Mecha_Infantry
Banned
This album is going so hard right about now, so appropriate.
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London riots spreading through UK
- Thread starter kottila
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cartoon_soldier
Member
MLH said:
Anybody trying to justify the riots is a moron and I am ashamed that some of my fellow liberal progressives are trying to tie these riots into austerity measures.
Mecha_Infantry
Banned
Furret said:
Like I've said, many people in here said that. But I see everything in them in me.
I was raised in that area, when I hear them speak I know what they are saying, I know their slang, these people are from where my cousins and shit grow up.
I and many see a lot in them guys...but yo..I'm going back to work
Your Excellency
Banned
I didn't know Nakedsushi (who writes that blog and had her ring stolen) posts here. Wow. That really sucks. 
Wrestlemania
Banned
The main thing I've realised in this is that there are a lot of fucking idiots who can't see the difference between trying to explain something and justifying it.cartoon_soldier said:
If someone kills their child and someone says "They did it because they were mentally unstable", are they justifying it?
SmokyDave said:
What does that matter? Your anger is more accute than mine, but I can feel empathy towards the 'vermin' in Pittsburgh...
I can see where seeing the destruction first hand of neighborhoods that you've grown up in and know and love can sharpen your ire, don't get me wrong.
Your Excellency
Banned
SmokyDave said:
And Elephant and Castle, for that matter.
These are the three men who were murdered last night protecting their community:
haha what a load of shit. Take a trip to a school in Hackney and tell me they have the same opportunities you did.BlazingDarkness said:
You're born into a london ghetto, your parents dont have a pot to piss in, all your friends are in the same situation and you have to be the "bad man' to not get the shit beaten out of you every day. These conditions are put on you from birth, do you think if given the choice these people would pick this life?
i'm not from the uk, so i can't put myself inside the heads of you all, but i don't understand the whole "society failed these people" argument. look at the vancity riots. most of the people rioting and shit weren't even hockey fans. there were plans of a riot regardless of who won the game. lots of the people that got caught were fucking university students. society did not fail them, but they still beat up people, destroyed businesses, looted, and shamed the city. obviously the uk riots right now are probably quite different than the vancity one, but i just don't think we should blame anyone but the rioters. they made the conscious decision to do what they are doing.
BlazingDarkness
Member
No but when these cunts start looting charity shops and someone says they're aren't to fucking blame I have a real problem with thatWrestlemania said:
It's more that I can't shake the feeling that some people are incapable of grasping what sort of people are doing this. They don't fit into the neat little academically agreed-upon boxes that people are trying to squeeze them into. Unless you've actually met these people, spoken to them and lived around them, you'll really struggle to understand why we speak of them as though they were sub-human. They're not only immoral, they're actively evil.marrec said:
WorriedCitizen
Member
Shit hits the fan when poverty meets lack of morals. There are other cultures/societys where poverty is widespread that don't rely so much on crime and asocial behaviour. The problem can only be solved by tackling both problems simultaneously.
SmokyDave said:
My parents grew up on a council estate and managed to do well enough in school to become comfortably middle class. My grandparents lived on council estates their whole lives in Wigan and Leigh. One of my grandma's used to get hypodermic needles thrown in her front garden. Growing up in Bolton I've been threatened with violence unless I handed over the small amount of pocket money I had on me.
I've had a comfortable upbringing but I'm well aware that there are incredibly selfish, violent arseholes out there. But they are people at the end of the day. They're not inhuman monsters. I don't think it's a sensible solution to write off a whole sector of our society and label them an irredeemable.
I'm not sure why there haven't been riots in Sheffield. Often people say that Sheffield is like a big village. It's one of the safest cities in the UK. I don't know if that's down to good work by the council, the police, or what.
Wrestlemania
Banned
Who says they aren't to blame? Of course they are to blame, but that doesn't mean that it's wrong to examine whether there are some some deeper reasons why so many people think it is acceptable to behave in this way.BlazingDarkness said:
Some people just want to put their head in the sand and once it's over completely forget about it.
Professor Green Slams 'Moron' Journalist Over London Riots Comments
http://www.gigwise.com/news/65764/Professor-Green-Slams-Moron-Journalist-Over-London-Riots-Comments
http://www.gigwise.com/news/65764/Professor-Green-Slams-Moron-Journalist-Over-London-Riots-Comments
Mecha_Infantry
Banned
Meus Renaissance said:
Now that shit will make this all kick off again...Something that a lot of my calm minded guys would create drama because (I hope that makes sense, I'm pissed off now)
Let's hope they don't take this shit further...this is why I'm not trusting how quiet South is right now
Your Excellency
Banned
Wrestlemania said:
No, you're wrong.
The liberals (of which I am a card-carrying member, literally), are coming on tv talking about austerity measures and cuts and that has jack shit to do with this. Jack shit.
Michael Gove bitchslapping Harriet Harman on Newsnight yesterday was a delight. Luckily Ed Miliband hasn't started going on about austerity measures yet, as far as I know. But he needs to keep his party in line. If they need to politicise it so bad, they need to put all of their efforts on making this is a story about the impending police cuts, not on the effect that austerity measures will have on the working class.
SmokyDave said:
That I can agree with, people compare the 'Chavs' who are rioting to white trash... I grew up a Grade-A Peckerhead (Read: Whitest of White Trash) but even at my trashiest (Making dry ice bombs out of Boons-Farm bottles and throwing them through windows at my local school.) I still wouldn't have ever broken into my local convienience store with a group of my mates and looted the place dry.
Where I split with you again, however, is calling them actively evil. I just cannot believe that someone is irredemable.
Yeah, I'd guessed. I snipped the rest for brevity. Council estates 50 years ago aren't comparable to council estates 20 years ago. The game has changed.Sneds said:
Edit: Sorry, snipping the above makes me look like a bit of a dick but I'm leaving work as we speak, can't really reply in detail.
Well, good on you guys. Hopefully it'll stay that way. Steel City, not Steal City.
SmokyDave said:
I genuinely can't answer this. I find it strange, given that trouble has found it's way to each major City directly West, North and South of us.
People in Sheffield are generally quite friendly and easy going though. That's not to say we live in some sort of strange ecstacy bubble but.. compared to some of the other places I've been to in the UK, it's quite relaxed here. We have our fair share of bell ends don't get me wrong, but generally we're quite relaxed here and there's quite a strong community spirit. The feeling I get from walking around and talking to people is that nobody really thinks it will flare up here.
That said, it wouldn't surprise if something did happen. We've got the same rumours and chinese whispers as probably every other major City in the UK, but nothing's happened yet.
Injured boy mugged in riot to have PSP replaced by SCEE : http://www.vg247.com/2011/08/10/injured-boy-mugged-in-riot-to-have-psp-replaced-by-scee/
shadyspace
Banned
Is this still going on? Don't these idiots sleep?
radioheadrule83
Banned
marrec said:
I'll be straight with you, man. I do not for one minute think there is anything genetically or inevitably wrong with people -- every single person on Earth has the capacity to be good. Everyone. I am not distancing myself from these people in any way, either.
I know from experience what these people are like because I have both been among them, been one of them, and been a victim to them. I wasn't from one of the worst places in Liverpool, but when I was in this age group (around the same age that these looters are now), I did all sorts of bad shit. I was present when a friend burned down an old abandoned church. We stole from shops, we damaged property, we broke into a bistro and stole hundreds of pounds worth of alcohol. We used to organise and attend massive fights with rival schools. The instigators of that kind of activity in our group were not impoverished, they were never acting on subconscious impulses or out of anger, it was like a game - pushing boundaries - seeing how far can you go in order to get "a legger" (get chased by someone), or attract the attention of the police. We'd do things just to find out what we could get away with. It would give you a shocking or funny story to tell all of your mates and all of the girls you know. In a sense, it was for dumb-shit bravado, it was a game of one upsmanship, trying to impress each other with how bad you could be.
We knew what we were doing, we knew how wrong it was, we knew we'd get away with it. That's the bottom line. We wouldn't have gotten away with this... and we wouldn't have set fire to occupied buildings or peoples' cars. Even the biggest scals don't want to be murderers if they can help it. We wouldn't have trashed the entirety of our own neighbourhoods either. We were pushing the boundaries when I was 16, but the boundaries have been pushed so far outside the norm, things have so evidently worsened: you can go very fucking far before you attract the attention of the police and you can get away with a lot indeed.
I've visited many different cities in the UK, and I work in a different one now - and I do see how there is real inequality in Britain. I do see how its not a meritocracy. But I've met young chavs in different cities and they are no different to how we were in Liverpool. They function on the same primal level with the same desire to have fun, to be cool and to be liked. Their bad behaviour does not exist in a vacuum, but because we are so soft and touchy feely as a society, it goes unchallenged and it spreads and infects others through peer groups, through schools and through neighbourhoods... everyone turns a blind eye to it because they want to believe that their sons and daughters are little angels who wouldn't do any wrong without good reason. But that's just not the reality of things.
Now, in Tottenham or Hackney, if you're a young black man and you get stopped and searched without cause, you're gonna have grievances. If you hear of peers going through that, and the whole area generally distrusts police... you're gonna have grievances. If you're from a high-rise block of flats, you're failing in school and your parents may as well not be there -- then of course that is going to feed into who you are and how you act.
BUT -- look at the very first day of riots -- these are not just young angry black men, it is young men of all colours and creeds. They rode around on their bikes in reasonably expensive shell-suits and jewelry, organising themselves on smart phones. It spread quickly to other cities were other chavs joined in the fun. This is not a generation of people in hardship, it is a generation of people with CHOICES, deliberately choosing to go out and smash, and rob, and steal, and to hurt people and hurt businesses. Get any Youtube video of the situation on the ground and you will see people laughing, enjoying it, plundering everything they can lay their hands on... and the police just standing by, letting it happen. A physical manifestation of our justice system's complete and utter impotence. We have gone SO SOFT, so far left of rational, that our young people KNOW that they can do this and reap little consequence. At least in the short term.
What needs to be brought back is a sense that crime doesn't pay. JUSTICE. CONSEQUENCES. Whereas I feel ashamed of things I was involved in in the past, I get the sense that these kids won't be... because its paying out for them. They're getting new gear. Living with impunity.
Look at how rife this is up and down the country. What have we done to ourselves?
We have been TOO SOFT. That's it, honestly. I can guarantee you that if you clamped down, and defined the boundaries more clearly, the law would be better followed. If you stopped over intellectualising what they do, and stopped making excuses for them, they'd have a real sense of things. They'd know that if they got caught, they would have less support and understanding to lean on. And finally, if you punish them, if you inconvenience them -- make it easier and more convenient to be law abiding and to integrate into everyday society -- their numbers will dwindle.
As with lots of things, there's probably a pragmatic middle-point between the two extremes.
On the one hand, I think it may be fair to characterise this as "simple" opportunism derived from gang subcultures. But the question then becomes as to why people subscribe to these opportunistic, gang mindsets. I'd wager that the answer to that is that the youths in question are probably disaffected from society at large. As a result, our answer to these actions should be suitably tough without just exacerbating the problem - I'm not convinced that if we treat these people as dogs who will only ever be dogs that they'll then become anything else.
Wait, what, these are the people who are "evil"? My word.
On the one hand, I think it may be fair to characterise this as "simple" opportunism derived from gang subcultures. But the question then becomes as to why people subscribe to these opportunistic, gang mindsets. I'd wager that the answer to that is that the youths in question are probably disaffected from society at large. As a result, our answer to these actions should be suitably tough without just exacerbating the problem - I'm not convinced that if we treat these people as dogs who will only ever be dogs that they'll then become anything else.
Wait, what, these are the people who are "evil"? My word.
BlazingDarkness
Member
Good. Let the fuckers beg on the streets of which they vandalized
zomgbbqftw
Banned
WorriedCitizen said:
People who own £100 shoes/trainers and £200 smartphones are not living in poverty. Just because they are unemployed it doesn't mean they are poor. The government gives them housing, education, healthcare, unemployment benefits, child benefits, incapacity benefits and probably a ton of other benefits that I don't know about because I have never tried to game the system like these arseholes. They are not poor. People who are poor are those who work 60 hours a week for £5.75/h and barely make ends meet, they are the people the government should be looking after, not these arseholes.
Mecha_Infantry
Banned
Dakota47 said:
It's a VERY moody track, one of the best other songs on the album is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5q552IQFak
This album is SO..SO..SO right for the mood right now
Osiris
I permanently banned my 6 year old daughter from using the PS4 for mistakenly sending grief reports as it's too hard to watch or talk to her
shadyspace said:
Don't make the mistake of thinking these riots have been ongoing and continuous, moreso they have started at late at night, ended in the early hours and little has happened in the day only to start back up again the next night, we've not generally had 4 days of non-stop rioting.
SmokyDave said:
I don't see how that invalidates what I was saying. The fact that I didn't grow up on a council estate means that I can't understand why we should treat people like animals?
The people I know who did grow up in council estates, or places with similar problems, hold similar views to me.
Edit:
SmokyDave said:
Fair enough. I'm not naive. I don't think that all these people need is a hug and someone to talk to. But there is obviously a systematic problem in the UK. There is a big proportion of our population who are unable to, or don't want to, function in society. Personally, I'd like to understand the root causes of this so that the government can actually try and tackle it. Ghettoising people isn't going to solve anything, just make it worse.
Mecha_Infantry
Banned
zomgbbqftw said:
Dude you and others keep saying about these £100 shoes, etc..What evidence do you have about the prices etc? I don't think many say they are living in poverty, but the lower end scale. Also, how often do you think they buy these shoes/phones, it's not they're flossing everyday
Osiris said:
So basically, a night mob that keep regular hours.
This makes them even more pathetic in comparison to the democracy activists who actually have to occupy squares under threat of military action.
There was a piece yesterday about Egyptian protesters blogging about these riots are a joke and not worthy of even a passing comparison to their movements.
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