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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: London Riots - The Root Cause
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Marvin thinks we should napalm the council estates.
No. I think we should napalm the rioters. BIG difference.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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ExclamationMark
Shipmate
# 14715
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Sylvander:
The police are not all whiter than white and blameless, some are themselves mindless thugs, and some are lovely upstanding members of the community. You can't make sweeping assumptions that all teenagers are wrong and all policemen are right.
It's an interesting point that Street Pastors have reduced crime simply because they get to the teenagers before the Police and don't wind them up in the same way.
Posts: 3845 | From: A new Jerusalem | Registered: Apr 2009
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Timothy the Obscure:
The question to ask is "Why now?"
And the answer is "because an opportunity presented itself".
Let's not beat around the bush - these people aren't after political change, or better (legitimate) prospects in life. They're just after free bling.
However many community or youth facilities you build for them (which they'll just vandalise), however many more jobs you create (which they won't do), however much you give them through welfare (which they won't appreciate), the fact remains that next time there's a big enough spark they'll be back out on the streets looting the shit out of any shops that stock things they want.
People talk of deprivation. But what are these people stealing that they don't already have? They'll all have TVs at home - maybe not as big as the ones they're stealing, but still perfectly good. They'll all have shoes to wear - maybe not as expensive as the ones they're stealing, but still perfectly good. They don't lack any of these things, they just want bigger, better and more versions of them. And if that's what constitutes poverty in modern Britain, then as a country I think we're doing bloody well.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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la vie en rouge
Parisienne
# 10688
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Posted
Did anyone hear Radio 4 just after the 8 o'clock news this morning? In interviews with some of the looters in Manchester (one in particular), it seemed to me that even they didn't really know why they were there.
The kid admitted that he was stealing stuff (trainers) that he could afford to buy. When asked what he would think if someone burgled his family's house, he said he thought it would be "outrageous". So why was he doing it? His answer basically boiled down to "because I can and I'm not going to get caught." I suppose the one telling thing about that is that the motivation is at least as much "**** the police" as it is about wanting the stuff.
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Rent my holiday home in the South of France
Posts: 3696 | Registered: Nov 2005
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ExclamationMark
Shipmate
# 14715
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Posted
If it is political, why don't the rioters hit Downing Street, the Houses of Parliament or Mr and Mrs Battenburg at Buckingham Palace? Or, for a real statement, how about the Olympic Stadium or the Dome?
Nah, they won't. It's piggy backing on a protest but borne out of boredom and the possibility of "respect" within their micro community for their behaviour.
There is a huge history of popular protest at all levels from the Gordon Riots, Tolpuddle, Luddism, Cambridgeshire Farm Fires (1860's), Trafalgar Square (1888), the General Strike, the Miners Strike, Grunwick, Orgreave --- the 19th century was shot through by such protest and it's only the sanitisation of history that prevents us seeing that. Supposedly even then "everyone knew their place" but not everyone was happy with it, funnily enough.
If people see MP's (supposed law makers) breaking the law and getting away with it with their snouts firmly in the trough, they will react. If the Police are heavy handed (which we know they can be with truncheons and horses - why on earth they need those[horses] I don't know), it will provoke a response.
A middle class police force protects the middle class who shout loudly: no one looks after the "underclass" Not many police live in the community they work in. There are bad policemen just as there are bad people in any job - the problem is that their track record of dealing with problems is lamentably poor and cover ups so extreme that very very few people trust the whole concept of the police at all. Sadly, there's a few who join who like to swing their weight around a bit with a uniform to back them up.
By the way, have you ever thought of what effect it has on ordinary people when you are referred to as the underclass or as living in council housing? I had a gutful of it when I was/did and a good few people did their level best to keep me there. School included. Sadly for them, I can read and write and I didn't mind hard work.
Lastly, the middle class nature of so much polemic is plain: the concept of children being at home with their family is arrant nonsense for most of the rioters. The only family they have is the street gang. As for the Head Policeman at New Scotland Yard asking "Do you knwo where your children are?", he probably know more than most parents.
[ 10. August 2011, 09:03: Message edited by: ExclamationMark ]
Posts: 3845 | From: A new Jerusalem | Registered: Apr 2009
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
the concept of children being at home with their family is arrant nonsense for most of the rioters. The only family they have is the street gang. As for the Head Policeman at New Scotland Yard asking "Do you knwo where your children are?", he probably know more than most parents.
I completely agree. And that is the root cause of the rioting. The breakdown of the family. Bad and/or absent parenting.
So how to fix that? That's the question.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
Mr Boogie likes to dabble in stocks and shares. He's looking for firms which manufacture electronic tags as it looks like there could be quite a demand for such items ...
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Schroedinger's cat
Ship's cool cat
# 64
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Shadowhund:
It's too bad that the London rioters aren't all pedophile Catholic priests. Then we would spared all of the left-liberal handwringing about how we have step in the shoes of the maurauding thieves and feeeeel their pain, all the while blaming "society" for their abject deprivatiion resulting from their lacking of the latest consumer electronics and trendy trackwear, as opposed to food and water.
Fuck you. In a purgatorial way. The Catholic priests issue is a longer term issue, serious and challenging.
But I have not heard ANYONE say that the rioters are justified in what they are doing. OK, there are some explanations as to why people brought up with high expectations that they cannot achieve get angry.
Yes there are other problems in the world. There are bigger problems that kill more people and we should be more concerned about. But the truth is that we ALWAYS focus on the more local problems - ours, the ones we can see, the ones that are affected. And the truth is that those problems are also important. The truth is that my problems are important. They may be less globally important than famine. They may be less important than whatever you deflect your own pain onto, but they are also important.
I cannot save the world on my own. I can help one person at a time.
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Blog
Music for your enjoyment
Lord may all my hard times be healing times
take out this broken heart and renew my mind.
Posts: 18859 | From: At the bottom of a deep dark well. | Registered: May 2001
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Wesley J:
He is pointing his finger at the stunning lack of local elected politician to stand up and step in ...
A couple of our local councillors observed what was going on and kept us informed about what was happening (or more often what wasn't) by Twitter and Facebook, and helped organise some clean-up. But how could they "step in" in the riot? To the police they are just getting in the way, to be cleared off the streets along with the rest of us. To the looters they are probably completely irrelevant, and if anyone cares that they are elected councillors at all they are likely to think of them as just another authority figure and therefore the enemy.
quote:
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
If it is political, why don't the rioters hit Downing Street, the Houses of Parliament or Mr and Mrs Battenburg at Buckingham Palace?
A riot might have political causes but not political targets. Pretty much all human activity has political causes.
It looks as if the first riot in Tottenham was directed against police to start with - though it wasn't the largest attack on police in London in recent years by a long way. But after that not.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alfred E. Neuman:
Can anyone say the disadvantaged youth of the 21st century London are worse off than, say, the 17th?
Of course not. But then the level of violence is nothing like it was in the 17th century either. Or the 18th, or a large part of the 19th. The notorious "London Mob" was a lot scarier than this lot. But it more or less hasn't existed since before the Great War - though a ghost or shadow of it occasionally drags itself out of the grave certain football matches
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Marvin thinks we should napalm the council estates.
No. I think we should napalm the rioters. BIG difference.
Hmmmmm. As the main damage actually caused by the riots in London was done by fires, that would seem to be risky if not counter-productive. Or maybe positively insane.
And as a lot of the looting was done within yards of large numbers of people who weren't robbing or rioting (including me at one point) it would also hurt a lot more of the innocent than the guilty.
And as the looting was done by small groups of people moving around fast, not by large concentrations of rioters in one place, who would the target be? Same goes for naive talk about water cannon or the army.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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aumbry
Shipmate
# 436
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
If people see MP's (supposed law makers) breaking the law and getting away with it with their snouts firmly in the trough, they will react.
I have heard this trotted out on a number of occasions. I have to say I find it difficult to believe that the MPs' expenses scandal is even a flicker on the conciousness of most rioters.
Posts: 3869 | From: Quedlinburg | Registered: Jun 2001
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chris stiles
Shipmate
# 12641
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by aumbry:
quote:
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
If people see MP's (supposed law makers) breaking the law and getting away with it with their snouts firmly in the trough, they will react.
I have heard this trotted out on a number of occasions. I have to say I find it difficult to believe that the MPs' expenses scandal is even a flicker on the conciousness of most rioters.
Sure, but it does tend to indicate that the 'lack of respect for the common good' isn't restricted to some notional underclass. The MPs just have more socially acceptable ways of stealing from other people.
Posts: 4035 | From: Berkshire | Registered: May 2007
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Moth
Shipmate
# 2589
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
the concept of children being at home with their family is arrant nonsense for most of the rioters. The only family they have is the street gang. As for the Head Policeman at New Scotland Yard asking "Do you knwo where your children are?", he probably know more than most parents.
I completely agree. And that is the root cause of the rioting. The breakdown of the family. Bad and/or absent parenting.
So how to fix that? That's the question.
By reducing inequality in society. That, at least, is the conclusion of the The Spirit Level by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett. It's full of statistics and well-researched evidence, and is a book mentioned with approval by David Cameron amongst many others (in case you think I'm only banging on in my left-leaning way again).
You can read an extract of it in the New Statesman , but it's worth reading the whole book because you then get all the data it's based on, and can make up your own mind if it makes a valid argument. You can also find that evidence at the Equality Trust . There's even a section in the book which explains why disaffected young men are so desperate to get their hands on particular phones and trainers, something most of us can't see as important at all.
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"There are governments that burn books, and then there are those that sell the libraries and shut the universities to anyone who can't pay for a key." Laurie Penny.
Posts: 3446 | From: England | Registered: Apr 2002
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Marvin thinks we should napalm the council estates.
No. I think we should napalm the rioters. BIG difference.
Hmmmmm. As the main damage actually caused by the riots in London was done by fires, that would seem to be risky if not counter-productive. Or maybe positively insane.
Obviously. Actually napalming the fuckers would be a terrible move, For all the reasons you describe and more. But one can dream of such instant retribution being brought to bear, can't one?
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Angloid
Shipmate
# 159
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
If it is political, why don't the rioters hit Downing Street, the Houses of Parliament or Mr and Mrs Battenburg at Buckingham Palace? Or, for a real statement, how about the Olympic Stadium or the Dome?
Nah, they won't. It's piggy backing on a protest but borne out of boredom and the possibility of "respect" within their micro community for their behaviour.
There is a huge history of popular protest at all levels from the Gordon Riots, Tolpuddle, Luddism, Cambridgeshire Farm Fires (1860's), Trafalgar Square (1888), the General Strike, the Miners Strike, Grunwick, Orgreave --- the 19th century was shot through by such protest and it's only the sanitisation of history that prevents us seeing that. Supposedly even then "everyone knew their place" but not everyone was happy with it, funnily enough.
These disturbances are not 'political' in the sense that they are protest demonstrations like the above-mentioned. Of course not.
Cholera and similar diseases were rife in the 19th century and earlier. They were much rarer amongst the middle and upper classes than among the poor. That is because poor diet, poor housing conditions and generally unhealthy surroundings made the poor susceptible in a way that was unlikely for the well-housed and well-fed.
In a similar way, social diseases such as apathy, boredom, mindless violence are more likely to flourish where people are deprived of stimulating environments, access to education, stable family life and so on. There is of course a moral responsibility involved in succumbing to this disease which is not true of physical diseases, and the vast majority of people, even young unemployed people, in the areas affected are as horrified as the rest of us (and indeed led the teams sweeping up on the morning after).
But only God can compare the relative culpability of those who respond to the temptations of violence to those, most of us, who have never been tempted in this way. Let alone to those who have given way to the temptations of greed in the stock exchange, the banking system etc.
[ 10. August 2011, 10:18: Message edited by: Angloid ]
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Brian: You're all individuals!
Crowd: We're all individuals!
Lone voice: I'm not!
Posts: 12927 | From: The Pool of Life | Registered: May 2001
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
Sure, but it does tend to indicate that the 'lack of respect for the common good' isn't restricted to some notional underclass. The MPs just have more socially acceptable ways of stealing from other people.
Given the massive outcry, criminal charges and forced resignations that resulted from the expenses scandal, I don't think you can say it was any more "socially acceptable".
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Marvin thinks we should napalm the council estates.
No. I think we should napalm the rioters. BIG difference.
Hmmmmm. As the main damage actually caused by the riots in London was done by fires, that would seem to be risky if not counter-productive. Or maybe positively insane.
Obviously. Actually napalming the fuckers would be a terrible move, For all the reasons you describe and more. But one can dream of such instant retribution being brought to bear, can't one?
And yet when someone suggests "retribution" by divesting bankers of their ill-gotten millions with suitably legal instruments like taxes, it's suddenly "won't somebody think of the children?"
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Sylvander
Shipmate
# 12857
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
There was the peaceful protest in Tottenham that started it which was one load of people with one motive, which was to make a point about the man who was shot (who may or may not have been a violent scumbag himself, but that's not really relevant)
Sounds too complacent to me. German media still insist on exclusively calling this guy "a family man and father of four". No mention of his criminal background.
Does it not strike you as strange that ordinary people care so much that they start a protest when a gang leader criminal, armed with a gun, is killed while resisting arrest?
British police have shot a number of genuinely innocent people in the past years without their communities starting riots afterwards.
Something seems wrong in a society where normal people protest over the death of a thug.
I wonder why they did. I suspect that like the dead man, they were (mostly) blacks (I have witnessed occasions in London when ordinary black middle class have shielded small time black criminals from the police). I do not know, though, because the media keep quiet on this detail. From here "race" looks like the elephant in the room in this debate (some German newspapers have gone to great lengths to show only looters who were either white or hooded).
Thanks to krautfrau. I do not share your optimism re the German situation but your link to this book. looks interesting.
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A martyr is someone living with a saint.
2509
Posts: 1589 | From: Berlin | Registered: Jul 2007
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by angelicum:
Stealing is an action. Someone gets hurt that they wouldn't otherwise have. Whereas the attitude which I have described above (of inaction, or rather of focusing solely on my own individual/familial needs) does not necessarily involve depriving other people of anything.
I'm wary of the claim that merely meeting my needs doesn't involve depriving other people of anything. But let's go with it.
I agree that there is a morally significant distinction between harming and allowing someone to come to harm. However, caring about the distinction presupposes some commitment to morality. And if we're considering someone who's acting solely on selfish motives, I don't see the distinction would matter to them.
I don't think you ought to equate stealing and direct harm. Property rights are not natural rights. Different social groups can have different attitudes to property. Secondly, I think that although stealing from a company is hurting people it is not clear that it is hurting anyone in particular. A lot of people are inclined to think that stealing from a company isn't really stealing. I suspect (on little to no personal knowledge) that the looters are divided into the people who think stealing from companies isn't stealing and those who don't actually care about the harm to others anyway.
quote:
But protecting property is not pandering to one group of people, it's respecting all groups of people, including the so-called looters themselves. They too have property they wish to protect and do not wish for me to steal.
I don't think that the looters would go to the police if they couldn't protect their property themselves. For that matter, (speaking off the top of my head) I would guess that they have an easy-come easy-go attitude to their own personal property, or at least, the attitude that if you didn't want me to take it you should have looked after it more carefully.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Garden Hermit
Shipmate
# 109
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Posted
Its the boring summer break for school kids who just get bored.
I remember the violent Football riots every Saturday (Reading included).
Keeping everyone occupied (and tired out) would help but anyone can always find excuses to say they are disadvantaged.
I heard on the radio that it was 'black gangs mostly targeting Asian businesses' and that those groups hate each other. Any truth in this ?
Pax et Bonum
Posts: 1413 | From: Reading UK | Registered: May 2001
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sylvander:
Does it not strike you as strange that ordinary people care so much that they start a protest when a gang leader criminal, armed with a gun, is killed while resisting arrest?
Not when they are his friends and relations, no.
quote:
(I have witnessed occasions in London when ordinary black middle class have shielded small time black criminals from the police).
So what? Do you think that English or Turkish or Jewish or Pakistani people wouldn't do the same? And if you want a stereotype for sticking together try the Irish.
quote:
From here "race" looks like the elephant in the room in this debate (some German newspapers have gone to great lengths to show only looters who were either white or hooded).
Not the case here at all. If anything the race business is over-emphasised - it is clear that the looting and widespread violence was not mainly about race even if the original protest in Tottenham was. Though even there the dead man's friends and family weren't all black.
Maybe German media miss the jargon. In London mediaspeak "the Community" means poor black people. And "youth" means poor black teenage boys that nice people like the ones talking on TV want to go away from their gentrified street corners. "Community relations" means semi-retired police officers and well-meaning civil servants talking to "community leaders" - that is any local councillors or church ministers or businessmen they can find who happen to have darker skins than they do.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Garden Hermit:
I heard on the radio that it was 'black gangs mostly targeting Asian businesses' and that those groups hate each other. Any truth in this ?
No. Not in London anyway. In fact its the opposite. The gangs aren't all black, and the targets are mostly shops owned by big chains. The small Asian corner shops were on the whole untouched. With exceptions of course. There might be all sorts of reasons for this, I could make up half a dozen off the top of my head.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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chris stiles
Shipmate
# 12641
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Given the massive outcry, criminal charges and forced resignations that resulted from the expenses scandal, I don't think you can say it was any more "socially acceptable".
The vast majority paid back the sums and avoided sanctions of any sort. I suspect if you or I robbed money and then offered to pay it back we'd still be looking at jail.
Posts: 4035 | From: Berkshire | Registered: May 2007
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An die Freude
Shipmate
# 14794
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Posted
I'm personally curious as to how many of the residents of the poorer areas are NOT out and about looting and setting things on fire. Every explanation that seeks to explain why some people do this must explain why others in similar positions don't. As you've stated, Ken, the groups do seem fairly small. What kind of people, among the groups that do seem likely, for whatever reasons, to enter into such events as these, don't? Why?
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"I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable."
Walt Whitman
Formerly JFH
Posts: 851 | From: Proud Socialist Monarchy of Sweden | Registered: May 2009
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Ramarius
Shipmate
# 16551
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Posted
You maybe interested in the views of these people - they always get a sympathetic hearing from the Government's Social Justice Lead, Ian Duncan-Smith.
Criminal riots reveal part of British society ‘broken and detached’, says Gavin Poole, CSJ Executive Director
Gavin Poole, Executive Director of the CSJ, has issued the following comment on the riots that have disfigured London and other major cities:
The appalling scenes on the streets of London, and elsewhere in the UK, should be condemned unreservedly.
The actions of those people, many of whom are reported to be children and teenagers, are endangering lives, attacking police officers, destroying buildings and looting goods. It is criminal behaviour and must be met with the full force of the law.
Yet we have to recognise that this mayhem also exposes a broken section of British society – utterly detached from the values and responsibilities we expect of our fellow citizens. When the crisis is eventually controlled and the broader questions are asked, we will find many of these young people roaming the streets causing chaos are from a lost generation.
As wrong and unacceptable as it is, they project anarchy in public because it is what surrounds them at home. Many will have never known stable parenting or fatherhood role models. Such family breakdown and dysfunction has rendered countless young people damaged and directionless.
We will find a high majority of these young people have failed in schools where truancy is normal, behaviour is often disruptive and boundaries are not established. Many of them face a life on benefits in ghettos scarred by poor housing and street gangs, completely devoid of aspiration. In such communities, they have been written off by society repeatedly.
These are the actions of people who live in chaos, hopelessness and poverty. What they are doing is criminal, completely wrong and must be punished. But it is not entirely random; they believe they have nothing to lose and no one to answer to. Some even consider it normal.
Yes, we need political leadership and a debate about policing techniques. But when the violence ends, we need deep rooted social reform which understands that a section of Britain is badly broken and needs to be rebuilt.
Posts: 950 | From: Virtually anywhere | Registered: Jul 2011
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Alwyn
Shipmate
# 4380
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
[...] that is the root cause of the rioting. The breakdown of the family.
Despite being on the political left, I'd agree that family breakdown is relevant (even if I don't see it as 'the' cause). I also agree with people who say that poverty is a factor. For me, this is a case of 'both/and', not 'either/or'.
Family breakdown and poverty act together, contributing to negative outcomes in young people, according to a 2009 report:
"Evidence shows that a number of key factors contribute to, and/or are a consequence of, family breakdown. Among these, the most significant are financial hardship, poor maternal mental health, and protracted and unresolved conflict between parents. These
factors interact in complex ways and, via a chain of events, have a cumulative effect. Typically, they lead to increased stress on the part of the custodial parent (usually mothers)which, in turn, increases the risk of negative outcomes in children." (p. 26)
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
[...] So how to fix that? That's the question.
Indeed. According to the same report:-
"positive maternal mental health and mothers’ access to adequate social and financial support serve to moderate the potentially negative impact of family breakdown on children. Good communication between parents, and positive child-parent relationships are crucial to children’s well-being. Parents who are able to contain their distress and to negotiate and facilitate acceptable arrangements post-separation also help their children to adjust to family breakdown." (p. 26)
It seems that both the (political) right and left have part of the truth. Both relationships and poverty matter. Help in the areas of human relationships and poverty are needed.
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Post hoc, ergo propter hoc
Posts: 849 | From: UK | Registered: Apr 2003
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Adrian1
Shipmate
# 3994
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Posted
I think the point has been passed at which the root cause is really relevant. The rioting needs to be seen for exactly what it is - sheer mindless criminality. As is often the way with these things, what started in London was initially a reaction to s specific incident. However it soon spread beyond that and quickly became an excuse for the disaffected and those who simply enjoy destroying things to basically have a party. There are no doubt plenty of people out there who feel, with some justification, that life's been hard to them and dealt them a rough hand. To that extent they're in good company with me and, perhaps, a good proportion of the posters here. However being dealt a rough hand is no excuse for going out and damaging, or worse, destroying the property of people who've worked hard for what they've got and are probably struggling to keep their heads above water as it is.
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The Parson's Handbook contains much excellent advice, which, if it were more generally followed, would bring some order and reasonableness into the amazing vagaries of Anglican Ritualism. Adrian Fortescue
Posts: 1986 | From: UK | Registered: Jan 2003
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ExclamationMark
Shipmate
# 14715
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Garden Hermit:
'black gangs mostly targeting Asian businesses' and that those groups hate each other. Any truth in this ?
Pax et Bonum
In my experience in Lambeth in the late 1980's - yes without any doubt. The worst (and yet unreported) racism at that time was between afro caribbeans and asians: whites daren't do the same (except perhaps the police, judiciary etc who didn't have to live amongst the people they despised).
Posts: 3845 | From: A new Jerusalem | Registered: Apr 2009
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ExclamationMark
Shipmate
# 14715
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Given the massive outcry, criminal charges and forced resignations that resulted from the expenses scandal, I don't think you can say it was any more "socially acceptable".
The vast majority paid back the sums and avoided sanctions of any sort. I suspect if you or I robbed money and then offered to pay it back we'd still be looking at jail.
They've bent the rules again since, have emasculated the powers of the regulatory bodies and evidently believe that fleecing the nation is a God given right of their work as an MP. Why do we wonder at the problems we see in the cities when there is no moral compass either within the families or in our so called leaders? Where is the integrity in public life that becomes the example for people to follow? can you name me just one?
Posts: 3845 | From: A new Jerusalem | Registered: Apr 2009
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
Here is a quote from this site. quote:
Young girls on alcopops ‘dared’ each other to go and nick something. Lads tried to break onto Lidl and set fire to it, and mothers sent small children in to fill shopping bags with food and beer because they are too young to be arrested. I wasn’t the only one challenging some of this – other residents were trying to talk sense into those who had somehow lost all sense of their normal boundaries but it seemed like one big joke to a mass of hysterical people laughing all the way to the bank. How could anyone putt their children in such a dangerous position, never mind ask them to commit crimes?
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
n my experience in Lambeth in the late 1980's - yes without any doubt.
Lets get this straight. You think that your experience from thirty years ago is more relevant to what happened this week than what hundreds of people who were actually there saw and reported?
Can we have your crystal ball please? We obviously need it.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Hey, they don't pay no mind
If you're under eighteen you won't be doing any time
Hey, come out and play
The Offspring, 1994.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
Here is a quote from this site.
Read the whole thing. Its the account of a vicar on his way home in Salfrod who fell amongst looters. Its very typical of what people are describing from all over the country.
This article in the Grauniad is worth reading as well. (Even though it quotes two people I think are among the most annoying political commentators in Britain, Claire Fox - who is surely no longer left-wing if she ever was? - and Celibate Batman-Jellybean who talks like a bad edition of Woman's Hour)
But I think both articles reinforce my growing feeling that the right thing to do is not "clear the streets" and let police and looters get on with it, but behave as normally as possible, stay visible and try to keep things open and functioning.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Jessie Phillips
Shipmate
# 13048
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by art dunce:
Well all the rage and frustration of being disenfranchised will eventually seek catharsis in the forms your seeing now and since they have no investment in your lovely world they'll think nothing of watching it burn.
Well, now that the worst of it seems to have passed - at least in London - strangely, I find that I am experiencing something like that catharsis myself. Doesn't stop me being slightly scared about the possibility of it flaring up again though.
quote:
Originally posted by Sarah G:
I suspect the main reason people are rioting is because it's fun. And you get to nick stuff.
![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
I'm surprised nobody seems to be prepared to admit that rioting is fun. It's wrong, like a lot of things. I've never done it. But we can all recognise and tell that people get a kick out of it. Cut the high-mindedness and the soul-searching explanations. There's an edgy buzz to rioting. That's why it spreads. That's why they send twitters to each other saying where it's happening, just like they do for raves and for football violence.
I am coming to the opinion that actually, pretty much everyone understands this - and people are only making a pretence that they don't understand it, so as to draw a line between "them" and "us", because they want to appear more "civilised" than the "mob".
The reason you loot is because you've seen ads on telly for stuff you want. Whether you have the money for it or not makes no difference. If you don't have the money, then you'd rather not do the things you have to do, or sell the things you have to sell, in order to get that money. But if you do have the money, you'd rather save it, so that you can spend it on other things - perhaps including (shock horror!) things that will improve the prospects of your kids.
Rocket science it ain't.
I grant this does not explain why lioting and rooting don't happen all the time, though. So that's why I think the important question is not so much what motivates people to loot and riot - but more significantly, what causes the normal inhibitions that prevent it from happening more frequently to break down from time to time.
But looting and rioting are different, though not unrelated. Rioting occurs because there's anger at the police, and some event triggers it to release. But looting occurs simply because those riots create an opportunity.
But does rioting really create an opportunity? Fact is, hundreds of people have been arrested for burglary - so it could be argued that the riots didn't really create a greater opportunity for looting than that which already existed. However, a drop in inhibitions is a factor in both the riots and the looting.
quote:
Originally posted by Ramarius:
Yet we have to recognise that this mayhem also exposes a broken section of British society – utterly detached from the values and responsibilities we expect of our fellow citizens.
Gavin Poole may be onto something there - but even this fails to acknowledge the fact that the riots started one day, and stopped another day. If a section of British society is truly broken, then when exactly did it break? Did it break on Saturday - or has it been broken for longer than that? If it's been broken for longer than that, then what stopped the riots from breaking out before Saturday?
I don't deny that we live in a stratified society. But that doesn't make the specific situational causes of this particular round of unrest irrelevant.
You could say that the divisions in society are like a pressure cooker, waiting to explode - but then, so, too, is - um - a pressure cooker. You know - one of those things that are used to cook food at high altitudes. The fact that there's a risk that they might go off isn't a reason for not allowing people to use pressure cookers at all. Rather, it's a reason for having extra redundancy in the safety mechanisms.
I think we need to keep the risks in perspective. There's been a lot of FUD - but the number of lives lost has still been relatively small, at least compared with the road traffic accident death toll.
Posts: 2244 | From: Home counties, UK | Registered: Oct 2007
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Sylvander
Shipmate
# 12857
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by Sylvander:
Does it not strike you as strange that ordinary people care so much that they start a protest when a gang leader criminal, armed with a gun, is killed while resisting arrest?
Not when they are his friends and relations, no.
Then we live in different worlds. I find it strange when the family and friends of a gangster have the cheek to publicly protest after he has been brought to justice. To me this looks like they simply do not see the wrong of his doings (and more likely than not theirs, too).
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by Sylvander:
(I have witnessed occasions in London when ordinary black middle class have shielded small time black criminals from the police).
So what? Do you think that English or Turkish or Jewish or Pakistani people wouldn't do the same?
In fact I have seen Turks doing it over here, albeit not to the police but to the public. But do you seriously think you'd find ordinary middle-class white Germans or Englishmen shielding a thief from the police after he was apprehended by members of the public because he was a fellow-white? I do not believe you.
I think this article about sums it up. Most of this "police and society have treated them badly and now they retaliate" is just excuses.
And yes, I have in the past occasionally been checked on by police (with sub-machine guns pointing at me) for nothing but being young and long-haired (and French police were much worse than German, I discovered). Probably more often than the average black kid nowadays. I don't think this explains much. If you have a normal background and nobody lectures you on how you are a group victim, you get annoyed, even angry at such incidents, but you still do not smash up shops and people.
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A martyr is someone living with a saint.
2509
Posts: 1589 | From: Berlin | Registered: Jul 2007
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Og: Thread Killer
Ship's token CN Mennonite
# 3200
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
the concept of children being at home with their family is arrant nonsense for most of the rioters. The only family they have is the street gang. As for the Head Policeman at New Scotland Yard asking "Do you knwo where your children are?", he probably know more than most parents.
I completely agree. And that is the root cause of the rioting. The breakdown of the family. Bad and/or absent parenting.
So how to fix that? That's the question.
Positive male role models, especially models of Dad's who take responsibility with their kids and at least attempt to act as monogomous as the rest of society.
There's been a long standing issue in parts of the West Indian community here, primarily Jamaican but it seeps into others, including within the religious community, with an acceptance of deadbeat/not involved dad's. The idea of a guy having one girl to be his babby momma, one to be his wife, and two to be his mistress' is ingrained in a large % of the male population from certain cultures. That's their only role model for a Dad - somebody not involved.
I noticed the guy killed by the cops was a father of 4 at the age of 26. (Using him as a community example, not saying he got shot because of being a dad so many times at a relatively young age)
Is that an issue among disaffected or black youth in the UK? And has there been a large push by the churches the families attend to try to get boys/men to take responsibility for being a Dad?
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I wish I was seeking justice loving mercy and walking humbly but... "Cease to lament for that thou canst not help, And study help for that which thou lament'st."
Posts: 5025 | From: Toronto | Registered: Aug 2002
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sylvander:
I find it strange when the family and friends of a gangster have the cheek to publicly protest after he has been brought to justice.
I find it strange when you can call getting pulled up in a car and shot "being brought to justice".
And I find it strange that you can be so sure that someone you never heard of before Thursday and who will never be tried in court for whatever crime he may have been accused of was a gangster just because a police officer shot him.
And I find it strange that you assume the police got it right. Sometimes they get it wrong. The police officer who killed Ian Tomlinson hasn't been tried yet - he's suspended on full pay. So he gets a nice long holiday. But the other bloke is still dead.
And I find it strange that you seem to think that knowing that your son or brother or husband is a criminal means that you would no longer want to defend them. That's an attitude I find un-natural and a bit creepy. I think I prefer a world like the one most people actually live in where they are more loyal to their own friends and family than they are to the state, and sometimes do not abandon them even when they are doing evil things.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
I find it strange when you can call getting pulled up in a car and shot "being brought to justice".
You missed the part where he pulled out a gun. OK, he didn't fire it - but he still had it and made the police aware of that fact in a way that caused at least one of them to pull the trigger.
Now, you might say that that's an unnecessary (and/or criminal) overreaction by the police officer(s) involved. And you might even be right. But if that officer was me, I'm not sure I'd want to wait until I know for sure that he's going to fire before firing back. It might just be me that he hits...
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Og: Thread Killer
Ship's token CN Mennonite
# 3200
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sylvander:
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by Sylvander:
Does it not strike you as strange that ordinary people care so much that they start a protest when a gang leader criminal, armed with a gun, is killed while resisting arrest?
Not when they are his friends and relations, no.
Then we live in different worlds. I find it strange when the family and friends of a gangster have the cheek to publicly protest after he has been brought to justice. To me this looks like they simply do not see the wrong of his doings (and more likely than not theirs, too).
Most people prefer criminals get tried rather then shot out of hand.
Due process and rule of law is always something to uphold. If he was convicted, he was out now. So justice had been served on those cases. At that point he has the same rights as anybody else.
quote:
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by Sylvander:
(I have witnessed occasions in London when ordinary black middle class have shielded small time black criminals from the police).
So what? Do you think that English or Turkish or Jewish or Pakistani people wouldn't do the same?
In fact I have seen Turks doing it over here, albeit not to the police but to the public. But do you seriously think you'd find ordinary middle-class white Germans or Englishmen shielding a thief from the police after he was apprehended by members of the public because he was a fellow-white? I do not believe you.
.....(clipped bit about dealing with French cops) Probably more often than the average black kid nowadays.
You got stopped everyday then?
quote:
I don't think this explains much. If you have a normal background and nobody lectures you on how you are a group victim, you get annoyed, even angry at such incidents, but you still do not smash up shops and people.
Nobody is excusing the smashing up.
But, given what you have written, I doubt you have much experience dealing with people who are black and young. Your issues with French police because you had long hair are not the same.
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I wish I was seeking justice loving mercy and walking humbly but... "Cease to lament for that thou canst not help, And study help for that which thou lament'st."
Posts: 5025 | From: Toronto | Registered: Aug 2002
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Esmeralda
Ship's token UK Mennonite
# 582
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Posted
A man in my church, with vast experience of Broadwater Farm Estate, knew Marc Duggan when he was about 10. He said Marc was a nice kid, but his parents were on drugs and he never had much of a chance. If he grew up to be a gangster (which is not proven yet), it is hardly surprising. And there are hundreds of thousands of kids like him.
Incidentally, ken, I don't think it's big or clever to diss Camila Batmaghelidjh when she has done so much, at huge personal cost, to turn around the lives of disaffected kids. What have you - or I? - done to help these kids?
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I can take the despair. It's the hope I can't stand.
http://reversedstandard.wordpress.com/
Posts: 17415 | From: A small island nobody pays any attention to | Registered: Jun 2001
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
One of the first looters in front of the courts (He pleaded guilty) was a teaching assistant. No 'underclass' there.
That will be his job and chance of any other job down the tubes for good.
Why would someone risk everything for a new TV?
It makes no sense whatever to me.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Esmeralda:
And there are hundreds of thousands of kids like him.
Hundreds, certainly. Thousands, probably. Maybe t tens of thousands though I suspect not. But not hundfeds of thousands. Not in London anyway.
quote:
Incidentally, ken, I don't think it's big or clever to diss Camila Batmaghelidjh when she has done so much...
Oh I am sure she is wonderful but whenever she comes on the radio or TV its I cringe at all the cliches and stereotypes and over-simplistic stuff she talks about. Its not the good she does that annoys me its the quality of the political comment. I'm sure me being a bit narked now and again isn't going to cause her any more difficulty or troubles than she has already had.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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la vie en rouge
Parisienne
# 10688
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Posted
And FWIW I think you're out of date about the French police as well. Here it's "walking down the street while Arab" that gets you stopped and asked for your papers (a (perfectly law-abiding) Egyptian friend tells me this happens to him all the time).
[x-posted with the world - comments addressed to Sylvander, obviously]
[ 10. August 2011, 14:25: Message edited by: la vie en rouge ]
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Rent my holiday home in the South of France
Posts: 3696 | Registered: Nov 2005
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Og: Thread Killer
Ship's token CN Mennonite
# 3200
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Boogie:
One of the first looters in front of the courts (He pleaded guilty) was a teaching assistant. No 'underclass' there.
That will be his job and chance of any other job down the tubes for good.
Why would someone risk everything for a new TV?
It makes no sense whatever to me.
Why do people do anything wrong? Except for the punishment, what's the difference between them and somebody driving drunk or cheating on their taxes? As an aside, would a criminal conviction in those cases cause a TA to lose his job if not imprisoned?
The reasons why people loot are individualised. Root causes can be found eventually, but they will be nuanced and complex. If things like this are to be stopped in the future, looking for a enough similiar causes among those who do these things is a good idea.
I don't have sympathy for those who choose to loot...I just wonder like you why this happens and how to prevent it.
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I wish I was seeking justice loving mercy and walking humbly but... "Cease to lament for that thou canst not help, And study help for that which thou lament'st."
Posts: 5025 | From: Toronto | Registered: Aug 2002
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Angloid
Shipmate
# 159
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
Here is a quote from this site.
Read the whole thing. Its the account of a vicar on his way home in Salfrod who fell amongst looters. Its very typical of what people are describing from all over the country.
Especially this: quote:
I want to weep with rage at a society that has disenfranchised so many for so long whilst brainwashing two/three generations of children to want, want, want!
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Brian: You're all individuals!
Crowd: We're all individuals!
Lone voice: I'm not!
Posts: 12927 | From: The Pool of Life | Registered: May 2001
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Og: Thread Killer:
As an aside, would a criminal conviction in those cases cause a TA to lose his job if not imprisoned?
Yes, I think so.
It certainly would for a teacher.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
Here is a quote from this site.
Read the whole thing. Its the account of a vicar on his way home in Salfrod who fell amongst looters. Its very typical of what people are describing from all over the country.
Especially this: quote:
I want to weep with rage at a society that has disenfranchised so many for so long whilst brainwashing two/three generations of children to want, want, want!
I must apologise for typing "his" instead of "her". Unconscious brain glitch. Still have that image that goes with the word "vicar". Even though we are on our second woman incumbent and last had a man in the job in about 1994.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Chesterbelloc
Tremendous trifler
# 3128
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:
Especially this: quote:
I want to weep with rage at a society that has disenfranchised so many for so long whilst brainwashing two/three generations of children to want, want, want!
I liked that piece too. But who's actually been doing the "disenfrachising" and how? I don't see anything that could count as that - except maybe some self-disenfranchising.
FWIW, the bit of that blogpost that hit me the hardest was the parents callously putting their young kids at risk to go into dangerous situations to steal stuff for them. Utterly sick-making. But of course, it's "just a laugh, innit?"
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"[A] moral, intellectual, and social step below Mudfrog."
Posts: 4199 | From: Athens Borealis | Registered: Aug 2002
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Jessie Phillips
Shipmate
# 13048
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
I find it strange when you can call getting pulled up in a car and shot "being brought to justice".
You missed the part where he pulled out a gun. OK, he didn't fire it - but he still had it and made the police aware of that fact in a way that caused at least one of them to pull the trigger.
Now, you might say that that's an unnecessary (and/or criminal) overreaction by the police officer(s) involved. And you might even be right. But if that officer was me, I'm not sure I'd want to wait until I know for sure that he's going to fire before firing back. It might just be me that he hits...
The problem here is that you're in danger of anachronistically reading subsequent revelations back into the motives of the early protesters.
The results of the IPCC investigation you have just mentioned were not known on Saturday evening, when a peaceful protest was conducted in Tottenham. At the time, the main concern was that the police appeared to have shot someone, and were staying very tight-lipped about why they did it. The community wanted answers, but those answers were not forthcoming, and community thought they were being fobbed off.
Whether the Met were right to play the PR game in quite the way they did is a separate matter.
Heavy handed policing is all very well when you have a crystal clear notion of the gangsters who are "them", and the normal law-abiding people who are "us", and you are confident in the ability of the police to tell the two apart. But when it looks as though the police aren't quite so good in telling the two apart, and are in the habit of treating pretty much everyone as one of "them", then it's the police that becomes the "them", and everyone else becomes "us".
Posts: 2244 | From: Home counties, UK | Registered: Oct 2007
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