17-year-old girl facing jail because of G20

[Azrael]

When she went to McDonalds she wasnt really buying them food, she was trying to buy them happiness - because thats what McDonalds sells, it sells "Happy Meals". Of course, everybody knows that you cant buy happiness, but that doesnt stop McDonalds from selling it.

I don't think the local chicken shop ever claimed to be selling happiness. If it did, it would be raided by the council even more than is currently the case!

Should corporations be stopped from "selling happiness"? Many people within society manage to live a more fulfilling life than hers without being wealthy. Others escape poverty. Right now our economic system is morally neutral. Its worst flaws (and I don't deny them) can be compensated for. I don't see what economic system would have helped her to sort her life out, and without getting into a mammoth debate about capitalism, I don't know which one is supposed to work. Historically, things start going very wrong when morality becomes the driving force behind economics. I've never been convinced by economic reductivism, especially not in her case.

 

[q_w_e_r_t_y]

My local church costs nothing,I don't know which communal space you have in mind

Dunno what your local church is like, but my local church demands your soul as the entrance fee

Town centres - increasingly taken over by malls and out of town developments;
thoroughfares, increasingly given over to cars;
granny-huts, bandstands and other places to shelter from the rain - increasingly either demolished or turned into "alternative" coffee bars
common land - increasingly sold off to developers

, but the local park is still as free as it ever was, and has decent facilities.

Thats good - so no private companies trying to take over big chunks of it like the Go Ape development in Pollok or council trying to sell it to developers like in Bristol, or build a road through it as in Dalkeith, no plans for it to be turned into an amateur football field with licenced bar, like in Morden; no expensive coffee chain setting up shop there and taking up space with posh tables?

I have to say that with a local market selling cheap fruit and veg and a free local park you have it pretty cushty where you are.

Not really. The inside of her house could only be described as squalid (I shinned up a ladder to get in when she locked herself out), ditto the stream of petty crime, police searches, and assault claims. The eviction, which involved a bizarre bit of street theatre comprising bailiffs, the landlord's sons, the police, "the boyfriend", two minicabs, and a dozen bin-bags, was especially squalid. I don't use the word to feel superior: it was depressing to watch.

Mutual help cuts two ways.

Ah, see I do. I can see it as depressing and sad, but not squalid.

You're right mutual help does - and while I can see your generosity, did you ever ask her for help? For help that only goes one way quickly turns into charity, giving a nice warm fuzzy feeling to the giver and an increasing sense of powerlessness to the recipient.

This all comes down to where you believe the balance lies between personal responsibility and social responsibility.

Yup, I'd agree with that one, but being unable to cater for her own needs and being denies opportunities to contribute to the needs of others leaves her between a rock and a hard place.

The picture you paint is of a victim of circumstances. But many of the circumstances were of her own making.

Just because you made your own circumstances doesnt mean that you cant be a victim of them. You become a victim of circumstances when there is no way out of the situation that you are in.

Spending taxpayers' money on booze and fast food.

Which are both taxed - so actually giving away money in taxes needlessly.

However good "the system", it would have had a heck of a time helping her to sort out her life.

Absolutely - thats why the system needs smashed - and what better a place to start than a few windows...

 

[Azrael]

I think so, what do you think?

That the system's spared her the consequences of a string of bad choices. Kindness that is unintentionally cruel.

She has children she can't support and other people pay. Is given a house she can't afford at others' expense. Takes advantage of the kindness of her neighbours. Drives into people's cars and their insurance covers it. Commits common assault and what happens? An officer bangs on her door, shouts "open up, or we'll be back with a warrant", and never is.

A whole life lived at the expense of others. Why change?

Now, you could argue that she made the choices out of despair. Maybe that's true. But while she lived next door I watched a system that gave her no incentive to change. And personal responsibility played its part.

Think of the chances she squandered. Nice house in a decent neighbourhood. What does she do? Invites the worst of her old life to join her in the person of the "boyfriend". Waste money. Assaults one of her new neighbours, inflicts criminal damage on many of the others. Verbally abuses her children day and night. Poverty didn't force her to call her 5-year-old daughter "a fucking little cunt", did it?

If poverty can over-ride human agency to such an extent, we're feeble creatures indeed!

Oh, and my local park isn't going to be tarmacked over, and my local church hasn't once tried to open a window into my soul.

 

[q_w_e_r_t_y]

That the system's spared her the consequences of a string of bad choices. Kindness that is unintentionally cruel.

The only issue Id take with that statement is that the system offered her kindness.

Did she make "bad" choices? Mibbies aye, mibbie no - other peoples shoes and all that. Her choices must have seemed rational and beneficial at the time that she made them. Nobody (nobody sane at any rate) decides - right if I do this really stupid thing its going to fuck my life up but hey what the heck... but regardless, the course of actions that she's taken has ended her up in an unhappy situation.

The system didnt offer her kindness at all - is it kindness to demand that she supports children when when she doesnt have the personal resources to do so, or to be given a house that she cant afford to maintain, not to be challenged about her behaviour to her neighbours or her children?

Now I dont know about this assault and I appreciate I'm guessing here, but from your implication, I wouldnt imagine that it was a hospitalisation issue and could probably be taken up with local people directly sensibly challenging her about it; which within a community which cares for the common good of the community is the optimal way of sorting it out. But there is really no "common good" that all, including her are signed up to - instead the state stepped in and threatened to invade her private space which was probably OTT in the instance, but enforcement of order is another thing which is professionalised and at a distance from the participants. Something handed down from on-high in one respect, but on the ground reality is that some poor buggar from the local nick got a call out to somewhere that he had been a million times before for a relatively minor incident with little evidence and couldnt be bothered with the paperwork.

People dont have the sense of responsibility for each other that goes hand in hand with harmonious living - because they are encouraged not to rely on other people to meet their needs, but to rely on money and purchased and packaged commodities. That doesnt just apply to helping people out, it also means taking people to task and "the system" actively discourages it. It encourages little compartmentalised beings who should have no need to rely on anyone else...but actually people need to rely on other people both for assistance and perspective.

Purchasing and/or giving her the money to purchase the resources she is thought to need and discouraging her from finding them directly actually denies her other things that she also needs but doesnt recognise as they cant be packaged up and sold. Instead they are sold, but as illusions - the "happiness" of McDonalds; the "calling to account for behaviour" of the police.

 

[Azrael]

The only issue Id take with that statement is that the system offered her kindness.

You're right: the system isn't kind; but it's been changed by people who are.

The woman's rent was, I believe, covered by taxpayers through Housing Benefit. She didn't pay it to the landlord. And, judging by comments made during her eviction, it had happened several times before.

No, the neighbour wasn't hospitalized. The policeman's threat to "go and get a warrant" indicates it was common assault (I think the cops can go ahead and kick down the door for ABH), but an agitated neighbour was standing behind the officer, so the copper could have made it up to defuse the situation. Or to get off shift, depending on how charitable you're feeling. Ask an expert on the whacky world of PACE. Whatever the charge, the police talked the neighbour out of pressing it a few days later. (Or that's how he told it.) How was it OTT? If she didn't want her home "invaded", she shouldn't hit people.

Her house was actually invaded by the state in relation to the "boyfriend's". (Judging from the screaming match she had with the officers.) What else were the police supposed to do? I'm all for civil liberties, but whatever system we have, having a crook as a semi-permanent resident is going to get the police knocking!

I agree promoting acquisitiveness is bad, and is largely to blame for our current economic woes. But want can be resisted.

In short, the woman's life was chaos. I was forever lending her candles after her power had been cut off. She needed serious personal intervention. But would even that have remedied things? I'm not so sure. You can't make people sort themselves out. Whatever economic system we have, there are going to be people who make choices that are bad, selfish, or whatever term you prefer, choices that mess up their lives. There's only so much others can do before they have to take personal responsibility.

 

[sunshine1]

Ah, unprovoked ad hominem and swearing. Charmed. Where's this alleged "whinge"? I didn't complain about the money my neighbour kept (my choice to hand it over). How am I supposed to have made her life unpleasant?

What's Sir Fredrick got to do with anything? I'll question Ms Marshall's assertion that current benefits are inadequate because, if it's wrong, it won't help solve the problem. Mine's just one example. I'll leave it for others to comment on whether it's typical.

Oh, and I'd like an apology for being sworn at before I reply to you again.

Invoking free speech in a case related to vandalising the monument of men who had died for it (amongst other things) wasn't too wise, no!

Not only is 30 days for plonking a bit of turf on Churchill's head excessive(something the man himself might well have been amused by) it exhausts ire better kept for the people who did vandalise the statue's base and the Cenotaph.

Children are in danger of starving to death here in the UK, charity Save The Children has warned.

The charity has said 'We are heading for malnutrition in the UK', after The Grocer magazine reported food prices have risen by a staggering 18 per cent in the last year.

They then called on the Government to honour its 1997 pledge to half child poverty by 2010, by spending an extra £3 billion on struggling families.

Instead this government slings billions at bankers, more important to shore up capitalism and let people starve and go hungry. This is the real realty here in Britain, and I defy anyone like Azrael that say differently; who are propagating the fascist argument and will be a problem for us all soon, if we don't challenge the poisonous seeds they plant.

 

[Andy the Don]

* error

 

[Andy the Don]

Here's the answer!

And replace it with a form of barter takens which can be exchanged at any point in the future for goods and services up to the value of the barter tokens held... hold on.. that's err money...

 

[likesfish]

if the banks go down we'd all be in biblical levels of the brown stuff.
make yourself indispensable and you can get away with all sorts
poor people make life shite for mostly poor people around them get slapped down hard if move into nice areas
its hard to do the mutual aid stuff if you have little to give and get nothing back.
neighbor up the road swap baby sitting etc.
next door neighbor taken her kid out several times get nothing back but aggro

 

[sunshine1]

And replace it with a form of barter takens which can be exchanged at any point in the future for goods and services up to the value of the barter tokens held... hold on.. that's err money...

Or we decide to produce only for what we need and not for the greed of a few capitalists who drag into the grave the corpses of slaves!

 

[Andy the Don]

Or we decide to produce only for what we need and not for the greed of a few capitalists who drag into the grave the corpses of slaves!

Who would be the arbitrator of what is to be produced "only for what we need". We do not need space missions to the moon, but the NASA Apollo project lead to major scientific advances which resulted in consumer products. Some with military research projects in the 1950s and 60s, but from that research the internet was developed. We do not need the CERN project, but that may well result in massive scientific advances.

 

[sunshine1]

Who would be the arbitrator of what is to be produced "only for what we need". We do not need space missions to the moon, but the NASA Apollo project lead to major scientific advances which resulted in consumer products. Some with military research projects in the 1950s and 60s, but from that research the internet was developed. We do not need the CERN project, but that may well result in massive scientific advances.

The arbitrator will be mankind, each and every person freed from slavery living in harmony and having a say, in a new order that may well save our planet for our children's, children!

 

[TomPaine]

The arbitrator will be mankind,

Yes but how? Utopian statements are great and all, but what mechanism is used to provide the right number of goods etc?

 

[sunshine1]

Yes but how? Utopian statements are great and all, but what mechanism is used to provide the right number of goods etc?

Goods; whats that?

 

[TomPaine]

OK so how does the picture of money along with the picture of some fruit balance with your statement:

The arbitrator will be mankind, each and every person freed from slavery living in harmony and having a say, in a new order that may well save our planet for our children's, children!

Once folks have money to spend (and some more then others) then waste becomes an issue (one of many).
I'm not sure how this will be very different to the current situation? Please correct me if I am wrong?

 

[newme]

sunshine1 out of interest are you a first year with a head full of weed?

 

[sunshine1]

OK so how does the picture of money along with the picture of some fruit balance with your statement:



Once folks have money to spend (and some more then others) then waste becomes an issue (one of many).
I'm not sure how this will be very different to the current situation? Please correct me if I am wrong?

The pictures are money and what some may call goods represented here by fruit. In order to get the fruit you have to have the money in this society don't you. What I'm saying do away with money do away with goods as commodities,let the worlds resources be the common heritage of the world community and resolve the problems like the ones always made time and again in the interests of capitalism by financial and political leaders who, it is now clear, are mainly greedy myopic nincompoops!

 

[ViolentPanda]

The arbitrator will be mankind, each and every person freed from slavery living in harmony and having a say, in a new order that may well save our planet for our children's, children!

So far, so Utopian.
However, it's necessary (for the harmony of each and every person, no less!) for some form of system to exist that assures that the basic requirements of "each and every person" are met, which means planning what to plant, what acreage, what to produce, how much of raw material X to mine etc, as well as reaching bilateral agreements with other Utopias to trade materials you need for materials they need.
In other words, some form of economic structure will be necessary, whether it's the structure of a planned economy, the structure of a mixed economy, or the structure of a credit-free bartered goods economy.

 

[ViolentPanda]

The pictures are money and what some may call goods represented here by fruit. In order to get the fruit you have to have the money in this society don't you. What I'm saying do away with money do away with goods as commodities,let the worlds resources be the common heritage of the world community and resolve the problems like the ones always made time and again in the interests of capitalism by financial and political leaders who, it is now clear, are mainly greedy myopic nincompoops!

The problem here is that you're not thinking past the surface of your ideas.
Let's take your fruit for example. Your fruit is and will be a "commodity" regardless of whether one uses money to purchase it, or an equivalent weight of vegetables.

 

[sunshine1]

So far, so Utopian.
However, it's necessary (for the harmony of each and every person, no less!) for some form of system to exist that assures that the basic requirements of "each and every person" are met, which means planning what to plant, what acreage, what to produce, how much of raw material X to mine etc, as well as reaching bilateral agreements with other Utopias to trade materials you need for materials they need.
In other words, some form of economic structure will be necessary, whether it's the structure of a planned economy, the structure of a mixed economy, or the structure of a credit-free bartered goods economy.

The only system necessary is one of co-operation, rather than Utopia; it's not, but it is possible to have a world of mutual cooperating is it not? - Another world is possible!

 

[newme]

Indeed, simply not calling it a commodity doesnt change the fact that it is one.
Much the same as doing away with money and replacing it with a value system that works in the exact way but with massively more complicated exchange rates isnt changing anything useful.

My dads an electrician, how many potatoes do you get for rewiring a house? What if he wants a fish?

Or are you saying everything everywhere should be community property?

 

[sunshine1]

The problem here is that you're not thinking past the surface of your ideas.
Let's take your fruit for example. Your fruit is and will be a "commodity" regardless of whether one uses money to purchase it, or an equivalent weight of vegetables.

"Commodity" only exists as an article of commerce in this society as are the bullet and the bomb articles of commerce in this society, do we need them?

 

[newme]

A commodity is something for which there is demand, but which is supplied without qualitative differentiation across a market. It is a product that is the same no matter who produces it, such as petroleum, notebook paper, or milk. [1]In other words, copper is copper. Rice is rice. Stereos, on the other hand, have many levels of quality. And, the better a stereo is, the more it will cost. The price of copper is universal, and fluctuates daily based on global supply and demand.

Bullets and bombs come in many different shapes and forms, are of different qualities and for different purposes. Neither are considered a commodity.

Get a dictionary and try again. Then try answering even one point on this thread without some pathetic waffle and massive amounts of point avoiding whilst sounding like someone whose read the prospectus for a politics course then gone and gotten stoned and fallen out a tree onto their head.

 

[ViolentPanda]

The only system necessary is one of co-operation, rather than Utopia;

I'd argue that full co-operation is Utopian.

it's not, but it is possible to have a world of mutual cooperating is it not? -

I'm not saying that it's unattainable, just that it would be difficult to achieve, and that we might have to, as an interim measure on the road to full co-operation, settle for a system of majority co-operation and have to occasionally utilise methods of economic activity that would be distasteful to you.

Another world is possible!

Yes.

 

[ViolentPanda]

"Commodity" only exists as an article of commerce in this society as are the bullet and the bomb articles of commerce in this society, do we need them?

No, commodities don't "only exist as an article of commerce in this society", they exist as artifacts in any society that utilises any form of trade.
BTW, traditional commodities (foodstuffs and raw materials) are somewhat different from cultural artifacts such as bombs, bullets and books.

 

[sunshine1]

No, commodities don't "only exist as an article of commerce in this society", they exist as artifacts in any society that utilises any form of trade.
BTW, traditional commodities (foodstuffs and raw materials) are somewhat different from cultural artifacts such as bombs, bullets and books.

OK something partly in what you say, however my concern is with this society only and thats what I'm referring too, and yes foodstuffs and raw materials are somewhat different from bombs and bullets, the frist is necessary for sustaining life and that later is used to end it. However they are both owned and controlled solely for profit are they not, to make it sustain it and defend it. Global military expenditure stands at over $1.2 trillion in annual expenditure and has been rising in recent years.

Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes … known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.… No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.

— James Madison, Political Observations, 1795

 

[newme]

LOL yeh whitewash over the fact your point was based on an entirely incorrect assumption then blather on about military spending.

 

[sunshine1]

LOL yeh whitewash over the fact your point was based on an entirely incorrect assumption then blather on about military spending.

The incorrect assumption was what in your opinion? Albert Einstein!

 

[newme]

The incorrect assumption was what in your opinion? Albert Einstein!

Albert Einstein? What was that sposed to be exactly? You need to make more sense in your posts and actually reply to points.
Your incorrect assumption was basically everything you posted about commodity as you clearly have no idea what the word meant and made arguments based on that failure. Failed to answer points about how replacing money with anything would help in any way. Brought up guns in the same sentence as foodstuffs based on your assertion they were both commodities, when they arent. Failing to give any actual reason whatsoever for linking those things together even in the broken way you attempted. Unless your intention was to say all commodities are bad cos guns are bad and guns are commodities. Which is wrong in at least 3 ways on its own. Before then going on to ramble off some figures about military spending which bore no relevance.

Not least to say your level of naiveity is remarkable. Aswel as the pure rudeness of quoting people in replies then coming out with some irrelevant crap. Much like your swearing at azrael unprovoked then replying to the polite request for an apology with an rant about save the children.

 

[Fullyplumped]

Who are these children? Are they supposed to be poor? How do you know they are poor? I mean, I know you often can't tell by looking, but they look well cared for and the wee boy at the front is certainly very well fed.

And what do these children have to do with the girl who got arrested?