When Revolutions Roll Out Of Control

October 26, 2011 by John Myers


Occupy Oakland protesters camped out in front of City Hall in Oakland, Calif.

This is the autumn of our discontent. I believe something sinister is coming down the pipe. Week after week of demonstrations around the world could be a harbinger of revolt and even mass violence.

I am in the second half-century of my life. All my life, I followed the news because I was at the side of my father, a writer and publisher whose job was to predict investment trends. Not once in all these decades have I seen such troubled times, and that includes my memories of the 1960s.

I suspect a spark has been struck and we are all headed down a very destructive path, one that will not only destroy wealth through economic deflation but something worse: a period of violence wrought by tough times and widespread anger.

It will be up to historians to decide if the genesis of economic and social implosion began with the crash of 2008, the discontent that followed in Europe, or recent events — the mass protests that have been visited on major centers from Wall Street to Warsaw, Poland.

What is certain is that Western democracies are reaping what they sowed, especially in the United States. What began as a small group of protesters in Manhattan’s financial district has grown steadily. It now encompasses student groups, labor unions and, in some cases, the dregs of society.

The protesters in the United States call themselves “the 99 percent.â€