I think that as America moves toward parity with China (in terms of wages, civil rights) and the developing world, those who thought themselves entitled to middle-class things like college, health-insurance, cheap food, and a living wage will increasingly tip off the table of civility and react violently.
I think about the former construction workers, and other formerly blue collar folks, pick up trucks with shotgun racks armed to the teeth, will tip toward violence when they can’t afford their six-packs and ground beef, lottery tickets, and retirement.
There is only a fine thread holding civility of society together today. Wait until gas is $10 per gallon, until your grocery story’s shelves are bare because the society built around the assumption that fuel will always be cheap—the sprawl of suburbia—we will still congregate around the Walmart Strip malls—not to buy Chinese crap, but to scrounge for bits of scrap metal and glass to sell to recycle. As the consumer get’s cut off from international credit sources, and the service industry wanes—watch the desperation of the population who thought they were entitled to a better life than their parents realize that they (we) are the new third world.
Get a game plan, it is right around the corner.
I do not hope or wish for this, but I believe we are having a collective Wiley E Coyote moment now. (creidt to JHK)http://jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com/clusterfuck_nation/2008/07/event-horizon.html
Google the Book “World Made By Hand” or the “The Long Emergency” for a clearer and better articulated view.
A chipper topic indeed.