Riots

[Lateralthinking1]

I haven't read 598 and know that am has more experience in this field. Just one point then. Any expert with previous extensive influence should be ditched. Ditto with the economy. I don't understand this obsession with relying on the same old failures year in and year out. Personally, most of them should be wearing those jackets saying "Community Payback". I mean that 100%.

[ahinton]

Between 1974, my first "political" year, and 2009, I was always angry or sad about many policies of Governments. That was a part of my identity. However, I can't recall any time when these feelings were on my own behalf. They were generally on behalf of other people. This meant that while I engaged with the issues emotionally, I was more inclined to consider them academically.

Between 1974 and 2006, I could believe in "the political system" because I always considered that there were better democratic alternatives to the Governments of the day offered by other parties. Since then, I have been given good reason to believe that this is not the case.

Until around 2006, I believed that for all of the dreadful and often diabolical things that had been done by Governments since 1976, one could still see a line of moral progress in terms of Governments having improved the lives of the majority of average people from 1945 onwards. Since 2006, I haven't believed that the line has continued.

Until around 2006, I also believed that while the personal ethics of MPs had been declining steadily since 1990, and had not been good in the 1970s, most MPs were still sound. That changed too. I recognise that this point is more about Parliament.

Until 2009, I didn't feel personally attacked by Governments but proposals in 2009 suggested that this was beginning to happen.

Until 2010 I wasn't attacked by Governments in the sense of having effectively been chucked over a cliff economically. And until 2011 my area of the country had not been turned into flames under any Government - a metaphor for everything it had done to me the previous year and was doing to me and many other people in a range of ongoing policies.

Between 1974 and 2006 I recognised that Governments could often be quite mad but I never really doubted their sanity. However, around 2006 this changed and since 2009 I have believed them genuinely to be insane.

Obviously this is a simplistic summary but there is no point in going into more detail. People will either get it or they won't.

I'm sure that anyone who reads it will get it; that's very clear. Thanks.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

this is a sane piece written from experience

The British are engaged in the usual debate about whether looting reflects an amoral sense of entitlement generated by an over-extensive welfare system or whether it is driven, in part, by misdirected political angst and anger over inequality. Both sides may be partly right; but both sides ignore a third, partial explanation: looting is an opportunistic crime that people of varying social and economic classes with varying political views are prone to commit. Some of my clients back in 1977 were working people with no prior criminal records who passed by looted stores and helped themselves to milk or diapers, radios or TVs. They had more in common with educated, affluent people I know who would grab what they could out of a broken Saks Fifth Avenue window if (no one was looking) than with the looters who threw the first rocks, drove cars into storefronts or set them on fire.

To suggest that looting, like other forms of mob violence, is, partly a function of human nature is not to decry efforts to deter or punish it. "Everybody does it" is no defense to illegal or unethical behavior; but it is perhaps a reproach to excessive prosecutorial zeal, a reminder of the virtues of not throwing stones.

[Lateralthinking1]

Well, maybe, and I am not blemish free by any accounts because I am on rare occasions volatile, but here are two things I have never done : (a) take something from a shop without paying, even when I was a child and (b) accepted any item that someone had told me found its way into his hands irregularly.

I guess that we are all prone to variations on the law as stated. The naturally speedy and risk-taking can find themselves in difficulties over driving, for example. However, if greed is such a part of human nature that it is argued everyone could cross over the lawful line, just don't count me in on that one. It doesn't apply.

Of course, I fiddled my expenses. I consistently claimed less than I had paid out, even though the annual amounts were generally under £50. In fact, the inference that we are all prone to a greed that can cut across the law is one that I find so feckless and tepid as to be genuinely anger making.

[Lateralthinking1]

.....Two very quick anecdotes both from the late 1980s:

1. The Lyceum pub on The Strand: I was heading towards the exit laughing with friends on a well-oiled night. Always clumsy even in ordinary circumstances, and often in those days - not now - stupid with money given that I was on such a low salary, a young guy tapped me on the shoulder. I expected that this meant trouble of some sort. Bear in mind that these were the days before cards were being used for everything. I think I had taken out in cash what I needed for the month.

He gave me a ten pound note, chuckled, and then gave me another one. Everyone in the group, including me, was frankly bewildered. "You don't know" he said. "Look". Behind him, I had left a trail of six or seven ten pound notes on the floor. He said "I should collect them if I were you". This I then did along the aisle of what was a completely crowded pub.

2. Rome 1989 - On an inter-railing holiday, we all regularly repeated the mantra "look after your money". Each of us was carrying our entire money for the holiday in cash. Having booked a ticket for a train in Rome's equivalent to Kings Cross, we had a little time to spare, walked out of the station and got a coffee. Some 10 minutes into the conversation, I went into panic mode. "I have lost all my money" I said. Others in the group ordered me to return to the kiosk immediately, adding "but I think you have had it". And back there, as I made my way to the front of a lengthy queue was my wallet on the shelf. No money taken in 20 minutes.

Contrast these events with the actions of all those who should be setting an example in 2011 and those who ape them.

[mangerton]

More about setting an example.................

http://www.heraldscotland.com/comment/iain-macwhirter/a-society-that-is-slipping-into-dickensian-darkness-1.1118346

[amateur51]

More about setting an example.................

http://www.heraldscotland.com/commen...ness-1.1118346

Nice piece, mangerton

And there's this ...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/17/looing-with-lights-off

[mangerton]

Nice piece, mangerton

And there's this ...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...ith-lights-off

Yes, am51, that too contains much food for thought. It beats me that our leaders - of all political hues - appear to be unable to see it.

[Anna]

As to the inciters on Facebook, the 4 accused in Wales won't know their fate until 2nd September as their hearings have been adjourned.

Meanwhile, it's not all knee jerk reaction. Of those accused in Gloucestershire I've just seen this on the BBC Glos news page:-

A teenager who posted a message on his Facebook wall encouraging people to vandalise a shop during riots last week avoided court. The 19 year old from Bream in the Forest of Dean, urged people to damage the Spar store in the village. A Police spokesman said “We arrested him on 10th August and after taking him to Coleford police station we decided to deal with him by way of a Community Orientated Policing outcome, which was for him to write a letter of apology to the shop owner and remove the posting." The teenager admitted he had a warped sense of humour and it was a joke.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

while i in no way want to be associated with the baying pack wanting to punish severely the thought does occur that many people seem to have difficulty with the word DON'T! ... and we do need that basic prohibition of antisocial behaviour re-established ....

[amateur51]

As to the inciters on Facebook, the 4 accused in Wales won't know their fate until 2nd September as their hearings have been adjourned.

Meanwhile, it's not all knee jerk reaction. Of those accused in Gloucestershire I've just seen this on the BBC Glos news page:-

A teenager who posted a message on his Facebook wall encouraging people to vandalise a shop during riots last week avoided court. The 19 year old from Bream in the Forest of Dean, urged people to damage the Spar store in the village. A Police spokesman said “We arrested him on 10th August and after taking him to Coleford police station we decided to deal with him by way of a Community Orientated Policing outcome, which was for him to write a letter of apology to the shop owner and remove the posting." The teenager admitted he had a warped sense of humour and it was a joke.

Bravo those rozzers - good thinking

Thanks for posting, Anna!

The Guardian is planning to analyse the data coming out of the court appearances:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/18/england-rioters-young-poor-unemployed

Stand by for incoming 'eeeew it's 'The Guardian' flak

[Serial_Apologist]

Bravo those rozzers - good thinking

Thanks for posting, Anna!

The Guardian is planning to analyse the data coming out of the court appearances:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/18/england-rioters-young-poor-unemployed

Stand by for incoming 'eeeew it's 'The Guardian' flak

No doubt it will get Simonized and then Peed on...

[Lateralthinking1]

Flowers of creativity have been seen growing in the nuclear wasteland. In fact, we have some new movements - walls of love, positive vandalism...... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-14548710.

[ahinton]

Stand by for incoming 'eeeew it's 'The Guardian' flak

Indeed. Funny how, for some, the Daily Fail is deemed to be flak-free, isn't it?...

[Serial_Apologist]

Flowers of creativity have been seen growing in the nuclear wasteland. In fact, we have some new movements - walls of love, positive vandalism...... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-14548710.

Yes there's one up here which the article refers to; I saw it this morning. I feel very touched by that - almost in tears, actually!