I don’t want to overstate this but, if you look at what has happened in the past few weeks and months, the discontent at the economic conditions facing people here and around the world is bubbling up. Some of it has to do with the rising disparity between rich and poor, while some of the rumblings are about working conditions.

To tick them off:

• French students lead a revolt against an attempt to roll back employment protections.
• The election of Evo Morales in Bolivia who yesterday ordered the seizure of natural gas fields from international gas companies who refused to increase royalty payments to the government.
• The May Day demonstration by tens of thousands of Mexicans protesting the reality that “[President Vincente] Fox administration’s free-trade policies had failed to lift up the working class.
• The victory by striking janitors at Miami University who successfully won the right to have card check in their union organizing drive–all this after a hunger strike and a pressure campaign on so-called liberal Donna Shalala, the president of the university.
• And, of course, yesterday’s mass protests throughout the country that seek amnesty and fair treatment of all immigrants.

There’s more–and you can add your own examples–but there is a fair amount of global agitation underway. I don’t want to overstate what this means. But, it’s striking to me that you have, in various corners of the globe, people standing up to the unfair economy and unfair distribution of wealth and power. Let’s see where this leads.