Musings: On Social Unrest

The bright light from a moon that turns full today seeped into my consciousness, my dreams, all through the night until finally the dogs and I got up and went out walking beneath a blue-black canvas daubed with white clouds and stars. Jupiter glowed yellow in the west, a rat raced along the telephone wires above us, and in the east, the heavens began to flush with the approach of the sun until the sky resembled the chunky embers of a dying campfire.

As that big moon was rising last night, a friend stopped by and we got to talking about an accident he’d recently been in: a vehicle crossed the center line on the southside and totaled his truck. The cops, after a lengthy phone consult with unknown person(s) confiscated my friend’s Kingdom of Atooi driver’s license.

Why do the cops keep doing that, when such seizures are clearly unconstitutional? Besides, as my friend observed, “It’s so stupid, because we can just make another one.”

I think it all boils down to a power struggle, fueled by the persistent attempts of “the system” to exert its control over any upstarts, kinda like the over-the-top security preparations taking shape on Oahu in anticipation of next month’s APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) shindig, hosted by the Prez.

Over on the Moana Nui 2011 Faceback page, Kyle Kajihiro of DMZ Hawaii posted maps showing the “ocean exclusion zones” — swaths of coastal waters at Waikiki, Ala Wai and Ko’olina that will be off-limits to we the people during the forum — with the message:

“This is what APEC looks like. It takes over land and sea like cancer.”

Meanwhile, as Democracy Now! reports, the Occupy Wall Street protest is expanding, despite ongoing arrests, and people across the nation are staging their own actions in solidarity. I know planning is under way for some sort of demonstration on Kauai this Saturday.

As Andrew Ross Sorkin reported in The New York Times:

What’s the message?

At times it can be hard to discern, but, at least to me, the message was clear: the demonstrators are seeking accountability for Wall Street and corporate America for the financial crisis and the growing economic inequality gap.

And that message is a warning shot about the kind of civil unrest that may emerge — as we’ve seen in some European countries — if our economy continues to struggle.

I think we’ve got a ways to go until Americans in large numbers feel that uncomfortable and that dissatisfied, just like folks are going to have to get a lot hungrier before they get serious about protecting ag lands and promoting food security.

In covering the Important Ag Lands process, I was interested to learn that some 90 percent of Kauai residents would need to be involved in food production in order for us to feed ourselves. We’re not likely to see that level of participation until the grocery store shelves are bare.

Meanwhile, I ran across a blurb about how in 1950, the average U.S. household spent 3 percent of its income on health care and 22 percent on food. By 2010, health-care costs had risen to 16 percent of income, while food costs dropped to 7 percent.

“Food has gotten so cheap that people just don’t appreciate or value it anymore,” said Farmer Jerry, when I called him the other day to chat about the IAL.

True, that. Unfortunately, a lot of what passes for food these days isn’t anything to value or appreciate — it’s cheap junk that provides little or no nutrition. Is it any wonder that health care costs have risen dramatically as food has gotten crappier?

Which brings me to a comment that a friend made, when I asked him what I should do with a couple of kids who would be in my charge for the day.

“Take ‘em to McDonald’s,” he advised. “If you do that, they’ll be good all day.”

As I flashed on the studies that have shown junk food is as addictive as drugs, it struck me that it’s no surprise the kiddies quiet down once they’ve gotten their fix.

Until, of course, it wears off, as all drugs do, and the craving and crankiness begins anew.

So perhaps the key, then, to sparking massive social unrest is to shut off the supply of junk food and see what happens when tens of millions of Americans start jonesing.