“You wouldn’t be talking to me now if we didn’t riot, would you?” That’s what one protester in Tottenham in North London told NBC News during what is being described as the city’s worst riot ever. Not that NBC or any other mainstream media will ever truly comprehend what’s going on. 

Mainstream media reporters are certainly not paid to understand the frustration of the poor and working-class, only to project an image of rioters that please their corporate bosses: in this case, that the majority of them are misguided individuals taking advantage of a chance to loot.

That same protester also told NBC: “Two months ago we marched to Scotland Yard, more than 2,000 of us, all blacks, and it was peaceful and calm and you know what? Not a word in the press. Last night a bit of rioting and looting and look around you.” A media feeding frenzy, what a surprise!

The Tottenham riots were reportedly set off by the police shooting of 29-year-old Mark Duggan. That should sound familiar to us on this side of the Atlantic. How often has a police shooting sent people into the streets, angry that the men and women in blue always get away with murdering people from their communities?

The Tottenham riots are about much more than a shooting. They’re the culmination of decades of frustration with business-as-usual, including routine police abuse, and the latest economic austerity measures that will impact residents of Tottenham more than other areas of the country.

It’s a frustration that’s exploding throughout the world these days, not only in food riots (as the cost of eating soars, leaving more people than ever to starve), but also the uprisings in Libya, Egypt and elsewhere. 

The poor in Tottenham are not doing anything more than people have done throughout history when they had all they could take. Just ask the French peasants why Louie and Marie Antoinette had to go, or the British colonists in America why Georgie wasn’t their favorite monarch.

The question is when are Americans going to join the worldwide uprisings? When are Americans going to have enough? When are we going say to the politicians and the rich that we’re pissed as hell and we’re not going to take it any more? When are we going to take to the streets in the millions in peaceful protest and civil disobedience to demand a change in business-as-usual?

Ours is a nation where almost of all of the wealth is owned by a few and rich people and big corporation pay little or no taxes, where homelessness and unemployment are at record highs (perhaps as high as during the Great Depression), and where the brunt of the austerity measures in the latest federal budget (and most state and city budgets, too) will, of course, be felt by those without much income. 

We are a country where the disparity between the haves and have-not has never been greater, where healthcare and housing are for those who can afford it, and where even with jobs some people end up on the streets because they can’t afford another place to sleep.    

America is a nation of Tottenhams.