UK riots

[wizeguy]

hahaha fucking orpington... mans got the playstations!

haha.. you know where these lot are heading after, straight back to St Mary's Cray Booiii!

[k block]

Just got home from my mates house. On the way back saw a car on fire, with police vans parked on the grass next to it, and riot police patrolling the area.
This was in chelysmore, Coventry :/

[pkay]

From a programmer at my work who does cross platform programming

Anyone who plugs in a stolen gaming system is an idiot. The second you access online I can not only find out where you are through your ISP, i can tell you your email addy you registered with, any personal info you registered with, and judging by how you play whether you are left handed or right handed. If its wireless both sony and xbox have the ability to cause your system to transmit data continuously to aid them in identifying the stolen unit. Read this article. This happens daily. Granted this guy used someones login, if the person has their box or receipt they don't even need a PSN or XBL account name

http://gizmodo.com/5035425/stolen-ps3-t ... on-network

[particle-jim]

i guess man wont have the playstations much longer then

[pulkpull]

For those of you too young to remember, welcome to the 1980s!

Mass unemployment, public sector strikes, rioting, and a fucking Conservative government!

Comedy is bound to be getting better then! Allow a Ben Elton come-back though.

More people like Osama bin Laden, a multiple murderer, than Ben Elton. Why? I think it's because when you compare the two of them, Osama bin Laden has at least lived his life to a consistent set of ethical principles. But people do hate Ben Elton. Every now and again, a journalist has the courage to ask why he thinks this is.... Parkinson said to him "Ben Elton, why do you think everyone hates you?" and Ben Elton said "Well Michael, it's because in this country, people don't like success". But he was wrong about that. The real answer is much more simple. It's that in this country, people don't like Ben Elton. And they don't hate him through the conduit of the notion of success, they hate him entirely on his own terms, because of who he is, and the bad things that he's done.

Seriously though, what a tosser Ben Elton is these days.

[honey-d]

Apologies if this is a repost.

What a dumb bitch. Ten points to Gryffindor for that guy. The international atmosphere is getting pretty tense these past (and future) few years

[borrowed]

If I may..

[seckle]

Big picture updated
http://twitter.com/#!/big_picture/statu ... 0653247488

[Duffman]

If I may..

I prefer

[mIrReN]

For those of you too young to remember, welcome to the 1980s!

Mass unemployment, public sector strikes, rioting, and a fucking Conservative government!

At least there aren't any New Romantics roaming the streets

??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

[youthful_implants]

Bit late to this thread but IMO its a symptom of a broken system. Tory's cutting benefits and public spending as part of their austerity measures has further widened the gap between rich and poor. Looting and rioting might look like senseless acts but they underpin a powerful message. Even if the rioters themselves don't understand or believe there are politics in what they're doing, their actions have implications that are political. That people have had enough, that they can't be stopped etc. I condemn violence and stealing but I understand the desperation and boredom that lead to it.

There is a bigger picture here and I'm loath to demonize these kids for what's happened. It's the system that's failed them as much as it's failed the innocent people cowering in their homes afraid to leave.

I think these articles expand on what I'm saying quite well.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... ndon-riots
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/co ... 33991.html
http://pennyred.blogspot.com/2011/08/pa ... ondon.html

[antipode]

are these bigger than the riots in the 80s?

[sirjonnyp]

sounds like it's going off in LE1 too, having lived there for three years seems pretty surreal

[firky]

Civil disturbances never have a single, simple meaning. When the Bastille was being stormed the thieves of Paris doubtless took advantage of the mayhem to rob houses and waylay unlucky revolutionaries. Sometimes the thieves were revolutionaries. Sometimes the revolutionaries were thieves. And it is reckless to start making confident claims about events that are spread across the country and that have many different elements. In Britain over the past few days there have been clashes between the police and young people. Crowds have set buildings, cars and buses on fire. Shops have been looted and passersby have been attacked. Only a fool would announce what it all means.

We can dispense with some mistakes, though. It is wrong to say that the riots are apolitical. The trouble began on Saturday night when protesters gathered at Tottenham police station to demand that the police explain the circumstances in which a local man, Mark Duggan, had been shot dead by the police. The death of a Londoner, another black Londoner, at the hands of the police has a gruesome significance. The police are employed to keep the peace and the police shot someone dead. This is a deeply political matter. Besides, it is conventional to say how much policing in London has changed since the Brixton riots of the early eighties - but not many people mouthing the conventional wisdom have much firsthand experience of being young and poor in Britain's inner cities.

More broadly, any breakdown of civil order is inescapably political. Quite large numbers of mostly young people have decided that, on balance, they want to take to the streets and attack the forces of law and order, damage property or steal goods. Their motives may differ - they are bound to differ. But their actions can only be understood adequately in political terms. While the recklessness of adrenaline has something to do with what is happening, the willingness to act is something to be explained. We should perhaps ask them what they were thinking before reaching for phrases like "mindless violence". We might actually learn something.

The profusion of images that modern technology generates makes it even more difficult to impose a single meaning on a complex event. Those who live in terror of a feral underclass and those who are worried about the impact of fiscal austerity on vulnerable communities can find material online that confirms their world-view. There will be a fierce conflict in the weeks ahead as politicians, commentators and others seek to frame the events of the last few days in ways that serve their wider agenda. The police, for example, will call for increased budgets to deal with the increased risks of civil disorder. In this sense, too, riots are inescapably political events.

There are signs too that technology is allowing individuals to intervene in the process by which meaning is assigned to social events. When disorder broke out in France in 2005 in somewhat similar circumstances the political right was the major beneficiary. Sarkozy's rise from interior minister to president owed a great deal to his role in expressing the anxious aggression of a mass constituency that often lived far away from the burning cars and public buildings.

In London today people were on the streets tidying up the damage. The hashtag #riotcleanup on Twitter is being used by councils and residents to coordinate the work. The decision to act in this way, to make the streets a little more safe, to reclaim them for peaceful sociability, steps away from the temptation to condemn the violence or explain it in terms that inevitably simplify or distort it. Those who come together like this will be less likely to conclude that the country is on the verge of chaos, less likely to call for harsh measures and the further erosion of liberty in the name of security. It is the one shrewd thing one can do in present circumstances and it is to be celebrated.

So there is no single meaning in what is happening in London and elsewhere. But there are connections that we can make, and that we should make. We have a major problem with youth unemployment. There have already been cuts in services for young people. State education in poor areas is sometimes shockingly bad. Young people cannot afford adequate private housing and there is a shortage of council-built stock. Economic inequality has reached quite startling levels. All this is the consequence of decisions made by governments and there is little hope of rapid improvement. The same politicians now denouncing the mindless violence of the mob all supported a system of political economy that was as unstable as it was pernicious. They should have known that their policies would lead to disaster. They didn't know. Who then is more mindless?

The global economic crisis is at least as political as the riots we've seen in the last few days. It has lasted far longer and done far more damage. We need not draw a straight line from the decision to bail out the banks to what's going on now in London. But we must not lose sight of what both events tell us about our current condition. Those who want to see law and order restored must turn their attention to a menace that no amount of riot police will disperse; a social and political order that rewards vandalism and the looting of public property, so long as the perpetrators are sufficiently rich and powerful.

[knell]

if anyone's wondering this is the source... good read, either way.

[firky]

Try C&P on a poxy Samsung android phone, same link I put up on the FB group anyway.

[NRHc]

woah just read way too much of this thread lol,some parts were very interesting though.Good luck with this all of you

[Kodachrome]

"I'm sure there are some opportunists, I'm sure there are plenty of people out there just looting and burning things down for fun and because they think they can get away with it. But not everyone out there is like that. Stop treating these people like scum, if anything, they're heroes. They're standing up to a government that is out of touch with the people they're governing. Politicians are out on vacation in Italy and meanwhile these kids can't find a job, they can't get a decent education, they can't pay for a house of their own. Two months ago over 2000 black youths peacefully marched to Scotland Yard, but you didn't see any coverage on that. The people are frustrated, and have every right to be."

Someone in the comments.

[pompende]

that ¶ from Chef was really excellent. thanks for the repost.

Wouldn't surprise me if they didn't give a fuck and blap shit up regularly.

nor i. and living in a world in which you can only be sure that you could never know the full truth about your law enforcement officials is truly overwhelming and terrifying.
both terrible and incredible that an essentially non-violent plea for honesty and transparency turned so immediately into looting Foot Lockers and arsoning offlicenses.

I guess my point isn't really about money per se, but about having the courage to believe that things can be done to change the situations we find ourselves in without resorting to crime or doing people over.

i think we see things very similarly. I absolutely believe that a person should choose honest and diligent work over crime.

i was responding to these statements:

Alan Sugar started life a mile up the road from Hackney just after WW2.
Being poor and living in North East London didn't stop him using his balls and brains to create opportunities for himself, contribute substancial wealth to charity and provide employment for others.
If we individually feel poor and disadvantaged, it's time to redouble the effort put in to 'making it' (the right way of course)!

but surely these riots call attention to the fact that western society is currently flawed in such a way that the average person cannot "make it" without breaking laws or violating fundamental ethical principles? and that the accumulation of disproportionately large amounts of wealth is intrinsically detrimental to the whole of any economic system?

It does take balls and entrepreneurial spirit to be a dealer or a hustler selling on stolen goods, but there's no brains in it. Clearly it is a limited career path ending in jail or the grave depending on which country one lives in and how far one takes things.
By doing things legitimately, one can make mega bucks and live the cushty life (like the MP's who paid off their mortgages with tax payers money lol)

its as if you're saying that its okay to do incredibly wrong things as long as you're clever and white-collar about it?

do you think predatory usurious lending, consciously dishonest trade, and embezzlement are "the right way?" Do you really think its all good as long as it don't land you in jail? do you really think hoarding wealth is okay? Do you really think the gap between the richest and poorest people even within 1st world countries is acceptable?

Not sure what field you're studying nor what country you're in (but I'd guess US since you used $ and "son"). PhD mate of mine went over to the states over five years ago to earn $90k straight off the bat. She's well above that now. Unlike Europe, the US actually pays technical PhDs a decent wage if they're good.

I have a PhD too. I don't earn craploads of money but I'm comfortable. I worked my arse off my entire life to get 2 scholarships. So I think some of your assertions are wrong.

i must have phrased my argument poorly.
investing in your own education and working hard absolutely pays off and gets you "ahead."

my point is that there is a huge gap between the kind of money that you can make as an honest public health practitioner and the kind of money that super rich people have. And that becoming super wealthy almost always involves breaking some sort of law to get there. and even if it doesn't: if you have $100 million in liquid assets...in my eyes you've got $90 million that doesn't belong to you.

on a related note: my sister works in tax law. she works for the IRS right now and essentially her job is to collect as much tax revenue from corporations as possible. before this she worked at a firm that represented investment banks and other large corporations to minimize amount of taxes those corporations would have to pay.
she made about 3 times as much money by helping banks like Lehman and Goldman-Sachs keep their money out of the hands of public services and the poor.

[danny_scrilla]