Riots in England.

Hi. Just to let you know what's going on here in England and especially London at the moment.

Over the weekend a man was stopped by Police and the result was he was shot dead. The how's and whys are yet to be investigated.

On Saturday there was family visiting the police station for information and they seemed to be left there all day without much forthcoming. Meanwhile there was a peaceful protest going on. That evening is where it all started.

A girl, apparently a relative of the deceased was arguing with the police and apparently ended up throwing something at them. She then got battered to the ground by five policemen. When her friend came and picked her up off the ground she then got battered back down again. The crowd had been shouting leave her alone she's only a girl and thus it all erupted.

This was in Tottenham, three miles from here, and a fuul blown riot thus ensued.

Now for the strange thing. On Sunday the following evening there were a couple more incidents of unrest and looting in two other areas of London.

On Monday everyone was talking about what's going on and then that evening we found out. The youth from all over London were in touch via blackberry phones organizing going out and looting wherever they wanted. So on Monday night mass looting was happening all over the place and the police were completely outnumbered and caught out. There was looting in Brixton, Clapham, Ealing, Cambden, Chalk farm, Peckham, Ponders end, Notting Hill, and more. Meanwhile it the spread outside of London to Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester and Bristol.

It's mainly an age group from as young as ten up to early twenties. It's like a totally new phenomenon. The politicians were all on their summer holidays. Kids are all off of school as it is the summer break.

Although it started as a political thing it morphed into some kind of game for the youth, a game of shopping with force. They seem oblivious to the distress caused, businesses ruined, buildings burnt down, people made homeless etc.

It seems to have become an explosion by disaffected youth.

Today the politicians have returned, meetings have been held, shops are closing early and 16000 police have been drafted in for tonight. I think they will be more forceful if anything happens tonight.

O.K. So that's the update. That's the current scene.

Regards.G.

It's now 8:30 pm. There's a riot started in Manchester. Looting in Wolverhampton. Looting in West Bromwich. Back in London there's currently a stand off between police and youth in Canning Town east London.

In Manchester at a shopping centre a line of police in riot gear were just confronted by a mob and have run off. Now it's a free for all, mob shopping with no police in sight. Very strange.

G.

Thank you for the update, Graham...

Thanks Mary.
Things still happening in Manchester and Birmingham. Looks like mostly young youth saying things like 'We're getting ours'

One other new thing happening in parts of London is to do with football supporters. Usually the ones known for trouble, they are getting together on twitter etc and then going out to patrol their 'areas' and keep them safe from looters.

Regards.G.

(sigh) a Sony warehouse that held the complete inventory of several small indie labels including Sub Pop has been burned pretty much to the ground. Many of these marginal labels were struggling as it was( this may finish them off.
Yeah that's sure hitting the powers that be where it hurts....not.

Mike Sigman wrote:

Your point is???

Janet Rosen wrote: (sigh) a Sony warehouse that held the complete inventory of several small indie labels including Sub Pop has been burned pretty much to the ground. Many of these marginal labels were struggling as it was( this may finish them off. Yeah that's sure hitting the powers that be where it hurts....not.

Yes. Worse than that, they were attacking local small businesses and shops of their own communities. It was like they were all playing some kind of computer game. Probably that one about stealing cars etc.

Tonight it's been calm due to big police presence and rain. I think also due to people now waking up and sorting them out themselves. Lots of communities have now come together and put into motion their own solutions.

Football supporters, the league starts this coming weekend, have all turned against them as it could interfere with our national pastime. It's been surreal.

Regards.G.

Graham Christian wrote: Your point is???

I'm guessing that that poster dates from WWII, Graham, and that it was intended as a joke (although not in the best of taste, perhaps). Whatever one's feelings about gun ownership and use of firearms, there's nothing remotely amusing about people's homes, businesses and workplaces being burned.

Hope you guys are all okay there.
I can't believe how quickly this got completely insane.

Honestly; sometimes I feel it's like we're all 5 minutes away from undoing all of (our veneer of) civilization at any given moment.

I saw a suggestion in a UK paper that anyone caught rioting be removed from the welfare roles. That might cause another riot, though.

Josh Philipson wrote: Hope you guys are all okay there. I can't believe how quickly this got completely insane. Honestly; sometimes I feel it's like we're all 5 minutes away from undoing all of (our veneer of) civilization at any given moment.

A lyric from a Beastie Boys song (of all things) pops in my head reading this comment and others on this thread.

It takes a second to wreck it, it takes time to build.

Anthony Loeppert wrote: A lyric from a Beastie Boys song (of all things) pops in my head reading this comment and others on this thread.

Besides time, it takes skill and commitment and, I guess, being the right kind of person. There's that old Sam Rayburn quote about how any jackass can kick down a barn, but it takes a carpenter to build one. One wrecker can undo the work of ten builders. The solution? Make sure that there are a hundred builders for every wrecker.

Watching I can't help but think of "Lord of the Flies".

Mike Sigman wrote: I saw a suggestion in a UK paper that anyone caught rioting be removed from the welfare roles. That might cause another riot, though.

There has been a petition for this on a government website; it has enough signatures to be a priority point for discussion by parliament very soon.

People in my city keep spreading rumours of riots in places where there are none, in attempts to kickstart them. We actually have a police officer here spending what looks like all of his day on Twitter having to debunk these rumours.

David Maidment wrote: People in my city keep spreading rumours of riots in places where there are none, in attempts to kickstart them. We actually have a police officer here spending what looks like all of his day on Twitter having to debunk these rumours.

To see and hear the focus on a lot of US television, London is burning down and riots are spreading all across England (with officers coming in from Scotland to help quell the mess). YouTube videos of the mobs also give the impression that it is chaos and anarchy. Difficult to decipher exactly what is going on, but I never fully trust the focuses of the media.

Mike Sigman

Yes. It is worrisome that the media itself does not seem to be a stabilizing influence.

Seems to be a mood change because of the riots:

http://www.cityam.com/news-and-analy...anana-republic

From the BBC News;

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14458424

" Two girls who took part in Monday night's riots in Croydon have boasted that they were showing police and "the rich" that "we can do what we want"."

and

From The UK Daily Mail

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/ar...ed-youths.html

" They are products of a culture which gives them so much unconditionally that they are let off learning how to become human beings. My dogs are better behaved and subscribe to a higher code of values than the young rioters of Tottenham, Hackney, Clapham and Birmingham.

Unless or until those who run Britain introduce incentives for decency and impose penalties for bestiality which are today entirely lacking, there will never be a shortage of young rioters and looters such as those of the past four nights, for whom their monstrous excesses were ‘a great fire, man'."

dps

Mike Sigman wrote: I saw a suggestion in a UK paper that anyone caught rioting be removed from the welfare roles. That might cause another riot, though.

Several city councils are looking into it. They do it already if an occupant of social housing causes trouble they're often evicted.

Mike Sigman wrote: Seems to be a mood change because of the riots: http://www.cityam.com/news-and-analy...anana-republic

There's a mood change but to be honest I think we'll come out of this stronger. Within minutes of trouble starting someone starts a facebook group or gets on twitter to organise the clean up the next morning. That's the kind of community spirit we've really not seen since the blitz.

I wouldn't say there's even a feeling of fear here anymore; everyone seems to be banding together more than anything be it to clean up or to organise groups to defend places. It was looking interesting on monday but now it's more anger and a feeling that it would perhaps be better for the looters health if they stayed at home with their new plasma screens and designer socks.

Things ended before they really got serious I think; another day or two and things would have gotten sticky.

Thanks for the updates and insights.

I hope you and yours are safe.

Alex Lawrence wrote: There's a mood change but to be honest I think we'll come out of this stronger. Within minutes of trouble starting someone starts a facebook group or gets on twitter to organise the clean up the next morning. That's the kind of community spirit we've really not seen since the blitz.

That is the best response that I can imagine. Kudos to those who are organizing and coming together to clean things up and undo the work of those who are gratified by destruction.

The lst time we had something like this was 1968 when Martin Luther King was killed. Every major citity im the country was burning. Give the fact that the social problems that created that situation haven't been solved, we are due for another repitition.
I figure we are setting it all up right now as we focus on budget cutting and cripple our social services while refusing to ask the rich, who are richer than at any time in our history, to pony up and pay a bit extra for their priveledge.

I remember machine guns on the Capitol steps. I remember the National Guard in the streets of our cities. We have no institutional memory... we'll all be surprised when it happens again. We'll talk about studies about causes... blah, blah, blah. It's still the same thing it has always been... the clash between the haves and the have-nots. Every once in while the great unwashed get uppity and make their presence known. We suppress them and go back to distracting them with football or soccer or whatever (in ancient Rome it was the games). The only place we have found to use these young men is in the military in the wars we use to maintain our economic power. But, as with Viet Nam, that can backfire when you have a combat trained group of young men returning to the same lack of opportunity they had before they left. Then you had combat trained uppity young poor men. It made for an interesting few years back in the sixties and early seventies.

We are headed there again for sure. It's only a matter if time. Anyone who thinks we don't have it in us over here didn't see Woodstock 2 or the WTO in Seattle. It's coming, it just needs a spark.

You forgot the Rodney King riots.