I think I'll.......

[MKG]

Oh, all right then - it's entirely our fault. We've asked for it. Deary me!!!!

But then, actually, I suppose it is - we have, after all, allowed people of a vague kind of mindset to enter education and social work. This, of course, to the point of watching a youth worker on TV today (it won't surprise you if I tell you he was regurgitating the same mindless philosophy - can you have one of those? - which is probably the real culprit in all of this who had problems stringing two words together and mispronounced both of them) and in light of teachers at a local school being encouraged to thank children for paying attention (true, absolutely true).

It's the ultimate in dumbing down, and we are reaping the benefits. Not only do yobs specifically target high-value nickable products (I quote "because they see other people with them and they want them too"), but they have an army of nice people doing their best to justify their actions by passing the blame onto "society". I have some news - even the yobs are part of society, so their actions are tantamount to pulling the rug from under their own feet.

The lunatics have taken over the asylum, folks - but it's our fault, not theirs.

Tell that to the "single mothers who hold down two or three jobs to make ends meet" who are so often offered as the archetypal hard-done-to parents but who then somehow forget to ask their little angels where they got their new iPads from. They'll tell you they're too tired to notice. But there are so many of those - has knicker-elastic failed society too?

Mike

[pelmetman]

I agree with everything you say Graham

But nothing will change ............If I've learn't anything in the last 53 years its this...................If I want my life to improve I have to get of my fat a***e and do it myself................people can blame the system, the government, the schools, their parents or who ever they like, but if you don't want to go through life a loser and end up in prison, get off your backside and do something about it and for christ sake stop moaning..........Lifes a bitch so move on

I think they call it tough love

[SouthernDave]

Beautiful post Mr Headstrong and some on here would do well to LISTEN and UNDERSTAND.

Also good post by Mr Hobbs, thank you.

Really we have only two choices as individuals processing the recent events: A) Try and understand what is happening and why before trying to make positive moves to change the causes based on your conclusions, or B) Join the list of haters and chose retribution, revenge and violence as you response.

I choose A.

Sadly I think a majority will choose B. They will scream about revenge and punishment. They will clamour and bray for blood and then the state in its agents will oblige and we will edge further towards a more authoritarian country with less civil liberties than ever before.

They will be divided and the real rulers will continue unaffected as before while the working classes fight amongst themselves for the crumbs from the rich man's table.

Open your eyes. Open your minds.

[MKG]

Beautiful post Mr Headstrong and some on here would do well to LISTEN and UNDERSTAND.

Also good post by Mr Hobbs, thank you.

Really we have only two choices as individuals processing the recent events: A) Try and understand what is happening and why before trying to make positive moves to change the causes based on your conclusions, or B) Join the list of haters and chose retribution, revenge and violence as you response.

I choose A.

Sadly I think a majority will choose B. They will scream about revenge and punishment. They will clamour and bray for blood and then the state in its agents will oblige and we will edge further towards a more authoritarian country with less civil liberties than ever before.

They will be divided and the real rulers will continue unaffected as before while the working classes fight amongst themselves for the crumbs from the rich man's table.

Open your eyes. Open your minds.

Deary me again. I haven't spotted that in this thread. I've seen understandable anger and I've seen people asking that the law be applied appropriately. No screaming, no mention of revenge, no clamouring and braying - merely a presentation of opinion. Are those REALLY the only two options on offer? And you are conflating "civil liberties" with criminal actions. They're really not the same thing, you know.

Never has so much paranoia been written by so few, methinks.

Mike

[John Headstrong]

You can listen for yourselves, the media are drumming up hate for the youth, don't fall into the hate trap, in my day we had peaceful parties, thousands of youth dancing together in true harmony, that is where I learnt to love humanity, the police still beat us with sticks.

[MKG]

That's honestly not what I heard, John. It was a bad interview by a none-too-good reporter and consisted mainly of someone who kept making very unspecific (and sometimes irrelevant) statements but, although he seemed to claim some understanding, he never once came up with anything like a positive solution - although he kept insisting that someone should do something.

No one, I believe, is in the business of denying that there are glaring social problems within the UK which must be dealt with. What I, together with lots of others, am saying is that what has happened over the last few nights is NOT a symptom of those problems, but an opportunistic and cynical orgy of violence and theft.

I have before my eyes the image of the young man who was beaten to the ground and then blatantly robbed by the people who were pretending to help him up. I also have in mind the deaths of three men who were concerned only to protect their area, only to be intentionally mown down by a nutter in a car. It is too simplistic to claim that these are isolated incidents in an otherwise political activity, but if that's revolution - which I firmly believe it is not - I want no part of it.

Mike

[southeast-isher]

Spare a thought for these poor disadvantaged youth who sadly can't appreciate growing their own food and appreciating the joys of a carrot springing out the ground instead they have to crave the latest ipad or salary of the x-factor winners. They know the cost of everything; the value of nothing.

[John Headstrong]

sorry that the interviewee was not a spin doctor or had any training in interview technique, he is just some bloke being interviewed by some other bloke. no it is not polished or have flying logos like you get to see on the TV. You are right, he does not come up with anything like a positive solution very few people are. It is the only communities that can change things but they need help not cuts. I love the " someone should do something" line, because when people try do something they get no help, if they empower themselves to do something the council stop them or tie them up in so much red tape they drown or make the process so long and boring the youth are not young by the time the project gets going.

I feel that what has happened over the last few nights IS a symptom of those problems AND an opportunistic and cynical orgy of violence and theft.

oh, and http://somethingniceforashraf.tumblr.com/ << how nice is that

Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need.
We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off.

This rioting and looting has been on the cards for ages, I was back in Edmonton only a few weeks ago and visited a old friend on the estate I used to hang around in, we talked about the revolutions in other countries and he said that could never happen here because of the greed.

What made them so greedy? The society that produced them.

sorry about the heavy quoting but everything has been said before

http://london.indymedia.org/articles/98 ... ce=ottoBot

It is wrong to say that the riots are apolitical. The trouble began on Saturday night when protesters gathered at Tottenham police station to demand that the police explain the circumstances in which a local man, Mark Duggan, had been shot dead by the police. The death of a Londoner, another black Londoner, at the hands of the police has a gruesome significance. The police are employed to keep the peace and the police shot someone dead. This is a deeply political matter. Besides, it is conventional to say how much policing in London has changed since the Brixton riots of the early eighties - but not many people mouthing the conventional wisdom have much firsthand experience of being young and poor in Britain’s inner cities.

More broadly, any breakdown of civil order is inescapably political. Quite large numbers of mostly young people have decided that, on balance, they want to take to the streets and attack the forces of law and order, damage property or steal goods. Their motives may differ - they are bound to differ. But their actions can only be understood adequately in political terms. While the recklessness of adrenaline has something to do with what is happening, the willingness to act is something to be explained. We should perhaps ask them what they were thinking before reaching for phrases like “mindless violence”. We might actually learn something.

condoning or not condoning is irrelvant , understanding is important

[MKG]

" ... More broadly, any breakdown of civil order is inescapably political. Quite large numbers of mostly young people have decided that, on balance, they want to take to the streets and attack the forces of law and order, damage property or steal goods. Their motives may differ - they are bound to differ. But their actions can only be understood adequately in political terms. While the recklessness of adrenaline has something to do with what is happening, the willingness to act is something to be explained. We should perhaps ask them what they were thinking before reaching for phrases like “mindless violence”. We might actually learn something".

There is very little in this quotation with which I would agree. Just because someone writes a sentence which allows for no other opinion does not make the sentence definitive. If a breakdown of civil order is inescapably political, then most crime is a political statement. Axiomatic? No - it's bullcrap. I just made it up.

Far from deciding to attack the forces of law and order (something which has happened only in a couple of isolated incidents) these young people have spent far more time running around the next corner to avoid those forces. And I note the carefully-positioned conflation (again - it's a common technique) of attacking law and order, property damage and theft - as though these things were natural companions, one justifying the others.

I have already heard several people who claim to know "what they were thinking". It has become painfully obvious that either they don't know, or they have immense difficulty in explaining what they "know", or they're winging it - badly.

I take exception to wannabee left-wing (if that actually means anything these days) intellectuals insisting that I may learn something if I do what they want me to. You can only take my word for this, but I'm on the rose-red side of left-wing and have been since I was ... oh, so high. I do not need to be told what to think by any apologist for mindless violence - and I did not "reach" for that phrase when I chose it to express succinctly what I believe to be the truth.

I could write "All wanton destruction of the property of others is a symptom of mindlessness". Oh - I just did. Having written it, I must now decide if it's true. Or should I simply insist on its rectitude?


I think it's plain to see that, whatever the truth, opinion on this board and over the whole country is polarising, and polarised opinions will never be changed by discussion - only by events. It remains to be seen, then, what these working-class heroes have to say for themselves in court and then to witness how they intend to get the middle class on board. As all budding revolutionaries should know (surely someone has told them?), the working class provide the numbers in a revolution, but the leadership is always derived from the middle classes. I learned that at school, so I'm not going to be overly surprised if I don't hear any of it proclaimed from the dock, even though that place is apparently the political platform they are trying to attain.

No doubt the sentences will be political statements too.

Mike

[Susie]

As all budding revolutionaries should know (surely someone has told them?), the working class provide the numbers in a revolution, but the leadership is always derived from the middle classes. I learned that at school, so I'm not going to be overly surprised if I don't hear any of it proclaimed from the dock, even though that place is apparently the political platform they are trying to attain.

No doubt the sentences will be political statements too.

I don't think anyone's saying it's a revolution, and I'm not going to say it's a political protest, because I don't think it is overall (although there may be political elements in it). I think generally it's opportunistic shittiness. I just think: there's quite a few people involved, a lot of them quite young. Are we going to think they're all evil and impervious to normal motivations? Because if not, then there are reasons why this particular bit of opportunistic shittiness has happened the way it has. They don't justify it; but I'd rather as a society we explored and acknowledged them than not.

I think it's important to resist the 'othering' of the 'underclass' that's going on at the moment (I don't mean on this board, I mean generally before the riots). And I know how naff that last sentence sounds, so everybody please feel free to quote it as an example of dreadful half-cocked champagne socialism but please quote this disclaimer as well so I look as if I have some self-awareness .

[Thomzo]

I've seen people posting on facebook saying things like "don't they have anything better to do?" and the answer is NO!

Sorry but the answer is YES. There are lots of volunteering opportunities for people of all ages all around the country. It doesn't cost anything and, in many cases, travelling expenses are paid and meals are provided. If people can't get jobs (more on that later) then doing some voluntary work will improve their CV's and make them more employable.

As for jobs, I'm trying to recruit at the moment. It's a job perfectly suited to a graduate in a suitable subject. The job has been advertised for a week and a half. We've only had two - yes TWO applications for the role and both were from people who don't have the right qualifications. So where exactly are all these unemployed graduates?

Sorry but no sympathy from this quarter.

Zoe

[southeast-isher]

What a nice man, restores your faith in humanity...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bi ... m-14481061

[Thomzo]

Yes, certainly does.

[southeast-isher]

He says in a few words what many politicians have failed to do.

Tariq Jahan: "I have lost my son - if you want to lose yours step forward, otherwise calm down."

[Nomada]

Nomada: hoping you got through the night okay

So glad these things will never happen where I live and hoping that all who are affected by the horrid creatures are safe

Where do you live?

I'm ok btw, my street was left alone last night but I was getting the bus to work this morning and we had to avoid several streets due to burned out cars still in the road, however, the police have a much better grip on things now.