Rioting in London

http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2011/s3290426.htm

The guy in this interview fucking nails it imo

In what world is police corruption not PERFECTLY associated with police brutality and misconduct??! Fuck me dead, that post is both the dumbest thing you have said on biggie but more frustratingly it also shows the sheer contempt you have for the poor who obviously can't read the fucking paper.

of course they do ya silly

or are you suggesting ONLY the upper echelons of society read the news and are aware of that which impacts on their world?

those of which you speak would have little regard for the cops anyway

I would wager that the recent revelations of police corruption strike hardest at the middle classes, fool and their illusions of the unimpeachable integrity of the british bobby

one more nail in the coffin of british society laid bare

the middle class are shocked (and/or depressed/angry) by the ongoing allegations of corruption (which are nothing new - they've been going on for decades, actually since the day the police force was formed)...

those black youths being targetted day in and day out for searches and other acts by the police because of their skin colour have every reason to be fucked off and their little regards for the police are if not well justified completely understandable

these youths see the papers too and see the constant double standards... those MPs who were caught rorting the sytsem now yelling from up high that the rioters would be held accountable and punished for their actions when they themselves all got off pretty much scott free

and once again - poor inner city black youths can and do read papers, watch the news on tv etc. in fact I'll go as far to say they're actually human.... 'bully' them enough and they will and do react

So your argument is that the poor just dislike police because poor people dislike police??

Does it not seem more likely that decades of corruption, racism, and mistreatment, coupled with vast social inequality in their society, may be involved?

The middle classes SHOULD be enraged by that shit, and SHOULD be disgusted by the deeper issues, but instead they (we?) are letting the people in charge convince us that "niggers and chavs just like to rob shit".



*edit: Using that word makes me feel ill, but I'm enraged and that really does seem to be what those in power are trying to break it down to...

NightRider, you really need to comprehend that its rather idiotic to point to a handful of rich kids in the riot as a means of denying that a significant underlying factor behind the riots is the complex mix of recession, austerity, consumerism, corruption amongst the upper classes, different standards of justice, etc - factors which have all impacted most heavily on the underclass.

And if you cannot see the evidence all around you of global social, environmental, and economic breakdown, then you really are living in cuckoo land.

In the first case, your capacity to reason is in question. In the second your grasp of empirical reality is fanciful. Aside from that you're on solid ground. Which pretty much sums up the conservative response.

@ daktari

and yet I read that since the Scarman enquiry relations between the black community and the police improved markedly

revelations of police corruption in britain, nothing new? news to me - and at the level of royal family protection? bejaysus

political backhanders, yes, I agree and the politicians can go fuck themselves so far as I'm concerned

Yup, I agree with that.

No. I think you're over-analysing it.

The really sinister revelation of all this is that 1,000 far right activists (or was it 2000) came out onto the streets to 'defend' their communities.

The idiots who came out in these riots to loot and plunder only provide the oxygen those cunts need to grow their numbers and coming only 2 weeks after that lunatic in Norway gave huge publicity to their cause too. And yeah, it's a race thing. You can bet your white honky asses on it.

I bet you a tenner any report post these riots come out with the exact same findings as Lord Scarman found in the early 80s

wiki

!

daktari, if you get a chance get to see the bbc hardtalk on the riots that was shown last night, if you didn't already - was interesting

to be fair its not a single issue of racial disadvantage anymore - the poor regardless of race/culture are all equal in their plight and as disadvantaged as ever if not more

not so spontaneous as these latest, actually: in fact rather well planned if you read that op ed I posted up top and from far greater provocation of entrenched police racism at the time, which subsequently led to significant reforms as indicated by Scarman

these latest are the twitter riots for twits

as that black lady in the vid says: draw your breaks!

I'd qualify that with "in recent history" tbh, though anyone arguing anything more than a few decades ago would be being quite ridiculous anyway, I guess

I'll check it out, ta

I'd suggest with regards to the 81 riots and these is that we live in a vastly different world, albeit one with depressingly similar problems and responses

we (they) can choose to learn from these riots and find ways and means to address the inequalities and inherent corruption of our (their) bureaucracy and private institutions or simply revert to the knee jerk law and order toughen up simplistic and morally corrupt response which seems to be the favoured path

Y U NOOOO want to make things better David Cameron?

as to austerity measures being a cause - ther'e'll be riots soon a-coming in France at a guess - all over Europe in fact

I'm hearing of unpaid food bills to Turkey by European nations defaulting on their debts

And there is an element of truth to that. There were scallies taking advantage. But to repeat the unavoidable and already heavily laboured point, people who are given even a reasonably fair go don't often demonstrate and almost never riot, so her point is the least important of all for us to take away.

Yup, that's what I'm expecting. Spain, Greece, and Portugal again soon too. Some truly fucked up shit.

true rebels wouldn't burn down their own 'hoods would they? if they had a political statement to make it would be Kensington and Chelsea

because they're not organized. The anger can be political, but the focus of the result of that anger need not necessarily be focused correctly.

E.g., Look at the united states. The Tea Party are angry about the state of the economy, but direct their anger towards democrats.

the tea party's full name should be the mad hatter's tea party

They're not rebels, and anyone trying to describe them as such is confused. They're disenfranchised youth, so expecting them to congregate via twitter then delineate between the haves, the have-mores, and the have-fucktons to make a political statement is farcical.

I quite like this tweet:



we have our own example of this in the student army post CHCH earthquake

#goodstories

nah it's just a lot easier to get your booty home to the council flat in Tots than Ken High St if you shop local :-/

http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/71/generation-fcked.html

Scary info but it's a good thing to have quantified.

Time we started telling kids the truth: "you poor suckers, you're fucked"

the brits have always hated their young, nothing new about that

It is new. The world is changing. It doesn't stay the same. And it's not just culture that driving this. Structural adjustment of the economy has far reaching consequences

actually the right has always vilified the young - we're no different here and we'll no doubt see a bunch of policy incentives aimed at that group here after the nats have their cuppa over the weekend

Police shootings are very rare, Prof FitzGerald notes.

"According to IPCC reports in the last three years there have only been seven and all of those - including the shooting of Raoul Moat - were of white people.

"The Met police has seen huge changes in attitude since the Macpherson report. That said, its use of section 60 stop-and-search powers disproportionately brought normally law-abiding young black people in particular into potentially confrontational encounters with the police.

"However, this is not true of many of the other police forces who are now facing similar threats to public order - so it cannot be used as any sort of excuse."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-14483149

I remember a thread here on biggie re historical attitudes to children and childhood about the time of the Kahui twins tragedy I think

Hahah, wtf?! The Met used race based stereotyping which exacerbated tensions before they killed another black dude but there was rioting where the police weren't as racist so the Met are safe as fuck! Oh of course, how silly of us!!

+1000

you'll love this then

Paul Routledge of the Daily Mirror blamed "the pernicious culture of hatred around rap music, which glorifies violence and loathing of authority (especially the police but including parents), exalts trashy materialism and raves about drugs".

I'm talking the period approx 1970 - present, that's the long sweep of time during which capitalism has been in its most recent period of crisis. Events of the late 70s, 80s, 90s and so on through to our current recession have all been outcomes of an underlying problem of the profitability of trade and productive enterprise - a problem which businesses, assisted by governments, have successfully passed onto society; i.e. they have cut their losses by making society pay

Video games, the occult, and back-masking in rock music too imo ^_^

one word - Neoliberalism

can we just blame the fuckiing darkies and be done with it

oh

no it's the mothers

Freud was right

ITS YOUR FUCKING FAULT MUM

but surely if we blame the mothers we have to also blame the sperm donars or fathers as traditionalists like to call them

christ it seems no one is innocent and no one is accepting blame

just like the last rugby world cup

shame on us all

Sociology Department Seminar

Is Neoliberalism a Terminal Phase or Did Polanyi Get it Wrong?

Jane Kelsey

Wednesday 17th August 2011, 12 noon, HSB 901


This paper asks three inter-related questions: Does the latest financial crisis signal a terminal phase of neoliberalism and the emergence of a post-neoliberal era? Why has it been possible to use the crisis as an opportunity to re-secure and advance the neoliberal paradigm, irrespective of the social and political damage? Is neoliberalism so effectively embedded that it can contain its intrinsic contradictions in the medium term?

Polanyi's theory of double movements would suggest the post-2007 crisis should herald the beginning of the end for neoliberalism. Initially, some of its former champions did recant their beliefs and governments pursued policies that broke with the orthodoxy. More recently, the agenda of less state, more market has been revived with a vengeance through fiscal austerity, privatisation, job losses, cuts to services and safety nets, and restoration of corporate power, especially in the financial sphere.
Does this suggest that Polanyi is wrong and neoliberalism is so effectively embedded that it can survive these contradictions for the medium term?

The paper is part of a broader Marsden research project on embedded neoliberalism in a post-neoliberal era, which focuses on New Zealand's neoliberal experiment and a selection of other countries that adopted an equally radical path.

The project argues that neoliberalism in New Zealand has been embedded through normative and coercive disciplines in domestic legislation, economic integration treaties and international institutions. These disciplines are increasingly brittle as self-regulating markets repeatedly fail, the rort of financialisation is exposed, and new crises of climate, energy, food and livelihoods expose the shallowness of market-driven orthodoxy. Despite this, the neoliberal paradigm has been remarkably resilient.

Bio

Jane Kelsey is one of New Zealand's best-known critical legal scholars.
She has taught at the University of Auckland since 1979, specializing in law and policy and international economic regulation, in particular trade in services. Her book The New Zealand Experiment. A World Model for Structural Adjustment, first published in 1996, remains a principal source on the radical transformation that took place in New Zealand post-1984. In 2009 Jane was awarded a Marsden Grant to review the neoliberal project 25 years on, under the title embedded neoliberalism in a post-neoliberal era. Jane travels extensively, talking on globalisation, free trade agreements and lessons for other countries from New Zealand's neoliberal experiment to a wide range of audiences.

Some of you obviously have tooo much time on your hands.

Yeah, feeling strongly about important issues and heatedly arguing our cases; what a bunch of losers LOL

*thumbs up*

strangely apt quote from a completely unrelated article?

Don't you have a job during the day?

The workers must break from capitalist oppression to discuss their predicament!

Filthy condescending arse wipes must be dammed

England riots: 'The whites have become black' says David Starkey

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14513517

yeh I watched that last night , hard to believe he can actually say that.

His complete argument is totally crazed imo but the speech he was referencing was a 1968 Conservative speech against immigration which warned that the blacks would eventually outnumber the whites in Britain and would use the tools of government to take over the country by sheer weight of numbers. So he is analogizing "poor" with "black" in the most cringe-worthy Conservative way, but even though he said it stupidly I can see what he was getting at.

Except that I hope that it happens.

sad to see the default response is knee jerk and reactionary

problem to return over and over again... only compounded by crack down (ie next lot will be worse)

So many of the constituents to the Enoch Powell speech would have been the natural constituents of the Labour Party. Much hypocritical huffing and puffing at the time I'd have thought from the liberal left. In no way did his speech countenance violence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rivers_of_Blood_speech

is it me or is the whole immigration angle just a handy hook used to 'understand' that which the powers that be have no interest in changing - ie if as I suggest its the austerity measures on top of grim times... that doesn't suit the ruling party as its their policies causing so much 'harm' so lets blame the darkies

I think that the brits are ripe for a riot just about any time and in most decades seem to do just that. I think the 1990's and 2000's, from memory, were relatively peaceful though so maybe we just got lulled a little.

the brits are good at demonstrating and protesting... sometimes that leads to lawlessness and rioting - not often, compared to the numbers of lawful and peaceful protests

we only think they're 'ripe' for it as our news has and is still to a degree very anglo centric - we hear nothing of the vast majority of riots here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_riots

pro tip: if you want to hotlink do so on separate line like this

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_riots