I have 4 facebook friends who like 'supporting met police against the London rioters'
pricks
pricks
-
Welcome, guest!
Why not take a moment to register an account?
If you already have an account, remember to Log In!
London riots (3 Viewers)
- Thread starter pete
- Start date
- Replies 110
- Views 13K
- Watchers 6
- Thread starter
- #82
Goodbye
New Member
- Joined
- Sep 8, 2001
- Messages
- 15,290
stolen
тхеодоре кацзынски
Well-Known Member
How would you refer to people that think it's ok to smash up their own/any community and take advantage of the situation to loot?Whatever about their opportunities/lack thereof*,that is not the behaviour of a decent human being.
*I also think it's a cop-out to pass the blame onto society,there's hundred's of thousand's of people in similar situations all across Europe,should they too take to the streets and go on a rampage?Finally,todays telegraph cites court cases where those involved are in employment/university students,what excuse for their behaviour?
- Joined
- Dec 9, 2000
- Messages
- 5,971
- Solutions
- 1
But it's just as much of a cop-out to refuse to accept that there are any underlying socio-economic/cultural/political factors feeding into this. That's what the "just a bunch of scumbags on the razz" talk is essentially doing. It's like saying "there's no real problem here guv ... or at least nothing that a few rubber bullets and shitloads of extra police won't be able to sort out .. it's just a bunch of mindless idiots on the rampage". It obviates the the need to have any kind of a think at all about why a large section of the English population think it's perfectly okay to behave like this.
That's interesting what you say about the Telegraph. I was just reading this today:
http://www.blather.net/blather/2011..._unicorn_amnesty_a_plea_for_england.html#more
which made a reference to how the riots are like an "episode of Skins scripted by JG Ballard". I don't think the presence of educated and probably middle class types among the rioters changes things. If anything, it shows that this is way more complex than the "thugs on the rampage" talk is willing to admit.
тхеодоре кацзынски
Well-Known Member
My point would be that any underlying factors causing this should not be used to excuse it,if we forget about the 'middle class types' involved in this for a moment and assume its predominantly people from sink estates (for want of a better expression),there's probably tens of thousands of people in London alone from the same areas with the same background as those involved,why did all of them not participate?
The whole affair is a sorry mess but I really don't think to refer to those involved as I did on the other thread is in anyway out of line,there was some absolutely disgusting behaviour on display.To pass the buck from those responsible absolves them of any blame for their actions and discredits those from similar backgrounds who did not participate.
Also,while I did call for harsher policing at the start of the thread,I'm not so naive as to believe it should be the only solution to the problem,it should have been used initially to clear the streets and restore order before then focusing on the causes.
The whole affair is a sorry mess but I really don't think to refer to those involved as I did on the other thread is in anyway out of line,there was some absolutely disgusting behaviour on display.To pass the buck from those responsible absolves them of any blame for their actions and discredits those from similar backgrounds who did not participate.
Also,while I did call for harsher policing at the start of the thread,I'm not so naive as to believe it should be the only solution to the problem,it should have been used initially to clear the streets and restore order before then focusing on the causes.
What is also being overlooked a bit I think is the extent to which the "war on terror" has militarised policing in the UK and in the US.
You see more an more of it in the US, SWAT teams killing innocent people, automatically shooting peoples dogs, generally behaving like they are in Kandahar, and there is growing resentment among the community at large of a police force who are no longer seen to represent them. In fact an encounter with the cops; amped up, over-militarised infected with a siege mentality, is quickly becoming just as much of a danger to the average citizen as an encounter with a criminal.
In the UK they have constructed an enormous security apparatus, security cameras everywhere, photographers in public places hassles, kids randomly stopped and searched.
Al lot of this rage we are seeing is directed squarely at the police.
You see more an more of it in the US, SWAT teams killing innocent people, automatically shooting peoples dogs, generally behaving like they are in Kandahar, and there is growing resentment among the community at large of a police force who are no longer seen to represent them. In fact an encounter with the cops; amped up, over-militarised infected with a siege mentality, is quickly becoming just as much of a danger to the average citizen as an encounter with a criminal.
In the UK they have constructed an enormous security apparatus, security cameras everywhere, photographers in public places hassles, kids randomly stopped and searched.
Al lot of this rage we are seeing is directed squarely at the police.
- Joined
- Dec 9, 2000
- Messages
- 5,971
- Solutions
- 1
Not trying to excuse it ... just trying to understand why it happened. This line of reasoning gets trotted out all the time (see MetalIreland thread previously linked to for example). Just because someone brings up "underlying causes" does not mean they are condoning the way those affected by these underlying causes react or behave. But its a typical strategy to deny the underlying causes and load everything on to personal responsibility. As for your question ... I've no idea. It would surely be weird to expect everyone in the same situation to behave in exactly the same way wouldn't it? If I was a 17 year old from a "sink estate" in London with no job and no prospects I don't know if I would be out rioting or if I would be one of the ones sitting at home tut-tutting about the looters.
I don't know how you referred to them on the other thread so I'm not going to argue about whether you were out of line or not but I totally agree there was disgusting behaviour on display. Again, not passing the buck or absolving them of blame, ultimately people have to be responsible for their own actions, but denying the societal, economic, political and cultural factors that feed into this is just dumb in my opinion. You referred earlier to people in similar situations right across Europe that don't riot. Well some of them do (see Steve Albino's earlier post) and frankly I am surprised it doesn't happen more often.
Easier said than done (the clearing the streets part) though they seem to have gotten a handle on it now. As for focusing on the causes - as long as the dominant discourse about this is the mindless-thugs-out-of-control one then that's just not going to happen. I also think the causes are far more deep-rooted than most are willing to admit.
Goodbye
New Member
- Joined
- Sep 8, 2001
- Messages
- 15,290
there's rats on every ship
how many songs is mike skinner gonna get out of this then?
nlgbbbblth
Well-Known Member
comes across as a total humourless prick on Brass Eye.
steve albino
New Member
Sorry to have taken so long to reply to you but days have been long and time has been tight.
To be perfectly clear and honest, my difficulty with the overly concise and reductive outbursts is that for me they obscure and hide the complexity of the situation, and in my opinion the current events in London (as with similar events in many cities in many countries) are complex; This didn't just happen because facebook plus twitter plus scumbags equals riots and it's not "society's" fault (I mean, seriously, what the fuck does that mean - i've only ever heard it used as a putdown). I think you agree that these events exist in a context and that the context is social, economic, political, familial, cultural, institutional, temporal etc. etc. - the participants, both direct and indirect, willing and unwilling have a part to play. This demands thought and a lot of it. The rioters are not one big uniform mass. Things happened in the lead up to these events, over many years that contributed to them and I think we agree that it's important to understand them.
I don't know what the definition of a "decent human being" is, I find it treacherous to use that overly emotional, moralistic language.
This thread, for me is the perfect example of a reasonable, thoughtful, candid exchange on a very complex set of events, as opposed to the "they're all scumbags - agree or disagree".
I have a vague memory of Bourdieu finishing up a lecture with the phrase "The problem is not that they burn out cars, the problem is that they don't know why they are burning them out."
Some related reading:
http://sociology.berkeley.edu/faculty/wacquant/images/URBANOUTCASTS-FINALCOVERf&b.JPG
http://sociology.berkeley.edu/faculty/wacquant/
Totally adhere to the points made by hugh and mormon.
russell brand making a lot of sense.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/11/london-riots-davidcameron
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/11/london-riots-davidcameron
Goodbye
New Member
- Joined
- Sep 8, 2001
- Messages
- 15,290
steve albino
New Member
Brilliant. Almost genius. So can we all agree that this is the line of madness that nobody wants to be close to and work back from there?
http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/oreilly/2011/08/12/ann-coulter-liberal-policies-led-uk-riots
BILL O'REILLY, HOST: In the "Factor Follow-up" segment tonight: As we have been covering the vicious riots in Great Britain, because there's a chance that kind of thing could start happening in the USA. Joining us now from Los Angeles, Ann Coulter, who has written a new column on the rioting. She's also the author of the big new bestseller, "Demonic." So what's the -- look, with Britain being the USA's closest ally and very close to us in a lot of ways, what is it about British society that you believe has led to the terrible, deplorable situation over there?
ANN COULTER, AUTHOR: Well, all of these riots around the globe are the evidence of the theme of my book. The subtitle is "How Liberal Mobs Are Endangering America." They're endangering the world. And the three main points of my column and the book are that mobs are always dangerous, destructive things that end society. No. 2, liberal policies promote mobs because liberals crawl on the mobs, the destruction wrought by the mobs to attain power. And No. 3, there's only one way to react to a mob to save civilized society, and that is to smash the mob. It is not to mollycoddle the mob.
O'REILLY: OK. But throughout history, particularly 20th Century history, you've seen movements in Italy and in Germany, in particular, do the mob thing, as well on the right to, as you said, seize power. But now you say that the totalitarianism is coming from the left. But these kids and the arrest sheets from Great Britain show the majority of people arrested were born in the 1990s. There have been more than 1,200 arrested, majority of them born in the 1990s. So they're young. So what is driving them?
COULTER: Well, what's striking -- what is striking about these mobs, compared to -- well, and proving a conservative thesis that it's liberal policies that lead to these savaged feral beasts, is that so many of these -- of these looting kids are white, come from good families, are -- have ancestors in England going back hundreds of years. I mean, you compare that to the L.A. riots or the riots in the '60s in Detroit and so on. That's allowed liberals to act as if this is a race thing. It isn't a race thing.
O'REILLY: Not in Britain. Right.
COULTER: It's when you pay people not to work.
O'REILLY: So you believe that...
COULTER: Britain makes it absolutely, blindingly clear that it is liberal social welfare policies. And they have turned a good chunk of their native population into animals. They are absolute animals. They are not humans with free will. They eat, they screw, they drink.
O'REILLY: OK. So this is an interesting hypothesis you have, that the younger people in Great Britain, many of them, certainly not all, many of them, are used to getting stuff given to them. You start there. Is that where you start?
COULTER: Yes.
O'REILLY: OK. So they get stuff given to them. And British society has become increasingly liberal. I used to live there, so I know that. And there aren't a lot of consequences for behavior in Great Britain anymore. You can do a lot of things that you couldn't do there...
COULTER: Right.
O'REILLY: ...30 years ago. So they're used to getting things, and they're not used to consequences for bad behavior. So that kind of social message sent from Parliament down to the street of Tottenham and the other places now gives them a sense of entitlement that if they don't like something they can go out and burn things down and steal stuff. Is that where you're going with this?
COULTER: That's right. I mean, you've seen other, other brutish mob behavior from a lot of native Englishmen before now at these soccer games. They're absolute savages and hooligans. And it is a welfare system that doesn't require work, that just pays women to have children, going back to a theme from my last book that subsidizes illegitimacy. It's an iron law of economics. You tax something, you get less of it. You subsidize it, you get more of it. And you have the highest rate of single motherhood in England of continental Europe and as a consequence the highest rate of crime.
O'REILLY: So you're basically saying -- correct me if I'm wrong -- that the more the government gives to people, the more they provide to people, the less respect those people have for the government. Shouldn't it be the reverse?
COULTER: And themselves.
O'REILLY: Shouldn't they be pleased with the government that they're giving them all of these things?
COULTER: It really isn't that. They have no respect for themselves. They're having their humanity taken away from them. They don't -- there are no consequences to their actions. They grow up without fathers. They grow up as animals. Like I say, they drink, they screw, they smash things, they eat when they are hungry, and the government is subsidizing it all. And it's not something this country is immune from. It's just that England is a little more advanced than we are. If you imagine, as I say in the column, this population of British people in 1939, they would all be doing the Heil Hitler salute right now. This isn't the England that we respect and admire.
O'REILLY: No, absolutely. Traditional English society has collapsed, and it's a totally different deal.
COULTER: Yes. And in a way they're living with the consequences of their own self-abasement for so many years. I mean, if they don't -- if they don't think there's anything in England worth saving, they aren't going to fight back. And you need to smash the mob. And they are not doing that.
O'REILLY: But many, many Britons are very appalled by this, as you know. It's not the whole. It's the younger folks, I think, there's a big problem. Very provocative, as always.
COULTER: They need to shoot back.
O'REILLY: Ms. Coulter, thank you.
http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/oreilly/2011/08/12/ann-coulter-liberal-policies-led-uk-riots
BILL O'REILLY, HOST: In the "Factor Follow-up" segment tonight: As we have been covering the vicious riots in Great Britain, because there's a chance that kind of thing could start happening in the USA. Joining us now from Los Angeles, Ann Coulter, who has written a new column on the rioting. She's also the author of the big new bestseller, "Demonic." So what's the -- look, with Britain being the USA's closest ally and very close to us in a lot of ways, what is it about British society that you believe has led to the terrible, deplorable situation over there?
ANN COULTER, AUTHOR: Well, all of these riots around the globe are the evidence of the theme of my book. The subtitle is "How Liberal Mobs Are Endangering America." They're endangering the world. And the three main points of my column and the book are that mobs are always dangerous, destructive things that end society. No. 2, liberal policies promote mobs because liberals crawl on the mobs, the destruction wrought by the mobs to attain power. And No. 3, there's only one way to react to a mob to save civilized society, and that is to smash the mob. It is not to mollycoddle the mob.
O'REILLY: OK. But throughout history, particularly 20th Century history, you've seen movements in Italy and in Germany, in particular, do the mob thing, as well on the right to, as you said, seize power. But now you say that the totalitarianism is coming from the left. But these kids and the arrest sheets from Great Britain show the majority of people arrested were born in the 1990s. There have been more than 1,200 arrested, majority of them born in the 1990s. So they're young. So what is driving them?
COULTER: Well, what's striking -- what is striking about these mobs, compared to -- well, and proving a conservative thesis that it's liberal policies that lead to these savaged feral beasts, is that so many of these -- of these looting kids are white, come from good families, are -- have ancestors in England going back hundreds of years. I mean, you compare that to the L.A. riots or the riots in the '60s in Detroit and so on. That's allowed liberals to act as if this is a race thing. It isn't a race thing.
O'REILLY: Not in Britain. Right.
COULTER: It's when you pay people not to work.
O'REILLY: So you believe that...
COULTER: Britain makes it absolutely, blindingly clear that it is liberal social welfare policies. And they have turned a good chunk of their native population into animals. They are absolute animals. They are not humans with free will. They eat, they screw, they drink.
O'REILLY: OK. So this is an interesting hypothesis you have, that the younger people in Great Britain, many of them, certainly not all, many of them, are used to getting stuff given to them. You start there. Is that where you start?
COULTER: Yes.
O'REILLY: OK. So they get stuff given to them. And British society has become increasingly liberal. I used to live there, so I know that. And there aren't a lot of consequences for behavior in Great Britain anymore. You can do a lot of things that you couldn't do there...
COULTER: Right.
O'REILLY: ...30 years ago. So they're used to getting things, and they're not used to consequences for bad behavior. So that kind of social message sent from Parliament down to the street of Tottenham and the other places now gives them a sense of entitlement that if they don't like something they can go out and burn things down and steal stuff. Is that where you're going with this?
COULTER: That's right. I mean, you've seen other, other brutish mob behavior from a lot of native Englishmen before now at these soccer games. They're absolute savages and hooligans. And it is a welfare system that doesn't require work, that just pays women to have children, going back to a theme from my last book that subsidizes illegitimacy. It's an iron law of economics. You tax something, you get less of it. You subsidize it, you get more of it. And you have the highest rate of single motherhood in England of continental Europe and as a consequence the highest rate of crime.
O'REILLY: So you're basically saying -- correct me if I'm wrong -- that the more the government gives to people, the more they provide to people, the less respect those people have for the government. Shouldn't it be the reverse?
COULTER: And themselves.
O'REILLY: Shouldn't they be pleased with the government that they're giving them all of these things?
COULTER: It really isn't that. They have no respect for themselves. They're having their humanity taken away from them. They don't -- there are no consequences to their actions. They grow up without fathers. They grow up as animals. Like I say, they drink, they screw, they smash things, they eat when they are hungry, and the government is subsidizing it all. And it's not something this country is immune from. It's just that England is a little more advanced than we are. If you imagine, as I say in the column, this population of British people in 1939, they would all be doing the Heil Hitler salute right now. This isn't the England that we respect and admire.
O'REILLY: No, absolutely. Traditional English society has collapsed, and it's a totally different deal.
COULTER: Yes. And in a way they're living with the consequences of their own self-abasement for so many years. I mean, if they don't -- if they don't think there's anything in England worth saving, they aren't going to fight back. And you need to smash the mob. And they are not doing that.
O'REILLY: But many, many Britons are very appalled by this, as you know. It's not the whole. It's the younger folks, I think, there's a big problem. Very provocative, as always.
COULTER: They need to shoot back.
O'REILLY: Ms. Coulter, thank you.
Dude, it's Ann Coulter, everyone knows that she shouldn't have attention paid to her.
steve albino
New Member
Yeah dude, but in this particular instance a huge number of comments in the forums and papers (some on the thread over on "general" here on Thumped) sound very close to her position. That's pretty worrying, no? How fucked are you when you sound close to something Ann (mad as a fucking stick) Coulter would say.
This shit is depressing:
"
At Camberwell Green magistrates, Nicholas Robinson, 23, an electrical engineering student with no previous convictions, was jailed for the maximum permitted six months after pleading guilty to stealing bottles of water worth £3.50 from Lidl in Brixton. He had been walking back from his girlfriend's house in the early hours of Monday morning when he saw the store being looted, his lawyer said, and had taken the opportunity to go in and help himself to a case of water because he was thirsty. He was caught up in the moment, and was ashamed of his actions, his defence said.
But the prosecution told judge Alan Baldwin: "This defendant has contributed through his action to criminal activities to the atmosphere of chaos and sheer lawlessness." There were gasps from the public gallery as his sentence was delivered.
The mother of one convicted looter told the Guardian her son – who got 16 weeks for using "threatening or abusive language or behaviour" – had got a much harsher sentence because of the political climate. "If this wasn't the riot he wouldn't even have got a caution," she said. "It's all because of the riots."
Her son Ricky Gemmell had finished his shift at a Manchester call centre on Tuesday evening and gone home to change out of his suit before heading to the city centre; his family say to visit his girlfriend, with no intention of getting involved in trouble. He pleaded guilty, however, to telling officers during the riot: "I'd smash you if you took your uniform off" before being pinned to the ground and arrested. He became the first rioter to be jailed at a Manchester magistrates court session that began on Wednesday morning and ran late into the night.
At his family home in Gorton, south of the city centre, – a neighbourhood of redbrick terraces where episodes of Shameless were filmed – there was some remorse at his behaviour. But his family's main emotion was dismay at his wasted opportunity, mixed with indignation that, in their view, he had been made an example of. Gemmell had been a prefect at school and was an army cadet. He had applied to join the armed forces earlier this year.
One of twin boys – his brother Ryan is an army cadet – he had left the local secondary school, Cedar Mount High, with six GCSE passes. He had started a vocational public services course – aimed at students planning a career in the uniformed services – at a further education college, but dropped out after a year.
In an area where the male unemployment rate is 11.6%, he had worked in shops, then got a job in a call centre for a digital marketing consultancy. Gemmell had no previous convictions, though he was cautioned for theft two weeks ago.
His mother, who was made redundant earlier this year from a job with the council, said: "You do have a bit of trouble with gangs. He has never been involved with any of it. I've had a copper say to me, he's so chuffed that my lads have never been in trouble. He's not 'known by the police' whatsoever.
"He hasn't hit anyone. He hasn't robbed anything. He was verbally abusive. He knows – you run your mouth, there's a consequence. But the consequence they gave him, it's disgusting."
District judge Khalid Qureshi, however, had not been impressed, calling the riots "some of the worst behaviour this country has ever seen, for no reason whatsoever – and he's part of it"."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/11/uk-riots-courtrooms-country?intcmp=239
This shit is depressing:
"
At Camberwell Green magistrates, Nicholas Robinson, 23, an electrical engineering student with no previous convictions, was jailed for the maximum permitted six months after pleading guilty to stealing bottles of water worth £3.50 from Lidl in Brixton. He had been walking back from his girlfriend's house in the early hours of Monday morning when he saw the store being looted, his lawyer said, and had taken the opportunity to go in and help himself to a case of water because he was thirsty. He was caught up in the moment, and was ashamed of his actions, his defence said.
But the prosecution told judge Alan Baldwin: "This defendant has contributed through his action to criminal activities to the atmosphere of chaos and sheer lawlessness." There were gasps from the public gallery as his sentence was delivered.
The mother of one convicted looter told the Guardian her son – who got 16 weeks for using "threatening or abusive language or behaviour" – had got a much harsher sentence because of the political climate. "If this wasn't the riot he wouldn't even have got a caution," she said. "It's all because of the riots."
Her son Ricky Gemmell had finished his shift at a Manchester call centre on Tuesday evening and gone home to change out of his suit before heading to the city centre; his family say to visit his girlfriend, with no intention of getting involved in trouble. He pleaded guilty, however, to telling officers during the riot: "I'd smash you if you took your uniform off" before being pinned to the ground and arrested. He became the first rioter to be jailed at a Manchester magistrates court session that began on Wednesday morning and ran late into the night.
At his family home in Gorton, south of the city centre, – a neighbourhood of redbrick terraces where episodes of Shameless were filmed – there was some remorse at his behaviour. But his family's main emotion was dismay at his wasted opportunity, mixed with indignation that, in their view, he had been made an example of. Gemmell had been a prefect at school and was an army cadet. He had applied to join the armed forces earlier this year.
One of twin boys – his brother Ryan is an army cadet – he had left the local secondary school, Cedar Mount High, with six GCSE passes. He had started a vocational public services course – aimed at students planning a career in the uniformed services – at a further education college, but dropped out after a year.
In an area where the male unemployment rate is 11.6%, he had worked in shops, then got a job in a call centre for a digital marketing consultancy. Gemmell had no previous convictions, though he was cautioned for theft two weeks ago.
His mother, who was made redundant earlier this year from a job with the council, said: "You do have a bit of trouble with gangs. He has never been involved with any of it. I've had a copper say to me, he's so chuffed that my lads have never been in trouble. He's not 'known by the police' whatsoever.
"He hasn't hit anyone. He hasn't robbed anything. He was verbally abusive. He knows – you run your mouth, there's a consequence. But the consequence they gave him, it's disgusting."
District judge Khalid Qureshi, however, had not been impressed, calling the riots "some of the worst behaviour this country has ever seen, for no reason whatsoever – and he's part of it"."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/11/uk-riots-courtrooms-country?intcmp=239
Had a good chat with my lady about this last night.
Of course what sparked it all off in Tottenham was to do with people in deprived areas being robbed of opportunity.
But something new has happened here. The article Steve Albino posted mentions the guy who got "caught up in the moment". This is something very normal for people - especially young people. We can all probably remember getting caught up in some sort of crowd behaviour when we were at school - or, at the very least, remember everyone else in the class getting whipped up in the moment. A classic example is someone being bullied in a class. The bullying behaviour can quickly spread and many people join in.
What I think has happened here is word got out that there were going to be riots. It spread very quickly through mobiles and the web. And loads of young people simply got caught up in it. As always the punishment for the crimes committed need to be meted out on a case-by-case basis.
This kind of thing could easily happen again. What sparked it off needs to be addressed - poor people shouldn't have their opportunities taken from them to pay for the misdemeanors of the wealthy and rioting will be a consequence of the cuts being made by the government. But the reason it spread is a different issue altogether. I think it may be something we'll have to live with.
Of course what sparked it all off in Tottenham was to do with people in deprived areas being robbed of opportunity.
But something new has happened here. The article Steve Albino posted mentions the guy who got "caught up in the moment". This is something very normal for people - especially young people. We can all probably remember getting caught up in some sort of crowd behaviour when we were at school - or, at the very least, remember everyone else in the class getting whipped up in the moment. A classic example is someone being bullied in a class. The bullying behaviour can quickly spread and many people join in.
What I think has happened here is word got out that there were going to be riots. It spread very quickly through mobiles and the web. And loads of young people simply got caught up in it. As always the punishment for the crimes committed need to be meted out on a case-by-case basis.
This kind of thing could easily happen again. What sparked it off needs to be addressed - poor people shouldn't have their opportunities taken from them to pay for the misdemeanors of the wealthy and rioting will be a consequence of the cuts being made by the government. But the reason it spread is a different issue altogether. I think it may be something we'll have to live with.
Users who are viewing this thread
Activity
So far there's no one here
Support thumped.com
Support thumped.com and upgrade your account
Upgrade your account now to disable all ads...
Upgrade now
