protesting prosperity

"He who drinks off credit gets twice as drunk" -Turkish Proverb
Unlike most of my fellow members of what we like to call Western Civilization I've been immensely enjoying the recent economic upheaval. Its a funny group of people that after 500 years of ruthless exploitation of the rest of the worlds inhabitants has the nerve to get angry about the ups and downs of the capitalist system that has given them the preponderance of the worlds resources. The very fact that they feel they have a right to complain about their banks and governments behaving irresponsibly is ironic in the extreme when one considers what the citizens of the West have permitted. The protests that have swept Europe lately make me laugh to the point of tears. What are they opposing? The fact that their not getting the Imperial handouts they've become accustomed to because their governments are deeply in debt from trying to satiate their peoples demand for social services? Maybe they are protesting Capitalism in its entirety, which is admirable though amusing considering they wouldn't last a day without it. After all the rest of the world has absolutely no incentive to give the West a damn thing. Currently weapons and fiat money are all we offer them, and most of that goes to our proxies in the various states we made up to facilitate the whole process. After generations of some of the worst treatment humans have ever engaged in it is highly unlikely that anything but antipathy exists for those humans that have suffered conquest, colonization and now 'development'. In all objective reality every economic privilege enjoyed by citizens in the West comes at the cost of someone somewhere suffering for their entire life. Occasionally Western citizens have protested this system when the situation has been too egregious to ignore, like Vietnam or Iraq, but that hasn't ever led to them opting out of the benefits of this abomination. The sad truth is that our system is built upon the self serving nature of every single human who lives on this side of the global divide. All the corporations and corrupt politicians that we have the nerve to object against are doing what we have demanded of them, providing us with an unsustainable amount of material wealth. We like to maintain the old tradition of being unwilling subjects of our leaders so as to abdicate responsibility for the atrocities committed for our benefit. What about all those fabulously rich bastards that are creating an ever widening gap between rich and poor in the West you might ask? The explanation I like best was put forth by Juvenile many years ago- Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (who will guard the guards themselves?). In the West people have been too preoccupied being self absorbed consumers to keep adequate tabs upon the people who have raped, pillaged and slaughtered for this standard of living. Thus have those people quite naturally been taking a bigger and bigger cut for themselves. So from my point of view what is happening when Americans vote for Tea Partyers and Europeans take to streets is they are objecting to not getting their customary cut of the loot. There is no sincere humanism driving their actions, just plain old fashion selfish politics. While Westerners complain about debt and loosing jobs, much of the rest of humanity longs for food, safety and freedom from the horrendous working conditions with its accompanying pollution that has been exported to them. In all fairness however, after the wild and crazy ride of Western Civilization its to be expected that most people aren't very clear headed about whats taking place in the world. After all, its standard to be programed for about a dozen years with the lies that substantiate the system and obscures even the simplest realities. Fear has motivated people a lot in history, and I don't judge my contemporaries any more harshly than I do any of those that have hurt their fellow humans in an attempt to improve their own lives. Well, with that my rant for the day will conclude. Here are some economists commenting on the same subject:
"All people, however fanatical they may be in their zeal to disparage and to fight capitalism, implicitly pay homage to it by passionately clamoring for the products it turns out." -Ludwig Von Mises
"The first lesson of economics is scarcity: There is never enough of anything to satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics." -Thomas Sowell