As Riots Spread, the World Points Fingers at The United States, But They Are All Missing One Thing.

Right now, around the world, nearly every country is showing the riots in Baltimore as they did in Ferguson. They are doing this to highlight American inequality, and justify to their own citizens that United Sates is not so great, not so exceptional and that even though United Sates is prosperous for some, it is actually not equal. They are right. But not exactly.

What they don’t show is the numbers. Yes U.S. is not equal, yes it is corrupt, yes there are class divides. But there is one major difference: in United States, we have riots and media coverage of them. Meaning people have the right to show dissatisfaction with the same issues that exist the world over. While the people in Russia, in Iran, in North Korea, in their Baltimore’s and Fergusons have no hope for change, have no voice, have no ability to show their grievances to the government.

Even the countries like France and Britain where huge protests swept some changes followed. In United States, we might not have changes following current protests, at least not in laws, but the police will know that terrorizing will have grave costs. The Los Angeles Police learned their lessons in the 1990’s well as did all people on the West Coast following the LA riots. The same way the East Coast police are learning their lessons. The world over the leaders think that they are showing their citizens that United States is imperfect, and they are right.

However, the smart ones try not to, because they know that they have the same issues of corruption and class divide and racism, except they have even larger divides, even less accountability in their police ranks and should they have a protest, it will be put down, quickly, and violently, and it will not be televised, it will not be Tweeted, it will not be shared, because while the people of Baltimore share grievances of people of Turkey, people of Baltimore, unlike people of Turkey, Bahrain, China and Saudi Arabia have a free press and freedom of speech and freedom to Tweet, freedom to Facebook, freedom to think and freedom to demand change.  And a public with that freedom makes America stronger, while it makes the regimes of Putin, Ayatollah, Hamas, ISIS and Kim Jong Un, much much weaker.

So let them broadcast our dissatisfaction, and let them think about the real issue, which is change.