NO KIDDING?

The revolution has been getting underway for some time. Contrary to the assertions of (liberal) 1960s era radicals, it is, in fact, being televised.

It is NOT just one civil war in one country, but several independent civil wars in several countries, not all the same or at the same pace and time, but for similar and comparable and overlapping reasons.

A quick global run through:

Immigration is roiling both Europe and the U.S., leading to the rise of anti-immigrant leaders in several European nations and, of course, America. Rhetoric has grown increasingly heated, and isolated acts of violence have already occurred.

Religion, with its subtext of individual rights versus the state, has sparked conflict across the globe, including sectarian violence among competing factions in the Middle East and the rise in anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim violence in Europe and the USA.

Economic Disparities. All over the globe, the rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer, and disparities in wealth between the richest and poorest members of society are growing – nowhere more so than the oil-fueled Middle East, but generally true in every nation that enjoys a measure of economic prosperity.

Corporate Exploitation.  The plundering of natural resources in Africa, South America and Asia, along with economic structures that are increasingly rigged in favor of monied corporate interests.

Democracy and liberty. Freedom fighters are experiencing a resurgence, with massive and sometimes violent protests in Hong Kong leading the way. Anti-government extremists in the U.S. have shown increasingly willingness to resort to violence, such as the 2016 assault and takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon, led by Ammon Bundy.

That list is a ridiculously compacted and compressed view of conflicts driving the world today. But, even making allowances for overstatement, understatement and omission it should make clearer that much of the world is going through much the same struggles at the same time.

How can that possibly be?

It has been a century since WWI and almost 75 years since WWII, when the world was racked by wars between competing States.

That is 100 years of relative peace in the world. That seems impossible, but the many ‘wars’ we have known during that period have been largely localized and limited in scope (if not duration).

In the meanwhile, amid an aura of stability, the world’s societies have been growing restive within and many are on the verge of internal violence to let off the steam of war that must go somewhere.

Those societies are breaking apart as their internal seams are breaking down. And, the rising tensions internally in various parts of the world are spreading and borrowing strength from one another.

If we are not careful, global conflagration could follow.