British Riots Rage; Authorities At A Loss+

Don't worry about me, so far the North East has managed to have enough sense and pride not to burn down their neighbours houses.

Nothin' near me so far either... Except some prats on twitter and facebook.

Penguin wrote:

Azzandra wrote:

Harley, didn't you say (repeatedly) that you have Asperger's? How could you possibly be qualified to speculate on people's reasons and mindsets?

Someone with AS can speculate on people's reasons and mindsets just fine. Harley can't do it because she's a delusional fuckwit.

Pretty much this. And to expand upon your theory, Azzandra, (and to explain why it's wrong): A person with AS usually has more trouble with empathy in an immediate situation, where they cannot gather all of the facts and weigh the consequences against each other, then come out with a logical Spock-like solution. If someone walks up to someone with AS and says "I like you, want to go out?" The person with AS might just be like, "I don't feel like it right now. I'm hungry." Which is absolutely true. They're just not considering how the other person might take their (internally fair) response.

In a situation like this, however, one can do research and gather evidence as to cause and effect, from various sources, biased or not. In essence, people being treated like shit for years = riots, is actually quite logical, and one can understand the mindset of pain -> reaction.

yes, people with AS might lack social skills in tricky, uncomfortable situations where there is no black and white answer (funerals, romance, correcting someone without hurting feelings, etc.), but they are not soulless robots incapable of understanding human emotion.

That said, Harley seems to be incapable of processing complex ideas, and often seems to reduce them to the lowest common denominator that makes sense to her, even if it makes no fucking sense to anyone else on the planet. That's not AS, that's Harley.


Long story short: It's hard enough being honest-to-shit autistic without being lumped in with self-diagnosed snowflakes like her to confuse the general populace as to what I can and cannot do.

Idiotic post on my part, Sakurelf thank you for the correction.

John Marston wrote:

Chipper mate your a fucking cunt

*You're

Lexin wrote:

Godzilla wrote:

It started off as a riot, but in this part of town it's obvious people are jumping on the bandwagon to get themselves some new shoes while everyone else is.

I accept that to a degree, but it's too easy to demonise and ignore what is happening on the ground in these dreadfully deprived areas. This problem has been fuelled by years of neglect by successive governments and local councils, and taken up by young (mostly) men who have no stake in the system and no prospect of any.

Okay, there are a number of problems with what you just typed.

#1.) Demonize
#2.) Fueled
#3.) The government isn't your goddamn mother. It's not there to spoon feed you. The problem is that you Eurotards have come to expect the government to do just that, to solve all your problems and take care of all your worries. "Free" healthcare, "free" education, guaranteed high paying jobs to everyone, and such. In reality, the most effective governments throughout time did little more than provide freedom, along with some basic protections (law enforcement and emergency response services and so forth). Free people who have to solve their own problems and meet their own needs usually come up with much more efficient solutions to those problems/needs than government micromanagement does.

The problem with you idiots is that you want to go to a guy who says "I'm going to take this $30,000 and pay someone to be productive for me so that I can make more money and pay more people to be productive for me" and say "No you're not, I'm going to take that $30,000 and give it to Harley to continue to sit on her fat ass and produce nothing more than horrific fanfiction and be a general burden to this country." Then when there are no jobs and the government has no money because they smothered the economic activity they taxed to raise money by taxing and hamstringing it to hell and back, you bitch because no one's there to wipe your ass.

John Marston wrote:

Chipper mate your a fucking cunt

If you're going to name yourself John Marston, you should do better to play the part. Semi-literate farmer, remember? While you seem to have the semi-literate part down, a farmer in New Mexico Albany isn't going to call anyone "mate." I distinctly recall Marston always using "friend" in it's place.

I have to agree with a lot of what Chipper sez here.

"The role of the police is not to serve and protect the people. It is to serve and protect the system that rules over the people. To enforce the relations of exploitation and oppression, the conditions of poverty, misery and degradation into which the system has cast people and is determined to keep people in. The law and order the police are about, with all of their brutality and murder, is the law and order that enforces all this oppression and madness." Bob Avakian, revcom.us

John Marston wrote:

Chipper mate your a fucking cunt

And you sir are an ignorant miserable armadillo-fucking shit-for-brains donkey-ball-licking pathetic fucking waste of subhuman flesh incapable of using the worthless underdeveloped lump of tissue you probably mistake for a brain.


Protip: It is possible (and quite a bit more fun) to insult someone without being a sexist asshole. Though if that's all you're going to offer to counter Chipper's analysis, then you might as well not waste your time or anyone else's.

zeke wrote:

I have to agree with a lot of what Chipper sez here.

"The role of the police is not to serve and protect the people. It is to serve and protect the system that rules over the people. To enforce the relations of exploitation and oppression, the conditions of poverty, misery and degradation into which the system has cast people and is determined to keep people in. The law and order the police are about, with all of their brutality and murder, is the law and order that enforces all this oppression and madness." Bob Avakian, revcom.us

Then the people should be protesting or rioting against the police or other places of real power.

What is happening here, the people attacking family businesses, charities and restaurants and stripping people naked in broad daylight are just thugs who were looking for an excuse to break things.

Don't confuse genuine protest for low grade morons who drag the whole thing down. And now the police are going to use all of this as an excuse to establish curfews and cover up what they did to that poor man who never even drew his gun on the police who shot him dead.

I understand that the young people are disenfranchised and have no hope for their own future, but none of them realize that they will ultimately make things so much worse for not only themselves but everyone else.

Keep yourselves safe, those of you in the UK near London. I have a bad feeling about all of this.

I think it's a manner of misplaced priorities. Considering that, so far as I can gather, these kids have subpar education and little say in public policy, these kid probably don't know how exactly to express their dismay or what to do with their "freedom". Anyone who was in the protests from the beginning would take this opportunity to rage against the police, like said. But someone who really has no comprehension of a world beyond their neighborhood and a future beyond the bleak swamp they have to wade through, the most common reaction is "Well, finally, I get to do me! I get to do what I wanna do! Fuck yes! Now what do I wanna do?Uh... OOH, a flat screen TV! Everyone needs one of those, yeah? I feel so damn free right now."

You know? What ever resentments they've got pent up has erupted into mindless violence like a toddler's insane tantrum when they really needs a nap and someone took their favorite blanket. So the violence and the potential for change is there, but in the hands of dumb, dumber, and a nations worth of dumberers, (no offense meant to any brits, I mean youngsters) all they've got in terms of perspective is what awesome shit they can grab to make themselves feel better.

Braigwen wrote:

zeke wrote:

I have to agree with a lot of what Chipper sez here.

"The role of the police is not to serve and protect the people. It is to serve and protect the system that rules over the people. To enforce the relations of exploitation and oppression, the conditions of poverty, misery and degradation into which the system has cast people and is determined to keep people in. The law and order the police are about, with all of their brutality and murder, is the law and order that enforces all this oppression and madness." Bob Avakian, revcom.us

Then the people should be protesting or rioting against the police or other places of real power.

What is happening here, the people attacking family businesses, charities and restaurants and stripping people naked in broad daylight are just thugs who were looking for an excuse to break things.

Don't confuse genuine protest for low grade morons who drag the whole thing down. And now the police are going to use all of this as an excuse to establish curfews and cover up what they did to that poor man who never even drew his gun on the police who shot him dead.

I understand that the young people are disenfranchised and have no hope for their own future, but none of them realize that they will ultimately make things so much worse for not only themselves but everyone else.

Keep yourselves safe, those of you in the UK near London. I have a bad feeling about all of this.

...You do realize that being disenfranchised and having no prospects for the future is the reason why they're reacting in the way they are, right? It may be short-sighted and self-destructive but these are people reacting to the establishment in the only way they know how. Sometimes burning the establishment to the ground is the only way to fix it. And not sure if you're being purposely dense, but each of your points has been already addressed in this thread. Other places of "real power" have the ability to retaliate, mercilessly, so no moron is going to go attack a police station. And illegal behavior is never an excuse for other illegal behavior, and the police cannot (should not, legally) cover up anything without the help of media regardless of the rioting.


I hope all of you in or near affected areas stay safe as well, and best wishes.

I don't know if it's because of the pocket area I'm living in or what, but this thread has incidentally been the most enlightening source of information about what's going on than anything else I could have access to. I heard about it first from my UK friends on Facebook, and then it sprawled on here.

I sometimes forget how massively disconnected I am to Europe since moving out here.

Anyway... I would probably hide under a blanket and pee myself if I was in and around riots, or something. Stay safe everyone. And I'm so glad I realised halfway through that I was reading Mikey's post, so I could stop and save myself a lot of confusion thinking it was Penguin's post.

I agree pretty much with Chipper here.

Owlish wrote:

...You do realize that being disenfranchised and having no prospects for the future is the reason why they're reacting in the way they are, right? It may be short-sighted and self-destructive but these are people reacting to the establishment in the only way they know how. Sometimes burning the establishment to the ground is the only way to fix it. And not sure if you're being purposely dense, but each of your points has been already addressed in this thread. Other places of "real power" have the ability to retaliate, mercilessly, so no moron is going to go attack a police station. And illegal behavior is never an excuse for other illegal behavior, and the police cannot (should not, legally) cover up anything without the help of media regardless of the rioting.


I hope all of you in or near affected areas stay safe as well, and best wishes.

I know... but... I just have a really bad feeling about all of this.

I agree that there are legitimate issues, and that dissent and peaceful protest has always been a useful tool for those who feel that they are being wronged. And yes, sometimes force is necessary to meet force.

But as usual, all it takes is a small number of people who use it as a "cover" to engage in utter and wanton destruction for news readers (I use that term because all they do is regurgitate rather than actually report) to turn the majority who are exercising their rights into a random and violent mob hell-bent on tearing down the system and letting blood run in the streets.

Saw it in Seattle when the WTO met there a few years back. Saw it in Madison this past spring. Saw it in Greece, and Spain, and a hundred other places. The names change, but the script is the same.

I remember a few months ago reading an article where someone predicted something like this was eventually going to happen. I can't say I'm surprised, but the manner in which this has happened, and the way in which it IS happening is shocking. I dunno about you guys either, but by calling these people "rioters" it seems to indicate they've got some sort of political motive. So far all I've seen is places getting set on fire and looted.

Excuses over "we're just getting what we deserve", "we're the ones suffering", and "it's your fault for making us this way" are pretty disgusting in response to attacking their OWN communities. They know the family that works hard in the corner store to make ends meet, they've walked past that block of apartments their entire lives, or they've even been ordering food from that take away place since they were children. Now those places are ransacked and those pieces of community are burning.

What have they got to show for it? They've generated millions in damage, put their neighbors' lives in danger, and a greedy smug smirk as they take photos to show off their armfuls of stolen goods - robbed from those same neighbors.

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Eyewitness accounts of the riots and shop owners tell of defending their own stores and patrons.

Also, a lot of the looters are going around in broad daylight using technology, mostly Blackberry phones going off the rumors that they can't be traced, to coordinate attacks (although there are plenty of rumors around about anarchists purposely directing people). So far Blackberry/RIM has agreed to help the police, but their website was hacked with threats. Still, it's quite amazing that many of the looters aren't even wearing masks any more and are completely ignorant of the idea of people using technology against them.

I dunno how this is going to end... but I'm hoping no more lives are taken. The government (and ultimately the rest of society) is going to have to take action now too, but either they'll finally help those on the poverty line or they'll get all "high and mighty" and make it worse. And on a brighter note, communities have taken to the streets with brooms in order to clean them up.

EDIT: Looks like things got worse... the police have basically been told they can use any means they want to stop the chaos.

Sakurelf wrote:

That said, Harley seems to be incapable of processing complex ideas, and often seems to reduce them to the lowest common denominator that makes sense to her, even if it makes no fucking sense to anyone else on the planet. That's not AS, that's Harley.

Long story short: It's hard enough being honest-to-shit autistic without being lumped in with self-diagnosed snowflakes like her to confuse the general populace as to what I can and cannot do.

I'd thank you, Sak, except I'm not self-diagnosed.

Quote :

But as usual, all it takes is a small number of people who use it as a "cover" to engage in utter and wanton destruction for news readers (I use that term because all they do is regurgitate rather than actually report) to turn the majority who are exercising their rights into a random and violent mob hell-bent on tearing down the system and letting blood run in the streets.

That's right, Spotts.

Quote :

Excuses over "we're just getting what we deserve", "we're the ones suffering", and "it's your fault for making us this way" are pretty disgusting in response to attacking their OWN communities. They know the family that works hard in the corner store to make ends meet, they've walked past that block of apartments their entire lives, or they've even been ordering food from that take away place since they were children. Now those places are ransacked and those pieces of community are burning.

What have they got to show for it? They've generated millions in damage, put their neighbors' lives in danger, and a greedy smug smirk as they take photos to show off their armfuls of stolen goods - robbed from those same neighbors.

That's even more right, Raine. Those are the people I really, really despise right now.

Historical landmarks being set on fire and homes being burned to the ground? Big stores and family businesses being destroyed by looting? That's not communities excercising rights. That's thugs excercising abilities. Namely the ability to cause anarchy and destroy other people's livelihoods. Shops being shut down because of extreme looting and being burned doesn't create more jobs - it puts more people out of work.

Cyberwulf wrote:

Penguin wrote:

Lapin wrote:

Christ, this is scary. Riots are never good times. I'm hoping y'all don't end up with your very own L.A. Riots. Six days of mayhem, with thousands injured and fifty-three dead. So far, you all say no one has died, which is likely due to the fact that we in the United States have more access to firearms than you do. (No I'm not bashing the second amendment, I'm saying that guns in the hands of angry people = dead people.)

Only when your cops are chickenshit and leave the citizens to fend for themselves.

Well, what are they meant to do, Penguin? This whole thing kicked off because they shot a guy. Should, should they baton-charge the rioters now, see if that makes things better? Maybe they've been told "let the fucking scum burn their own places to the ground, better than us getting sued for cracking their heads open".

Honestly? If the only options are "baton charge" and "sit still and collect a paycheck," and you pick the second one, it's time to hang up the uniform, because it just means all that talk of serving the public was just so much flowery talk. Somebody has to step in and stop it, and with a disarmed public it has to be the police. If the rioters are really as scared of the police as Azzandra seems to believe, it shouldn't take too long. But if the police won't do it, things will only get uglier.

Three men died in Birmingham when they were hit by a car. They were protecting their property from rioters.

Anybody support THAT?

And it's coming to my local town, 15 minutes drive from me.

The people who are burning and looting and attacking people need to be held accountable, whatever their motivation. There are certainly people involved who are genuinely angry about the root cause of the riot (the shooting of Mark Duggan) and about the years of poverty and marginalization. There are also people who are rioting for the lulz, and then there are people who are just following the mob.

That being said, while the people rioting need to be held accountable, the people who created the conditions that led to rioting also need to be held accountable, but odds are, that won't happen, or the problems of people in these impoverished areas will be given lip service and then forgotten--thus setting up the conditions for the next flare-up of violence.

As to what the news readers and viewers see--looting and violence gets people's attention and sells papers/generates website hits/raises TV ratings, while honest analysis of why riots happen doesn't. Guess which one the media concentrates on? There's also the whole social divide bit--it's "those people" who burn down their own neighborhoods, "those people" who live in poverty, "those people" who don't deserve any help or compassion because they'll bite the hand that feeds them. Why should money be spent on unemployment, welfare, or social services when "those people" obviously don't deserve it and will just waste it?

People accountable for the conditions can be dealt with but only when the riots stop.

Oh, Mikey.

Mikey Go WOOGA wrote:

#3.) The government isn't your goddamn mother. It's not there to spoon feed you. The problem is that you Eurotards have come to expect the government to do just that,

I'm going to ignore your wording and address your point.
You see, despite everyone hating whatever government they have at the time, it's still the government that was elected by the majority, and it consists of people (mindboggling, I know, but let's keep that in mind) who, for the most part, are a product and a part of the society they try to govern.
The result is that the US government reflects the American mindset, and European governments reflect their respective countries' mindset (and I know that for individual people, this may not be the case, I'm making a general point, work with me here, yeah?). Mind you, you keep referring to Europe as a homogeneous entity, and it is not. France, for example, is a lot more "socialist" than Germany, and the UK might be the most like the US of any European country. But for the sake of simplicity -for your sake, Mikey- let's keep this a matter of US vs Europe.

Put in simpler words so even you can follow, this means that countries who think their government should spoon-feed them will, by and large, produce politicians and laws and governments that reflect that.
Some idiot on Facebook recently said Europeans were living as slaves (and then was surprised that I spoke up, the moron). The thing is, it isn't that Europeans have these awful governments who oppress them with all their socialist bullshit. We have those "socialist" (which they aren't, but w/e) societies because we want it that way.

Democracy means that if the majority of a populace wants a "socialist" society, they can have that. It also means that America is completely entitled to a more capitalistic approach, and ever since I realized that, I have stopped judging it. That doesn't mean I can't feel for those who fall through the cracks, it doesn't mean I can't hope that certain groups and people succeed with their campaigns, but it means that I can accept that America is different, and that it is because Americans, by and large, want it that way.*

And I'd just fucking appreciate it if you could do the same. Europe is different from America, and that is because we don't want it to be America. If we wanted to live in the US, we would. It's not impossible to.
If you could just get it through your thick skull that even the people who understand the mindset behind your culture might, amazingly, choose something else, and that this is perfectly okay and nothing wrong with different societies and cultures being organised differently, that would be amazing.

Quote :

In reality, the most effective governments throughout time did little more than provide freedom,

What are you even talking about. Democracy as an actual form of government isn't that old; neither is the idea of individual freedom. Give some actual examples, so I don't have to assume you're talking out of your ass.

Quote :

"I'm going to take this $30,000 and pay someone to be productive for me so that I can make more money and pay more people to be productive for me"

I understand that this is the idea behind capitalism, and as a former business student I am aware that a certain degree of capitalism is actually a good and necessary thing. But this awfully high horse you're sitting on; well, I don't quite understand it. You parade this concept around like a born-again Christian might try to spread the word of Christ; tell me, it's working out amazingly well for the US in recent years, is it? Oh, it's not? It has its flaws just like any other approach to government policy? It can fail? Well, would you look at that.


And if you're thinking, why, Grumbles, it isn't like you to get all sarcastic and patronizing and cuss in your posts; YES THIS IS STARTING TO PISS ME OFF. Americans who are going around like economist versions of Christ-pushers are starting to piss me off. Open your eyes, Mikey, all the world is not the same, and that might be by choice, not because of ignorance.



/rant
You may now return to your scheduled topic.



*The things that the majority of Americans don't want anymore will get changed. It will be slow and tedious and sometimes painful. This is how it works, I'm afraid.

I think I'm gonna be sick. These men were just trying to defend their homes, there is no possible justification for this, none.

Yeah, their families are calling for no revenge attacks.

A Charity shop in Nottingham was raided. Got that? Age Concern.

No backlash - it's staffed by elderly vollenteers. No danger. Not even high-quality goods.

It's a CHARITY SHOP. You're not seriously going to tell me that it's a danger to anybody or aggravates anything? Poor people shop there. Like me. Are you going to tell me that reasonable people with a legitamate excuse to be angry lash out at shops that support the frail and elderly?

I'm legitimately disgusted. But I'm not grabbing a stick just yet.

Spotts1701 wrote:

I agree that there are legitimate issues, and that dissent and peaceful protest has always been a useful tool for those who feel that they are being wronged. And yes, sometimes force is necessary to meet force.

But as usual, all it takes is a small number of people who use it as a "cover" to engage in utter and wanton destruction for news readers (I use that term because all they do is regurgitate rather than actually report) to turn the majority who are exercising their rights into a random and violent mob hell-bent on tearing down the system and letting blood run in the streets.

Saw it in Seattle when the WTO met there a few years back. Saw it in Madison this past spring. Saw it in Greece, and Spain, and a hundred other places. The names change, but the script is the same.

I agree with the rest of your post, but are you referring to Madison, Wisconsin? Because there was no actual violence there at all, as far as I'm aware? The only violence inflicted was by the police who literally tossed peaceful protesters out of the state capital, for doing nothing other than standing around. There was no theft or destruction of property anywhere, which was frankly amazing. The only ones spinning it as "rioting" were, surprise surprise, conservative Fox News and Rush Limbaugh radio types, who called peaceful protests "shrieking leftist mobs" and "race riots." Madison was all about the politics and suffered none of the violence, but the media coverage indicates just how skewed news really has become.

Understanding is not justification.

Just. Putting that out there.