- Ongoing since mid-July, America's media hardly notice,
but indeed care as evidenced by their silence to suppress mass outrage
over longstanding social injustice Israelis want changed.
-
- What US print and broadcast media won't report, Israeli
and other sources cover extensively, because what's ongoing is too significant
to ignore. Happening at the same time across the Middle East, Europe, and
elsewhere, it's just a matter of time before it erupts in America, most
often a late bloomer.
-
- However, when intolerable conditions reach a breaking
point, people react, and without redress, do it violently.
-
- So far in Israel, mass outrage has been contained. How
much longer is at issue under a government that spurns them. It's much
like in America where the corrupted two-party duopoly serves wealth and
power only, ignoring growing need that sooner or later will explode.
-
- It's high time it happened sooner before distress conditions
surge past intolerable to uncontainable, because of shocking unaddressed
levels of rising poverty, unemployment, homelessness, hunger, and human
misery - a ticking bomb revolutions are made of.
-
- Trends analyst Gerald Celente believes neoliberalized
Industrial Revolution policies can't work in the new century, saying:
-
- "It's not just Model T economics that's outmoded,
so are our approaches to education, politics and yes, the military. The
old adage (that) 'Generals fight the last war' is as valid as ever. While
the technology may have changed, the mindset hasn't."
-
- So while old unwinnable wars rage, new ones start, drag
on endlessly, draining the federal treasury, at the expense of public need
and good government.
-
- Celente believes direct democracy is essential, saying:
-
- "The government/political 'system' in place in America,
and throughout much of the world, is obsolete and irreparable. The inept
generals masterminding lost-cause wars are (matched) by (corrupt) senators
and representatives in Congress."
-
- As a result, representative democracy "is a cruel
sham; it's neither 'representative' nor 'democratic,' and people are"
wising up to it as evidenced by poll numbers.
-
- Therein lies the possibility for change, "real change,
not Obama (Netanyahu/Cameron/Sarkozy/Merkel, Berlusconi/Papandreou et al)
change."
-
- Others explained it wisely earlier, including Victor
Hugo, saying:
-
- "There is one thing stronger than all the armies
in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come."
-
- Grassroots direct democracy representing everyone "has
come for the entire world (says Celente) to wrest power from the hands
of ruling political mobs and put it into the hands of the public."
-
- Let them decide, not corrupted corporate bosses, militarists,
lobbyists and their puppet political tools. Shifting to this type system
Celente calls a "Global Game Changer."
-
- Is it possible? Indeed, when enough people cooperatively
make it happen through disruptive power too strong to contain.
-
- Weeks of protests across Israel show it, symbolized by
an August 11 guillotine on display in the center of Tel Aviv's tent city.
-
- There on Rothschild Blvd, Tel Aviv's Park Avenue, it
was the center of attention, signifying public anger perhaps too great
to contain without meaningful redress. So far, it's not forthcoming from
a government that doesn't give a damn about ordinary people, the same mindset
as in America.
-
- On August 13, Haaretz headlined, "Tens of thousands
take to Israel's streets as social protests move out of Tel Aviv,"
saying:
-
- Saturday night, people turned out en masse in Haifa,
Be'er Sheva, Afula, Eilat, Rosh Pina, Nahariya, Dimona, Modi'in, Petah
Tikva, Ramat Hasharon, Hod Hasharon, Netanya, Beit She'an, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem,
and elsewhere for what they've been demanding for weeks.
-
- Haifa activist Yossi Baruch addressed thousands, saying:
-
- "They tell us we don't have focus, but we are super
focused and know exactly what we want. We want there to be a welfare state
here, and a welfare state is not just a slogan. It means free education
for every boy and girl" from pre-school through PhDs.
-
- "A welfare state is (also) a place where its citizens
receive fair wages," get free or low-cost healthcare, other social
benefits, and have caring officials who provide them.
-
- "This is a long-range struggle, and it doesn't matter
if Bibi falls in a week, a month or a year," he said. "Bibi will
fall. So will (Yuval) Steinitz (Israel's finance minister), and so will
(Avigdor) Lieberman," Israel's fascist foreign minister/deputy prime
minister.
-
- Activist Dror Israel put it another way, saying:
-
- "We are not against a specific person. We're against
a policy. We are for a welfare state" that serves all Israelis, not
just its privileged few like in America, Britain, and other most other
countries.
-
- Arab citizens called for mutual cooperation. In fact,
crowds cheered Hamoudi Hujeirat saying, "We are one people."
-
- Raja Za'atara, from the disadvantaged Arab Wadi Nisnas
neighborhood, said, "In the Wadi, not many people eat cottage cheese,"
referring to one of the protest symbols because of its high price. "But
a hungry child is a hungry child," he said, "and it doesn't matter
if he is Arab or Jewish. This struggle gives hope to everyone."
-
- In fact, social injustice affects all Israeli workers.
However, Arabs (one-fifth of the population) are especially impacted, treated
more like fifth column threats than citizens.
-
- At the same time, hope never dies when enough people
believe. Addressing Haifa thousands in Arabic, writer Sami Michael said:
-
- "At age 85, it's hard to be optimistic, but the
younger generation today makes me feel optimistic. Today the public is
showing for the first time a connection between classes, between cities
and villages, between Arabs and Jews, and I don't remember anything like
this in Haifa," or elsewhere across Israel.
-
- "The impact of the Middle East" arrived, he
added. Echoes for change now reverberating across Israel. It remains to
be seen whether government repression will confront them, and if so, how
they'll react.
-
- So far, they've been steadfastly protesting, many camping
out in tent cities, giving up the comforts of home, that even if humble
are preferable to living on streets, even in solidarity for reinforcement.
-
- It's too soon to know, but hopefully that energy won't
wane. It's crucial to have any chance for success.
-
- A Final Comment
-
- In a new policy paper, Jacopo Ponticelli and Hans-Joachim
Voth discuss "Austerity and Anarchy: Budget Cuts and Social Unrest
in Europe, 1919 - 2009," showing they go hand in hand, saying:
-
- Evidence "show(s) a clear positive correlation between
fiscal retrenchment and instability. We test if the relationship simply
reflects economic downturns, and conclude that this is not a key factor."
-
- "While autocracies and democracies show a broadly
similar response to budget cuts," less unrest results when executive
power is constrained. Quite the opposite, however, when leaders and parliaments
are in sync, as in America, the Middle East, Europe and Israel.
-
- Other analysts also say austerity yields trouble, showing
up in protests, riots, strikes, violence and revolutions if public rage
exceeds the tipping point, making it uncontainable.
-
- Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz envisions IMF
riots, saying "the whole cauldron blows up" after IMF financial
terrorism "squeezes the last pound of blood out of" troubled
nations.
-
- Economist Kenneth Rogoff says high US unemployment and
out-of-control debt sooner or later trigger serious "social unrest
from the income disparities" they create, adding the Obama administration
has "no clue."
-
- Neither does Netanyahu, European leaders and numerous
others, heading their nations for serious unrest - or worse.
-
- Gerald Celente's been warning about it for years, saying:
-
- "When people lose everything and have nothing else
to lose, they lose it."
-
- Indeed, and it may be coming to a nearby neighborhood
or right in their own backyard. Bet on it.
-
- Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at
lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
-
- Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and
listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive
Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central
time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy
listening.
-
- http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
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