Societal Breakdown, What have you experienced or seen?

[mongers]

Have you experienced living in a country during a period of societal breakdown?

What was the nature of the crisis, how did it progress and what lasting effects did it have on your, family or friends?

Or did you experience whilst visiting another country.

I know DG can remember the collapse of the Soviet Union, any others? Was Grumbler on the last liberty launch outta Cam Ranh Bay?


Thread inspired by the Brexit calamity. 

I'm just waiting for panic buying to kick in the Friday after next (3 weeks to go)

[11B4V]

In the US 

We'll see blood in the streets before my toes are turned up.

[Admiral Yi]

I've seen the opposite, social cohesion in times of crisis.

I was in Korea when the massive street protests (which often became violent) in opposition to President Chun Doo Whan were taking place.  But life went on.  People went to work, went to school, shopped.  Garbage was picked up.  Sometimes work would let out early, or people would say maybe you should take another route to get somewhere, but that was it.

Same on 9/11.  People obeyed law enforcement.  Everyone made their way home the best they could.

[crazy canuck]

The US, during the Rodney King riots - Mrs CC and I were leaving our hotel to go grab a bite to eat at a restaurant not many blocks away from where (we later learned) someone was pulled from their motorcycle by rioters.  We were completely oblivious to what was happening. The doorman smiled at us as we were leaving and said words to the effect of, you seem like nice people and you are not from around here - I suggest you go back into the hotel and not go out tonight.

[Monoriu]

Hong Kong, 2014 Umbrella riots.  Major highways and intersections were blocked for a few months.  This had been planned for several years, and most people assumed that the city would cease functioning.  Turned out that wasn't true.  Everybody went to work.  99% of things functioned normally.  There were frequent shouting matches between different factions all over the place.  Parents and children, teachers and students took different sides, friendships broke down, flame wars on the internet, might have been some divorces too.  But by and large there wasn't a breakdown. 

[mongers]

Hong Kong, 2014 Umbrella riots.  Major highways and intersections were blocked for a few months.  This had been planned for several years, and most people assumed that the city would cease functioning.  Turned out that wasn't true.  Everybody went to work.  99% of things functioned normally.  There were frequent shouting matches between different factions all over the place.  Parents and children, teachers and students took different sides, friendships broke down, flame wars on the internet, might have been some divorces too.  But by and large there wasn't a breakdown.

Entirely peaceful protest tends to do that, stimulating public debate and enquiry about civic values.

So no societal breakdown at all, just a reaction to the threat of authoritarianism. 

[Monoriu]

Hong Kong, 2014 Umbrella riots.  Major highways and intersections were blocked for a few months.  This had been planned for several years, and most people assumed that the city would cease functioning.  Turned out that wasn't true.  Everybody went to work.  99% of things functioned normally.  There were frequent shouting matches between different factions all over the place.  Parents and children, teachers and students took different sides, friendships broke down, flame wars on the internet, might have been some divorces too.  But by and large there wasn't a breakdown.

Entirely peaceful protest tends to do that, stimulating public debate and enquiry about civic values.

So no societal breakdown at all, just a reaction to the threat of authoritarianism. 

I respectfully disagree, and leave it at that. 

[Eddie Teach]

The US, during the Rodney King riots -

Hey, me too!

The crisis was confined to L.A. though.

[crazy canuck]

The US, during the Rodney King riots -

Hey, me too!

The crisis was confined to L.A. though.

Fair point, but hardly comforting when you are there.

[Admiral Yi]

Funny story, maybe I've already told it.

I was driving from DC to NYC the day the Rodney King verdict came out.  I had arranged to meet my buddy in the Village.  Pulled in maybe 7 or 8 pm, tons and tons of parking spaces, streets were pretty deserted.  How odd that store steel shutters are down.  They were pulling up the shutters at the restaurant I was meeting my bud.  Turns out a mini riot/looting spree had come through just minutes before I arrived.

[Eddie Teach]

I stand corrected.

[DGuller]

I was too young to truly know what was going on during the first few years after the breakup of USSR, but the general feeling was one of unchecked lawlessness.  There was no effective governance to speak of. 

Taxes were not paid, and it's not like it was practical to pay them without going bankrupt even if you wanted to.  Business profits were made by looting whatever government property you could get your hands on.  Contracts were enforced by "racketeers"; if someone owed you money, and you wanted to collect on it, you hired a group of thugs to do it, and you split your collection 50/50.  Alternatively, the debtor would take a hit out on you for a fraction of the amount owed.

It goes without saying that murders were committed often and with impunity.  Businessmen or racketeers had a particularly short life expectancy, but often the victims were killed just because.  Being in the process of immigrating was a particularly dangerous and stressful time, because everyone can figure that if you're getting ready to move, you have a lot of cash on you from liquidating your assets and are an easy mark.  There were cases of entire families in such situations being robbed and murdered.  My grandmother was sleeping with a knife under her pillow in the weeks before her move.

Order was restored not by the government regaining power, but rather by the most powerful surviving racketeers infiltrating the government and transitioning to being oligarchs.

[Grinning_Colossus]

The crisis was confined to L.A. though.

I was a young kid in LA at the time. I remember standing on my front porch and watching plumes of smoke rising in the west (Compton and Inglewood).

[dps]

Was Grumbler on the last liberty launch outta Cam Ranh Bay?

Not that I know of, but he was on the last ship out of Tyre when Alexander the Great was sieging the city.

[derspiess]

I've seen the opposite, social cohesion in times of crisis.

I was in Korea when the massive street protests (which often became violent) in opposition to President Chun Doo Whan were taking place.  But life went on.  People went to work, went to school, shopped.  Garbage was picked up.  Sometimes work would let out early, or people would say maybe you should take another route to get somewhere, but that was it.

That was my experience in Argentina during the holidays, 2001-2002 when they went through 3 presidents in about a week.  Lots of turmoil in parts of downtown B.A., but out in the burbs people were doing their normal Christmas & New Years thing.