A Nato airstrike near Tripoli has killed 85 people, including dozens of women and children, Libyan officials have claimed.

A spokesman for Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s regime said missiles struck a cluster of farm buildings in the village of Majar, around 150km east of the capital.

Among the dead were 33 children, 32 women and 20 men, he added.

However, Nato has said the airstrike hit a legitimate military target.

Reporters have been taken to the scene, where they were told by Moussa Ibrahim : “This is a crime beyond imagination. Everything about this place is civilian.”

craig you know nothing about the working class in this country, our struggles and grievances. Stick to something you know about instead of spouting the sort of right wing bigotry i don’t expect from you. You let yourself down today, typical of the upper class ignorance that’s propagating this violence. Be quiet until you have sonething intelligent to say instead of falling for all this right wing proto fascist propaganda

It might be worth remembering that the event that started the riots was the shooting dead in the back of a cab of a man by the police. The same police now being provided with more armed deterrents to protect “our streets”. When did Cameron/Osbourne/Johnson ever live on “our streets”??

“Our streets” won’t be made safer from gangsterism by unfettered state sanctioned armed thuggery It ‘s worth considering also that rotten attitudes and grotesque behaviour is not confined to the poor and the marginalised – see bankers, political elites, corrupt police etc etc. It’s just easier to coral and condemn the poor. Frankly Cameron’s speech on the steps of No. 10 recalls only Kurtz’s ramblings from Apocalypse Now “We must kill them. We must incinerate them. Pig after pig, cow after cow, village after village. army after army”. Ruled by Fools.

So is hanging to good for ‘em? Should we bring back National Service and the Workhouse?

To dismiss the rioters and looters as just criminals is a staggeringly facile oversimplification. There are opportunistic criminals at work, and some truly anti-social elements among them, but even they don’t happen in a vacuum. But there are also many who have built up a visceral anger at the Police for literally decades of harassments ad criminalisation, who have had all hope of a better life and most of their meagre benefits withdrawn. They have no political representation at all and no-one who listens to them. Many have been pushed to the point of literally not giving a tuppeny fuck any more. They are a thoroughly predictable result of a society that places more value in propping up the thieves of Wall St and the City than its children. You were lucky, you had a way out back in the days of full grants and half decent benefits. Today that doesn’t exist anymore.
There may be a lack of politics in the minds of the rioters, but the roots of the problem are absolutely political. Sure there are some warped people out there, but to paraphrase, Power corrupts, and lack of power corrupts absolutely

With regard to that specific case I’d go for a lengthy community service order plus full compensation and damages to the victim.

I talk with people on the street here in SE London, Craig.
We’ve lost any trust in the Met. – the de Menezes “execution” was the real eye-opener/step change IMO.

For my part I pass on the Cressida Dick – Common Purpose aspect. The kids may have had fun and freebies in mind but the rest of us are watching and analysing the authorities’ responses bearing in mind this is as nothing compared with when the economic shit really hits the fan.

“With regard to that specific case I’d go for a lengthy community service order plus full compensation and damages to the victim.”

And exactly how is this going to help anybody get out of the poverty trap which seems to be the root cause of all of this rioting.

reminds me of the IMF ‘helping’ a poor victim ‘recover’
whilst robbing them blind
both a gang of despicable tosspots

Craig, I suspect there’s widespread, largely tacit support for youth taking on the authorities, in particular, the Met.
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Nobody wants to see people’s homes and businesses burnt but to take on the Met you have to have serious civil unrest.
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My point is that this is a test of this government – and it’s failing badly with it’s sheer, criminal hypocracy.

“There is a key fact here. The vast majority of those arrested have existing criminal records – many of them very long indeed.”

1. Where is this ‘key fact’ from?
2. How many rioters were there, and what proportion of them were arrested?

“This is not a spontaneous uprising of a repressed class.”

Youth unemployment in Tottenham was running at 55 percent. You have mentioned stop and search. I’m glad to hear you disagree with it: are you simultaneously trying to say it has no effect on people?

“This is a large number of existing criminals seeing an apparent opportunity to rob and mug with little chance of being caught as they temporarily overwhelmed the police.”

Some of them, certainly. Others were children, many of them children under 16. Are you suggesting that they should be seen as ‘existing criminals’?

“Anyone who believes these were frustrated would-be university students is so warped by ideology as to have descended into gibbering idiocy.”

Anyone who believes that none of these people could have gone to university, if their background had encouraged them, as yours did, has lost touch with humanity. Anyone who believes that the actions of this government, in scrapping the EMA and raising university fees, have not sent a loud and clear message to impoverished young people, has not been talking to impoverished young people.

“I can guarantee you that I grew up in much greater material deprivation than almost any of the criminals out looting.”

1. How would you know?
2. Material poverty is not the same as intellectual and social poverty. You seem to have had a privileged time of it.

“But did that entitle me to go and loot a shop and burn out the people living above it?”

I don’t believe anyone is suggesting that these people were ‘entitled’ to do anything of the sort.

Finally, I had quite a Daily Mail reaction when young people were rioting in Belfast a couple of years ago. But then I know very little about conditions in Belfast. What I cannot understand, from a London perspective, is this seismic lurch to the right, as the Daily Mash calls it, in apparently reasonable people. Of course one can condemn the behaviour in the video, above – it happens all the time. What point does it prove about anything else? And of course one can and should condemn the violence, and worry about people’s safety; that’s just human.

‘I was brought up, with my siblings, by my mother and grandfather. He was a coalman from the genuine British working class tradition, a lifelong socialist, entirely-self taught. He used to read to me from Burns, Hazlitt and Tressell. When in doubt on any moral question, I always consider what old Henry would have done.’

Grandad Henry would be out there with the guys from Enfield & Eltham- their grandfathers worked in the Lee Enfield factories turning out carbines, BRENs & STENs, or at the Woolwich Arsenal, the Matchless motorcycle works or the Royal Docks.

The likes of technicolour on the other thread, who would smear these guys as simply EDL thugs, are deluded idiots. Sure there may be the odd EDL supporter mixed in with the crowd-there were certainly supporters of the Khalistan terrorists mixed in the guys at Southall (not that technicolour gives a flying fuck about that!)
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[Mod: I'm not editing out your personal abuse of Technicolour as it illustrates your aggressive style. I do ask that you calm down and refrain from further personal abuse.]

From medialens.
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Newsnight journalist not examining subject, but leading argument to totalitarian solution.
Posted by John Milroy on August 10, 2011, 12:52 pm
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COMPLAINT TO BBC.
Body: “It seems to me that the purpose of publicly owned news should surely be to examine subjects objectively? Specifically today, to examine government minister, Michael Gove, on what is the cause of the terrible riots we are witnessing, and what can be done to prevent such occurrences? I can’t see how in Newsnight’s first interview with a cabinet minister since the riots began, Gavin Esler, ignoring asking Michael Gove about whether the government bears any responsibility for the uprising occurring, and instead asking him why rioters are not being shot quicker, is serving the public cause?
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I was astonished to see a man who calls himself a journalist, who is employed by the public to do so, to be so draconian in what read to me as his own radical personal solution to what is a dire, sad, and tragic situation. Surely shooting people would make it worse? Is this BBC doing a good job? What we, the public, want to know is why this happened, and what we can do to prevent it in future. Are bullets a solution? Calling them euphemistically, ‘plastic bullets’, or ‘baton rounds’, does not literally soften the blow.
We want answers from politicians on whether their drastic cuts are the cause of this, and that is surely what Gavin should have been asking.
Kind regards,
John Milroy
~~~
I saw the execrable Gove too. He was motor mouthing and sees no connection at all to the education grant cuts and the other cuts to the present trouble. I do not think that anyone commenting here has condoned rioting or looting but rather question where and what the problems are in society for which we, the elders, are really responsible and which we have allowed to fester. The crime illustrated on the video above could have taken place anywhere else in the country and at any other time. The major crimes and criminals are elsewhere as we know. It is a question of degree and accountability. Blair and his cohort have escaped justice, so far.

Is instilling morality an evil right wing pastime?

Is trashing your own community a valid response to envy?

Is being middle class a reason for self flagellation?

Is working class a genetic condition, you are one or you never can be?

Is divisiveness the oxymoronic way forward to true equality?

Only a total repudiation of the rioters is acceptable because it is a mistake made by the leftist masses to sympathise – they are, lending a convenient air of legitimacy to these contemptuous plebeians defiance of civil rule. This whole phenomenon of urban violence spawns from a ugly sub-culture more than socio-political and economic position in Britain today imo.

Craig: you’re not being obtuse: you’re being obscurantist. I presume you mean you have police sources: so did the News Of the World, as I remember.

No Craig, I’m not saying social protest is uppermost in their minds,you are missing the point entirely. Riots are the cluster bomb of social unrest, precisely because of their dangerous and fragmented nature. They nearly always occur in areas blighted by poverty, ghettoisation and racism, and they always do the most damage to their own neighbourhoods. If society has reached a point where this sort of thing happens, then of course it’s political.

Here’s a question for OldTrot and the likes of Laurie Penny, as reflected by OldTrot’s comment just above – it goes with the territory that you believe that the U.S. (i) is more racist than the U.K. and (ii) has a less vigorous safety net than the U.K. So … why aren’t they rioting in Chicago and Boston right now? Why not last month? Why not last year?

Kit Green:
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“Is instilling morality an evil right wing pastime?”
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It can be if it is used by the ruling class to maintain a quiescent populace while they do what they please with impunity.
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“Is trashing your own community a valid response to envy?”
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No, but is this about envy?
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“Is being middle class a reason for self flagellation?”
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No. Right now it’s a reason for some serious thinking. The middle class is the real revolutionary class and they have the most to lose at the moment.
‘
Sorry, can’t be bothered with the last two questions.

Mr Murray,
You are a good man. It does not matter which social class one belongs to, as there are good men and there are bad men in any classes. Those who see these riots as an opportunity for their political agendas are very stupid. There are much more opportunities for everyone in the UK than for majority of people in countries like Uzbekistan. Those who come to the UK to work achieve much more than in their own countries. These riots are caused by VERY liberal policies of police and social services towards criminals. As you said most of those are have been recently arrested have criminal records already and some for serious crimes. The question IS, WHY were they free and not in jail?
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There is one Soviet movie to which I would like refer now. There is one moment in that movies where one police officer answering to very liberal argument of another one stating that “burglar has to be imprisoned”. And that is all. Until burglars will remains amongst us walking down the streets without feeling any guilt and fear we will always be in danger of riots and other criminal activities. These are not riots of poor children who wanted to get to universities but were refused places because of their colour of skin or social background. These are riots of greedy criminals who feel no guilt or fear of law.

The lesson from Northern Ireland, for anyone that’s interested, is that you need to include everyone in the solution.
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You need to include even those you may perceive as criminals, gangsters and racists.
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It’s difficult, I know, but there you go. You either want relative peace and stability or violence and chaos.
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I realise that current events in England are not quite to the scale of the social conflict in NI, but there are tensions in this country which are not being addressed in national media nor in national politics.
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These tensions need only a spark to set them off, taking us all to a very dark place.
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I fear that over the coming years, as the economic situation deteriorates, we will find many more such sparks and we have neither the politics nor national debate to deal with them.

People moralize too much. They seem to depend for their mental balance that there are GOOD people versus BAD people. They can’t imagine that when a situation is bad, people may turn into beasts.
Here a sound interpretation, I think: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/camila-batmanghelidjh-caring-costs-ndash-but-so-do-riots-2333991.html

Yes, Jan, a good article from someone who knows their stuff (mind you, I would say that, as I was saying it earlier!)

“Those who see these riots as an opportunity for their political agendas are very stupid. ” – yes, agreed.

When I first saw that video I assumed it was a looter taking stuff off another looter. I could be wrong. But was shown on the news as though it was a young man with a bloodied nose being robbed. Who knows?
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@YugoStiglitz Just because US cities haven’t exploded yet doesn’t mean for one instant that they won’t. Do you honestly think that if 40million lose their food stamps there won’t be unrest?

You could have asked the same questions about the UK when Paris recently exploded. The uncomfortable truth right now is that the same thing could happen in any one of several World cities tomorrow.

When I first saw that video I assumed it was a looter taking stuff off another looter. I could be wrong. But was shown on the news as though it was a young man with a bloodied nose being robbed. Who knows?

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He was a Malaysian student who had nothing to do with the looting. He’s now in hospital after having his jaw broken.

Craig,
do you remember UK based angry people daubed the Uzbek embassy building in London with paints and caused significant damages in 2005 as a protest to the killings of innocent people by security forces in their country? Some politicians in the UK defended those angry people and I had a chance of speaking to a member of Uzbek embassy at that time who said that the british authorities didn’t instigate investigation and nobody was arrested. Do you see any parallels here in terms of damaging buildings of course, not investigations or arrests?

Incidentally the BBC put Harriet Harman up against Gove on Newsnight the night before last. She was feeble and had no answers even when he was trying to put the blame for things going wrong during the time when her lot were in power. When I put that link up to
http://www.attorneygeneral.gov.uk/Publications/Documents/Attorney%20General's%20One%20Year%20Review%202002.pdf the other day
I had forgotten that when Goldsmith was Attorney General, she was Solicitor General 2001-5. So she is just as involved in the decision to wage war on Iraq and in other NuLabour crimes as Blair, Straw, Campbell, Goldsmith et al yet she has managed to stay squeaky clean.

Sparks:
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/10/birmingham-riots-anger-deaths

England riots: Fightback under way, says PM
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14474393
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800 comments thereon. Almost as many as those complaining about the treatment of Jody McIntyre in his interview with Ben Brown on the BBC after the student protests, and on the revolting Death in the Med by Jane Corbin on the Mavi Marmara slaughter!

CRAIG, you couldn’t be more right about it. The main explanation for the pillaging is this and it is simple: THE ABSENCE OF THE POLICE.

Good post Mr Murray.
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I wrote this on another blogg:
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“”They were, if you like, truly multi-cultural riots.”
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As delicious as that quote is, it is exactly wrong. The youths have had all semblance of culture systematically removed by the moral-relativists that contaminate all state schools; they are culture-less riots therefore.
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Theodore Dalrymple points out that under ZanuLabour, there was a doubling of monies to the schools; yet the standards never even stayed the same, they continued to decline. This is the proof conclusive that the state system of education is contaminated, and not underfunded.
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Further I would declare that it is the prime factor towards subversive destabilization; the Marxist-Feminist Fabian society openly boasts of its aims to change our culture; they targeted the teacher training colleges, and now their chickens have come home to roost.
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I don’t believe that rioters should be killed, except in self defence; but as for Fabians, they should be pre-emptively shot on sight.”

JimmyGiro, Dogma is always dangerous and always supports its own followers over everyone else who can just get stuffed, or shot.

Societies develop over hundreds, even thousands of years. Human nature over hundreds of thousands of years.

It is pure fantasy to think that artificially constructed ideas of how nature or society can be altered can have any chance of overcoming this evolution.

“The idea that no personal blame can be attached to the looters” – Craig, I don’t think that claim along with some of the others you have make, were actually said. It really looks like you are setting up your own straw man to defend your own rather authoritarian ‘solution’ to what’s happening. All people are doing is exploring the non-opportunistic side of why people are breaking with normal and acceptable behaviour.

Kit Green wrote: “Societies develop over hundreds, even thousands of years.”
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Brush up on John Glubb ‘Pasha’.

Lwtc247
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My thoughts precisely. Strawmen and Manichean absolutism.
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Craig is evidently better at the Foreign Affairs brief than at Home Affairs.

Craig: “They were not protesting politically” – I think they’ve learned that achieves the grand total of zero, don’t you?

Let’s be honest here, the political class don’t really give a tuppeny-bit about the inner-city youth who are outside of their establishment grooming programs.

I am NOT saying their protest is overwhelmingly political – Other than the original clashes, these looting sprees seem like crazed impulsive youth opportunists, wanting an adrenaline fix, rebellious teens, frustrated wannabe consumers – but there is very much a political reason why they are this way.

The political response has been every bit as miserable as I expected.

I’m going to leave this now. I’m too puzzled as to why people who might have some understanding of the political situation behind these riots are being categorised as insane idiots who feel anyone who riots is blameless and see the police universally as villains. I don’t see anyone on this site responding in such a simplistic fashion, although I do see some resorting to the frothing frenzy of
vengeance so characteristic of people who have been truly scared.

Strangely, none of the police or shopkeepers or residents I’ve spoken to have had this reaction. I’m sure there are some, but otherwise it seems to be an armchair reaction which, in itself, is perfectly understandable. Perhaps there is nothing like living through an experience to make you see the complexity of it. As for solutions; I would focus on arresting *adult* looters and arsonists, with a particular focus on the arsonists, since they are clearly the most dangerous. I would meanwhile be aware that the police are complaining about having to police groups of EDL vigilantes, whose attitude hardly differs to that of some of the posters on this board. Otherwise, deplorable though looting is (though some might call it desperate: in Haringey they were looting Pound shops) I would be cautious about demonising impoverished, over-excited young people, and about allowing the way they are making their presence felt to obscure the things that need to be said about this government’s dismissal of their futures.

I can’t believe I’m writing this, but there is actually an excellent posting on the culture that produced the riots over at the Harry’s Place blog-

http://hurryupharry.org/2011/08/09/most-of-the-kids-are-alright/#more-57838

It even makes a pretty good companion piece to Craig’s post here.

The root cause is Globalisation, consumerism, advertising, footballers getting £200 000 a week etc, the looters want all that but don’t have the ability to obtain it legitimately, and have discovered that if they act together they can overwhelm the authorities that have until now allowed it to develop because it suites their agenda, which is to introduce more powers that will restrict our freedoms even further.

“You need to include even those you may perceive as criminals, gangsters and racists.” – Having Read Craig’s book, The Catholic Orangemen… I recall him describing sitting in one of these meetings where known tyrants who had done unspeakable horrors, were brought to the negotiating table. I seem to recall Craig saying this was uncomfortable but necessary to try and work from that point onwards. So Craig, should such a thing be done now with this youth smashing, mugging and looting, rather than fascist police hunts, prison sentences and the prospect of no change (monetary and socio-political wise?)

JimmyGiro, I am relatively new around here. Do you bring all discussions around to the middle east question?

You are mixing up the nature of societies and associated human behaviour (that transcends societies) with the ever present power struggles that are a part of the issue.
That human nature seems to require leaders and herd, so your comment about John Glubb is just one of an almost infinite number of examples where things seem to change through power brokerage etc.
My point is that these power struggles are continuous in society and therefore change is constant in an historical perspective. Jostling for position may if you are lucky give power for a generation (Mubarak) or a dynasty (Romanovs) but they are all transitory.
Our nature seems to make us incabable of thinking very far ahead at all. We may consider the world we leave our children and grandchildren, but it is rare to consider how things will be in a couple of centuries. Natural selfishness.

Some of these comments bring to my mind the jokes about social workers.
Two social workers were walking down dark street, there was a man beaten with a bloody face on the ground, he moaned ” help me, I have been mugged and beaten”, the two walked on and one turned to the other and said ” the person who did this to this man is the one who really needs help”.
Can I say any more??

angrysoba, yes I was wrong, just read about it in the Guardian. Though when I first saw it on the news there was nothing about the young man’s identity.

Azra
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Modern societies employ a complex of agencies.
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Presumably the police and medical service would address the victim’s immediate problem, whilst social workers would be dealing with a propensity to criminality.
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That’s how it works in an ideal environment.
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When the stste itself is disrespected you have a whole other set of problems to deal with too.
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So whilst your joke seems on the surface amusing, it isn’t really.

Herbie, You must be great fun to hang out with. It was a joke. It was funny. You are far too serious. Do you have a book of what you would like to be state approved jokes?

Herbie, I appreciate what you are saying, but read about some of the people who were charged.. were majority of the rioters of deprived background? I reserve my judgement on that..

32 people have appeared in court charged with offences such as burglary and criminal damage during the previous riots.Among them were a graphic designer, college students, a youth worker, a university graduate and a man signed up to join the army.
A significant number of those charged were said in court to be of previously good character and had simply been drawn in to the offending.

I demand to see my lawyer. Sorry Pal, he has been banged up too..

Herbie, What about respect for our fellow citizen? what about respect for their hard work, their struggle to scratch a living , bulidng a home and life??
I feel some of these comments go beyond explanation and is an attempt to excuse the thuggery and criminality. No excuse for that whatsover..

There is no doubt in my mind that the people committing these acts need to be punished, the question is how ?

Do they have a political point to make, probably not, but when you take a look at what oppertunities the young have today to get an eductaion to have a job and a chance to better themselves they dont seem to exist at all. If this had been one isolated incident in one city then Id say yes they are just mindless thugs, but the fact that it has spread so rapidly to other citys suggests that there is a basic undercurrent of anger. We can only speculate about what.

We can be disgusted with the actions of the rioters if we wish, but lets not forget that a riot is a situation in which all law and order has gone out the window.

If war is simply and extension of diplomacy via the sword, then maybe riot is simply and extension of demonstration via the sword.

Peaceful protest in this country does nothing, and I do mean nothing. The ability to get things changed via peaceful protest ended with the fuel blockade. The government ignored on that occassion the protesters and the blockade ended, the government won. They learned from that that you can simply ignore protest without any political damage.

Sadly sometime violence is needed in order for people to actually take a look at what is really happening and start to address the underlying issues that have given rise to it. It will be interesting to see if the government actually try and find long term solutions to this anger or if they will simply ignore it as well.

There wont be much trouble tonight….. because its raining. Although the government will claim that they have managed to stop it.

The immediate visable actions are of simple theft and thuggery, but on such a large scale it cannot be written off as just that.

I hate violence, as violence begets violence, but if you have no voice, if you cant be heard how else do you make your feelings known ?

The theft and arson are the effects of a whole group of people who now have nothing what so ever to lose. Shooting them with rubber bullets isnt really an answer. Why did camaron not stand up and appeal for calm, why did camaron not ask the community leaders to address their youth and find out why they did this, he knows why and he doesnt want the answers, simpler and cheaper to shoot them with baton rounds and call them all thugs.

“The idea that no personal blame can be attached to the looters because of their background or of government policies, is one with which I have no sympathy.”

Is anybody really saying that though? All I’m seeing is the proposition that, if you keep jacking up the stressors in people’s lives whilst simultaneously destroying any reason for them to feel any kind of involvement with or solidarity for civil society, you shouldn’t be entirely surprised when they go on the rampage.

Those child soldiers you talked about in Catholic Orangemen weren’t entirely blameless, but they did not take their actions in a vacuum either. Human behaviour is complex and influenced by many factors. Trying to identify those factors is not the same as excusing the behaviour.

“If war is simply and extension of diplomacy via the sword, then maybe riot is simply and extension of demonstration via the sword.”
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Maybe. Or maybe it’s important to note that a demonstration has to make clear demands, if it hopes even to get them noticed. Otherwise it’s evidence of nothing except that everybody was right all along, and everybody else was wrong.

There are many people on here who don’t grasp just how dangerous all this stuff is. It’s like you think the stability of your state will go on forever and all you have to do is pick off the baddies every so often.
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If it were a simple matter of just locking up wrongdoers then that would be fine.
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It isn’t that simple, however. That’s been explained many times.
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If you want to live with chaos and instability, then so be it. Others have pointed out that this goes much deeper than you imagine.
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I suspect however that you may come to understand your error in time. It’ll be too late then of course.

“We are fed up, obviously.
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“We get searched and pulled over for nothing, it’s our kind of way of rebelling.
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“It’s not an excuse but that’s what we know, we’re broke, we wake up and this is our way to get a bit of money.
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“Obviously other people, stuck-up people, don’t see it our way.”
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/14465188
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Craig, you must be “stuck-up” – pleasing to note the rioters’ usage of the hyphen though,

‘pleasing to note the rioters’ usage of the hyphen though’ – LOL!

Mary: I’m trying to understand why Jody McIntyre is a hero to anyone. He has encouraged the rioters to stand up to the “feds!” What?

The kids call our police and other authority figures “the feds”. Some people think it’s a reference to the merkin FBI, but it’s not. It’s short for “well-feds”, as in those who fatten themselves up at the taxpayers tit.
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For example Police, politicians etc who have recently been exposed as totally corrupt.
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The kids, as ever, were way ahead of everyone else on this.

I sympathise with the rioters, whether I should or not. It’s an emotional thing, between then and the police I wouldn’t take sides. It’s not good against evil, or even them against us. More like a football match between two teams you haven’t heard of.
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In the end, though, the rioters will trot off home, some will go the prison, while the police will have even greater powers and will continue their disturbing tendency, even before the Speedy de Menezes murder, to shoot whoever they feel like with no chance at all of spending a day in prison. And with Ed Milliband and the rest lining up to give them extra power, more protection, to let them do “whatever they need to do”. Considering that, I’m not that interested in these little disturbances.

Mark, so the pillagers’ actions are a reasonable response to a bad situation whereas Craig’s opinion of their actions is a sign that he must have gone mad because he has been to see too much theatre. Could there be any other explanation, such as those actually suggested, as to why an apparently sane man, whose opinion you are prepared to listen to and respect on almost any other occasion, might think the things he did about the events in London?

@Stephen Morgan would you have sympathised with rioters if they have burnt your house down and stolen your goods and trashed your business??

Certainly the riots in Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool, Wolverhampton, Nottingham, Gloucester and other towns which have vandalised and looted without any causal effect but sheer greed and theft are, on the whole, mindless hoodlums. Those guilty in these copy-cat acts of criminality should not be spared. I thought, to begin with, the Tottenham riots were also without cause. But that was when, through the police-manipulated media, we were led to believe that Mark Duggan had shot at a policeman, and was killed as a result. Now it emerges, at least from one report posted last night, that the gun was found near the scene of the crime. The rioting started in Tottenham, where those who started it, were evidently waiting for the police to say something. Coppers at the scene knew exactly what had happened, and they would have been immediately de-briefed. Waiting for a forensic report on a weapon which might not even have been in the mini-cab in which Mark Duggan was shot, is nonsense. That lad’s family knew something of the truth. Even through their grief last night they called for an end to the riots, and last night Tottenham was quiet. I think their statement had a lot more to do with calmer streets than any increase in police numbers.
When the truth comes out it may well be the case that if the police had admitted their culpability the riots could have been averted, and three young men in Birmingham, who tried to protect their property, would still be alive!

Well said John Goss..

@ Craig,

” The idea that no personal blame can be attached to the looters because of their background or of government policies, is one with which I have no sympathy.”

Let’s be both fair and honest.

One can make stark – black or white political statements – the one above – or – the converse.

For my part, I fully agree with you that it was thieving scum who went in the little injured boy’s bag – they are what they are – scum to act in this way.

There is a general context of “banksters” being repaid large sums of taxpayers’ money – and – a knock on effect of severe social cuts. As a general political observation this must inevitably feed into the socio-economic fabric. This observation is not the same as finding any excuse for plain and simple robbery, thieving and looting.

I would not excuse the individual thuggery. Neither would I ignore the broader soci-economic context, without setting out to exonerate individual bad behaviour.

We need not put an excuse of a political band-aid on every “social cut” ( pun intended) we find.

Craig, Courtenay. I saw that robbery of a young injured youth under the pretext of helping him. These people are beneath my contempt. My consolation is because of the irrefutable film evidence, with good clear footage, the culprit will be charged and brought to justice. The penalty cannot be too harsh as far as I’m concerned, and as far as the vast majority of right-minded people are concerned.

It takes “cash to care” – so:-

Choice 1 – pay the cash to the “bankksters”; or

Choice 2 – invest the money in socio- economic reconstrution; or

Choice 3 – post riots – justify to the populace that there is now a fivefold increase in budgetary expeditures on – the police – domestic security measures – the military – overseas defence – wars.

Take your pick.

John and Craig – taking coins out of the pocket of a dyiing man would be the next level down.

Strikes a cord with me – albeit I have done a lot of criminal defence work over many years. The video brings memories to mind of the bully from the upper school who would use his size to intimidate and abuse the lower school kids.

All said and done – we are probabaly saying quite similar things from different angles/ perspectives.

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

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 ‘’’

– unquote –

Mr Murray has never grown up as these men have grown up. I’m sure back in his day men were men and police were cheerful and the way to success was hard work and honesty. No longer. He didn’t grow up with it hammered into his head that wealth is virtue, that we live in a meritocracy where he doesn’t have any. The origin of the word meritocracy is in the book “The Rise of the Meritocracy”, a rather accurate prediction of the future by Michael Young who wrote the 1945 Labour manifesto. Back when there was a Labour party to represent the poor, when there was something to join, someone to vote for to make things better. Something which is now out of reach. There’s really no point in doing anything, as none of it will get you anywhere. Going to university isn’t even worth considering, as it’s about as likely that you’ll become the Sultan of Brunei. There’s a gay Tory called Paris. He did a TV programme where he went on safari amongst the poor, back in the 80s, then went back a few years ago to find that the people in the same place now are much worse off, unable even to afford football tickets, and subsist on antidepressants. The modern opiate of the masses is massive quantities of drugs, whether prescription or otherwise. If you have been dispossessed and disowned, dumped into some sink estate with no way out, what duties are still incumbent upon the individual? Why should the rules of society still be obeyed, beyond the fact that the state has a monopoly on physical force? As far as I’m concerned violence is justified, even if not explicitly motivated by politics. The only shame on those using it is that they haven’t targeted it well enough.

You tend to find with this kind of behaviour – the ones who do it are repeat offenders -or – some are just copycat younsters following a bad example. The former deserve to be dealt with in a different way than the latter. It is not just a question of social expenditures – but effective social policies.

Wehn a person defends cases involving accusation of rape, murder, violent crime ( myself as counsel) – you don’t just become hardened and indifferent. Eveh a defence lawyer can be impacted by perceiving a dynamic that sees co-relations between social class – crime – type of family background – individual character – moral values ( or lack thereof). Mix it all together – and watch the streets as the fires burn – and who are doing the crimes.

Sad days on the streets of London. Just got an email from my actress friend in London – says she is staying in doors as much as possible.

Old Mark, thank you so much for posting this link, it is one of the best articles I have read
it also reminded me of my own experience of volunteering at a school many years ago, kids who could not read simple text at the age of 9 or ten and the classroom of 30+, and this was a middle class South East of England, not an inner city school in London.

http://hurryupharry.org/2011/08/09/most-of-the-kids-are-alright/#more-57838

At least we can be sure that Jody McIntyre will no longer enjoy any mainstream exposure! He’s done!

“he would have been out there with his coal shovel [...]”

Yes, well, let’s hope the good socialist would have been out there with something else long before.

Denouncing riot-sympathizers with a credulous affinity to robbers is no substitute for what good socialists would do. The law is not just. Why is the law not just? That deserves attention more than mock charges leveled at sympathizers.

You don’t suppose that putting the riot-criminals in jail is going to solve the injustice, do you?

Stephen Morgan. I was with you right down to the last two sentences. I am old Labour, with nobody in parliament to fight for my real rights. I am from a working-class background. I try to understand the social deprivation of sink-estates, the frustration of having no job and no prospects, and not being listened to by anyone. I am frustrated. But I still cannot advocate violence. Violence only breeds more violence.

http://nathanieltapley.com/2011/08/10/an-open-letter-to-david-camerons-parents/

Mary, the Tapley piece is witty as well as being true.

@ Mary,

In the case of the MPs it is theft acccompanied by deceptive intent.

In the case of the looters – it is simply theft.

Guess it goes to show – better to have a good education and steal deceptively – than simply go down the High Street and steal like a common thug.

And what you we make of this interview….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biJgILxGK0o

Ugo
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Have the feds beaten him up again?
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If you really want to know how bizarre this country is just watch this disgraceful piece of propaganda from our state broadcaster. They are a major reason why we’re in the mess we are today. And believe it or not we have to pay for this garbage, under threat of imprisonment. That’s how sick this country is.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfGvyrjEbK4&NR=1
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The whole thing is rotten and corrupt from top to bottom, useless liars gorging themselves at the taxpayers expense, and there’s little dispute about that simple fact from ANY section of British society.

I think Cameron’s protestations and attacks might come back to haunt him and that he will find he has a tiger by the tail. Johnson too with his rhetoric. We are at a very dangerous moment when gangs of vigilantes, some from the EDL, are going out for confrontations. I have been watching the Channel 4 news and it is obvious that the raised level of policing cannot be sustained in the long term physically or financially. Are we at a similar stage to pre-war Germany when the rise of fascism was taking place? Read They Thought They Were Free – Milton Mayer.
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Problems need addressing. Away with the posturing. Also Cameron has made no reference to the collapsing economy and what changes he proposes to make.
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The Medialens message board which is normally admiring of what Craig writes, are not impressed with this latest post.
http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/thread/1312991975.html

Does Craig really read these posts?

I used to think lots of long difficult analytical words could sort things out and that the better the language used the more sense it made. How wrong was?

I came to this blog in the hope of finding wisdom and to some extent I have, however among its many long winded reply comments, I hear the viciousness of man, in the form of insults and one up man ship.

Just because Craig likes cricket that foul seed of Satan, a game devised in the depths of Hell itself or goes to the theatre at the inverted snobby Edinburgh fringe, does not mean he is an upper class twit with no empathy for other people.

The petty cry of our class,our religion,our way is right or how could you possibly know, is the vile thing here.
Are we not all equal in cyberspace?
I used to think that we had advanced as a species.

As for the riots, is it a lack of good clear leadership? If that really exists.
“The officer (A warrior) matter-of-factly assumes the boys are up to, as he puts it, “fun and games.” When he learns what has happened on the island, the officer is reproachful: how could this group of boys, he asks—and English boys at that—have lost all reverence for the rules of civilization in so short a time.” (Golding)

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it.

OMG I am becoming a long winded rambling old fool.

I will watch and despair or despair and watch, either way I lose.(Fowles)

From top to bottom -

The video clip at one end – and – this at the other: –
http://rt.com/news/london-police-officers-cut/

There is a straight ‘opporutnity cost’ argument here. Either more guns or more butter – the butter being domestic social expenditure – the guns being literal guns by way of funding foreign wars. More money there – less money here – and vice versa.

Take your pick.

Clark, on this one we’re going to part company. I never mentioned black or white, but they were working together. If not, why didn’t the black man stop the thief?

Im completely opposed to the violence and looting.but not ONE politico or media rent-a-quote. Is being honest about causd and effect.
Cameron just said that ‘ pockets of Britain are broken and evil’..
Not one mention of the rapacious criminal bankers,the self-serving political and media,ahem,elite or the Met-who all seem to be thick as thieves and deeply and corruptly involved in our current societal malaise.
Cameron,BoJo,Miliband et al inspire zero confidence and until these disingenuous droids start to truly address the underlying causes then this problem will only grow.

These riots don’t surprise me very much. Socially the UK is a powderkeg, as are many other countries, all that’s needed is a spark and the whole thing explodes.

But surely one needs to, or should attempt, to look at the context surrounding these disturbances? The youth of Britain don’t live in a vacuum, they are part of society too. So why do they act the way they do? Is their a ‘simple’ answer, they are simply criminals on the rampage? But then why do we ‘create’ so many young criminals? Criminals are part of society as well, they weren’t born criminals, or is that what we really think?

Why does Britain have the largest prison population in Europe, the largest percentage of people in prison? What’s so special about Britain? Or are the British especially criminal? Is there something in the water, is that the reason?

One can’t really ‘create’ a society like the UK, with its vast, entrenched, inequalities; in power, wealth, employment, education, lifestyle, health… and then act surprised and shocked when the ‘underclass’ lash out at the world around them. It would be surprising if most deprived sections of society were also the most politically sophisticated.

Successive economic policies by both the twin parties of the state, have promoted policies that have destroyed the traditional working class, and the traditional family unit. Increasingly the UK resembles the US, where millions live in kind of sub-strata of society, which is falling apart, not really surprising kids grow up the way they do and act the way they do. Expecting people to adopt genteel and respectable middle class values and norms of behavour, when they don’t have middle class educations and most importantly, middle class incomes, is a bit rich.

I also think it’s ridiculous to brand young people as scum and feral almost across the board, when, in reality, so few are actually involved in these disturbances, why is that?

It’s like there’s a process of demonisation going on, almost a self-fulfilling prophecy. A way to label a whole group in society, who are no longer needed, who are excess to the requirements of the marketplace, who no longer fit; to find a way one can ‘morally’, and with a good concience, cast them aside, because they don’t deserve anything better. This is of course very convinient. One creates the conditions that lead to the crippling of an entire strata of society, then one blames them for being handicaped, brilliant… but a bit pathetic too.

Clark, I’ve looked at it again and I’m still convinced the black man is in on it. As soon as they’ve got whatever was stolen does the black man continue to help the young lad? No. In what direction does the black man go? In the same direction as the man who stole. Also look at the point where the young lad tries to see what’s going on behind him. The black man gets hold of the lad’s arm and turns him so he cannot see. Sorry mate.

@Mary, this is so funny, thanks for posting it, already few have commented on it on my FB
True and funny!
http://nathanieltapley.com/2011/08/10/an-open-letter-to-david-camerons-parents/

I think these disturbances are symptomatic of a corrupt and decaying society. It’s bizarre and hypocritical to hear the elite, Cameron and the rest, condemning the rioters as ‘simple criminals’, when the elite themselves are so criminal themselves, only is it because ‘white coller’ crime is somehow different? Sure, it’s apparently less violent, but then, they don’t have to use violence to steal do they? Middle class crime and elite crime is different, but is it better? Compare the battery, rape, murder and robbery our genteel leaders visited opon Iraq, for example, and the same bunch of murderous gangsters, make our young people look like innocent quireboys in comparison.

One of the key communications problems which exists here is that of the blockage which almost automatically tries to equate any analysis other than mindless individual thuggery as some attempt to rationalise, excuse, and justify the behaviors which are taking place.

This approach and attitude is not only short sighted it is a straw man. Worse still its a negation of Enlightenment values – what Dan Hind (The Treat to reason – how the Enlightenment was hijacked and how we can reclaim it: ISBN 978-1-84467-253-0) calls a Folk Enlightenment. Even those, like the woman interviwed on TV yesterday whose business had been trashed, who ask the question about what are the parents doing recognise implicitly that there is a context.

The anyone who seeks to analyse this is beyond the pale because its nothing short of mindless individual criminality and needs no other rational thought approach gets us absolutely nowhere. Its the other side of the coin Nilhism we are witnessing in these events. Caricaturing anyone who tries to comprehend what’s going on as no better than those committing these atrocities is the equivilant of burying your head in the sand.

There was an interview on one TV channel last night – Tuesday 9th – with a mature local man whose community had been trashed but who did not want his face to be shown who tackled this issue head on by asking the question (and this is paraphrasing) “OK. so its mindless violence and these people are committing mindless acts. But why are they committing mindless violent acts?

But perhaps he’s just trying to excuse them? I’m sorry but that’s nothing more than a self indulgent comfort blanket.

I don’t know whether Craig was having a go at my post from last night when he made the comment about “someone” claiming he (Craig) had got all his information from the media, if it is I’d suggest you go back and re-read it Craig because you’ve totally missed the point being made in that post.

No one is suggesting that things we saw on TV or the posts on you Tube did not happen. That’s a fact. But lets apply some gray cells here – the mature criminal gangs which went into Ealing to take advantage of the situation were not the same sort of young people who we saw in other parts of the London or elsewhere. Neither were their motivations the same. Neither was the context the same. The people in the video clip on this post were not young people in the 10-18 age group – they were clearly grown men.

The immediate instant interprtation, lazy journalism and caricaturing from the MSM in many of these events has an effect. Not everyone has the time or energy at the end of an increasingly heavy working day to think things through. What we’ve had in the immediate aftermath of the initial events exploding was simplistic. Some, as is the usual case after allowing time for thinking things through rather than knee jerk reactions (some of which, like water cannon and baton rounds, are rejected by many of the professionals who are the ones charged with using them as impractical in many of these situations) are starting to employ a more rational approach.

Of course the problam now is that the simplistic instant interpretations that we got at the start are the one’s now lodged in the popular mind. Hence the comment last night about lies (or simplicities) going around the world twice before the truth has got its boots on.

It’s not hard. It’s not justification. It’s called analysis. Its called thinking. An approach developed to enable human progress to take place and civilisation to evolve.

If that is, in this case and with this specific issue, considered somehow beyond the pale than those who are seemingly viewed as guilty of this are in good company.

After all, the link on this page in the bottom right hand corner to the post “Much More Vile Than Englands Riots” has the same sub-text of contextual analysis. That is that those responsible for the bombing and civilian death’s in Libya (and by extension the similar atrocities in Iraq and Afghanisatan and elsewhere) are providing the poor example which the rioters are following.

Lets face it, the mantra which is being correctly criticised and analysed on this whole blog that “Greed is not just good, it’s legal” is the one these people (the rioters in all their different varieties and demographics) are following.

John Goss, I didn’t catch that detail of the black man holding the lad away, I’ll check again. But from my viewing, I can’t see where the black man went, but he wasn’t going off fast with the white man.
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The white man goes to walk past at first, but then turns back, and starts at the backpack immediately. It looks like the white man discovered the situation. Also note how the black man straightens like he’s surprised. Twice.
@Mary, this is so funny, thanks for posting it, already few have commented on it on my FB
True and funny!
I also think it’s ridiculous to brand young people as scum and feral almost across the board, when, in reality, so few are actually involved in these disturbances, why is that?

It’s like there’s a process of demonisation going on, almost a self-fulfilling prophecy. A way to label a whole group in society, who are no longer needed, who are excess to the requirements of the marketplace, who no longer fit; to find a way one can ‘morally’, and with a good concience, cast them aside, because they don’t deserve anything better. This is of course very convinient. One creates the conditions that lead to the crippling of an entire strata of society, then one blames them for being handicaped, brilliant… but a bit pathetic too.

http://nathanieltapley.com/2011/08/10/an-open-letter-to-david-camerons-parents/

Sorry just looting a few earlier post

Courtenay – The BBC have apologised for that interview but not publicly of course so the smear against Darcus Howe remains in the viewers’ minds. Lady Gregor of McGregor, or whatever Fiona Armstrong’s real life name is, will not be reprimanded or subjected to a ‘headcount reduction’.
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BBC email to original complainant
Posted by The Editors on August 10, 2011, 7:17 pm, in reply to “BBC apologises”
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Dear Mr P
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Thanks for contacting us regarding our BBC News Channel from 9 August.
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I understand you were unhappy with the Darcus Howe interview conducted by Fiona Armstrong.
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We forwarded concerns on this issue to BBC News Channel Editors and while they accept that this interview was not ideal, they stressed that the presenter did not intend to show Mr Howe any disrespect and the questions were simply intended to gauge his reaction to the events in Croydon the night before.
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In particular they acknowledge that the interview included a poorly phrased question about rioting. This can and does happen on occasions during live interviews and was compounded by a number of technical issues during the interview which led to the presenter and Mr Howe talking over each other.
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I’d like to assure you I’ve registered your complaint on our audience log. This is an internal report of audience feedback which we compile daily and is available for viewing by all our staff. This includes all News Editors and presenters, along with our senior management. It ensures that your points, along with all other comments we receive, are circulated and considered across the BBC.
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Thanks again for taking the time to contact us.
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Kind regards
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BBC Audience Services
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“and was compounded by a number of technical [ideological?] issues during the interview which led to the presenter and Mr Howe talking over each other.”
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“Technical”. Right. ) I didn’t see a lot of Howe trampling over Armstrong’s attempts to speak.
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DanJ, you made – ONE – (lots of) error(s) in your comment.
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(1) You were replying to me, not “Mark”. – You are right; apologies.
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(2) I didn’t suggest that Craig had “gone mad”, and I object to the generally increasing trend of regarding emotional states as “madness”. Adrenaline is a powerful hormone which makes us ready to fight or run. If theatre doesn’t affect us emotionally, why bother with it? – You were suggesting some temporary mental incapacity. I think it is possible to watch theatre and not lose your reason, otherwise why bother? I am not responsible for general trends.
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(3) You refer to “Craig’s opinion”, meaning this post. I also referred to Craig’s opinion, from an earlier post of his. – I was referring to your explanation of his opinion in this post.
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(4) No, I don’t regard the rioters actions as a “reasonable response”; I regard it as an unreasonable response, but a response none the less. But really, where do “reasonable” responses get anyone? If they worked, we wouldn’t be in this mess. – The response, in your view, is explicable as a product of the cause, and is therefore reasonable as a response. The ‘mess’ is a result of unreasonable responses; and unreasonable responses to those responses from the commentariat.
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(5) I have previously commented that I regard the use of force as necessary. I still hold that opinion. – Good.
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Danj, do you want vengeance? When society at all levels is corrupt, do you expect good behaviour only from the poorest parts of our inner cities? – Punishment is sometimes reasonable. This has been the case in all societies throught history. I don’t expect good behaviour necessarily, that is why we have the law, and why it needs to be defended and crimes not excused and the correct idendification of crime not categorised as a mental abberation.

@Mary,

The BBC is revealing its true colours.The accusation was insulting;the interviewer was baiting; she was provocative – all very clear to me.

Howvever, Mr. Howe was astute enough to turn it all back on the interviewer. Unfortunately, the BBC is not decent enough unequivocally to admit what its interviewer was clearly setting out to do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITJcparImeQ

I’m pretty sure most of the rioters are opportunists and that there’s no justification for their behaviour. I’m also pretty sure this will happen again if we continue with welfare “reforms” (i.e cuts), public service cuts and a lack of enough jobs. Some reports i’ve read from eyewitnesses say parents were sending their children to loot, suggesting bad parents are a problem too. It’s certainly a bad sub-culture, but one that won’t be changed in the long run just by punishing the rioters (though some of them are going to have to be punished)

The Guardian report link below also gives eyewitness accounts suggesting that when community leaders and peaceful protesters in Tottenham came to ask the police for answers on how Mark Duggan had died, one 16 year old girl approached riot police asking for them to “talk to us” and saying “we want answers” and throwing a leaflet and possibly a stone at them. Fifteen riot police then piled onto her with shields and batons and the riot began.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/07/tottenham-riots-peaceful-protest

I’m not ruling out the possibilities that Mark Duggan was an armed criminal (though given past Metropolitan police lies on De Menezes and others it remains to be seen if that’s true).

Some of the eyewitness accounts say some protesters arrived with weapons and petrol ready to burn and loot, others deny it.

Manchester Police ask questions first….NOT

Thanks Clark. He is a bit long winded and I agree that there was a delay in the link. At the stage when she stated that he ‘was no stranger to riots’ I nearly hit the roof. She was displaying her own prejudice and the phrase carried cultural weight.

Danj, you want to argue; that’s your problem. – you are also arguing.

Being involved in theatre is far more affecting than just being in the audience. – sure, but it is still not a reason to lose your facility to make judgements.

You can’t transmute “unreasonable” into “reasonable” with any convolution. – not sure what this means.
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Yes, riots have happened, and punishment will be necessary. – agreed.

However, I have little hope that those at the top who created the context will be punished. – not sure who you mean, punished for what, and how, and creating a context is not a crime, in any straightforward sense.

Nay, they will continue to be rewarded, and probably they’ll continue the trashing of all decent values, which will lead to yet more chaos like we’re seeing now. – who are the they?

Do you live here in the UK, Danj? I really don’t want to live in a totalitarian society, but that seems to be what you are arguing for. – arguments for totalitarianism include proposals for the abolition of politics, and replacement with rule by a single movement dedicated the the pursuance of transcendent ideals; I cannot see where I have suggested this. I live in the UK, can’t see the relevance of that.

@ Mary,
“Thanks Clark. He is a bit long winded…”
Could I explain a bit? Darcus Howe is of Caribbean heritage. As with many people from the Caribbean and of his generation and to the present day – the style of speech inherited from England was eighteenth century English. For example, the word “tinnen” was from the eighteen hundreds and still is in popular usage in the Caribbean, as are many words that have long ago gone into disuse in England.
What is more to the point is that the “long-winded” style is reflective of from whence the speech style came. If you understand that – you begin to understand the words he used to describe himself – to effect – an old West Indian Negro.
What the point really is – is that with over 300 years of exploitation and association between England and the Caribbean there is much that can be learned one to the other – if we take time to understand.
Peace!

P.S. Trust that I was not long-winded.

Clark – the Guardian link i posted covers the same incident with the 16 year old – seems to have been during a stand-off between police and friends, relatives and neighbours of Mark Duggan demanding to know how he’d died
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/07/tottenham-riots-peaceful-protest

A cursory look at the ‘mode deportment’ of current PUBLIC FACES of BRITAIN which I have named ‘privileged commandeering’ rather than ‘spontaneous looting’ – with thanks to Mary.
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“There’s Michael Gove, whose wet-lipped rage was palpable on Newsnight last night. This is the Michael Gove who confused one of his houses with another of his houses in order to avail himself of £7,000 of the taxpayers’ money to which he was not entitled (or £13,000, depending on which house you think was which).
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Or Hazel Blears, who was interviewed in full bristling peahen mode for almost all of last night. She once forgot which house she lived in, and benefited to the tune of £18,000. At the time she said it would take her reputation years to recover. Unfortunately not.
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But, of course, this is different. This is just understandable confusion over the rules of how many houses you are meant to have as an MP. This doesn’t show the naked greed of people stealing plasma tellies.
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Unless you’re Gerald Kaufman, who broke parliamentary rules to get £8,000 worth of 40-inch, flat screen, Bang and Olufsen TV out of the taxpayer.
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Or Ed Vaizey, who got £2,000 in antique furniture ‘delivered to the wrong address’. Which is fortunate, because had that been the address they were intended for, that would have been fraud.
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Or Jeremy Hunt, who broke the rules to the tune of almost £20,000 on one property and £2,000 on another. But it’s all right, because he agreed to pay half of the money back. Not the full amount, it would be absurd to expect him to pay back the entire sum that he took and to which he was not entitled. No, we’ll settle for half. And, as in any other field, what might have been considered embezzlement of £22,000 is overlooked. We know, after all, that David Cameron likes to give people second chances.
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Fortunately, we have the Met Police to look after us. We’ll ignore the fact that two of its senior officers have had to resign in the last six weeks amid suspicions of widespread corruption within the force.
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We’ll ignore Andy Hayman, who went for champagne dinners with those he was meant to be investigating, and then joined the company on leaving the Met.
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I say this in mitigation m’Lord – I admit to have been influenced by my superiors.

Herbie Wrote:

The kids call our police and other authority figures “the feds”. Some people think it’s a reference to the merkin FBI, but it’s not. It’s short for “well-feds”, as in those who fatten themselves up at the taxpayers tit.

This is utter rubbish! do you know any kids have you spoken to any? “Feds” its an adopted Americanism for FBI/Authority, nothing more, the previous slang express was “50″ as in “five O”,of Hawaii 50, fame.

You make it up as you go along don’t you.

Clark, I’m reposting this, because I think it holds a clue to what happened. The fact that there was a peaceful protest outside the police-station before a child was molested by the police does not condone the rioting but goes some way towards explaining why it came about.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iCeQd_Orp8

I remember when I drove the van for Birmingham University anti-bloodsports’ group, one of the fox-hunters, an ugly male, brought a riding crop down across the face of a young female protester. The police did nothing. They were not there to protect young students opposed to cruelty. It sickened me. So I can believe the above account.

As the woman on the corner in Hackney observed, the looters are just thieves and their actions make absolutely no sense as a political protest. The victims are the real working class, the proletariat, at the hands of what Marx called the lumpenproletariat, those without any sense of social solidarity who were quite happy to loot small struggling businesses, rob people on the streets, and beat up real working class people who desperately tried to protect their livelihoods.
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For simpering apologists who project their own politics on to these lootings, it can hardly have anything to do with anger about taxes. Many of them, if they’ve even actually paid any taxes at all, will still be a net drain on taxes with their long string of convictions and methodone reliance.

[/Blimp Mode]

I just want to know when we will get all the wonderful solutons imposed upon the nation. And it won’t be the people doing the imposing! Yes, the front men of the U.K. power base – Cameron and Clegg – will soon be reading out their rehearsed bullshit like Starmer after a rough night with the robed marauders. Talk is cheap and, though I know real change is damn hard to achieve, we should all come to the realisation that drastic changes are needed. We aren’t going to get this by talking about what needs to be done after we get real change. All the talk should be about how we are going to get real change. While some might think it is a futile situation, it has to be more futile talking about smaller obstacles further down the road when you have a massive wall right in front of you. Real, peaceful change happening in our ‘democracy’? Sounds pretty radical and who knows!

‘The victims are the real working class, the proletariat, at the hands of what Marx called the lumpenproletariat, those without any sense of social solidarity who were quite happy to loot small struggling businesses, rob people on the streets, and beat up real working class people who desperately tried to protect their livelihoods.’

Good point Angry.The sad fact of the last 40 years is that the traditional working class has, thanks to de-industrialisation, contracted in size, while the lumpen elements have expanded exponentially. Anyone here who sees ‘revolutionary potential’ in these lumpen elements is simply extruding Dave Spartish bollocks.

‘Here’s a question for OldTrot and the likes of Laurie Penny, as reflected by OldTrot’s comment just above – it goes with the territory that you believe that the U.S. (i) is more racist than the U.K. and (ii) has a less vigorous safety net than the U.K. So … why aren’t they rioting in Chicago and Boston right now? Why not last month? Why not last year?’

Don’t try & kid us, Larry/Yugo, that your country is a haven of social harmony when compared to the UK.

Read this, for starters-

http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2011/08/07/american-tinderbox/

Clark: I think it’s daft to generalise so much about the thousands of people who have been rioting.
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I’m talking about looters. There were people genuinely demonstrating about a police killing which became violent due to police thuggery on a 16-year-old girl. That much is true and for the most part political and well-motivated.
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The looting was by opportunistic thieves. I think it is daft not to generalize and daft and frankly insulting not to see the distinction between the two groups.
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Clark: Anger generally has a source.
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Yes, it does. But the looters weren’t angry. They were gleeful! Have a look at the pictures of the looters. Do they look angry?
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Again, I think you’re projecting your own politics and your own anger about irrelevant things onto people who you wouldn’t behave like in order to get them off the hook. But if you could be convinced that they aren’t out looting because a stupid copper killed his dog by locking it in his car or arrested your friend’s child for throwing a snowball or because rich corporations pollute the Earth would you still justify their actions?
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Herbie’s at it too by blaming the looting on the “banksters” and on “sanctions” (sanctions!?!) because they are political things that make him personally angry.

The father of one of three boys who was killed gave a moving and dignified appeal to end the looting and violence:
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZ1VjUSKevc

Courtenay Thanks for the explanation. I was not actually criticising Darcus Howe but I suppose it might have appeared like that.
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Here he is on Democracy Now in an interview with Amy Goodman.
http://www.democracynow.org/seo/2011/8/10/over_1_000_arrested_in_uk
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23 mins in. The transcript is below the video. Pity we have nothing like this programme in the UK.

Correction
12 mins in. http://www.democracynow.org/seo/2011/8/10/over_1_000_arrested_in_uk

Craig’s bête noire Zoe Williams of the Guardian was on Newsnight last night versus Danny Kruger, former speechwriter for Cameron. Ge wrote the Hug a Hoodie speech apparently.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006mk25 50 mins in.
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It followed a little segment of film of the looting and a page of mugshots with some West Indian music in the background thus planting in the viewers’ minds that all the perpetrators are black.
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She also writes {http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/09/uk-riots-psychology-of-looting}
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For good measure the BBC have Fiona Armstrong back on this morning co-presenting on the News Channel.

Clark, I am rigidly opposed to vandalism as a means of getting your voice heard. Vandalism is the bully of reason, it is the angry voice that prevents others being heard. I was raised in a mining town, where the pit or steelworks were about the only two work options. It was in Yorkshire in the days when it was most unusual for women to work. Due to my father’s factory closing we moved to Lancashire and bought living-accommodation with shop-premises below. My mother opened a small grocer’s shop while my father worked in a factory. Over many years the business grew into a slightly larger shop. Today it is not much bigger than when we first opened it, and my brother is just able to eke out a living. When I’ve seen shops on fire over the last few nights, I’ve also seen my mother, poring over the accounts long after shop hours were finished. I’ve seen her ordering replacement stock, bringing in the orders, stacking the shelves. And yes, we all helped. It is not about the size of a business, it is much more about the unpaid labour that all shop-keepers and family-businesses put into their enterprises, to bring goods and services to the general public. Setting fire to shop-premises with people living above is an act of mindless sabotage. There is nothing to be gained from it, just distress for families who have made efforts to serve the public. They are not the people the disaffected in society should be targeting.

Jane Hill of the BBC outside the HoC to Will Straw, son of the execrable Jack, about today’s forthcoming emergency debate on the riots and the collapsing economy -
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‘What line should David Cameron take today’.
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Couldn’t make it up.

You’re right Craig, I have to concede there may be times when trespass, and even vandalism is not out of place. And I applaud your targeting of Torness, or any other installation likely to endanger lives. I applaud too the brave pensioners, who try to cause damage to nuclear-weapons facilities. Norman Nicholson’s poem “Windscale” has had an enduring and indelible effect on those of us opposed to the nuclear industry. Like you, I’ve been on lots of rallies and protest marches, in the past, and direct action can occasionally get your voice heard. I think reasoned blogs, like this are another way, because contributors sometimes make you re-think what you thought was right. Thanks.

Deprivation, poverty, unemployment, lack of job opportunities, and racial discrimination are being invoked as the cause of the riots. There is no doubt that these are causal factors. But we need to ask why it is that not all areas of Britain where there is deprivation etc have been wracked by severe violence. Bradford, Luton, Burnley, Aylesbury, Blackburn – none of these seem to have sent in reports of looting and arson. Is that something to do with the presence of large Muslim communities? Traditionally, Muslim communities have a strong sense of respect for authority, for law, for property, for education, and a strong work ethic, and and a respect for other human beings. Family values are strong (some might say too strong – arranged marriages etc) The elders and parents and community leaders would be strong influences preventing the younger ones going on ther rampage. Other ethnic groups likewise have stong sense of community values and obligations – the Indians, perhaps the Chinese, the Jews, maybe the Cypriots – all these have strong well defined cultural traditions – and these cultural traditions give the young a sense of worth and self respect. The current mayhem arises from certain groups in particular – the young working – perhaps I should write “working” class in view of the actual lack of work opportunities – whites and blacks who spend their lives caged up in dismal inner city tower blocks or wasted suburban sink estates. The problem for both these ethnic groups – the whites and the blacks – is that there is no sense of community, respect for authority, work ethic etc in their cultures. Perhaps they have been decultured. Nothing in their family life, their environment, gives them any sense of self worth. Consequently, they have no respect for other people because they have no respect for themselves. Other ethnic groups – the Muslims and Indians etc – have self respect and give respect to others. Perhaps the conclusion to be drawn from thjis is that the two groups – whites and blacks – need to be given a stronger sense of their cultures so as to gain greater self worth. Multiculturalism, far from being the culprit-cause of the rioting , as some might claim, could actually possibly be the solution to the conditions causing the mayhem.

‘Clark: The Dark Knight’. Like it.

People with no previous record are being given six month sentences for stealing £3.84 worth of bottled water or three months for stealing a single bottle of wine priced at £3.99.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/11/uk-riots-courtrooms-country
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1378765/It-supposed-justice–day-courtroom-tweets-police-exposes-creaking-justice-system.html

It’s far too long a sentence for such a minor crime – it’s petty theft, not more than shoplifting. A lot of people found guilty of violent crimes get off with less than 6 months due to over-crowded prisons and this kind of sentencing is the reason why.

There were violent attacks against people, threats of violence against shop owners, there was setting buildings and cars on fire and throwing bricks at police, which could have killed people. There was the man beaten to death by looters and the three men run over and killed. The people responsible for those crimes are the ones who should be getting the long sentences.

The ones who damaged property in other ways or committed major thefts should be getting community service cleaning up and repairing and carrying building materials to repair and rebuild the properties they damaged or destroyed.

Jailing people for 6 months for petty theft is counter-productive.