Riots

[eighthobstruction]

As a once Bristolian [22 years]....what ever the buses are like....it is always the ROADS and snarl up's that blighted Bristol.

[amateur51]

You, if not Mr Rosenberg, could always turn to the lovely Anne Atkins, amateur ...

I'll see your Anne Atkins and raise you a Janet Daley, scotty:

[amateur51]

No miracle, at least not in that sense. It will be implemented by people like you and other contributors to this thread. Think of slavery: there came a time when it was generally realized that to leave the matter to unreformed human nature would not morally do, and it was outlawed. Then think of the hanging of homo-sexualists: there came a time when it was generally realized that to leave the matter to unreformed human nature would not morally do, and it was abolished. In just the same way it will one day be generally realized that the maintenance of the social order and civil governance by politicians judges and police-men - i.e. by human beings with their unreformed human nature - will not morally do, and that it must be replaced by a better system of incorruptible robots with a perfect knowledge of the science of morals, and the ability always to act in accordance with the precepts thereof.

But give it five hundred years, as I said. Among other things we must first learn to trust the robots.

Has Sydney been at the lime marmalade again?

[ahinton]

We are now seeing the results of the ideas encouraged in the 1980's by people like Thatcher, who claimed that there was no such thing as society.

Really? So this kind of thing has never happend in the pre-Thatcher years? OK, previous instances were not fuelled and enabled by mobile messaging and social networking facilities, but don't pretend that they never occurred! Thatcher's claim has come to haunt her and her reputation, of course; if one is to try to be charitable in the face of it, the best that one might say is that she meant that society in not a single entity but comprised of a large number of individuals, but such a charitable attitude towards what she said does not and acnnot undermine the sheer folly and absurdity of this especially tasteless of her expressions.

She started the era of greed and grab what you can, get rich quick, and ignore social values. Since then we have had similar governments who have encouraged the consumer society. The Bliars are a perfect example.

Nonsense! Those kinds of attitude have been around since time immemorial. Thatcher and many of her successors may have enhanced and developed them, but they most certainly did not give birth to them!

I've seen this coming for many years.

You see it on underground trains every day, in villages, in the workplace, in schools, in futher education establishments, people who have their heads down and do not want to communicate, and people who are only interested in their own gain.

I daresay, but I've seen this all my life and I'm sadly old enough to remember a reasonable amount of time before the accession of Thatcher!

And who are the most extreme in this attitude? The politicians of course.

Are they really? Not the bankers, not the corporate speculators, not the thieves? No - the politicians may be the ones most in the firing line over it, but I submit that very few of them have more extreme attitudes to it than anyone else does.

But we should resist the crowings of posters such as Simon who want to turn Britain into some sort of fascist police state.

Oh, fear not; almost all of us do!

If you do not communicate with the perpetrators, then there is no hope.

Indeed - well, very little of it, anyway.

[amateur51]

As a once Bristolian [22 years]....what ever the buses are like....it is aways the ROADS and snarl up's that blighted Bristol.

My memory of Bristol's public transport was that, on seeking help in the street, you'd be told to take a Badger as far as X and then proceed by Hare to Y where you'd change on to a Ferret ... or somesuch

[amateur51]

We are now seeing the results of the ideas encouraged in the 1980's by people like Thatcher, who claimed that there was no such thing as society.

She started the era of greed and grab what you can, get rich quick, and ignore social values. Since then we have had similar governments who have encouraged the consumer society. The Bliars are a perfect example.

I've seen this coming for many years.

You see it on underground trains every day, in villages, in the workplace, in schools, in futher education establishments, people who have their heads down and do not want to communicate, and people who are only interested in their own gain.

And who are the most extreme in this attitude? The politicians of course.

But we should resist the crowings of posters such as Simon who want to turn Britain into some sort of fascist police state.

If you do not communicate with the perpetrators, then there is no hope.

Nice post, Ariosto ... and very good to have you back after your blessedly brief absence

[Bryn]

She's been knee-jerking for years, scotty - I yield to no-one in my contempt for the woman!

Sorry, a51, but you will yield to me or we will have to find someone to hold our respective coats. She is a particularly poisonous rabble-rouser of the right. Just take a scan through the comments she attract by this piece of hers in the Daily 'Hurrah for the Blackshirts' Mail.

[eighthobstruction]

I think a synthesis of Aristo's and Ahintons posts, have it about right....

[amateur51]

Sorry, a51, but you will yield to me or we will have to find someone to hold our respective coats. She is a particularly poisonous rabble-rouser of the right. Just take a scan through the comments she attract by this piece of hers in the Daily 'Hurrah for the Blackshirts' Mail.

[handsomefortune]

as we've linked to a reknowned, time honoured 'self server': melanie phillips, perhaps linking to laurie penny might provide some balance?

http://pennyred.blogspot.com/2011/08/panic-on-streets-of-london.html

[scottycelt]

'Laurie Penny, 24, journalist, author, feminist, socialist, utopian, general reprobate and troublemaker .. '

Well, she knows herself better than anyone ...

[gurnemanz]

Melanie seems to have come out fighting and gone totally overboard in that parody of herself. It is tempting to laugh it off as a Glenda Slag rant, but as those dangerous leftie Norwegian teenagers found out on their island, such extremist invective can be very seductive in certain quarters.

[amateur51]

Melanie seems to have come out fighting and gone totally overboard in that parody of herself. It is tempting to laugh it off as a Glenda Slag rant, but as those dangerous leftie Norwegian teenagers found out on their island, such extremist invective can be very seductive in certain quarters.

Ooooh be careful, gurnemanz - Melanie went BALLISTIC when she heard that Anders Breivik had referred to her writings in his 'manifesto'.

By their busom pals shall ye know them

[scottycelt]

Are Melanie's quite reasonable and more than likely widely-held views on the matter (and apparently equated by some here with the Blackshirts and the Norwegian Mass Murderer ) really that far removed from those of the current leader of the Labour Party?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-14503023

[eighthobstruction]

Yes that Laura Penny blog gives a view closer in age to the rioters and more contemporary in perpective than MelP....

I choose this, out of a piece full of good quotes >>'There are communities all over the country that nobody paid attention to unless there had recently been a riot or a murdered child. Well, they’re paying attention now.'<<