Dealing With the Renegades - Revisited

[smokedout]

All of the evidence suggests that the looting/rioting was in many cases controlled by the gangs. Obviously others were involved but there has a clear hierarchy with the big boys getting first go at the loot after they arranged for the windows to be put in.

i havent seen evidence that that was the case over and above what common sense would dictate (ie the hardest people with the biggest rep would probably have got first pickings)

i think this whole gang thing is a distraction that appears to be confusing some kind of new class formation with fashion - in my day there were football firms, biker gangs, a few organised criminal gangs, and lots of bunches of bored kids who hung out together, got involved in petty crime, looked out for each other and fought together

these days we'd probably have given ourselves a name and been a gang, back then we were just a bunch of mates

 

[Smokeandsteam]

i dont disagree with that as such, though you could say the working class faced different problems then

the point is that you could write a piece of hyperbole about any period in working class life over the last 200 years and use it as an example of how terrible the kids are today, but there isnt actually any real evidence that they are

Really? When was the last time in the last 200 years when young kids were routinely murdered by each other on the scale that they are now?

I remember aggro too - but not shootings, stabbings, gang rapes and other attendant side effects of gangsta rule.

No-one is pretending life was beautiful before, or that there weren't anti social elements present. What is different is the scale of it, the savegery of it and that not only don't the left have a plan to challenge it but that in most cases they don't even accept or recognise the problem.

 

[smokedout]

Really? When was the last time in the last 200 years when young kids were routinely murdered by each other on the scale that they are now?

1914 – 1918


sorry (although perhaps relevant, nothing like a good war to work out some of that working class rage)

I remember aggro too - but not shootings, stabbings, gang rapes and other attendant side effects of gangsta rule.

No-one is pretending life was beautiful before, or that there weren't anti social elements present. What is different is the scale of it, the savegery of it and that not only don't the left have a plan to challenge it but that in most cases they don't even accept or recognise the problem.

there absolutely weren't as many guns around, but stabbings were pretty commonplace. as to gang rape, well that is very hard to tell as it very likely was even more under reported back then as it is now - but violence towards women and sexual violence was also far from uncommen

look the analysis is fine (even if i dont agree with all the conclusions) about the impact of criminal behaviour on working class communities and struggle - but the idea that this is a new and dangerous breed ruthlessly controlled by super-gangs and never seen before is just daft

 

[smokedout]

incidentally id be interested to know if the left did accept there was a prolem 30+ years ago and what strategies it came up with to combat it?

genuine question btw, i was just a kid back then

 

[Joe Reilly]

[quote="Ibn Khaldoun, post: 10492446"[But are you trying to say the rioting was by gangs? [/quote]

LOL!

 

[Joe Reilly]

1914 – 1918

sorry (although perhaps relevant, nothing like a good war to work out some of that working class rage)

there absolutely weren't as many guns around, but stabbings were pretty commonplace. as to gang rape, well that is very hard to tell as it very likely was even more under reported back then as it is now - but violence towards women and sexual violence was also far from uncommen

look the analysis is fine (even if i dont agree with all the conclusions) about the impact of criminal behaviour on working class communities and struggle - but the idea that this is a new and dangerous breed ruthlessly controlled by super-gangs and never seen before is just daft

No one said the dangerous breed were controlled by super-gangs. Though, certainly in London, the rioters, as against looters, were working to a preconcieved plan. As for the 'kids are alright' mantra - show me anywhere in history, where kinds were getting stabbed to death over a post code. Where mugging victims are routinely stabbed after complying with the demands. Again, I would challenge you to show any evidence that gang rape was ever a cultural norm, in even the roughest of estates.

 

[Joe Reilly]

Economic conditions that no longer exist. There isn't a "lumpen proletariat".

So where did the previous lumpen hordes go then?

 

[smokedout]

No one said the dangerous breed were controlled by super-gangs. Though, certainly in London, the rioters, as against looters, were working to a preconcieved plan. As for the 'kids are alright' mantra - show me anywhere in history, where kinds were getting stabbed to death over a post code.

over a football team, over money, over dress sense - loads, come on - the post code thing is a fashion but kids from different towns/schools/estates fighting each other is hardly new

Where mugging victims are routinely stabbed after complying with the demands.

they stabbed you first back then, although the mugging was usually an afterthought

Again, I would challenge you to show any evidence that gang rape was ever a cultural norm, in even the roughest of estates.

id challenge you to show any evidence that gang rape is a cultural norm now

 

[Smokeandsteam]

In absence of a strong left with a national body to fight the neoliberal agenda that's the kind of outburst we'll get.

Genuine questions:

1. Are you suggesting that if the SWP had 30,000 members and "a national body to fight neo-liberalism" then things would be different? Why? How?
2. If the looting was an 'outburst' somehow linked to neo-liberalism then why is the left - the self styled vanguard against neo-liberalism - becoming more irrelevant by the second? In other words, why at a time of a economic meltdown, with another dip imminent and the forces of neo-liberalism discredited and distrusted, is the left not even on the stage let alone an actor?

 

[past caring]

incidentally id be interested to know if the left did accept there was a prolem 30+ years ago and what strategies it came up with to combat it?

genuine question btw, i was just a kid back then

I am not sure anyone has talked of "super-gangs" (other than in reference to inter-gang truces during the rioting).

I'd put a slightly different emphasis on things than Smokeandsteam - the left doesn't have a plan to challenge gang culture and anti-social elements and it never did have. But 25-30 years ago (and earlier) this wasn't so important* - for a number of reasons;

1. The idea that we could collectively shape our future for the better - on a grand scale via the project of socialism - or on a smaller scale by taking industrial action to get a pay rise - still had some life left in it.

2. Even for those that didn't want (or couldn't be convinced) to be part of any collective attempt at betterment, the possibility existed that if you showed a minimal level of willing, you could find secure employment that paid a reasonable wage and would allow a reasonable standard of living - and if you did that and you saved for your holidays (or whatever) that was something to be respected. You weren't a mug.

There were, in other words, for those who might have come within the orbit of any nascent gang culture, other credible poles of attraction. No longer.

* - perhaps it would be more true to say that its importance wasn't so apparent.

 

[smokedout]

I am not sure anyone has talked of "super-gangs" (other than in reference to inter-gang truces during the rioting).

I'd put a slightly different emphasis on things than Smokeandsteam - the left doesn't have a plan to challenge gang culture and anti-social elements and it never did have. But 25-30 years ago (and earlier) this wasn't so important* - for a number of reasons;

1. The idea that we could collectively shape our future for the better - on a grand scale via the project of socialism - or on a smaller scale by taking industrial action to get a pay rise - still had some life left in it.

2. Even for those that didn't want (or couldn't be convinced) to be part of any collective attempt at betterment, the possibility existed that if you showed a minimal level of willing, you could find secure employment that paid a reasonable wage and would allow a reasonable standard of living - and if you did that and you saved for your holidays (or whatever) that was something to be respected. You weren't a mug.

There were, in other words, for those who might have come within the orbit of any nascent gang culture, other credible poles of attraction. No longer.

* - perhaps it would be more true to say that its importance wasn't so apparent.

fair enough, but then that adds a rather new spin on the claims of a willing culture of worklessness, or a 'no work' ethic. which from your analysis would appear to be something imposed rather than chosen

 

[past caring]

I wasn't trying to present a complete analysis - just responding to one point.

Nevertheless, the fact that some of the changes I've talked about were imposed doesn't alter the fact that some have made a happy accommodation with the new reality.

 

[smokedout]

bit simplistic aint it, they got made poor but they like it cos they get to stab and rape people

 

[past caring]

Simplistic? Yes. And as an accurate a synopsis of the IWCA position as it would be to characterise yours as being a cheer-leader for muggers and rapists.

We can all play that game, but it does get a bit fucking tiresome.

 

[The39thStep]

over a football team, over money, over dress sense - loads, come on - the post code thing is a fashion but kids from different towns/schools/estates fighting each other is hardly new

they stabbed you first back then, although the mugging was usually an afterthought

id challenge you to show any evidence that gang rape is a cultural norm now

Pretty poor responses.You try and paint a very unconvincing picture that its just business as usual really, nothing but a moral panic.

 

[smokedout]

yep you're right, play tabloid get tabloid back - but that in itself is a criticism of the piece and some of the follow up responses on this thread - there doesnt seem any consistency over who the nouveau lumpen actually are - and if we are talking just about gangs then rumours and statements made by coppers and torys dont add much credibility to the position

 

[LLETSA]

i dont disagree with that as such, though you could say the working class faced different problems then

the point is that you could write a piece of hyperbole about any period in working class life over the last 200 years and use it as an example of how terrible the kids are today, but there isnt actually any real evidence that they are

I don't think that's what's being said. Rather it's that the gang problem has got worse-guns and knives were extremely rare thirty years ago-and that it's a growing problem in a period when working class solidarity has already broken down over wide areas of society.

 

[LLETSA]

over a football team, over money, over dress sense - loads, come on - the post code thing is a fashion but kids from different towns/schools/estates fighting each other is hardly new

The use of guns (ie in Liverpool when the eleven year-old boy got shot after gettting in the way), by kids hardly old enough to be shaving, for trespassing on another gang's declared territory, was unheard of even fifteen or twenty years ago.

 

[newbie]

The point is that working class communities were, thirty-plus years ago, more intact than they are now, with a sense of solidarity, despite the presence of thsoe who had no regard for it, resting on industries and an organised working class now absent.

Do you sense any widespread desire to go back to the way things were in those days?

 

[LLETSA]

Do you sense any widespread desire to go back to the way things were in those days?

Doesn't matter if there is or isn't when I am, as I said, pointing out certain differences between now and then.

 

[past caring]

Do you sense any widespread desire to go back to the way things were in those days?

What an odd question to ask. Do you think that is what is being argued for?

 

[newbie]

It it? Aren't intact communities with a sense of solidarity and an organised working class desirable?

what is being argued for?

 

[Ibn Khaldoun]

If that description makes you queasy how about "a new -and growing- social formation that has willingly embraced a non-work ethic"??

Alternatively, perhaps you reject the very concept of a growing 'formation' amongst the working class that through it's behaviour, codes and values actively diminishes the ability of our class to recover confidence, take back some control and become a political threat to capitalist? In which case you've clearly missed the last 30 years.

Just wondering like....

Divestment, disaffection and poverty.

 

[Ibn Khaldoun]

So where did the previous lumpen hordes go then?

The lumpens were proletarized in the late nineteenth 20th century.

 

[Ibn Khaldoun]

Genuine questions:

1. Are you suggesting that if the SWP had 30,000 members and "a national body to fight neo-liberalism" then things would be different? Why? How?

More people would be organised, they'd have more of an outlet. I also believe the government would not have been able to execute its agenda. It would have been made to stand down and call elections because it was inoperable.

2. If the looting was an 'outburst' somehow linked to neo-liberalism then why is the left - the self styled vanguard against neo-liberalism - becoming more irrelevant by the second? In other words, why at a time of a economic meltdown, with another dip imminent and the forces of neo-liberalism discredited and distrusted, is the left not even on the stage let alone an actor?

Neo-liberalism wasn't only an economic restructuring it was also part of a political assault on leftist forces which are still only coming to terms with it. The IWCA's piece is a reactionary example of how to come to terms with that - to blame one segment of the popular classes, imagined as a 'lumpen proletariat' at that - instead of the system responsible for their poverty. Civil unrest is heightened everywhere affected by the recession. Could you imagine these riots even two years ago?

 

[LLETSA]

More people would be organised, they'd have more of an outlet. I also believe the government would not have been able to execute its agenda. It would have been made to stand down and call elections because it was inoperable.

When the Communist Party had 30000 members (in much more favourable times both politically and socially), it was a far more professional outfit than the SWP (whatever its political shortcomings), commanded far more respect from working class militants, had a hold over a greater variety of front organisations and exercised greater influence in those it didn't control. But governments were still able to 'execute their agendas.'

 

[LLETSA]

Neo-liberalism wasn't only an economic restructuring it was also part of a political assault on leftist forces which are still only coming to terms with it. The IWCA's piece is a reactionary example of how to come to terms with that - to blame one segment of the popular classes, imagined as a 'lumpen proletariat' at that - instead of the system responsible for their poverty. Civil unrest is heightened everywhere affected by the recession. Could you imagine these riots even two years ago?

The IWCA has pointed the finger at the the system responsible for the poverty of many of the rioters at the same time as reminding us that the anti-social actions of many rioters effectively puts them on the side of that system. It is an approach that seperates them off from the redundant left.

 

[The39thStep]

How would you start building this 'national body to fight neo-liberalism' ? Would we start with the organised working class or the 'imagined lumpenproletariat'?

And yes I could have imagined these riots two years ago.

 

[Ibn Khaldoun]

When the Communist Party had 30000 members (in much more favourable times both politically and socially), it was a far more professional outfit than the SWP (whatever its political shortcomings), commanding far more respect from working class militants, with a hold over a greater variety of front organisations and exercising greater influence in those it didn't control. But governements were still able to 'execute their agendas.'

Thought 'SWP' was for sake of example.

This particular government. Could have been brought down by now, could still be.

 

[The39thStep]

Thought 'SWP' was for sake of example.

This particular government. Could have been brought down by now, could still be.

In abstract everything is possible , in reality how could this particular govt have been brought down, could be brought down?