Riots Spread in Europe: How Long Till They Break Out in the U.S.?

Posted by Ian Welsh, Firedoglake at 11:00 AM on December 12, 2008.

Looks like the Greek riots have been contagious:

Protesters in Spain, Denmark and Italy smashed shop windows, pelted police with bottles and attacked banks this week, while in France, cars were set ablaze Thursday outside the Greek consulate in Bordeaux, where protesters scrawled graffiti warning about a looming "insurrection."...

...More demonstrations were set for Friday in Italy, France and Germany.

Still, the clashes have been isolated so far, and nothing like the scope of the chaos in Greece, which was triggered by the police killing of a teenager on Saturday and has ballooned into nightly scenes of burning street barricades, looted stores and overturned cars.

Here's the question. When will Americans decide they've had enough and start rioting?

I believe that President-elect Barack Obama's got about six to eight months. At that point, if things aren't getting better, I think there'll be violence. The bailout was the key moment with respect to this. Giving away that much money and getting nothing for it, is going to be the rallying cry for the disaffected. Americans imagine that "class war" means "the rich screwing the poor and calling it business as usual," but if Obama doesn't do an FDR and save capitalism from its own excesses, I think Americans are going to learn the old mantra "the only war is class war." Bankers got their bailout, they had best stop self-dealing and make that bailout work for everyone, or one day they may find that the 5 percent increase on credit card statements being stuffed forcibly down their collective throats.

People aren't really wrapping their heads around how bad this is going to get before it has a chance of getting better. I hope, and trust, that Obama understands this, and intends to make sure it doesn't get so bad that Americans decide to follow the Greek example.

Tagged as: economy, europe, u.s., italy, spain, riots, greece, econopcalypse