"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable."--John F. Kennedy
This is a theme that we have seen throughout history- with the French Revolution, Tiananmen Square in China, and of course the United States was born from an arguably violent revolution.
Simply put, the Egyptians are protesting because they are tired of being poor and they are tired of someone else making bad decisions for them. This certainly isn’t something new or surprising, yet leaders of nations continue to oppress their own people into the point of revolution. The people revolt, a new regime takes control and then the new regime starts to oppress, then the people revolt and so on and so on….
Is this pattern actually breakable? Well, of course it is, the United States did it, in theory anyway. And now, the US can feel superior and righteous while shaking their finger at a leader, Mubarak, for allowing so many of his country’s citizens to work for substandard wages and go to bed hungry. The United States can chastise the Egyptian regime for not allowing citizens to take an active role in the decisions made by the government. The United States can criticize them for not allowing for a fluid economy where someone born into poverty can aspire to one day make millions.
Or can they? While circumstances in the United States are seemingly as far from Egypt as the miles between them, it might just be worth examining just HOW different we really are.
According to an article at TruthOut’s Web site,, “…nearly half of all Egyptians live below the poverty level.” In the United States, that amount is 14.3%, but coupled with an unemployment that has teetered around 9% for month after month after month, are these numbers as comforting as they seem? Come on! The only reason the percentage of people on unemployment doesn’t go higher, is because that’s the percentage of Americans RECEIVING unemployment benefits, not the ones who have exhausted those benefits while searching for a job that hasn’t gone to another country. Try and find any figures on that amount? And how close THEY are to not having money for groceries or heat or housing?
Update 2.04.2011- Huffington Post just published a great article documenting the almost 5 million Americans who are so far out of the work force that they are no longer counted as "unemployed." According to the HuffPost calculations, even only acknowledging HALF of the jobless that have simply given up, a 10.7% "lost jobless" plus the current official unemployment rate of 9.4%, we are looking at a whopping 20.1% (or one fifth of the working aged population in the United States.) Check out the full details at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/04/missing-workers-44-millio_n_818314.html?fbwall.
And what is the easiest way to ensure that United States citizens never get the idea to rise up and demand a change? Divide and conquer. Make sure that the citizens are blaming the illegal immigrants instead of the companies that sent the jobs overseas. Make sure that citizens are more concerned about the infighting occurring between the Democrats and the Republicans and the Tea Partiers than about the issues affecting them. Make everyone worry about the world ending mass animal casualties. And if all else fails, take some time, on the taxpayer’s dime, to read the Constitution of the United States.
Well, either that, or maybe just fix the problems and get back to a society that actually is for the people.
This is a theme that we have seen throughout history- with the French Revolution, Tiananmen Square in China, and of course the United States was born from an arguably violent revolution.
Simply put, the Egyptians are protesting because they are tired of being poor and they are tired of someone else making bad decisions for them. This certainly isn’t something new or surprising, yet leaders of nations continue to oppress their own people into the point of revolution. The people revolt, a new regime takes control and then the new regime starts to oppress, then the people revolt and so on and so on….
Is this pattern actually breakable? Well, of course it is, the United States did it, in theory anyway. And now, the US can feel superior and righteous while shaking their finger at a leader, Mubarak, for allowing so many of his country’s citizens to work for substandard wages and go to bed hungry. The United States can chastise the Egyptian regime for not allowing citizens to take an active role in the decisions made by the government. The United States can criticize them for not allowing for a fluid economy where someone born into poverty can aspire to one day make millions.
Or can they? While circumstances in the United States are seemingly as far from Egypt as the miles between them, it might just be worth examining just HOW different we really are.
According to an article at TruthOut’s Web site,, “…nearly half of all Egyptians live below the poverty level.” In the United States, that amount is 14.3%, but coupled with an unemployment that has teetered around 9% for month after month after month, are these numbers as comforting as they seem? Come on! The only reason the percentage of people on unemployment doesn’t go higher, is because that’s the percentage of Americans RECEIVING unemployment benefits, not the ones who have exhausted those benefits while searching for a job that hasn’t gone to another country. Try and find any figures on that amount? And how close THEY are to not having money for groceries or heat or housing?
Update 2.04.2011- Huffington Post just published a great article documenting the almost 5 million Americans who are so far out of the work force that they are no longer counted as "unemployed." According to the HuffPost calculations, even only acknowledging HALF of the jobless that have simply given up, a 10.7% "lost jobless" plus the current official unemployment rate of 9.4%, we are looking at a whopping 20.1% (or one fifth of the working aged population in the United States.) Check out the full details at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/04/missing-workers-44-millio_n_818314.html?fbwall.
And what is the easiest way to ensure that United States citizens never get the idea to rise up and demand a change? Divide and conquer. Make sure that the citizens are blaming the illegal immigrants instead of the companies that sent the jobs overseas. Make sure that citizens are more concerned about the infighting occurring between the Democrats and the Republicans and the Tea Partiers than about the issues affecting them. Make everyone worry about the world ending mass animal casualties. And if all else fails, take some time, on the taxpayer’s dime, to read the Constitution of the United States.
Well, either that, or maybe just fix the problems and get back to a society that actually is for the people.
No comments:
Post a Comment