Be Excellent To Each Other

Y'know....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAII_KuXfsE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKz2LqZHT6o&NR=1

[ANGRYGNOME]
I can't begin to articulate my anger at this. It's the worst of humanity. I'd quite happily mow them all down given the opportunity. Fucking, fucking, cunt-ridden scum. I'd set them on fire, then stab them, then run them over.
[/ANGRYGNOME]

And don't get me started on setting buildings on fire. Any credible protest against the original shooting was lost as soon as the chavs realised it was a good excuse to be needlessly violent and destructive.

Torygraph has the best pictures as usual
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... tures.html

Disaffected and marginalised youth innit, sooner or later they'll kick back.

Ok Have I got this right?

Police plan to take in a white guy (who may have been a Irish terrorist), in this planned op they stop him in the back of a taxi. He pulls a gun on them and opens fire. They shoot him and no members of the public including the taxi driver are hurt. People of tottenham of all races and creeds go on a fuck da police rampage.

Seems somewhat fucked up to me if this is the case.

The police are an instrument of state oppression, they're effectively the modern day version of the feudal lords' standing armies, it's no surprise your average bloke down Tottenham way doesn't like them very much.

I'm not condoning what happened, but you have to look at the underlying causes of tensions and anger.

Bollocks. People are like children, thinking it's both big and clever to disrespect and distrust the police. The police, without which, the fucking world would be a flaming mass of theft and violent crime.

Disaffected youth my arse. Being an angsty chav is not an excuse. There's never a justification for this.

Are buses and people's houses instruments of state oppression too? Or are people just nobs when given an excuse?

Hunt out some of the horror stories from New Orleans. Did people rally around each other in a time of need and strife? Did they fuck. Rape, murder, pillage, with the average person looking on too scared to act. There's your world without state control - anarchy.

I'm really not surprised a lot of people hate the police.

Whenever I have needed the police for stuff, I have phoned them and been told "Someone is on the way now", and no one has ever turned up.

What else do they do? Well I guess they defend the royal family and politicians. I know I feel safer when police are not around compared to when they are.

I'm sure many individual police officers do a great job, but clearly lots of them are in the job because they like the authority, and I do have to wonder how small the minority of bent coppers is.

I'm not denying we need a police force of some description, but an army of quasi-military jumped-up newspaper vendor killing wannabe commandos isn't what Robert Peel really had in mind.

Like Lewie said, there are a great many good individual police officers out there - my mum was a copper for 25 years, she's now retired, and fucking hell she was glad to get out, citing all manner of uttery shittery within the force at all levels.

Police need to bring the beat bobby back everywhere. Derbyshire police have a few of them on the high street and it's nice to see but more importantly you can genuinely tell the difference. Police not about, there are a few obvious undesirables who hang about (flat out junkies on the rob) when they are on the beat there is not a chav to be seen. Granted this is in a quiet northern town but still, I would rather they layers of paperwork were stripped away and coppers were not chained to the desk for an hour after every time they arrest a shoplifter for stealing sweeties - it's clearly a total waist of manpower and money.

What the hell is it with these chavy fuckwits and JD Sports? Next door was T-Mobile which was untouched. Thousands of pounds worth of sexy smart phones? No. Kappa Trackie bottoms? Yes please.

Rumours abound that it's likely to all kick off again tonight.

Don't worry. From the BBC News article on the riots -

There's no way this happened instantly just because some people felt like smashing stuff up. There are always a few dickheads at any protest, but there was something more going on here. If it were true that people just wanted any excuse to start a fire and loot, then the entire world would be on fire three days out of every seven.

Treating a complex situation like this one as a black and white one - either way - is idiotic and helps nobody.

Were you one of my Criminology lecturers?

Trying to find the causes of large scale social disturbance ≠ excusing, justifying or condoning it.

Exactly this, yes. We need a democratically accountable policing arrangement that is based upon consensus, as far as organisationally possible, and restraint of the further paramilitarisation of the police.

Again, exactly this,yes. Without being able to objectively examine how and why such a situation like this occurred in the first place, dismissing it as 'just bad people', discards the means to prevent or curtail such a disturbance happening again.

"IPCC have stated that an illegal firearm was recovered from the scene and a bullet was lodged in a police radio."

Sounds like his "family" organised the "protest" to begin with.

People are stupid.

Just an excuse for a load of scum bags to nick and burn things.

Get the rubber bullets out I say

Given the amount of non-rubber bullets the looters would have had I think the police's "right lads let's get the fuck out of here" idea was much more sound.

Quite so. It may have actually been the right thing to do, the police largely backing off, or it might have got even worse.

What will be interesting is what, if anything, kicks off tonight. Whatever this was really about may become much clearer if people start coming back for more, and what the focus of those people will be. Eithet way, the police do clearly have some PR problems that they need to look at, even if this does come down to "mostly dickheads".

Turns on rolling news.

http://wosland.podgamer.com/?p=10481

I have trouble with these situations. The knowledge that 'people' are like this really depresses me about the state of society, so on the one hand I just despair. It stresses me out, people need to not be violent theiving fuckfaces, please.

On the other hand I'm infuriated, and I think the best possible response is for the police to take to the streets with live ammunition and to mow down all violent resistance in order to emphasise the immutability of the motherfucking law. Respect the notion of law and order even if you have some kind of ill-thought out objection to the agents of its implementation.

On the third hand, I might just go and play some Left4Dead and forget about the stupidity occuring elsewhere in the world.

Having a problem with the police doesn't necessarily mean having 'no respect for law and order'.

The police are not the law. Most of the time they uphold it, yeah, but nobody's perfect.

I realise you kind of said as much, and I'm not saying that the police were in the wrong here - I literally don't know. But I'd be surprised if they're squeaky clean, and when the agents of the law are crooked, there's really no sane rationale for respecting them.

...and I thought we were better than the French.

Bunch of horrible muppets, the lot of them. I wonder if Charlie Gilmour's mates are there?

I can't really qualify myself for a debate on the alleged evils of the police. In all of my own dealings with them, they've been top notch. I have no personal knowledge of corruption, or heavyhandedness, and my natural predilection is to believe nothing until I've seen it first hand, so as far as the reputation of the police go... meh. Since I was young I've always respect them, and when I was a kid I'd be sure to stand up straight, walk in straight lines and not say too much in the presense of a copper, lest I be arrested or something.

My beef is more with this rioting, looting, and general scumsuckery that emerges the instant there's an excuse for it. Intelligent, reasoned people with an objection against the conduct of the police (the kind that would await for facts to emerge before taking action), would not manifest that objection in this manner. It's the very, very worst kind of lawlessness and it sickens me utterly.

Good grief.

Do people really think that these people are rioting because of their disaffection at the inequitable distribution of wealth and the capitalist system, and the cuts in public services? Most of them probably couldn't spell capitalism.

And the police, "paramilitarised"? "Instruments of state oppression"? Any discussion about this sort of thing could really do without the Dave Spart-esque hyperbole. I'm not a massive fan of the MPS, as evidenced in other threads, but that's just silly. People could also do with remembering that "the police" != a few people in the Met.

Exactly this. Also: basing your opinion on how this started on your own expectations and prejudices with exactly zero evidence as to what actually happened beyond hearsay being put forward by parties with obvious vested interests is equally idiotic.

So if you're feeling the need to give us the full weight of your blinkered, completely uniformed reckon that obviously some bloody gangster got what he deserved and a bunch of knuckledragging hoolies used it as an excuse to pick up some free trainers or that this is obviously provoked by Cameron's jackbooted thugs in the Met living out their Vic Mackey fantasies, do us all a favour and try shutting your fucking hole instead.

BOOM!

Not saying I don't agree with you, Rodders, but I'm struggling to see what complex reasons there really could be to something like this, at least on an individual participant's level. "Wisdom of crowds" and all that. Nicking stuff out of a shop is hardly a political statement - it's just avarice, surely, in a situation where the person concerned knows they're likely to get away with it? Sure some of the people rioting may have had a grievance over some police actions in the past, but those nicking stuff?

As I say, "wisdom of crowds" - the IQ of a crowd is the dimmest member divided by the number of participants, according to ol' Terry.

There's pretty ruddy solid evidence of that, at least. Unless they feel that this act is in someway in support of some bloke they don't know who was shot in circumstances where facts are not yet evident.

/img ILikeWhereThisThreadIsGoing.JPG

#whatisacceptableinbermondseymifhtnotbeinbelgravia

#otemporaomores

#fuckdapolice

#egyptianrevoltsgotmoresupportthanwehave

I've received loads of PMs from people watching the rioting who want to join in, but don't wish to risk going against the in crowd. I encouraged them not to be so shy, but they have gone and set up a splinter riot.

Just shut London, it's crap anyway.

Stu really does kick ass sometimes.

What are they rioting about then?

They might not couch it in such fancy language, but fundamentally, that's what it comes down it isn't it?

Some will be rioting out of a sense of entitlement, some for free stuff, some because it is funny, some because they're too backward to understand the wider implications of their actions, some because they are sociopaths, some because they are drunk/stoned and some because of the reasons the likes of Rev. Stu have gone into. As I was trying to go into yersterday on twitter before work lost internet, there's people, thousands in every community, who think the world owes them anything at all. The rich ones don't create much of a problem because what they expect they generally get, but the poor?

The trouble with getting decent insight into this sort of thing is you need to take each person involved and work through one by one, getting not just their account but a good objective view of them, and look at trends across these numbers. Which is impossible.

This is an interesting article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/0 ... ul-protest



First of all, what's a 'community organiser'? Is this a or something more informal, and organise for what? Secondly, do people not realise that once the IPCC come in, the police can't say shit? Or that the 'answers' they want are best arrived at when thoroughly investigated and that takes more than a day?

The following paragraph is even more revealing - if you want to leave before nightfall, you are free to do so. No-one was keeping them hanging around anywhere. Such passive-aggressive behaviour isn't helping their case at all in my eyes. When you lose a relative and the police are involved, the IPCC liaison comes in and you are given an explanation of timescales and expectations, you would certainly be aware that doorstepping the local cop shop on a busy Saturday night is not going to achieve anything at all.



I don't buy it. Not for one second. If they'd made a statement saying "we were naive" I'd have a shred of respect.



This I can believe. Protesters are now savvy to the fact that once you do anything 'aggressive' towards a line of suited up coppers you get pounded. I've managed to avoid this happening to me by not chucking a stone at suited up coppers. It really works! ...and could have worked for her, too. Fault on both sides here. No justification for that sort of police brutality and no justification for being stupid enough to goad them into it.

Firstly, what GY said.

Secondly, the people looting shops, burning down a block of flats, chucking rocks at the camera crew and so forth, weren't doing it to bring down the capitalist system. As SST already said, they're not tools of state oppression. They were doing it the same reason as those youths in Belfast recently were chucking rocks at the police, or that group of people outside Tesco in Bristol a few months ago, or the small group of students at the tuition fees riots were smashing up Tory HQ or pissing on the Cenotaph (or whatever it was that twat son of a musician did) doing it - because they were in a massive crowd and could get away with it. Some people, actually quite a lot of people if you believe Thomas Hobbes, are twats who only care about themselves (I may be paraphrasing m'learned philosopher).

The gathering may have started out as something about a grievance with the police, but as ever with these things, other people turn up, the crowd gets bigger, and people are more liable to do something silly when they're in large crowds.

There's nothing noble or justifiable about this. It's not a downtrodden proletariat rising up against their oppressors. It may have a complex explanation as to why now, why there, which may help to prevent a similar occurrence in future, but at the root of it it's because people are people, and those people were burning down shops, homes and cars because they are, like so many people, wankers.

Or do you really think the people carrying out the violence were nice, lovely people, who are pillars of their community, but were just pushed to the edge by reading the coverage of the Government's economic mismanagement in the Guardian? Would you really want the flat next door to these people?

Then again, the agents of positive change don't always wear friendly, pleasant faces. Many a freedom fighter has also been a sociopathic arsonist.

I think there will always be an undercurrent who have no respect for the police or authority and jump on the smallest excuse to act like animals. If the first night was about someone getting shot by the police then the second was purely about finding some new trainers and getting the latest smart phone.

The most frightening group of people to work with isn't the severely mentally ill, or paedophiles or anything like that, it's young people who demonstrate a total inability to cope with being told 'no'.

so, it's not about Harry rednap this thread, is it..

No, just difficult. Read Tottenham riots: Data journalists and social scientists should join forces by Kevin Anderson, which has some background and several good links on the investigation into rioter motivations at the Detroit riots in 1967. Like this time, there was heated speculation in the press that this was merely the lowest social classes acting like thugs -- or that it was caused by heightened racial tension from a fresh wave of black immigrants moving from America's south. The researchers invalidated both hypothesis with a survey of 437 carefully-chosen rioters. The journalists involved won a Pulitzer.

Stealing phones is idiotic. They'll be remote locked and probably tracked. The fools who were looting with their faces uncovered deserve to be shot.

C'mon guys, grow a brain! Looting is easy!

I don't get this thread. We don't know why the rioters did what they did. We don't know much about the circumstances of Duggan's death, and we certainly don't know what the crowd believed they knew about Duggan's death, and we don't know much beyond a couple of short eyewitness reports about how the violence started. In the absence of a hell of a lot more facts, we don't have a news report, we have a Rorschach test -- one which several posters here are simply projecting their own pre-existing beliefs about how the world works onto so they can "explain" it to the rest of is. In that regard, it's the Amy Winehouse thread all over again.

Telegraph reports today that the Policeman who was shot in the initial incident, was actually hit by a bullet of the type used by the police. Strong indication therefore that the guy who was killed had not actually discharged his gun.

If this proves to be correct, tonights riots will be bigger.

Nah, that's what the Movie Topic's going to be after I do my Heath Ledger post...

Fair play to him, it's a bit of an exception to the rule though and contemporary Lnodon scrotes would I'm certain be harder to pin down than sixties US equivalents.

You're right. Let's talk about iOS instead!