over the amount provided by the severance package, as well as it’s timing.
“One week per year is an insult,” he said in reference to the stipulation that employees would be given one week’s pay for each year of service. “That’s not a golden parachute, that’s a lead parachute.”</quote>
<a href=”http://www.2news.tv/news/business/35970434.html
<quote>In a move that could make it easier to negotiate a sale, Yahoo Inc. has overhauled a severance program that could have saddled potential buyers with a huge bill after a takeover…
Yahoo is laying off 1,500 employees, or about 10 percent of its work force, as part of a cost-cutting plan, but those firings weren't covered by the severance plan created for takeovers.
</quote>
Youth may riot in Europe, in the US, it'll be grown folk with grown folk problems who riot.
Man, I blew that post. Trying again…
Speaking of Credit Crunch Riots, a few more dots to connect.
Laid off workers occupy Chicago Factoyr, demand severance
About 250 union workers occupied the Republic Windows and Doors plant in shifts Saturday while union leaders outside criticized a Wall Street bailout they say is leaving laborers behind.
Leah Fried, an organizer with the United Electrical Workers, said the Chicago-based vinyl window manufacturer failed to give 60 days' notice required by law before shutting down.
During the two-day peaceful takeover, workers have been shoveling snow and cleaning the building, Fried said.
Bosch employees express anger over severance packages
Bosch employees and local business owners are reacting to the corporation’s offer of voluntary severance packages for all 1,380 employees with a mixture of fear and anger.
One, a 49 year-old male with two children who asked that his name not be printed, expressed frustration over the amount provided by the severance package, as well as it’s timing.
“One week per year is an insult,” he said in reference to the stipulation that employees would be given one week’s pay for each year of service. “That’s not a golden parachute, that’s a lead parachute.”
Yahoo curbs severance in event of takeover
In a move that could make it easier to negotiate a sale, Yahoo Inc. has overhauled a severance program that could have saddled potential buyers with a huge bill after a takeover…
Yahoo is laying off 1,500 employees, or about 10 percent of its work force, as part of a cost-cutting plan, but those firings weren't covered by the severance plan created for takeovers.
Youth may riot in Europe, in the US, it'll be grown folk with grown folk problems who riot.
From the Archives: Rise of the Credit Crunch Riots http://t.co/iCCWpQ7v