London Riots

[Amazon D]

Personally i think its sick to make jokes about what happened. Thats the problem with people these days they make light of this stuff.

Oh our goverment politicians are robbing us ha ha ha on comedy TV ha ha ha

Oh look at that those poor kids (looters) are finally getting some free sneakers ha ha ha

[Pica Pica]

You can do many things, but you can't stop is queuing or joking.

[LordKAT]

Pica, Thanks for sharing this with us. I am glad you did as it was the first I heard if it, but not the last by any means. I'm not sure what anyone has against news that affects those around us.

[Princess of Hearts]

The British media have shown themselves to be the shameless and spineless mouthpieces of the 'Masters'.   I have always believed that the BBC was secretly the government's creature, but I couldn't prove it.    However, the BBC's coverage of these disturbances wouldn't have looked out of place in the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany and Maoist China.

Both the Soviets and the Chinese would have called these people: Counter-revolutionaries, strike leaders and factory sabateurs .   The Nazis would have called them 'Jews, Communists, homosexuals and untermensch'.  Here the poodle media calls them 'Criminal, sick, workshy, Underclass, and non-white.'

[Pica Pica]

What do you mean 'secretly' it's partially state funded TV. Nothing secret about it.

Please tell us the real story then - because as far as I can see, your version is about the brave people that looted people's workplaces and burnt out 40 families' houses in the name of 'petulantly getting stuff I want now'.

And besides - the media are not calling them 'non-white', one thing they all agree on is the mixture of people who looted. I think criminal is a good word - doing the stuff they have done is criminal...only those wanting to change things for the better and invest in those community are calling them the underclass - it's being revealed (in the media) that many of them are not workshy and they either have jobs or are too young for jobs - and only Cameron said 'sick' and who listens to him?

Did you watch Question Time, the 'masters' can't even agree with each other.

[SandraJane]

More funny not-quite-real looting photos from photoshoplooter.

and I submitted one to them that I made about queuing looters - added some bus pass looters on.

The four Seniors in the lower left corner, onlookers? Looks like they're standing in line!

[Pica Pica]

They are standing line.

[Princess of Hearts]

Perhaps I can look at these disturbances coolly and politically because there are no disturbances in my part of the world.   We Scots pride ourselves on being fun, friendly, good-natured, with the ability to laugh at ourselves.  It is the English who are always letting the good name of Britain down.   David Mitchell has said that the English are fundamentally a conservative, inward looking people, with quasi- fascist views.*   According to Mitchell if it wasn't for the Scots and the Welsh voting Labour Britain would have had to wait until 1997 for its first Labour government.   The English have always been Tories to a large degree.   I suppose it is their Teutonic blood showing itself.   




* We had a visit from the English side of the family last weekend.   They live in the Surrey 'Stockbroker belt' area.   They were going on about 'those bl***y foreigners/immigrants/coloured persons'.   And that we need to bring back hanging/the Birch and the 'short, sharp, shock'.   'Flog 'em within an inch of their lives...that is the only language these people understand.'    Although my cousins have Scottish parents born and bred, they are English through and through. 

[SandraJane]

Perhaps I can look at these disturbances coolly and politically because there are no disturbances in my part of the world.   We Scots pride ourselves on being fun, friendly, good-natured, with the ability to laugh at ourselves.  It is the English who are always letting the good name of Britain down.   David Mitchell has said that the English are fundamentally a conservative, inward looking people, with quasi- fascist views.*   According to Mitchell if it wasn't for the Scots and the Welsh voting Labour Britain would have had to wait until 1997 for its first Labour government.   The English have always been Tories to a large degree.   I suppose it is their Teutonic blood showing itself.   




* We had a visit from the English side of the family last weekend.   They live in the Surrey 'Stockbroker belt' area.   They were going on about 'those bl***y foreigners/immigrants/coloured persons'.   And that we need to bring back hanging/the Birch and the 'short, sharp, shock'.   'Flog 'em within an inch of their lives...that is the only language these people understand.'    Although my cousins have Scottish parents born and bred, they are English through and through.

Need to take that language to the parking lot, not here. We've finally stopped fighting the Civil War over here.

[Arch]

It is the English who are always letting the good name of Britain down.   

This seems like a rather sweeping generalization.

[tekla]

We've finally stopped fighting the Civil War over here.

You're kidding right?  Seems to me that a few years ago a whole lot of people when to bed and when they woke up a black man was President of the United States, and their heads promptly exploded.  The amount of sheer insanity that escaped all those heads has truly been epic.

[Pica Pica]

Perhaps I can look at these disturbances coolly and politically because there are no disturbances in my part of the world.   We Scots pride ourselves on being fun, friendly, good-natured, with the ability to laugh at ourselves. 

Hehehe, I wouldn't say you've been very cool or detached, and I certainly wouldn't regard fun, friendly or good natured as parts of the Scottish national stereotype that presides over here. That said, I work with 8 Scots in my school, and my Dad's mentor (who helped our family out of the bad times) is a Scot, as is my grandad - and excepting my grandad, they are good humoured people, if still not exactly friendly.

I think it's the duty of a person's family to be racist and reactionary and to not seem to thought any of their views few. I have a great many family members in the beautiful Sussex town of Crawley and they all just spout these strange and offensive views without even thinking through what is is they are actually saying. The weirdest one they said is how much they think thieves should have their hands cut off.

Of course, the Labour party is an English party, and has a great many voters up north - indeed, tory voters are mostly in the home counties, but seeing as that is where the concentration of w/bankers live, it's not all that surprising. And you do know David Mitchell is a comedian right? A comedian that plays on his 'middle-england, minor public school' persona.

[spacial]

Rioters strike in Edinburgh 10th August 2011

[justmeinoz]

Nice one. Poms  (and Scots) and Aussies have the same sense of humour.  I get it even if the American members of Susan's sometimes miss the point.

How have things been overnight?  The cleaning-up has received a bit of coverage here too.

Karen.

[V M]

http://www.france24.com/en/20110811-british-pm-david-cameron-vows-make-rioters-pay-london-police?ns_campaign=nl_bo_en&ns_mchannel=email_marketing&ns_source=NLBO_32_20110812&ns_linkname=20110811_british_pm_david_cameron_vows_make&ns_fee=0&f24_member_id=1004586686845

REUTERS - Prime Minister David Cameron, grappling with what could prove a defining crisis of his premiership, told parliament on Thursday rioters behind Britain's worst violence in decades would be tracked down and punished.

"The fightback has well and truly begun," he said in a statement to an emergency session of parliament, telling rioters: "You will pay for what you have done."

Cameron is under pressure to soften austerity plans, toughen policing and do more for inner-city communities, even as economic malaise grips a nation whose social and perhaps racial tensions have exploded in four nights of bewildering mayhem.

IN PICTURES: AFTERMATH OF THE MANCHESTER RIOTS

The British leader said he would keep a higher police presence of 16,000 officers on London streets through the weekend and would consider calling in troops for secondary roles in future unrest to free up frontline police.

Among other measures, he said he would give police powers to demand the removal of face masks or other coverings if their wearers were suspected of crime, and pledged to crack down on criminal "street gangs" to "help mend our broken society".

[SandraJane]

We've finally stopped fighting the Civil War over here.

You're kidding right?  Seems to me that a few years ago a whole lot of people when to bed and when they woke up a black man was President of the United States, and their heads promptly exploded.  The amount of sheer insanity that escaped all those heads has truly been epic.

Though that is what occured amongst the Republicans, and if you include South Carolina's flag...But you're out in California, not the Deep South or Southwest. Remember.."brewery down the street, best vineyards and winery's in the world"... Besides it makes "The Colonies" seem a little more civil in comparison.

[Pica Pica]

Princess, an article we can both agree on.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/peteroborne/100100708/the-moral-decay-of-our-society-is-as-bad-at-the-top-as-the-bottom/

[justmeinoz]

I have visited the UK and after a couple of months spent there a few years ago, felt that I was observing a nation starting to fray at the edges and unravel.  No other part of Europe seemed to be drowning in a sea of drugs and alcohol quite the way the UK was.

It looks like it has only got worse.A nihilistic culture seemed to be common to a lot of young people, with a lack of individual enterprise.  Lots of people asking why they weren't being given a job, rather than bemoaning the fact that they couldn't find one.  Thers is a world of difference between the two.

Perhaps the spontaneous cleaning up, and local people patrolling their streets, even though it could be regarded as vigilanteism, are a sign that people are just going to do things for themselves rather than wait on the Govt.

Karen.

[Cindy]

A stunning article,

A couple of points and a few comments, and dare I say it some apologies.


I was born and brought up in Toxteth area in Liverpool, to hard working parents who sacrificed their life to raise their children. They knew at the time that education was everything. The had come out of a war with little. They paid every penny for our education. Myself and two sisters. I was the bright one. The golden boy. Except I wasn't and am not a boy.
It broke their hearts.

I now teach at a University level in Australia, I fled the 'UK' for many reasons but one was living through the Toxteth race riots. Fuelled by racial hate.

I could not live in that environment. I work. I have never taken the dole, or social security. I'm lucky and blessed that Mum and Dad taught me that cleaning puke filled toilets in pubs in areas of Liverpool that  rats would not live in was worthwhile work. It was, I had to pay my student loans, no one else could.   


Being close to young people at Uni, they are a joy. But they are educated and motivated, yes there are dead heads, always will be. But the majority want to live and advance, and yes drink, party, do some drugs and be normal kids.

What is the difference? Why are kids and adults in the 'UK' getting into rioting? Princess suggested it was social reaction against oppressive governments. I find that strange you have one of the most ineffectual governments I have seen. I'm sorry but I do not see the oppression, I do not see the bias reporting. I just see mobs robbing places. I see people who have no training or education in why a family is abandoning their parental responsibility, and unable to spell either. Why has this happened?

My I suggest the underlying factor that is driving these situations is greed.  Greed has a profound effect on the psyche. It allows the rich to justify their role and the poor to be subjected. It also allows the poor to retaliate against the rich, hints of the French Revolution?

But it also justifies anarchy. But anarchy is fundamentally flawed. The strong win, the weak are used, As Pete Townsend said, 'We don't get Fooled Again' but you will. Anarchy does that, because the weak will never be protected, we saw that in the riots, the weak, were robbed and killed. The mob ruled, do we want to be ruled by the  Mob?

The Cultural Revolution in China was controlled Mob rule. It was evil (IMO), And it wasn't true anarchy.

What is anarchy? You can go through heaps of definitions. Some profound, few educational. It is mob rule..


Princes you have presented your opinions openly and discussed your feelings.

Thank you, I apologise if I have been rude in any way.
I spent some glorious times in Scotland.

Hugs
Cindy

[Pica Pica]

I have visited the UK and after a couple of months spent there a few years ago, felt that I was observing a nation starting to fray at the edges and unravel.  No other part of Europe seemed to be drowning in a sea of drugs and alcohol quite the way the UK was.

And some would say that is because we are culturally closer to America than Sweden.

The book 'Affluenza' by Oliver James states a wonderful case that there is a culture of extrinsic goals that has grown up - starting in America - that values things from 'outside', that yearns for praise, fame, the status that money and possessions give and that it made people feel powerless and unhappy. He also claims that countries like Sweden and Denmark, which are run less on the individualistic 'grab what you can' ideals are less likely to feel this. He might be talking bollocks, but I think he has a point.

My favourite claim is that the culture that has created this wants misery, strives to create misery, because people then try and buy themselves out of it. I went to a lecture by an advertising man (who's name has gone from my memory) who talked about 'creating needs' in people. He often goes too far in his claims, and some of his beliefs on how to right the wrongs of the world are often a bit nutty - but I think he hits upon a lot of interesting points on the way.

(A fairly simplistic rendering of what he says here)
http://www.redpepper.org.uk/Selfish-capitalism-is-making-us/

My I suggest the underlying factor that is driving these situations is greed.  Greed has a profound effect on the psyche. It allows the rich to justify their role and the poor to be subjected. It also allows the poor to retaliate against the rich, hints of the French Revolution?

I'd agree - Greed and the unfairness that those who went to the right schools get away with it.