there is nothing particularly admirable about rioting and looting and

[cali]

indiscriminate violence. It is not protest. It will change nothing for the better but will bring misery to the lives of people who live in the places being looted and burned. It doesn't touch the wealthy corporate class.

[HappyMe]

1. Yup.

Rioting & looting & burning only hurts your small business owner neighbors.

I will never understand why people can't grasp this concept.

[Tallulah]

2. I agree

Others will suffer. The ones that can least afford to. Plus it scares people. It's just not right.

[Warpy]

3. Short term, it will bring in the military and water cannons

because we've seen all this shit before and a crackdown always happens.

Longer term, a few things might improve for a while, but don't bet on it.

Unfortunately, I think they just handed some additional time to the Tories.

Violence can work, but only after peaceful means have been exhausted and the government is impervious to shame.

This went straight to violence.

(All I can think about is the poor people who had their flats above the burned out shops)

[Cali_Democrat]

4. When the French had their revolution in the late 1700's

I'm sure the aristocracy accused them of indiscriminate violence.

[jberryhill]

7. Because it became indiscriminate violence

..and a dictator ultimately emerged.

[Cali_Democrat]

8. True...but it was the first step in ultimately achieving a better society later on.

My point is that revolution can be messy and usually is.

[jberryhill]

13. Lol... you might as well make the same claim about the monarchy

I mean, goodness, the conquest of Gaul by the Romans was an even earlier "step in ultimately achieving a better society later on."

Yes, France gained a great deal of wealth by conquering Europe under the guidance of a dictator, and it did indeed lay the foundation for a better society "later on".

[Cali_Democrat]

14. So I take it you weren't a fan of the French Revolution.

[jberryhill]

17. Big Fan

Native Delawareans like myself are taught that if it hadn't been for the French Revolution, then E.I. DuPont wouldn't have moved here with the recipe for gunpowder that he got from Lavoisier.

In short order, the French Revolution took France from a monarchy to a military dictatorship in a very few short years, but DuPont made a mint from ensuing developments...

http://www2.dupont.com/Heritage/en_US/related_topics/pierre_samuel_dupont.html

[coalition_unwilling]

29. Yipes, that's a gross over-simplification and diminution of what the French

Revolution accomplished. Just the Tennis Court Oath by itself enshrines the Revolution for all eternity in the hearts of all free-thinking peoples.

[coalition_unwilling]

26. Say what you will about him, Bonaparte liberated a lot of serfs

in his various campaigns.

[jberryhill]

28. I didn't mean to imply that military dictatorship doesn't have it upside

It's just that in the US, we don't need a revolution to get one.

Here, we can vote for them if we want.

[FreeJoe]

36. The French didn't have access to the ballot box.

The British do. They have no excuse for resorting to violence.

[TorchTheWitch]

21. This is no revolution - it doesn't even have anything to do with politics

This is nothing but violence and mayhem with no purpose other than to enjoy doing violence and mayhem in an environment where they aren't likely to be caught or punished. It's entirely senseless and indiscriminate.

[Tunkamerica]

25. the bbc disagrees. according to their broadcast approx. 12am edt

some of the rioters are bored kids and some are rioting specifically because of the austerity measures and will tell anyone with a microphone the same.

[coalition_unwilling]

30. What was your take on the LA riots? I see many parallels, not least

of which is the 30+ years of Thatcherism and unchecked police brutality

[kiva]

5. No, the rich will remain well insulated against the violence.

The looters will destroy their own community...but hey, they'll have some cool jeans and stuff.

[gateley]

6. I remember hearing a man about how he behaved following

a catastrophe (and I don't recall what it was, sorry). He said that rioting broke out, you could feel it building in the air, and the next thing he's thinking is "why did I just throw a rock through that window?". He was a middle class white collar businessman, and just got swept up in the fervor. I think those who begin it may just snap - feel so frustrated and stifled they strike out, and then it accelerates from there.

So other than true anarchists, I'm not sure it's a planned action, but rather a result of the situation in which these people find themselves.

But I sure agree that it never seems to touch the wealthy corporate class, except as a result of revolution.

[Speck Tater]

9. It just the way humans act under exteme stress. No, it's not a good thing. nt

[Chorophyll]

10. I agree. Nothing admirable, nothing romantic, and ultimately

nothing effective.

[BeFree]

11. Like Afghanistan ?

We sure started a riot over there, eh?

[cali]

18. say what?

wowzer, that's a great example of a non-sequitur. A war is what we started. duh.

[WCGreen]

12. You are absolutely right...

people rooting on looters and hoodlums are deluded by romantic notions of the French Revolution...

And we all know how that turned out.

[jberryhill]

15. Projection

"I am angry about something.

There's a whole bunch of angry people on TV.

They must be angry about what I'm angry about, and are expressing the same anger I am.

Therefore, I support them."

That's what's up with the ones who just know that the reason people are rioting is because they have some noble cause in mind.

[dana_b]

16. this is a grey issue in my

mind. I agree that indiscriminate looting/violence is wrong especially if it is hurting innocents however I understand some of the reactions to the police after the death of that man in Tottenham as well as the beating of a 16 yo girl. Some are also upset with their lack of opportunities, austerity measures, etc. However there was no organized measure after the protest (Tottenham) was overtaken by violence and looting. Because of that any message or reason has become lost and now it is just seen as "thuggery". I hope to gawd people aren't seriously hurt or worse. Some people's lives have already been turned upside down, businesses and homes lost.
Some of the coverage I have seen seems to be more interested in how this will reflect on the UK and the Olympics next year rather than how the people are being affected today and any possible reasons behind it.

[ohheckyeah]

19. yep, but it damn sure got attention, didn't it?

Unlike many liberal protests that go without any media coverage.

[dana_b]

23. yep! just like one guy said

"In one NBC report, a young man in Tottenham was asked if rioting really achieved anything:

"Yes," said the young man. "You wouldn't be talking to me now if we didn't riot, would you?"

"Two months ago we marched to Scotland Yard, more than 2,000 of us, all blacks, and it was peaceful and calm and you know what? Not a word in the press. Last night a bit of rioting and looting and look around you."

http://pennyred.blogspot.com/2011/08/panic-on-streets-of-london.html

[JDPriestly]

20. Riots are not an effective means of changing things.

But sometimes out of riots effective ways to change things reveal themselves.

I don't know what the frustrated British students and minorities are supposed to do. Riots aren't the answer, but then what is? Patience hasn't worked. Both Labor and the Tories have refused to put the people's interests first.

[entanglement]

22. The London riots are a symptom of modern society in an advanced state of decay

They point to the deepening social crisis unleashed by decades of unfettered capitalism and an all-out assault on the jobs, rights and living conditions of people. The Tories will, of course, draw the opposite conclusions and increase police-state measures and austerity instead.

[cali]

31. perhaps. I don't think I'd argue against that, but that doesn't make

rioting and indiscriminate violence an effective tool for change. And this isn't the first time in recent history that rioting such as this has occurred in GB.

[coalition_unwilling]

24. Mao: "All oppression breeds resistance". There is nothing

admirable about what 30+ years of Thatcherism have done to the UK's urban proletariat either. When the urban proletariat does it you call it 'looting' so what do you call it when the ruling class does it?

[cali]

32. I call it grand theft when the corpocracy does it

and yes, sorry, but it is indiscriminate violence and looting that is largely hurting those who live in the communities affected. And it's a small percentage of the urban proletariat doing it. Most of the urban proletariat are the direct victims.

[sabrina 1]

33. They call it a 'noble cause' when they do it, when they destroy whole

countries and kill their citizens. And then loot them.

This is nothing compared to what the corporatocracy does.

[Lucian]

27. If there was no looting and rioting, I'm pretty sure the networks would've been silent.

[Fool Count]

34. Yes, it does touch the wealthy corporate class.

If not directly then by practical demonstration of how fragile and transitory their cherished
status quo is. They may even modify their behavior in order to avoid seeing more of such
demonstrations in the future.

[cali]

40. no, it really doesn't. and don't hold your breath. these riots in London

are hardly unprecedented. Think 1985.

[Fool Count]

49. Well, maybe our corporate overlords need just such a reminder

every 25 years or so. Maybe we owe those 25 years of gentler screwing instead of violent rape
to that 1985. Maybe this 2011 will buy us another quarter century. Hey, I'll settle for a decade.

[TeamsterDem]

35. My sentiments exactly. n/t

[FreeJoe]

37. I agree completely

[GliderGuider]

38. I don't need to find it admirable to find it necessary

I think it's an essential expression of the rage and disempowerment of an entire class of human beings. This is the only avenue they have open to get to a microphone.

Whether or not it's "admirable" to our tongue-clucking North American sensibilities, I'm completely in favour of what they're doing.

[cali]

39. necessary? how will it improve the lives of those on the margins in the city of London?

Or Birmingham? And no, it's not the only avenue available. This has turned into nothing but opportunistic looting and mindless violence. And what a silly, silly comment, honey, about "tongue clucking North American sensibilities. Glad YOU are in favor of the poor suffering. I'm not.

[GliderGuider]

45. Let's listen to the voice of someone who lives there

Panic on the streets of London.

In the scramble to comprehend the riots, every single commentator has opened with a ritual condemnation of the violence, as if it were in any doubt that arson, muggings and lootings are ugly occurrences. That much should be obvious to anyone who is watching Croydon burn down on the BBC right now. David Lammy, MP for Tottenham, called the disorder 'mindless, mindless'. Nick Clegg denounced it as 'needless, opportunistic theft and violence'. Speaking from his Tuscan holiday villa, Prime Minister David Cameron – who has finally decided to return home to take charge - declared simply that the social unrest searing through the poorest boroughs in the country was "utterly unacceptable." The violence on the streets is being dismissed as ‘pure criminality,’ as the work of a ‘violent minority’, as ‘opportunism.’ This is madly insufficient. It is no way to talk about viral civil unrest. Angry young people with nothing to do and little to lose are turning on their own communities, and they cannot be stopped, and they know it. Tonight, in one of the greatest cities in the world, society is ripping itself apart.

Violence is rarely mindless. The politics of a burning building, a smashed-in shop or a young man shot by police may be obscured even to those who lit the rags or fired the gun, but the politics are there. Unquestionably there is far, far more to these riots than the death of Mark Duggan, whose shooting sparked off the unrest on Saturday, when two police cars were set alight after a five-hour vigil at Tottenham police station. A peaceful protest over the death of a man at police hands, in a community where locals have been given every reason to mistrust the forces of law and order, is one sort of political statement. Raiding shops for technology and trainers that cost ten times as much as the benefits you’re no longer entitled to is another. A co-ordinated, viral wave of civil unrest across the poorest boroughs of Britain, with young people coming from across the capital and the country to battle the police, is another.

Months of conjecture will follow these riots. Already, the internet is teeming with racist vitriol and wild speculation. The truth is that very few people know why this is happening. They don’t know, because they were not watching these communities. Nobody has been watching Tottenham since the television cameras drifted away after the Broadwater Farm riots of 1985. Most of the people who will be writing, speaking and pontificating about the disorder this weekend have absolutely no idea what it is like to grow up in a community where there are no jobs, no space to live or move, and the police are on the streets stopping-and-searching you as you come home from school. The people who do will be waking up this week in the sure and certain knowledge that after decades of being ignored and marginalised and harassed by the police, after months of seeing any conceivable hope of a better future confiscated, they are finally on the news. In one NBC report, a young man in Tottenham was asked if rioting really achieved anything:

"Yes," said the young man. "You wouldn't be talking to me now if we didn't riot, would you?"

"Two months ago we marched to Scotland Yard, more than 2,000 of us, all blacks, and it was peaceful and calm and you know what? Not a word in the press. Last night a bit of rioting and looting and look around you."

Eavesdropping from among the onlookers, I looked around. A dozen TV crews and newspaper reporters interviewing the young men everywhere ‘’’

There are communities all over the country that nobody paid attention to unless there had recently been a riot or a murdered child. Well, they’re paying attention now..

And I think attitudes that dismiss the rioters out of hand are prima facie evidence of what they're revolting against with this cathartic rampage: a deeply classist imperialism.

[JVS]

46. Maybe the London police won't kill unarmed people without thinking twice in the future..

[Blue_Tires]

47. quite the contrary

IMO, with the Olympics coming, the cops will have a lot more leeway in their policing tactics to keep order...(speaking as a former Atlanta resident)

[Creideiki]

41. still, it's the end result of inequality

None of the French Revolutions were pretty, but ultimately the inequality was what caused them. And now France is far better off than we are.

[Prism]

42. I see thugs going after the poor and the weak

Idiots. If they wanted to make any kind of coherent statement, they'd be on the steps of Parliament and at the gates of Buckingham Palace at this point.

But no. They're robbing and looting and burning down the poorer areas of the inner city. The elites are trembling in fear? Pfft, these rioters are only hurting each other, their own people and neighborhoods.

Seeing comparisons to the French Revolution is odd. Those revolutionaries charged the Bastille, the Tuleries, and the bastions of the Church. They went after the powerful.

Until anything remotely similar materializes in London, I'll not see this as some grand uprising. I think people are reading into this what they hope is there and not what actually is.

[Blue_Tires]

48. That's my point as well...

Aside from the first night (which was at least genuine in its own way), there's as much of a "political statement" in this jackassery as there was in the Vancouver Stanley Cup riot...

FWIW I'm all about power to the people moments, but I have seen none in the coverage I've watched...

[malaise]

43. This started because an unarmed man was executed by

the cops.

[TheKentuckian]

44. They need to be rioting in the neighborhoods of the wealthy and the politicians

They ought to be looting the upper crust stores and wrecking havoc in the financial sector.

The venue is my biggest concern.