The people of America, at long last, have had enough of unfairness. From Wall Street to Main Street, they have taken to the streets.  Teachers, soldiers, postal workers – all those in the core traditional jobs of American public sector – are suffering huge layoffs and now ready to join the millions of people now out of work and living without health insurance or the likely prospect of another job.

What started largely as a ragtag union protest called Occupy Wall Street  -  after announcements that seven hundred school workers were being laid off from New York City’s public schools alone - is gathering force across America, growing into a national movement, with ‘Occupies’ now in major cities across America. Although the majority of those in the streets are liberal, a number are also Republicans.  As a retired New York architecture professor put it, ‘It’s more a social movement than a political movement.’

In fact, it is a social movement about the fact that America is no longer a society in any sense of the word.

As you’ve probably heard, my adopted country, Great Britain, is on fire.  From Manchester to London entire communities have been set alight, stores and houses vandalized, people beaten up, and five murdered as of this writing. Last Wednesday, my sleepy suburban corner of London was crawling with policemen, acting on inside information that our area was targeted next. 

Commentators have been busy, trying to work out the collective significance of the anarchy on the streets.  Who is doing this?  Are they provocateurs, bussed in from the outside? Or well organized protests against globalization?  Or perhaps the criminal underbelly of society?