How long until riots begin in the U.S.?

[Snowguy716]

Neither riots, nor revolution.  It's a realignment.   Welcome to 1979!

lol...

More like 1929.

And considering who the GOP has up for offer... well, Reagan would be a marked improvement.

[Meeker]

There may be riots amongst minority youth at some point in the next few years. White people, even the kids, won't riot though. They're still too well off.

[King]

Tea Party Movement started a couple of years ago.  I imagine if Obama gets re-elected, shocked idiots will react like shocked idiots.

[asexual trans victimologist]

If America is anywhere close to being what I hope it is, sooner rather than later. But more needs to be done than that. Our government has been sticking both middle fingers at us and laughing for far too long. Our country is an embarrassment. I also hope you guys are right in that it's apolitical. The very last thing anyone in Washington needs is a side to unequivocally take at the expense of reason. What I'm most sick of is a President that I have a feeling agrees with most of us and yet bites his tongue and plays the game anyway. I can't decide whether he'd actually grow some balls if he's reelected or if he really is just a career campaigner. Something's gotta give, regardless. Anyway, now I'm just rambling. Essentially, it needs to happen and it needs to be big.

I also get this feeling that Obama does agree with "us" and he's probably frustrated with himself for f**king up so grandly.  But I don't foresee a change.  He's not playing the game.  The game is playing him.

Honestly, I hope that Obama snaps. I hope that he has a mental breakdown where he loses his faith in his ability to compromise with the Republicans, with his ability to win reelection, and what he was taught growing up, and realizes that Summers, Bernanke, Geithner, etc etc f--ked him over and set up him up to be the fall guy for their theft. But it's probably too much to hope for.

This.

This, this, this, this, this.

A completely and utterly mad President is one of the only things that I can conceive of that could even begin to break free of this grey area, one way or another.

Another is large-scale rioting coupled with occupation of major urban areas. I'm talking occupation, People Power Revolution-style jamming the Washington Beltway/Fifth Avenue/Boston Common/New Jersey Turnpike/I-90 in Chicago/you get the idea with human bodies until something gives.

[Keystone Phil]

Haha. This is a civilized continent, you see. It isn't like Europe. Of course there won't be rioting.

Tea Party Movement started a couple of years ago.  I imagine if Obama gets re-elected, shocked idiots will react like shocked idiots.

Ah, right. Those violent Tea Partiers...that have yet to engage in rioting.

[TJ in Wisco]

Maybe I am just naive to the attraction of rioting, but what would we actually be rioting for?

[bgwah]

Quit looking into possible political motivations so much. If we do have lots of riots, it will be angry young people who like smashing and burning things.

[So the Heroes Fall]

I've been to one riot in my life, and it was because a bunch of drunk college students thought it'd be fun to start bonfires in the street and rip up fences. That was the entire motivation.

[TJ in Wisco]

Quit looking into possible political motivations so much. If we do have lots of riots, it will be angry young people who like smashing and burning things.

This just goes to show me why I will probably never riot. Destroying things for no reason at all.

In a sense it's a shame for lack of a better word because I have a nasty temper if rubbed the wrong way, but I'd have to actually be angry about something in particular.

[J. J.]

Neither riots, nor revolution.  It's a realignment.   Welcome to 1979!

lol...

More like 1929.

And considering who the GOP has up for offer... well, Reagan would be a marked improvement.

What could be happening might make RWR look like FDR.

[Lief]

Maybe I am just naive to the attraction of rioting, but what would we actually be rioting for?

To make people pay attention.

[King]

Haha. This is a civilized continent, you see. It isn't like Europe. Of course there won't be rioting.

Tea Party Movement started a couple of years ago.  I imagine if Obama gets re-elected, shocked idiots will react like shocked idiots.

Ah, right. Those violent Tea Partiers...that have yet to engage in rioting.

You're right.  There haven't been riots in years here.  No American has the energy to get off the couch and riot anyway.

[Senator MaxQue]

Well, riots are the only result possible as long governments refuse to face truth and accept to reform capitalism to restore tips to an equilibrum. Now, they are heavily tilted on the corporations' side.

The further it is unbalanced, the hardest the recoil will be.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

We'll have to wait until 2013 to see massive protests. What happened in Wisconsin, Ohio and Michigan was a nice prelude, imagine that on a larger scale against the federal government except instead of angry public workers leading the way, it will probably be younger university students and somewhat less partisan. Riots will probably happen along the way at some point but will seem on the outside to be non-political when in reality they will be directly linked to the economic implosion we will be experiencing.

If Obama is re-elected, I don't see much protesting action occurring. The potential for race riots will still be there though.

Yes, I am beginning to agree with Lief, Beet and SamSpade on this.

[J. J.]

We'll have to wait until 2013 to see massive protests. What happened in Wisconsin, Ohio and Michigan was a nice prelude, imagine that on a larger scale against the federal government except instead of angry public workers leading the way, it will probably be younger university students and somewhat less partisan. Riots will probably happen along the way at some point but will seem on the outside to be non-political when in reality they will be directly linked to the economic implosion we will be experiencing.

If it was tried by public workers, the rest of the public would rise up and lynch all of them.  Okay. that is hyperbole, but they'd support firing them all.

Public workers are not popular.  (I say this as a former public worker.)

I really cannot believe how totally out of touch the people on this board are with the American people.



Yes, I am beginning to agree with Lief, Beet and SamSpade on this.
[/quote]

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

We'll have to wait until 2013 to see massive protests. What happened in Wisconsin, Ohio and Michigan was a nice prelude, imagine that on a larger scale against the federal government except instead of angry public workers leading the way, it will probably be younger university students and somewhat less partisan. Riots will probably happen along the way at some point but will seem on the outside to be non-political when in reality they will be directly linked to the economic implosion we will be experiencing.

If it was tried by public workers, the rest of the public would rise up and lynch all of them.  Okay. that is hyperbole, but they'd support firing them all.

Public workers are not popular.  (I say this as a former public worker.)

I really cannot believe how totally out of touch the people on this board are with the American people.

I'm talking about peaceful protests, not riots...

[J. J.]

We'll have to wait until 2013 to see massive protests. What happened in Wisconsin, Ohio and Michigan was a nice prelude, imagine that on a larger scale against the federal government except instead of angry public workers leading the way, it will probably be younger university students and somewhat less partisan. Riots will probably happen along the way at some point but will seem on the outside to be non-political when in reality they will be directly linked to the economic implosion we will be experiencing.

If it was tried by public workers, the rest of the public would rise up and lynch all of them.  Okay. that is hyperbole, but they'd support firing them all.

Public workers are not popular.  (I say this as a former public worker.)

I really cannot believe how totally out of touch the people on this board are with the American people.

I'm talking about peaceful protests, not riots...

That wouldn't make any difference.  I know people that now work for the City of Philadelphia who won't admit to it, simply because they don't want the comments.  I was a state worker in the 1990's, and as soon as I said, "I'm a welfare caseworker," all I'd get was comments about why I didn't through more people off the lists.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

We'll have to wait until 2013 to see massive protests. What happened in Wisconsin, Ohio and Michigan was a nice prelude, imagine that on a larger scale against the federal government except instead of angry public workers leading the way, it will probably be younger university students and somewhat less partisan. Riots will probably happen along the way at some point but will seem on the outside to be non-political when in reality they will be directly linked to the economic implosion we will be experiencing.

If it was tried by public workers, the rest of the public would rise up and lynch all of them.  Okay. that is hyperbole, but they'd support firing them all.

Public workers are not popular.  (I say this as a former public worker.)

I really cannot believe how totally out of touch the people on this board are with the American people.

I'm talking about peaceful protests, not riots...

That wouldn't make any difference.  I know people that now work for the City of Philadelphia who won't admit to it, simply because they don't want the comments.  I was a state worker in the 1990's, and as soon as I said, "I'm a welfare caseworker," all I'd get was comments about why I didn't through more people off the lists.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XlUsoM4ruQ
Were you in a coma when this was happening?

[So the Heroes Fall]

We'll have to wait until 2013 to see massive protests. What happened in Wisconsin, Ohio and Michigan was a nice prelude, imagine that on a larger scale against the federal government except instead of angry public workers leading the way, it will probably be younger university students and somewhat less partisan. Riots will probably happen along the way at some point but will seem on the outside to be non-political when in reality they will be directly linked to the economic implosion we will be experiencing.

If it was tried by public workers, the rest of the public would rise up and lynch all of them.  Okay. that is hyperbole, but they'd support firing them all.

Public workers are not popular.  (I say this as a former public worker.)

I really cannot believe how totally out of touch the people on this board are with the American people.

I'm talking about peaceful protests, not riots...

That wouldn't make any difference.  I know people that now work for the City of Philadelphia who won't admit to it, simply because they don't want the comments.  I was a state worker in the 1990's, and as soon as I said, "I'm a welfare caseworker," all I'd get was comments about why I didn't through more people off the lists.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XlUsoM4ruQ
Were you in a coma when this was happening?

Arguing with J. J. is like deciding you don't like the color of your house so you scream at your house to change its color instead of getting it painted. It also has about an equal chance of resulting in anything productive.

[Lief]

J.J. is wrong again! Are public employees incredibly unpopular? The answer, as polling shows us, is a clear no!

The new survey shows that nearly two-thirds (64 percent) of Americans believe that public employees should have the right to collectively bargain over wage. Overwhelmingly, Americans have a positive opinion of public sector workers, with 72 percent saying they have a very favorable or mostly favorable view of public employees.

That's just one poll though, he surely says. Let's check another. This poll is just a poll of California, but that's a pretty big state!

    * Democrats hold public employees in the highest esteem, with nearly two-thirds (63%) perceiving them in a positive light and only one out of ten (10%) in a negative light.
    * Among decline-to-state and third party voters, six times as many voters hold a favorable opinion of public employees as holds an unfavorable opinion (54% favorable to only 9% unfavorable), with 33 percent neutral and the remaining unsure.
    * Republicans also view public employees favorably by a margin of better than 2-to-1, with nearly half of GOP voters (46%) saying they had a favorable opinion to slightly less than one out of five (19%) who viewed public employees unfavorably.

Here's a Pew poll that asked specifically about public employee unions. Let's see what they have to say!

This CBS News poll doesn't specifically ask the question, but it does ask a bunch of questions about public employees, and in all of them the respondents seem favorable, even going so far as to support raising taxes instead of cutting benefits/salary for public employees! If that's not proof that the public absolutely hates government workers, I don't know what is!

Even this conservative think tank, WPRI, found in its poll that teachers and public employees are very popular:

# Public employee unions in general: 59% favorable, 34% unfavorable
# Teachers’ unions: 59% favorable, 36% unfavorable

Well, that's enough yelling at my house for it to change color for today!

[Ebowed]

Well, that's enough yelling at my house for it to change color for today!

Have you tried calm dialogue instead of yelling?

[J. J.]

We'll have to wait until 2013 to see massive protests. What happened in Wisconsin, Ohio and Michigan was a nice prelude, imagine that on a larger scale against the federal government except instead of angry public workers leading the way, it will probably be younger university students and somewhat less partisan. Riots will probably happen along the way at some point but will seem on the outside to be non-political when in reality they will be directly linked to the economic implosion we will be experiencing.

If it was tried by public workers, the rest of the public would rise up and lynch all of them.  Okay. that is hyperbole, but they'd support firing them all.

Public workers are not popular.  (I say this as a former public worker.)

I really cannot believe how totally out of touch the people on this board are with the American people.

I'm talking about peaceful protests, not riots...

That wouldn't make any difference.  I know people that now work for the City of Philadelphia who won't admit to it, simply because they don't want the comments.  I was a state worker in the 1990's, and as soon as I said, "I'm a welfare caseworker," all I'd get was comments about why I didn't through more people off the lists.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XlUsoM4ruQ
Were you in a coma when this was happening?

And, even the recalls don't seem to be working too well.  We government workers are not popular.

[J. J.]

J.J. is wrong again! Are public employees incredibly unpopular? The answer, as polling shows us, is a clear no!

Lief, there is a world of difference between worker having a right to unionize and being popular.

You get some segments being popular, police, fire, the military, and to some extent teachers.  The guys at the Social Security Office, DMV, Welfare Office are not.

[Lief]

Overwhelmingly, Americans have a positive opinion of public sector workers, with 72 percent saying they have a very favorable or mostly favorable view of public employees.

[specific_name]

Jumping in at the fourth page without reading the entire thread....

Whenever austerity to comes to America and a large segment of the population moves from being disenchanted to openly hostile because they aren't getting a job, a place to live or a steady supply of essentials (food, water, basic consumables).

If an army marches on its stomach, that's doubly true for a population. People won't riot over their 401Ks, they'll riot went the rule law is widely disrespected from the top to the bottom of a society (it already is in many ways), add to this the magic ingredient of hunger and then we get civil unrest.