The most remarkable thing about civil unrest is that there hasn’t been more of it.
Politicians are making a hash of thiscountry—and much of the rest of the civilized world. We know it. Theyknow it. They know we know it. But we don’t feel we can do anythingmuch to stop them.
That right there is the pre-condition for civil unrest—when people are frustrated and politicians are nervous.
Worse, that was how things stood before last fall’s crash. Beforepols on both left and right launched the biggest mass transfer ofwealth in history—transferring our wealth (what we had left of it!) totheir friends on Wall Street and in the banking industry. In otherwords, that’s how things were before things got bad!
Now everybody’s talking about theongoing catastrophe (even if we are in a momentarily sunny mood). Butalmost nobody is talking about the logical—maybe eveninevitable—consequences of cynical or desperate politicians abusing analready fed-up populace: civil unrest.
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Look up “preparations for civil unrest” on Google and…What’s that echo I hear?—you’ll find nothing that’s going to help you. In fact, you won’t even easily turn up a good definition of what civil unrest is.
Like “indecency,” the definition seems to be in the eye of the beholder.
I wouldn’t consider a peaceful anti-warmarch to be civil unrest, for instance, but a police chief might.Similarly, I wouldn’t consider acts of localized non-violentlawbreaking (like environmental activists chaining themselves to atree) to be civil unrest; but a timber company official probablybelieves otherwise.
Civil unrest occurs when anger, frustration, or fear turn disruptive on a mass scale. Or when government officials crack down because they anticipatesuch disruptions. Crackdowns can lead to further frustration, leadingto further crackdowns and so on—especially when the crackdowns lookunwarranted and tyrannical.
In other words, civil unrest can arise from the anger of people or the folly of government or both together.
Anger over an unpopular policy, a newwar, a collapse of the currency, panic over a pandemic, a foodshortage, a bank run—anything like that could cause civil unrest,especially in a population that’s already on edge and no longer trustsits authority figures.