Quote from: Princess of Hearts on August 09, 2011, 08:04:00 PM
Stop siding with the oppressors!
Who are the oppressors; the people trying to get on with things or the people smashing everything up?
I am from a council estate in Crawley, I was born to a factory worker and a cigarette machine refiller, I was born prematurely because of the chemicals my mum handled in the factory. I'm too poor to have even considered driving lessons. I have done the jobs that are less than £10,000 per annum (until this year, when I managed to get a job at the unheard of 11,000. My Dad has worked his whole life, he is on 13,000). I have done dozens of temporary jobs, or jobs with no real contract so I could be(and was) fired on the spot if I wasn't needed. When I worked at the pub, I would work 40 hours a week and never earn more than £170. I lived in a house falling apart raped over by a rich landlady because I had no choice. I spent 8 months being turned down from these rubbish jobs without even the courtesy of a rejection letter. I
have got up at 4.30 to get a bus and slave away as a hotel waiter, I
have slaved away for pittance and I expect very little better for the future.
I'm not boasting, I'm making it clear that I know what I am talking about because I
am one of the people you are talking about.
I don't have a rich mother - AND I AM NOT RIOTING.
Quote from: Princess of Hearts on August 09, 2011, 08:04:00 PM
Over here the stupidest, part-time jobs are treated as if they were hugely important.
They are hugely important if you have nothing else. You may look at these jobs and think 'who wants to do that?' but you will never understand those that do those jobs until you realise that nobody wants to do them, but they'd rather do them then nothing.
I understand the desperation and irritation, I was struggling before the recession. I have always struggled and as far as I see it, I always will struggle. I live in an area of London that the government has put on it's 'most deprived list' - I work in a school as an assistant and see the sorts of kids that are rioting at a younger age than the rioters. The problem is not deprivation of money, it's deprivation of time and attention. The children are angry and desperate but not for money - for attention. They don't need new trainers, they need parents who pay attention. It's so common to see parents on phones who don't even look at their kids except to tell them off - and so these skills pass to their children.
More than that is the attitude. We had a bright kid in the school. Very intelligent, very eloquent and very peaceful. Suddenly he started beating people up, his grades dropped and he would no longer look people in the eye; why? Because his mum had told him to batter anyone that looked at him funny. When she was brought in and told us this, she added, 'it's a ghetto town, a ghetto school, he's got to learn the rules." When asked whether it might be better to teach her kid ways
out of the ghetto, she got loud and abusive.
Besides, it's not just poor kids rioting. How can you accuse people in brand name clothes, organising themselves on expensive smart phones of being poor? The convictions I have heard have been of students (from rich families), a graphic designer (on a very good wage) - it's not just the poor, but it is the lawless.
Now the police, especially in London, are arrogant bastards but we are lucky that the police are not tools of oppression - and the extent that the government have restrained from harder measures, that people are calling for, is a clear sign that the police are not a hammer to hit poor people with.
So I ask again, who are the oppressors? The people getting by or the people destroying things?
You talk about people without cars - what about the people who's cars have been set alight?
You talk about people without jobs - what about the jobs of the people in the looted and torched businesses?
- You may now argue that it's 'corporations' that the 'big businesses' are the ones hit. It doesn't work like that. Misery will always trickle down quicker than anything else. It's the ordinary people who will loose jobs, loose days of work without pay - the businesses will never feel a thing, it's the ordinary people trying to make ends meet doing the ->-bleeped-<-ty jobs inside that'll get the brunt of it. And that's not to mention all the family businesses hit.
You talk about people not being able to afford homes - what about the people who's homes have been burnt to the ground?
Quote from: Princess of Hearts on August 09, 2011, 08:04:00 PM
I love to see ordinary people kicking the State's and their paid goons - the police - backside.
The state has barely been touched - it's the normal people being affected here and it is the state and the police trying to secure their freedoms.
