Amidst riots in central Europe that have now spread to London and a debt downgrade that threatens to plunge the United States into a double-dip recession, Americans’ lack of confidence in their leadership is so crippled that they are now “pre-revolutionary,” according to pollster Pat Caddell.

A new Rasmussen poll shows that just 17 per cent of Americans believe that the U.S. government has the consent of the governed, an all time low. This dovetails with a record low for Congress’ approval rating, which stands at a paltry 6 per cent, while 46 per cent of Americans think most members of Congress are corrupt, with just 29% believing otherwise.

“The number of voters who feel the government has the consent of the governed – a foundational principle, contained in the Declaration of Independence – is down from 23% in early May and has fallen to its lowest level measured yet,” according to Rasmussen.

The poll was conducted before Friday’s U.S. debt downgrade, indicating that the figures could be even more dire in the aftermath of what some analysts believe is a precursor to a new great depression.

The results of this survey indicate that Americans are now “pre-revolutionary” says pollster Pat Caddell, who described the outcome of the poll as “unprecedented”.

This conclusion follows Caddell’s observation last November that “a sea of anger is churning” amongst Americans who “want to take their country back” and that the nation stood on the brink of a “pre-revolutionary moment”

Caddell’s conclusion that Americans are on the verge of rising up against a system in which they have lost all trust cannot be easily dismissed as partisan rhetoric. Despite working for numerous Democratic presidential candidates, including Jimmy Carter and Joe Biden, Caddell has been a vociferous critic of both Democrats and Republicans on several issues.

Back in early 2008, before the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the start of the financial crisis, we warned that inflation and economic uncertainty would cause a massive social dislocation, which would lead to riots globally. Gerald Celente and others repeated the warning in late 2008. Over the last 18 months, we have now witnessed such scenes across the Middle East and in France, Spain, Greece, Italy and most recently London.

Indeed, the only major western country not to experience significant social unrest since the economic collapse is America, although anecdotal evidence of rising crime and thefts suggests a turning point could be just around the corner.

Should violence plague American streets as a result of a deepening economic crisis, U.S. troops have already been prepared to deal with such a crisis.

As we reported three years ago, U.S. troops returning from Iraq were being re-allocated to occupy America, running checkpoints and training to deal with “civil unrest and crowd control” under the auspices of a Northcom program that revolved around deploying 20,000 active duty troops inside America to “help” state and local officials during times of emergency.

The date set for the completion of this program was 2011, just in time to deal with the “pre-revolutionary” fervor that many fear will now manifest itself in Greece-like mayhem as a result of the fallout from the debt downgrade and America’s slide towards economic collapse.

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Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a regular fill-in host for The Alex Jones Show.