Madagascar

Like myself, I would bet that when you hear the name of the country, Madagascar, you instantly think of the DreamWorks movie with a bunch of silly animals. Reading in the news today about riots in Madagascar, I came to realize that I don't know anything about this country. I would assume that since it's never in the news, it must be a nice peaceful little country. I usually think of the country when playing the game of RISK with my son. It's that little isolated country that you have to waste troops on.

Like my post on Greece a few weeks ago, these "uprisings" are a great testament to Prechter's theory of the shift in mass social mood. The herd, when they feel they're not getting what is due to them, start to stampede. We saw this in 1991 on Rodney King Day. An uprising triggered by an event much smaller than the "issue at hand". Greece was triggered by the shooting of a young boy. The Madagascar "trigger" was the turning off of a radio station. Result, 43 lost their lives.

From the BBC:

"Mr. Rajoelina has called for further street protests on Saturday against the "dictatorship" of Mr Ravalomanana. The violence began on Monday, after tens of thousands of people took part in an opposition protest. A small group attacked the headquarters of the state TV and radio stations and later looted shops belonging to President Ravalomanana."

To prove Madagascar's anonymity, the "Google elves" return results mostly about the movie and not the country. Wikipedia actually has to state that the entry is about the country and not the movie.

The question is, will we start to see uprising in the U.S. and how might that impact us?