Crusty;
I respectfully disagree although I see no immediate threat of a revolution, I can see the seeds of such in the statements you made.
Let's look at them one-by-one:
1) Has not a long and anticipated rise in living standards not now levelled off or dropped ? Each generation has hoped that their children would "do better" than they..polls show that people don't believe this will carry on. Common sense dictates that if we trade on a "global market", each nation involved must eventually be dealing from a fairly equal position today's poor nations get richer, the richer ones get poorer, a levelling off, so to speak.
2) Don't we already have great disagreement between the NEW "upper classes" such as high placed political hacks and their minions in Hollywood and the major media against the working people like "Joe the Plumber".. I don't know how much further apart they could be ! Are not now the upper (political) class breaking the trust (keep most of what your sweat earns) with the working class and attempting to take more of their hard earned money and giving it to those who don't even try ? Isn't it a breaking of trust when the ruling class continually tries to take away Constitutionaly promised freedoms ?
3) A matter of semantics..The professional (political) and intellectual (educators) are already hammering on the manufacturers, bankers and small businessmen..ask Joe..
4) No need to comment, the line fits the present administration perfectly!
5) Here you have a slightly different but no less volatile situation, where the "ruling classes" want to force through changes that the majority of the creating, earning class does not want. The ruling class has joined with the parasitic and perverted classes, trying to force through by sheer numbers, actions against guaranteed Constitutional rights. If that's not a tinderbox; i don't know one !
6) Fiscal irresponsibility..like putting our children and grandchildren into debt for all their lives and putting our fair nation into debt with our enemies ? Inept or corrupt governments..where the prez had trouble finding enough honest taxpayers among his associates to fill his cabinet posts, ...so he accepted some tax cheats anyway.
7) "Capricious use of force"..such as at Waco and Ruby Ridge ? How soon before we see the "brownshirts" coming after someone's guns? CVapriciouys use of force..like taking away the hard earned wages of 3,000,000 hard working guys like joe the plumber..then giving it to those who will not even work.
..Could be just the straw that broke the camel's back.
I see things differently..revolutions can come about when granted rights are either ignored or undermined by the "ruling class". Read the reasons for the Magna Charta, Wallace's rebellion, the Cromwellian rebellion and our own revolution..started by a repressive govt..such as we now have..
BTW: Just because some intellectuals, especially liberal intellectuals put together a list, doesn't mean that list is correct and surely doesn't mean it is unbiased. from experience, I have found that liberals tend to view people as doing things purely on a self-interest basis.
That may be the way they look at things, but I submit that there are a great many people who go beyond self-interest. Such may be hard for a liberal mind to grasp, being that generally they don't believe in a power higher or greater than man or government..but it is true
Why else would young men and women volunteer to fight a dangerous/evil enemy face to face? Which of course goes to show why there are very few political liberals among them. Why does a policeman risk his life to save a child or woman not his own ? Why would a teenaged girl at Columbine high school continue to praise the name of Jesus when she knew she would die for it?
You see, "intellectuals" making lists, don't know everything and liberal intellectuals are likely the most uninformed.
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