I'm sure America won't suffer any protests or riots because we've got a wonderful media entertainment complex to keep us happy and distracted.

It just is hitting Seattle, but it washed over Detroit a while ago. It has hit Upstate New York and ex-DC Virginia. We still have Americans who believe, "It can't happen here."

In the USA, look for a job in Health Care, and take what you can get. Burn down your house for the insurance. Good luck.

This truly is the end of the US as a world superpower. With no one to take over our mantle, what will happen to the world. Like the fall of Rome, will America's demise usher in another Dark Age.

Heh? What an apathetic and singular view of the world? That America alone holds the whole thing together? Their are many nations that are up to the task and that will run with the mantel of making this world a better place.. You might as well be a nihilist.

The channel from the Philippines my wife watches just said a few minutes ago that unemployment there is up to 27.9% President Arroyo has never been particularly popular among the poor, either. Today there were ceremonies to mark the anniversary of the People Power movement that overthrow Ferdinand Marcos. Filipinos know they can make change if they rise up. Add the Philippines to your list of possible trouble spots.

Last book of the New Testament, End o' the World (tm)

I had to check and make sure I was on Salon and not Fox News or some other hyperbolic, reactionary web site. The article doesn't make any sort of coherent point whatsoever, just throws up a bunch of loosely related incidents that had me waiting for the command to buy duct tape and plastic wrap.

For anyone who took the suggestion of sticking pins in a map, after you finish all of the steps he suggests, do one more: Remove each pin in countries that have a history of civil unrest going back 5+ years. While violence in the streets is unwanted anywhere in the world, it is certainly not new to places like Haiti, Bolivia, and others listed. Now look at your map again - not many pins left, right? If you include mass protests as civil unrest, it eliminates nearly every country mentioned, with the exception of, say, Iceland.

Taking to the streets to express dissatisfaction with the government is common in nearly every industrial country except the United States. Overthrowing governments isn't necessarily a bad thing. America was founded on that idea, after all.

and sheet the blame where it belongs and that is on the USA military industrial complex that brought us to this precipice in the first place. Their unending and open ended spending on weapons of mass destruction in the period from 1945 to now has bankrupted many nations as they ply their wares of death and hatred amongst the believers in the false promise of freedom and peace. Anyone remember Iraq? Afghanistan El Salvador? Cuba? Vietnam? Yep good old Unlce Sam is like the worlddwide paedophile looking for his next unsuspecting victim to bugger up and baggar down. How do you think so many of you Americans can be so fat and lazy? It is off the backs of all those who starve daily and wonder around bombed out cities looking for all their loved ones who your military has turned into smoking piles of collateral damage. The damage you did to the USSR as you tried to dominate that ideology with one no less bankrupt and demonic shows what a bunch of deluded dimwits your leaders have been for the past fifty odd years and continue to be so. Obama has shown little to make the rest of the world confident in America's ability to lead and quite frankly this delusionary notion of being the world's leaders is another fantasy your Disneyland view of reality tends to harbour. Get over it yanks, your days are numbered and your shitful economy is fucked with your society about to implode on itself in the form of civil war. You will all be eating one another soon. Call it world level Karma.Would you like fries with that?

Stop hating America and start seeing reality. It's Pax Americana that allows global trade and global travel. It's American technology from the telephone, to the TV, to the Internet that has allowed the world to shrink. English is the language of science, politics and commerce and the American dollar is the default global currency. The collapse of Rome at least only affect Europe and the stagnation of China only affected Asia. The end of the American Empire will affect the entire planet. No country in the world can replace the US. China is about to face another peasant uprising, the EU is falling apart and Russia, not a serious contender.

Don't worry, be entertained..

I'm sure America won't suffer any protests or riots because we've got a wonderful media entertainment complex to keep us happy and distracted.

Yes, and a psycho-pharma industrial complex with which to numb ourselves and make us comlpliant. Because, after all, it is not society, nor the foods we eat, nor the economic system we have, nor the lies and manipulation by our leaders that makes us angry, sad, and depressed: It is OUR fault. There is something wrong with US.

"Taking to the streets to express dissatisfaction with the government is common in nearly every industrial country except the United States. Overthrowing governments isn't necessarily a bad thing. America was founded on that idea, after all."

Just because it's common doesn't mean it's acceptable. You totally missed the point that the level of violence is on the increase especially in Haiti, Bolivia and China. You must be one of those empty headed liberals who idolizes Che Guevara and fantasizes about running around in the jungle and fighting the Man. There is nothing beautiful and romantic about violence. I've seen anti-war protest go bad and there is nothing poetic about a club to the head.