A Hearty Soup

In New York, London, Athens, Los Angeles, Portland ME and OR and other cities too numerous to mention, the shit's on!  In the U.S. participants are being called "demonstrators", while in London the term has degenerated to "rioters".  Newspaper columnists, political talk show hosts, bloggers et al. are trying to understand the causes that the protesters may be fighting for and/or the outrages they are protesting against.

In this country some say the rise of the conservative right’s tea party and now of a "left wing tea party" points only to differing understandings and solutions of a common ill--social inequality and poverty. Others, like British MP Nick de Bois, point to the fact that the rioters/protesters "had nice cars, nice mobiles" as if these material tokens prove otherwise.

In their article, Could London-style Riots Happen in New York City? (The Nation Magazine October 4, 2011) Sarah Burd-Sharps and Kristen Lewis correctly identify the underlying ill when they dismiss "nice cars and mobiles" as antithetical to poverty.

“... (T)he challenges of being poor in the midst of affluence go far beyond material deprivations. ...

Poverty’s sting comes in large part from sense of powerlessness to change one’s living conditions, a lack of autonomy and control over many crucial decisions and a feeling that one is marginalized or excluded—and thus cut off from choices and opportunities open to others. This sense of being on the outside looking in can lead to lowered expectations, to hostility and even to antisocial and violent behavior. Societies ignore the disaffected and disengaged at their peril.

Do not misunderstand us; there is no justification for violence and destruction. Our point is simply that seeing poverty as a lack of things like cell phones and air conditioners rather than a lack of capabilities like a good education, physical and mental health, strong social networks, political power and more distorts our understanding of why the riots in London  (and elsewhere) happened.

The riots and protests continue, for the cauldron of discontent has been simmering on a back burner for awhile now. As the fire builds the first bubbles of a boil are erupting.  More powerful than "Adder's fork and blind-worms sting" is this soup.

" 2 Witch. For a charm of powerful trouble, Like a hell-broth boil and bubble. 

All. Double, double toil and trouble;  Fire burn, and caldron bubble. " **

From postings on The Daily Beast we read:

**(William Shakespeare Macbeth: Act IV, Scene 1 The Globe Illustrated Shakespeare: The Complete Works Annotated. Howard Staunton ed. New York: Gramercy Books, 1993.)