The Chris Moeller Archives

Understanding the concept of "nothing to lose"

UK Prime Minister David Cameron has the solution for rioting and looting: more head busting. In Great Britain, where the locals have still not grasped the proper use of a baseball bat, the street riots have moved into their fifth day as the country's Conservative leader attempts to explain why property destruction should be the exclusive domain of privileged preps.

One can argue the purpose and effectiveness of this civil disorder, but it's unarguably political in nature. To say otherwise is to deny the rage and desolation felt by individuals of the world's growing underclass. The riots were touched off by the shooting death of a civilian by a law officer charged with maintaining peace-- this was an inherently political action. These neighborhoods of English cities, pockets of injustice, racial tension, and high unemployment, and popular destinations for refugees fleeing developing-world homelands scorched by corruption, violence, and Western armies, are going to be highly-susceptible to physical clashes between their residents and the assigned, uniformed, and armed guardians of middle- and upper-class wealth. The results of the riots will be destruction, death, and sadness, but one can't help but shake his or her head at the sight and sound of the elites of their country and ours imperiously admonishing the rioters for "destroying their own neighborhoods." This is people with futures scolding the behavior of people without.

How will American politicians respond when our corrupt and unfair social and economic systems ultimately lead to large-scale violence? The United States, as much as any wealthy nation on Earth, ignores the plight of its underclass and instructs its poor to blame themselves for the necessities they don't possess. We're forced to return again to the words of warning from John Kennedy: "Those that would make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable."

posted by CM @ 12:59 PM