Riots

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

never mind Peter Oborne, even Charles Moore was making the point that S_A made about capitalism and he is no communist ....btw it would help if we distinguish between those who, like S_A or David Harvey or brilliant cartoon version, take Marxist theory quite seriously, from those who might be members of the CPGB and adherents of the failed totalitarianism of the proletariat as practised in the now defunct Soviet Empire or the continuing regimes in N Korea or China ...

and taking such ideas seriously does not entail either that other ideas are not also of serious merit in addressing what ails us, nor that the only answer is a revolution ....

social, economic and cultural inequality has worsened considerably in the Anglo American economies in recent decades and the consequences are with us ... but so also have authority, social cohesion and personal responsibility declined.... i do not find it far fetched to draw a link between these two developments in our present circumstance

[eighthobstruction]

Indeed....on all those #539....

[amateur51]

never mind Peter Oborne, even Charles Moore was making the point that S_A made about capitalism and he is no communist ....btw it would help if we distinguish between those who, like S_A or David Harvey or brilliant cartoon version, take Marxist theory quite seriously, from those who might be members of the CPGB and adherents of the failed totalitarianism of the proletariat as practised in the now defunct Soviet Empire or the continuing regimes in N Korea or China ...

and taking such ideas seriously does not entail either that other ideas are not also of serious merit in addressing what ails us, nor that the only answer is a revolution ....

social, economic and cultural inequality has worsened considerably in the Anglo American economies in recent decades and the consequences are with us ... but so also have authority, social cohesion and personal responsibility declined.... i do not find it far fetched to draw a link between these two developments in our present circumstance

Thanks for the David Harvey link, Calum - it's just the ticket! (As my Taid used to say )

[Serial_Apologist]

Fair enough. However, for the record there were far more inconsistencies and injustices in the ex-Soviet communist state to make any over here pale into insignificance. However, one doesn't keep banging on about it. And for the record, the disparity in wealth between the richest and the poorest in the ex-Soviet communist state also makes any disparity over here pale into even more insignificance. However, one doesn't bang on about that either.

Just wanted to say: I have never been an apologist for the Soviet Union.

[Serial_Apologist]

never mind Peter Oborne, even Charles Moore was making the point that S_A made about capitalism and he is no communist ....btw it would help if we distinguish between those who, like S_A or David Harvey or brilliant cartoon version, take Marxist theory quite seriously, from those who might be members of the CPGB and adherents of the failed totalitarianism of the proletariat as practised in the now defunct Soviet Empire or the continuing regimes in N Korea or China ...

and taking such ideas seriously does not entail either that other ideas are not also of serious merit in addressing what ails us, nor that the only answer is a revolution ....

social, economic and cultural inequality has worsened considerably in the Anglo American economies in recent decades and the consequences are with us ... but so also have authority, social cohesion and personal responsibility declined.... i do not find it far fetched to draw a link between these two developments in our present circumstance

Calum, I'd lost that David Harvey link last year when we switched and I lost my old computer; so many thanks for re-finding and posting that.

Harvey's theoretical starting point surely has to be the starting point to any understanding of the present situation & all its ramifications, if we're gonna get anywhere.

[amateur51]

Harvey's theoretical starting point surely has to be the starting point to any understanding of the present situation & all its ramifications, if we're gonna get anywhere.

Hear, hear!

[Lateralthinking1]

Calum - Post 539. Very good. The Moore article is borderline astonishing. I watched all of the Harvey and Taylor clip and then that cartoon version which is fantastic. This is going to be one of my weirder posts. The kind where I say things and tend to regret them immediately afterwards. In fact, the sort of commentary which for a moment can feel insightful but has a slightly uncomfortable feeling of illness. Maybe that in itself is broadly relevant. First, if the right are beginning to think that the left was right - Moore - and some contributors from the left here have intimated that parts of the right might have been right, this on paper could look like a wonderful opportunity for holistic thinking. Still, one of the problems with it is that its "answers" to the problems aren't great. They are merely that we are starting to accept that there may have been artificial divisions in the past and that, yes, we can now agree that there are problems.

Secondly, one of the biggest problems is surely that this modest beginning of consensus is taking place mainly around or outside the central system. Journalists and academics, even contributors to forums, are all very well but they are not an influential part of the established power structures. By contrast, the more systemically integrated often look increasingly bizarre. Trying to lead while being behind public perception, trying to appear in harmony with that perception in their language when often in actuality being at odds with it, trying to become adaptive in what is essentially a structural rigidity....they often seem like patients who know the nature of their condition and yet are having to fulfill the role of doctor.

Thirdly, this notion of left and right. Increasingly, I ask myself what such things mean as they are perceived and whether the perceptions offer any real clarity. Generally, they are understood conceptually - beliefs in certain policies rather than others. The scope for variation and vagueness is almost endless and this simply builds in opposing forces where not everything should be perceived as being in opposition rationally. Take the words themselves. In a sense, right should be quite literally about what is generally comprehended as being right. That most logically would be closely related to the idea of what is established. It is less questioning. Left quite literally is leaving it. It involves questioning and change - that "we have left all that behind now". You can, of course, see those differences generationally. But while right and left are comprehended in these terms in some ways by all, even if many don't know it, economic revolution in the past 30 years has been driven by the right. There is almost a contradiction in definition there. While terminology has its limits, I do feel that this in itself has led to confusion in some thinking and in fact the ideas of a timeline and progress also muddle it.

On rare occasions, we think politically in terms of diagrams rather than words. That line, straight or almost circular, with "L" at one end and "R" at the other. I think we have all at times had our doubts about it. And the more time moves on, I think I see it all more as a cross shape actually. It is like those in the integrated system have their line and the rest of us have ours. Both lines have that "L" and that "R" but our line is based more in the period pre neo-liberal economics. Their line is current. Both in truth are currently relevant but each group speaks about it all as if it were the same line. Surely it isn't and in fact for one to understand the other, it is probably necessary to look at the other line - the one that crosses - by turning round the piece of paper at right angles. Again, I feel that this is important to ways of thinking.

"The system" - the influential parts of the economy and politics - may not involve us directly but it is integrated to some extent or another in every individual's identity and outlook. So - you know, there is this word "story" that is used a lot now. Harvey used it. He said he was going to construct "a story" and my ex Permanent Secretary used the word all the time, ie "we need to present a convincing story". What this does is to imply that while there are certain indisputable facts about the structure of "the system", there are all kinds of angles that can be attached to it. The idea that this in fact is how one can separate out the individual or groups of individuals from being quite inseparable from "the system" as they might be in the identities of, say, North Koreans. I guess that is ok but it can also be an excuse for abandoning political theory and indeed accepted moral truths.

Then we have the economic system. What strikes me is how we see it now as like a natural phenomenon. When there are problems, we view it like an earthquake. We decide that all we can do is try to manage its impacts and I do find that thinking strange. It seems to me to be entirely at odds with the idea that everything politically can be angled into a story. Perhaps this hints at why the economic problems hop from place to place across the globe. They are managed by countries finding story angles via policy on what they consider to be factual truths when those should be thought of wholly as unnatural phenomena. This in itself it surely the biggest story of all - a never-ending case of the emperor's new clothes. For there is clearly here the double yellow line syndrome too. You deal with a parking problem in one street by applying such lines and they simply move on to the nearest street that doesn't have them. What you really have to manage is the fantasy that parking is no less an irreversible act of god than lightning and thunder. In other words, question the rarely-ever-questioned nature of the phenomenon itself and any associated comprehension of it.

[Serial_Apologist]

Hear, hear!

Thanks, AM51 - man, you're a great morale boost

It now occurs to me, following all that rhetoric, that the solution-mongers of right-wing persuasion here will now come back and say, "Yes, well, now that you've explained all the theory, how helpful will this be to the rioters and looters and their victims; or the police, social services and government, for that matter? Are you seriously proposing a Conservative-led government - Conservative, mind! - now shut down the Stock Exchange, and take over all the banks and investment companies?"

Well that wouldn't be a bad idea; anyone old enough to remember Heath nationalising Rolls-Royce - a resource too vital to the national interest to be allowed to go bust - in 1971? But that wasn't quite what I had in mind. Like David Harvey I'm not even quite sure yet what I DO have in mind. It would be helpful if somehow all the jobsworths, ie probably a majority in today's employment prospects, in industries where dodgy things were quite clearly going on, should refuse to comply with unethical orders imposed upon them. And they should be supported, with non-compliance, as heroes and heroines for so doing by their workmates, and supported by their union if they have one. Or at least do a bit of whistle-blowing. Strikes have had their day - they only inconvenience the rest of the ordinary public, not the bosses who make privated arrangements. Lets have some work-to-rules, where we determine what the rules should be by majority vote. Dictatorship of the Proletariat originally meant siomething like that, just like Christianity originally meanst something quite different. There's much talk of values - let's have a few socialist values, like, who <really> creates wealth? Is it the so-nice boss, for kindly giving us jobs to make him money?? Oh yeah - now I'm on a roll - and isn't it about time the trade unions got their acts together INTERNATIONALLY? Enough of all this "British jobs for British workers"! The reason underpinning internationalism is as much about divide-and-rule, using "patriotism", as it is about universal brotherhood and sisterhood.

And if all this fails?

<sigh>

Well the first thing I would instill firmly into the forming minds of the not-so-privileged-as-Cameron-and Clegg young is a clear moral, ethical and intellectual understanding as to WHY we invited them in an act of unforseeable child abuse to come into this world; of WHY and HOW we were conned into believing there was a future for them as well as us; of HOW all this was allowed to come about. If you understand, it is 75% of all you need to stop yourself becoming destructive - of yourself, of anything. At the end of the proverbial, on returning to your sparsely furnished, sparsely-provisioned little domicile, you will, like the Zen master, be able to look out at the full moon and say to yourself, "If only I could donate that to the starving child in Somalia".

[eighthobstruction]

Soon to our screens no doubt on Channel 4....Living with the Rioters [Michael Gove, Lord Ashcroft and Oliver Letwin spend a week with convicted rioters to see just how tough it is in the inner cities]

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

...perhaps ten years with other convicted felons would be more like it eighthO?

[amateur51]

Liberal Democrat politicians indicated on Tuesday that they have deep concerns over David Cameron's uncompromising post-riots law and order agenda, with the party's home affairs spokeswoman in the Lords Baroness Hamwee telling the Guardian there should be "zero tolerance with zero tolerance".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/aug/16/tories-riots-bonkers-liberal-democrat

[scottycelt]

Liberal Democrat politicians indicated on Tuesday that they have deep concerns over David Cameron's uncompromising post-riots law and order agenda, with the party's home affairs spokeswoman in the Lords Baroness Hamwee telling the Guardian there should be "zero tolerance with zero tolerance".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2...beral-democrat

Quite incredible that some of our politicians now appear to be 'feeling sorry' for the thugs and looters and also (at least publicly) display little concern for the innocent who suffered in the mayhem.

As David Davies MP rightly says some poor people lost their very lives and these tough sentences are fully justified if only to try and protect others from the same fate.

'Zero tolerance with zero tolerance' ? The logical interpretation of that slogan is that society should tolerate at least a degree of murder, thuggery and looting and any associated incitement. What a desperately stupid and cruel thing to say to those who have already suffered.

On a much more positive note, I caught some of Nick Clegg's speech yesterday and he, at least, appears to realise the gravity of the crimes committed and how important it is for a tough response from the police and courts.

The idea of making the criminals wear bright orange tunics in public and repair some of the damage caused sounds excellent as that would involve an element of branding the offenders whilst giving them something constructive to do at the same time. How this would actually work in practice is another matter of course but surely it is not beyond the wit of our politicians to come up with a practical idea along similar lines.

I am not a fascist, communist, tory, socialist, liberal democrat or a member of any other political party. Party politics do not interest me, in fact that mostly tends to irritate.

As far as I'm concerned the first priority is to support the victim and thoroughly wallop the criminal before we even think about doing anything else.

[amateur51]

Quite incredible that some of our politicians now appear to be 'feeling sorry' for the thugs and looters and also (at least publicly) display little concern for the innocent who suffered in the mayhem.

Scotty's gonna love this ...

Criticism is growing of the sentences imposed on some convicted rioters after two men were jailed for four years for posting messages on Facebook inciting people to create disorder in their home towns.

A cabinet minister defended the tough sentencing approach, but a senior Liberal Democrat accused the courts of seeking retribution.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/17/facebook-cases-criticism-riot-sentences

[mercia]

"A looter who helped himself to an ice-cream cone during the disturbances was warned on Tuesday that he could be jailed.

Anderson Fernandes, 22, appeared before magistrates in Manchester charged with burglary after he took two scoops of coffee ice-cream and a cone from Patisserie Valerie in the city centre. He gave the cone away because he didn't like the flavour."

(Guardian)

[ahinton]

Quite incredible that some of our politicians now appear to be 'feeling sorry' for the thugs and looters and also (at least publicly) display little concern for the innocent who suffered in the mayhem.

It might well be so if they were; where, however, is your hard evidence in support of such a contention?

As David Davies MP rightly says some poor people lost their very lives and these tough sentences are fully justified if only to try and protect others from the same fate.

There is self-evidently a vast difference between sentences handed down for murder and those handed down for other actions; the fact that Mr Davies is of course correct in what you report him as having said about those who have committed murder does not impact upon the increasingly widespread accusations of disproportionality of sentencing in certain other cases that have arisen from the riots.

'Zero tolerance with zero tolerance' ? The logical interpretation of that slogan is that society should tolerate at least a degree of murder, thuggery and looting and any associated incitement. What a desperately stupid and cruel thing to say to those who have already suffered.

That is in fact a personal interpretation (yours) rather than the "logical" one that you seek to ascribe to it. "Zero tolerance" is an emotive phrase whose emptiness of real meaning leaves it open to possible interpretation as one that seeks to convey the notion that all punishments for all misdemeanours should be harsh rather than appropriate. One principle behind its use is to foster the idea that the harsher the punishment the greater the level of deterrence from repeated involvement in the criminal activity concerned - an idea that has no provable foundation in fact and on which a number of distinguished legal professional have expressed doubt based upon experience of it in practice. Omitting to use that phrase or to conduct judicial activities in strict adherence thereto does not indicate that "society should tolerate at least a degree of murder, thuggery and looting and any associated incitement" - nor should it do so, as that is an absurd idea. Appropriate sentencing policy must be carried out and be seen to be carried out just as justice itself must be done and be seen to be done; in this instance, there can be no doubt that some sentencing has been inappropriate, perhaps partly as a consequence of having been unduly rushed; only this morning on BBC R4's Today programme, a QC has said as much. We already know, for example, that one person in Manchester has been give a two month sentence for being present near where rioting and looting was taking place without his involvement either in it or in incitement to it, merely for shouting and swearing at police when apprehended; whilst not condoning the man's behaviour towards the police on that occasion, two months for that alone when others near him were causing criminal damage and may be sentenced to little more in respect of it does little to engender public confidence either in policing or the judiciary. I hope that there will be appeals where appropriate - through the UK court system and on to ECHR is absolutely necessary (which it should not have to be).

On a much more positive note, I caught some of Nick Clegg's speech yesterday and he, at least, appears to realise the gravity of the crimes committed and how important it is for a tough response from the police and courts.

I would regard that as a negative note rather than a positive one, although I should add that I did not personally hear Mr Clegg's speech. The response required is not a "tough" one but an "appropriate" one in each and every case and it is surely not beyond your wit or his or anyone else's that the range of criminal acts carried out during the riots last week is vast, from murder down to nicking a couple of quid's worth of goods and that adopting the same attitude to judging and sentencing each such offence would constitute and utterly absurd corruption of taxpayer-finded judicial activity.

The idea of making the criminals wear bright orange tunics in public and repair some of the damage caused sounds excellent as that would involve an element of branding the offenders whilst giving them something constructive to do at the same time. How this would actually work in practice is another matter of course but surely it is not beyond the wit of our politicians to come up with a practical idea along similar lines.

Was bright orange Mr Clegg's idea?(!). It would in practice be a very bad idea to the extent that it might be regarded as kind of an attraction to the kinds of people who did what they did last week - not quite the "branding" that you had in mind, I imagine - not that it would be commercially viable to police the wearing of such apparel at all times when the miscreants were on active service in repairing that damage, of course. Imposing community service orders of this kind, however, is indeed a good idea because it does at last face the criminals with the consequences of their actions throughout the time that they're clearing them up - and it is, of course, constructive activity.

As far as I'm concerned the first priority is to support the victim and thoroughly wallop the criminal before we even think about doing anything else.

Again, I do not care for your use of the term "wallop", as though some kind of draconian measures, physical or otherwise, must be takenagainst all of the criminals concerned, regardless of the gravity of the offence; I would like to be able to assume that you'd no more expect to give someone several months in an overcrowded prison (assuming that you could kind one) at immense expense to the taxpayer for having stolen a couple of quid's worth of goods than you'd merely "wallop" a criminal who is convicted of murder.