Livin in the USA
Don’t quote me on this, but I seem to remember some sage advise Barton Biggs offered his high net worth clientele about the coming social disintegration due to the economic meltdown. I remember him saying “to stock up your wine cellars, get liquid with your assets and find communities to live in where enhanced security services is a chief accoutrement.” He may be on to something.
Urban tensions have exploded in Oakland California this past week over the slaying of a BART commuter at the hands of a transit policemen. The unfortunate killing of the African American youth Oscar Grant occurred on New Years eve when the BART transit police were trying to control rowdy New Years revelers. The shooting has triggered a series of violent protests that are becoming more commonplace in cities of the world.
These high profile cases of police brutality are incendiary incidents that give voice to a seething urban anguish fed by economic duress, racial tensions and cultural dislocation. The police murders of a person of color give focused voice to community discontent fueled by rising unemployment, homelessness, home foreclosures, ethnic tensions and rising impoverishment unleashing a horrific display of civil disturbances that are in turn met with brutal state suppression.
Urban social unrest is becoming more commonplace in democratic nation states. The riots in Paris and Amsterdam in 2007 and the recent unrest in Athens speak of a deep dissatisfaction of the economic and cultural disenfranchisement of urban minorities and working poor. These Euro Zone riots assume a Muslim ethnic dimension. It exemplifies the cultural dislocation of Islamic youths and the failure to integrate the large Muslim immigrant community into Old World Europe. As the recession deepens ethnic unrest and class conflict will grow. Perhaps we should take Mr. Biggs’ advise and stock up the wine cellars before it becomes to dangerous for a run to the local liquor store.
You Tube News Footage: Oakland riots
You Tube Music Video: Steve Miller Band, Livin in the USA
