Riot

In Every City In America There Are People Ready To Riot, Loot And Set Things On Fire

Baltimore Riot - YouTube ScreenshotThe city of Baltimore has been transformed into an “absolute war zone“, and the governor of Maryland has declared a state of emergency as the rioting in “Charm City” continues to escalate.  The funeral for Freddie Gray has unleashed a firestorm of violence, and none of it is going to do anyone any good.  To their credit, some of the leaders of the African-American community are standing up and loudly condemning the violence.  They know that smashing cars, throwing rocks at police and looting stores is not going to solve anything.  But just like we saw in Ferguson, there are lots of people out there that are ready to riot, loot and set things on fire at the drop of a hat – all they need is an opportunity.  The social decay that has been eating away at the foundations of our society for generations is now manifesting in some very ugly ways.  We have raised an entire generation of young people in a “value free” environment, and now we are getting to experience some of the consequences of our foolishness.  And what we are witnessing in Baltimore right now is just the start.  Eventually, we are going to see scenes like this all over the nation.

Thanks to social media, the violence that we saw in Baltimore on Monday is being broadcast to the entire planet.  The whole world is getting a really good look at what the decline of America looks like.  The following is how the New York Times described what took place…

Angry youths could be seen surrounding a police cruiser and smashing its windows in what police described as an organized attack by criminals — not demonstrators. Cars were set on fire, and stores’ windows were smashed in. Heavy smoke poured out of a CVS drugstore, which had earlier been overrun by looters. Several other businesses, including a liquor store and a check-cashing shop, were also looted.

You can find some incredible photos of looting in progress right here.  Do those young people believe that they are actually doing something constructive that will make a difference in our society?  Of course not.  They are opportunists that are taking advantage of the chaos to commit crime.

And you know what?  A lot of older African-Americans were absolutely disgusted by what they were seeing.  The following is just one example…

Barbara Taylor, 60, has lived in the neighborhood near the store for 15 years. As she spoke, a group of teenagers carrying cases of soda and Arizona Iced Tea walked by. “All I can see is crime,” said Taylor. “The people doing this don’t live around here. They’re kids coming in to our neighborhood and breaking it apart. There is no reason for this.”

Of course the biggest targets on Monday were police officers.  It is becoming extremely dangerous to be a police officer in America today, and this is something that I wrote an entire article about recently.  During the violence on Monday, seven police officers were seriously injured.  At least some of the injured had broken bones, and one was described as being “unresponsive”…

“We have seven officers who were injured during the course of this,” said Baltimore Police Capt. Eric Kowalczyk. “They have broken bones, one of them is unresponsive. This is not okay. Our officers went out to that situation to make sure that the people who live in that community were safe and we’re going to continue to do what we can to make sure that those people stay safe.

“It’s a group of lawless individuals,” Kowalczyk said of the rioters. “What we know is that they are a group of criminals with no regard for the people in the community.”

Later on Monday, we found out that a total of 15 police officers had received some sort of injury during the course of the day.  To say that the streets of Baltimore have become a “war zone” is not an overstatement in the least.

This is what America is becoming, and this is only just the beginning.  As I mentioned yesterday, I went on the record publicly regarding my belief that civil unrest was coming specifically to Baltimore during a speech I gave on the evening of April 11th.  That was about a week before Freddie Gray died.  But little did I know that it would start happening before the end of the month.  The following are some tweets that contain scenes from the violence that we witnessed on Monday…

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Make sure to watch that last video.  It shows a man literally being dragged out of his store and ruthlessly beaten by a gang of young thugs.  Because of the decisions that we have made as a society, this is what the future of our country is going to look like.  This is something that I have been warning about for years, and now it is here.

So let us mourn for America, because the nation that so many of us love is slipping away a little bit more every single day.

Are Black Friday Riots A Preview Of The Civil Unrest That Is Coming When Society Breaks Down?

If Americans will trample one another just to save a few dollars on a television, what will they do when society breaks down and the survival of their families is at stake?  Once in a while an event comes along that gives us a peek into what life could be like when the thin veneer of civilization that we all take for granted is stripped away.  For example, when Hurricane Sandy hit New York and New Jersey there was rampant looting and within days people were digging around in supermarket dumpsters looking for food.  Sadly, “Black Friday” also gives us a look at how crazed the American people can be when given the opportunity.  This year was no exception.  Once again we saw large crowds of frenzied shoppers push, shove, scratch, claw, bite and trample one another just to save a few bucks on cheap foreign-made goods.  And of course most retailers seem to be encouraging this type of behavior.  Most of them actually want people frothing at the mouth and willing to fight one another to buy their goods.  But is this kind of “me first” mentality really something that we want to foster as a society?  If people are willing to riot to save money on a cell phone, what would they be willing to do to feed their families?  Are the Black Friday riots a very small preview of the civil unrest that is coming when society eventually breaks down?

Once upon a time, Thanksgiving was not really a commercial holiday.  It was a time to get together with family and friends, eat turkey and express thanks for the blessings that we have been given.

But in recent years Black Friday has started to become even a bigger event than Thanksgiving itself.

Millions of Americans have become convinced that it is fun to wait in long lines outside retail stores in freezing cold weather in the middle of the night to spend money that they do not have on things that they do not need.

And of course very, very few “Black Friday deals” are actually made in America.  So these frenzied shoppers are actually killing American jobs and destroying the U.S. economy as well.

The absurdity of Black Friday was summed up very well recently in a statement that has already been retweeted on Twitter more than 1,000 times…

“Black Friday: because only in America people trample each other for sales exactly one day after being thankful for what they already have.”

It has gotten to the point where it is now expected that there will be mini-riots all over the country early on Black Friday morning each year.  The following are a few examples of the craziness that we saw this year…

-“Fights break out when stores open on Black Friday”

-“Black Friday madness at Georgia Wal-Mart”

-“Black Friday Frenzy: 2 Run Down in Washington, Man Pulls Gun in Texas”

-“Black Friday 2012: Rush at Victoria’s Secret Pink at Oak Park Mall in Overland Park, Kan.”

-“Black Friday shoppers smash door at Urban Outfitters”

-“Black Friday Shopping Hysteria From Around The Country [PHOTOS]”

-“Disturbance leads to scare at Westroads Mall”

-“Teens In Custody After Woodland Mall Fight”

-“Boy Robbed During Black Friday Shopping At Arundel Mills”

-“Shoppers Were So Obsessed With Black Friday Deals They Left Their Infants Unattended”

Fortunately, many Americans are starting to get fed up with Black Friday.  In fact, one activist named Mark Dice actually went out and heckled Black Friday shoppers this year.  I found the following You Tube video to be very funny, and I think most of you will too…

In the end, it is not that big of a deal that people want to fight with one another to save 50 dollars on a cell phone.

But this kind of extreme selfishness and desperation could become a massive problem someday if society breaks down and suddenly millions of extremely selfish and desperate people are scrambling for survival.

With each passing day our economy is getting even weaker, and the next wave of the economic collapse is rapidly approaching.  What are people going to do when the next spike in unemployment hits us and nobody can find work?

To get an idea of where things are headed, just look at Europe.  In both Greece and Spain the unemployment rate is over 25 percent and civil unrest has become almost a constant problem in both of those countries.

So what kind of riots will we see in the United States when the economy gets much worse than it is now?

Already there are signs of social decay all around us, and most Americans are completely unprepared for what will happen if a major disaster or emergency does strike.

Sadly, the reality is that most Americans live on a month to month basis.  Most families do not have any emergency savings to speak of, and one recent poll found that 55 percent of all Americans only have enough food in their homes to survive for three days or less.

To me, that is an absolutely insane number.

We just came through a summer of extreme drought and global food supplies have dropped to a 40 year low.  Our world is becoming increasingly unstable, and the global financial system could fall apart at any time.  Most of us just assume that there will always be huge amounts of very cheap food available to us, but unfortunately that simply is not a safe assumption.  The following is from a recent article in the Guardian…

Evan Fraser, author of Empires of Food and a geography lecturer at Guelph University in Ontario, Canada, says: “For six of the last 11 years the world has consumed more food than it has grown. We do not have any buffer and are running down reserves. Our stocks are very low and if we have a dry winter and a poor rice harvest we could see a major food crisis across the board.”

“Even if things do not boil over this year, by next summer we’ll have used up this buffer and consumers in the poorer parts of the world will once again be exposed to the effects of anything that hurts production.”

When I watch my fellow Americans trample one another to get a deal on a television or a video game, it makes me wonder what they would be willing to do if they went to the store someday and all the food was gone.

Desperate people do desperate things, and someday if there was a major economic breakdown in the United States I think the level of desperation in this country would be extremely frightening.

So what do you think?  Please feel free to post a comment with your thoughts below…