For what it's worth

There's something happening here
What it is ain't exactly clear
There's a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware
I think it's time we stop, children, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
There's battle lines being drawn
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong
Young people speaking their minds
Getting so much resistance from behind
I think it's time we stop, hey, what's that sound
Everybody look what's going down
What a field-day for the heat
A thousand people in the street
Singing songs and carrying signs
Mostly say, hooray for our side

Buffalo Springfield - For What It's Worth




There's a lot in the news these days about the Occupy Wall Street and its clones around the country and the world. Overlooking the fact that these protests are happening only in the so-called "free world" and not in oppressive nations, the phenomenon is not all that unusual in history. I read a comment in the NY Times just the other day that recognized this. Here's what was written:

"The decline and fall of the Western World has happened multiple times in history. We see ages of prosperity and awesome growth with advanced civilization descend into eras of impoverishment, ignorance and dark ages. Those that have begin to try to protect their enclaves of affluence trying to isolate themselves from the increasing misery and impoverishment, trying to save themselves as the rest of the world descends into dark ages. Then the enclaves shrink because there is too little ability to find ways to replace the attrition of the wealth that had accumulated during the previous times of prosperity. "

It's not a bad analysis. Sometimes, when confined to a single nation, these result in the overthrow of the existing authority. This is what happened here in the U.S. (then the American colonies of Great Britain) but it is also what happened in Russia in 1917 and in China before and after WWII and Cuba in 1959. It's happened over and over throughout the world, most of the time resulting in a worse system replacing a bad system. The "haves" become the "have nots" and the oppression continues. The only change is in who is oppressed.

How will this incarnation turn out? I have no idea, I am no seer. But the forces of change are once again challenging the forces of status quo and the outcome will undoubtedly not please everyone. I suspect that there will not be a great change in the U.S., we tend to play at being revolutionaries but rarely gather enough followers to actually accomplish major change. The closest we came was the period leading to the Civil War and I do not see any issues which remotely approach slavery in importance.

Still, I see a period of upheaval that will last as long as the unemployment rate stays above, say, 6%. So hunker down, we have a ways to go.