Brainless BBCer interviews London Man who witnessed riots

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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtYPN9jP1Nw&feature=channel_video_title[/youtube]

Honestly, it's amazing how dense or blind the media has been to the structural factors leading up to the riot. I mean, I know the Winnipeg Police Force has quite a few blackmarks on it's record (notably the J.J. Harper fiasco), but this pales in comparison to the London Police. Honestly, more evidence that race relations is 23 years behind that of Canada in London.

BBC doing their job, playing their part.

They dont want us to entertain complex thoughts or socio-economic analysis on issues of dissent. Its always the same black and white line of 'do you condone this y/n' even on good natured political demonstrations. Always completely ignoring the fact that the police provoked people throughout the day and showing people getting hit with batons whilst the text tells you that the protesters are violent.

The most shocking example i can think of happenned during the miners strike in the 1980s. The police led an unprovoked charge on the picketing miners, battered them. The BBC edit reversed the footage so it appeared as if the miners had started it!

Yep. In the USA the media usually presents up protests as meaningless violence and looting. This has been going on for decades, and I think it does have the desired effect. -- That is, a lot of Americans are now "allergic" to protesting anything (like wars), because protesting is has become so strongly linked in their minds with senseless violence and criminality.


There was a strike or protest somewhere in Latin America where the news did the exact same thing (or maybe it was the Georgian situation a few years ago?). I get the impression it's a known tactic. Sometimes I wonder if such tactics are written down in a book, which all media executives use for reference.

The view from there topic

That interviewer was partisan, and her line of questioning was definitely provocative. Go back to journalism school.

This interview provoked a lot of controversy last winter.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXNJ3MZ-AUo[/youtube]

A child growing up in the these suburbs in the UK is more likely to have a TV in their bedroom than a father in their house. One third of all British Children will not eat a meal at the dinner table with their families.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/op ... 6112640970

I agree there are social issues involved. Most of them relate to our society which is high on rights but short on responsibility. I protested the Iraq War and Voluntary Student Unionism (because it would cut disability funding) I never felt justified looting someone else's shop over it though.

From Bob Carr, former Premier of NSW:
http://bobcarrblog.wordpress.com/2011/0 ... iots-mean/

I can’t go along with the facile response that the violent attacks on people and property are occurring because of the Conservatives cutting “youth services.” How many of the rioters would be rolling along to “youth services” anyway? There was a riot in public housing estates near Liverpool in Western Sydney. This was in the context of strongly funded youth services and abundant local sporting facilities. “Services” had nothing to do with it. As Premier I was quick to point out the offenders would not be getting anymore as a result of attacking police and damaging property.

Despite Conservative governments, Britain has remained a welfare state, and the welfare state has got to be considered a large part of the problem. That’s why I like the reforms of the Gillard government designed to get people off disability pensions and into the workforce. Pause for a moment and think about the view of the world absorbed by kids growing up in households where nobody has ever worked, where every adult lives on a benefit, where housing is a gift of the state. They never see a Dad getting up when an alarm clock rings and heading off to work.

Singapore as I understand it is a great model to follow. Integrate all the races from the get go. 25% indian, 25% malayan, 25% chinese, etc.. Los Angeles might not be, but it is, after many many generations of social integration slowly getting there. Don't allow them to congregate only by themselves, and thus building themselves and London self imposed ghetto's. They can still belong to their own race's "community" but dispersing them up will teach them how to survive(as all first generation immigrants do in any setting), and will more likely insure that their kids will come up in a far better integrated society(unless the UK's white population is inherently racist.) The multiculturalist mindset of it being colonialism to not require foreigners to adhere to our western values is nonsense - people of all races(including europeans) may struggle in America at the beginning but they're usually very well integrated after one generation.

The interviewer was on the side that it is not okay to riot and burn down buildings. Whether that side is right or wrong, it isn't on the left or the right. She was also trying to catch him so she was approaching it very logically whereas he was speaking emotionally describing the spirit of the situation, both before and through it. This isn't a right or wrong thing in black and white terms, both sides are somewhat right in this case as her logic is not wrong and neither are his emotional descriptions.

Youth unemployment is at obscene levels, tuition fees have tripled, and Britain has some of the lowest social mobility in the developed world.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010 ... l-mobility

If we have a population of persistently unemployed youth, with pretty much no chance of going to University in the near future, who realize that social assistance is going to dry out shortly - you're telling me rioting WOULDN'T start happening? And you're fatherless child narrative utterly fails to explain why rioting like this is happening in the middle of a period of low growth as benefits are drying up rather than a few years ago, when the welfare state was a lot more robust.

And, by the way, protesting some policy that annoys you during an economic boom time, likely on a secure income, in a stable neighborhood is utterly different than rioting after being jobless for several months, in a piss poor neighborhood, with (insult to injury) a police force whose reputation is that of brutality. When police are regarded as "the enemy" and "illegitimate", of course riots are more likely to happen.

^^^^^

I don't really think the answer can be more benefits in this situation. In principle, I support welfare and certainly don't support the idea that a person should ever be beyond government help. That said, there are far too many people in the UK who are the children of welfare recipients who are now on welfare themselves. A generation of children who view dependence on government welfare as a primary means of achieveing independence. Simply adding more welfare will not fix such a problem and keeping funding levels even would at best hide the facts.

Now the previous government in the UK had many years to fix this problem, they did not and they ought to have. They had a good economy and every opportunity. Now the people there simply cannot afford this situation. In a perfect world a policy that targeted intergenerational welfare dependence and placed a large mutual obligation upon such people would be an idea. The money has run out along with the opportunity to fix the problem in such a way.

As to my comments relating to parenting. Stronger independent families are part of the solution. The depression era was no doubt poorer but people were more independent. For example, if a silly kid came home to a real family with a looted TV and a new pair of sneakers... Do you think the your parents or mine would allow us to set that TV in the lounge... I would be chewed out and then dragged to the police station.

That kind of BBC reporting happens all the time in the UK. They try to present it in a way that perpetuates ignorance of minority groups. That BBC reporter should be ashamed of accusing an old man of rioting.

I think the problems in the UK were waiting to happen, I am surprised they were not worse than they were. But our stupid politicians will not learn anything other than what they want to.

The only good news programme in the UK is Channel 4 news.

Extra info not needed here topic

See below

Last edited by sartresue on 11 Aug 2011, 3:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The role of the Journalist topic

Journalists are to be as objective as possible. It is up to the Interviewer to set the tone to get the news/facts as clearly as possible. that the old man argued and became defensive means that the interviewer did not do the job properly.

Watch a broadcast done by Canadian News Journalists at CTV, and you will see reporting and interviewing at its best. Canadian journalists are excellent interviewers/reporters and much sought after by US Networks.

I will post a link. Give me a few minutes. See belowhttp://watch.ctv.ca/news/clip515247#clip515247CTVNews

The only way you're "de-benefits as an incentive for self-dependence" policy works is if full employment is a government policy, because getting current people "off welfare" will only result in them transfering to the streets, being a drain on the extended family, being prayed upon by vultures for Jesus and turned into devout "rice Christians" (perhaps this is what you're hoping for?), or displacing someone else from the job market.



If your theory of welfare dependence depressing the incentive of people to work being the main factor was correct, then there should be a clear trend of higher unemployment during Labour years, which there isn't.

Furthermore, despite you whinning at Labour for not addressing the welfare dependence problem during the "boom years" (which, like all "boom years", seem to disproportionately be a "boom" for the wealthy), welfare spending as a percentage of GDP actually fell.



Keep in mind how incredibly low the 2010 payments are, given that GDP growth tends to shrink during recessions as, concurrently, welfare rolls/benefits increase (given the increased rate of joblessness). Yet it barely budges, much less rivals the pre-New Labour welfare spending as a % of GDP figures.



Furthermore, why does a cyclically worsened deficit indicate that the UK's "ran out of money" for good? Downturns naturally make deficits worse, by slashing the deficit you paradoxically make the Debt to GDP ratio worse by killing jobs.

And let me just say, while I haven't reviewed the literature on what happened in the UK during the Great Depression, 91's certainly wrong about Family Values preventing riots during the Great Depression more generally.

http://international.loc.gov:8081/learn ... press.html

Decades before liberal divorce laws.

Firstly, let me clarify, are you saying that the UK is not overly dependent on welfare? It seems to me that you are being quite shady in what it is you yourself are claiming.

I am also not quite sure why you want to attack my post. It was not put forward in opposition to your own and you don't seem to have a fantastic grasp of what I am saying.

I do not think that counts as a policy, nor am I necessarily in favor of it. I simply stated that when the money runs out, so do the options. If the state cannot afford the levels of welfare, then simply, they cannot be afforded. I certainly hope that there is an alternative to cuts, I just don't really see them.



I like this graph, because it shows what I am talking about. In 2007, one in three British households was dependent on state benefits for at least half of its income (in the 1960's the figure was around 5%). On your graph, unemployment was low but benefit dependence was still very high. This represents a massive problem for the UK, one that could not be hidden forever by maintaining the huge levels of government support and one that cannot be resolved by throwing more money at the situation:

"during the Blair years the strategy of big spending on health, education and welfare was tested to destruction.

"It has not produced the expected improvements in health and education, and benefit expenditure has created not a more empowered people but deeper welfare dependency."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2007/ ... n.politics



I never claimed this; anywhere.



I am not claiming that welfare dependence is going up. I have no idea where you are getting this from. Rather that it was unaffordably high to begin with. When one in three people need welfare during the boom times, you have a badly structured society.



As a general rule I support deficit spending in the short term. I am not saying the Conservatives have the right answer to this problem, in fact I don't think they do. Rather, as I stated in my last post, I would prefer to target inter-generational welfare dependence with large amounts of mutual obligation. The Tories however think that their economy has a better chance of recovery is people have confidence in their fiscal responsibility, I have some sympathy for this position.



No one is actually advocating this, not even the Tories. The Conservative Party is capping benefits at around the amount of a job. The British cap on benefits is still £26,000 (around 42k US) per year, around £500 per week. To the average US voter, this much welfare is astonishingly high (even given the cost of living difference). I think we can both agree that a cap is necessary, though we might differ on where to put it. If you remain against a cap on welfare benefits remember that last year there were 10 families in the UK receiving more than £1 Million per year in housing benefits alone.

How are you defining being on welfare? Am I on welfare? The federal government subsidizes my education with low-interest loans. Before that, the state and local governments funded my education entirely. The state provides innumerable services to me at no direct monetary cost.