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London rioting and looting, Aug 2011

Lo Siento. said:
I didn't say I thought that was all of it. Just that if you didn't have a reasonable expectation of social unrest this summer, you weren't paying attention.
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I just don't think there is a one-to-one correlation between cutting social programs, closing youth centers; and kids throwing rocks through store windows.
 
Sorry if this is a re-post:

A CALL FOR MORE UNDERSTANDING AND LESS MORALISING

On Tuesday, 9 August, scholar and anti-racist activist Paul Gilroy tweeted: ‘When did ritual condemnation become the entry ticket into official public discourse?’
In the aftermath of the London riots, we are disturbed by a situation where seeking to understand the bigger picture becomes equated with condoning violence, looting and gang culture.

In a way that disturbingly echoes post-9/11 America, it is as though you are ‘with us or with the terrorists’, as George W. Bush put it (20/9/2001). This sort of black and white thinking closes down debate and understanding, which is exactly what we need right now. It also makes it impossible to talk about poverty or inequality – one is put in the position of having to either condemn or condone, as Darcus Howe was on BBC Newsnight (8/8/2011).

There needs to be room to debate the causes, including poverty, unemployment, the destruction of accessible post-16 education, and media and advertising messages that continually tell us that we are what we possess (trainers, flat screen televisions etc). It’s a complex situation, and can’t simply be dismissed as mindless thuggery, or summed up by instant commentary by those with no relationship to the people who have been on the streets in these last days.

We are equally concerned about the narrow framing of the discussion in terms of ‘law and order’. It was legal for MPs to play the expenses system; it is legal for Vodafone to ‘avoid’ tax; and phone hacking and blagging were tolerated at the highest levels of our media, political and law enforcement agencies. Those in power make and enforce the law, and lines between legality and illegality aren’t as clear as we would like to think.

In terms of the media coverage, one lesson we could have learned from the phone hacking scandal was the damage profit-driven sensational journalism does to us all. We call for an end to easy black and white moralising; and to the sensationalism that fuels it.

We also call for serious questions to be asked about ending social segregation. Over the last year, another observation we have made is that our society, including our ‘progressive circles’, is a lot more segregated than we would like to admit. Notions of civic pride are being called upon in London right now. We must be careful that this civic pride includes everyone - and doesn’t divide the city between good and bad residents.

In Norway, after the brutal shooting dead of 70 young people, the Prime Minister called for more democracy, more openness, more understanding. In the UK there are calls for plastic bullets, water cannons, section 60 orders, the army on the streets and further cracking down on civil liberties. We urge people to think about the long term consequences for our society in following the second option.
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http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/a-call-for-more-understanding-and-less-moralising.html
 
belboid said:
no one claims there is
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This was one of the tricks Michael Gove was trying on Newsnight last night (he gave up on argument and started screaming like an angry gibbon and throwing poo around after a while)

Of course nobody is claiming a "one-to-one correspondance", except for neo-liberal apologists who want something easier to argue against than what their critics are actually saying.
 
Johnny Canuck3 said:
I just don't think there is a one-to-one correlation between cutting social programs, closing youth centers; and kids throwing rocks through store windows.
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except that's the main difference between the last few years and now. It's not rational to say that London has suddenly acquired loads of bad men and kids, just from nowhere.

It's not a 1-to-1 connection, of course, there's plenty of other factors at play. The looting is pretty logical in a society in which we're constantly told that the only reasonable aspiration in life is acquisition.
 
genuine question, why did the youth in Eltham respond differently than in many other London areas? is it slightly wealthier, cohesive, I am aware Tottenham has a good community spirit.
 
good atmosphere down Deptford High Street this afternoon. It's market day and most of the stalls are out (tho they are starting to pack up earlier than usual). Lots of old bill patrolling and getting a mixed response from the stallholders and shoppers, some were congratulating them and asking if they were O.K. but there were also shouts of 'were were you?' and of course 'Millwaaall':)
 
Lo Siento. said:
except that's the main difference between the last few years and now. It's not rational to say that London has suddenly acquired loads of bad men and kids, just from nowhere.

It's not a 1-to-1 connection, of course, there's plenty of other factors at play. The looting is pretty logical in a society in which we're constantly told that the only reasonable aspiration in life is acquisition.
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It doesn't explain why relatively well off kids here in Vancouver burned police cars and torched buildings. I suspect that there might be things in common between the motivation - whatever it is - driving the kids in Vancouver to destroy, and the motivation behind at least some of the rioters in London.
 
Johnny Canuck3 said:
It doesn't explain why relatively well off kids here in Vancouver burned police cars and torched buildings. I suspect that there might be things in common between the motivation - whatever it is - driving the kids in Vancouver to destroy, and the motivation behind at least some of the rioters in London.
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but what was the difference between Sunday/the days after and any other normal days? I mean, there's also a logic to the Vancouver riots - they lost, people had been drinking, there's a violence endemic to that particular sport etc.
 
Johnny Canuck3 said:
I just don't think there is a one-to-one correlation between cutting social programs, closing youth centers; and kids throwing rocks through store windows.
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It's a lot more than that though; thirty years of de-industrialisation and thatcherite neoliberalism has created an underclass, deprived of sufficient education (crap schools, soaring Uni fees if they get that far), opportunities, prosperity, or any chance to enjoy the full and legitimately-acquired fruits of the rampantly individualist, consumerist society that is shoved down their throats every day, but condemned to life on shitty, crumbling estates, in blighted inner cities where drugs, gangs and guns are rife, and precious little chance of bettering themselves, forsaken and forgotten in fact. add to that that the past 3 years have been an economic disaster for working-class youth. This society has done nothing for them except demonise them and sneer at them; why should they play by its' rules?
 
So in the end we did not need the army to quell the worst rioting in decades in London, nor did we need water canons, the suspension of PACE or any of the other measures being screamed for.

What it did take was a massive police presence and a bit of pre-emptive policing. We can still police this country with a largely fire arm free police force.

Oh and numbers do count. Cheers for the 20% cuts Dave, we wont notice a thing.
 
ferrelhadley said:
What it did take was a massive police presence and a bit of pre-emptive policing. We can still police this country with a largely fire arm free police force.

Oh and numbers do count. Cheers for the 20% cuts Dave, we wont notice a thing.
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Word.
 
No surer sign of the job the police have done in securing the streets for people, than the EDL now find the courage to go back out on them.
 
TitanSound said:
Police from Lancashire and Wales patrolling Oxford St and the surrounding areas at the mo.
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Ironically it was revealed tonight that whilst Manchester was getting a bit of a pasting last night there were Greater Manchester police in London helping the Met.....
 
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