> Particularly, if we consider two very general and basic necessary
> conditions
> of revolutions, that is, (a.) a lose of control by ruling elites and
> (b) an
> increasing refuse of such control by the ruled, I expect at least a
> lot of
> (a) in the next future...
I'm afraid not. If you look at the monkeyshines Congress has been up to lately, you might suspect that the ruling class is losing its grip on what it needs to keep the country under control, since they seem to be developing a predilection for passing laws without even reading what is in them first, but I think they have a long way to go before they actually do lose control.
> Regarding (b), I expect that the relative size of dissatisfied and
> disgruntled among US population will continue to grow, following the
> trend
> in income distribution. All the differences considered, have you noted
> how a
> left wing party born out of nothing 20 years ago took the power in
> Brazil
> (the fact that it seems growingly oriented toward neoliberal policies
> is
> another matter).
But what you have to understand is that American poor folks don't blame the system, they blame themselves. That's a big difference between this country and one like Brazil.
> Of course, these trends may also result in growth of fascist
> attitudes, but
> in any case the situation seems very open and unstable for me.
Perhaps that's because you're not an experienced observer of the country. I've been observing it for over 60 years (well, the first few years I wasn't grasping the whole picture very well), and it seems quite stable to me -- far stabler than in 1968, and there was no revolution then, if you recall.
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________________ Belinda: Ay, but you know we must return good for evil. Lady Brute: That may be a mistake in the translation.
-- Sir John Vanbrugh: The Provok’d Wife (1697), I.i.