I’m from Tunisia — I usually have to explain where it is.
But not anymore, since it became the first Arab country to overthrow its dictator and spread the seeds of revolution across the Arab world, including Egypt.
What’s common to all these Arab uprisings is not just dictatorship, and lack of freedom and human rights. Not all Arab dictators feel threatened; only the countries where there’s high unemployment. After all, food and oil prices are rising globally.
Freedom is always most important, but people are naturally lazy if the government “gives them bread and entertain them,” like with 999 TV channels.
As Habib Bourguiba warned Zine El Abidine Ben Ali following the 1987 bloodless Tunisian coup, “Don’t starve the Tunisian people, and don’t keep them too full; give them just enough, because when they rise, you can’t hold them.”
According CIA World Factbook, today, every country in the world is in debt; mounting to $60 trillion and led by the United States with $14 trillion. It doesn’t make sense. By 2050, about half of the countries should be bankrupt, such as Greece (caused by Goldman Sachs loans), which was lucky to get a bailout from the European this time.
Increased inequality, driven by higher debt, became the main cause of death and chaos. Where would you want to be in 2050?
I’d pick a country that’s not overpopulated like China, whose people don’t own guns like the USA, and which has a lot of agriculture (away from deserts and mountains), although that’s becoming hard to predict with global warming.
At the ‘‘Zeitgeist Lane County” monthly meetings at the University, people started designing a plan for group survival during foreseeable government shutdown. What would you do before it’s too late: Buy guns and watch TV, or buy agriculture books and fight now for a better future in order to avoid an almost inevitable global genocide?
Today, we consume six barrels of oil for every barrel found (it used to be four barrels five years ago), while world population reaches 7 billion next year (with the last billion coming in last 12 years) and 1 billion of them are starving to death, most of them children (every five seconds).
Dictators ignore this because nothing can convince them to change their comfortable rusty thrones, while democratic leaders barely mention these numbers, then ignore them too, as they think that it’s going to be another president’s problem. Meanwhile, at Wall Street, making money out of debt (producing nothing for society) became the No. 1 industry in America, even more profitable than wars and health insurance (industries of death).
Prisons are now run by private companies, whose stocks improve with more prisoners. People are being thrown in jail for fake or irrational reasons, like this year’s American single mother, for switching her children to a better school outside her district. Are you next?
One thing is for sure, no corporate president or CEO cares about you, as it directly conflicts with their corporation’s goals. In America, the Democratic and Republican parties are one corporate party with two heads wearing different makeup. It’s time for change we live in, not believe in for few years before we realize it’s for the richest 2 percent of the country again.
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Letter: Tunisian revolution provides impetus for pan-Arab dictatorship protests
Daily Emerald
February 10, 2011
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