Written by Kenna Toney   

Law-enforcement officials in cities from Washington to Las Vegas have struggled to control flash mobs here in the United States. Meanwhile in England, The Labour Party, Prime Minister David Cameron and his Conservative-Liberal Democrat government have used water cannons and plastic bullets in an effort to curtail what they are labeling as rioting.

These events point to a potential change in the way the disenfranchised express their displeasure with government, says Paul Levinson, a professor of communication at Fordham University in New York and author of New New Media. “The larger message of these assemblages of people, brought together through online invitations and publicized through Twitter and other new media, is that we may be witnessing a profound shift, even in democracies, from representative to direct forms of governance,” he says.

The occurrences of outwardly accidental “mobbing,” are the combination of hot weather and a bad economy, a very bad economy for the poor. The urban underclass is currently considerably worse off than they were 30 years ago. Looking at the lack of access to health care, poor achievement on standardized tests, low high school and college matriculation rates, extremely high unemployment and incarceration rates, one wonders why it took this long for some form of protest to materialize. Unfortunately, since we as a society have overlooked these social conditions, young adults have been forced to become creative and are using social media to garner attention to their plight.

Had government spent time addressing the 40 percent unemployment rate of Blacks under the age of 24, it is at 16% for the general Black population, then youngsters would not have been left to their own devices. It is a fool who neglects the serious social diseases of violence and improper education then has the impudence to complain about the symptoms of the disease; flash mobs are our society’s creation. We cannot act surprised when people who are living in what amounts to third world poverty, while those around them are eating and living extremely well, behave as if there is a problem.

President Obama has said very little, and done even less, about the frantically worsening condition of the underclass or the lop-sided effect government spending will have on the poor looking to secure a foot hold. If elected officials could muster the fortitude to get together and initiate their own flash mob wherein jobs were created, universal health care offered, affordable housing made available, police brutality stopped and access to education provided; then protest through flash mob would quickly subside. By refusing to address the root causes of social deprivation and inequality governments are leaving the masses no alternative other than to prepare for revolt through any means necessary.

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