For people asking when we get our revolution...

[Recursion]

Some demographic considerations:

Median age:
Egypt: 24.1
Tunisia: 29.7
USA: 38.1

Literacy rate:
Egypt: 71.4%
Tunisia: 74.3%
USA: 99%

Percent of the population 65 & older:
Egypt: 4.3%
Tunisia: 7.2%
USA: 12.8%

Demographics aren't everything, but it's hard to imagine these facts don't have a lot to do with it.

[dixiegrrrrl]

1. Point in our favor might be

that the 12.8% of US population which is 65 and older also was THE revolution of the 60's and 70's,
and some of us are still mobile without walkers!
Plus, in all seriousness, we raised kids who are in their 40's, who took after us, in most cases.

However, we have no unifying leaders. I suspect that is intentional on the part of TPTB.

[villager]

3. any "unifying leader" met with a "coincidental" end back in those 60's as well...

Your suspicions, I suspect, are well-founded.

[Xithras]

4. Revolutions are nearly always driven by the young.

People who don't have to worry about fighting disrupting their ability to get to work and pay their mortgage, or who are concerned about a government collapse when they are living on a retirement benefit provided by that government.

The young typically have few assets to be lost in a revolution, and are rarely dependent on that government for their existence.

Food for thought: What if there was a revolution in this country that toppled the U.S. government? How long would it take to quell any infighting, get a new constitution written, and establish a new government?

Those who lack the means to support themselves (the disabled, the elderly) would also lack any support from the government until those were worked out. It would be brutal.

[Statistical]

8. Good observations.

It tends to be the people with the least to lose that risk everything for revolution.

Not only does this tend to be the young but it also tends to be under circumstances far dire than the United States is facing.

The founders were are also aware of this fact.

-------------------

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,<72> that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. ]But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

-------------------

[Recursion]

18. How many revolutions in history have made things better? (nt)

[Xithras]

20. Many. But many others have made things worse.

If there's one thing that history shows us, it's that revolutions are unpredictable. Some toppled kings and led to democracies that have stood for centuries. Others led to genocides on almost unimaginable scale. None of them, however, led to governments that were easily predictable at the outset of the revolution.

And that's what scares many people...the unknown. As the old saying goes, "Better the devil you know than the devil you don't."

[RKP5637]

7. I'm a product of the 60's. Maybe in another 40 years I'll need a walker. Right now

I can walk as well as anyone. I see/hear no unifying leaders today and we have no unifying force like the draft and Viet Nam back in the 60's. Also, at least to me, the people back in the 60's/70's seemed more aware of what was going on in the world. Many in the US today are as complacent as a herd of cows.

I agree so much with you, "However, we have no unifying leaders. I suspect that is intentional on the part of TPTB."

[Recursion]

9. How many "unifying leaders" do the kids in Egypt have?

Al Baradei showed up long after this started, and hadn't been calling for it. The imams in the Muslim Brotherhood were just as blindsided by this as the government.

(Incidentally, I think the whole desire for a "unifying leader" thing is why millenials are so disdainful of boomers...)

[phantom power]

2. employment rates, particularly of young people, are also relevant

I note with interest that our employment rates for young people are now vectored in the same direction.

[Recursion]

22. My cab driver, the last time I was in Cairo...

... was a 26-year-old with a PhD in chemical engineering (it turned out, in fact, he had studied at my alma mater and had a better GPA than I did, though I had to drag that info out of a friend of his).

We may be pointing in that direction, but we're not close to there yet.

[LostInAnomie]

5. People that compare our situation to Egypt or Tunisia's have no sense of reality or proportion.

I know our "rights have been destroyed!!", but comparing our system to Egypt or Tunisia is ridiculous.

[damntexdem]

6. And that is important, because Americans still have something to lose.

Whereas revolutions thrive on populations that feel they have nothing to lose.

[RKP5637]

11. We have a system/gov. that works, the problem IMO is the politicians Americans elect. n/t

[snooper2]

16. Only the fringe make statements like that...

[Kalyke]

10. I don't trust that we have a 99 percent literacy rate.

Seriously, that figure seems out of whack.

[RKP5637]

12. That seems awfully high to me too. n/t

[Recursion]

19. 99% of American adults are capable of looking at a simple English text...

...and speaking the words written in it. US literacy programs don't have to focus much energy on that (I've worked for one).

74% of Egyptians are capable of that. The difference is profound.

[RKP5637]

21. Thanks!!! n/t

[dixiegrrrrl]

25. 74% of Egyptians can read an English test?

That is pretty impressive.

[Statistical]

13. How many people do you know who can't read?

Not read well, or enjoy reading but simply can't read at all.

[Kalyke]

24. Quite a few... or suspected it (it's not something one

admits), but I live in the foothills of Appalachia, so it may skew my opinion.

[onpatrol98]

14. Depends

Depends on what they consider literacy...

[RKP5637]

15. Just a quick Google showed this ...

List of countries by literacy rate.

It shows the US as 99%. I would have guessed lower.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_literacy_rate

[Recursion]

17. That gets to the "lack of sense of proportion" mentioned upthread

When we worry about the literacy rate we usually think something like "how many people can extract information from written material in a manner useful to their lives and thoughts?"

When Egyptians worry about their 74% literacy rate, they're asking "how many people are capable of looking at a piece of Arabic writing and correctly say the sounds that it represents?"

The fact that we have the luxury of worrying about functional literacy as opposed to mere literacy is yet another way our position isn't really comparable to Egypt's.

[nadinbrzezinski]

23. Having lots of folks with doctorates

Doing menial jobs is part of the reason. Those conditions are now starting here.