The REAL cause of the totenham riots...

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Yet through all this, PM Cameron is not addressing the probable cause of the riots, he is blaming "criminality" and only talking about what weapons he will use.

In a sensible country they'd be killing looters until the looters stopped, which is I believe what they'd do in countries like Poland. Five dead looters would concentrate a few minds.

And Tim_Tex? There are an awful lot of people here in comparable or worse circumstances to the looters, some of the looters being outwardly 'respectable' folk - and they look at what these people are doing with horror and disgust. Don't make excuses for them. Leave that to the Guardianistas.

Oh, and they've just brought some bloke on the news from the UK Islamic Dee-dee-da-da-whatever who needs a shave, condemning these things.

Why is there a UK Islamic group anyway and are they government 'pets'? These groups tend to be crawling with extremists and in my opinion we shouldn't be talking to groups that call themselves "Muslim" or "Islamic" this or that anyway.

Deal with Muslims as just people, with their own individual preferences. That's where the Government goes wrong, setting people against one another with their 'group rights' and such.

Last edited by Tequila on 10 Aug 2011, 1:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.

When has rioting ever really helped anyone?

It helps people if they can destroy facilities and get nice new ones in return.

Arson jobs and the like?

If the neighborhood is bad the proprietors will not rebuild. It gives them the perfect excuse to go out of business, take the insurance money and gtfo.

i heard that after the broadwater farm riots they got a swimming pool. I think there are other examples, but i dont know east/south london well.

Many of the social reforms weve come to take for granted - social housing, benefits, refugee safety (or the pretense of it) the NHS - was a result of communism. The elite had to make concessions to compete with the promises socialist ideologies held in the anticipation of rioting protecting there own power base from the threat of dissent and ultimately revolt.

Since communism collapsed (ive heard modern communists disown it, calling it state capitalism) and since nearly all notions of working class solidarity from past eras have been systematically eradicated the elite feel the social state has outlived its purpose, they are finally able to start dismantling it. They probably dont think riots represent any long term threat, assuming that the nature of modern dissent will trend towards apolitical greed and wanton criminality - they have trained us well!

They may even think a riot can be useful to them (eg. manipulating commodity markets, draconian reforms)

That sounds like a neo-marxist argument of the wealth of borgoise being trickled down to bribe the masses.

Why not protest peacefully and use the power of vote to get what you want? If you trash your neighborhood enough times people will just say "forget it" and abandon it.

I don't think that's true at all - I think what will happen is that we'll end up with less good social services whilst people will still pay through the nose for them. I'd welcome a smaller state that was genuine value for money but unfortunately we won't get that. Basically, the good parts are being squeezed out and the vested interests and the bad guys are infecting the system.

I don't think it was to do with communism - look at the state of the countries that have suffered communism directly, in eastern Europe say. I don't see them rushing to back communism.

These people are just immoral thugs and looters, nothing more. They don't have a political agenda, they just want to steal and destroy. Attempting to romanticise general apolitical disorder like this is absurd.

Peaceful protests? No problem with those. Absolutely no problem. Communists, greenies, socialists, nationalists, unionists, left-wingers, conservatives, liberals, libertarians, big staters, small staters, etc. No problem. It's when it turns violent that there's a problem.

The thing is, the parents of the man who was killed by police have specifically condemned this looting.

As far as I can tell, the guy who was shot was a criminal scumbag.

i think you misunderstand, the concessions arnt from communism directly, but the idea of it. The very existence of it whether ultimately it worked or not.

If the british working class were downtrodden too much, children stayed malnourished & dying in industrial accidents, if living conditions hadnt been improved somewhat then the very notion of an utopian alternative would antagonize people into dissent and no amount of state propaganda or realism for that matter would have quelled rising dissent.



analysis, attempting to understand something is not the same as romantising it. Saying how dreadful some behaviour is doesnt teach us anything, it doesnt stop it happenning again.



it doesnt seem to do anything though does it? 2m people march and the govt just ignore them completely. Theres been some inspired protest recently, ukuncut etc. im all for it. perhaps if there had been a general strike, if more had been done earlier things wouldnt have got this far. I just wish the 'decent' civilians had been more angry before.

My impression of violence at organised protests (the groups you mention, not far-righters) is that 9/10 the police provoke, if not actually initiate it. Im not going to try and sell this point though, it might be one of things you have to see to believe.

Yes, I get the point with some of the organised protests. With a lot of them, the police would be a lot better off leaving people alone instead of harrassing them or 'kettling' them or using FIT to bother them. Just leave them be, unless they make trouble.

someones mapped the riot hotspots over a map of something called IMD - index of multiple deprivation.

they were looting in tooting!

http://maptube.org/map.aspx?m=ol&s=bBHF ... 9_1514.kml

Psych, I am wondering something, if you were injured or worse in a riot, would you think they were oppressed people expressing themselves because they have no other way?

You could use the same excuse for anything, but what if it affects you negatively? Would you be so quick to justify it? If my neighbors harmed me or tore up my stuff or stole it then used rioting as an excuse I would be furious enough to spit on them.

i just found that map interesting and felt like sharing.

if i was directly affected by something badly, then theres a strong chance id react badly. Id regress into the primal reptilian part of the brain, clouded by fiery dark emotions. completely lose sight of the bigger picture. In a moments madness some racist epithet might escape my lips - i hope it woldnt, but you never know.

I hope that id settle down afterwards, and shake of any predujice that might have seduced me.

The point is that i dont think its 'human nature' to do wicked things anymore than its human nature to catch a disease. When the environment is healthy and a person is well nourished they are less susceptable to catching things. When things go to s**t then the virus starts to spread. Some people have a high resistance and they dont get infected by the rage, the avarice the mischief or whatever.
Maybe they had the good role models? But they dont get a prize just because they had the higher resistance or the stronger character and pointing at them as examples of 'decent' people does nothing to improve the environmental conditions that helped breed the virus in the first place.

Im not 'excusing' behaviuor, im trying to understand it. Because i dont want it to happen again.

Its similar to the conservative fallacy about the war on drugs, where it only makes the problem much worse. Someone might say how would you feel if a crackhead attacked you? but that argument is a dead end. Im interested in what works - makes things better, what will make a better environment that doesnt bring out the worst in susceptable people.

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