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Class Warfarin: Hemorrhaging, Part II by Joseph Natoli

. . . .  As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sees it, Egyptians are revolting in the hope of gaining “greater political and economic freedom.” They want a “peaceful transition to democracy, not faux democracy.” That’s what Hillary Clinton and presumably the Obama administration hope. What is actually be the case is that 1 in 3 males between the ages of 15 and 29 are unemployed in Egypt, which has a poverty rate of 21.6%. The unemployed young have no access to the ruling elite and are now achieving revolutionary access. The Egyptians want jobs, want a livable income, want to be able to feed their families and provide a good education for their children. They want some share in the country’s prosperity.

Sound familiar? It’s not “economic freedom” in the entrepreneurial sense of being free to start a business but economic equality, or some fair degree of it, that is the economic issue. Elite areas in Cairo have been looted, clearly signifying that this is a class war exploding. But Egypt has a 34.4 Gini coefficient rating (100 representing a situation where one person has all the money) while the U.S. has a 45 Gini rating. And right now the unemployment rate for the young stands at close to 27% for the young in the U.S. while 1 out of 4 black Americans remains unemployed. The wealth divide is not as great in Egypt as it is right now in the U.S.. Might we then be the next to face this outburst of anger and frustration and might we not be wise to attend to our own class warfare? We need to recognize that it’s not a classic Marxist class warfare that presents itself now but one that view as a poisoning across lines which I describe as “Class Warfarin.” . . .  (more)

http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2011/04/03/class-warfarin-hemorrhaging-part-ii-by-joseph-natoli/