Civil unrest this summer?
Got your preps in order?
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.p...w&pageId=99824
With unemployment hitting 10 percent, the United States may be headed into a summer of civil discord not seen since the late 1960s, Jerome Corsi's Red Alert reports.
Unemployment in March and April remained 20 percent higher in states won by Democratic candidate Barack Obama in last fall's presidential election than in states won by Republican presidential candidate John McCain, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
An interactive map maintained at Slate.com shows that the highest levels of unemployment are in Democratic state urban areas, including Los Angeles, Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland, New York City, Newark and Washington, D.C. – all cities that experienced major race riots at the end of the 1960s.
A closer look at BLS statistics shows that unemployment in April 2009 among the white labor force was 8 percent, while unemployment among the black labor force was 15 percent.
"These data maintain a pattern that has been documented since the 1960s, in which African-American unemployment runs at approximately double the rate for white Americans," Corsi wrote. "That 15 percent of African-Americans are currently unemployed should be alarming for all Americans in that unemployment rates this high are typically associated with prolonged economic depressions, not cyclical, typically short recessions."
In evaluating whether this exceptionally high level of African-American unemployment increases the risks for urban riots in the coming summer, Corsi said one more factor must be taken into consideration.
In 1968, the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, otherwise known as the Kerner Commission in respect to its chair Gov. Otto Kerner Jr. of Illinois, argued that rising expectations that had gone unfulfilled were a major cause of the 1960s-era urban race riots.
The theory was that President Lyndon Johnson had raised economic expectations in the mid-1960s by passing a series of civil rights bills as cornerstone legislation in his War on Poverty.
When the economic and political expectations went unfulfilled as Lyndon Johnson's presidency became involved in the Vietnam War, racism continued to produce a double-standard of living for white Americans and African-Americans that built black rage to a tinder point in which civil violence became increasingly more likely.
"Whether the same phenomenon will be observed with a black president remains to be seen," Corsi wrote. "The concern is that candidate Barack Obama's presidential campaign themes of "hope and change" permitted African-Americans to expect important differences in their economic wellbeing and political power would be experienced with President Obama in the White House."
In 1968, the U.S. economy was operating then at what was considered a full-employment level, with white unemployment averaging around 4 percent and black unemployment averaging around 8 percent.
If unemployment numbers continue to escalate throughout 2009, conceivably African-American unemployment rates could hit 20 percent before the end of the year, Corsi noted.
Red Alert's author, whose books "The Obama Nation" and "Unfit for Command" have topped the New York Times best-sellers list, also noted that the difference between the 1965 riots and today's circumstances is that the Kennedy-Johnson administrations enjoyed an economic recovery from the Eisenhower years that was generated by a Kennedy supported tax cut.
"Today, the Obama administration is already constrained by trillion dollar deficits," he wrote. "Moreover, President Obama is already contemplating the likelihood of tax increases, certain to further depress economic activity, with Obama remaining determined to expand in the current Congress social welfare benefits with a government-paid universal health insurance plan."
