Cage rage

[french frank]

This 'sport' goes against my every instinct as a parent; it may be legal but surely it should count as exploitation of minors? I wonder how much the boys' parents get paid?

If it is legal, that's surely only because in spite of cock-fighting, badger-baiting, pig-sticking and hare coursing, no one thought parents would use their own children for similar barbaric pursuits for public entertainment.

[Lateralthinking1]

Anna, I think it is a bit more complicated. It might be that the parents have little money and that they see on TV which people have masses of the stuff. They therefore decide that their children are the only possible route to it. However, benefit claimants and those on low incomes often have to pay far less for organised events than other people. And they could be putting the kids in for milder lucrative activities like X Factor but they have chosen this instead.

No, it reveals the impacts of the economic system on them. At the grassroots, life can feel for many like a wrestle. These children are not being given adequate protection by their parents because they themselves are not being given adequate protection by the state. And I don't mean in terms of benefits. An absence of work, the constant news and imagery of unjust differences in financial positions, and an accent on rights in the areas of diversity rather than on fair rights for all individuals, have wrecked the egos of working class, family, males. Completely wrecked them. Smashed them to smithereens.

If they are so in reverse of the traditional stereotype that an eight year old has to be the heroic solution to the father's problems rather than vice versa, those guys are seriously troubled, whatever the bravado. And actually I don't blame them or the mothers. I see them as victims who the privileged media will no doubt turn on like leeches. They already have done. Hunt will play his part, declaring his perspective on the moral aspects, but the spotlight would be rightly turned on both the media and the politicians. They have essentially organised this event. Hey, it even took place in a Labour Party building. How direct is that metaphor?

[Anna]

Lat, I've found this further quote from the father involved:
‘If he wasn’t cage fighting, he would probably be chucking stones at buses and giving people grief. But now he has learned some respect and he would rather go training than play out.’
So in the eyes of the father it's good that his lad is focussed.

Edit: Couple of more quotes from The Guardian:
Michelle Anderson, owner of Greenlands Labour Club, who attended the event on September 10, said: "There was nothing wrong with it. "The kids were there to fight; they have fought before. The parents were there. Would people rather these kids were out on the streets with guns and knives?"
Steven Nightingale, 28, a professional cage fighter who runs the Reps MMA gym in Preston said, "Competitions start from the age of five, it is definitely a big up-and-coming sport.”

[Lateralthinking1]

Yes, another was "he wants to do it". They don't feel that they have any authority over an eight year old child. You have to wonder what that says about their own mental ages and their family backgrounds.

There were always parents who lacked what was needed. However, now that the political and economic systems are adolescent and inadequate, there is no escape route for any of them.

They are stuck with these patterns and feel that they are systemically endorsed. Their lack of authority is effectively state authorised, even if the state refuses to see it. And it could earn them a fortune!

The money in MMA - http://www.mmamania.com/2010/9/23/17...-the-ufc-worth

(Plus, of course, no one needs to worry about the feelings of the loser because even the losers earn far more than the perceived winners in the most mundane areas of more mature society. That is precisely the point - and to hell with self-dignity etc.)

[Serial_Apologist]

Does anyone else see this as the flipside of American mums parading their 3 year old daughters at shows in dolly bird outfits?

[mangerton]

Does anyone else see this as the flipside of American mums parading their 3 year old daughters at shows in dolly bird outfits?

Yes. They are both forms of child abuse, committed by people who don't know any better. Big Brother and the Jeremy Kyle show are similar examples of abuse where people of low intellect are exploited for the amusement and entertainment of others.

These "entertainments" have replaced the trips to Bedlam to laugh at the inmates. If our alleged leaders had any guts they would put a stop to all of these degrading goings on.

[handsomefortune]

well said mangerton!

the less you watch tv, the more shocking it is when you accidentally catch snatches of progs considered 'normal' and 'family entertainment' i find.

[Anna]

I've never seen Toddlers & Tiaras but I have caught a bit on YouTube just to see what the fuss has been about.

The 3 year old dressed in the Julia Robert's prostitute costume was quite surreal because she looked like nothing more than an automated plastic doll, no way she looked human and real.
The worst was the 4 year old dressed as Dolly Parton with a padded bra and a padded bum to give her curves, the eyes that looked out of that face seemed dead.

One noticeable thing was that the pushy Moms were, in the majority of cases, fat bordering on the obese. A lot of the mothers mentioned their daughters were on medication for ADHD, probably that meant they were behaving like normal little children and playing up before they had it doped out of them for the sake of appearing in the pageants?

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

who needs a cage

[Mahlerei]

Anna

Sorry, that doesn't cut it. If he was a half-decent father he'd make damn sure his son wasn't on the streets misbehaving. Respect? Rubbish.

[Anna]

Anna, Sorry, that doesn't cut it. If he was a half-decent father he'd make damn sure his son wasn't on the streets misbehaving. Respect? Rubbish.

Oi, Mahlerei, don't shoot the messenger!! I merely quoted what the father had evidently said. I'm in complete agreement with you but if someone lacks basic parenting skills or the intelligence to realise that if his child runs riot on the streets then it's entirely down to him and lack of positive parenting then what can be done? Why are some parents frightened of their children and unable to enforce basic discipline and respect for others, i.e. not throwing stones at buses?

Some parents, after the looting, said they couldn't discipline children or they'd be reported to the Social and the children knew it and would actually report them but discipline doesn't necessarily mean a beating does it.

[Mary Chambers]

Why are some parents frightened of their children and unable to enforce basic discipline and respect for others, i.e. not throwing stones at buses?

Some parents, after the looting, said they couldn't discipline children or they'd be reported to the Social and the children knew it and would actually report them but discipline doesn't necessarily mean a beating does it.

Of course it doesn't, but evidently some parents think it does. It takes more time and effort to produce the other kind of discipline - that achieved by talking and reasoning.

Even good parents might not know what their children are doing sometimes. They may think they've gone to see a friend, and not realised that the friend's idea of fun is throwing stones at buses. Weak or scared children can be easily persuaded.

[Mahlerei]

Anna mia

I know you're just the messenger; I wasn't cross with you. I'm just astounded by the weasels who try to justify putting their children in these cages. Even more repellent is the notion that people would pay to see such 'sport'.

[Flosshilde]

Flossie, my father learnt to box when young in order to protect himself from gangs (he was a lanky beanpole with specs and therefore an easy target) and then had a life-long love of the sport, but went to watch it live as mother would not permit him to watch on tv as she thought it barbaric. None of my brothers were encouraged to take up boxing.

Anna, I can understand the reasons for your father learning boxing as a boy (but I do wonder how useful a training in formal boxing would be against people who 'don't play by the rules'); but as far as my father was concerned it seemed to be part & parcel with his rather agressive, bullying nature.

I'm not sure how useful a knowledge of boxing is in protection against bullying; I learnt to avoid it (being lanky & be-spectacled) by avoidence tactics rather than confrontation, & being so eccentric (I started the school cactus & succulent society, rode my mother's bicycle & my success in flower arranging competitions was reported in the local press) that there was no kudos in bullying me - I was simply too easy

[Lateralthinking1]

...If I may, I agree that boxing can be pretty useless for self-defence in a society where rules are broken and indeed twisted. For example, many initiate a brawl before then asking for help from the police when others hit back either lawfully or unlawfully. This instinct too applies directly to bankers and politicians who clobber the rest of us, and indeed break the law, while insisting that the law must be upheld. The Home Countries should have a flush of gold medals in cowardice at the London Olympics although a number of other countries are following our "example".

In the "old days" when many of us believed in community meaningfully rather than conceptually or dreamily, it is true that someone who was trained in boxing would have something of a reputation in his locale. Generally, most would not mess with him but then a higher percentage of people were more regularly sober. More to the point, amateur boxing was mostly about learning a discipline that then encouraged self-discipline. It was like playing the violin in that way - or indeed flower arranging.

Since childhood, I have had many autographs from boxers that are personally addressed to me. Many became reasonably famous. They were all at the Manor Place Baths, Walworth, between the 1950s and the 1970s. Mostly they lived more stable lives than the majority of us do now. Few ended up with the drink problems of a Paul Gascoigne or a Paul Merson, nor did they live in the tabloids like the alcoholic womaniser George Best or the sober but narcissistic businessman David Beckham.

I have been checking the history of legislation governing premises permitted to sell alcohol. Sometimes one wonders if the internet is re-writing history. The facts are right but the emphasis is frequently wrong. While I learnt today that children in the 1960s and 1970s could drink alcohol at the age of five in a pub garden - something that the 1988 Act put a stop to, with supposedly added protections in the 2003 legislation - my memory recalls the other aspects. We were not permitted to go onto licensed premises until the age of 14 and could only do so between the ages of 14 and 18 to have a meal with adults. I do not believe that the kind of event reported today could have happened lawfully prior to 1988.

There is no doubt in my mind that the significant, growing, upturn in people turning themselves into trash on the streets can be traced back to the legislation introduced in 1988. That was in the middle of my most actively social period and I recall that the changes were dramatic, if not immediately apparent. It wasn’t so much the extended hours as its permissive quality. BBC Radio 1 was a big factor in fuelling it.