London calling

[Pope Pixie Pickle]

http://newsthump.com/2011/08/09/islington-residents-release-guidelines-for-ethical-rioting/

[Cramulus]

http://newsthump.com/2011/08/09/islington-residents-release-guidelines-for-ethical-rioting/

I was so flabbergasted until I realized it was satire

[Pope Pixie Pickle]

heh.

[Cain]

Via the otherwise quite easy-to-mock Penny Laurie:

In one NBC report, a young man in Tottenham was asked if rioting really achieved anything:

"Yes," said the young man. "You wouldn't be talking to me now if we didn't riot, would you?"

"Two months ago we marched to Scotland Yard, more than 2,000 of us, all blacks, and it was peaceful and calm and you know what? Not a word in the press. Last night a bit of rioting and looting and look around you."

[Cain]

Also, the most unintentionally hilarious article of the week

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/07/nick-cohen-recession-misery

No riots here. Just quiet, ever-deeper misery

[...]

'When will there be riots?" eager journalists ask thinktanks, sociologists and anyone else who monitors Britain's unravelling social fabric. "When are the British going to imitate the Greeks and the Spanish and snap?"

On the face of it, their questions are reasonable. Contrary to the predictions of nearly every expert, inflation roared ahead of wage increases after the crash of 2008, squeezing the living standards of all but the most fortunate harder than at any time since the 1920s. The asinine George Osborne tightened the vice further by raising VAT in the middle of an outbreak of stagflation. Meanwhile his coalition's austerity programme is ensuring that public services will begin a long slow decline into shabby inefficiency, as public-sector workers start to lose their jobs en masse. Working- and middle-class families have already lost tax credits. The poor have already lost benefits.

About the only reason to be cheerful is that low interest rates help those with debts, which would otherwise be unsustainable. But by holding rates down, the Bank of England is effectively taking money from savers on modest incomes to spare debtors from default. Whatever the interest rate it sets, the half-shattered banks are reluctant to lend to business and homebuyers. They will become more reluctant as the unravelling of the eurozone kills the faint hopes of a recovery in Britain, and leaves the banks to deal with the consequences of yet more of their disastrous decisions as they write off yet more bad debts.

To cap it all, the distribution of the pain is so monumentally unjust it cries to high heaven for a reaction. The banking crisis and the flooding of the market with easy credit were the City's follies. But it is not London and the south-east which are suffering but the Britain north and west of the line from Severn to the Wash. While the state bailed out the City so the bars could carry on heaving and the banks could carry on delivering fantastic rewards to their "stars", it has allowed the provinces to sink. So complete has been the capture of the coalition by the moneyed interest that Osborne says in all seriousness that the one fiscal measure he simply must have at any price is not the relief of poverty or an easing of the burden on middle England, but a tax cut for the wealthiest 1% of earners.

These arrant insults ought to push the most mild-mannered people into revolt. Yet in Britain they provoke only students to riot. The wider public remains resigned rather than enraged; indifferent rather than incandescent.

[Cain]

"Things got out of hand and we'd had a few drinks. We smashed the place up and Boris set fire to the toilets." – David Cameron, Bullingdon Club – Christ Church College, Oxford, 1986.

[Doktor Howl]

"Things got out of hand and we'd had a few drinks. We smashed the place up and Boris set fire to the toilets." – David Cameron, Bullingdon Club – Christ Church College, Oxford, 1986.

So what the hell happened to him?  He had promise.

[Cain]

I think it was more of a sociopathic "I can do anything I like because my daddy is rich and a baronet" thing, to be honest.

Also

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/blog/2011/aug/07/tottenham-riots-police-duggan-live

"Initial ballistics tests on the bullet that lodged in a police officer's radio when Mark Duggan died on Thursday night show it was a police issue bullet..."

Police also started the riot in Tottenham when they attacked an unarmed 16 year old girl attempting to cross police lines.

[Pope Pixie Pickle]

[Cain]

Well, the British right know who to blame.  Richard Seymour has broken it down for us:

Bestiary: The people who did this are "animals", exhibiting a "pack mentality". (Cf, "plague of locusts") They should be "put down".

Mindless: These people have no issues. They're not protesting. It's just mindless violence for the sake of mindless violence. They should be shot.

Opportunists: These people are social lurkers, awaiting the opportunity for a bit of mayhem and looting. It's just "needless opportunistic theft and violence" (dixit the tea boy). They should be sent back.

Leftists: The rioters are leftists, and clearly express the criminal urges of the left. They are like UK Uncut. They should have their benefits taken away.

Violence: There is no excuse for violence. Unless it's police violence (which is 'mindful' violence). Bring back the water cannon, the rubber bullets, and internment. They should be sent to Afghanistan.

Multiculturalism: These rioters are black and Jewish. Multiculturalism has failed. This isn't Basra or Baghdad. This is Tottenham, South London [sic]. This is Enfield, Wood Green, Hackney, Brixton, Lewisham, New Cross, Waltham Cross, Croydon, East Ham, Islington, Peckham and now Birmingham. These people should be forcibly integrated, then sent back.

[Phox]

Well, the British right know who to blame.  Richard Seymour has broken it down for us:

Bestiary: The people who did this are "animals", exhibiting a "pack mentality". (Cf, "plague of locusts") They should be "put down".

Mindless: These people have no issues. They're not protesting. It's just mindless violence for the sake of mindless violence. They should be shot.

Opportunists: These people are social lurkers, awaiting the opportunity for a bit of mayhem and looting. It's just "needless opportunistic theft and violence" (dixit the tea boy). They should be sent back.

Leftists: The rioters are leftists, and clearly express the criminal urges of the left. They are like UK Uncut. They should have their benefits taken away.

Violence: There is no excuse for violence. Unless it's police violence (which is 'mindful' violence). Bring back the water cannon, the rubber bullets, and internment. They should be sent to Afghanistan.

Multiculturalism: These rioters are black and Jewish. Multiculturalism has failed. This isn't Basra or Baghdad. This is Tottenham, South London [sic]. This is Enfield, Wood Green, Hackney, Brixton, Lewisham, New Cross, Waltham Cross, Croydon, East Ham, Islington, Peckham and now Birmingham. These people should be forcibly integrated, then sent back.

Sweet Zombie Fucking Jesus! This man.... he is like unto a god! 

[Doktor Howl]

Wait.  Someone is claiming that London isn't naturally violent?

[Phox]

My favorite line is "Unless it's police violence..." 

[Doktor Howl]

My favorite line is "Unless it's police violence..." 

MINDFUL VIOLENCE, you agitator!

[P3nT4gR4m]

You gotta admit "mindful violence" does have a nice zen-like ring to it.