When you ain't got nothing, you got nothing to lose

One thing I've always admired about the indigineous residents of the Americas south of our border is their courage in confronting their corrupt governments. Protesting in these countries isn't just an exercise in activism or a social outing to express outrage, it's a dangerous form of protest that can, and sometimes does, lead to death. As economies melt down world wide the phenonmenon is spreading. Avedon flags a Naomi Klein piece that sees a populist anger fueling street protests even in such unlikely places as Iceland.

The stoic Icelandic matriarchs beating their pots flat even as their kids ransack the fridge for projectiles (eggs, sure, but yogurt?) echo the tactics made famous in Buenos Aires. So does the collective rage at elites who trashed a once thriving country and thought they could get away with it. As Gudrun Jonsdottir, a 36-year-old Icelandic office worker, put it: "I've just had enough of this whole thing. I don't trust the government, I don't trust the banks, I don't trust the political parties and I don't trust the IMF. We had a good country, and they ruined it."

Avedon has been saying for a long time that Americans can and should be taking a lesson from the citizens outside our insulated enclaves in the US.

In other countries, then, people aren't accepting the destruction with resignation, but making it clear out in the streets that they refuse to be victimized any longer. I realize Americans are fearful, but I am more afraid of what will happen if we don't do the same.

I'm on record as thinking street protests don't have the same impact in the US as they once did. Our protests tend to be somewhat unfocused, meaning they often lack a single message with too many disparate causes plugging their own hobby horses. I think they often look to outsiders as more like a street carnival than an organized protest. And it's just hard to crack the comfortable complacency of the average American with even a million marchers when they don't get ten seconds on the evening news.

What they tend to lack is that unified outrage that I see in other countries. But as our own standard of living continues to slide and our citizens have less to lose by expressing real anger on the streets, perhaps that will change. Our future may well depend on it doing so.

[More posts daily at The Detroit News.]