American Spring

An entire Generation is demanding its future!
- Protest sign in an Israeli mass demonstration
(http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/protest-leaders-present-their-vision-for-social-justice-in-israel-1.377683 )

"If you don't let us dream, we won't let you sleep"
- Protest sign in Spain

( http://www.news.com.au/world/unemployed-youth-protest-over-economic-policy-in-spain/story-e6frfkyi-1226060277267#ixzz1VA9TDjbG)


At the beginning of the year a Tunisian fruit merchant set himself on fire to protest near endless harassment by the Tunisian police. This final act against a regime that robbed its people of its present and future touched off upheavals all across the Arab world. The regimes in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya have fallen. Protests continue in Bahrain. The government in Syria is teetering, the government in Yemen is all but gone. Young Arabs feel robbed of their future by stagnant economies, and governments run for the benefit of the wealthy few who are deaf to their voices and unresponsive to their dreams.

These feelings are not confined to the Arab world. Massive protests are also taking place in Israel. Over the past eight weeks the Social Justice movement has grown from a few student protestors to a nationwide march where 450,000 people, took to the streets across Israel against a system that asks much of them and gives little in return.

In Belorussia, the government’s strong crackdowns have created an imaginative response from dissidents. Social media spreads the word that if you oppose the government, show up in a city park at a particular time to sit on a park bench and read a book, or stand, or simply walk through the park. Flash mobs turned social protests.

In May and June young people camped out in public squares across Spain protesting economic conditions and an economic structure that makes it difficult to impossible for young people to find work.

All of these movements have cited the Arab Spring as an inspiration.

Since Tahrir Square, American reporting on these protests has been sporadic. The sit-ins in Spain were barely reported, the protests in Israel aren’t mentioned at all. Yemen is off the front pages as is Bahrain. The Libyans are getting press but only because the memory of Lockerbie has not faded.

By treating these stories as isolated events they have missed how connected these protests and revolutions are. All of these protest, the Arab Spring, Israel, Spain, or even Greece as well as the 2009 Iranian Green revolution spring from a common force – a generation who feel they have been cheated of their futures.

Will the Arab Spring sweep into the US?

After all some of the same conditions that drive the protestors in the Middle-East and Europe exist here in the US. Wealth continues its race to the top that started in the Clinton-Bush years. Fewer people are employed 2011 than were employed in 2001. Job growth in the US has been in a steady decline since before the 2008 crisis. The Bush tax cut saddled the country with a massive debt burden which will limit opportunity in the country for a generation.

The government votes against help for the unemployed, keeps tax cuts for the rich while moving to end middle class tax cuts for struggling families. Democrats and Republicans both seem more interested in throwing a lifeline to the person in the yacht than the person being pulled under in the economic undertow.

The forces that drove Wisconsinites to protest day after day in Madison are the same frustrations that fueled the Arab uprisings. There a State Government moved to strip bargaining rights for workers to fill a budget hole created a passing a tax cut for the powerful. The chants of “Shame” in the State House gallery in Madison were no different than the chants of protesters in Israel, the Middle-east or Europe.

The Tea Party is also driven by the same forces. Its message is one of frustration with a government that seems to ignore the dreams hopes and voices of its citizens while amassing power for itself. Madison and raucous Tea Party town hall meetings in 2010 are two sides of the same coin.

Standard and Poors cited the government’s inability to reach a solution on the American economic crisis as the main reason for their downgrade of America’s credit rating. 78% of respondents in Gallup’s daily economic survey believe the economy is getting worse. In the same survey, 46% of respondents feel they are struggling. This is no surprise when Gallup shows over 27% of workers are unemployed or underemployed. (http://www.gallup.com/poll/110824/Gallup-Daily-US-Economic-Outlook.aspx).

Just because there aren’t tent cities in the Capitol Mall doesn’t mean that the same frustrations, angers and fears that drive these protests and revolutions across the world are not prevalent and strong here as well. How the Government responds will determine the strength of the Arab Spring in the US.