London's Burning
V... I'm not in England ( altho Mrs. G is from London way ) .. but we were both up late last night watching the news....
Don't know if you've read the background on this but the "tinder spark" was the Police shooting of a black man Thursday night, under what is being termed suspicious circumstance.
What was designed as a peaceful protest / vigil outside of the police HQ in the town where that happened turned into full scale rioting and looting... in the victims name.
since then what has been termed as recreational rioting has broken out in scattered parts of the city, and now last night in many different cities.
I personally doubt that any of these kids rioting and looting could name the man that was killed by police or even know he existed.... they are out only for a, pardon the expresssion, good time.
my opinion : break out the tear gas and the water canons.
It's pretty horrible.
Watching the news it was just surreal.
It's like an orgy of violence and looting. What's disturbing is that so many of them are young, like really young.
Some of it seems to be due to the major disconnect between the police and the youngsters in these communities. This is the 'lost generation'. Interestingly, what appears to have sparked off at least one of the riots was apparently the police stop and searching a young lad (whom they then let go having found nothing). This seems to be a real grievance of young people now is that they are the ones being subjected to excessive stop and search these days.
Not that that's an excuse for rioting through the streets and setting fire to people's cars and property. But there are some serious questions that need asking about the relationship between police and the communities involved, particularly the youth.
I don't think it's a coincidence that this is happening when confidence in the Met is at an all time low. I'm not wholly sure what is at the root of this, but the police have one hell of a job on their hands in regaining confidence. I think the shooting just sat as an unfortunate symbol of a much deeper malaise.
Can't add anything to what Grynch and Dana said. Checking in as asked, so far it is all quite a long way from where I am.
now THIS is my kinda place ....
http://gawker.com/5829018/michelin+starred-restaurant-staff-scare-looters-share-booze
Michelin-Starred Restaurant Staff Scare Looters, Share Booze
The kitchen staff at the Ledbury went beyond their call of duty by rushing up from the kitchen with rolling pins, fry baskets, and other dangerous kitchen tools and scared off the looters
also.. tonnes of stories on Facebook about groups organizing clean up of the streets and setting up food pantries for people that lost all due to fires.... the spirit of the Blitz lives on.
My father (now deceased) was British but became a US citizen in the 50's once told me that the British used to not have too many issues with public unrest because there was always a war every few years and then and the lower classes were always sent off to the front lines of battle and their ranks were thinned out enough that you didn't hear much from them until the next war.... and then they were gone again.
"Hey Mum, I'm just going to step out and do some looting. Cheers."
Where are these kids' parents?
Interestingly, what appears to have sparked off at least one of the riots was apparently the police stop and searching a young lad (whom they then let go having found nothing). This seems to be a real grievance of young people now is that they are the ones being subjected to excessive stop and search these days.
Not that that's an excuse for rioting through the streets and setting fire to people's cars and property. But there are some serious questions that need asking about the relationship between police and the communities involved, particularly the youth.
I don't think it's a coincidence that this is happening when confidence in the Met is at an all time low. I'm not wholly sure what is at the root of this, but the police have one hell of a job on their hands in regaining confidence. I think the shooting just sat as an unfortunate symbol of a much deeper malaise.
We live up to the expectations people have of us.
thank you for checking in... one still absent... grrrr...
I listen pretty regularly to the BBC World Service, last night it was wall to wall coverage with one short exception which I can't remember just now. Anyhow, there was a statement by Cameron, ending with "Now, if you'll excuse me, there's work to be done." He characterized it as simple unacceptable criminality. I also heard one theory, swiftly rebutted, that there was an undercurrent of dissatisfaction over deep cuts to social programs, especially for youth. The (police officer?) local observer scoffed saying these kids would be pushed back by the police, and then jump in their souped up GTIs and scooting away a few blocks where the drivers would talk on their mobiles to reorganize their mates.
Astonishingly, there was an interview with a couple of girls, one was seventeen, who had participated, not just spectators, in the rioting and looting. These are kids, just kids really. They were typically difficult to comprehend, plus they were still a little drunk on rose wine, but they (thought they) were sticking it to the man (my phrase, their sentiment). "It's the government, innit?" They thought they were showing those who had money that they could do what they wanted. The reporter pointed out to the girls that shop keepers in the area are not really likely to be "rich". Seriously, why loot a nail shop? The booze, the clothes and electronics I can understand, though not condone.
The best program was World Have Your Say (I think) and the reporter was sitting with a handful of folks around a kitchen table in a house in Hackney. It was quite a free for all. Many thoughts were expressed, and the responsibilities of the parents to take charge of their kids was prominent. Teachers were also mentioned as influencers of these youth.
I see that an individual can feel taken advantage of, that they're not getting what they deserve. This is an uncomfortable feeling, and in their resentment and their desire for retribution, recompense they look to blame "the other". I believe that this blaming the other works for the rioters, the shop owners, the cops, the politicians, everybody. It's so much easier to see the motes in their eyes (myself included). But the only way out of any of this is to see through the others' eyes. Each side's story contains some truth. Work with that, listen to and validate that. At a minimum, you can't riot and empathize at the same time.
footfootfoot, that's true. it's also true that we live down to others' expectations of us.
Have high expectations.
Some snips from here:
http://old.news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110809/ap_on_bi_ge/eu_britain_riot
Parliament will return to duty on Thursday, as the political fallout from the rampage takes hold. The crisis is a major test for Cameron's Conservative-led coalition government, which includes Liberal Democrats who had long suspected its program of harsh budget restraints could provoke popular dissent...
The rioters appeared to have little unifying cause — though some claimed to oppose sharp government spending cuts, which will slash welfare payments and cut tens of thousands of public sector jobs through 2015...
...as the latest unrest spread, some pointed to rising social tensions in Britain as the government slashes 80 billion pounds ($130 billion) from public spending by 2015 to reduce the huge deficit, swollen after the country spent billions bailing out its foundering banks.
"This is the uprising of the working class. We're redistributing the wealth," said Bryn Phillips, a 28-year-old self-described anarchist, as young people emerged from a store with chocolate bars and ice cream cones.
Power to the people! Chocolate and ice cream for everyone! :rolleyes:
ohh.. frig......
just saw a facebook message from a friend
"omg, it's started down here now" ( eastbourne )
gonna be another long night
...rolling pins, fry baskets, and other dangerous kitchen tools...
Viciousness in the kitchen!
Seriously, never f*ck with the cooks. They're all coked-up and have cleavers.
as always, the fight for the narrative will be dirtier than the fight in the streets
Take away News of the World and the kids have nothing left to read. What did they expect?
Take away the full frontal nude on page 3 and the really nasty ones will get angry.
Don't know if you've read the background on this but the "tinder spark" was the Police shooting of a black man Thursday night, under what is being termed suspicious circumstance.
I'm thinking this might be a bad idea to burn down your neighborhood stores and loot and rob from the very business owners that serve your community. Those business people should do what they did in Watts in the riots in LA in the 1960's, close up shop and let the place turn into a slum.
as always, the fight for the narrative will be dirtier than the fight in the streets
That's so true, Toad.
just heard the phrase "social media rioting"
also discussion about twitter and blackberry messenger as chief tools for the hooligans' reconnoitering. Up til now, the cops always had better communication. No more. There was some talk about the cops being able to go to the providers and ask for access to the messages but that was described as unrealistic to intercept or sever the communication of every user that transmitted the word "riot" or whatever. Good thing, that shit scares me even more.
Remember when a flash mob was just a bunch of geeks doing something cute and interesting?
I was at a local really huge mall when police got a tip that it was due to be hit by one of the bad kinds of flash mobs. There were police from three or four local jurisdictions providing a visible presence ... and the flash mob was either never a real threat, or they chickened out.
This is Nick Clegg, leader of the Liberal Democrats and Deputy Prime Minister:
His party is one of the two parties currently governing as a coalition. The other party of course being the Conservative, or 'Tory' party.
In 2010, when Nick Clegg was campaiging against the Conservatives he gave this interview:
[YOUTUBE]YItK1izQIwo[/YOUTUBE]
Has anyone heard from Sundae since this mess started? I'm not sure how close she actually is to it, but I'm getting worried.
She's a fair old way away, Clod. Though it is likely to be upsetting to her because of her connection to and affection for the city.
Horrible seeing Manchester and Salford erupting as well.
I was living in Salford in the 90's during a period of rioting, and the big carpet store up the road went up in flames. Seeing it again on the screen but on such a larger scale is not pleasant.
No known dwellars (that I can recall) live within the borders of London or in any of the affected cities.
Turns out by the way, that the initial reports that came out suggesting that Duggan had fired at the police and a bullet from his gun lodged in a police officer's radio have proved false. There was a gun at the scene, which police say belonged to Duggan, and that's what he fired. But that gun it appears is a replica of some sort and not able to fire the kinds of bullets that were at the scene, and the bullet in the radio is from a Police issue gun.
There's also been some trouble in Leeds apparently.
Whats happening is pretty incomprehensible to me. When I was a teenager, or even now, I would never think of random violence as a way to respond to an act of violence by the police, or as a way to respond to government action I don't approve of. I honestly don't see how this is going to help anything at all.
I feel bad for all of the innocent victims of this who are losing their business and sometimes their homes. I can understand it happening once and a mob just losing its ability to think rationally and go berserk, but the fact that its spreading and continuing to happen, shows to me that those involved have no rationality or empathy for those that they are hurting the most....their own peers, regular people just trying to get by.
Turns out by the way, that the initial reports that came out suggesting that Duggan had fired at the police and a bullet from his gun lodged in a police officer's radio have proved false. There was a gun at the scene, which police say belonged to Duggan, and that's what he fired. But that gun it appears is a replica of some sort and not able to fire the kinds of bullets that were at the scene, and the bullet in the radio is from a Police issue gun.
Regardless of whether he fired at police, if he displayed a gun, or what appeared to be a gun, the police response of deadly force was justified.
On this side of the pond, anyway.
The police said he had a gun and fired at them first. Now it would seem he never fired a gun at all. And some witnesses have suggested that the gun which was found at the scene was actually found inside a sock. If that's the case then he may not have had it in his hand at all.
and the bullet in the radio is from a Police issue gun.
First of all, since when did beat cops in the UK start carrying guns.
Second, police issue bullet in the radio? Where these guys part of some sort of exchange program with the Chicago PD?:right:
Follow the axiom of Military Intel reports.... the first report is always suspect.
has anyone noticed the racial aspects of this? seems the victim was black and supposedly the majority of rioters are too. seems similar to the riots after the rodney king incident.
btw if somebody points a gun at me, don't expect me to wait to see if it is real or not!!
I'm thinking this might be a bad idea to burn down your neighborhood stores and loot and rob from the very business owners that serve your community. Those business people should do what they did in Watts in the riots in LA in the 1960's, close up shop and let the place turn into a slum.
of course it's a bad idea, but I've got another (bad) idea... why don't you go out into the street and tell the rioters what they are doing is wrong.
report back to me in the morning please.
has anyone noticed the racial aspects of this? seems the victim was black and supposedly the majority of rioters are too. seems similar to the riots after the rodney king incident.
btw if somebody points a gun at me, don't expect me to wait to see if it is real or not!!
Sarge, that was true for the intial riot(s) but now there is a very mixed race crowd.. mostly kids from what I see on TV, many simply out for a bit of... what was kid on TV called......fun.
:mad:
How can this be happening in England? At some point that's a question that requires some attention.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-14471405
Three men killed in Birmingham.
Pictures from around the country. These are tiny pockets but they are happening in several major cities. The picture of Salford makes me want to cry.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14471098
I saw a couple on tv being interviewed. They'd come here from Sri Lanka in the early 90s and built up a grocery store. Thye had building's insurance, but not contents insurance (maybe they were only just keeping in profit and couldn't afford it, i dunno.) and their store has been looted of everything. Including the tills. They've lost in excess of £50k and are now ruined.
They showed on the news yesterday people being helped out of burning buildings, one person seemed to be leaping from the flames.
Some of the rioters are as young as 10 and 11.
Sarge, that was true for the intial riot(s) but now there is a very mixed race crowd.. mostly kids from what I see on TV, many simply out for a bit of... what was kid on TV called......fun.
:mad:
I can kind of understand what they mean by that. I think we dismiss this as simple criminality at our peril. And just because they can't necesarily articulate their grievance doesn't mean there isn't one. Whatever they think it is that they are doing, they are definately expressing something that runs very deep and has been boiling under the surface for a while now.
About three or four months ago, my ward colleagues and I were discussing a local housing estate in our ward. We were considering ways in which the various partner organisations in the area could try and off-set the growing sense of alienation and helplessness that was starting to set in. It feels like a powder keg, and one of the things that makes it feel that way is how the young people of the estate are starting to behave. There's just an intangible sense of escalation in tension. An electricity in the air, part hopelessness, part excitable destruction.
Obviously we were discussing some more concrete issues, and expected issues as the cuts start to bite and people start losing their homes and as unemployment starts to rise alongside shrinking assistance programmes. But we'd all noticed that frisson.
I was 18 when the country went into recession and the housing boom bust. I'd spent the previous few years being educated in a system that was underfunded to the point that pupils had to share text books, 3 to a book. With the flow of classes intermittently disturbed by teacher strikes. I watched tv as a kid and there were always strikes. And people shouting at each other across picket lines. Police attacking miners, miners shouting at scabs. The army on fire-fighting duty in the Green Goddess, because the Firemen were on strike. Far-right parties marching in town centres and their bootboys spraying swastikas on walls.
Major miscarriages of justice and the police implicated in racist, or homophobic killings. Trust in the police was not high. You trusted the guy who walked about your neighbourhood, but the organisation was not trusted and the racism of the institution was pretty widely accepted.
There were no jobs to go to. What jobs were on offer were awful, low-paid, insecure and hard fought for. And politicians on the telly were all sternly telling us off for not having one.
Meanwhile, the consumer culture was in full swing. The gap between the haves and have nots was at an all time high (now massively expanded). Tv and movies, adverts and schoolfriends, all high-lighted that gap constantly. Shiny, shiny, success and happiness cheek by jowl with hard-edged poverty. Somewhere in the middle where most of us lived things just felt really insecure.
At 18 was a bit of a nihilist. I wanted to tear it all down. Fuck the whole thing up so it has to be built anew. I'd have been watching these reports with a kind of horrified satisfaction back then. It would have felt right. Like, the world really is fucked up, and now we're just seeing what that really looks like. Because this is what it actually feels like.
And I remember the sense of escalation and *thinks* energy and invincibility and rightness that enveloped me when the poll tax demo turned into a riot. Scary at first but then, completely right.
This may not look political. And to many of the individuals involved it may not feel 'political'. But it is. It isn't the articulate political expression of a demonstration against political policies, it's more of a primal yell.
Thank you, Dana, for helping those of us across the pond to better understand what's happening.
Dana, from the little I can gather about life in England it seems that there is a huge gulf between the haves and the have nots, there also seems to be a fairly strong degree of learned helplessness among the lower class. I can imagine that after a point if one feels there is no hope or point or chance of improving one's lot, then it's every man for himself and god against all.
again, I base this on nothing but inference.
Interesting photo I came across....
First of all, since when did beat cops in the UK start carrying guns.
Second, police issue bullet in the radio? Where these guys part of some sort of exchange program with the Chicago PD?:right:
Beat cops are not armed in the UK. The police who shot and killed Duggan, were members of the elite CO19 unit of the Met Police. There are special units who are armed and able to respond to situations where an armed response may be needed. This is actually probably one reason why the country gets very upset when the police kill someone by mistake. It happens very rarely, but every time it does it is a massive issue. Unfortately the police press machine does itself no favours in such instances. Their first strategy is pretty muich always both to heap laurels on the bravery of the police concerned and effect a character assasination of the deceased in order to place the blame for the death onto the victim. Those close to the case know instantly that this is not the truth and the anger starts at that level. Then the details start to come out and the gulf between the intial reports and the reality sparks national anger and concern.
The Menenez killing was a classic example.
Initial reports said that they'd been watching him for some time, that they knew he was likely to be carrying a bomb, that he had been wearing a hoodie and a backpack, that the police went into the subway station after him and shouted at him to stop, and that on hearing that warning he ran and vaulted the ticket barrier, rushing onto the platform and boarding the train that was there.
The police followed him onto the train dragged him from his seat and put several bullets into him before he had a chance to set off any device.
The only part of that story that turned out to be true was the bit about him being dragged from his seat and shot several times. No hoodie, no backpack, no shouyed warning, no running, no vaulting ticket barrier, no suspicious behaviour on the part of Menenez whatsoever. The house they'd been watching as part of an anti-terror surveillance operation was subdivided into flats, and they followed the wrong resident.
Interestingly, the photo that featured on the front pages of most of the newspapers and which had been provided, I think, by the police, darkened his skin tone.
Anyway, back OT:
Here. I found a really interesting article about the situation on the New York Times website. I found it interesting because I like to see how events here are viewed over the Pond. But it also discusses the whole riot response and armed/unarmed policing issue.
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/09/unarmed-police-on-londons-front-lines/?hp
As British officials promised to end days of widespread riots with “more robust policing,” and 16,000 officers fanned out across London, American readers might be surprised to learn that most members of the force charged with ending the rioting remain unarmed.
Of the more than 32,500 officers in London’s Metropolitan Police Service, just 2,740 were “authorized firearms officers” at last count. Outside the capital, the entire territory of England and Wales is policed with the help of just 4,128 more armed officers.
It's not entirely fair to say they are 'unarmed', as they do have batons, but most of them have no firearms.
All this trouble, just because the Brits refuse to wear tin foil hats while solar flares generate interference affecting the minds of susceptible citizens. I watched the videos of the riots and noted that not one rioter was wearing a tin foil hat. The facts of the matter are evident.
As you can see in my profile pic, I'm always prepared for solar flares!!!
Here is a comment from my trade union site which makes some valid points,
PCS statement on the UK riots
9 August 2011
Thousands of our members live and work in the communities that have been hit by the vandalism and looting of recent days. Tragically many people have lost their homes, and many more their workplace, potentially their job and income too.
We echo the words of the Fire Brigades Union, “these events illustrate the bravery and commitment of London’s firefighters, and the entire capital will be grateful to them”. Our emergency services in London and other cities have once again shown that they play a vital role in protecting the public.
Public sector workers, from police community support officers to welfare advisers and from teachers to youth workers, will have a huge role to play in rebuilding and in maintaining a sense of community. The government has spent recent months disrespecting these workers and attacking their jobs, pensions and pay; it is time for that to stop and for them to recognise their valuable contribution to society.
As communities clear up, we have to step back and recognise these disturbances did not happen in a vacuum. It is not condoning violence to say that simply dismissing this as 'mindless criminality' is to give up on our responsibility to look for causes and solutions.
Youth unemployment is at its highest level on record, and further and higher education costs are set to soar. Public services are being slashed in many communities with councils cutting youth services and eligibility to housing. Welfare cuts and privatisation mean jobcentres are being closed and benefit cuts are causing anguish and hardship to many.
Our society is more unequal than at any point since the 1930s. There will be those who will call for tougher sentencing and more police powers, but these will not solve the very deep problems facing our country. As PCS has argued, we need investment to create the jobs and build the infrastructure that our communities need.
We should also resist attempts to demonise young people in general. They have been the biggest victims of this recession. The lawlessness of the financial and political elites is a much larger problem that our society must address.
In the coming days and weeks, we must address the complex issues that have led to the recent days' incidents across London and elsewhere, and caused so many to be rightly shocked and appalled.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Now i have no idea if the riots were in anyway political or just something that got way out of hand but similar riots happened in Greece after some other kid got shot recently and i remember the70's and early 80's and the riots in Brixton, Toxteth and the poll tax riots, seems there was another Tory Govt then also making huge welfare cuts, history repeating itself again, who knows?
Thanks for that be-bop. Last time I saw burning cars in Salford was in the early 90s.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-14478498
Rioters in Manchester and Salford have been told that they face being evicted from their council homes if they are identified on CCTV footage.
Both city councils have issued warnings that if any of their tenants or their children have been involved in violence or looting they will be "thrown out".
Oh, well that'll help the situation no end, making a bunch of families homeless. Can't see how that could possibly backfire and cause greater social unrest and public expense.
This sort of thing really pisses me off. Because, see, here's the deal: local councils have legal obligations when it comes to little things like ensuring children are not homeless or in other dangerous situations. All the councils are doing by following this line is to shunt these families out of the stable (however deprived) setting of a council house and into the unstable setting of hostels, guest houses and other comparatively expensive forms of temporary accomodation.
If these kids are already disconnected from society, then throwing them and their families out to try and survive on family's floors, and shared lodgings, disrupting whatever structures do exist within their homelife and probably interrupting their education, possibly necessitating a change of school due to moving to a new area, is not going to help anybody. It's just Look Tough nonsense. 'Common sense responses' that are anything but.
Saw a Manchester woman vox-popped on the news, and one of the things she said was: well, they've been labelled scum, so now they're acting like scum.
There's been a near constant narrative in the last 5-10 years in the tabloid media and within political discourse, of 'feral youth' and 'broken Britain'. I've seen some interesting statistics about youth crime and youths as victims of crime, and some interesting survey results on perceptions of crime. Basically, the fear of youth crime far outweighs its incidence rate in people's perceptions. And by far the most common victims of youth crime, are other young people.
Despite the regular caveats thrown in about this not being 'all' young people. but a minority, the tone of the media and political analysis has actually served to suggest the opposite. And the responses to problems have at times been ridiculously heavy handed. I have to say my own party was responsible for some of that when they were in government. The anti-social behaviour order, known as an 'asbo' are an incredibly blunt instrument in judicial terms, and whilst many are fairly harmless, some have done real social harm.
Changes in policing, and in how children are treated if they end up coming to the attention of the authorities have both helped and hindered. We're more likely to identify those young people in vulnerable situations, but we're also more likely to criminalise them at a much earlier, and in some cases inappropriate stage. Petty nonsense that 20 years ago would have had you being taken back to home and handed to your parents by a policeman, but not actually booked as an incident, now ends up with an official caution, and the tentative beginnings of involvement with the criminal justice system.
We incarcerate more young people than anywhere else in Europe. We place them under constant surveillance. If they gather in groups larger than 3 or 4 the police can and will intervene to disperse them. The police might be doing all sorts of outreach work, and running all manner of football and boxing clubs, but they're also the ones stopping young people and searching them whnen all they're doing is hanging about the street.
Hanging about is something young people like to do. I used to like to do it too. Hanging about in a group and larking around. Now, there's always been a battle of wills at the edges of that activity, with raucous behaviour bringing calls to be quiet, go home, stop being a nuisance, and maybe a cop coming over to tell you off and warn you to behave yourelves. But there used to be a general acceptance that whilst it wasn't desirable as a full time occupation, hanging about was something most kids were going to do and we were pretty much left alone to do it if we didn't get in anyone's way.
Now, the very sight of a group of youngsters raises tension, and even if they aren't actually doing anything wrong there's a good chance they'll be interrupted and possibly dispersed by police. Not the case everywhere, but definately the case in a lot of places.
The idea of hanging about on the street is a bit odd to me. I know teenagers like to congregate, but - at least in my experience myself and with my kids - they'll usually do it at someone's house, or at a sporting event. Occasionally they'll take themselves down to the shops to feed their faces, but other than that, you don't generally see groups of kids just hanging around 'making a nuisance of themselves'.
I think the fact that this is seen as the norm in the UK points to a bigger social issue really if the kids don't feel happy and better off to be hanging about at their own homes or the homes of friends.
I'm not saying we don't have social issues here, just that the idea of just hanging about aimlessly is a problem I think. Boredom leading to trouble is the most likely outcome from what I can see.
Much of it is most likely to do with the fact that we have much smaller houses in the UK than in most other countries, and that is doubly so in the innercity areas. The middle-class paradigm, which tends to involve bigger houses and kids all having their own space, is one of kids not being out on their own much, and mainly playing with their friends in bedrooms, on playstations. This has been a source of much concern as we ponder the less active generation and the less independant kids whose parents remember hanging about the streets entertaining themselves outside :p
The working-class paradigm, which tends to involve smaller houses, often with kids sharing bedrooms, and much less social space for the kids to hang out in, is one of kids hanging around outside congregating at bus shelters, or street corners with handy seat level walls etc.; then possibly having a kickabout of a football in a carpark.
Well maybe there needs to be more sporting and cultural programs in place for these kids. Youth centres or what you might call them where there are a variety of activities available.
I understand what you're saying about space being a factor, and I guess we're lucky here in that most people do have a yard to play in or hang about in even if the house is small.
Still though, it's a shame that kids can't just plop down in front of the telly or at the kitchen table or whatever.
I hope the situation there is not so bad that it's beyond the point of no return. Aside from the current riots which will hopefully peter out when they get bored of it.
Unfortunately youth programmes and facilities have been shrinking for some time. And I don;t see local councils being able to initiate much more for them, given they're attempting to effect massive budget cuts across the board.
I think it's so sad that the kids feel they have nothing better to do than destroy other people's lives. I'm sure they disassociate themselves from that actual thought when they're in the process.
Honestly, I just want to give them all a big hug and tell them there's a better way to live, but I'm realistic enough to realize they'd probably punch me in the face for my trouble.
Youngsters have always hung around on street corners an bus shelters, and kicked footballs around carparks, and drunk cider in secret, down by the kiddy play park (this is amost a unversal :p) in Britain. But they haven't always rioted.
And this is more than just social deprivation, or boredom. Amongst the rioters arrested last night, were a grammar school girl (so either wealthy enough to pay for private education, or clever enough to pass the 11+ and gain a scholarship) and a teaching assistant.
Yeah, but just because they've always done it doesn't mean it's the best thing for them to be doing.
I know I come from a very different culture, but if I knew my kids were hanging around aimlessly, I'd be finding them something to do. I know this because when we first moved here, Aden got hooked up with a group of kids that do just hang around the streets. He got himself into a bad situation, but was lucky enough to have us to help him find a better way. He's never looked back, and he's so much happier now. I can go into details if you like.
Tonight a group of the rioters blamed it on the "rich", and these were their neighbors. The business people who served their communities, again, pull out and let them rot. See how that works out for them.
I remember the first time I clapped eyes on British punkers -- would have been down Bath way, around 1984. The whole ensemble and the worldview it symbolized was strikingly off-kilter -- an excrescence of Euro-socialism and of the welfare state, even then.
It was not merely distasteful philosophically, it was ugly-looking too. ("They ductaped me into a chair to give me this hairstyle. Then they boxed my ears a few times to impart a properly scroungy air.") And the scrounginess was widespread. Had to get up into Scotland and a year and more later to see any of it done with style -- scrounginess now being refreshingly absent, at least up there.
The sort of thing we're hearing now seems of a piece with that. The root cause of this is the existence of the welfare state. Absent that and things will freshen right up.
Marx outlined and theorized what caused this -- and it's a purely European idea, this classist thinking, this rigidity. Marx could not have come up with the error he did had he lived in America. But he didn't make it that far west.
Now it comes home to roost. England may have the best chance at turning from welfarism to a libertarian paradigm, as much of the libertarian philosophical literature is in English.
How does a country that tries to give it's people everything, free healthcare, generous retirement benefits, strong union representation, all those utopian ideals of the American Left end up in such disarray? Anyone? What? they didn't give enough? Maybe they need to raise more taxes and redistribute more of the wealth, that should fix it. Obviously taxes are not high enough.
I think part of the problem is that there are too many people taking handouts and not enough putting back into the system. The state can't afford decent education because of all the money spent on housing and healthcare etc, and many people never learn enough to get themselves out of the cycle.
This issue is going to take a long time to resolve and I think the people of the UK are going to have change the way they think for that to happen.
I don't necessarily agree with the way healthcare etc is run in the US or even Aus, but there's got to be a way to help those in need but exclude those who want to leech off the system.
DanaC, that it's a "primal yell" rings true to me.
I've never been even as close to London as Heathrow on a layover. But the idea that this comes out of a disenfranchised class and generation without the eloquence or clarity or whatever it takes to be recognized as "legitimately political" makes a lot of sense to me. In a certain way, that so many figures of traditional power dismiss the riots as apolitical and "just crime" is, itself, a sign that there is a deep, probably fairly widespread common cause -- one which is so endemic that they cannot even pretend to relate.
This seems maybe a relevant, if sort of anarcho-philosophical in a dense way, essay about the (previous?) apathy of British students relative to French:
Reflexive Impotence
In it, he basically argues that there is a bleak future for young people, where they're simultaneously trained to be manic entertainment/stimulus junkies, but also to take on debt and join the rat race.
Reflexive impotence amounts to an unstated worldview amongst the British young. Many of the teenagers I work with have mental health problems or learning difficulties. Depression is endemic. The number of students who have some variant of dyslexia is astonishing. It is not an exaggeration to say that being a teenager in late capitalist Britain is now close to being reclassified as a sickness. This pathologization already forecloses any possibility of politicization. By privatizing problems - treating them as if they were caused only by the individual's neurology and/ or family background - any question of social systemic causation is ruled out.
[...]
If the figure of discipline was the worker-prisoner, the figure of control is the debtor-addict. Cyberspatial capital operates by addicting its users; Gibson recognized that in Neuromancer when he had Case and the other cyberspace cowboys feeling insects-under-the-skin strung out when they unplugged from the matrix (Case's amphetamine habit is plainly the substitute for an addiction to a far more abstract speed).
[...]
It is worth stressing that none of the students I teach have any legal obligation to be at college. They could leave if they wanted to. But the lack of any meaningful employment opportunities, together with cynical encouragement from government means that college seems to be the easier, safer option. Deleuze says that control societies are based on debt rather than enclosure; but there is a way in which the current education system both indebts and encloses students. Pay for your own exploitation, the logic insists - get into debt so you can get the same McJob you could have walked into if you'd left school at 16 ...
The people who control the narrative freak out about their pensions or 401ks or stock portfolios going into the shitter when the economy collapses. But the youth, who are already predisposed to be somewhat angsty about what the future may hold, are watching the older generation lose their shit over it, too. Is it worse to lose it all, or to watch what could be yours some day get lost?
I have both a day job and an active entreprenurial pipe dream. But if I were there, or the riots here, I wonder what I would do: it doesn't seem that foreign. Every generation "theatricializes one's lack of prospects": mine did it with body decoration and narcotics. But, we had prospects.
[ATTACH]33428[/ATTACH]
It fixes most things.
@ UG:
So because a relatively small number of people went on a rampage for a few nights we should utterly change the way we as a country function, and have functined for some considerable time?
The reality is that we have been slowly creeping towards more American style solutions to social problems and this is the result: social dischord.
The recent austerity moves have added to an already mounting tension.
This isn't about benefits culture and handouts. At least, I don't think it is. They weren't all unemployed, or from unemployed families. Some of the people arrested have had respectable jobs. One of them was a teaching assistant.
But for those that are unemployed, cutting their already low benefits payments and making it harder to claim is not helpful when youth unemployment is riding at 20.3% in some places.
At the same time the paths to college and university are getting harder to follow with abolition of the EMA (£30 per week educational maintenance allowance, given to low income kids going to college from school, to assist in paying for travel and books) and the tripling of university fees (used to be capped at c. 3k per year, now most o fthe universities have taken up the opportunity to raise fees and are charging 9k per year).
Schools meanwhile have become more segregated than ever along income/class lines, and the movement to an Academy system in many areas has resulted in a massive increase in school exclusions, with difficult to reach pupils far more likely to be excluded than worked with, than used to be the case. Many schools/academies are now specialising, with some offering a more vocational bent and others a more academic, I'll leave it to you to guess which areas have leaned towards academic specialisms and which areas are channeling their youngsters into plumbing and plastering.
Society has never felt more economically divided. Kids are growing up in the most consumerist society Britain has ever known, with social worth more tagged than ever to branded goods and having exactly the right stuff. At the same time they're flooded with a mix of messages around entitlement. That has nothing to do with the welfare state being too generous. We had a welfare state when i was a kid, and we had an unequal society and all sorts of trouble. We had second generation entrenched unemployed and a massive underclass, but this sense of lifestyle entitlement is new.
A couple of things that i find quite interesting about this.
The timing of this is interesting. We've seen over the last couple of years a massive increase in youth involvement in politics. The debate over tuition fees galvanised a large section of the young people of Britain into action. Marches and protests and letter writing campaigns and planned (politely, with permission from the university authorities) campus occupations.
There was a huge rally in London, and kids from all accross the Uk flocked to it. Kids were ditching school and getting down to London with their mates, there were young people at the end of their university courses, protesting on behalf of younger friends and relatives, there were teachers and other professionals, many of whom were in their professions because they'd had access to university education through a combination of loans and grants without having to take on massive amounts of debt to do so.
There was a real sense of energy around their response, and engagement. There was then a lot of support from young people when it came to protests about public sector pensions.
Last year when the main parties were gearing up to the election, the Liberal Democrats heavily courted first time voters, and made tuition fees and student loans one of the central planks of their campaign. They made all sorts of promises, including a cast iron guarantee that if they were in government that they wouldn't allow any increase to tuition fees.
Young people joined the LibDems in droves. They were a huge part of their campaign. The twitter generation used social media to increase the footprint of the lib-dem campaign massively.
Then the two main parties failed to gain a majority, with many of their votes migrating to the Lib Dems, partly because of this youth response and it was down to the Lib Dems, the third party, to attach themselves in coalition to one of the two parties to form a coalition government. They formed a government with the Conservatives, and one of the first things that coalition did was abandon all the promises the libdems made to the young people.
I don't think it's any accident that this is occurring now. I think there is a general sense amongst a lot of young people that the adult world simply isn't interested in them or their views.
"Control societies are based on debt," and the "debtor-addict" from the above article reminds me of an excellent book by Alain de Botton: Status Anxiety.
it's a great read and a great balm to the nuttiness of a society infatuated with the shiny bling of the material world. We are such suggestible creatures and western civ. has indoctrinated the youth to believe it is their god-given RIGHT to wear 300.00 sneakers. And if you don't wear them - well then, you are nothing but trash.
Making people feel like shit about themselves -
Capitalism at it's very, very best. :)
Wait a minute.
One of them was a teaching assistant.
:eyebrow:
SSSSuuuuunnnndddaaaeeee?????!!!!!!!
Well with all the folks here who have her phone number and speak to her, I'm surprised no one has tried to call. :eyebrow:
She's in Aylesbury. Haven't heard any reports of trouble in or near aylesbury.
She's in Aylesbury. Haven't heard any reports of trouble in or near aylesbury.
unfortunately... that doesnt mean much....
.
I've not heard of any reports on mainstream news of trouble in Oxford, High Wycombe or Brighton but I have first hand reports of some trouble in each place... not whole-scale rioting but troubles..
so....
Ok, fair enough.
We've had comparatively little in my borough. A few little flareups,nothing the police weren't able to deal with. But Leeds, about a 30 minute drive away, has seen some fairly serious rioting.
Are you going to try to call her? Sarge? Bunny? Bri?
I don't have her number.
Maybe this'll help with the looting.
.
.
Interesting interview from a couple girls:
Consider what an unnamed girl told a BBC reporter to explain why she and others looted local shops:
“It’s the rich people. The rich people have got businesses, and that’s why all this has happened. We’re just showing the rich people we can do what we want.”
We’re just showing the rich people we can do what we want. And what they want is not to be paid more for working less, or anything else out of the anti-capitalist’s textbook. It’s extremely unlikely these girls have or want jobs, given their age and behavior: One generally doesn’t take a day off work to smash the windows of an off-track betting parlor and make off with its flat-screen televisions.
No, what they want is just to take what the rich people have.
And where could they have gotten such a notion? Try the ideology they’ve been spoon-fed since birth, just like their parents and, by this point, their parents’ parents.
Yes the writer is skewed, but unfortunately, there is some merit to what he says as well.
I hate cities in general - and perhaps London more than most. I don't understand the rioters at all but then nor I can't understand why people would choose to live in what seems, to me, to be the ultimate shit-hole.
A little nearer to where I live the rioting seems to be taking off too:
[YOUTUBE]nG-XWBVdonQ&sns=fb[/YOUTUBE]
Tonight a group of the rioters blamed it on the "rich", and these were their neighbors. The business people who served their communities, again, pull out and let them rot. See how that works out for them.
While the "rich" may be at fault, these looters fail to make the critical distinction between "richer" and terminally "rich."
It's not the fault of the richer, and if you are not terminally rich then you are unlikely to ever encounter one of them.
People are just knuckleheads. Angry knuckleheads.
Has any body else noticed that ALL this started when Monster and Beest went away for a few weeks ????
I had a dream last night that I called Dani (and I don't even have her number) at 1am for her birthday. There was more to the dream, but it was weird.
I had a dream last night that I called Dani (and I don't even have her number) at 1am for her birthday. There was more to the dream, but it was weird.
taunting vixen
I blame soccer.
Now that makes sense. They are so confused as to even call it football.
Ref Sundae - I tried calling her earlier today. Got no answer
I don't understand the rioters at all but then nor I can't understand why people would choose to live in what seems, to me, to be the ultimate shit-hole.
Good luck with this explaination.
Why an adolescent does something and why those girls just blame the rich may be two completely different reasons. The concept is called epistemology. As an adolescent enters Level 3, abstract reasoning and metacognitive abilities emerge. An adolescent should grow out of this Level and into Level 4 by high school. Should learn how different truths have perspectives. How some beliefs are more valid that others. Unfortunately many adolescents never graduate to that stage of cognitive development until their twenties or older.
Rice and Dolgin describe this in their book The Adolescent:
Once adolescents enter the formal operations stage, they become either dogmatists or skeptics, at least in the short run. Boyes and Chandler see these opposite types as being rooted in the same awareness that truth is always constructed and that facts are open to multiple and valid interpretations. This is an unsettling revelation at best, and adolescents feel beset by uncertainty. They wonder: "if you can't tell the truth from the false, if you cannot be certain who is right and who is wrong, how can you make good choices?"
Skeptical adolescents react to this uncertainty by rejecting rationality. The take the attitude that if they cannot be certain bout what to do or whom to believe, then all opinions and positions are equally valid and they don't have to listen to any (or to anyone in particular). They lose respect for authority and have little patience for those who parade around as experts. Because they have lost faith in logic, these adolescents behave impulsively (without reasoning through situations), intuitively (doing what their emotions, rather than their logic, tells them to do), and indifferently (without attempting to choose a good course of action, "going with the flow"). They are apt to conform to others, letting the majority make their decisions for them, and they become rebellious or disengaged.
In contrast to skeptics, dogmatists flee from their uncertainty, rigidly clinging to one set of beliefs. They are intolerant of other views because they find them threatening, and they do not want to question their own beliefs. They conform to the views of those they have chosen as allies. They insist that their way of thinking is right and that any who disagree with them are wrong.
Whereas skeptics believe that anyone who believes too deeply in anything is foolish, dogmatists believe that anyone who espouses something different than they do is misguided. Clearly neither of these reasonings is desirable. Boyes and Chandler view skepticism and dogmatism as short-term costs associated with entry into formal operations. Again, many people never outgrow this stage of reasoning.
Formal operation is the fourth and last stage of cognitive development that starts about 11 or 12 years of age. Formal operation involves four Levels. However some adolescent are late or never fully achieve Level four abilities. These rioters are typical of those who never get beyond Level 3. Who remain at the skeptical or dogmatic stage. Resulting emotions are triggered by environmental conditions that must be defined to understand their otherwise irrational behavior.
Their illogical explanation of ‘why’ is based in their interpretations of what they only understand: their emotions. Our understanding means understanding what triggered their emotions.
Grasping the hard realities of logic come later during Level 4. Postskeptical rationalism is when some beliefs are finally understood to be more valid than others. The ability to understand perspectives. Some never achieve that cognitive level until at least their twenties. Remain victims of their own emotions.
I'm back.
I may enter this discussion at some point, but I just wanted to let you know I was okay.
Mum & I headed off to Cardiff first thing Tuesday morning, and didn't get back until last night. We were watching the footage on SkyTV while we were away, but I had no internet access.
On the coach on the way down we heard that there were rumours of trouble in Grangetown and in Splott (parts of Cardiff), but it must have been contained as we heard nothing more of it. There were definitely a lot of police cars zooming about on Tuesday though, making sure that trouble didn't get a chance to start.
Funnily enough, saw a photo in the paper when we were on the way home of a Welsh policeman deployed to London. How could we tell? He had his back to the camera and Heddlu printed on his hi-vis jacket. Heddlu is Welsh for police, although it transaltes more correctly into "keeper of the peace".
glad to hear you and yours are safe and well..
Wales huh?.. their licence plates should be printed with the motto
"I'd like to buy a vowel please" ( love the accent tho.. especially on the *ahem* ladies. )
I'm glad to hear from you too, Sundae.
It's good to know you're ok Sundae. I actually think it was thoughts of you that prompted my dream of calling Dana. lol Weird.
I dreamed that people kept congratulating me on my Australian accent the night before.
But in the dream I'd actually performed Steve Pemberton's part in the Go Johnny Go Go sketch, which definitely does NOT have an Australian accent. I was being self-deprecating and saying I'd been listening to it for about 10 years, so no surprise I nailed it...
And I think that came from twice being identified as an American on the way through London (I was wearing & stars & stripes top though, and carrying a tourist sized bag). I used to be identified as an Aussie when I was a teenager. Something to do with the way I pronounced some words.
Dreams tangle things up in funny ways.
I hate cities in general - and perhaps London more than most. I don't understand the rioters at all but then nor I can't understand why people would choose to live in what seems, to me, to be the ultimate shit-hole.
I don't think of them as shit-holes but I can't imagine handling daily life with so many people in close proximity. Even the small city I'm working in this summer has class issues based largely on people being unable to imagine a better way of life or how to achieve that and burdening their children with the same. Opportunities are limited especially for kids whose parents neglect or actively oppose the free education society presents on a silver platter. Our so-called connected information society still has to bribe with bread and circuses because people don't get it. I'm glad I don't have to live in an urban setting, most humans are just not wired for it, we only just left the trees an eye blink ago. <I'm grouchy this morning>
Politicians are lining up to offer tough talk. Apparently we live in a 'broken' and 'sick' society. Children growing up with no sense of themselves as citizens. No discipline in schools. Being failed by teachers and parents alike. They've grown up with a sense of warped entitlement, borne partly of state handouts etc etc etc.
OR:
How bout the fact that this government and indeed the last two governments have consistently downgraded the role of teachers? Their wages have not risen at the same rate as other professions of similar qualification level, so that they are comparatively low paid. They've been the whipping boy of three successive governments when it comes to child crime and lack of social cohesion amongst the youth. But they've been hemmed in at all bloody sides when it comes to actually teaching these kids.
In the tabloid press, in political speeches, in the constant refrain to save our broken schools, and start turning kids into citizens again, teachers as a profession are at best disregarded, or at worst villified. How can we expect children in schools to hold their teachers up as social models and respect them as a matter of course, when we as a society have lost respect for their profession.
Then I hear from Cameron, that kids 'are growing up not knowing the difference between right and wrong' and the government are going to restore a sense of moral decency in all our towns etc etc. As usual this is placed firmly on the parents and teachers, not instilling these values, and not providing a proper civic example.
OR: how bout these kids are growing up seeing their elected officials prosecuted for expense fiddling and outright fraud, the top police officials standing down pending enquiries into fraud and corruption at the highest level, and a financial meltdown caused in large part by the unscrupulous actions of the banking and broking elite.
Yes, parents have the ultimate responsibility for their children's upbringing and moral outlook. But to place the blame so firmly on to them and the teachers who are struggling to try and find a way to actually educate these kids beyond the test-passing exercises they're dragged through at every new stage, and ignore the wider picture is disengenuous.
Utterly hypocritical to stand up there and point fingers at a section of society that is 'without morals' when your own social group has been shown to be morally bankrupt.
Dana, someone should give you a column.
If the parents are not at fault then who is? Seriously.
If my kids misbehave as they do, I don't find excuses for it in the latest political scandal. I look to myself and recognise that I have obviously not got the message across properly so I try something else. Yes it's frustrating, and yes it's hard and it's also largely thankless, but kids don't ask to be born. Parents decide to have them.
Society starts at home within the family. Fix those issues and you'll fix the problems of society at large.
eta: I don't believe it's a teacher's responsibility to teach kids morals or right from wrong. A teacher's role is to facilitate learning. no more.
I just have to say that if you can even imagine a world where kids do learn morals and right from wrong at home, so that when they go to school they know how to behave and recognise and appreciate that the teacher is there to help them, a teacher's life would be so much easier, and maybe they (we)'d all stop complaining about what a tough life teachers have.
My point, Ali, is that the leaders of my country are pointing accusing fingers at various different levels of society for the loss of moral context, when they have themselves, as a group, been found with their fingers in the till and somebody else's fingers in their pockets.
Cameron stands there and bemoans the fact that children no longer respect authority. That children no longer have the basic respect for law and rules that their generation respected, and have no respect for those who uphold the laws.
I look at the news coverage of the last few years and I have to ask myself, why on earth would any sensible child growing up in Britain today feel that the politicians who govern them, or the police service that polices them have in any way shown themselves to be worthy of authority and respect?
They are pointing fingers every which way but their own.
Seems like everyone's pointing fingers and no one's really doing anything about it.
We see the same sort of deterioration in family values here as well. It's very sad, but I just try to change things just in my own area. I try and support those in need and give the kids that are struggling a bit of a leg up if I can. It has to start at grass roots. The politicians can't help. Only the individual can make a difference.
I just don't believe the government is capable. It's up to communities to work together to help their kids and families in trouble. The problem is just too big to solve all at once.
Here's a thought:
Riot and disorder have always been a part of the political expression of this country. From the highly organised protest marches that fly out of control, through the street level violence and anger at race motivated police brutality, to the mindless ransacking that springs from a less obviously political place.
What we're seeing here has been seen before. The big differences are that the people concerned are primarily very young. And they've been able to organise a response around looting, using social media. Instead of the atmosphere of a riot stretching across the people in the immediate vicinity, and then other places kicking off as news slowly spreads, this time the atmosphere of a riot was able to spread far from the immediate crowd, into a virtual space which these youngsters live in.
This is no different really to what happens from time to time in Britain, except that it was accelerated beyond anything we've previouisly experienced. What took a year and a half to play out in the 90s, as town centres and housing estates accross the land began to erupt in riots and disorder, with a new spate occurring every few weeks or months, and again in the mid 00's, with race riots in the northern towns, this time happened across three nights, everywhere, simultaneously.
I would not be at all surprised if many of the people involved are not particularly criminal or immoral in their day to day life. And whilst it is ill-articulated, I think somewhere behind their 'it's the rich people's fault' excuse for looting, a genuine political grievance is operating. They may not fully understand it themselves, and it in no way should be taken as a reason not to prosecute criminal behaviour, but it absolutely needs recognising and tackling.
This is not simply a moral decline in our youth. We've been singing that particular ditty for generations. Yea, even unto the middle ages. Nor is it the result of a state that helps people to stay out of work. Because, we've also been singing that ditty for generations, and again, yea even unto the middle ages. The debate now is about the 'Welfare State' and then it was about 'The Parish', 'The Poor Law, and 'The Poor Union'. Then as now, the indigent poor were seen as a feckless and irredeemable underclass. Provide them and their families with shoes and linnen for their clothes and why would they choose to work? Allow a subsistence of existence to be supported by the Parish, and vast swathes of feckless layabouts choose that rather than work. It teaches them to be lazy. It teaches them to be immoral. They are different from us. They can't raise their children properly. Their children are immoral. Poor children, whose parents are little more than beasts that walk.
Here's a thought: ... What we're seeing here has been seen before. ... This is no different really to what happens from time to time in Britain ... We've been singing that particular ditty for generations. ... we've also been singing that ditty for generations ...
Here's another thought:
Sheep get sheared.
Good to hear from you Sundae. I think all are present and accounted for now! :)
Seems like everyone's pointing fingers and no one's really doing anything about it.
Long before any blame is cast, first the problem must be identified. So many are quick to cast blame; ignore the problem.
The problem: adolescents doing what adolescents do. A normal stage in cognitive development. Or what happens when an adolescent stops growing.
Skeptical adolescents react to this uncertainty by rejecting rationality. The take the attitude that if they cannot be certain bout what to do or whom to believe, then all opinions and positions are equally valid and they don't have to listen to any (or to anyone in particular). They lose respect for authority and have little patience for those who parade around as experts. Because they have lost faith in logic, these adolescents behave impulsively (without reasoning through situations), intuitively (doing what their emotions, rather than their logic, tells them to do), and indifferently (without attempting to choose a good course of action, "going with the flow"). They are apt to conform to others, letting the majority make their decisions for them, and they become rebellious or disengaged. ... Again, many people never outgrow this stage of reasoning.
Now, are these adolescents who stopped growing? Or just so many adolescents at that stage of development where crisis causes them to respond emotionally as an adolescent would do? If so, then what is the widespread crisis?
Long before casting blame, first reasons for that problem must be defined? Does England have so many adolescents with arrested development? Or just a smaller numbers that could so easily create a 'herd mentality'? Or why have so many lost faith in logic?
Yes, top management - the parents - are the source of 85% of these problems. If kids are not growing, a parent's job to address it or to seek help. But is that the reason for so much emotion?
Casting blame is junk science reasoning if a problem is not first defined. Provided is an example from researchers (the authors of The Adolescent) for how one might answer those questions. Casting blame without first identifying the problem is an example of illogical thought.
Shameful is anyone looking for answers in soundbytes. Soundbyte reasoning makes one no different than adolescents who have lost faith in logic while behaving impulsively, intuitively, and indifferently.
If parents are a primary reason for this problem, then what is it that parents have not addressed or encouraged?
To answer you in your own language tw, the parents have not addressed issues with cognitive development, possibly (probably) because they've never reached stage 4 themselves, and so are unable to reason properly to find a better answer than the one that's not working.
For example. I developed parent might look at the circumstances they live in and think to themselves, "Hmmm, this is not the ideal environment to raise my child in. Maybe I should think of a way to improve our lives a little by using the education system (or something like that)", where as a stage 3 might say, "Hmmm, this is not the ideal environment to raise my child in. Who's fault is it?"
@ UG:
So because a relatively small number of people went on a rampage for a few nights we should utterly change the way we as a country function, and have functined for some considerable time?
Exactly. The sooner, the better. It will bring this kind of thing to an end. And do it determinedly, permanently, and thoroughly. Among other things, this means for you personally to quit being a socialist. I know what you've got invested in this false god, but were I you I'd simply jettison the whole construct. The riots are precisely the
Clockwork Orange result of socialistic thinking and policymaking, further aggravated with classist thinking, which plagues European society and I am not excluding the British. At least one British editorial has drawn this very point.
This is the end of the welfare state, in flames and broken glass. Good riddance, say I.
The Sun Never Sets . . .This is the end of the welfare state, in flames and broken glass. Good riddance, say I.
That's funny. I was thinking the same thing about capitalism.
Nothing lasts forever - not even economic systems.
the second law of thermodynamics proves it.
Good riddance to capitalism!
I'm still very conflicted about the way I feel about this.
I've said before that I have a right-wing reactionary core beneath my liberal exterior, and shocks like this bring it out.
On the other hand I feel extremely concerned at the idea of people involved losing benefits and social housing, because how on earth are they going to survive?
I've heard points made to take people out of social housing - let them find housing in the private sector! They have proved they are no longer part of the community! Well, moving people on has never had great success. Look at the sink estates blamed for the "benefit culture" because none of them work and apparently you're seen as a mug by your neighbours if you do.
Moving them into the private sector just makes more money for private landlords, devalues other properties in the area and costs local authorities more.
Or again - don't turf them out, just stop their benefits.
WHAT? How will they pay for the all time record high utility bills?
How will they eat? As someone who has had their benefits screwed around with I can tell you it makes you feel desperate and outside of normal society, constantly borrowing and begging and asking for extensions and assistance. And I was living at home with my only dependent a cat!
I do see support and help as more important than punitive measures.
Let the courts deal with criminal complaints. Where people are found guilty, this is where the charges should be decided and applied. Nothing to do with housing and benefits.
I heard a man explaining the issues these youths were facing and yes, it did ring a bell. Children born to girls of 14, 15. Never had a father figure. Children brought up by children who did not have a work ethic, who did not have a sense of family, who had never learned respect for education. The boys get taller than their Mums at 13-14 and from there on have no reason to listen to them, respect them, pay attention to anything they say. Not a cause for rioting, but it works fairly well as an explanation of the mindset of these people and why they step outside what we see as society's basic rules.
But then on the other hand I heard a woman from Ghana on the radio. Woooo-eeee she was livid. She was like all the Ghanian and Nigerian women I met in South London. I came from a country with NO free education, NO free healthcare, where you had to FIGHT every day to work! Britiain gives out too much, it lets kids get away with this, there should be more laws, more police, more control! This doesn't happen in Ghana because your mother would slap you silly. You GO to school, you DO your homework or your Grandma will kill you etc etc.
I'm not blaming immigrants for the riots at all, but I do wonder if in some cases the children of immigrants are equally disenfranchised by the attitudes of their parents compared to the laissez faire attitudes of their schoolfriends' parents. It might be an additional point to consider, that alongside those with no guidance, there are some that are trying to escape theirs.
What really pisses me off abot these evictions and benefit penalties, is this: many of the rioters are young, many are still children. So, they're saying that if such children have rioted then their families will be evicted from their social housing. Why? Because they've proved themselves unworthy of that social housing. Since they have acted in such a way, why should tax payers in these communities foot the bill for their housing?
Trouble is, that if there are children in the family (and in most of these cases it appears to be the case) then the local authority has a statutary duty to ensure the safety and security of those children and to assist any struggling families in building that safe and secure family environment. All kicking them out of council houses will do, is force a bunch of families into expensive private accomodation that will make it een harder for them to survive as a family, or simply onto the street or friend's floors.
The local authority will then have to deal with that situation as part of its 'corporate parent' responsibility, and the whole exercise will end up costing the counil, and therefore the council tax payers of that area several times more than the cost of allowing them to stay in their council/social rent house.
Whilst one part of the council authority is exercising its right to evict, a different part of the same council will be left to try and deal with the family in whatever context that ends up being. It is just a way of looking tough and decisive, that solves absolutely nothing, and exacerbates problems in families that are already probably struggling for internal cohesion against a range of negative pressures.
To me this just seems bizarre and retrograde. What makes more sense, as far as i can see, is yes to prosecute those caught in criminal acts. And also to censure the parents who allowed their children to become involved. But censure really is only part of the answer when dealing with families. Those who became involved need educating and working with, to help them become part of a community they apparently feel apart from. I have no problem with short prison sentencnes for the worst offenders, but most of these youngsters could be best dealt with by enforcing some kind of community service, possibly helping in the clean up and repair task in the areas where rioting occurred.
This knee-jerk response is ridiculous and actively works against resolving the core problems at play.
There are all sorts of reasons why I object to this stuff that are more political in nature. The fact that only one class of the multi-tiered rioting crowd can actually face this kind of penalty for instance, but there are also very real pragmatic concerns with this. Bearing in mind the potential ramifications of eviction and benefit sanctions, it is even more disturbing to consider the speed with which these people are being tried and sentenced. Courts running all night, solicitors pulling 14 hour shifts. speedy decisions are not necessarily the best decisions. And conveyor belt justice may not be robust.
In the US public housing goes to shit every single time, and we have given up on the idea. After a while it became obvious that putting people there was just about the worst thing you could do for them. We tear 'em down and don't rebuild anything, and people find somewhere to live.
And the neighborhood improves dramatically.
Ours have always been a mixed bag. There are nice estates, and not so nice estates. Estates in areas where there' s lots of work, and easy access to services and where the atmosphere is not materially different to any private estate, and there are sink estates on the bitter edge of nowhere, with few transport links, fewer jobs and a pervading sense of violence and hopelessness. And inner-city collections of estates that live cheek by jowl with some of the wealthiest communities in the world.
And there are slighgtly downtrodden but scraping by estates where some of the families are in crisis and some of the kids are running amok, but most are just living a 'normal' life, with a job they quite like, and their kids doing well at the local school.
What made housing estates worse, in my opinion, was the change to social housing laws under the Thatcher government. Council tenants were given the right to buy their houses from the council, and encouraged to do so with easy to get mortgages, partial equity schemes, and the fact that they were valued at considerably less than a house which had started out private.
So lots of people bought their council houses and flats, and then eagle eyed developers started buying them up for a low price (which was still mad profit for the seller). Where the bought properties were flats, they usually ended up as developed executive apartments, walled and fenced with security gates and guards (I lived in one such at the edges of a Salford estate in the early 90s). Where they were houses, many ended up as private sector rentals competing with the council for tenants and often resulting in a transient and troubled populationg moving through the estates.
Councils were barred by law from investing the money from the sale of council houses back into the social housing stock. It sat, cordoned off and unable to be spent for years. So, housing stock began to shrink. At the same time, the constant message being put out in government and in the media, was that being a proper adult citizen effectively meant being a home owner. Renting a council house became highly stigmatised and working families who'd once been quite happy to rent a house in an estate, because it was the next best thing to buying in terms of security, were suddenly taking up any assistance scheme they could to get out of social housing and buy a house.
When I was a kid, one of the first things you did when you came of age was get your name on the council house waiting list. It was just a part of becoming an adult if you were from a working-class background. And by the far the majority of us were. Now, it comes with a bunch of baggage and most of it has been farmed out to the private sector, or to arms length not for profits.
It was a deliberate strategy to reduce social housing in this country and turn us into a nation of home owners.
Maybe I should think of a way to improve our lives a little by using the education system (or something like that)", where as a stage 3 might say, "Hmmm, this is not the ideal environment to raise my child in. Who's fault is it?"
So we will fix a parent with arrested cognitive development by throwing them out on the street. By ignoring the problem. Or by blaming low incoming housing. At what point does that become logical?
On the other hand, a parent may not be cognitively retarded. It is just an excuse. The question answered only with speculation. Just another formula for failure. A major reason for social breakdown is so many conclusions without first learning facts. As if more laws, more punishment, and more UG will solve all problems.
Low incoming housing failed due to bad management. It required complex managers who were provided resources. Management that was provided support from their government supervisors. And who could therefore exercise control of that housing complex. Breakdown started when local management did not even have money to repair and repaint apartments as tenants moved out. Budgeting experts who did not see failure that year. Therefore knew further budget cuts were appropriate. Eventually each complex became overrun by squatters and gangs when complex management could not even replace failed refrigerators. Did not know who was living in each apartment. And did not dare evict squatters.
What causes failure of low incoming housing. A bean counter mentality that cost controls so aggressively that an apartment could not even be repainted.
So, how do we know parents have arrested cognitive development? Due to the same popular myths and reasoning that also proved Saddam's WMDs? Or do we just ignore the missing facts? Instead, convert assumptions into proof? Then react to those assumptions?
Asking a kid why he is rioting can only identify his state of mind and maybe his stage of cognitive development. I still do not see any posts that first identify the problem.
There are riots everywhere from time to time. All that's required is an excuse. Politics and social circumstances have bollock-all to do with it.
While the "rich" may be at fault, these looters fail to make the critical distinction between "richer" and terminally "rich."
It's not the fault of the richer, and if you are not terminally rich then you are unlikely to ever encounter one of them.
People are just knuckleheads. Angry knuckleheads.
Agreed.
What i really hate, is the way the government is leaping on this as an opportunity to bring in even more anti-civil liberties legislation and police powers.
The idea that at times of 'civil unrest' the state would have the power and right to close down access to social media is a frightening one.
I also don't like the precedent being set here for evicting whole families as a response to the actions of individual members of those families (wtf have the younger or older siblings of a rioter done to deserve eviction as a punishment?). And indeed the precedent of serving eviction notices to those guilty of riot and disorder is itself a dangerous one, even if only aimed at the individuals concerned. There's some talk of extending this to legally enforcable fines levied against homeowners and taken off the equity of their homes.
Setting aside the moral questions of whether or not it is just to punish entire families for the actions of individuals, what about the potential for abusing that precedent? The line between legitimate protest and public disorder is often a fine one, and most riots are more founded in legitimate protest than the recent spate (as has been pointed out by many). The weapon this potentially puts into the hands of the state against dissatisfied and angry sectors of the community is a large one.
The reality is that we have been slowly creeping towards more American style solutions to social problems and this is the result: social dischord.
Do you really believe this? It seems to me that the whole EU and the UK included has the lead in this path to forced reduction of a long term history of expensive social support. Look at Greece, France, Spain, when you peel back the onion of what they have been paying for with from their tax coffers it boggles the mind. No wonder so many are going broke. If there has ever been an argument against "more taxes" will give us more money to take care of the down trodden this should be it. Taxes in the UK are much higher than in the US (I think) and yet they still can't make it and support the systems in place which they have promised the people. Riots aside, you are right the problems are much deeper. I don't have the answers.
See, the problem with that argument is that it doesn't take account of the many, many times that governments have (and are currently doing again) taken on the mantra of anti-welfare state economists and tried to cut back the system in ways that cut support whilst actually costing more. We've had countless schemes and revamps to the system that have made it less effective at getting help to where help is needed and also more costly to administrate.
What we lose to people playing the benefit system is a drop in the ocean compared to what we lose to the wealthiest tax payers not paying the tax they're supposed to pay. What we recover from the malingerer who's made his back injury stretch three years beyond the actual effects of injury whilst working cash in hand on the side, is as nothing compared to what it cost to root him out.
Much of the worst waste in the NHS, to take an example, has been in the administration layer that had to be added to try and knit together the fragmented health services borne of attempts to bring in the private sector. The fucking scams that came in under the guise of the free market were unbelievable.
Now, I don't actually have an objection to the free market. I see it as basically quite a positive thing for the most part. There are a few areas of life I feel are better served by socialised solutions and healthcare is one of them. But, whatever your view on healthcare, socialised or privatised, what's abosolutely needed is a sense of cohesion and efficiency, and whether it's profits or targets that drive the process, the direction needs to be towards better care and treatment. What doesn't help that is trying to cobble together an unholy mess of private and public where the lines of division are not very clear and where all the money leaks into either governing the meeting points of the two, or through outright scamming of the system.
It wasn't the socialised medicine that cost so much the past twenty years it was the cackhanded attempts to mould it into something it's not.
The changes to benefits are another classic example of British politicians attempting to import US solutions to a British setting and just failing miserably, because what's actually needed are British solutions, tailored to a British setting and culture.
I guess I just don't see how these attempted solutions are "US solutions". If as you say they have been dealing with attempts to revamp the system countless times then the history of dealing with the issues occurred long before our current economic crisis. You socialized system of public support has been around a long time before we began to dabble in it. The attempted solutions are uniquely UK based and as we see the other EU economies unravel it is obvious that the UK is not alone in realizing that the cost of their social systems are breaking the bank and have been doing so for a long time. It is like finding a small bit of rot in a piece of wood, sticking a screwdriver in it and finding your whole house has been eaten by termites.
See, the problem with that argument is that it doesn't take account of the many, many times that governments have (and are currently doing again) taken on the mantra of anti-welfare state economists and tried to cut back the system in ways that cut support whilst actually costing more. We've had countless schemes and revamps to the system that have made it less effective at getting help to where help is needed and also more costly to administrate.
What we lose to people playing the benefit system is a drop in the ocean compared to what we lose to the wealthiest tax payers not paying the tax they're supposed to pay. What we recover from the malingerer who's made his back injury stretch three years beyond the actual effects of injury whilst working cash in hand on the side, is as nothing compared to what it cost to root him out.
Much of the worst waste in the NHS, to take an example, has been in the administration layer that had to be added to try and knit together the fragmented health services borne of attempts to bring in the private sector. The fucking scams that came in under the guise of the free market were unbelievable.
Now, I don't actually have an objection to the free market. I see it as basically quite a positive thing for the most part. There are a few areas of life I feel are better served by socialised solutions and healthcare is one of them. But, whatever your view on healthcare, socialised or privatised, what's abosolutely needed is a sense of cohesion and efficiency, and whether it's profits or targets that drive the process, the direction needs to be towards better care and treatment. What doesn't help that is trying to cobble together an unholy mess of private and public where the lines of division are not very clear and where all the money leaks into either governing the meeting points of the two, or through outright scamming of the system.
It wasn't the socialised medicine that cost so much the past twenty years it was the cackhanded attempts to mould it into something it's not.
The changes to benefits are another classic example of British politicians attempting to import US solutions to a British setting and just failing miserably, because what's actually needed are British solutions, tailored to a British setting and culture.
Amen, sister. Amen.
I call them 'American' solutions because they are the product of politicians over here looking to America and borrowing ideas.
Can you give some specific examples? Just trying to understand your point.
Well, for example, in response to the riots and the 'gang problem' in London and other cities, the government has drafted in an American 'Supercop' to advise them. Seems a reasonable idea in principle, after all, he's had to deal with major gang problems in the US. But the US gang problem is not the same as the UK gang problem. The gangs are not the same, they've taken a different form. And policing here is different. The range of strategies on offer is different. The problems, though similar in some respects are different. But the Conservatives, and even the last Labour government, have such a love affair with American political solutions and philosophies that they just try and transplant it right across, ignoring calls from the police to draw from more culturally similar situations (as in with the gangs in some European cities).
They did the same with the education system. The Labour government brought in a bunch of ideas drawn from American educationalists to solve problems in our schools. Not that there's anything wrong with seeking expertise from American educationalists, or other professionals, just that they seem to be wedded to American solutions above all else, even where it is not appropriate.
Most of the attempts to bring in free market mechanics to the NHS, along with ideas like 'welfare to work' programmes and a bunch of other stuff were based on US strategies and programmes running during the 90s, often involving US firms in assisting in both devising and delivering them. Most of the prominent politicians in recent years have voiced their admiration for US economic and political philosophers.
The political elite have had a love affair with US thinking and strategy for two generations, and it's the first place they look for ideas. The problem is they don;t seem to hold those ideas to the same level of scrutiny as ideas from other places. They just take it as a good thing because it's what worked in the States. Sometimes they're right, and what they've done is adopt best practice as it appears in the US, but often they've just adopted the knee-jerk responses of the US political system as their own and the solution fails.
Well, for example, in response to the riots and the 'gang problem' in London and other cities, the government has drafted in an American 'Supercop' to advise them. Seems a reasonable idea in principle, after all, he's had to deal with major gang problems in the US. But the US gang problem is not the same as the UK gang problem. The gangs are not the same, they've taken a different form. And policing here is different. The range of strategies on offer is different. The problems, though similar in some respects are different. But the Conservatives, and even the last Labour government, have such a love affair with American political solutions and philosophies that they just try and transplant it right across, ignoring calls from the police to draw from more culturally similar situations (as in with the gangs in some European cities).
I can understand you point here, good points.
They did the same with the education system. The Labour government brought in a bunch of ideas drawn from American educationalists to solve problems in our schools. Not that there's anything wrong with seeking expertise from American educationalists, or other professionals, just that they seem to be wedded to American solutions above all else, even where it is not appropriate.
Well don't copy us, our system of public education has been failing the nation for a long time in many places of the US. Granted you can get through it and get a good education, but the costs are completely inefficient. Don't copy our system. The UK education system has a reputation, in my experience, as being one of the best in the world. Although I may be leaning to much on the Uni system in my statement.
Most of the attempts to bring in free market mechanics to the NHS, along with ideas like 'welfare to work' programmes and a bunch of other stuff were based on US strategies and programmes running during the 90s, often involving US firms in assisting in both devising and delivering them. Most of the prominent politicians in recent years have voiced their admiration for US economic and political philosophers.
But that actually did work for us, at least partially but the system has been re-bloated for lots of unforeseen reasons I think.
The political elite have had a love affair with US thinking and strategy for two generations, and it's the first place they look for ideas. The problem is they don;t seem to hold those ideas to the same level of scrutiny as ideas from other places. They just take it as a good thing because it's what worked in the States. Sometimes they're right, and what they've done is adopt best practice as it appears in the US, but often they've just adopted the knee-jerk responses of the US political system as their own and the solution fails.
Thanks. I understand better now where you are coming from.
The lower class is angry with the upper class; but, the lower class can't touch the upper class so they take their hostilities out on the middle class (which being unarmed is unable to defend itself) expecting them to cry to the upper class which they do since the upper class is the middle class's only means of protection from lower class violence.
This is the system that the middle class is a willing participant in. The only thing the middle class is a victim of is its own complacency. All of the effort being put into identifying and resolving associated issues are in support of a system that's not affordable. The middle class seems to be in a state of mass delusion (diminished capacity) about being able to perpetuate it: no wonder the government considers that citizens' rights may be forfeited and seeks outside interventions.
Yeah, I realise that my earlier point might have sounded anti-American. It really wasn't meant to. It's more a comment on the focus of our politicians and how that has caused as many problems as it has solved. Can't just transplant ideas from a different culture and hope they're going to magically solve our problems.
A lot of the bloat and cost of public services over the last 20 years has actually not been to do with our attempts to cater to too many people and the rocketing tax bill that brings. It's more to do with the piecemeal dismantling of some parts of the system, the ill-thought out restructuring of other parts, and the culturally inappropriate adoption of another culture's solutions. Couple that with some shameful lining of each others pockets amongst both the political elite and the corporations and quangos that sprung up from that and you have the rootcause of the massive expansion of costs within the NHS and the welfare system.
It was justified through the shortening of waiting lists and delivery of better care, but those goals could have been met for a fraction of the cost if we hadn't done such a blinding job of breaking the system up into an incoherent mess.
What we lose to people playing the benefit system is a drop in the ocean compared to what we lose to
the wealthiest tax payers not paying the tax they're supposed to pay.
care to elaborate on that part. Are there many tax cheats, loopholes or is the top rate not high enough in your opinion.
Yes, yes and yes :p
Lot of very wealthy people use tax havens. They reckon if one major football player (Ithink it might have been Wayne Rooney) didn't use a tax haven and paid what he should by rights pay on his mega income, he could probably cover the costs of school football pitch provision for the whole country.
There's a big problem with wealthy people using tax havens. They make their money in the British economy, but then they get themselves residency in a tax haven and pay a pittance back. Seems a problem with a lot of celebs/stars in particular. Every so often there'll be some major figure done over on tax evasion, but you just know it's a drop in the ocean.
It pisses me off no end.
Lot of tax loopholes for business as well.
If you make your money here, then pay your fucking taxes here.
I also think the highest rate of income tax is too low. Not to say I want to go back to the old 'supertax' days. I don't care if you're earning billions, there is no justification for taxing 90% of any portion of it. But I think 60% on the highest portion for the highest earnings bracket is fair.
There're are all sorts of silly ways in which the poor are taxed more heavily than the wealthy. VAT settles more heavily onto lower incomes. Even the duty on tobacco and alcohol settles more heacily onto the poor, and not just because they're more likely to turn to them: the duty on fine cigars is less than that on cigarettes. The duty on cognac is less than the duty on beer. The poor are more likely to have their gas and electric on a pay per use meter, and that is a more expensive way to buy it. The poor get worse rates on loans and credit cards (obviously) so it costs them more to access finance at the lower levels.
There are a lot of things that are more expensive at the lower end of life. A higher tax bracket would offset that a little.
I also think the highest rate of income tax is too low. Not to say I want to go back to the old 'supertax' days. I don't care if you're earning billions, there is no justification for taxing 90% of any portion of it. But I think 60% on the highest portion for the highest earnings bracket is fair.
Yikes! 60% plus the VAT? That would never fly here. You will get tax evasion at rates like that. Different countries...
There's tax evasion even if you have a fairly low-paying upper tax bracket.
The thing is, the lower earners pay out VAT as a much bigger percentage of their earnings than do the upper earners. Likewise council tax, road tax and tv licence.
We're all talking about citizenship and being part of society, but the businessman or high-paid footballer who has so little regard for the society they made their money in that they begrudge paying taxes to support it, doesn't get called out as lacking civic spirit. No, apparently we must set taxes at a low rate, else they'll just refuse to pay it. The rest of us don't have that option.
Warren Buffet wrote a piece today asking for an increased tax rate. He has famously said that he pays a lower rate than his secretary because our tax laws are so Byzantine.
That's funny. I was thinking the same thing about capitalism.
Nothing lasts forever - not even economic systems.
the second law of thermodynamics proves it.
Good riddance to capitalism!
No, the Second Law does not. That's because money is not heat, it is a method of keeping score.
Capitalism accords with what human beings naturally do in exchanges and deal-making, absent -- and this is crucial -- governmental interference in transactions. To eliminate capitalism, you must first eliminate human beings.
The Socialists, Communist and Fascist together, took a fair poke at that, and racked up 120M peacetime deaths. Not something remotely necessary from a capitalistic viewpoint -- or any other genuinely good or human viewpoint. Inherently necessary, in Socialism.
I grasp this. Brianna, had you the same understanding, you would not have written that shameful, Godawful post.
The laws of thermodynamics most certainly do entail the eventual cesaation of capitalism as a natural consequence of the inevitable heat death of the universe.
No, the Second Law does not. That's because money is not heat, it is a method of keeping score.
No, the second law is about entropy. Pay attention.
To eliminate capitalism, you must first eliminate human beings.
I'm ok with that.
The Socialists, Communist and Fascist together, took a fair poke at that, and racked up 120M peacetime deaths. Not something remotely necessary from a capitalistic viewpoint --
Capitalists have killed just as many people - only they do it more personally. Like via withholding goods and services to individuals.
a Capitalist will look you in the eye as they tell you you won't be getting that life saving surgery after all.
I stand by what I said. Capitalism will fail - just like every system fails sooner or later.
From the London Riots to the inevitable heat death of the universe.
That is the bestest fucking thread drift evah! Holy shit.
@ UG: I don't have a problem with 'capitalism' or even 'the free market' per se. We, as human beings, have devised and evolved a system of values and exchange that has in many ways allowed us to become so much more than the sum of our parts, driving forward technological and social development at a breakneck speed.
Globalisation has its problems, but I cannot deny that the supermarkets I visit now are a whole lot more interesting and a hell of a lot cheaper than they ever were when I was growing up. I enjoy my life and am able to follow my own path without having to grow or even prepare (mostly) my own food, or sew my own clothers, make my own shoes, or brew my own beer. I'm typing this message to you on a mass produced keyboard connected to a kickass and ridiculously cheap piece of technology, communicating with you across the ocean instantly.
Without capitalism, globalisation and the constant influx of new tchnology, driven by the market, I would be living a very different, and I suspect less enjoyable life.
But it isn't just a case of market good or bad, collectivism good or bad. We exist within multiple systems: economic, geographic, social. All need taking into account in how we approach the world, and they are neither interchangeable nor inherently attuned to each other.
The problem with you philosophy is that it reveres and makes sacrosanct only one of those systems in which we as humans exist. Above all else. Elevated beyond its status as an artificial creation and tool for human survival and progress into both the means and the end of everything.
No, the Second Law does not. That's because money is not heat, it is a method of keeping score.
Yeah, but what about Maxwell's demon?
I grasp this. Brianna, had you the same understanding, you would not have written that shameful, Godawful post.
Leaving out Maxwell's demon is such an egregious error that it leaves you little credibility to be correcting someone else. I suggest that the next time you feel a need to comment on any possible disturbance in London, you get your information straight from the source - Dana. :p:
We, as human beings, have devised and evolved a system of values and exchange that has in many ways allowed us to become so much more than the sum of our parts, driving forward technological and social development at a breakneck speed.
He can translate it into Russian. But cannot grasp its meaning.
The problem with you[r] philosophy is that it reveres and makes sacrosanct only one of those systems in which we as humans exist. Above all else.
That innovation might exist is a dichotomy to entrenched dogma. Also defines a major difference between moderates and extremists. Innovation will never happen in an extremist world. As if a bible also has all the answers.
To eliminate capitalism, you must first eliminate human beings.
He has now insulted the Ferengi. A stereotypical ultra-capitalist society only motivated by profit. They cannot exist without Huuumans?
UG is too terrestrial. He needs to spend more time out of this world.
Wait a minute. This thread is about London burning and now it seems the Ferengi are responsible? Geez, no wonder the Brits have so many problems.
Those Farengi should sod off back where they came from.
Although one did make me some delicious graxi for lunch. He can stay.
A little lobe rub should take care of your frustrated Farengi problem Mr. Cameron.
A little lobe rub should take care of your frustrated Farengi problem Mr. Cameron.
After spending the night burning the town down, now you want sex?
No no no! First you rape, then you pillage, then you burn!
The order changes as you move around the globe. Something to do with the international date[COLOR="LemonChiffon"]rape[/COLOR] line.
Something to do with the international date line.
Why does everyone want to draw a line between me and my date? Especially when all we want to do is practice free market capitalism. Unfortunately, UG wants to eliminate human beings and capitalism.
So let me understand this. UG's family is in London buring the town down. That means he is done raping and pillaging? Why didn't anyone say that 140 posts ago?
That is excellent.
"We, the 99%, reject the rioting and demand a return to our normal social life!"
An historical perspective from
History Today's Contrarian:
The Contrarian (Tim Stanley) makes the point that though the British tend to associate civil disobedience more with the French than themselves, in fact our history is littered with riot and disorder. As he contends, 'we are a far more demonstrative and brutal a people than we would like to admit'.
In 1778 the British government decided to mitigate its anti-Catholic policies by passing the Papists Act. The Protestant population of London, which was already suffering due to loss of trade resulting from the American War of Independence, was outraged. Lord George Gordon, the eccentric head of the nativist Protestant Association, argued that the Act was an attempted coup d’etat by Catholics and absolutist monarchists. One of its provisions eased the restrictions on Catholics serving in the army – a direct attempt, Gordon said, to arm the Irish and depose Parliament. He called for a march on Westminster.
On June 2nd, 1780 a crowd of around 50,000 stormed Parliament. The government had grossly underestimated the strength of feeling against it and failed to mobilise the army quickly enough. Members of the House of Lords were attacked and carriages ransacked. Once the mob was dispersed, the government presumed the worst was over. In fact, as in 2011, the rioters simply moved on. That night, they ransacked the embassies of Catholic nations like Sardinia and Bavaria. What began as a religious revolt turned into an act of class war. Rich people’s houses were looted and burnt, shops were emptied. The mob targeted Catholics, granted, but also vandalised the Bank of England. London’s prisons were broken into and hundreds of prisoners released, never to be caught again.
Police reports and diaries from the time make reading that is eerily similar to the reportage of 2011. The politician Horace Walpole (1717-97) wrote that one friend, ‘had seen the populace break open the toll-houses on Blackfriar’s Bridge, and carry off bushels of halfpence which fell about the streets ... Most of the rioters are apprentices and plunder and drink have been their chief objects, and both women and men are still lying dead drunk in the streets: brandy is preferable to public enthusiasm.’
The Gordon Riots were eventually quelled by military force. In their aftermath many people asked similar questions to those being posed today: why did people feel unable to express their views through their parliamentary representatives? Was this an insurrection driven by legitimate grievances or an excuse for criminality? Across Europe, Britain’s reputation as a stable democracy was shattered. Just ten years later, the French Revolution offered a radical alternative to government by sovereign parliament. In the wake of the Gordon Riots, many Britons prayed that it would work.
The Contrarian gives other examples of rioting throughout Britain's history, from prior to the Gorden Riots and after, up to the Brixton riots of the 1980s. They share certain characteristics.
Two themes stand out. One is the reclamation of private property by the mob: an unofficial act of redistribution.Perhaps this is rank opportunism; perhaps it is a nascent act of socialism. Either way, British civil disobedience almost invariably descends into an attack upon the rich. The second theme is the lack of long-term political organisation. French rebellions tend either to be motored by the activist Left or appropriated by it. British riots are comparatively short-lived and useless: they never change the landscape of mainstream politics. Usually they reinforce the legitimacy of the powers-that-be. The result of the Gordon Riots wasn’t social reform but the introduction of the modern police force.
In the aftermath of the 2011 riots, many have asked what is so broken about contemporary British society that it erupted so easily into violence. But that question overlooks the fact that it is social peace that is historically atypical, not social unrest.
Full article here:
http://www.historytoday.com/tim-stanley/contrarian-history-predicts-riotI wonder how much is just a factor of distance. When we have riots here, they generally start in the poor neighborhoods and stay in the poor neighborhoods, because they'd have to travel 10-15 miles before they got to anyone much richer than they are. Maybe our riots would turn into class resentment and aggression here too, if they ever saw a rich person's house anywhere but on TV.
Hang on, History Today?
[YOUTUBE]9UMedd03JCA[/YOUTUBE]
Sorry.
It was a very good point.
I have (less detailed) conversations with the 'rents about the way their newspaper is obsessed with the way this country is going to hell in a handbasket and things were never as bad as they are now...
