Maybe it’s time for the rulers of the world to start worrying?
Human governments are unstable by nature. Revolutionary change does not run on any logical schedule. Revolution can come when you expect it, or when you don’t. Who in the West could have predicted the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, followed by the breakup of the Soviet Union in late 1991?
The financial capitals of the U.S. and Europe have been in economic turmoil for three years. But the revolution comes first in the Middle East. In a matter of weeks, change comes to Tunisia and Egypt. In recent days, protests spread through the region — in Libya, Yemen, Syria, Bahrain.
In Egypt, the focus was secular. The concerns were poverty and democracy. In Bahrain, the conflict has religious overtones. Perhaps Saudi Arabia and Iran will be exempt. Perhaps not.
If it can happen in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, could it happen in America?
In Wisconsin?
In America, a great divide has opened between certain monied elites and the people who work for them. Certain elites have decided they don’t need government workers, and they’re not going to pay for people they don’t need. This drama has been playing out in towns and counties throughout America. A spirit of cooperation in the first year of budget cuts is wearing thin in the second and third years. Tempers are getting short on both sides of the budget tables. Some public workers are getting angry.
The standoff in Wisconsin between the Republican government and the people who work for the government is ugly and ominous. The Republicans intend to break the back of the public unions.
Nearly every other state is facing similar budget dilemmas, and many states are in worse shape than Wisconsin. Among the Republicans who have come to power, there is talk of layoffs and bankruptcies, but not of tax increases.
In the recent U.S. election campaigns, politicians promised to create jobs. It is just now sinking in that politicians intend first to eliminate many more jobs — in federal, state, and local governments.
Unemployment is above nine percent, but corporations and investors are hoarding cash, refusing to invest or hire. They plead uncertainty. Uncertainty on Wall Street, uncertainty about oil price and supply, uncertainty about taxation, uncertainty about public debt.
Look, life is uncertain.
The super-rich can tolerate uncertainty. Their money is in safe, offshore banks.
— John Hayden
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- Three dead in Bahrain, as unrest spreads in Middle East (nationalpost.com)
Living Simply And Still On The Grid 
I’m loving this story:
http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/478409/lawmakers_flee_wisconsin_capitol,_state_police_pursue%3B_protests_swell_to_30,000/
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I agree. The http://www.alternet.org link provides excellent info on the corporate money funding the war on unions, and corporate motives for wanting to eliminate unions.
I have no delusions about unions. I’ve been a member of three unions, and none of them impressed. But even a bungling, inept union is better than no union. Inside large, powerful organizations without unions, employees are nothing more than wage slaves.
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Hello John… what you have said in this post echoes exactly what is happening in Britain at this time also.. I work for Local Government as A Support Worker, looking after those who have Learning Difficulties .. The most vulnerable in our society.. and yet our service is being Axed and I along with many more of my colleagues have be served our redundancy notices . And at the end of March I am out of work… The Unions are taking strike action this week in protest of how these ‘Cut-Backs’ have been dished out..Cutting Public services such as Day care centres, Libraries, They are selling residential care homes to the private sector, Costs of Care increases, and Cutting back hours of care for the vulnerable, along with many more.. While the top local governement councillors are paying themselves One to Two Hundred Thousand Pounds per year.. All of this when the Local Governments sit on Millions of Pounds Sterling of Assets sat in Foreign Banks… Who we The Tax payer have helped Bail out of the pit THEY got us all into in the first place..
The Banks sit on these Huge profits as interests rates here are at an all time low of 0-5% .. As they still pay themselves Huge bonuses.. One Bank executive here got a 2-4Million Pound Bonus in One Year.. .. While little Joe blogs who can go 20pence into the red on his overdraft has to pay £28 per transaction in overdraft charges…
Yes Revolution is definitely on the horizon.. and it will come swifter than any one will understand.. Mass Consciousness will soon grasp everyone into seeing that the ‘Common People’ have more Power united.. and we are All of us sick and tired of being ripped off left right and centre.. so those in their Ivory Towers can get richer and richer at the Hard working man’s expense..
We John will start and Free ourselves from the systems we were indoctrinated into, and will no longer be the Wage Slaves for the Mighty Rich…
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Sue — I’m sorry to hear that you will be losing your job because of the austerity measures in Britain. It boggles my mind that the ruling elites dare to give bailouts and bonuses to those at the top, and wage and benefit cuts and unemployment slips to those at the bottom. The rulers are stealing from the poor and giving to the rich. And they seem to be getting away with it. People who NEED help, from the learning disabled to senior citizens, are left to fend for themselves.
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Yes Therein lies no sense to some of these cuts which will have a knock on effect somewhere down the line John, What aggravates me more is that the ordinary law abiding citizen who works hard to pay his way, his taxes etc, while those at the TOP of the tree squander it and pay tax payers monies in bailing out Banks etc,, who announced only this week here in the UK that their profits were on the upturn with Billions in profit and so again they justify themselves as One Head executive of the RBS accepted his Bonus of over 2 Million pounds for the year..
It is absolutely Not acceptable, and you are so right again here in your topic that those in their Ivory Towers had better make sure their battlements are safe, for the Common voice of the little man in the street is starting to Shout out mighty loud, and lets make no mistake here, it will not be only those who rule by oppression that will find their Towers Toppled one day….
Arrh…. now …… thats my vent for the Day out of the way LOL..
I hope you have a good day. Dreamwalker
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I ment to add — People power will change this world…Along with Mother Nature… Who is also so sick of the Human Race… and their Greedy Ways which have so abused her ..
Wishing you a Good Day, and May I say you write an Excellent Blog!
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