People, mostly young ones, are protesting in the streets over pocketbook issues, and there are a couple interesting parts with this
From Chile to Lebanon, Protests Flare Over Wallet Issues
In Chile, the spark was an increase in subway fares. In Lebanon, it was a tax on WhatsApp calls. The government of Saudi Arabia moved against hookah pipes. In India, it was about onions.
Small pocketbook items became the focus of popular fury across the globe in recent weeks, as frustrated citizens filled the streets for unexpected protests that tapped into a wellspring of bubbling frustration at a class of political elites seen as irredeemably corrupt or hopelessly unjust or both. They followed mass demonstrations in Bolivia, Spain, Iraq and Russia and before that the Czech Republic, Algeria, Sudan and Kazakhstan in what has been a steady drumbeat of unrest over the past few months.
At first glance, many of the demonstrations were linked by little more than tactics. Weeks of unremitting civil disobedience in Hong Kong set the template for a confrontational approach driven by vastly different economic or political demands.
Yet in many of the restive countries, experts discern a pattern: a louder-than-usual howl against elites in countries where democracy is a source of disappointment, corruption is seen as brazen, and a tiny political class lives large while the younger generation struggles to get by.
“It’s young people who have had enough,†said Ali H. Soufan, chief executive of The Soufan Group, a security intelligence consultancy. “This new generation are not buying into what they see as the corrupt order of the political and economic elite in their own countries. They want a change.â€
First off, notice that these youths are whining about little things and seem to be hating on democracy, and further down in the story, capitalism and The Rich. Someone being very rich doesn’t cause the price of hookahs and onions to go up. For those who want Modern Socialism, they should be careful what the wish for, and take a gander as to what has happened, and is still happening, in Venezuela.
Second off, notice that the article mentions neither the aforementioned Venezuela and the protests, nor France and the yellow vest protests, both of which are against the polices of socialistic governments, the former a tad more than the latter. Most of the countries mentioned in the excerpts aren’t particularly Democratic, are they? They aren’t really practicing a form of democracy.
Third, it is hilarious that these youths are protesting against rising taxes when they are constantly calling for higher taxes on Other People, and unknowingly on themselves when they demand government benefits and services and such.
“You could say these protests mirror what’s going on in the United States,†said Vali Nasr, a Middle East scholar who recently stepped down as dean of Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington. In countries where elections are decisive, like the United States and Britain, skepticism about the old political order has produced populist, nationalist and anti-immigrant results at the polls.
“In other countries, where people don’t have a voice, you have massive protests erupting,†he said.
Is he still including the U.S. in this? Is this highlighting all the whiny snowflakes who just can’t get over Hillary losing the 2016 election? It sure seems like it. They protest because they didn’t get their way, and do not like the notion of democracy, because sometimes they lose.
There is also, buried deep, another point
In the Middle East, the tumult has drawn inevitable comparisons with the upheavals of the Arab Spring of 2011. But experts say these recent protests are driven by a new generation that cares less about the old sectarian or ideological divides.
Instead of calling for the head of a dictator as many Arabs did in 2011, the Lebanese have indicted an entire political class.
“They are stealing and pretending that they aren’t. Who’s responsible, if not them?†Dany Yacoub, 22, said on Monday, the fourth day she had spent protesting in central Beirut. She studied to be a music teacher, but said she cannot find a job because it takes political connections to get hired in a school. “We don’t believe them anymore,†she said.
Well, first of all, you studied music to be a teacher. While we do need music teachers, it’s not a sector that has a lot of jobs. Too many of these youths are getting degrees which do not have many job openings, do not create a lot of earnings. Then there’s the notion that the youths are tired of the old Islamist ways. That could be important in the future for reducing Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism.
