[内容简介] 本文大卫•德格瑞是美国著名的社会活动家，他较早提出了美国0.1%超级富豪与99.9%民众对立的观点，得到了美国占领华尔街运动的抗议民众的广泛响应。本文摘自他的重要著作《2012年的道路抉择：大变革或第三次世界大战》。全文2011年2月发表于美国一家重要进步网站(Ampedstatus.org)，共分为三个部分，此处为其中第一部分“新自由主义的经济统治”的译文，有少量删节。文中深入分析了新自由主义在全球范围造成的社会恶果，正在从中东、西欧到北美地区激起广泛的民众反抗运动，特别是列举了大量反映美国社会经济和政治现实的事实、数据，揭露了美国爆发危机以来社会矛盾日趋尖锐的现状——广大民众正面临失去住房、工作、财产和福利保障的威胁，日趋扩大的贫富差距正加剧社会不满和反抗情绪，随时都可能激发类似中东、欧洲国家的社会剧烈动荡。原文发表之时“占领华尔街”运动尚未发生，但以其精到有力的分析充分预见到，美国民众必将在不久的将来走上街头、发出自己的声音。该文对人们今天回过头来考察美国“占领华尔街”运动的兴起，分析这一运动同中东、西欧国家此起彼伏的民众抗议浪潮的联系，理解当前世界格局正在发生的大变革，都具有重要的参考价值。
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横扫欧洲的各国抗议活动一波未平，2011年以来北非和中东一些国家风云又起。这最新一轮反抗行动和之前遍布欧洲的抗议活动之间存在着联系，而主流媒体对此避而不谈。我们正在见证着一场不断扩散的反抗新自由主义经济霸权的国际浪潮。尽管每个国家的动荡都有其内在的特征，但各国的核心问题都与生活成本上升、就业机会不足和社会保障缺失有关。全世界的形势都是一样的：随着食品和生活必需品的价格飞涨，失业和贫困程度不断加剧。
无论各国民众认识到与否，这些抗议活动实际上都是要反对一整套经过精心设计的用来压榨劳工阶级、降低人民生活水平、增加个人债务、激化财富分配不平等的全球经济政策。现有的抗议活动只不过刚开了个头。
以国际货币基金组织、世界银行和美联储为中心的国际金融垄断集团，在全世界到处贿赂、收买各地的政客和独裁者们，从华盛顿、希腊到埃及，在一个又一个国家，它们不惜以当地人民福祉为代价掠夺各国财富，令极少数超级富豪的财富积累达到登峰造极的地步，位居财富排行前千分之一的最富有的超级富豪们，仅是所拥有的可投资性财产就超过40万亿美元，这还没有把藏匿于离岸账户中的同样数目惊人的财富计算在内。
国际货币基金组织谋划的攫取财富、压迫人民的经济帝国主义政策已经实施了几十年。凡是对经济帝国主义做过些研究的人都会知道，世界经济是被一个高度集权的有计划、有预谋实行新自由主义统治的寡头集团所掌控。
1.高度集权的有计划、有预谋的经济压迫
国际货币基金组织有一套屡试不爽的征服各国经济的策略。四个月前我曾警告过，国际货币基金组织政策诱发的全球性骚乱已开始出现。更早一些时候，2010年10月，在同迈克斯·凯泽一起进行的电视访谈节目中，我们曾经讨论过，泄露出来的世界银行档案中揭秘了国际货币基金组织的策略。我当时曾指出：“他们制定了一个四步骤策略以摧毁一国国民经济……我们即将进入所谓的第三步，在这一阶段，该国经济遭到了掠夺，食品和基本生活必需品一夜之间更加昂贵、更难获得，然后，第3.5步，就是该国将发生骚乱。我们正在急速地滑向这一阶段……正如国际货币基金组织所说和所计划的那样，我们正在向第3.5步迈进：国际货币基金型骚乱。这种情况就要来临 ……”。
根据世界银行新发布的数据，到2010年6月为止，“食品价格的上涨已经把发展中国家大约4400万人口推入到贫困之中。“
就当美联储主席伯南克宣布实行第二轮量化宽松政策之时，一直关注着此事的我们知道，扳机已经扣动，第三步策略已经在实施当中。那就相当于一场经济战争的宣言书，对数以千万计的人们宣判了经济意义上的死刑——故意地让美元贬值，推动商品和生活必需品的价格飞涨。诚然，还有若干导致食品价格上涨的重要诱因，例如极端的天气条件，生物燃料的生产，华尔街的投机，等等;但是，美联储的政策无疑是在故意火上浇油。
从中东到北非，处于新自由主义经济帝国体系的边缘，而且最容易受到美联储通胀性政策伤害的这些国家，首先奋起反抗了。在分析美国的形势之前，我们先近距离地考察一下引发了埃及、突尼斯等地骚乱的新自由主义经济政策。
2.经济帝国主义：国际货币基金组织对埃及等国的掠夺
中东和北非的民众正在起来反抗当局独裁者。然而，这些“独裁者”正是听命于国际货币基金组织的。一份来自全球化问题研究中心的报告披露了一些背景和史实：“全球扩张性资本主义与阿拉伯国家独裁者之间存在同盟关系，阿拉伯独裁者和暴君服务于有组织的国际资本之利益，理解这一点至关重要。这是他们的首要职能。他们是这个由有组织的国际资本所形成的全球体系的构成要素之一。1977年埃及曾爆发了反对穆罕默德·安瓦尔·埃尔·萨达特(穆巴拉克的前任)政权的抗议和骚乱。引发抗议的源头就是国际货币基金组织传授给萨达特的新自由主义政策。国际货币基金组织的政策取消了政府对基本日常生活商品的补贴，食物价格涨幅惊人，埃及人民深受其害。阿拉伯人民认识到这样一个事实：统治他们的阶级及政府不仅腐败横行，而且是买办精英，是国外利益集团、政府和利益在国内的代言人。在埃及，加麦尔·穆巴拉克(当时正被其父作为总统接班人培养)任职于美洲银行。在突尼斯，本·阿里是一名受训于法国和美国军事学校的军官，曾在职为两国的经济利益服务。在黎巴嫩，西尼奥拉在成为总理之前曾是花旗银行一名官员……在腐化的巴勒斯坦当局中，萨拉姆·法耶兹曾效力于组成了美联储和世界银行的成员银行之一。更有甚者，几乎所有的阿拉伯国家财政长官都服从于主要的全球银行机构，他们中的任何一个都严格地遵守着国际货币基金组织和世界银行推行的华盛顿共识。”
埃及的动荡，是对无情掠夺的全球资本主义的直接反弹，对此高盛公司前员工普林斯披露了更多细节：“埃及所发生的革命既是对当权者的反抗，也是对经济环境极度恶化的抗议。国内腐败丛生，当局实行的政策用美国中央情报局的术语是叫作‘大力实行经济改革以吸引外国投资’(换言之，就是进行私有化，把国家金融体系售与国际金融大鳄)，使得经济稳定的基础遭到侵蚀。埃及对外资采取了一种类似来者不拒的政策，但是，那些外国投机操作并未减少贫困，也没有带来更多的工作机会。实际上，无论是银行、对冲基金还是私人股权基金，都必然是贪得无厌地寻求获利机会，这只会带来与引资初衷相反的效果。当人们面对着这样一幅惨淡的前景时，不愿再坐以待毙。具有讽刺意味的是，埃及投资部的宣传资料将大量大学毕业生招揽进入劳动力市场，每年达32.5万人。正是这些毕业生，成为近来革命运动的核心力量。他们没有充足的工作机会，不得不面临着一个接近于10%的官方失业率(与美国情况相似，这个数字并没有把就业不足、工作环境恶劣或缺乏上升空间等情况计算在内)。值得注意的是，有20%的埃及人民生活于贫困之中。至于美国，经济统计数据也不乐观。在某些指标的衡量下，例如收入不平等方面，美国比埃及的情况还要差。”
3.美埃两国经济比照：不平等及贫困问题
美国的经济统计数据与埃及不相上下，而对这些实际情况，美国主流媒体的宣传家们并没有进行报道。
在埃及国内，收入不平等的程度已经达到创纪录的水平。“他们都是不满于日益加剧的不平等……金字塔的顶层正变得越来越富”，中东战略研究院国际问题研究所的埃米勒这样说道。美国主流媒体对埃及“压迫性”和“腐败性”的财富不平等大加评论;然而，近年来美国财富分布的不平等也达到了前所未有的严重程度，基尼系数达到了0.45,相比较埃及的0.344、也门的0.37、突尼斯的0.40，在这四个国家中，美国才是最不平等、“压迫性”和“腐败性”最强的国家。
食品价格的飞涨，使得食品支出在人们的总收入中占了更大的比例，这对埃及和突尼斯这样的国家影响很大，因此在激起抗议活动方面起了关键作用。然而在美国，整体生活成本也显著地升高了。这些成本包括医疗支出、居住费用、交通和教育支出等，按家庭(四口之家)年均收入2.2万美元这一贫困水平计算的美国贫困率，与埃及的贫困率相当。根据美国中央情报局发布的数据，埃及的贫困率是20%。埃及有8300万人口，20%就意味着有1660万埃及人处于贫困之中。美国的人口是3.09亿，当前的贫困率是16.8%，也就是说，有5200万人口生活在贫困线以下。可见，美国的贫困人口规模是远远高于中东和欧洲的。当然总的来说，与埃及相比，美国的人口在地理分布上更加分散;但是，如果分解一下人口分布特征就会发现，美国许多大都市的贫困率要高于埃及现在的20%那个水平。考虑到这一点，加上政府的统计数据又存在着低估，美国九大主要城市的贫困率都已超过了25%。
4.债务奴役：失业者、就业不足者、报酬过低者、身陷债务者
美国的官方失业率与埃及的官方失业率几乎相同，都在9%到10%之间徘徊。就业市场的疲弱不振，工资的下降，福利的减少，教育成本的上扬，这一切已经使得年轻的大学毕业生们几乎别无选择，不得不大量负债。当初，几百万美国学生各借用了几万美元的助学贷款以支付教育费用，他们原本以为通过受教育能够获得找个好工作所需的技能。他们那时从未想过，自己将来会有可能失业，找不到全职工作，或是收入比起当时的那些从业者要少得多。大部分年轻的工人，在他们二十多岁或是刚过而立之年时，所负担的债务之巨就足以用他们大半辈子来偿还。他们这一生注定要为债务而打工了。
最近，迈克·惠特尼采访了艾伦·纳塞尔，专访题目叫“助学贷款陷阱”。以下为对话摘录：
“迈克：借款者有没有可能通过宣布破产来摆脱助学贷款的偿还义务?
艾伦：这是不可能的，贷款的学生无法通过宣布破产来摆脱这一财务负担。这类最基本的保护性条款本来也许能适用于负债的学生，只可惜在契约设计上已经明确地剥夺了学生借款人的一整套基础保护条款。我所说的可不止是破产这一条，而且涉及到借款资质的限制、再融资的权利。国会已经提出，所有这些保护性条款都不能适用于联邦核准的助学贷款。同一法规还赋予了贷款回收机构一些难以想像的权力，例如扣留工资和社会补贴甚至是致残后的赔偿款。司法部门采取延期发放国家认证的职业证照、中止公共事业部门雇用等各种措施，以确保回收贷款的公司能够从破产了的助学贷款使用者那里抽取资金血液。在所有类型的债务中，助学贷款是最具有惩罚性质的——这其中大多数苛刻的措施，信用卡公司根本不可能获准使用。
迈克：那是不是可以这样理解——助学贷款产业就是一个陷阱，瞄准了那些永远还不清债务的借款人?这些学生是不是类似于那些被诱使支取次级贷款的人?现在这笔钱的规模有多大，其中又有多少是已经无法偿还或即将无法偿还的?
艾伦：这样理解未尝不可。首先，助学贷款的资金盘子很大，各类学校中的大部分学生都有债务在身。公立的学院和大学中，在册62%的学生是负有债务的;身负债务的在校生的比例，在非盈利性私立学校和盈利性私立学校当中，更分别高达72%和96%。到2010年夏天为止，助学贷款的债务总额据称已达8300亿美元，超过了美国信用卡债务总额的8270亿美元，已膨胀到存在大量泡沫的程度。况且，助学贷款的债务规模还在以每年900亿美元的速度继续增长。”
这些学生根本不会预见到一场经济危机就要发生，况且他们也不可能像借给他们钱的那些银行一样得到救助。毕业生们急需工作，但是在新增的有限的岗位中，要么不是全日制的临时性的工作，要么是缺乏医疗和养老福利的低收入领域。综合以上状况来看，这就是一个将带来灾难性后果的恶性循环。考虑到这个群体的人口规模，扛着这么多债务，在这么血气方刚的年龄段上，前途障碍重重，选择少得可怜，所以你就不难感受到“山雨欲来风满楼”的革命气息了。
真实情况与主流媒体和政客们鼓吹的说辞截然不同，在经济运行中工作岗位仍然以令人震惊的速度不断流失。零点基金近来发布了一份由经济学家大卫·罗森伯格撰写的报告，名为《美国失业状况惨不忍睹》，其中提到：“真可笑，每个人都以为美国的就业市场正在向好……来自家庭部门调查的数据简直是荒唐。在过去的两个月里，劳动力人口骤降了76.4万人，失业人数减少了120万，这是前所未有的。这两个月，未被计入劳动力人口的人数猛增了75.3万。所公布的一些数字只是简单地从表格里面摘出来，也许正反映出失业群体开始失去他们的后续性福利，并且不再继续搜寻工作(他们中2/3的人并没能够找到一份新工作)。这些人只好去寻求救济，或者是依靠配偶、家人、朋友来养活。”
鲍勃·赫伯特的评论是：“政策制定者不告诉我们，新创造出来的寥寥无几的工作岗位实际上都不怎么样，薪水低，福利很少甚至没有。我们所听到的数据是一星期好过一星期，实情又如何呢?2010年，城市人口增加了187.2万。与此同时，劳动大军减少了16.7万。不在就业岗位的人口飙升了209.4万。仅在1月份，我们就看到有31.9万人被辞退。这些数字是令人难以置信的。这是一个高度紊乱的就业市场。”
在美国，有超过600万人已经失业超过半年，这是历史最高水平。如果将长期失业者、正在寻找全日制工作的打零工者计入总的失业状况，那么就有超过3000万美国人正在等待就业。
5.美国梦的终结
美国爆发的房贷违约危机，自发生以来已经牵涉到了700万人，但危机并没有偃旗息鼓，而是愈演愈烈。大卫·威尔士在总结这场进一步发酵中的危机时说，美国房屋拥有者中近30%正处于雷区当中。他说：“全国房价已经比去年同期跌了5.9%，与2006年6月的峰值相比，已经缩水了27%。2010年第四季度，美国家庭住宅的总市值下降了7980亿美元，而2010年全年，缩水超过了2万亿美元。美国资不抵债(所贷的房款比其房屋市价还多)的房屋所有者的数量，到2010年底已大幅上升到总人数的27%，而在2010年第三季度时还处于23.2%的水平。在2011年2月9日毛里求斯举行的一次会议上，经济学家约瑟夫·斯蒂格利茨作出预测，在700万件违约纪录的基础上，2011年还将增加200万件违约。2010年，银行已收回了100万套住房，而2011年的情况会更糟。大约有500万贷款者已经拖欠还款达两个月以上。”
6.引发革命的举动：减少对富人的税负，降低给穷人的救济
值得关注的是，如今当局抛出的所有新政策和新提案，无论在州一级还是在联邦一级，都是要削减社会公共服务。奥巴马首次公布的削减开支方案就瞄准了低收入者。
如同萨隆所报道的那样，奥巴马的新策略就是打击穷人，“为了证明财政赤字是十分‘严肃的’，白宫提出要削减一项补贴家庭取暖费的项目——低收入家庭能源援助项目。2009年该项支出为51亿美元，将来要减少到25亿美元左右。”消息传出后，激发了广泛的愤慨。尤其是有一段话表明了白宫意欲通过对最无依无靠的、在寒冷冬季里付不起取暖费的美国人民显示出强硬态度，来换取政治上的优势。如果白宫真的想让美国人相信财政预算纪律是很严肃的，就应该把精力加倍地放在削减给石油公司的补贴或是取消对富人的减税政策。
就在几千亿美元资金以减税的方式向各类百万富翁、亿万富翁输送之后，社会安全网正在遭遇严厉苛刻的削减。在州一级，一份来自美国预算与政策选择中心的报告透露，“31个州已经公布了2012财年(大多数州的财年是从7月1日算起)的初步预算案，这已经是连续第四年了，各州预算都提出要大幅地砍掉一些教育、医疗和其他重要公共服务的支出。”
在花费数万亿美元救助了一批大银行之后，美联储和政府官员现在已经很明确地宣布，各州不会再享受到相同的待遇。事实上，华尔街拿了纳税人的钱给自己发巨额红利，现在又打算从全国普遍受损失的各州那里捞钱。就像林恩·派拉蒙所描述的那样：说到大发灾难财，食品券生意就像战争生意一样获利丰厚，经济寄生虫们又从中大赚了一笔。“2010年，负责发行食品券借记卡的JP摩根的业务部门，获得了54.7亿美元的纯收入。该部门的负责人克里斯托弗·派顿说，‘就其规模和范围来说，这项业务对于JP摩根而言举足轻重。’据美国证券交易委员会(SEC)保存的该公司最新季报，在其中的‘国债及证券服务’部分中，涉及到该部门的食品券业务，2010年第四季度扩大了2%，并在2010年贡献了54.7亿美元的净收入。”
就在美国排名前千分之一的大富豪们变得比以往更加富有之时，中产阶级正在迅速消失，贫困状况正在恶化。当政界人士忽视了受损的大多数人的需要，只顾迎合凌驾于法律之上的金融寡头，那么骚乱的风起云涌只不过是一个时间的问题罢了。对照已发生抗议活动的国家，来分析美国国内的社会和经济征兆，我们会发现，现在不再是人民“会不会”奋起反抗的问题，而是“什么时候”起来行动的问题。
美国与其他发生骚乱的国家相比，有两点显著的不同：一是美国的媒体宣传系统更加强大、复杂、无所不在，这将使得公众处于受压制当中，感到孤立而无所适从。二是美国通过发放食品券、失业救济金或其他维持基本生存的官方援助形式，使5200万人暂时得到了反贫困计划的庇护。然而这两处差异都只是临时性的，决不会持续下去。社会安全网正被打破，对一些关键性社会服务的削减即将付诸实施，可是需要这些服务的人数反而在以数百万的量级上升。同时，随着食品和油气价格上涨，食品券和其他形式的政府有限救助越来越显得杯水车薪。
医疗费用也在加速攀升。美国的医疗体系已经是世界上费用最高昂的体系;就个人角度看，我的健康医疗保险供应商已经发来通知，说我们家必须再多支付45%的保费才行。我们一家三口要想获得一份基本的健康医疗保险，平均每个月要支付超过1100美元费用。美国还有5900万人根本就没有医疗保险。医疗体系已经成为酝酿着愤怒情绪的孵化器。
把所有这些因素加在一起，你就会得到一个革命的结局。主流媒体炮制的新闻和“现实”电视节目迷幻剂只能暂时把人们蒙在鼓里。当人们吃不起喝不起的时候，宣传系统自然就会垮台。在这场盛事中，美国人也许是迟到者，但一旦某个城市开了头，多米诺骨牌就会接连倒下，一股抗议的浪潮将像海啸一样横扫全国。
唯一的问题只在于：这什么时候会发生?将以什么形式开始?
7.“饥饿的人们不会甘心继续挨饿”
食品价格是一个预示着抗议动向的领先指标。美联储的措施推动食品价格进一步上涨，政府又在大刀阔斧地削减援助计划，因此，那些在每个月的最后一天到沃尔玛商场门口排长队，等待着午夜钟声一过便能用食品券借记卡购买牛奶和面包的人们，似乎将最有可能率先揭竿而起。
我们可以通过分析最新的食品券数据，来看看美国不可避免的革命行动将如何开场。
美国总共有4360万人依靠着领取食品券维持生活。从人数来看，在美国的13个州，这样的老百姓都已分别超过100万人。例如，得克萨斯州392.5万人，占全州总人口的15.6%;加利福尼亚州352.2万人，占全州总人口的9.5%;佛罗里达州299.4万人，占全州总人口的15.9%，等等。
从比例来看，在11个州，依靠领取食品券勉强度日的人口已占该州总人口的18%以上，例如，密西西比州是20.7%，田纳西州是19.9%，俄勒冈州是19.6%，密歇根州和新墨西哥州都达到了19.4%。在首都所在的哥伦比亚特区，这类人有13.16万，占总人口比例高达21.9%。
如前所述，一些城市的贫困化率超过了25%，像底特律 36%,克利夫兰35%, 布法罗 29%,密尔沃基28%, 圣路易斯27%, 迈阿密 27%,孟菲斯26%, 辛辛那提26% ，费城25%，也都是抗议活动的高危易发区。
8.发生在帝国当中的抗议活动
纽约大约有290万人依赖于食品券维持生活，相当于曼哈顿的全部人口。可以想像一下，有300万人如洪流一般涌入曼哈顿的情景。再想像一下，这 300万人决定乘搭15到30分钟的地铁，进入金融区，从华尔街到纽约联储沿途露营，拥挤的人群又挤向JP摩根、高盛、花旗集团、富国银行、摩根斯坦利、美国银行。也许来自新泽西和康涅狄格两个州的那100万人也会闻讯赶来，于是将有400万人把曼哈顿这个世界经济之都围个水泄不通。
到那时，全球的媒体将用什么样的语言来描述?
聚集于开罗的100万人已将振荡波传至全世界，但唯有数百万美国人展开街头洪流之际，革命的感染力将会像五级飓风一样刮遍全世界。如同法国人古斯塔夫·勒庞在《人群：大众心理研究》一书中所说的：“这文明看上去灿烂夺目，因为它拥有一个光鲜的表面，这是过去长期积累而成的，但事实上大厦将倾，并注定在第一场风暴中就会倒下。”
9.麦迪逊的战斗：山雨欲来的信号
就在继续打击美国的小企业和私营部门工人的同时，国际金融精英们又在进一步向公共部门的工人进攻了。在这方面，威斯康星州政府打击州教师工会的举动，对于弥补共和党与民主党之间的固有分歧、平息以往的争论毫无作用。这事关人民向经济压迫者发起还击。在埃及，穆巴拉克曾是新自由主义贵族统治的当地堡垒。在威斯康星，斯各特·沃克也是新自由主义贵族统治的当地堡垒。这场发生在威斯康星州麦迪逊的在美国人民和国际金融精英间展开的战斗，打响了第一枪，代表了美国抵抗运动的觉醒，是未来形势发展的一个信号。
如同《华盛顿邮报》的一篇报道总结的那样，工人们在埃及推翻了独裁者，但却可能在威斯康星被迫保持缄默。“在埃及，工人们拥有了一个革命的二月。与之相反，在美国，这个二月却成为工人们数十年来所经历的最残酷的一个月。就在工人们推动埃及体制的倒台之际，美国的一个州政府却在大力摧毁工人的组织。威斯康星州共和党籍的新任州长斯各特·沃克，提出要剥夺公共部门雇佣者的大部分集体协商权利。根据他的法案，代表教师、清洁工、公立医院的医生和护士以及其他公职人员利益的各个工会，将丧失其涉及医疗保障、年金和其他福利的协商权利。为了追求政治上的稳妥，州长对消防员和警察队伍网开一面。 有一些人，总是宣扬别国工人在反对和削弱当地统治体制方面多么英勇，然而，一旦工人们要在自家院子里申张权利，威胁到自己国内的统治，就绝不允许了。既然威斯康星的州长已经对卫队发出了行军命令，我们可以想见，从中东地区到西方心脏地带，一场新形态的全球反压迫大团结将会复兴。”
[英文原文]
Analysis of the Global Insurrection Against Neo-Liberal Economic Domination and the Coming American Rebellion
David DeGraw
In previous Revolution Roundups, before we were knocked offline, we featured mass protests by the people of Ireland, Italy, Britain, Austria, Greece, France and Portugal, as the Global Insurrection contagion spread throughout Europe. And now, as we have seen over the past month, North African and Middle Eastern nations have joined the movement as the people of Egypt, Tunisia, Jordan, Morocco, Gabon, Mauritania, Yemen, Bahrain, Libya, Palestine, Iraq, Sudan and Algeria have taken to the streets en masse.
The connection between this latest round of uprisings and the prior protests throughout Europe is one the mainstream media is not making. We are witnessing a decentralized global rebellion against Neo-Liberal economic imperialism. While each national uprising has its own internal characteristics, each one, at its core, is about the rising costs of living and lack of financial opportunity and security. Throughout the world the situation is the same: increasing levels of unemployment and poverty, as price inflation on food and basic necessities is soaring.
Whether national populations realize it or not, these uprisings are against systemic global economic policies that are strategically designed to exploit the working class, reduce living standards, increase personal debt and create severe inequalities of wealth. These global uprising, which have only just begun, are the first wave of the inevitable reaction to the implementation of a centralized worldwide Neo-Feudal economic order.
The global banking cartel, centered at the IMF, World Bank and Federal Reserve, have paid off politicians and dictators the world over — from Washington to Greece to Egypt. In country after country, they have looted national economies at the expense of local populations, consolidating wealth in unprecedented fashion – the top economic one-tenth of one percent is currently holding over $40 trillion in investible wealth, not counting an equally significant amount of wealth hidden in offshore accounts.
IMF imperial operations designed to extract wealth and suppress populations have been ongoing for decades. As anyone researching economic imperialism will know, a centrally planned Neo-Liberal aristocracy controls the global economy.
I: Centrally Planned Economic Repression
The IMF has a well-worn strategy that they use to conquer national economies. As I warned four months ago, we have now progressed into Step 3.5: World Wide IMF Riots. Back in October, in a TV interview with Max Keiser, we discussed leaked World Bank documents that revealed the IMF’s strategy. I stated the following:
“They have a four-step strategy for destroying national economies…. We are about to enter what they would call Step Three. Step Three is when you’ve looted the economy and now food and basic necessities all of a sudden become more expensive, harder to get to. And then, Step 3.5 is when you get the riots. We are fastly approaching that….
We are headed to, as the IMF said, and as they plan, Step 3.5: IMF Riots. That’s what’s coming…”
Fast-forward four months to today, and now we see country after country rebelling against high food prices. Since our October interview, food prices have spiked 15%. According to new World Bank data, since June 2010, “Rising food have pushed about 44 million people into poverty in developing countries.”
As Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke announced another round of Quantitative Easing (QE2), those of us paying attention knew that the trigger had been pulled and Step Three had been executed. It was a declaration of economic war, an economic death sentence for tens of millions of people – deliberately devaluing the dollar and sparking inflation in commodities/basic necessities. It was a vicious policy that would impact people from Boston to Cairo.
When QE2 was announced, I warned: “Food and Gas Prices Will Skyrocket, The Federal Reserve Just Dropped An Economic Nuclear Bomb On Us.” I also wrote: “The Federal Reserve is deliberately devaluing the dollar to enrich a small group of a global bankers, which will cause significant harm to the people of the United States and severe ramifications throughout the world…. The Federal Reserve’s actions are already causing the price of food and gas to increase and will cause hyperinflation on most basic necessities.”
To be clear, there are several significant factors contributing to rising food prices, such as extreme weather conditions, biofuel production and Wall Street speculation; but the Federal Reserve’s policies deliberately threw gasoline all over those brush fires. QE2 was another economic napalm bomb from the global banking cartel.
In a recent McClathy news article entitled, “Egypt’s unrest may have roots in food prices, US Fed policy,” Kevin Hall reports:
“‘The truth of the matter is that when the Federal Reserve moved on the quantitative easing, it did export inflation to a lot of these emerging markets…. There’s no doubt that one of the side effects of the weak dollar and quantitative easing has been rising commodity prices. It helped create this bullish environment for commodities. This is a very delicate balancing act.’
It’s a view shared by Ed Yardeni, a veteran financial market analyst, who reached a similar conclusion in a research note to investors…. He joked that Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke should be added to a list of revolutionaries, since his quantitative easing policy, unveiled last year in Wyoming, has provoked unrest and change in the developing world.
‘Since he first indicated his support for such a revolutionary monetary change… the prices of corn, soybeans and wheat have risen 53 percent, 37 percent and 24.4 percent through Friday’s close,’ Yardeni noted. ‘The price of crude oil rose 19.8 percent over this period from $75.17 to $90.09 this (Monday) morning. Soaring food and fuel prices are compounding anger attributable to widespread unemployment in the countries currently experiencing riots.’”
The people throughout the Middle East and Northern Africa, on the fringe of the Neo-Liberal economic empire and most vulnerable to the Fed’s inflationary policies, are the first to rebel.
Before analyzing the situation within the US, let’s take a closer look at the global Neo-Liberal economic policies that led to the Egyptian and Tunisian revolts.
II :: Economic Imperialism: IMF Plunder of Egypt and Tunisia
In the Middle East and North Africa populations are rising against their local dictators. However, these “dictators” take orders from the IMF.
A report from the Center for Research on Globalization revealed some background and historical context:
“The Alliance between Global Capitalism and Arab Dictators
It is paramount to understand that the Arab dictators and tyrants serve the interests of organized capital. This is their primary function. They are elements of the global system formed by organized capital.
Looking back, protests and riots started in 1977 against the regime of Mohammed Anwar Al-Sadat, Mubarak’s predecessor. The causes of these protests were the neo-liberal policies that the I.M.F. had handed down to Sadat. The I.M.F. policies ended government subsidies on basic daily commodities of life. Food prices jumped and Egyptians became hard-hit….
The Arab people grasp the fact that their ruling class and governments are not only corrupt regimes, but also comprador elites, namely the local representatives of foreign corporations, governments, and interests…. In Egypt, Gamal Mubarak (who was being groomed by his father for the presidency) worked for Bank of America.
In Tunisia, Zine Al-Abidine Ben Ali was a military officer trained in French and American military schools who, once in power, served U.S. and French economic interests. In Lebanon, Fouad Siniora was a former Citibank official before he became prime minister…. Within the corrupt Palestinian Authority, Salam Fayyad worked for one of the banks forming the U.S. Federal Reserve and the World Bank….
Moreover, almost all Arab finance ministers are affiliated to the major global banking institutions. All of them also strictly adhere to the Washington Consensus of the International Monetary Fund (I.M.F.) and the World Bank…”
Samer Shehata, professor of Arab politics at Georgetown University, summed up the situation in Egypt and Tunisia:
“Beginning in 2004… Egypt began implementing economic reforms called for by the IMF—or really forced on them by the IMF and the World Bank… a new government was appointed, new ministers were appointed, who believed wholeheartedly in the ideas of the IMF and the World Bank. And they quite vigorously pursued these policies. And there was at one level, at the level of macroeconomic indicators, statistics, GDP growth rates, foreign direct investment and so on—Egypt seemed to be a miracle. And this, of course, was the case with the Tunisian model earlier. You’ll remember that Jacques Chirac called it the ‘economic miracle,’ and it was the darling of the IMF and the World Bank, because it implemented these types of reforms earlier. Well, of course, we saw what happened in Tunisia. In Egypt, from 2004 until the present, the government and its reforms were applauded in Washington by World Bank, IMF and US officials…. Egypt received the top reformer award from the IMF and the World Bank…”
Former Goldman Sachs executive Nomi Prins reveals more details:
The Egyptian Uprising Is a Direct Response to Ruthless Global Capitalism
“The revolution in Egypt is as much a rebellion against the painful deterioration of economic conditions as it is about opposing a dictator…. When people are facing a dim future, in a country hijacked by a corrupt regime that destabilized its economy through what the CIA termed, ‘aggressively pursuing economic reforms to attract foreign investment’ (in other words, the privatization and sale of its country’s financial system to international sharks), waiting doesn’t cut it….
Tunisia’s dismal economic environment was a direct result of its increasingly ‘liberal’ policy toward foreign speculators. Of the five countries covered by the World Bank’s, Investment Across Sectors Indicator, Tunisia had the fewest limits on foreign investment…. Egypt adopted a similar come-and-get-it policy, on steroids…. But, as we learned in the U.S., what goes up with artificial helium plummets under real gravity…. Not surprisingly, those foreign speculation strategies didn’t bring less poverty or more jobs either. Indeed, the insatiable hunt for great deals, whether by banks, hedge funds, or private equity funds, as it inevitably does, had the opposite effect….
Ironically, the [Egyptian Ministry of Investment] brochure touted the large college graduate population entering the job market each year — 325,000. The same graduates are the core of the current revolution. They failed to find adequate jobs and are faced with an official unemployment rate of just below 10 percent (though, similar to the U.S., that figure doesn’t account for underemployment, poor job quality or long-term prospects)…. Meanwhile, 20 percent of Egypt lives in poverty… For in the United States, economic statistics are no better. By certain measures, like income inequality, they are worse than in Egypt.”
III :: US-Egypt Economic Parallels, Inequality & Poverty
Comparable economic statistics between the US and Egypt are facts that US mainstream media propagandists are not reporting.
Inequality of Wealth
Income inequality has reached a record level within Egypt, as Pat Garofalo explained:
“One of the driving factors behind the protests is the… growing sense of inequality. ‘They’re all protesting about growing inequalities…. The top of the pyramid was getting richer and richer,’ said Emile Hokayem of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in the Middle East.
As Yasser El-Shimy, former diplomatic attaché at the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, wrote in Foreign Policy, ‘income inequality has reached levels not before seen in Egypt’s modern history.’”
As the US mainstream media references the “oppressive” and “corrupt” inequality of wealth throughout Egypt, the hypocrisy is shameful. The inequality of wealth in the United States is currently the most severe it has ever been. Gini coefficient ratings are a measure of a nation’s inequality – the higher a nation scores, the more unequal the society is. The US has a Gini coefficient rating of 45, compared to Egypt’s 34.4, Yemen’s 37 and Tunisia’s 40, making the US the most unequal, “oppressive” and “corrupt” of the four.
As John Dewey once said, “There is no such thing as the liberty or effective power of an individual, group, or class, except in relation to the liberties, the effective powers, of other individuals, groups or classes.”
Poverty
When well-paid “experts” in expensive suits sitting behind desks in state of the art studios discuss the hardships of the Egyptian people, something tells me that these pundits haven’t spent much time interacting with tens of millions of people living in inner city America – just because the mainstream media doesn’t cover them, doesn’t mean they don’t exist. They exist in larger numbers in the US than they do in most rebelling countries.
The rising price of food has played a pivotal role in sparking the uprisings, food prices have a larger impact in countries like Egypt and Tunisia, as they represent a more significant percentage of total income. However, the overall costs of living in the US are significantly higher. When these costs are factored in — medical expenses, housing, transportation, education, etc. – the US poverty level of $22k per year, for a family of four, is comparable to the poverty rate measure in Egypt.
According to the CIA, the poverty rate in Egypt is 20%. With a population size of 83 million people, this would put 16.6 million Egyptians living in poverty. In the US, the current poverty rate is 16.8%, with a population of 309 million, this puts 52 million Americans living below the poverty line.
When you consider that the US has 52 million people currently living in poverty, you realize, as shocking as it may sound, that we have a larger number of desperate people in the US than rebelling populations in countries throughout the Middle East and Europe. Overall, in comparison to Egypt, the US population is obviously more geographically spread out, but if you breakdown the demographics, many large US cities have a poverty rate higher than the 20 percent rate in Egypt.
Consider that, according to low-ball government statistics, nine major US cities have a poverty rate over 25%.
IV :: Debt Slavery: Unemployed, Underemployed, Underpaid, In Debt
The unemployment rate in Egypt mirrors the unemployment rate in the US, currently fluctuating between nine and ten percent, according to government sources. The unemployment rate among recent graduates attempting to enter the workforce also mirrors the crisis in the US. The young unemployed and underemployed demographic has played a pivotal role in leading the rebellion. Reporting for the Financial Times in an article entitled, “At hand, an Arab awakening,” Roula Khalaf sums it up this way:
“In Egypt, as in Tunisia, the young people who initiated the street campaigns were educated, internet-savvy activists with no political affiliation. [Sound familiar?] After watching the fervour unleashed in the past month, young Syrians, Bahrainis, Algerians and even the quiescent Libyans are turning to Facebook and Twitter to call for their own ‘day of rage’.
As Mr Khashoggi puts it: ‘The 25-year-old unemployed today has become the strong man.’”
A report from Business Week entitled, “The Youth Unemployment Bomb,” provides more detail:
“In Tunisia, the young people who helped bring down a dictator are called hittistes—French-Arabic slang for those who lean against the wall. Their counterparts in Egypt… are the shabab atileen, unemployed youths… In Britain, they are NEETs – ‘not in education, employment, or training.’ In Japan, they are freeters: an amalgam of the English word freelance and the German word Arbeiter, or worker. Spaniards call them mileuristas, meaning they earn no more than 1,000 euros a month. In the U.S., they’re ‘boomerang’ kids who move back home after college because they can’t find work. Even fast-growing China… has its ‘ant tribe’ – recent college graduates who crowd together in cheap flats on the fringes of big cities because they can’t find well-paying work.
In each of these nations, an economy that can’t generate enough jobs to absorb its young people has created a lost generation of the disaffected, unemployed, or underemployed—including growing numbers of recent college graduates for whom the post-crash economy has little to offer….
More common is the quiet desperation of a generation in ‘waithood,’ suspended short of fully employed adulthood. At 26, Sandy Brown of Brooklyn, N.Y., is a college graduate and a mother of two who hasn’t worked in seven months. ‘I used to be a manager at a Duane Reade in Manhattan, but they laid me off. I’ve looked for work everywhere and I can’t find anything,’ she says. ‘It’s like I got my diploma for nothing.’”
The collapsing job market, declining wages, loss of benefits and skyrocketing cost of education has created a “lost generation” of young college graduates with little options and massive debt. When millions of American students took out tens of thousands of dollars in student loans to pay for an education which they assumed would give them the skills needed to make a good living, they never imagined that they would be either unemployed, working part-time, or making significantly less than people in their chosen profession have traditionally made. The majority of young workers in their twenties and early thirties have debt that they will spend most of their life trying to pay back. They’ve been sentenced to a life of…
Debt Slavery
Mike Whitney recently interviewed Alan Nasser on CounterPunch for a piece entitled, “The Student Loan Swindle.” Here’s an excerpt:
“MW: Is it possible to ‘walk away’ from a student loan and declare bankruptcy?
Alan Nasser: No, it’s not possible for student debtors to escape financial devastation by declaring bankruptcy. This most fundamental of consumer protections would have been available to student debtors were it not for legislation explicitly designed to withhold a whole range of basic protections from student borrowers. I’m not talking only about bankruptcy protection, but also truth in lending requirements, statutes of limitations, refinancing rights and even state usury laws – Congress has rendered all these protections inapplicable to federally guaranteed student loans. The same legislation also gave collection agencies hitherto unimaginable powers, for example to garnish wages, tax returns, Social Security benefits and – believe it or not – Disability income.
Twisting the knife, legislators made the suspension of state-issued professional licenses, termination of public employment and denial of security clearances legitimate measures to enable collection companies to wring financial blood from bankrupt student-loan borrowers. Student loan debt is the most punishable of all forms of debt – most of those draconian measures are unavailable to credit card companies….
MW: Is it fair to say that the student loan industry is a scam that targets borrowers who will never be able to repay their debts? Are these students like the people who were seduced into taking out subprime loans? How much money is involved and how much of that money is either presently in default or headed for default?
Alan Nasser: It’s as fair as fair can be. First, the student loan industry is huge – a large majority of students from every type of school are in debt. Debt is held by 62 percent of students enrolled at public colleges and universities, 72 percent at private non-profit schools and 96 percent at private, for-profit (‘proprietary’) schools. It was announced last summer that total student loan debt, at $830 billion, now exceeds total US credit card debt, which is itself bloated to the bubble level of $827 billion. And student loan debt is growing at the rate of $90 billion a year.”
These students weren’t expecting an economic crisis to occur, and, unlike the banks that lent them the money, they’re not getting a bailout. Also factor in that the overwhelming majority of new jobs, the few that are being added, are either part-time, temporary or in low paying fields without health or retirement benefits. Mix all of this together, and you have a vicious cycle with devastating consequences.
Given the size of this segment of the population, carrying this much debt, at such a young age, with limited prospects, you can feel the winds of revolution blowing.
Contrary to all the propaganda you hear from the mainstream media and politicians, the economy is still shedding jobs at a staggering pace. ZeroHedge recently featured a report entitled, “Just How Ugly Is The Truth Of America’s Unemployment” by economist David Rosenberg:
“It is laughable that everyone believes the labor market in the U.S.A. is improving.… The data from the Household survey are truly insane. The labor force has plunged an epic 764k in the past two months. The level of unemployment has collapsed 1.2 million, which has never happened before. People not counted in the labor force soared 753k in the past two months.
These numbers are simply off the charts and likely reflect the throngs of unemployed people starting to lose their extended benefits and no longer continuing their job search (for the two-thirds of them not finding a new job). These folks either go on welfare or they rely on their spouse or other family members or friends for support….
Of all the analysis we saw over the weekend, the only one that made any sense was the editorial by Bob Herbert:
‘The policy makers don’t tell us that most of the new jobs being created in such meager numbers are, in fact, poor ones, with lousy pay and few or no benefits. What we hear is what the data zealots pump out week after week, that the market is up, retail sales are strong, Wall Street salaries and bonuses are streaking, as always, to the moon, and that businesses are sitting on mountains of cash. So all must be right with the world.
Jobs? Well, the less said the better.
What’s really happening, of course, is the same thing that’s been happening in this country for the longest time — the folks at the top are doing fabulously well and they are not interested in the least in spreading the wealth around.
The people running the country — the ones with the real clout, whether Democrats or Republicans — are all part of this power elite. Ordinary people may be struggling, but both the Obama administration and the Republican Party leadership are down on their knees, slavishly kissing the rings of the financial and corporate kingpins.’
… the civilian population rose 1.872 million last year. At the same time, the labor force fell 167k. Those not in the labor force soared 2.094 million. Just in January, we saw 319,000 people drop out of the work force. These numbers are incredible. This is a highly dysfunctional labor market. People are falling through the cracks at an alarming rate as they come off their extended jobless benefits….”
In the US, we have over six million people who have now been unemployed for over six months, the highest total we have ever had. Factoring long-term unemployed and part-time workers looking for full-time work in to the total unemployment count, we now have over 30 million Americans in need of employment.
V :: The American Dream Foreclosed Upon
The foreclosure crisis in the United States, which has already affected over seven million people since the crisis began, is not slowing down, it’s accelerating. Economist Joseph Stiglitz recently predicated another two million foreclosures in 2011. David Walsh sums up the growing crisis:
Nearly 30 percent of US homeowners now ‘underwater’
“Year over year, home values were down 5.9 percent nationally, and have fallen 27 percent since their peak in June 2006. The total value of US single-family homes fell a staggering $798 billion in 2010’s fourth quarter, and for the entire year, more than $2 trillion….
The number of US homeowners ‘underwater,’ i.e., owing more than their homes were worth, at the end of 2010, jumped to 27 percent, up from 23.2 percent in the third quarter…. ‘The rate of homes selling for a loss reached a new peak in December, with more than one-third (34.1 percent) selling for a loss. The rate of homes sold for a loss has increased steadily for the past six months.’ Some 15.7 million homeowners had negative equity at the end of the fourth quarter, in households home to more than 40 million people.
The massive number of those underwater will ‘surely lead to higher foreclosure rates soon,’ notes CNNMoney…. Economist Joseph Stiglitz, speaking at a conference in Mauritius February 9, predicted that another 2 million foreclosures would take place in the US in 2011, adding to the 7 million already recorded since the financial meltdown of 2008.
Banks repossessed 1 million homes in 2010, and this year is expected to be bleaker. Approximately 5 million borrowers are at least two months behind in their mortgage payments.”
VI :: A Recipe For Revolution: Tax Breaks for the Rich, Budget Cuts for the Poor
Let’s recap the statistics: we have 59 million people without healthcare, 52 million in poverty, 44 million on food stamps, 30 million in need of work, seven million foreclosed upon and five million homes over two months late in their mortgage payments. Meanwhile, all new political policies and proposals on the table, on the state and federal level, are committed to major cuts in social services. In a sign of what’s to come, Obama’s first disclosed spending cut targets the poor. As Salon recently reported:
New Obama strategy: Beat up poor people
“To prove it is ‘serious’ about the deficit, the White House proposes cutting a program that helps pay heating bills. The Obama administration… will propose big cuts to a program that provides energy assistance to poor people when it unveils its suggested 2012 budget. ‘The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP… would see funding drop by about $2.5 billion from an authorized 2009 total of $5.1 billion.’
The news is generating a lot of outrage… in large part because of a paragraph that suggests that the White House wants to gain political advantage from being seen as tough on the most vulnerable Americans — people who can’t afford heating oil during cold winters…. If the White House wants to convince Americans that it is serious about budget discipline, it should do so by ‘going after powerful vested interests rather than those least able to defend themselves within the political arena.’ The White House could redouble its efforts to cut oil company subsidies or repeal tax cuts for the rich, for example.”
As The Independent reported, “Obama to set out painful budget plans for austerity in America. Americans are about to get a first glimpse of what tight-fisted federal government looks like with President Barack Obama releasing an austerity-tinged draft budget.”
In a report we featured on the AmpedStatus Hot List with the headline, “US Democracy Crushed By Economic Elite,” Bob Herbert sums it up:
“One state after another is reporting that it cannot pay its bills. Public employees across the country are walking the plank by the tens of thousands. Camden, N.J., a stricken city with a serious crime problem, laid off nearly half of its police force. Medicaid, the program that provides health benefits to the poor, is under savage assault from nearly all quarters.
The poor, who are suffering from an all-out depression, are never heard from. In terms of their clout, they might as well not exist. The Obama forces reportedly want to raise a billion dollars or more for the president’s re-election bid. Politicians in search of that kind of cash won’t be talking much about the wants and needs of the poor. They’ll be genuflecting before the very rich.”
Austerity measures and draconian cuts to the social safety net are occurring just after passing hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks to multi-millionaires and billionaires. On the state level, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities released a report revealing, “Thirty-one states have released their initial budget proposals for fiscal year 2012 (which begins July 1 in most states), and, for the fourth year in a row, these budgets propose deep cuts in education, health care, and other important public services…”
After committing trillions of dollars to bailing out the big banks, the Federal Reserve and government officials have now made it clear that the states will not receive the same treatment. In fact, the bailed out players on Wall Street, who have taken our tax dollars and given themselves all-time record-breaking bonuses, are looking to cash in on the suffering of states across the country. As Lynn Parramore recently put it:
Crank Up the Casino! Hedge Funds to Short American States and Cities
“The looming possibility of municipal defaults, which some say could total hundreds of billions of dollars, is causing grave concern. Hedge funds are also deeply concerned about America’s municipal debt crisis. They worry about how to best profit from it.The Wizards of Wall Street have looked over the catastrophe of cash-strapped America and found it good for business. In their corporate laboratories, they are working furiously to whip up wondrous new financial products that will allow them to reap millions from misery. You might think that after plunging the country into said Recession with their fancy financial products, these Wizards might feel a little indelicate about gearing up for a game of shorting a community near you. Clearly you don’t know Wall Street. The Financial Times reports that once-boring muni bonds are suddenly sexy.”
Speaking of reaping millions from misery, the food stamp racket pays off just as well as the war racket. The economic parasites profit off of food stamps:
Food Stamps: JPMorgan & Banking Industry Profit From Misery
“JPMorgan’s division that makes food stamp debit cards made $5.47 billion in net revenue in 2010. As the head of this division, Christopher Paton, says, ‘This business is a very important business to JPMorgan in terms of its size and scale.’ According to the company’s most recent quarterly filing with the SEC, the Treasury & Securities Services segment, which is the division that includes the food stamp business, was up 2% in the last three months of last quarter and brought in $5.47 billion in net revenue for most of 2010.”
Republicans and Democrats, along with their Wall Street masters, are so arrogant, deluded with wealth, completely lacking perspective, shortsighted and, quite frankly, ignorant.
As the economic top one-tenth of one percent has more wealth than they have ever had, the middle class is quickly disappearing and poverty is soaring. As politicians ignore the needs of the suffering masses in favor of a Kleptocratic Oligarchy, which operates above the law, it is only a matter of time before an uprising takes hold.
After analyzing societal and economic indicators within the US, in comparison to rebelling countries, it is not a matter of whether people will revolt or not, it’s a matter of when.
There are two significant differences between the United States and other rebelling nations:
1) The US has a much more powerful, sophisticated and omnipresent propaganda media system to keep the populace suppressed – isolated and confused.
2) The US keeps 52 million people temporarily pacified in anti-poverty programs by giving them food stamps, unemployment benefits or other forms of life-sustaining government assistance.
Both of these differences are temporary, and not in any way sustainable. The safety nets here are unraveling and cuts in vital social services will be implemented just as millions more will need them. At the same time, food stamps and other forms of limited government assistance will be worth less and less as food and gas prices continue to rise.
Rising commodity prices will push the 239 million Americans currently living paycheck to paycheck over the edge. Also factor in healthcare costs, which have been skyrocketing even faster. On a personal level, my health insurance provider just notified me that my family has to pay 45% more for coverage – and we already had the world’s most expensive healthcare system. For my wife, one child and myself, we will now have to pay over $1100 per month for a basic health insurance plan.
There are currently 59 million Americans who don’t even have healthcare insurance. The health system has become vintage Grapes of Wrath, as have most aspects of the centrally planned system of economic despotism that we live under.
Add all of these factors together and you have a recipe for revolution. The mainstream propaganda news outlets and “Reality” TV soma will only keep people at bay for so long. The propaganda system collapses when people can’t afford to eat. Americans may be late to the party, but once one city revolts, the dominos will fall and a wave of protest will sweep through the country like a tsunami.
The only questions are: when will it happen, and how it will begin?
VII :: “Hungry People Don’t Stay Hungry For Long”
Food prices have been a leading indicator for rebellion thus far. Given the Federal Reserve’s commitment to driving food prices higher, as a matter of policy, and the government’s commitment to cutting assistance programs, people lining up at Wal-Mart on the last day of the month, waiting for the clock to strike midnight so they can buy their family milk and bread on their food stamp debit card, seem to be the most likely to rebel first.
As food prices increase, food stamps are obviously going to buy you less food. On top of that, as food prices escalate, millions more will need food assistance, right at the point when the current safety net can least afford it.
Let’s analyze the most recent food stamp data to see how America’s inevitable revolution may begin.
With 43.6 million Americans currently relying on food stamps, there are 13 states with over a million people already on food stamps:
· Texas 3,925,119 (number of people on food stamps) — 15.6% (of state population)
· California 3,521,881 — 9.5%
· Florida 2,994,413 — 15.9%
· New York 2,934,493 — 15.1%
· Michigan 1,920,330 – 19.4%
· Ohio 1,772,608 — 15.4%
· Georgia 1,732,865 — 17.9%
· Illinois 1,732,169 — 13.5%
· Pennsylvania 1,673,714 — 13.2%
· North Carolina 1,531,255 — 16.1%
· Tennessee 1,264,407 — 19.9%
· Arizona 1,050,181 — 16.4%
· Washington 1,019,791 — 15.2%
States with over 18% of the population on food stamps:
· Mississippi 612,889 — 20.7%
· Tennessee 1,264,407 — 19.9%
· Oregon 749,498 — 19.6%
· Michigan 1,920,330 — 19.4%
· New Mexico 399,454 — 19.4%
· Louisiana 866,905 — 19.1%
· West Virginia 345,683 — 18.7%
· Kentucky 813,041 — 18.7%
· Maine 241,117 — 18.2%
· South Carolina 839,109 — 18.1%
· Alabama 863,606 — 18.1%
In our nation’s capital, the District of Columbia, there are 131,611 people on food stamps, which is a stunning 21.9% of the population.
As mentioned before, cities with a poverty rate over 25% – Detroit 36%, Cleveland 35%, Buffalo 29%, Milwaukee 28%, St. Louis 27%, Miami 27%, Memphis 26%, Cincinnati 26% and Philadelphia 25% – are also highly vulnerable to revolt.
VIII :: The Empire State Rebellion
Given all the data, due to New York’s geographical lay out, population size and proximity to power, it is a prime candidate for insurrection. There are currently 2.9 million people living in New York that are on food stamps, which is equivalent to the entire population of Manhattan. Just imagine three million people flooding into lower Manhattan. Imagine if three million people decided to take a 15-30 minute subway ride down to the Financial District and camped out from Wall Street to the NY Fed, spilling over to the corporate offices of JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley and Bank of America.
Perhaps the one million people on food stamps from New Jersey and Connecticut will make a short trip into lower Manhattan as well, four million strong shutting down lower Manhattan, the economic capital of the world.
How would that play out in the global media?
One million people gathering in Cairo, Egypt sent shock waves throughout the world, and rightfully so, but just wait until millions of Americans begin flooding the streets. The revolution contagion will spread throughout the world like a category five hurricane.
“The civilization may still seem brilliant because it possesses an outward front,
the work of a long past, but is in reality an edifice crumbling to ruin
and destined to fall in at the first storm.”
– Gustave Le Bon, The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind
IX :: The Battle in Madison: A Sign of Things to Come
While bloated federal and state spending has grown to staggering levels of debt, and demands immediate attention, any cut in spending or attempts to reduce the deficit must first come at the expense of the organized criminal class that has looted the national economy. Any cuts that happen before that need to be understood as an escalation and extension of the attacks on the American people.
While continuing their attacks on American small businesses and private-sector workers, the global financial elite are now stepping up their attacks on public workers. In this context, the Wisconsin state government attacks against the state teachers’ union doesn’t have anything to do with the old Democrat Vs. Republican divide and conquer debates of the past. This is about people fighting back against their economic oppressors. In Egypt, Mubarak was the Neo-Liberal Aristocracy’s local enforcer. In Wisconsin, Scott Walker is the Neo-Liberal Aristocracy’s local enforcer.
This battle in Madison, Wisconsin, between the American people and the global financial elite, represents the opening salvo, the awakening of an American resistance movement and a sign of what’s to come.
In a report entitled, “Wisconsin governor threatens to call National Guard on state workers,” Andre Damon explains the situation:
“Scott Walker, the governor of Wisconsin, announced an assault against state…. Walker’s proposal, which he said would quickly pass in the state legislature, drastically limits collective bargaining, removing the right of unions to negotiate pensions, retirement and benefits….
When asked by a reporter what will happen if workers resist, Walker replied that he would call out the National Guard. He said that the National Guard is ‘prepared … for whatever the governor, their commander-in-chief, might call for … I am fully prepared for whatever may happen.’
Walker’s proposal allows state authorities to arbitrarily fire workers who ‘participate in an organized action to stop or slow work,’ or who ‘are absent for three days without approval of the employer,’ according to the governor’s press release.”
Democracy Now pointed out:
“… the governor’s actions could have national ramifications: ‘If Governor Walker pulls this off… if he takes down one of the strongest and most effective teachers’ unions, WEAC, in the country, then we really are going to see this sweep across the United States.’”
As a recent Washington Post report summed it up:
Workers toppled a dictator in Egypt, but might be silenced in Wisconsin
“In Egypt, workers are having a revolutionary February. In the United States, by contrast, February is shaping up as the cruelest month workers have known in decades.
The coup de grace that toppled Hosni Mubarak came after tens of thousands of Egyptian workers went on strike beginning last Tuesday. By Friday, when Egypt’s military leaders apparently decided that unrest had reached the point where Mubarak had to go, the Egyptians who operate the Suez Canal and their fellow workers in steel, textile and bottling factories; in hospitals, museums and schools; and those who drive buses and trains had left their jobs to protest their conditions of employment and governance. As Jim Hoagland noted in The Post, Egypt was barreling down the path that Poland, East Germany and the Philippines had taken, the path where workers join student protesters in the streets and jointly sweep away an authoritarian regime.
But even as workers were helping topple the regime in Cairo, one state government in particular was moving to topple workers’ organizations here in the United States…. Scott Walker, Wisconsin’s new Republican governor, proposed taking away most collective bargaining rights of public employees. Under his legislation… the unions representing teachers, sanitation workers, doctors and nurses at public hospitals, and a host of other public employees, would lose the right to bargain over health coverage, pensions and other benefits. (To make his proposal more politically palatable, the governor exempted from his hit list the unions representing firefighters and police.)….
[Those who] often profess admiration for foreign workers’ bravery in protesting and undermining authoritarian regimes. Letting workers exercise their rights at home, however, threatens to undermine some of our own regimes, and shouldn’t be permitted. Now that Wisconsin’s governor has given the Guard its marching orders, we can discern a new pattern of global repressive solidarity emerging – from the chastened pharaoh of the Middle East to the cheesehead pharaoh of the Middle West.”
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