Riots

[Mr Pee]

This is a short film of the young man who predicted on 31 July 2011 that there would be riots in the Tottenham area, giving his thoughts in the aftermath ...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/12/riot-predict-trouble-not-over

Perhaps we should listen to what he has to say?

This is another short film of of somebody predicting the riots, but this was three years ago.

[Unsuitable link removed]

Perhaps we should have listened to what he had to say?

Edit: it is an established practice of this forum not to provide any links to Far Right material. The video is of the leader of British National Party and if people wish to view it they can easily find it via google and access it directly from their own computers.

[Lateralthinking1]

I have been watching this one for some time. While sometimes he disappoints, I do feel that he has shown on several occasions that he might have a bit of principle:

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

[french frank]

What seems to me questionable - and a little dispiriting - is the way that, as usual people (not directed at you, Lat, I'm just following your post) leap on to their own hobby horse and exclude other factors.

Of course it suits the right to blame 'intellectual liberals' for the policies of the past 30 years (!) as Phillips et al do. And the left blames Thatcherism and the current cuts.

Does it suggest that the whole problem is much more complex? The 'It's not me, it's you' argument doesn't really wash. The combination of Oborne and the Telegraph seem to be pointing up a significant factor, though probably more of a result than a cause.

[Anna]

I find that I am warming to Ed Miliband (but I thought he'd had his adenoids fixed?) Did anyone see Sheldon Thomas last night ('Target Against Gangs') and one of the points he made was that over 2 years 20 teenagers have been murdered in gang attacks and why is no-one standing up and demanding that the gang culture be tackled, why do people assume gangs are just a part of life for a certain section of the community? Then I found this from 2007 from Tony Blair, then on the right hand side there is a link to Jack Straw and 'Lads need Dads' and a further link about black role models. So all this was in 2007, four years ago

http://www.politics.co.uk/news/2007/4/11/blair-target-the-black-gang-leaders

Edit: I know see in March The Met launched Operation Target against gangs

http://content.met.police.uk/News/Fourteen-suspected-gang-members-arrested/1260269267244/1257246745756

[Ariosto]

The encouragement for commercialism, living off credit cards, the disregard for society, and many of the other other bad policies has been given credence by many organisations and many people.

The BBC along with other broadcasters, the national and local press, national and local government, educational bodies, the church, virtually everyone, have contributed to the doctrine of "live now pay later." It's logical that people who have not got the means to legitimately pay for consumer items either with cash or credit cards will resent this and take to the streets.

What people and particularly politicians are afraid to admit is (1) that society has caused these problems, and
(2) that they will continue to happen as long as we have the sort of broken society that we have ALL created.

If we want order on the streets and a caring positive country, then we have to ALL change society.

That means we have to insist on honest politicians who also care for society, an honest and decent police force, and a total re-think about finance, monitory values, and how the economy can be tailored to genuinely help people. It might be a good start to make the bankers pay and actually clean up some of the mess too, and chase people like the Murdochs out of this country as well.

[eighthobstruction]

It might be a 'good start'....if we started to think about Sustainability....and question the idea of growth....

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

i would love to see this guy let loose on all the factors in this debate [btw his Afghan analysis is uncannily close to what we perhaps should consider here]

[Lateralthinking1]

Yes, I like that. I have seen the website before but not the clip. Maybe Calum you drew our attention it. I tend to see individuals themselves as simple and complex so it makes sense to me. Isn't what he proposes though a means of simplifying comprehension? In other words, when it comes to finding solutions, that network which he has reduced to two headings then needs to become long lists of sub headings when it comes to actions?

To try to answer my own question, I can see that there are scenarios in which this might not be the case. For example, it seems to me that we can simply say "we can have this set of circumstances or we cannot." If we decide that we cannot, then the whole picture needs to be changed so that we effectively walk away from it and the situation we have. Create a new picture.

Individuals can do this sometimes - you could have a very complicated network diagram of problems for someone dependent on alcohol which becomes far less relevant as soon as the alcohol, and any related social aspects, go and move "into a different picture" - but I am not sure that societies can do that very often. I might be wrong of course - something like the end of the Berlin Wall?

[Serial_Apologist]

These types of representation of complex webs of interrelations reminds me of the Dharmadhatu - the spiders' web of jewels in Mahayana Buddhism in which every dew droplet reflects every other, everything in life interacts with everything else, and our linear thinking processes, can only deal with one thread at a time, and what is unavoidably excluded is "Maya" - illusion unless recognised as such and taken into account. So it has to be useful - though how detailed one can, should or dare go, could be problematic? And who has the power to prioritise?

[gurnemanz]

What people and particularly politicians are afraid to admit is (1) that society has caused these problems, and
(2) that they will continue to happen as long as we have the sort of broken society that we have ALL created.

This is the sort of easy platitude that makes my teeth grind. It does absolutely nothing to throw light on the complexity of the human condition and I don't know which "people" they are that go around being afraid to admit it. Of course I am frightened about the human capacity for evil. History is full of enough examples. I taught for nearly 40 years before retirement and am only too well aware of the potential of people to behave badly if circumstances allow it. I am writing as a resident of Wootton Bassett where we have just witnessed our last repatriation. Luckily there are plenty of examples of unselfish and socially responsible behaviour to give me cause to be generally optimistic about our society.

[Serial_Apologist]

Any Questions today was a complete waster - Harriet Harman stood her ground with fortitude in the teeth of the dreaded Conservatives' deputy Chair, as shs did in the Newsnight confrontation with Gove the other night. It might have been nice if, in the final question asking if anyone thought anything positive had emerged from the riots, someone would have mentioned the voluntary clean-up activities. The following phone-in was, by contrast, much more constructive, one contributer mentioning computer games such as Grand Theft Auto, and their alleged acting out.

[ahinton]

The encouragement for commercialism, living off credit cards, the disregard for society, and many of the other other bad policies has been given credence by many organisations and many people.

The BBC along with other broadcasters, the national and local press, national and local government, educational bodies, the church, virtually everyone, have contributed to the doctrine of "live now pay later." It's logical that people who have not got the means to legitimately pay for consumer items either with cash or credit cards will resent this and take to the streets.

But it's not just invidiuals who have done this (whether or not with the enouragement of any or all of those organisations), it's the organisations themselves (or at least some of them); in other words, the debt that is endemic in society has not all been ratcheted up by irresponsible individuals but also by corporations, local authorities, pension funds and, ultimately and above all, national governments. The US is said to owe a sum that now exceeds 20% of the value not merely of its own gross product but of the entire world's product; almost every other country on earth owes money to others. Even those inidividuals who have no personal loans or liabilities of any kind are nevertheless mostly in debt because a substantial proportion of the salaries and pensions that they receive are paid to them from borrowed funds. The outcome of profligacy with personal credit cards is but a tiny fraction of that of the global indebtedness in which we are all heavily enmeshed.

[Anna]

Did anyone read Howard Jacobson in The Indy today:

"One medium-sized banker's bonus would probably pay for all the trash that's been looted this past week. And we don't even have the decency to conceal the extent of this legalised pillage from those for whom, without sentimentalising them, a pair of trainers is a treat. The Sunday Times publishes its Rich List, celebrity magazines trumpet wealth, television fetishises unmerited success and, since we've mentioned trainers, you tell me, reader, who the young get the idea of their desirability from. Even in Tottenham you are not born needing trainers. A craving for trainers is not inscribed in the DNA of the poor. There's an irony in the sight of those peddling tat to people who can't afford it being the first to have their windows smashed. But theirs will be the losses soonest mended, and who's to say that what's happened won't make their merchandise more desirable still? What your friends looted on Monday, you might have to buy on Friday.

[Simon]

The outcome of profligacy with personal credit cards is but a tiny fraction of that of the global indebtedness in which we are all heavily enmeshed.

Very true, IMO. Good to read such a concise and rational post form A Hinton.

Taking this further, can the older members recall when credit cards and the whole idea of borrowing to get something you couldn't afford became common? I seemed to gather in the past from family that the only thing people used to have on credit years ago was their house, i.e. with a mortgage.

As someone who feels towards the greed and falsity of the banking system in the same way as the most ardent lefty on here, it appears to me that almost everybody has got on this bandwagon of debt and credit and now they can't stop it from rolling away with them.

Was there always massive government debt, too?

[Lateralthinking1]

I recalled in the back of my mind Barclaycard. Sure enough, Wikipedia confirms that Barclaycard was the first credit card introduced in the UK, coming into service in 1966. It enjoyed a monopoly until the introduction of the Access card in 1972. These cards were a very modest introduction to the madness. I think it would be fair to say that for many prior to the 1960s there was a shame in not paying immediately. Certainly among the least well off there was a hierarchy. Those who didn't need a special arrangement with local shops to delay payments were seen as financially secure, responsible, personally stable. By contrast, those who needed tick were both pitied and frowned on - an earlier version of the underclass perhaps.

It will be interesting to look back through this thread to see how views have changed during the week. I know I have felt that the emphasis was in different places at different times. And so it continues. A quick walk to my local shop has just revealed several people in gardens with radios that could be heard way down the street - middle aged manual workers and their football, sons of about seven or eight beside them - and about three individual younger guys, all oddly in white vests - driving alone on fairly empty roads at least 20mph above the 30mph speed limit. I have to say that I loathe that lack of thought or care for anyone else. It does seem to me that they haven't grown up and while there was always something of this, from Blair onwards it has rocketed.

From these to the black teenage girls with all of the Naomi Campbell attitudes; from the cocky celebrities on the radio - several this afternoon who I just had to switch off - to the more supercilious and dogmatic approaches of all the so-called professionals - yes, Any Questions was indeed a case in point - I really don't like any of it. And with these things in mind, I think I have worked out why the arguments about need or greed only partially work - that question as to why there should have been a millionaire's daughter rioting and other similar types alongside the underclass. It seems to me now with further thought that the key issue in Britain - the key problem - is the problem of arrogance which while being closely related to greed is the true monster.