Do you believe that America is reaching a boiling point?

Oh, it will someday get to that point, but not for a long while. People are too busy being pleasers of self and people pleasers (because it helps them more than those they are pleasing) that a whole lot of crap will have to jit that fan before a major tipping point is reached.

I am going to agree with HC although I am not so sure about a long way off, but still a ways off.

Also, for those of you who were around during the very beginning of the Civil Rights movement, can you explain to me if you “felt”, for lack of a better word, the beginnings of it?

This is all for my own curiosity and I’m interested in individual opinions. I’m not looking for any arguments or debate.

No. As much as people love to bitch Americans in general are still far too comfortable to take any kind of real action.

Some people feel that way all the time. It’s just your mind finding correlation where there is none.

@tinyfaery Nope, no correlation. I’m just interested in what people think of the things going on now, compared to the things that were going on then. Basically, the differences that were noticeable to them. Not because I think something is necessarily happening, I’m just genuinely interested in their perceptions of then and now.

But anyway, was it not true at the time, during the beginnings of the Civil Rights movement (or, really, any massive movement) that a lot of people blew it off and thought nothing would come of it?

It isn’t so much about a boiling point, as the fact that technology allows for rapid communication among like minded people. The big revolution behind rapid social transformation is the tremendous advancement in communications technology. Those nightly news broadcasts of the dogs and fire hoses doomed segregation, and overturned a hundred years of injustice within a few months. And the debt owed the struggle of black folks in this country by the disabled, women, gays, the elderly, etc is incalculable but certainly immense. The striking thing about all of the advances following the initial struggles of the 60s is that each subsequent fight which followed ramped up more quickly than the one before it, and the overturning of sentiments on gays was so rapid that the movement and reversal of attitudes overran opposing politicians before they had time to react. Obama sits in the White House today because the young people with him better understood the technology and its uses than their stodgy conservative opposition. Today, movements can roll up and accelerate faster than the reaction times of both the media and entrenched politicians, with results that stand traditional politics on its head, and once again, the pressure and innovation is from the left. At the moment I’m amazed that no one seems to notice that Bernie sanders appears well on his way to pushing Clinton and the Democratic party aside in the march to the Presidency. By the time Sanders begins appearing on nightly newscasts it’s probably going to be too late for Hillary to counter the second steamroller to crush her chances as pundits blather on about the “spectacular rise of Sanders out of nowhere”.

@stanleybmanly Thank you. That was the kind of depth that I was looking for. I also wanted/want observations from people who have lived through both periods because I think it’s valuable to see what people view as the similarities and differences concerning past and modern human rights issues. Why they think things are overlooked until a certain tipping point, what they think a catalyst for a massive movement might be, etc.

I asked, not to confirm my own personal views, just to put the puzzle pieces together. People in America are, in my opinion, getting a lot more worked up about certain issues than I’ve ever seen in my lifetime. To me, it feels like a slow simmer, but a start to something bigger nonetheless. But I don’t know, because I’ve never experienced a huge social movement – at least not to the degree of the Civil Rights movement. So I guess, in a way, another way I could have phrased this is, “What do you think the markers are? How can you tell when one is going to happen? Can you even tell?”

You mean “can you see it coming?” My answer is “I don’t know”, but it seems to me that it might be wise to pay attention.

Something is stirring. We have an inequality of wealth distribution that has not been seen since the Depression. Wealth growth for the middle class has been flat for the last decade while the rich continue to get richer. College tuition has gone through the roof. The rise of Elizabeth Warren is an indicator of the opposition to the neo-liberal thinking behind the status quo and the campaign of Bernie Sanders is another. Things are still at the groundswell stage but I think something will be erupting within the next 10 to 15 years.

You can figure something is up when the opposition party is fielding close to 20 candidates and the incumbent party has only one you have ever heard of,

I thought so a few years ago, but now I realize that social engineering (and perhaps plain-old equilibrium) is sophisticated enough that any real threat of a boiling point can be preceded by a release of pressure. With respect to income inequality, for example, there are already musings among the 1% to ease the disparity of wealth before there’s a repeat of the New Deal or worse (for them).

It’s well enough known now that the CIA had a hand in advancing the women’s lib agenda and modern art of the 60s (of all things), so I’d say it’s safe to assume that any “organic” movement is going to be steered in a way that preserves the norm, though the norm may shift slightly.

No, not in the way you think. America is reaching a different kind of boiling point with our infrastructure. Everything is hanging by a thread and it’s just going to take a couple of shoes to drop for things to get bad.

Doubtful. Not only are Americans (at least the ones in power) too comfortable, but they are distracted by unimportant “news” items. There seems to be more interest in whatever the latest celeb has done, or if the favorite sports team sported well and score more points than their rival.

On top of that, let’s use the 24 hour news cycle to manufacture fear and loathing. Just let everyone know how the latest terrorist group is plotting to attack the homeland…

All distractions from worrying about the real issues, and keeping the pot from boiling over.

Fact: If you put 2 rats (1 male, 1 female,) in a box, and feed them, they will procreate and multiply. When the box becomes full of rats they will turn on each other and kill each other. Clearly, when you put the US and the rest of the world under the same scrutiny, the box is obviously full. That and the media that creates sensationalism over the violence and unrest, augments what has always been here.

I see today’s America like the weak son of a man who worked hard, met challenges head-on, took advantage of his luck and opportunities and built a great fortune. The son has never known hard work or deprivation, his life and welfare have never been seriously threatened and therefore he is soft and he knows it on a subconscious level. As a result, he covers his insecurity with a bullying arrogance, no longer looks abroad for solutions to his problems, and wastes his easy fortune his father worked so hard to create. This son produces more children like himself and they produce more dilettantes all down the line until the fortune is spent or taken away.

Not in the next ten years, but maybe beyond that. The economy is doing better, and so people will calm down for a while probably.

I do feel the most likely places people will get pushed so far that things will have to change will be in regards to workers hours, specifically retail stores pushing too far during the weeks before Christmas, and healthcare. Healthcare will get so horrendously expensive, and more and more consumer advocates will investigate the money trail, that hopefully, eventually it will all come to a head. Even Trump talked about the insurance companies being thieves.

@kevbo It’s well enough known now that the CIA had a hand in advancing the women’s lib agenda and modern art of the 60s… Makes one wonder if women’s new-found ability to generate an income comparable to men has been used to change the two-income family from the luxury it was conceived to be into the necessity it has come to be!

I believe we are circling the drain for sure. haha

Thank you all for your perspectives. Like I said, I’ve been noticing unrest in larger amounts than at any other point in my life – not that I really could have paid attention when I was very young, but I have since my mid teens and beyond – and there’s a definite difference. But because I haven’t lived through any major movements, I’m not about to make the claim that there’s going to be some kind of social uprising. But it really does seem like something is starting to happen. I just don’t know how long it will go on until it does reach a boiling point.

@DrasticDreamer I don’t know how old you are but I am turning 56 this year and this is the worst I have seen in the last 40 years. Seriously. The civil unrest, the racism issues arising again or re-emerging, the resurgence of the abortion issue almost 33 years after Roe.vs. Wade.
The worst recession since the great depression, unemployment, homelessness, mentally unstable shooters, atrocious animal abuse, family members killing their entire families, the economy, the suicide rates during and after this recession. It’s baaad, really bad.

So much for the “peace and love” generation hah!

I’ll be optimistic and say there will be no boiling point of any sort. The young generation of Americans is split between smart, practical and more tolerant human beings and then those who are too preoccupied with something else, whatever that is and just don’t care about what goes on around them. LOL

@Coloma I’m 30, so yeah, I haven’t really lived through anything major. The things that I am noticing to a higher degree (and I don’t mean because mainstream media focuses on the negativity – I’m talking about actual grassroots activists) are reactions to current racism and police brutality in general. That said, I also realize that the internet allows nothing to be hidden, so it’s difficult to gauge whether or not things are actually getting worse, or if it’s just much more visible. The only thing I know for sure is that reactions to these things are much more prevalent than they have been at any point in my life.

@DrasticDreamer I think it’s both. Sure, we are getting much more media interaction and reporting these days but I still think things have gotten worse, especially in the last 15 years I’d say.

Honestly, we’ll forget all about wealth, race and other shit when there is no power, food or water because we don’t maintain our shit and there are no safeguards or people left who know what they are doing when disasters happen. It’s just a matter of time. Knowing what I do about our infrastructure almost makes me want to consider homesteading on a farm somewhere out of the line of fire…. and no…. not “prepping”

@ARE_you_kidding_me Well you can come hide out at the ranch here but ya gotta work at shoveling the shit. lol
We aren’t preppers either, Gen Xers and a boomer hippie. haha
We do have a well stocked pantry. Just canned like 60 quarts of peaches and oodles of fresh blackberry jam and fresh salsa. Plenty pf booze too, cases of wine, hard liquor in the bar and lots of beer in the garage. Hey, peaches, blackberries and wine, pretty healthy.

“Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you’re a man, you take it.” – Malcolm X

Oh, it’s coming, and for the same reason the British Empire fell; just because your parents and grandparents were highly intelligent, sociopathic robber barons doesn’t mean you are. The British aristocracy became inbred, arrogant, and stupid. The same thing is happening to the Amerikan aristocracy. Just because John Astor could steal the wealth of millions doesn’t mean those who inherited it are capable of keeping it.

The New Deal didn’t occur because of the kindness and largesse of our billionaire overlords and their pet State. It occured because enough people became angry, hungry, and desperate enough to begin organizing credible insurrectionist resistance. It was either the New Deal or Wobblies lynching the bosses in the street, so the billionaires let a few crumbs fall from their table. Today’s idiot bosses have forgotten that lesson. They’re turning the screws tighter and tighter as a new militancy grows in the streets, and I, for one, can’t wait. I eagerly anticipate seeing the bankers and stockbrokers twitching feebly on sharpened spikes up and down Wall Street as a warning to other capitalists.

@Coloma Don’t need any catastrophe for that to be a good plan.

@SmashTheState Malcolm X was a bit of a radical when it came to his POV. I wonder what Martin Luther King would have said?

@kritiper

I rather think King would agree. For that is exactly what he and his followers did. They stood up, they marched, they protested, they sat at white-only lunch counters, they refused to meekly submit…. They created such a commotion that they could no longer be ignored, that all of America, from the lowest on the socio-economic ladder all the way to the President took notice. And they did not cease, no matter the beatings, the bombings, the hosings, the threats or the intimidation, until they got what they were after.

I think its hard to tell. History tells us that things should’ve erupted years ago. But different eras come with a different mentality. I think people are fed up with the status quo but this era is a society of made up of people who sit behind their computers to bitch. Unless the government resorts to martial law, I don’t think people will rise up.

Sure there are small groups here and their but their popularity is mainly controlled by the media. Without the media they can’t muster enough traction to grow too large. You would think that social media would give such groups a leg up, but social media comes with a crap load of rumors that can temper or kill such movements.

But no doubt there will be a change coming, but that is because change always comes. As to when, where or how is anyone’s guess. I think people are tired of abuse, violence, and manipulation. But that last part keeps a lot of people on the fence since they are not sure of who are the manipulators. Media, government, right activists, wall street, banks, right wing or left wing groups, or everyone of them.

Because of that doubt, many will continue to just live their own life and not get involved. Especially the ones who are comfortable and don’t want to rock the boat for what may be something out of their control.
I think there is one thing that holds all Americans together. Whether we think our nation is crap or great, we tend to hold tightly together against other nations. That is one way the media and government make sure we don’t get out of hand. We seem to always have an outside enemy that we can usually all agree upon when war breaks out.

@Pandora “Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.” – Hermann Goering

@SmashTheState True.