The police state is nearly here - Guardian

[wishface]

All i know is that i don't really feel safe on the streets anymore; maybe that's because i'm a paranoid saddo. Maybe that'sbecause of being harassed by local yobs in a particularly unpleasant way for no reason. I don't have the answers; maybe whoever wins the local election will, but i believe things have 'gotten worse' over the last decade or so and I think they are continuing to decline. I'm not a political expert nor a social historian or anything; I'm just someone who finds it inreasingly difficult to deal with the state of this country. I don't belive I am right wing, if anything i would say i was socialist and liberal but i have expressed views whhich seem otherwise because i don't see any way of reversing the sitation. Tough times need consistent tough laws and their enforcement (note not necessarily more laws) from a respectable and available police force. I question whether we have that at the moment. But without a zero tolerance approach to things like, especially, petty crime, we get nowhere.

 

[The Black Hand]

Well the elections could have provided people with the answer for years but they haven't - they can't either. The problems cannot be solved at the ballot box.

 

[Luther Blissett]

wishface - what (ideally) should these 'potential petty criminals' (or more kindly description, 'alienated, bored youths on streets') be doing with their time, instead of:
a) resorting to crime as a means to obtain things that object-oriented social-status and adult-glamour portrays they ought to have to be seen to be 'making it' in this world
b) hanging on street corners looking glowery, feeling alienated, or acting destructive/pissed off because they can't afford to be anywhere else, and making you feel nervous about them being 'there' instead of 'elsewhere'?
c) becoming prey to dealers and wheelers who can teach them not only how to survive and use the social system that's so skillfully and almost deliberately alienating them by witholding much needed specific alternatives to said miserable-street-oriented existence?

 

[wishface]

wishface - what (ideally) should these 'potential petty criminals' (or more kindly description, 'alienated, bored youths on streets') be doing with their time, instead of:
a) resorting to crime as a means to obtain things that object-oriented social-status and adult-glamour portrays they ought to have to be seen to be 'making it' in this world
b) hanging on street corners looking glowery, feeling alienated, or acting destructive/pissed off because they can't afford to be anywhere else, and making you feel nervous about them being 'there' instead of 'elsewhere'?
c) becoming prey to dealers and wheelers who can teach them not only how to survive and use the social system that's so skillfully and almost deliberately alienating them by witholding much needed specific alternatives to said miserable-street-oriented existence?

I don't know, maybe nothing. Maybe it's all too far gone. All i can say is that when I were a lad...(I'm 34 ffs) we were able to enjoy ourselves and occupy our leisure time a damn site more productively and imaginatively than seems to be the case currently. Christ I remember pretending that a local trea stump at school was the cocpit of the millenium falcon (it had a wierd shape)! But now that stump has been paved over and health and safety would never allow it. To say nothing of the lack of imagnation kids today seem to display (not all, obviously; my mate's son is very imaginative, behaving himnself and raised properly). We didn't get pushers and weren't scared half to death by media scare stories about michael jackson (back then he really was the king of pop!). Sure we played up, but there's a difference between normal youthful exuberance and rambunctiousness and the surliness and attitude of today.

These kids today want everything and they cannot understand why anyone would dare speak out against them - even if they are out at 3am playing music loud on a car stereo! Unthinkable to me at that age - and id on't mean that in a prurient sense either. It just was and still is!

'Back in the day' we had less available to us yet the world was a better place; perhaps that's the problem. The increase of tehcnology (mobile phones with built in sound systems, gameboys, ipods and whatnot) seems to be commensurate with an inability to use it considerably - in fact it seems to encourage just that!

I think there is a major lack of discipline and responsibility being taught - probably the fault of parenting rather than schools. Look to the parents of these kids and you cans ee where they get it from, unfortauntely most of them are too old to learn any different at home. This creates the black hole for the pushers, abusers and gangsters you mention to step in. Now we have a lack of policing and a government that doesn't know how to do anything but attempt to legislate and engage in thought control (re political correctness) to change things - all the while living in a world apart from the rest of us. A local youth worker once said to me that, in regard to the local yobbos, it's one step forward and nine back. He provides services and facilities at the local church (as many rural communities do i imagine) and all the kids do is piss it up against the wall (literally, actually).

Something has to change, I just don't know what.

 

[audiotech]

I don't know, maybe nothing. Maybe it's all too far gone. All i can say is that when I were a lad...(I'm 34 ffs) we were able to enjoy ourselves and occupy our leisure time a damn site more productively and imaginatively than seems to be the case currently. Christ I remember pretending that a local trea stump at school was the cocpit of the millenium falcon (it had a wierd shape)! But now that stump has been paved over and health and safety would never allow it. To say nothing of the lack of imagnation kids today seem to display (not all, obviously; my mate's son is very imaginative, behaving himnself and raised properly). We didn't get pushers and weren't scared half to death by media scare stories about michael jackson (back then he really was the king of pop!). Sure we played up, but there's a difference between normal youthful exuberance and rambunctiousness and the surliness and attitude of today.

These kids today want everything and they cannot understand why anyone would dare speak out against them - even if they are out at 3am playing music loud on a car stereo! Unthinkable to me at that age - and id on't mean that in a prurient sense either. It just was and still is!

'Back in the day' we had less available to us yet the world was a better place; perhaps that's the problem. The increase of tehcnology (mobile phones with built in sound systems, gameboys, ipods and whatnot) seems to be commensurate with an inability to use it considerably - in fact it seems to encourage just that!

I think there is a major lack of discipline and responsibility being taught - probably the fault of parenting rather than schools. Look to the parents of these kids and you cans ee where they get it from, unfortauntely most of them are too old to learn any different at home. This creates the black hole for the pushers, abusers and gangsters you mention to step in. Now we have a lack of policing and a government that doesn't know how to do anything but attempt to legislate and engage in thought control (re political correctness) to change things - all the while living in a world apart from the rest of us. A local youth worker once said to me that, in regard to the local yobbos, it's one step forward and nine back. He provides services and facilities at the local church (as many rural communities do i imagine) and all the kids do is piss it up against the wall (literally, actually).

Something has to change, I just don't know what.

Back in the day it was a better place? I don't buy it. You're 34, so the formative years for you would have been the 80's and 90's. The eighties in particular was a loathsome decade. The nineties weren't that much better.

Is it because you believed the New Labour bollocks about 'It can only get Better' that's pissed you off?

 

[wishface]

I'm not saying those decades were great and wonderful or anything like that; i'm saying that there has been an marked increase in antisocial behaviour. I don't know why, but i can see it with my eyes. i can hear it with my ears and i can feel it when im on the receiving end of it; and i know that such behaviour wasn't anywhere near as prevalent as now.

i'm certainly not saying the 80's were a golden age, that would be stupid. But the standards of behaviour today are just non existent.

that's what pissed me off. though mostly i just think it's a sad state of affairs we have right now. there is a real malaise and indifference about everything and meanwhile we hear constant news stories about yob behaviour and we see it in the streets.

 

[audiotech]

I'm not saying those decades were great and wonderful or anything like that; i'm saying that there has been an marked increase in antisocial behaviour.

Has there though? I was a youth in the seventies and 'antisocial behaviour' then was highly organised and involved thousands. Scottish razor gangs were particularly busy.

In the sixties mod and rockers were battling it out at various holiday spots and in the fifties teddy boys were hunting 'niggers' in Notting Hill. London's East End gangs had a reputation which makes today's equivalents tame in comparison.

 

[Gmart]

To quote the big O:

Look like nothings gonna change,
Everything still remain the same,
I can't do what ten people tell me to do,
So I guess I'll remain the same, yes,

 

[wishface]

Has there though? I was a youth in the seventies and 'antisocial behaviour' then was highly organised and involved thousands. Scottish razor gangs were particularly busy.

In the sixties mod and rockers were battling it out at various holiday spots and in the fifties teddy boys were hunting 'niggers' in Notting Hill. London's East End gangs had a reputation which makes today's equivalents tame in comparison.

that may be, but i think the general standard of behaviour across the board has declined.

 

[Gmart]

There are certainly issues which need to be dealt with, but which are being swept under the political map in an attempt to woo middle england.

However this has always happened to our shame!

 

[audiotech]

that may be, but i think the general standard of behaviour across the board has declined.

Across the board? There are some who are complete twats, but they're in a minority and can easily be sorted out with something useful to occupy their time and some kind of reward at the end of it. I would argue that these measures are far more constructive than the enforcement of tougher laws on young people.

Boot camps, short sharp shock and a variety of measures along the same theme, seems to be the only answer to these problems from some, but these have been tried over and over again and have failed miserably.

A different, more radical approach needs to be applied to address these social issues.

 

[wishface]

it may well be a minority, thankfully, but again it is a rising minority and a significant one as well. One that is rarely challenged.

 

[detective-boy]

I don't know why...

Try ...

"There is no such thing as society" (1987)

 

[wishface]

isn't that quote always taken completely out of context? I'm no fan of her or the tories, or indeed most parties, but just posting a picture of her and one of her most quoted statements rather pointless and disingenuous? It's 20 years on ffs!

 

[detective-boy]

isn't that quote always taken completely out of context? I'm no fan of her or the tories, or indeed most parties, but just posting a picture of her and one of her most quoted statements rather pointless and disingenuous? It's 20 years on ffs!

It is the most telling quote of her indisputable "everyone for themselves" approach. Twenty years in which those attitudes which lay behind the simple quote have actually had an effect.

The generation of "yuppies" which thrived on Thatcherism has now come of age. They are in positions of influence in both public authorities and private corporations. There is nothing to suggest that their selfish attitudes have been changed in any way.

Were some / many of the children who are now involved in the issues we perceive born into a Thatcherite world? Were some / many of their parents either so intent on pursuing lucre that they ignored their other resposibilities to their children? Or, perhaps more likely, forced to put the interests of their children second to the need to service Thatcherite policies.

20 years is no time at all for a social change to take effect. Surely it would be too much of a coincidence for the entirely selfish attitudes we see demonstrated by the youths opf today to be unconnected with the entirely selfish attitudes propounded by a powerful Prime Minister for a long period of time twenty years ago ...

 

[rhys gethin]

that may be, but i think the general standard of behaviour across the board has declined.

I've been told that one of the earlies texts discovered says something on the lines of 'Things are going to the dogs: the young no longer respect their elders, and foreigners are crossing over into Egypt and becoming people.' When I was a teenager I managed, with two friends, more or less totally to destroy a small unused RAF camp while the caretaker was away. Capitalism has taken a firmer hold, certainly, there are few youth clubs or sports clubs, and everything costs money. The answer, as always, is to oppose capitalism: the excluded and insulted always look threatening. Think back to those evil old witches, when the people stopped providing 'hospitality' for the old and sick. Burn 'em all, what!

 

[wishface]

I've been told that one of the earlies texts discovered says something on the lines of 'Things are going to the dogs: the young no longer respect their elders, and foreigners are crossing over into Egypt and becoming people.' When I was a teenager I managed, with two friends, more or less totally to destroy a small unused RAF camp while the caretaker was away. Capitalism has taken a firmer hold, certainly, there are few youth clubs or sports clubs, and everything costs money. The answer, as always, is to oppose capitalism: the excluded and insulted always look threatening. Think back to those evil old witches, when the people stopped providing 'hospitality' for the old and sick. Burn 'em all, what!

But the scumy yobbos round here are ioncluded; the local youth project bends over backwards ot give them - more than i bloody well would. They've even removed a lovely old bench in a park to make way for some modern construct laughably called a teen shelter; the purpose of which is to provide a place for them to 'hang out'. It will be ignored in favour of the seat designed for the local old folks to rest next to the local shop so they can intimidate the staff and cause hassle. THis is on top of the local church providing space and even video game machines and pcs for them to use, as well as a youth club.
That's 100% more than when i were a lad - and yet we didn't need them nor did we fall into bad ways and bad crowds for their loss.

 

[Gmart]

It was Socrates who went on about how the Youth of his day didn't respect their olders and how everything is going to the dogs not like when he was young.

I appreciate that there are problems and certainly we could sort out a few things which would make the world a better place, but to blame the kids for growing up in an uncaring world and then surprisingly not caring themselves is a bit rich.

British society, as the quote from Thatcher shows all to well (and indeed IN context), has been ill since at least the Bill of Rights 1688, and unless we start dealing with some issues which middle England would rather we didn't look at, such as the ridiculous drugs laws and the lack of rights for all etc, they will persist. Indeed the basic problem is inequality of opportunity, and to deal with this we would need to sort out the education system which is geared towards giving a good education only to those with money, or with a tradition of education.

Without equality of opportunity, the haves will always blame the havenots and vica versa.

 

[audiotech]

it may well be a minority, thankfully, but again it is a rising minority and a significant one as well. One that is rarely challenged.

Well, I challenged two knuckledraggers t'other month and kept them sweet with a relative whilst riot police turned up. Turned out one was on a tag. Tough titty.

 

[wishface]

It was Socrates who went on about how the Youth of his day didn't respect their olders and how everything is going to the dogs not like when he was young.

I appreciate that there are problems and certainly we could sort out a few things which would make the world a better place, but to blame the kids for growing up in an uncaring world and then surprisingly not caring themselves is a bit rich.

British society, as the quote from Thatcher shows all to well (and indeed IN context), has been ill since at least the Bill of Rights 1688, and unless we start dealing with some issues which middle England would rather we didn't look at, such as the ridiculous drugs laws and the lack of rights for all etc, they will persist. Indeed the basic problem is inequality of opportunity, and to deal with this we would need to sort out the education system which is geared towards giving a good education only to those with money, or with a tradition of education.

Without equality of opportunity, the haves will always blame the havenots and vica versa.

You think i have all the opportunities?

I don't blame the kids, I blame their parents. Though there are certainly also plenty of kids who damn well should know better; there has to be a cut off point where these people take responsibility for themselves.

 

[rhys gethin]

But the scumy yobbos round here are ioncluded; the local youth project bends over backwards ot give them - more than i bloody well would. They've even removed a lovely old bench in a park to make way for some modern construct laughably called a teen shelter; the purpose of which is to provide a place for them to 'hang out'. It will be ignored in favour of the seat designed for the local old folks to rest next to the local shop so they can intimidate the staff and cause hassle. THis is on top of the local church providing space and even video game machines and pcs for them to use, as well as a youth club.
That's 100% more than when i were a lad - and yet we didn't need them nor did we fall into bad ways and bad crowds for their loss.

Don't you think that people talked like this about you back then? When people get older they resent others for being young and romanticise the world they once lived in, and their behaviour in it. I've seen it happen to lots of friends of mine - who were in fact complete villains back then, as I well recall. No way can I make you dismiss your own mental 'facts', but I would like to suggest you take on board the notion that great numbers in every generation have felt this way, and ask whether the world can really be getting worse all the time.

 

[wishface]

Don't you think that people talked like this about you back then? When people get older they resent others for being young and
romanticise the world they once lived in, and their behaviour in it. I've seen it happen to lots of friends of mine - who were in fact complete villains back then, as I well recall. No way can I make you dismiss your own mental 'facts', but I would like to suggest you take on board the notion that great numbers in every generation have felt this way, and ask whether the world can really be getting worse all the time.

No, I don't believe they did, because the behaviour of us when we was kids was nowhere neaer what it is today.

I don't resent anyone for being young, i just dislike the behaviour that's prevalent today because it IS worse.

I'm not saying that kids have never behaved badly, i'm saying it's worse today. So while there will be people who will have always said this, it doesn't change the facts as i see them. as ive said, ive seen a decline in my own lifetime.

 

[Gmart]

I don't blame the kids, I blame their parents. Though there are certainly also plenty of kids who damn well should know better; there has to be a cut off point where these people take responsibility for themselves.

That point is unlikely to come when they can viably blame others for the shortcomings of their life and of the world around them. And this will continue to happen until we have ACTUAL equality of opportunity.

Welcome to class Britain.

 

[detective-boy]

And this will continue to happen until we have ACTUAL equality of opportunity.

When / where has this ever been the case previously?

 

[Gmart]

I never said that it has happened in the past, just that we will fail to deal with our problems until we actually start aiming properly at this ideal WITHOUT letting Middle England distract us.

Also this inequality is the obvious basis for the Class Society we have, and this will ALSO not be broken down until we add political will to this ideal.

I know it won't happen, I'm just stating this for the record. No one is going to address the inequality in our education system, and Middle England is NOT going to allow the legalisation of several 'immoral' trades in the interest of harm reduction and the protaction of the population, so we will continue to have the society we have, and we best just get used to it.

 

[Gmart]

Returning to the case at hand, I found this article in the Independent.

266 ways to enter an Englishman's castle.

Much as I have sympathy for the unwritten Constitution we have, I would like to ask how much abuse of our apparent freedoms would it take for the population to accept the need for a decently worded written version?

 

[Luther Blissett]

Look - more reliance on GADGETS!

Lie detectors for welfare benefit claimants: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6528425.stm and http://politics.guardian.co.uk/homeaffairs/story/0,,2050811,00.html

What are they doing conducting interviews over the phone anyway? Is this the beginning of call-centre welfare? Who sold the Govt. this gadget, how much did it cost and what proof is there that it will reduce fraud effectively?

Or is he talking about the whole of Britain, a nation so in love with the CCTV camera that it boasts one for every 14 citizens, and has spent, in the last 10 years, more than three-quarters of its Home Office crime prevention budget on this technology of record

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article2474442.ece

 

[The Black Hand]

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article2474442.ece

Good article Luther. It shows the poverty of vision of the New labour luvvie managerial bureaucrats (I'm sounding like a Littlejohn/Daily Mail article now - all i forgot to include was 'Guardianista') that shows they haven't got a clue about crime except for right wing tabloid 'common sense'. They have stopped any pretence at being left/socialist and instead have hightailed it to the right. Nothing new I know, but it does have knock on effects in terms of political strategy and tactics for Socialists...

 

[Luther Blissett]

Isn't the HO building new offices? Sheffield? Where else? What about the new detention centres?
How does the Govt. square it's involvement via MOD and ex-MOD 'agency' arms sales to foreign regimes which place militarism over and above economic/social 'security'?

Despite the Baby Boom Generation loving their gadgets, a short survey I undertook down the pub (good enough for Eustonites, good enough for us!) shows they're not impressed at the move towards creating a totalitarian-style parallel to traditional policing across regional centres, or the outsourcing of once-traditional police/state structures to private international corporations.

Baby Boomers were not impressed with solutions to crime being focused at gadget-detection provision over bobby-on-the-beat and the over-reliance on gadgetry when the causes of social depravation were ignored. One suggestion (white, male, 62, ex-engineer) was that crime is big business, and the maintainance of a criminal underclass was essential to these Prison/Detention centres in order to retain or increase 'criminal clients'.

Britain's participation in the destabilisation of other countries whose able males then flee to Europe seeking employment was noted. Instabliity of a country was seen as directly related to the number of migrants seeking both economic stability and/or asylum. British companies who participated in assisting instability were no liable for costs at this end - all costs being passed on to the ordinary working person (of any class). The creation of a Detention/Asylum industry using taxpayers money was not seen as addressing the causes of instability in the regions that migrants are fleeing from. Out of 20 people interviewd, 7 mentioned Stalin's gulags, and 12 mentioned Nazi Germany's concentration camps. Every single Baby Boomer interviewed had a one or both parents who had fought in WWII.

The billions in profits gleaned over time through outsourced building contracts and outsourcing of management of detention centres is noted. Despite those interviewed showing conservative tendencies, there was a strong socialist ethos on certain issues. Three people question the grounds that for the British taxpayer being made liable for these costs (ex-accountants).

(edit: grammar and spellin')

 

[Gmart]

Authoritarians will always throw money at problems rather than trying to solve the underlying problems in society such as inequality of opportunity and land misallocation.