As I watched some of CNN's live coverage of Obama's trip abroad last week with the caption "G-20 Plan to Rescue the World" I felt like we'd crossed over into a Saturday morning Super Friends cartoon.

I have to be honest — and knock on wood — but I have nothing to complain about at the moment.  I'm more or less broke, but when in recent memory haven't I been?  Granted, the stakes are fairly low for me.  I don't have a family to support.  I don't even have a pet.  And my own needs are pretty minimal at this point.  As long as I've got sushi, a six-pack, and my internets I'm all set.  My motto in amorous affairs applies pretty much across the board: "no assumptions, no expectations, no demands."  Inasmuch as it is possible for a man to be happy with what he has, these three simple rules have made it possible for me. 

I have been debt free for most of my adult life, too, and that hasn't changed all the sudden, either.  Living within your means can be a drag at first, but eventually you get used to it.  And as long as you don't mess with my means, we'll get along fine.  Yeah, sure, it bugs me that an epidemic of widespread greed got us into this mess, but, come on.  Is it really a big surprise that a system that runs on greed makes everybody greedy?  Greed is still good for something.  Making people greedier, namely.

But despite all the caterwauling that's suddenly in fashion in all quarters of the economy, the people who are struggling in the bust were struggling in the boom, too.  It's more or less a matter of degrees, really, innit?  Fact is, as much as we'd like to think we're suffering something awful on account of our decades-long grand mal greed seizure, it's the developing world — places like Hungary, a country eternally on the brink of ruin —  that will once again bear the brunt of the trauma. Which, again, is not surprising.  That's how greed is supposed to work.

Still, Americans want more.  If they can't afford more stuff, they'll take more outrage about the stuff they can't afford.  Or, for the more delicate sensibilities, to suffer most from a guilty conscience when their greed causes the world economy to collapse.  They want to be the most outraged by their own orgy of borrowing and spending.  And then they want to be the most righteous in calling for someone to be held accountable, and for the rest of us to buy local organic and support the Earth by slapping an Earth-friendly bumper-sticker on the car!

Or at least that's what the media would have you believe.  The media is really selling this recession, aren't they?  There is a recession angle to every story.  But occasionally someone in the media notices that, actually, people seem to by and large be going about their business as if nothing much has changed.  The haute-liberal mantra of the Bush years — "Where's the outrage???" — is still ringing in our ears, it seems.

Sudhir Venkatesh, a professor of sociology at Columbia no less, whose academic niche is glorifying rioting, had a "where's the outrage???" moment in an op-ed titled "feeling too down to rise up" in the New York Times a couple of weeks ago.  Actually, he's taking that old familiar refrain "where's the outrage???" a step further.  He wants to know: "where's the riot???"  To him, a riot is a great way to get out of the house on a nice afternoon, and meet people.  I guess e-Harmony just isn't enough for him anymore.

Like many, Professor Venkatesh has been struck by constant talk in the media of anger among the electorate and, aside from the odd massacre, the apparent lack of any real-world manifestation in the form of either organized protest or mass chaos. Venkatesh calls widespread anger and collective passivity a contradiction, but the inglorious truth is they're intimately entwined.  In fact, it's a chicken-egg thing.  Is it the passivity that breeds the anger, or the anger that breeds passivity?  It's a conundrum.

Venkatesh reminds me of some intellectual out of Dostoevsky who prays for revolution only to greet it with shock and horror when the revolutionaries come for his head.  Only a Columbia Sociology professor could describe a riot as if it were a Sunday Social.


Venkatesh says the reason we don't riot is we're too busy twittering.  But again the truth is more prosaic.  If Venkatesh really wants to organize a riot all he has to do is tell people to show up at the given time dressed as zombies.  Either that, or he could win the World Series or the Super Bowl. 

Americans don't riot because frankly it's just easier to buy an ipod these days than it is to fight the crowds and dodge the bricks and broken glass to get one for free at a riot.  Looting may look easy on TV, from a news helicopter, but it's actually a lot of work.  People get very grabby. 

No, riots are out.  Sorry Sudhir. 

But even organized protest is naff nowadays.  People are way too ironic for protest to work the way it's supposed to.  Hippies with tambourines chanting "all we are sa-a-a-a-ying is give peace a chance"?  Please.  Are you serious?  Again, if we can do it dressed as hippie zombies, maybe.  Maybe.  If Vankatesh could find a way to convince people that they were participating in a meta-riot, he might be onto something.

Of course, there are people who are hurting.  The problem is, as has always been the case with riots and revolutions, they're not the kind of people you'd necessarily want to riot or start a revolution with.  A lot of them didn't go to the right schools, if they went to schools at all.  They've never heard of Dadadie Brucke. They don't know The Gossip. They don't even get The Office. 

I mean, what if somebody sees you with those people, and you're not dressed as a zombie? What are they gonna think?  Which is why it's always the same seven people who show up to protest MBTA fare hikes in Boston, to give one timely example.  I have to admit that while I got the lead out for the T Rider's Union Bake Sale a couple of weeks ago, I couldn't be bothered to show up to South Station for their latest leafleting campaign. I don't do leaflets, sorry. 

Because, not to beat a dead horse here, but the problem is not that people don't know about impending fare hikes and service cuts.  The problem is there's no way to incorporate zombie flashmobs into the whole thing.  The problem is no one has come up with a way to raise awareness by riding the T in your underwear.  The problem is public action isn't any fun if there's a point to it.

Boston is a college town, and while college kids in generations past could always be relied on to find the unfairness in anything and perkily protest it, nowadays they're wary of taking anything too seriously.  There was an article about the T fare hikes in BU's Daily Free Press the other day: "MBTA could increase fares: BU students consider alternatives".  Not, mind you, "BU students organize a protest" or "a letter-writing campaign," or storm the State House dressed as zombies. 

School of Management senior Yiyi Xie's reaction was typical:

“I don’t care as long as the T pass doesn’t get more expensive, but if it does, I don’t really have a choice,” Xie said. “If it gets more expensive than driving, then I’ll drive I guess.”

Should the learned helplessness of the future ruling class worry us?  There's one glimmer of comprehension in the article.  CAS freshman Jacob Slutsky muses: "The government should do more to make public transportation more attractive, maybe tax more on gas or something."  Yeah, or something.

There is a greater sense of urgency among college students about "putting the MBTA on Google Transit" so that they can see it on their iphones.  This is not a generation for which economic hardship is a reality.  Not even a virtual reality. 

Why don't people protest, Professor?  Because they can afford not to.  And when you can afford not to the only reason you'd do it is because all your mates are doing it, and it's a good time smashing things up.  But what about when it's not, because those angry, outspoken working poor advocate people and the fat, ponytailed, fair-trade locavore hippies in their Berks and homemade hackysacks with their weird, overarticulate home-schooled kids show up, all taking it serious and shit? 

The answer is right in front you.  Zombies. The future of protest, the future of democracy in America, belongs to zombies.