London Riots

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Apparently it started with a protest after the police shot a man dead during an arrest. The protest turned into a riot, and since then has become more and more widespread, even spreading to other cities. A long period of social unrest and criminal oppertunities are mentioned most as reasons for the spread.

I heard about the initial riot before, but now that it's continuing and getting worse (especially with video and photo images) it looks more like a warzone.

I also can't help thinking of V for Vendetta...
 
the riots have been spreading, and its getting kind of worrying. I heard an hour ago that the broadwalk center in edgware had its windows smashed in, and someone tried to set fire to the post office; and thats... really kind of too close to home, since not only do my grandparents live five minutes from where it happened, but its about 20 minutes from where i live.

on the bright side, theres been a spontaneous clean up operation organised through twitter. 32,000 people following the official thing last i checked. its operation riotwombles!
 

Dave

Staff member
Much as they do in the US, this has moved beyond protest into all-out anarchy and an excuse to loot shit.
 
Pretty much.

I think new procedures should be implemented to stop such protests. I think the moment the looting has begune, riot control are allowed to use force and rubber bullets.

Peaceful protests are fine. Putting shit on fire because you just want to be a weak weak person and get some free shit is unacceptable.

 
White riot - I wanna riot
White riot - a riot of my own
White riot - I wanna riot
White riot - a riot of my own
 
That was the spark, yes. The kindling was the police state and oppression of minorities.
Added at: 08:59
http://worldblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/08/07/7292281-the-sad-truth-behind-london-riot

here's a sad truth, expressed by a Londoner when asked by a television reporter: Is rioting the correct way to express your discontent?
"Yes," said the young man. "You wouldn't be talking to me now if we didn't riot, would you?"
The TV reporter from Britain's ITV had no response. So the young man pressed his advantage. "Two months ago we marched to Scotland Yard, more than 2,000 of us, all blacks, and it was peaceful and calm and you know what? Not a word in the press. Last night a bit of rioting and looting and look around you."
Eavesdropping from among the onlookers, I looked around. A dozen TV crews and newspaper reporters interviewing the young men everywhere.
 
the riots have been spreading, and its getting kind of worrying. I heard an hour ago that the broadwalk center in edgware had its windows smashed in, and someone tried to set fire to the post office; and thats... really kind of too close to home, since not only do my grandparents live five minutes from where it happened, but its about 20 minutes from where i live.

on the bright side, theres been a spontaneous clean up operation organised through twitter. 32,000 people following the official thing last i checked. its operation riotwombles!
Not to hijack the thread, but how are you doing? Still in hospital?
 
The tweets I've seen overnight from the likes of Neil Gaiman and Will Buxton (SPEED TV F1 reporter) refer to the rioters as "evil", "scum", and "dickheads".

Hard to start a dialogue when that's how the higher end of society sees the rioters. No effort to separate the smash-and-grab opportunists from those with a legitimate beef.

And no, I have no answers. Hard enough trying to keep my own head above water here.
 
I'll say this as plainly as I can.

Manifestations NEVER EVER need to resort to violence and looting and burning other people's properties is unacceptable. If you feel otherwise, kindly die.

This said, if you're at a manisfestation where it degenerates into a riot and such actions happen, you leave. Don't stand there like a mass of meat that they can use to shield themselves to commit the acts. Don't stand there taking pictures. Get the fuck out. Don't try to stop it, leave calmly.

Personally, I have absolutely no issues if police use force to stop these things from happening. Over what? Losing or winning a hockey game? Because some smuck died in a police shootout? Get over your self-importance. Police should go in with crying gas and rubber bullets and put them in jail.

Isn't it in the U.K they can jail you for a MONTH without having to charge you anyways?

Use that. Trust me, people won't be out there doing this shit when they are stuck in jail for a month, losing touch with reality and their jobs and livelyhood.
 
http://anedumacation.tumblr.com/post/8668869232/the-london-riots

Again, events are multifaceted, cultural and racial groups are not monolithic, and many things about a situation can be true at the same time. Reductionism is dangerous. Simplicity is dangerous. There are no easy, one line answers. They don’t exist, because life isn’t like that.
The following ideas do not contradict each other.
1. There are real socio-economic and political reasons for why this riot occurred. Urban violence committed by youth and marginalized people of color does not happen in a vacuum. When you neglect a community for so long, when you treat its residents as criminals-by-default who must then prove themselves to be citizens, when you treat these communities as problem areas to be hemmed in and monitored, instead of nurtured, when tax money goes to law enforcement, not schools and development — this is what happens.
Do NOT believe what the law enforcement or the media has to say about this. The institutions of power have a vested interest in protecting the status quo, which is the continued existence of the police state in poor communities of color in London, and in similar cities across the Western world. The rioters are not individual hooligans taking advantage of a bad situation. This is not an argument for more police control, for taking away social spending, or longer prison sentences.
The official reaction to these riots confirms what activists from these communities have been saying for years; poor kids of color are either a) irrelevant to mainstream society, or if they are finally noticed are b) only seen as criminals. There’s very little opportunity for poor youth to be seen as the nuanced, complicated, diverse beings that they are. That’s intentional. The status quo is reinforced every time minority youth are seen as a terrifying, brainless monolith. That is what the mainstream media is going to try to do to these kids. Do not let them.
2. Its silly to pretend that all of this violence is directed, focused, and political in intent. A powderkeg of repressed anger and energy has exploded, and London is feeling the consequence of that. It doesn’t mean London deserves the violence, or that the rioters are correct in their actions. The rioters are not innocents, fighting back the only way they can against a corrupt police state. They are culpable. Their behavior cannot be excused by their political intentions; political violence cannot be purified or sanctified or reduced into something palatable and easily digestible by an ideology. Political violence is still violence, the same old beast we’ve engaged with for millions of years. Nothing changes that.

You run over me, doesn’t matter how oppressed you are. You still ran over me. I’m still dead. There are a lot of people, innocent people, who are going to lose their lives, their livelihoods, and their homes. People who we know are in danger.
Don’t you dare try to paper over that.
 
After reading the link Charlie posted...
Local young men, almost all with their heads covered by hoods -- known here as "hoodies" -- took advantage to indulge themselves in a favorite sport: cursing the police. This quickly escalated into a night of hurling rocks, bottles (Jack Daniels, one young man told me -- "we broke into the liquor store, drank the Jack Daniels and threw the bottles at the cops"), burning two patrol cars, torching buildings, smashing shop windows and carting off hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of phones, cameras and clothes.
I'm not so sure, getting drunk, destroying someones business and then attacking the police and then stealing is the way you handle social problems.

And I'm more than a little concerned that anyone thinks thats the only way to get any attention.

In fact, after reading charlies article I'm convinced that anything positive anyone wanted to come from this got lost right away by the general greed and hate of the rioters. These people need help, but they have chosen to go about getting attention by becoming criminals. How on earth is that going to change anything? If anything it's only going to be worse now for them. It's a very sad state of affairs it seems.

And when did England become a "corrupt police state"? I thought it was a strong multi-cultural state, great free healthcare for all and a good economy? I thought things were good there for people (of course I don't read tons of news about England but that was my impression...).
 
And when did England become a "corrupt police state"? I thought it was a strong multi-cultural state, great free healthcare for all and a good economy? I thought things were good there for people (of course I don't read tons of news about England but that was my impression...).
It's pretty much that. London is a very beautiful city and racism is NO WHERE close to what you see today, even in the U.S. Very cultural.

And I agree with you by stating that this shit does no favors to help fix any little social issues they had.

Video below for LET'S FIGHT FOR OUR RIGHT BY...

 
It's pretty much that. London is a very beautiful city and racism is NO WHERE close to what you see today, even in the U.S. Very cultural.

And I agree with you by stating that this shit does no favors to help fix any little social issues they had.
Yeah, it's really just going to make everything that much worse I have a feeling. Felt oppressed and dumped on by society before this? Well after you looted, burned and rioted the last few days I have a feeling you will have lost many real supporters to your cause over there.
 
If there were real socio-economic and political reasons for this riot, why does it appear a riot comprised of mainly youth; youth who don't vote and youth who don't work? They aren't disenfranchised, they are disenchanted - with a system that gives them the same rights and privileges as the person next to them. That isn't fair, Charlie would say. They deserve more.

Yeah, they deserve a fire hose to the face. I have friends in Easling who are afraid to go outside with their kid because of the morons outside her door. What socio-economic and political arguments are being made there? That working-class people need to have their stuff redistributed to the have-nots?

As terrible as it is to say, this is where Anders Breivik got his lunacy from.
 
Just saw a woman jumping for her life out of a burning building on a live BBC News feed.
So much for the rioters 'fighting for justice'...
 
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