Innocents were already being hurt in Britain

LS:
A Government using violent force against its own people?

I guess this can only mean the U.K. needs to get Regime Changed, right? The international community simply has no choice but to intervene to protect the British people. David Cameron will be brought up on war crimes charges in short order, I presume.

Our elites are clueless fanatics. They could buy off the working class with scraps and still be wealthier than their predecessors throughout history ever dreamed. Instead they cling to their religion of selfishness, confident that, what, the God of the Free Market will protect them from the mob?

I think the real lesson of the current UK situation is that the veneer of stability in the West is getting painfully thin. People are suffering, and eventually they’re just going to snap.

The 333 deaths mean nothing without context. If you read the actual report, you will understand why. It can be found here: http://www.ipcc.gov.uk/en/Pages/deathscustodystudy.aspx

2.2 deaths per 100,000 ARRESTS. Of the 333, 240 (about 75%) involved drugs/alcohol; 44 were suicides.

By comparison, the US had 896 arrest-related deaths (2002 total – 1106 homicides) over three years (2003-5). That’s about 300 per year, or about 8 times as many as the UK, in a country that is 5 times as big as the UK. http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=379

From the UK:

“The study points to alarming failures in the care of vulnerable detainees suffering from mental health, drug and alcohol problems, many of whom should have been diverted from police custody,” said its co-director, Deborah Coles.

Your last post implied systematic police brutality against specific ethnic groups as a seeming contributing factor to the riots. While hopelessness and despair are certainly prevalent in Tottenham, and inequality is high, the police aspect of your argument seems like a convenient and sensationalistic factoid to support a pre-existing framework.

I hate to say it, as I have read you since your Agonist days, but this blog has become less and less objective and analytical, and more and more subjective, hyperbolic, and sanctimonious over the past several months.

Get out of the USA–revolution is coming–I told you this would happen–the oligarchs are behind everything.

I agree with your framework, which is why I read this blog. But that framework has become distended. This is evident when you say that the S&P downgrade was done “because they know the President and Congress and the real people in the oligarchy want it done. Remember, a downgrade increases rates, and that is a direct increase to their income.”

Come on. Speculation like that sacrifices complexity and clearsightedness for rhetoric and an easy target.

Anyways, best of luck. I won’t let the door hit me on the way out 🙂

Yes and no, kp. If you read some of the links posted in the last thread, you’ll see that while most deaths were not directly at police hands, those who died with police present were much more likely to be black (IIRC, around half, which is astounding in a country where less than 5% of the population is black). Moreover, blacks are also more likely to be held and medicated as mentally ill. Add to that reports that blacks in this particular neighborhood are routinely stopped and searched by police. And earlier this year there were two high profile deaths of blacks in police custody (again see the links in the last thread). So I do think there is definite anger at police and that that is fueling some of this and the statistics support a reason to be angry with police – blacks are not only disproportionately dying in police custody, they are dying at police hands. I’ll also add that I wouldn’t exactly cite comparisons to the U.S. as some sort of basis for thinking the UK isn’t terrible in this area. Here, African Americans make up 10-12% of the populatio and yet are almost half the prison population. And, of course, there’s a long history of harassment of locals in African American communities by police. I knew AA and hispanic federal agents in Los Angeles who always kept their badges out when they drove – even in USG owned cars – because they’d been stopped so many times by the Sheriff’s Dept and CHP.

Jesus H. Christ….and people wonder why I’m cynical. This is why.

Let me ask all those who keep saying ” don’t condemn the random violence,” just what the hell do you want to come from all of this? Seriously, what is your wish? What is your expectation? Oh wait, better yet, is that irrelevant….because if you think it is, it won’t be for long, because this will be coming to a theater near you, very soon, so you better make it relevant real quick so you know how to react, or not react, as the case may be.

Please, clue me in. Do you think you can take these nonsensical events and go to the Elite and their Technocratic minions with it and say “see, we told you so, we told you this was going to happen, so you better change your ways now, or they will continue to inflict more damage on themselves?” Really? You think so?

Or, is it all good theater to you, like a good sci-fi film, plenty of senseless action and violence streaming across your LCD screen and you don’t want the likes of me spoiling the show with my hapless cynicism?

I said Haiti was the future for many of us, considering the ingredients, but I’m changing my estimate. Somalia will be the future for most of us, considering the ingredients, and those of you who condone this by not talking it down are on that list of ingredients. Sorry, I’m not going to help bake that cake. I’ll eat berries and squirrels instead (yes, I’m an animal hater, as well), while you guys aid and abet, via tacit approval, the baking of a cake that will have Mothra popping out of it when the party’s just hitting its stride.

Let me ask all those who keep saying ” don’t condemn the random violence,” – MB

Are you talking about this thread? Because I haven’t seen that in this thread. I don’t think noting that there are reasons why people might want to strike out is the same thing as saying “don’t condemn the random violence”. Or am I missing a comment somewhere?

For the record – my comment re “nuance” was prompted by KB’s thoughts.

@Morocco –

Your dander is up, so I don’t know if this will help: I think what is being said about judgement, condemnation, etc. is regarding its propriety and effectiveness. Once things bust out into violence (a condition I characterized in an earlier thread as lamentable not least because it devolves into unintended consequences,) then the natural inclination to condemn violence becomes irrelevant. If that same energy were applied to the conditions that presaged it, then one would be treating the disease, not the symptom.

And I am not saying here that you have not addressed the aforementioned conditions here before, often and well. So… let’s not let the symptoms distract us from the disease?

And I am not saying here that you have not addressed the aforementioned conditions here before, often and well. So… let’s not let the symptoms distract us from the disease?

Exactly, Petro. You don’t cure the disease by removing your own heart, liver, lungs and cerebrum. That’s suicidal. However, I do realize that a symptom of the disease is the compulsion for some to do just that. It’s an insidious disease…..it’s an insidious System. The System is the Disease, and we must do everything we can to not feed it. The System wants this. Let’s not give it to it.

The System wants this. Let’s not give it to it.

Again, agree. And re-posting from an earlier thread, since this story keeps moving and the posts & comments with it:

6 Creepy New Weapons the Police and Military Use To Subdue Unarmed People

http://www.alternet.org/world/151864/6_creepy_new_weapons_the_police_and_military_use_to_subdue_unarmed_people/?page=entire

JustMe,

It’s not me continuing the discussion as though I’m off topic. In this very post, if you reread it, Ian says:

I am not going to play the gutless liberal game of condemning people who have been treated like animals for lashing out in pain.

I don’t take that comment personally because I’m not a Liberal (the current interpretation of that word) and I don’t consider myself gutless, although some may differ with that assessment. My views are a hell of a lot more radical than the views of some who are admonishing me for condemning not people, but senseless acts of violence.

Excerpt from an article about goings-on in the U.S. This is the first I’ve seen of this, so have no idea if this article is a portent or hype:

“We have such a high unemployment rate for teenagers in Milwaukee, so you’ve got kids that have enough money to get into the state fair, but maybe they ran out of money to entertain themselves,” says Professor Richards. “So you might have teenagers standing around and feeling dejected … and maybe seeing other young people that do have money. I think there is resentment, and this has happened historically in America: hot summers, high unemployment, poverty lead to problems.”

“It is not unlikely that future violence in the cities would look more like flash mobs and less like the urban riots of the 1960s,” Walter Russell Mead, a humanities professor at Bard College, at Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y., wrote on Sunday. “Those riots targeted Black neighborhoods, Black owned stores and much of the property destroyed in the riots belonged to Blacks; any new trouble would likely be more effective at spreading the pain beyond the inner city.”

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2011/0809/Flash-mob-attacks-Rising-concern-over-black-teen-involvement

“Let me ask all those who keep saying ” don’t condemn the random violence,” just what the hell do you want to come from all of this?

Just stop. That is utter nonsense and you know it. NOBODY here said “don’t condemn the random violence”.

The so-called “Right” has its Tea Partiers, of which Bageant brilliantly excoriates in lamentable fashion in his works, and the so-called “Left” has its Tea Partiers (rioters, in this case) that no one on the so-called “Left” excoriates.

Both want to burn it all down, except the ones on the “Left” apparently really mean it, whereas the ones on the “Right” can’t find their butt crack to wipe it, let alone mount any kind of ridiculous response that required them to get up off their sofas. But let’s face it, those “Rioting” are about as “Left” as my “Right” toe, or pinky. But that doesn’t matter, they’ve been adopted and their “rioting” is being lived vicariously by so-called “Left” Activists in the U.S., and elsewhere, who still think they can vote there way out of this. Voting and Rioting…..that’s a hell of a strategy….tell me how it all turns out. Meanwhile, respect to the Turks and Pakis for defending their homes and businesses against the marauding thugs.

I never thought I would say this, but if this is a taste of things to come, and I think that’s a strong possibility, I’m sure glad the so-called “Left” couldn’t push through more stringent gun control laws, because before this comes to my front doorstep, those guns may come in handy in defending my home and business, if I had one (a business….don’t have a gun…yet), from thugs who practice aimless and misdirected violence. In that case, you can be sure any violence on my part will be an absolute last resort, but it won’t be aimless, it will be very much directed, and very much justified.

In the end, as I have said, there is no “Left” and that is why I use the term “so-called.” There are a couple of commentators here, I won’t name names, that are shining examples of the so-called “Left.” They’re the Achilles Heel, and they are an impediment to any kind of purposeful and cohesive solidarity. I am quite convinced from their stance that they would never get your back, and would throw you under the bus and leave you out to dry when the opportunity presented itself.

Someone on this sight said that Revolutions are not kind to the noble individuals that help to start and support one because the thugs ultimately fill the power vacuum that ensues amidst the chaos, and that’s exactly what I see happening here. That commentator was dead on, and for that reason, I’m at the precipice of saying “fuck it.” It’s too sisyphean and daunting an effort, nay near impossible, to pull this off. It’s going to be so terribly ugly and awful…..that much I’m sure about. Yes, that’s morose. So be it, and so it goes.

Where is Guy Fawkes?

In the Great Beyond, locked in a death-grapple with John Galt.

At this point, since most people can’t see the forest but for the trees any longer, if they ever could, Guy Fawkes, like the legendary Jesus, wouldn’t be recognized if he walked amongst us. They would be chastised, marginalized and dismissed by the very people who proclaimed their names in perpetuity. Besides, woe the country, and woe the people, who needeth a hero.

Morocco, that is fear talking. I feel it too, but I would never let it ascend the soap-box.

Had to say it, my friend.

Let’s get the consensus of everyone here, shall we?

Voting doesn’t work; the politicians are bought. Their masters are not the voters, but those who buy them. Two-party systems make this easier.

Mass protests? Sit-ins? They are ignored by the mainstream media unless they fit into the elite’s agenda.

Economic boycotts? They won’t work because a) the elites have locked down their revenue streams down so you HAVE to buy their product, one way or another, and b) Citizens United allows them to launder and hide their contribution money, so you never know who’s funding what.

Now violence won’t work and isn’t justified because it a) invariably hits the innocent moreso than the guilty and/or b) draws and justifies greater state repression, and/or c) the people who engage in it aren’t the ones we want to build the better society anyway–a case of the means corrupting the ends.

“Dropping out” a la Timothy Leary or the Farm condemns the mass of humanity to brutalization and death with scarcely a whimper.

So, like what’s left?

StewartM

Ian

“I am not going to play the gutless liberal game of condemning people who have been treated like animals for lashing out in pain.”

But you could condemn the anti-national team of multicult liberals and cheap labor loving right-wing capitalists who encouraged their entry in the first place.

“But you could condemn the anti-national team of multicult liberals and cheap labor loving right-wing capitalists who encouraged their entry in the first place.”

I know you’re talking to Ian but…what? “Multicult liberals”? Isn’t England like 90+% white?

Z
“What Ian describes is a plutocratic tactic to get the people turn on the rioters (“Oh my God, innocent people are now being harmed”) and divert their attention from the root cause of the violence: THE STATE that the plutocrats that hide behind it and control it.”
——————————-
I agree Z – well said. The method is to attack anyone who doesn’t immediately “denounce” the rioters. The purpose is to undermine and avoid addressing the very legitimate grievances that sparked the rioting. If you say that you understand why people are angry, then you are immediately accused of condoning violence and hurting innocent people. It’s the same with everything. If you opposed the Iraq war, immediately the question following was “why do you hate America?” or “why do you support Saddam Hussain”? If you are pro-choice – then you support killing babies. If you are anti-torture then you hate the troops.

Also – re the context of these riots. The government, police and media have lost any moral authority they might have had due to the ongoing clusterfuck of the phonehacking scandal. And the fauxrage re innocents caught in the cross-fire — really? srsly? because they sure don’t seem as morally outraged when we kill innocent civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Pakistan, Libya, etc. – because “those people” are also “insurgents” or “collateral damage”. Not a lot of outrage re illegal wars, torture, renditioning or incarcerating people without due process.

I know it’s slightly off-topic but that’s why it was so odious when Obama apologists were suddenly concerned about Executive overreach re the 14th amendment and raising the debt ceiling – because they sure didn’t seem to mind when the President declared the right to assassinate American citizens anywhere in the world without due process. They sure don’t seem to be too concerned about a super Committee of 12 rich white guys are going to dictate policy re taxes, Social Security and everything else.

argh, grumble, grumble… 🙁

-StewartM, well, isn’t what it boils down to?
————–
you’re right, i think it does 🙁

*sigh*

btw – points for the well executed snark 😉

sorry for hogging the thread again 🙁 but i think this is a very interesting article by Murtaza Hussain

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/08/11/hussain_britain/index.html
“The idea that we must not earnestly try to understand these actions is not only counterproductive but potentially suicidal in the long term. Far from being an isolated incident, these riots are but the largest and most recent incident of unrest to rock Britain in recent years. Most unrest has taken the form of protest, and has come in response to increasingly stringent government austerity measures and a perceived push to dismantle the social welfare state which has historically provided affordable healthcare and education to British society. “

Clockwork orange
http://youtu.be/igwIR7rDPQc

I’ve no horse in this race, but women who call men douchebags are cool. Assuming I have the gender coding right here.