There is nothing noble or admirable about what the recreational rioters are doing in England

[Turborama]

I have seen an interview with a terrified old lady who woke up to see masked robbers in her bedroom, reports of psychos beating up a bus driver and a guy who tried to help him, family businesses burnt down (that enormous fire was a furniture business which had been in the same family for 5 generations - 150 years!) and/or robbed of all their stock, numerous cars burnt for no reason whatsoever, the list goes on and on.

The media are calling them "protesters" but this misnomer of these recreational rioters/thieves demeans the real political protesters. The rioters don't have a political agenda. They have a "lets destroy buildings/cars/generally smash shit up for fun and steal" agenda.

Anyone who sympathizes with this mindless violence and theivery need to ask themselves, "How would I feel if it was my mother who was woken up by masked thieves in her house?", "How would I feel if I went to my car and it was a burnt wreck?", "How would I feel if I saw a bus driver getting beaten up for earning an honest living?", "How would I feel if my family business had been robbed and burnt to the ground?"

[coalition_unwilling]

1. When the urban proletariat resists (as is the case here), we quickly

adopt the language and forms of the ruling classes to marginalize, demonize and ostracise said resistance. But when the ruling class despoils the workers, those who create the wealth that the ruling class parasitically devours, we equally quickly ascribe it to "impersonal market forces."

[Turborama]

2. What does that even mean?

Resistance? Don't make me laugh. This isn't occupied France in the second world war. These kids are bored and want to steal and/or destroy for the hell of it. They're destroying people's lives for fun.

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. You know there are a few things you should comsider here

the youth centers were closed, the same centers where they could go to get some vocational training and go on to get jobs.

These kids have no stake in their society...

From the bbc live blog

0757: More from that Radio 5 Live interview with Claudia Webbe, who chairs the independent advisory group for Operation Trident, which investigates black-on-black crime: "Instead of seeing those young people who are disenfranchised, disaffected, disengaged - instead of seeing them turn inwards, what you've now got, I'm seeing, is young people exploding right across London. This is young people in a sense operating on the edge of society are quite prepared to explode because they don't see a society that necessarily cares about them."

I will be the last to defend the mayhem... but my first question on any riot is WHY? Sports riots are more like fun riots. This one has more of a smell of something else.

Follow the BBC live blog, like you did for Tahrir square if you want to get another POV.

By the way, I rather prefer peaceful and all that... but this does have a different feeling to this. Even different from the LA Riots.

[Turborama]

5. I don't buy it

I'm an expat living in Indonesia and the kids in London don't know how good they've got it compared to the vast majority of people who live here - and don't riot because they don't have a "youth center" where they can go and play pool and ping pong.

You ask "why?" and so do I. The answer I come up with this time is boredom. Which is an excuse, not a reason.

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. Don;t buy it then

but well being is quite relative.

When we had the riot in Tijuana it was also about job opportunities and services. The difference is... those people went out of their community while both the LA Riots and these kids are burning their own.

But you may or may not buy it, but when people feel they do not have a stake they don't, and material conditions do not make a difference.

[Turborama]

8. They have free school, free healthcare, free money (£53.45 to £67.50 a week plus rent)

Even if they don't realize it, they are lucky to have these three free things. They want a "stake" given to them too and it's ok if they destroy people's lives if they don't get it? Sounds more like spoilt children acting up to me, and probably the rest of the world who don't have those 3 free things.

I understand where you are coming from but they're not helping themselves by carrying out these riots, they are just helping themselves to other people's stuff.

[joshcryer]

11. And clean running water, and food choices, and a shower, and a bed, and...

...a warm place to sleep when it's cold, and a cool place to sleep when it's hot. They have an assortment of clothes which they can choose from, they have public transportation to get them to where ever they want to go, they have access to more multimedia than they will ever be able to physically consume.

Yes I agree that people who behave this way in the developed world really do not grasp just how lucky they are to have been born at this specific time at that specific place. It's sad.

[JDPriestly]

52. They just don't appreciate how good they have it.

Why back when I was a kid . . . .

Fact is, the rich flaunt the relatively wealthy lifestyle into which they were born before the eyes of people who live in crowded, ugly housing, and then are surprised when the poor rebel against the misery in which they are living.

I have lived in a bedsitter in London. Have you?

My husband and I shared a single bed in a tiny apartment without central heat in London for a winter or so. We were young and adventurous, but we soon realized that we could never raise a family in those cramped conditions.

The services for the poor that these people's families rely on are being cut or in danger of being cut. The kids are scared and bored and see the relatively easy lifestyles of the wealthy around them and feel angry. It isn't about being hungry or homeless. It is about being afraid of hunger and homelessness and being angry at the perceived injustice.

The Tories thrive on strikes and riots. It's that kind of unrest that strengthens conservative movements. Above all, anger and class resentments strengthen conservative movements.

Think in our country about how many of our conservatives joined their movement because they felt that someone of a different group -- a racial, ethnic, gender or religious group was getting more than their share. That move toward conservatism is the same kind of irrational anger at perceived (sometimes real, sometimes imaginary) injustice.

I would expect the violence to get worse for a bit. The Tories will clamp down on the rioters with extreme measures and use the occasion to start a hatefest (which they will, of course, support out of one side of the mouth and condemn out of the other). Things will get a lot worse, but the Tories' support will grow.

They will be seen as the rescuers -- until they take things a bit too far. By that time, the Labor movement will have cleaned itself up after the Blair sell-out to conservatives and will come back into power, probably with the secure backing of a public that will, by that time be pretty sick and tired of conservative oppression.

Same old, same old.

[nadinbrzezinski]

54. +1000

yep, you get it.

[HipChick]

16. What's the good of having free school when you can't find a job..

That's the reality these youngsters face, that's what they are dealing with...

[theHandpuppet]

18. Well, when you loot and burn all the stores in your neighborhood

Your chances of finding a job will become even slimmer.

[Darth_Kitten]

32. I've been unemployed...

I didn't destroy property,loot,threaten, wreck other people's livelihoods, and carry on like a dangerous, drunken thug because of it.

Most of us wouldn't.

[Turborama]

44. Likewise

It amazes me how some supposedly empathetic people are intent on glamorizing what you described above. Where's the empathy for the local people who have had their lives physically destroyed over the period of one evening?

[Darth_Kitten]

63. Exactly....

and I'm no "great" admirer of authority figures. ;)

It's disgusting what's going on, oh, that's giving it to them, destroying and disrupting innocent people's lives. :(

[nadinbrzezinski]

39. and... they still have gripes on their society

they also have police that treats them like dirt... (there is a long tradition, they are not the first)

They have a society that looks down on them

There are valid reasons. It is easier for people to understand this rage in places like TJ... I mean free what? Running Water? But it does happens in the developed world too.

[Turborama]

42. There are no "valid reasons" for destroying people's lives like that

None.

ETA Maybe you haven't been able to follow British news on the utterly destructive impact this has had on the local communities, but there are many many lives that have been destroyed by the violent actions of a few hundred bored teenagers.

[Name removed]

43. Deleted message

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Bluerthanblue]

59. everyone can come up with a 'valid reason' for their anger and

frustration. Does that make it right?

How anyone can think that excuses or legitimizes what is being done in England is beyond me.

Most of us decry the idea of 'collateral damage'- the people who are being victimized by the rioting are being treated as 'collateral damage' by those who somehow feel the need or desire to justify these actions. What has been gained when you become that which you fight against?

:shrug:

[nadinbrzezinski]

60. You know there was this little soiree

in 1774 that was a full fledged riot. Sometimes riots precede that.

And yes, there are reasons why people riot... there are SOCIAL reasons why people do this. It happens all over... and the only way to defuse them is to deal with the reasons that lead to them. Or the pressure cooker will start to build again,

I am willing to bet, dime on dollar, the conservative government will do what predictably they do... hire more cops and stamp down... ergo pressure cooker starts building again.

[Turborama]

61. Well put

I've been thinking that all they accomplished was to make enemies of the local people who could actually do something to help them.

In effect they achieved nothing, apart from short term material gain and an even shorter adrenalin rush.

The end result is that they lost any sympathizers who actually matter.

The fun they had was an epic FAIL on multiple levels.

[Darth_Kitten]

30. A lot of people don't buy it...

Oh, the kids have nothing to do...here, it's why not build them a million dollar skatepark?... :sarcasm:

Here, for instance, with the riot in Vancouver, it was mostly just drunken youth who got their noses out of joint, too much testosterone, too much booze. Spoiled, entitled brats from NOT the poorest areas around.
Maybe parents ought to start raising their children. :eyes:

[nadinbrzezinski]

46. Of course not, if we admited riots in the developed

world happened due poverty and desperation the we'd have to admit there is a problem in the society. That is why we never buy it in the developed world.It is far easier to blame parents and other things, except the system. This has a lot to do with thirty years of thatcher and a history between the police and those areas... just from what I have been able to dig up so far. Their gripes are valid...

In TJ, that one lasted six hours, and one of my crews was lucky to come out of it alive... we spent the next month informally talking to people and community organizers. Oh don't get me wrong people went to jail. But we spent a month trying to find out why? And we ended up providing those services. You'd be amazed what a health clinic does to a community.

It went from an area I literally needed police escort at night, to an area that offered us coffee and lemonade and tortillas...

[Obamanaut]

14. The desire to destroy stuff combined with the anonymity provided by

so many other people destroying stuff.

Some will say the rioting (any rioting) is due to lack of job opportunities, or anger at a police action, or some other excuse - but I think it is simply destruction for the enjoyment provided by that act of destruction. Nothing political at all, just meanness.

[JDPriestly]

45. I think it is a reaction to the discrepancy between the hopeless

lives of the young rioters and the prosperity and wealth of others that they see around them.

It isn't a matter of poverty v. wealth. It is a matter of a sense of unfairness, of being locked out from a good life that others are enjoying.

Even in the Middle Ages, the Church admonished the wealthy to share with the poor.

The wealthy do not share with the poor today. They scoff at the poor.

Further, the media does not depict or present with any sympathy, the lives of working people. The media exists to sell products. It does that in part by creating the illusion in viewers that they can afford the products and, in fact, cannot afford to be without them.

When a viewer realizes that, in fact, he cannot afford those shiny, bright, alluring products, he feels terribly deprived -- and angry.

So, the poor, who are constantly confronted with the conspicuous wealth of the crowd that was "born lucky" (most of them), are offered no hope for a better life, no hope even for a modestly productive life, they become so angry that they rampage.

This is nothing new. It happens over and over in history, but our wealthy leaders just cannot grasp it. I grew up in a home with parents who worked with the poor, and I worked with dealing with the problems of the poor for some years in my life. That is why I think this is the problem.

People have to be given some hope of economic progress and of sharing in the wealth they see others around them enjoy.

This is not an excuse, but I hope it offers some explanation and perhaps a subtle suggestion for how to deal with the rioters: you have to offer them hope for their futures -- something positive to work for. You have to make sure that there is some way that they can, with some effort on their own parts, hope to share in the wealth and good fortune of the others that are in their society.

[muriel_volestrangler]

13. Youth centres did not provide vocational training

The nearest you got to that was 'Connexions', which provided advice on jobs. They were just offices where young people could get advice on jobs, or education or training and so on. Here's a typical site: http://www.connexions-cw.co.uk/

Most youth centres are/were community centres - somewhere to spend time without alcohol.

[HipChick]

17. It kept the kids off the street

[Bragi]

25. "Riots are about power, and they are about catharsis."

Wise words worth reading from a very smart young woman in London:

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...

Riots are about power, and they are about catharsis. They are not about poor parenting, or youth services being cut, or any of the other snap explanations that media pundits have been trotting out: structural inequalities, as a friend of mine remarked today, are not solved by a few pool tables. People riot because it makes them feel powerful, even if only for a night. People riot because they have spent their whole lives being told that they are good for nothing, and they realise that together they can do anything – literally, anything at all. People to whom respect has never been shown riot because they feel they have little reason to show respect themselves, and it spreads like fire on a warm summer night. And now people have lost their homes, and the country is tearing itself apart.

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

[nadinbrzezinski]

40. That is one aspect to it, once it gets going

:-)

She is indeed bright, stay safe.

[Eddie Haskell]

82. Right on.

These kids may not be able to articulate their frustrations, but don't discount their reaction to prolonged repression. Remember how this started. This is what we in US would call collateral damage. It's the unexpected consequences of a ruling class's unmitigated greed.

[coalition_unwilling]

34. What a parochial definition of 'resistance' you employ. Jeesh. Here's

a quote from today's NY Times that says it all:

Walking down Camden High Street with a black garbage bag over his shoulder, Tom Moriarty, a musician who lives in Camden, said the unrest had been caused by something “fundamental about how people feel. It’s down to life being a bit harder and people feel they’re not being heard.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/10/world/europe/10britain.html?_r=1&hp

[Turborama]

36. Wow, I've been schooled about resistance by a random guy saying life's "got a bit harder"

Which justifies destroying local people's lives to get themselves heard.

Yeah, destroying the lives - and ergo the sympathy - of the same local people who are probably the only ones who can do anything to help them is really going to help make their lives easier. :eyes:

[Name removed]

49. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Bragi]

53. +++ /nt

[SwampG8r]

78. its just some shit he heard in college

without real world applications

[Name removed]

81. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[SwampG8r]

84. okay...uh goodbye?

[napoleon_in_rags]

4. You both are ascribing too much to class dynamics here IMHO.

On one hand, kids burning things because they are bored. On the other, a noble workers struggle. The reality is people driven to desperate acts by economic circumstance, criminals exploiting a distracted police force, saints, sinners, etc. etc. What's interesting to me, what I wonder about, is what the key underlying factors that leads to this kind of destruction are. What indicators we need to be watching out for over here? The world is looking a lot smaller these days...

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. Look for the same, when people feel they have

no stake in a society.

It is not about class, at least not here. In england it is a little more about class.

It is about having a stake.

In england it is thirty years of thatcherism, here 30 years of reaganism.

[Sherman A1]

9. Agreed

The living conditions are relative. It's the mindset of those in those living conditions, and you as you usually do hit the nail on the head it is Thatcherism & in our case the legacy of the Esteemed President Reagan.

[Spider Jerusalem]

15. You're deluding yourself if you think that similar outbreaks of violence in the US...

(which there have been) aren't about class; they are, very much, because the similar violence in the US (LA, 1992; all over the country, 1968) and also in France in recent years is generally committed by the same people; people who are not even working class, but are an underclass of chronically unemployed, marginalised, impoverished members of ethnic minorities. It's not just about people feeling they have "no stake in a society", either, it's about people feeling like society has been giving them a hard and brutal fucking. These things never happen without some sort of triggering event; a shooting by police (France a few years back, London now), the murder of an inspirational community leader (MLK assassination and riots), or perceptions of gross injustice (LA riots in '92 after the acquittal of the police in the Rodney King case). The resentments and eventual reactions are pretty much identical.

[nadinbrzezinski]

38. I know riots, by their very nature, are surprising

when they happen. They are THAT unpredictable... but they are an explosion of rage.

But we can agree to disagree in a more pleasant way.

Have a good day.

[joshcryer]

10. What wealth are these rioters known for creating?

[Duende azul]

22. What wealth were your "noble" Libyan rioters creating? And the NATO bombs over there?

[joshcryer]

24. Hmm, I didn't like the looting done by rebel forces any more than I did Gaddafi forces.

So your "criticisms" fall flat. C. J. Chivers did extensive reporting on the looting in loyalist towns by rebels, and it is shameful, and hopefully the people who were stolen from get recompensed. And it's been well reported by Al Jazeera that Gaddafi forces looted Brega and Ajdabiya for goods. Notably, there were a half dozen OPs about when the rebels did it, when Gaddafi forces did it there was maybe a footnote in the revolution thread, and it went mostly ignored.

Otherwise their desires to fight a tyrant are incomparable to these worthless rioters who have no political background and whom are only doing it for shits and giggles, and some freebies.

[Chan790]

35. Aren't you our resident Anarchist?

I really thought you'd have a better grasp on this than most people, but you seem to be as lost as I'd expect the shiny happy lovers of law-and-order to be; those people who think the revolution will look like the 1960s and consist of people singing Kumbaya.

They're rioting because they've been exploited by 30 years of Thatcherist oppression to keep middle-class rage off the necks of the wealthy. Made an underclass. It doesn't matter what they have, only what they're being systemically blocked from having. Well-being is relative to one's society, not the rest of the world...until global society occurs, that will always be true. They've decided to create chaos, because it is left to them. Thus begun the Reign of Terror and every tearing down of obscene wealth and unjust equality thereafter. (The Revolution for all its' claims did nothing but substitute one new oppressing class for another and another calling it liberty, thus the devolution into Terror.) What you're witnessing is the destruction of the Conservative government as viable; if the peace is not restored, the Cameron Government will fall and likely take Clegg from the top of the Liberals with them. The people will restore Labour to the PM office, possibly in coalition with a Clegg-less Liberal...if not outright. You may not see another viable Center-Right in England for a generation or more. Thus dies the legacy of Thatcher...it didn't even outlive the old monster.

The peasant underclass masses destroy the status quo, even when they know not their motivation is political; the mercantile middle destroys the political order seeking a return to normalcy.

I intended to post the "Madame Justice" speech from V for Vendetta (which can be found here, if you want to read it: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/V_for_Vendetta#Dialogue) but I found this more suitable:

Evey: All this riot and uproar, V... is this Anarchy? Is this the Land of Do-As-You-Please?
V: No. This is only the land of take-what-you-want. Anarchy means "without leaders", not "without order". With anarchy comes an age of ordnung, of true order, which is to say voluntary order... this age of ordung will begin when the mad and incoherent cycle of verwirrung that these bulletins reveal has run its course... This is not anarchy, Eve. This is chaos.

(I, in-turn, subscribe to the political theory that Anarchism is inherently-unstable (but far more frequent and short-lived than most people realize) as the natural inclination of humankind is society, which is to say the imposition of order over the state of nature (in both the Hobbes & Rousseau sense). As Nature abhors a Vacuum, so Society abhors an Anarchy.)

V is a utopian, his Utopia is not viable...but forever sought; the seeking drives the perfection of society in starts and fits.

And that all starts with unfocused rage loosed. Chaos.

[joshcryer]

76. I haven't particularly denigrated their actions very significantly. But I'm cynical.

The premise being that they're peasantry that are rising up against a class system only to make it ultimately fall, as you posit, is to me nonsensical. It's merely an extension of consumerism gone wild.

I'm all about these riots being a vocal apparatus for ones ills in society, but as this thread shows and as the rhetoric will show in the future, it only leads to more oppression, and more consumerism and capital formation with which the oppression rests. That furniture store will get rebuilt somewhere else, they'll be paid back by the insurance companies, and the rates might go up a penny or two for all of the other stores, but otherwise the system self-perpetuates. And those who were expressing their discontent will remain marginalized, and they'll still go out and spend their money on goods that are not beneficial to their society as a whole.

I'll argue right now that Labor will in fact not get a boost from this for that very reason, the culprits will be arrested (and if they don't have the actual culprits they'll invent some).

Tunisia and Egypt were supposed to usher in dramatic and overwhelming changes, it didn't happen. Greece was supposed to go full on communist, if you are to believe people posting on DU, it didn't happen. The austerity measures were quietly accepted (while the Greek anarchists still think of rioting; they'll do it again no doubt in a few months or years; it's been a near constant every 6 months).

I spent my youth participating in the black bloc, and became disillusioned because the results were not what they seemed. This is a political activity that for all intents feels as though it is conquring the system as it stands, but in the end does nothing of consequence. I still believe that these types of direct action are valuable in a niche way, if only they bring one or two people into learning about this sort of activity. But that is inconsequential, and thus I am not going to champion it as is done here. (Ironically, in Greek protester threads I would defend the protesters, but in Greek protester praising threads, I would pretty much write them off; but it's not because I don't appreciate their actions, it's because it doesn't work and hubris is not necessary; this doesn't make me a "moderate" by any means, just experienced, imo.)

Democratic multiculturalism comes with a price, a price that racism and bias can play in the politics. In the UK, particularly, it's easy enough for Thatcherism to thrive on this dynamic, and it works even better here in the United States. These riots will fuel Thatcherism to its highest ends I would argue. Expect the short term racial and ethnic and cultural battle that the UK will be facing to push Thatcherism through the door with ease. The Labor Party and Liberal Democrats do not have the 2/3rds majority necessary to dissolve the House between now and then and Cameron and the Monarchy are unlikely to do anything. (This is why I am an anarchist, "Against Rulers," because a rulers interests lie in pitting us against one another, and I don't see how multiculturalism can survive in such a toxic environment.)

There are calls to "treat the protesters" unlike Athens 2008 and magically reform the country to more liberal policies, but that is untenable, it didn't happen in Athens (and those riots were across the board age and class groups, not primarily impoverished youths). If Brits can't elect Labor then Labor will be remain the minority, the conservatives have no real incentives to start treating the youths significantly differently, it makes for far too good campaign slogans. Though I admit they're backpeddling on http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/10/boris-johnson-police-cuts-scrapped-riots">police cuts, but the answer to this problem isn't more police but more social security.

All that rambling said, the workers don't typically revolt and burn down their own cities, they tend to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_incidents_of_civil_unrest_in_the_United_States">attack the owner class directly. Such actions (even mere wildcat striking) have been deemed illegal for almost a century here. If you read each and every one of those labor-related incidents, you'll note how it started with coal miners fighting against the owner class and then eventually the worker class turning on itself. FYI the anarchists still riot around once a year here, but no one calls those riots "proof" that the owner class is going to fall. And rightly so, they're highly marginal events, where we basically play into the hands of the owner class and attack one another. The race wars on the aformentioned link only underscore that.

One last thing, the police state in the UK is a really unique example of state oppression. They, of course, were unable to predict or deal with the initial uprising (and yes, it was an uprising, as it would've escalated had nothing been done*), but once they had a handle on things they magically were able to build a police force of epic proportions. The riots will linger for a few days yet, I am sure, but they will never be as bad as they were at the start of things. Indeed, having tens of thousands of stormtrooper police will almost be seen as a good thing by the population. Talk about invoking V for Vendetta! Hell, they're already contemplating http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/jul/31/westminster-police-anarchist-whistleblower-advice">thought crime for anarchists there (and this was before the riots took place)!

A true boon for a privatized police force!

*many reports actually blame the police for "allowing" the rioters free reign in order to catch them later for actions that they did.

[Bragi]

27. Yep.

"Riots are about power, and they are about catharsis."

As referenced below, see:

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

[WildEyedLiberal]

37. Where's your sympathy for the working class who are the victims of this riot?

Because THAT is who is being victimized, not the "ruling classes." It's not the ruling classes whose cars are being torched on the street, or whose homes are being broken into, vandalized, and burned; it's not the "ruling classes" whose small business are being looted and torched. It's hard-working people who live in these working class neighborhoods, and your fetishizing of the people who are destroying their lives for a few jollies is sickening. If you were really on the side of the "proletariat" then you'd be a lot less blase about the wholesale destruction of their homes, vehicles, businesses, and property.

[fascisthunter]

41. media meme.... rioters are just scumbags

no mention of austerity cuts or how the bankers are causing all this.

[Bragi]

56. It's also sadly a popular DU meme

There are a lot of DUers intent on doing exactly what the UK media and right-wing are doing -- trying to strip the riots of any political meaning.

Here's a great antidote to that right-wing meme from a very bright young woman in London:

Riots are about power, and they are about catharsis. They are not about poor parenting, or youth services being cut, or any of the other snap explanations that media pundits have been trotting out: structural inequalities, as a friend of mine remarked today, are not solved by a few pool tables. People riot because it makes them feel powerful, even if only for a night. People riot because they have spent their whole lives being told that they are good for nothing, and they realise that together they can do anything – literally, anything at all. People to whom respect has never been shown riot because they feel they have little reason to show respect themselves, and it spreads like fire on a warm summer night. And now people have lost their homes, and the country is tearing itself apart.

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

[fascisthunter]

58. Thank You!!!

[TorchTheWitch]

74. no, the problem is DUer's trying to inject political meaning into this

There never was any political meaning in this rioting. This all began from a protest about the killing of a man by police, and like sometimes happens when a big group of people get together violence and destruction come out of it which is why throughout time a mob was always feared because it always had the potential to erupt into nonsensical violence and destruction. One person in a mob gets enough uncontrollable anger for whatever reason and does something destructive and others follow because said angry person got away with it and probably even praised and encouraged for it. This is how human beings have been since millinia... they follow along because humans are so easily led and discover that having a violent destructive temper tantrum makes them feel better in the moment. There IS no logical sense in it political or otherwise because that's just how human being are... easily led creatures ruled by emotions they don't often have much control over.

Not a one of these rioting kids would have an idea in the world what political clap-trap was being assigned to what it is they're doing, and if any of them were asked why they were doing this undoubtedly they really wouldn't know themselves and would just shrug and say something like "because it's fun."

No, the media isn't trying to strip out political meaning from these riots because there IS NONE. DUer's are trying to assign political meaning to it because it works for their political beliefs and something they can use to point to as a severe warning to consequences of not getting their political way.

[Bragi]

77. "Riots are about power, and they are about catharsis"

Why are we surprised/horrified/enraged when a marginalized underclass who have been written off by society turn to nihilistic violence in their own neighbourhoods?

This is what many African Americans did in the 60s. People today don't like to admit it, but the resulting destruction and mayhem was part of what forced society to take note and change for the better.

It matters not whether the participants in these actions were motivated by explicit and coherent political goals. In most cases, they have no articulated political agenda. What matters is that they acted, that they seized power momentarily, and thereby forced society to listen and learn.

As the wise and thoughtful Londoner who writes the Penny Red blog put it:

Riots are about power, and they are about catharsis. They are not about poor parenting, or youth services being cut, or any of the other snap explanations that media pundits have been trotting out: structural inequalities, as a friend of mine remarked today, are not solved by a few pool tables. People riot because it makes them feel powerful, even if only for a night. People riot because they have spent their whole lives being told that they are good for nothing, and they realise that together they can do anything – literally, anything at all. People to whom respect has never been shown riot because they feel they have little reason to show respect themselves, and it spreads like fire on a warm summer night.

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

[TorchTheWitch]

85. I'm heartily sick is this quote

By some non-entity on some blog as if whoever the fuck it is speaks with any authority - which they don't. Yes, rioting in this manner is about power and maybe even catharsis for some people for their PERSONAL issues, but for the most part these are primarily middle class teenagers who are just behaving like a bunch of hooligans with no grievance other than being emotional perpetually angry undisciplined teenagers focused almost entirely on themselves and only in the moment believing the world owes them everything just for being alive. Respect is EARNED, and one doesn't usually get much in the way of respect as a teenager because the average teenager has yet to do anything to EARN any respect.

I'm sick to death of people buying into the false theory that it's only poor and downtrodden folk who act like fucking animals in this way and that it's BECAUSE OF their poor and downtrodden state. You might as well just say that poor and downtrodden people are selfish, greedy, violent shits that care nothing for anyone but their own selves. It's a bunch of baloney, and makes me sick that so many people here in their zeal to try to make this out to be about something political or class related are only buying into the false theory that the poor and downtrodden act like a bunch of selfish, greedy, violent shits and therefore need controlling like a herd of wild animals.

[Bragi]

86. You wrote: "these are primarily middle class teenagers"

Sorry, you are just plain wrong on this. The rioters are primarily marginalized youth in the poorest parts of the UK with no future, no prospects, and who feel they have nothing to lose because THEY HAVE NOTHING.

[coalition_unwilling]

80. You may disagree with what the UK rebellion is doing or its aims,

you may even think there is not a political element to what is happening in the rebellion.

But to accuse DUers of injecting our own 'political meaning' to it because it works for our political beliefs is a bit beyond the pale.

Here's what one rebel had to say, as quoted in the NY Times just yesterday:

"Walking down Camden High Street with a black garbage bag over his shoulder, Tom Moriarty, a musician who lives in Camden, said the unrest had been caused by something “fundamental about how people feel. It’s down to life being a bit harder and people feel they’re not being heard.”

Want to explain how that quote by a UK rebel translates into me inserting my own political meaning into what is happening there?

[TorchTheWitch]

87. "Rebel"???

Now these shits are being referred to as REBELS???

This dude is no more any authority than any other single "rebel" creating this disgusting mayhem. If that's how HE personally feels, bully for him. Guaranteed if you could ask all the kids doing this why they were doing it they'd be shrugging and saying something like "because it's fun", "because I could probably get away with it", "because I felt like it", etc.

Oh forget it... you already totally lost me with calling these thugs "rebels".

[dionysus]

48. so i take it you support these people burning down family businesses. gotcha.

[The Stranger]

50. Please tell me you're fucking kidding me.

Someone on a Progressive site points out the socioeconomic basis for the rioting, and you suddenly accuse them of supporting violence.

Did you get lost somehow?

[dionysus]

51. oh, it was just pointing out the "socioeconomic basis for the rioting"

i see.
:spray:

actually, what i see is a bunch of keyboard revolutionaries today justifying and romanticing this shit from remote saftey, not appearing to give a shit above the victims of this crap.

[The Stranger]

79. Hey, when you're reduced to being a keyboard revolutionary,

you take what you can get.

[Bragi]

88. Spoken like a true keyboard reactionary /nt

[The Stranger]

89. I think I'll change my poster name. Is that one taken yet?

[Bragi]

90. And keyboardreactionary.com is available!

http://www.godaddy.com/domains/searchresults2.aspx?ci=16811&isc=gfnnca03

[IScreamSundays]

.

[IScreamSundays]

12. ATTENTION PEOPLE

this is trouble that has been provoked by Agent provocateurs that will invoke a reason for some type of police state. The UK is just a model, hold onto your hats for when the fan and brown stuff meet. People on DU are bickering about inane things right now. The global economy is in the midst of collapse. THIS IS NOT A DRILL!! Shit just got real.

[Warren Stupidity]

19. There have been many despicable incidents.

However what is going on in Great Britain is a widespread uprising, a massive outburst of violent discontent, and I refuse to condemn that.

[GliderGuider]

20. We also need to ask ourselves, "How would I feel if I was 18, black and living in Tottenham?"

I don't need to find their actions admirable to see them as 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. I don't care if they don't overtly politicize their actions. To brand them with the hot iron of the word "recreational" is a colossal failure of empathy. It betrays a culturally imperialist disdain that averts its gaze from the harder, uncomfortable truths that underlie their rage and jubilation.

Read the words of someone who knows what he's talking about: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/09/tottenham-2011-brixton-1981

Whether or not their actions are "admirable" to our tongue-clucking North American sensibilities, and no matter how many of us are prepared to dismiss their rage with the epithet "recreational", I'm completely in favour of what they're doing.

[emcguffie]

23. An excellent article. Thanks. NT

[malaise]

26. Some other excellent articles here

http://www.guardian.co.uk/

[Bragi]

28. And this: "Riots are about power, and they are about catharsis."

As flagged above thread:

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

[GliderGuider]

31. That one is fantastic.

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..

[TheKentuckian]

21. They need a change of venue to the neighborhoods of the wealthy and the political class

They don't care if we burn our own out, take it to them so they have "a stake".

[Bragi]

29. They'll be killed if they do that

It's one thing for poor people to burn their own neighbourhoods, it would be an entirely different matter if they moved the mayhem into rich areas.

[TheKentuckian]

62. No risk, no reward. If they have no courage of their convictions they are just shitting their own

bed.

[chill_wind]

64. If you're going to "strike at the king"...

the target is being missed by a longshot. And I fear you are right. Not only does the ruling class not suffer or care that the participants are only burning themselves and others in local proximity out, there will be still be heavy and hardened judgement and retaliation. None of it bodes much change for the better.

[Bonobo]

33. Whether it is noble or admirable or the opposite is irrelevant.

What is important is that it is an inevitable (and predictable) response to societal forces.

It is implacable, like the waves in the ocean.
--------------------------------
That public men publish falsehoods
Is nothing new. That America must accept
Like the historical republics corruption and empire
Has been known for years.

Be angry at the sun for setting
If these things anger you. Watch the wheel slope and turn,
They are all bound on the wheel, these people, those warriors.
This republic, Europe, Asia.

Observe them gesticulating,
Observe them going down. The gang serves lies, the passionate
Man plays his part; the cold passion for truth
Hunts in no pack.

You are not Catullus, you know,
To lampoon these crude sketches of Caesar. You are far
From Dante's feet, but even farther from his dirty
Political hatreds.

Let boys want pleasure, and men
Struggle for power, and women perhaps for fame,
And the servile to serve a Leader and the dupes to be duped.
Yours is not theirs.

[lumberjack_jeff]

47. Noble? Admirable? Sociology is neither.

People who feel disenfranchised and oppressed break stuff. It is what it is.

There are a number of ways to prevent/defer those feelings. Captivating TV is one of the one that the US has elected to use.

[GliderGuider]

57. "It is what it is." Absolutely!

When people get emotionally reactive about events like this it obscures the underlying message of the situation: "Things are all fucked up. Please somebody do something, because I can't." It isn't terribly useful to think of this in terms of Johnny stealing a TV. It's patently obvious that they are living in fucked-up circumstances they are powerless to change. Nobody torches their own neighborhood unless they are in extremis about something. It's time somebody asked what's gone wrong, and what might be done to fix it.

By all means put the looters and muggers behind bars, but let's not pretend that once we've done that the problem is solved. The riots are not the problem, they are a symptom.

[stuntcat]

55. "lets destroy buildings/cars/generally smash shit up for fun and steal"

:(

I can TOTALLY get behind protesters, even rioters, but with this much pointless violence and destruction it's more like terrorists.

k &r

[Modern_Matthew]

65. What of it? This is only evidence that sociopaths are using this as their cover of darkness...

But how can the entire situation be marginalized based on a few psychos?

[Rex]

66. Some people think so.

[BlueCheese]

67. I agree with the rioters.

Stealing and burning your neighbor's property is the first step towards social justice. I think Martin Luther King said that.

[Turborama]

68. No, it isn't. It's a giant leap into angering your neighbors and further alienating yourself.

Or did you forget to add this? :sarcasm:

[Raine]

72. It is not. How is it social justice to steal and

destroy perhaps the one and only thing your neighbor has. I guess though that every thief and criminal can use "social justice" as an excuse, what bunk. x(

[Eddie Haskell]

83. If you squeeze a pimple, puss comes out.

It's ugly. It's disgusting. It's predictable.

[Raine]

69. TOTALLY agree. These people are just thugs who

are using the situation to steal and what they can't steal they destroy. :grr:

[LeftishBrit]

70. Agreed.

This is not a rebellion or an organized protest. Some of it is doubtless an explosion of frustration by young poor people who see no hope; but a lot of it is opportunistic criminals seeing and seizing an opportunity for looting and vandalism. They're not harming those in power; they're harming their own neighbours.

[WinkyDink]

71. There is nothing noble or admirable about what the mega-corporations are doing to indigenous peoples

around the world.

There is nothing noble or admirable about what the U.S. is doing in Afghanistan.

There is nothing noble or admirable about what the U.S. govt is doing about health-care for its citizens.

There is nothing noble or admirable about what the powerful and wealthy are doing, period. But they have the governments, the militaries, the banks, the corporations, the courts, and the laws on their side.

[anneboleyn]

73. Amen. "Alex and his droogs" causing the riots are being painted with one brush -- criminals

This is classic defensive behavior of Capital or Imperialist powers when faced with opposition from an insurgency. They tell us that the "droogs" or bands of wild "youths" have no political thoughts in their heads, just wanton mayhem that has nothing at all to do with gov. policies. So the official line goes.

[WinkyDink]

75. The Surveillance State: It's not just for "terrorists" anymore.