London riots

[Jedi Master Carr]

So nobody has brought this up yet. The riots in London has been awful. I can't believe these thugs are causing this trouble. Sure the police might have been wrong about killing that one guy but looting and killing innocent civilians is far worse. Hopefully, the police can get control of the situation and stop it soon. Are there any members of this forum living in London right now? Maybe they can share their opinion of what is going on in the city.

[Dasquian Belargic]

I am in the north east of England, so far away from the majority of what is taking place (although with violence in Liverpool and Manchester, it seems as if the unrest is spreading north...), but it has been just... baffling to watch this all unfold.

What is fantastic to see, in spite of all this, is that members of the public are coming together to help clean up the damage that has been done. Whilst the government flounders in its efforts to find an appropriate way to respond to the situation, the public themselves are showing that in spite of the acts of a violence minority, community does still exist in England - and we don't need David Cameron shoving the Big Society down our throat to see that.

One of the more interesting articles I have read since this started, from the Independent: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/camila-batmanghelidjh-caring-costs-ndash-but-so-do-riots-2333991.html

As always, Laurie Penny also has something... thought provoking to say: http://pennyred.blogspot.com/2011/08/panic-on-streets-of-london.html

Here's a clip from the BBC that has been doing the rounds, a short interview with Darcus Howe that touches on the reasons why he believes these riots are taking place:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biJgILxGK0o

What's also interesting to hear.. is that Mark Duggan, whose death supposedly sparked all of this, looks as if he didn't even shoot any police officers in the first place.

[Jane Starborn]

Being a policeman is a thankless job and when you do it to the best of your ability and training there is always the chance that the public will hate you for it. Usually you don't have to shoot a police officer in order to get shot by one - you just have to appear to be about to. Also, holding a knife is pretty dangerous as it is possible to run forward and stab someone to death before they can get a shot off. If you don't drop it when ordered to by police that's a good way to get shot too. Also, being an idiot and reaching for something in your jacket/under your seat when police are yelling at you to get out of the car, or get on the ground, or keep your hands where I can see them.

Whatever started all this 'unrest' - it has gone way beyond that. I hope the UK sorts this out soon. I've been reading the SA thread about it off and on to sort of keep up with what's going on where.

[Dasquian Belargic]

I have a number of relatives who are police officers, so I am well aware of what their jobs are like / what dangers they face / etc, but I also know they are not infallible. Just two years ago we had an innocent man die as a result of being struck by the police during protests in London. There is an officer due to stand trial for manslaughter for that: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/jun/19/g20-death-officer-court

Ultimately I'm not really interested in getting into a debate about whether the police acted lawfully, because that is for the IPCC to decide, but just thought it was an interesting development to note. We will likely see a lot of discussion in the coming weeks/months about the successes and failures of police tactics in protest/riot situations.

[Jane Starborn]

No, I know, police are human too. We had one here in Portland load his beanbag shotgun with actual shotgun rounds by accident and shoot a fleeing suspect. The guy only got a few pellets in his butt thankfully. I have no idea what happened in London with the police shooting the one guy, but I am pretty sure what's going on now has completely overshadowed it.

[Inyos Aamoran]

The thing that pisses me off most about this is how everyone is using it as an excuse. On the one hand, you've got a bunch of selfish bastards, using the death of one man to stir up trouble, set things on fire, and steal. But it goes beyond that.

There was a criminologist who the BBC interviewed; he came out with the line: "A one-man riot is a tantrum." The problem is that the British media, politicians, and pubic are far too quick to assign people into little stereotypical boxes. I'm a member of the "youth of today" that the press keeps blaming; and yet the vast majority of people in that category are in no way involved. If you watch the riot footage, there are more than just kids involved; and yet nobody seems to be paying attention to the adults, because they don't fit into the stereotype that the media has latched onto.

Looting is wrong. Rioting is wrong. There's no excuse for any of it. But there's no excuse for propogating social hatred either, which seems to be the side effect of the media's current approach to reporting the news.

From the link Jenny posted earlier: Laurie Penny sums it up much better than I did:


And now my city is burning, and it will continue to burn until we stop the blanket condemnations and blind conjecture and try to understand just what has brought viral civil unrest to Britain. Let me give you a hint: it ain’t Twitter.

[Dasquian Belargic]

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pAC0YSmK0g

An angry, angry man.

[Yog]

An angry, angry man.
He could use some therapy.

[Dasquian Belargic]

http://paidcontent.org/article/419-uk-government-wants-police-empowered-to-close-twitter-bbm/


The UK’s Home Secretary will meet media and social media companies regarding blocking access during emergency situations, in the wake of England’s mass looting this week.

Prime Minister David Cameron is also inviting police chiefs to tell him that they require the power to “close” services including Twitter and BlackBerry Messenger, the latter of which is this week being credited with having helped looters coordinate raids.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/11/cameron-call-social-media-clampdown


Cameron's move to curb social media was backed by the opposition. Ivan Lewis, the shadow culture secretary, said: "Free speech is central to our democracy but so is public safety and security. We support the government's decision to undertake a review of whether measures are necessary to prevent the abuse of social media by those who organise and participate in criminal activities."

*sigh*

[Droo]

He could use some therapy.

I think he has a right to be angry and I can't really fault his arguments, other than using heavy stereotyping to prop them up.

[Dasquian Belargic]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-14474429


An e-petition calling for rioters to lose their benefits has hit 100,000 signatures and become the first to be considered for a Commons debate.

It has dwarfed others on the government website, which has struggled to deal with the volume of people accessing it.

The petition has now been formally referred to a committee which will decide whether to hold a debate.

It comes as English councils say they will seek to evict social tenants found guilty of taking part in disorder.

I wonder how much of this is bluster. I cannot imagine the government ever allowing people to become effectively penniless and homeless but that certainly seems to be what some councils are pushing for. Even when someone becomes disqualified from receiving benefits now, there are always avenues they can pursue. If all of those avenues are removed, all that's presumably left is poverty and crime? In which case, surely you might as well just lock these people up immediately???

[Sanis Prent]

David "Fuck them poors" Cameron, ladies and gents

[Sanis Prent]

He could use some therapy.

I think he has a right to be angry and I can't really fault his arguments, other than using heavy stereotyping to prop them up.

The dude uses so much dog whistle phrasing that I'd be shocked if he wasn't BNP. His entire "Well shucks look at these poor bastards who are bigger poor bastards than you are" logical fallacy is supposed to fool who, exactly? Well no shit folks got it bad in Somalia, what, you want to drive the mean down to Somali levels so we all realize how good we have it? Yeah that hasn't ever been used before to keep the poor and disadvantaged kicked further into a ditch.

I'm not going to try and square peg / round hole some ham-fisted comparison between the US and the UK. Y'all have had to deal with Brixton and other shit like this before so I mean you have your own reference level. It's not the King riots like they were here, no matter what similarities one might find between.

People are trying to suss this shit out in terms of the rioters being in the right or in the wrong, and it's more that the rioters are the symptoms of the disease that the authority base DOES NOT want to even give lip service to, and makes a concerted effort to beat away with a stick at every opportunity. Listen to the BBC, listen to Cameron, listen to the MP's all of them, it's maddening.

Don't worry though, history's doomed to be repeated. After cutting everything but the kitchen sink for his wacko populism masturbation fest, Cameron's shocked, I'm sure. We're right around the corner, is what I'm worried about, and I'm not shocked, but very disappointed.

[Dasquian Belargic]

The only time I've heard Cameron attributing some cause to this is when he's trying to support his own agenda, i.e. all those taking part didn't have responsible fathers/father figures to "do their duty" and discipline them. He has some obsession with trying to enforce the traditional family (mother/father/respectable number of kids) on everyone, as if someone raised by a single parent will automatically grow into a dysfunctional sociopath.

[Droo]

I'm sorry, but I've no interest discussing the validity of these riots and the poor, disillusioned souls who felt compelled to take part in them, and steal, and destroy, and burn innocent people's homes and livelihoods to the ground, maybe I'm cold but I couldn't give a fuck about their point of view. Let's not kid ourselves about this, it's no tale of social injustice, there are no stirrings of revolution here - these cretins don't have a cause, and I'd be surprised if any of them knew why they were doing it in the first place. It's bandwagon-jumping for scumbags who want a free TV. That is not to say there aren't things wrong in this country, of course, it's just a shame these rioters lack the eloquence to express them. And instead we get shit like this that makes me feel ashamed to be English:

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[Morgan Evanar]

I think a large part of the problem with rioters is that they always riot in the wrong place. What are you going to prove by burning down your own neighborhood? It proves you're a moron. If you're going to do something destructive do it to someone who kinda maybe sorta deserves it? Like maybe an MP who voted for cutting benefits for the poor or raised tuition or is anti-immigrant, heavy handed pro-police state or something.

I don't get it.

[Jedi Master Carr]

I can't stand the rioting, but banning free speech screams police state to me. I think you can go to far when trying to protect people.

[Sanis Prent]

Again, I'm not assigning any justification to the act of rioting. Violence, looting, etc in this fashion are wrong, and those who do it should be punished. You're missing my point.

The article Jenny put up first is actually rather astute in pointing out the politics within violence, even if those at the tip of the knife haven't a clue of it.

I guess what I'm saying is that the response from supposedly responsible people should be two-fold to this crisis, and so far it's been one sided entirely. They're quick to incarcerate, clamp up civil liberties, and put thousands of beat cops on the streets, but then you have punitive things in the works like trying to hit already impoverished people in the pocketbook? Is this really helpful?

[Yog]

I guess what I'm saying is that the response from supposedly responsible people should be two-fold to this crisis, and so far it's been one sided entirely. They're quick to incarcerate, clamp up civil liberties, and put thousands of beat cops on the streets, but then you have punitive things in the works like trying to hit already impoverished people in the pocketbook? Is this really helpful?
This is pretty much my perspective as well.

Yes, the riots, violence, destruction and looting is terrible, and should be punished. But at the same time, there seems to be a blatant lack of understanding from people like Cameron and the YouTube angry man the brewing class struggle. Social differences and poverty breeds crime and violence. That is an empirical fact.

Yes, there are despicable bandwagon thugs who does mindless opportunistic looting, but there are also disillusioned youth who think they have no future, and could care less if they get prosecuted, because from their point of view, their life is already destroyed.

It is crucially important to keep in mind the two perspectives at the same time, because they each play a part in what is happening.

[Dasquian Belargic]

I'm not standing up for rioters by any means, but I haven't seen anything from the government yet to show they are actually making a credible effort to deal with what's happening - and that doesn't include "swift, hard justice" by having the courts open all night because I have absolutely no faith that anyone sent to jail will be there for the actual full duration of the sentence they are supposed to serve. More to the point, I am not convinced that it will actually cause them to rethink their ways, as Cameron is convinced that it will. These people rioted because they don't give a shit what the establishment thinks to begin with. Why would they give a toss after a stint in jail? If they can even find jail cells for them.

Maybe I'm cynical, but how many of these people do you think are going to feel the "full force of the law"? Taking away housing and benefits will not work because a) the government will not allow people to live in poverty and b) if they did, the people they pushed into poverty which become even more criminal as a result of this.

[Morgan Evanar]

Jenny you are making the mistake of thinking that anyone will act logically through this.

[Estelle Russard]

I'm sorry, but I've no interest discussing the validity of these riots and the poor, disillusioned souls who felt compelled to take part in them, and steal, and destroy, and burn innocent people's homes and livelihoods to the ground, maybe I'm cold but I couldn't give a fuck about their point of view. Let's not kid ourselves about this, it's no tale of social injustice, there are no stirrings of revolution here - these cretins don't have a cause, and I'd be surprised if any of them knew why they were doing it in the first place. It's bandwagon-jumping for scumbags who want a free TV. That is not to say there aren't things wrong in this country, of course, it's just a shame these rioters lack the eloquence to express them. And instead we get shit like this that makes me feel ashamed to be English:


When the jerks that rioted in Vancouver at the Stanley Cup - and I know that what England is experiencing is so much more awful - the feeling of shame for other peoples actions on the world stage was still very real.

But its the shame of the FEW. Take that to heart. We know what assholes look like and that they dont represent who your country is.

[Aurelias Kazaar]

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Ugh I'm having issues with posting today...

[Dasquian Belargic]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14516840

Chancellor George Osborne has dismissed calls to reverse cuts to police budgets, telling BBC Radio Four's Today programme that violent disorder meant tackling "deep-seated social problems", not scaling back austerity measures.
How, Gideon?


I don't know if anyone in the UK watched the Young Voters edition of Question Time, but I found Sheldon Thomas's contributions to be articulate, interesting and logical. The only clip I can find of him commenting on this is unfortunately from Sky News (skip to 4:06)

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