Social problems that are not addressed in a timely matter, can develop further into a riot or civil disturbance as it is more formally called. Camps were always around-even in 1960s central Los Angeles. Back then, there were men-and perhaps women although I never remember seeing any-camped hidden from view near the main railroad tracks that cut through my former area. They were a small group that kept mostly to themselves. There were plenty of all types of jobs then. They worked for a while at the temporary ones and then moved on. I never heard of anyone being robbed or ***** because of this mobile group. As times grew hard in the 1970s,
very much like now, and jobs grew scarce, that is when trouble started brewing. Not only at that camp (which disbanded when the railroad trains no longer used the tracks and those same tracks were removed), but most anywhere as rents & mortgages skyrocketed. There was not enough goodwill or money to go around. Then the flood of undocumented illegals really started streaming over the border, taking whatever space or jobs that were left and once used to tide people over hard times. The 1992 Los Angeles riot spotlighted this problem. There was much chest thumping and howling by our leaders. But nothing much was done to curb the
rapidly increasing social problems.
I am not thinking along the lines of a "class warfare" as there are no classes in the US anymore. The middle class for the most part no longer exists, the poor is growing, and the upper 1-2 percent is not based in reality-look at Meg Whitman-
http://www.megwhitman.com/
She thinks that making vague promises of "jobs" & "fixing things" automatically will make her Governor if she throws enough money at the campaign. Perhaps it will work, perhaps not-(especially if her "member of the family" undocumented Nic has any say about this).
In any case, I am not waiting around for the government to "save" me anymore. I will continue to ride my bikes, live very much as I have done for the past 20 or so years, and follow my elder's advice to
when (not if) the riots do happen again, stay off the mean streets, & then when the dirt settles, go through another boring program and coast through until I retire.
It will take many years for this country to clean up this mess. I figure that either I will be so senile that I would not care or dead.