UK riots: updates and discussion

Piter:

I'm not sure the first inspired that much the second, maybe by building a context of social unrest, but the banlieux riots were in the Paris region and the places the more active in France for the student movement (yes the movement against CPE was not only that) for the last years are Rennes and Toulouse maybe as much as Paris. in Paris some people took part in both but maybe you are exagerating a bit that point and its influence on the anti-CPE movement (I'm not sure of that in the case of the Paris region, my point of view is influenced by the fact that I took part in it as a student in Besançon at the time...).

Well I know a guy in the Montpellier area, with connections in other cities, who said that in Montpellier and at least one other place, the banlieux riots encouraged the initiatives that led to the anti-CPE movement. The anti-CPE movement began (in Rennes, I think) just 2 months after the November riots; the fact that the movement began in areas where there had been no riots doesn't mean that they didn't have an influence - the Israeli tent cities began in Tahrir Square, which began in Tunisia. Millbank was partly influenced by the pensions movement in France....

I totally agree with :

a reason why militants and organisations often compare unfavourably riots with other movements is because they feel a lot more comfortable with the second, being able to express/lead/recruit, etc., in them and not that much in riots...

The ICC, for instance, was really at ease in the endless debates during the anti-CPE movement, debates that often (though certainly not always by any means) led to no practical decisions. Since the "militants" (in the French situ disparaging sense) of organisations define themselves above all as "having" a class consciousness (rather than consciousness as being something that advances and retreats), debates about ideas assume an illusory aura quite out of all proportion to how this class consciousness is practically expressed.

To criticise looting as bourgeois individualism on the basis (implicitly, if not explicitly) of a comparison with the neat and tidy proletarian ideal blueprint of an organised federation of assemblies expropriating and redistributing wealth according to the principles "from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs" is a bit like complaining that a strike is just a sectoral struggle that only helps those who are on strike but fucks things up for everyone else. And, let's face it, most of these snotty attitudes dressed in communist clothing come from those who are relatively comfortably off, attitudes which are purely moralistic.

Alf

We were impressed by Solfed's thoughtful statement and still feel that there is a basis for having a debate among revolutionaries

Of course you do, admin edit - no flaming

I dunno, you go on holiday for a week and all this carry on happens. Sheesh. :roll:

Couple of links to stuff that I can't see has been referenced yet, but I thought pretty good:

Guardian: Gary Younge, These riots were political. They were looting, not shoplifting

WSM: London burns - causes & consequences of the riots - an anarchist perspective

On my way back from Aveyron I stopped off with an anarchist comrade in Paris and naturally we were discussing the riots and the mediatised discussions in their aftermath. His position was that the left in general, and anarchists in particular, have a tendency to avoid certain discourses because of their associations with those of the enemy. In this case, the discourse of the progressive moral breakdown of society. He argued that we could indeed say that there is a degradation of morals in capitalist society, related to the commodification and alienation that we all talk about in other contexts.

I admit it's not a terrain I am comfortable with, but there is something there in one case. That is, that the only aspect of "moral degradation" the right can point to, is the supposed "lack of respect for authority". Whereas the possibility of a progressive erosion of values of social solidarity, respect for the well-being of the collectivity, care for others, etc. in favour of a selfish, "stop at nothing" grasping materialist acquisitiveness, is not a direction they can go for fear of re-directing the critique back on to the effects of capitalism itself. Yet, to take a concrete example, the recklessness of setting fire to a building with residences on the higher floors - is this really a failure to respect authority, or more a failure to care for the safety of others? Clearly it is the latter, so the current discourse of the right on "moral breakdown" at the moment is a case of "bait and switch". Here there may well be arguments to be made.

Anyway, I offer that for consideration. Personally my instincts are always to avoid arguments on moral grounds, even though intellectually I can see the argument that surrendering that terrain to the right without any contestation could well be a strategic error. Also in this particular mediatised climate, my fear would be that any discourse that focuses solely on the anti-social aspects of the rioting would simply be resonating with the dominant messaging, rather than counter-acting it.

Clearly they do have a right to speak, but lets not make this discussion about ICC, again.

The comparison with France 2005 is interesting, especially what came after - The anti CPE movement. Perhaps we should be looking at that response and what went right/wrong. I know very little about what happened so perhaps other posters can enlighten.

The events of last week are not worth too much debate in my mind, what has happened happened and I am sure we can all agree that the riots were sparked by a combination of police murder and social inequality. If anyone on here is seriously suggesting that this was just 'criminality, pure and simple' then they should be ignored just as we ignore mainstream hysteria. However, whatever you think of looting it is surely not worth the deaths of 4 people and the burning of many homes.

It is vital to any libertarian communist to be able to prove that people can run their own lives and communities and that the lack of hierarchical power does not create a mob.

We've seen in the last few days, indeed months, that the apparatus provided by the state will not protect us. The trust between communities and the police must be at some kind of low, both through their brutal murders and their total inability to defend people from arson and theft. The judiciary are overturning normal procedure and jailing as many people as quickly as possible and the government will surely continue with it's aggressive attack on working people. Infact every indication coming from the government is that they will pursue a line of policy completely at odds with the real situation, i.e. the riots were caused by moral weakness and therefore we need better discipline, national service, bring in zero-tolerance policing etc etc. This approach will surely lead to worse conditions than before as they attempt to address problems through brute force.
Therefore what I think we should be doing is to strengthen communities so that local people are able to fight back, both against the government and the events we have just seen.
Remember folks! Solidarity is a weapon and it is something sadly lacking in our current society. Though actually the riotcleanup crew is solidarity, it's a good thing that happened and while I understand the sneers from the left its not what is needed right now.

I admit it's not a terrain I am comfortable with, but there is something there in one case. That is, that the only aspect of "moral degradation" the right can point to, is the supposed "lack of respect for authority". Whereas the possibility of a progressive erosion of values of social solidarity, respect for the well-being of the collectivity, care for others, etc. in favour of a selfish, "stop at nothing" grasping materialist acquisitiveness, is not a direction they can go for fear of re-directing the critique back on to the effects of capitalism itself. Yet, to take a concrete example, the recklessness of setting fire to a building with residences on the higher floors - is this really a failure to respect authority, or more a failure to care for the safety of others? Clearly it is the latter, so the current discourse of the right on "moral breakdown" at the moment is a case of "bait and switch". Here there may well be arguments to be made.

Thats a very interesting point. If we are to build solidarity amongst communities then perhaps addressing this lack of 'social morals' is a good place to start.

I don't think morals should be used as extensively as the right does, but it is certainly something to highlight.

http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/news/s/1455763_suspected-arson-attack-at-home-of-man-accused-of-setting-fire-to-miss-selfridge-store-during-manchester-riots

Arson attack on the home of the man accused of burning the Miss Selfridge in Manchester.

The old 'innocent until proven guilty' lie has clearly gone out the window. Now it's 'innocent until your name appears in the paper'.

.

I agree with ocelot and SAS - there are questions of morality, both proletarian and bourgeios that come out of this. I also agree that the basic issue of solidarity amongst the working class is one that hasn't really been addressed so far. I referred in my last post to the Branscombe Bay looting and I want to quote demogorgon303 from that thread, as his commment seems very pertinent to the points raised in these last few posts:

How does picking over wreckage at a beach advance the class consciousness of a fighting working class? The scenes are reminscent of the working class's earliest history: one of vagabondage, brutalisation and moral degradation. We spent several hundred years fighting against the impositions of capitalism that turned the early industrial proletarian areas into sinkholes of crime and misery, with our ancestors fighting like rats in a sewer.

They rose themselves above this by developing the most basic elements of solidarity, by declaring "thieves beware", and organising in their own defence.

The whole reason the bourgeosie is giving this such coverage is because they know exactly that it is this kind of behaviour that undermines class solidarity. It's their opportunity to say "look at the masses in action", "woe to human nature", etc.

This doesn't mean revolutionaries have to simply say the opposite of the bourgeois moralists. Class conscious minorities should be pointing out that this is not the revolutionary activity of a "working class", rather that this degradation is a product of the moral erosion of humanity brought about by the pernicious effects of commodity production and alienation, the system that these moralists defend.

This is not a minor issue. The conduct of the proletariat demonstrates its contradictory position in society: on the one hand, it represents the most concentrated loss of humanity as its early nature demonstrated. On the other, its anger and fury at its fate drives it to reconquer its humanity, expressed in solidarity and class struggle.

ocelot

On my way back from Aveyron I stopped off with an anarchist comrade in Paris and naturally we were discussing the riots and the mediatised discussions in their aftermath. His position was that the left in general, and anarchists in particular, have a tendency to avoid certain discourses because of their associations with those of the enemy. In this case, the discourse of the progressive moral breakdown of society.

I suppose the article linked to by bootsy has a go at this kind of discourse:

bootsy

This article was written by an ex-member of the IWCA who now lives in New Zealand.

Cantdocartwheels wrote (on the ALARM thread)

“I think its a good statement, i'm in both alarm and solfed, and as solfed found out you're never going to write the perfect statement that appeals to everyone so while we should always engage critically i think nitpicking is a bit silly, anyone who has sense knows politics isn;t based on perfectly worded statements.”

Perhaps with the exception of the shopkeepers bit, I can’t see a substantive difference between the SolFed, ALARM, ICT or ICC statements. They all go in the same direction. Unless you want to nitpick... Perhaps a case of not what’s being said but who’s saying it.

Spikeymike said:

“Mass looting is objectively against commodity society.”

It is? That’s the nub of the discussion we’re not having.

Spikeymike said:

“but pro-revolutionaries cannot stand in condemnation of fellow workers in struggle (even if we are critical) and especially given the current vengefull onslaught from the whole capitalist establishment.

Agreed. But who’s condemning ‘fellow workers’ in struggle’? A criticism of the aims and methods of a struggle isn’t a condemnation. It’s what the class as a whole, and “pro-revolutionaries” in particular are supposed to do.

Cantodocartwheels wrote:

Anyways a week later, 3000 arrests later and you still want to go around condemning people...”

Well I’ve looked at this particular statement yet again and I don’t find any condemnation of “people”. I see a very vibrant condemnation of bourgeois society, and a practical critique about riots in general, and of recent events in particular, as methods which can bring the working class together and make an effective attack on capital. But “condemning” people (ie the ‘rioters’ or ‘looters’). Nah.

SolFed wrote:

“But as revolutionaries, we cannot condone attacks on working people, on the innocent. Burning out shops with homes above them, people's transport to work, muggings and the like are an attack on our own and should be resisted...”

So I should accuse you of “wanting to go around condemning people?” I don’t and I won’t. But it’s a bit rich, when some folks are discussing the possibility (or maybe, the reality?) of different youth “gangs” putting aside their differences to face the feds that so called “revolutionaries” who are saying essentially the same thing (without ‘nitpicking’, of course) can’t even approach a semblance of solidarity; can’t – in your case - for one fucking instant, in the face of the biggest bourgeois backlash in a generation, put aside their tribal colours.

Mark.

[...]
I suppose the article linked to by bootsy has a go at this kind of discourse:

bootsy

This article was written by an ex-member of the IWCA who now lives in New Zealand.

Hmm. Well quite apart from my personal alienation from the "Socialist Worker meets Daily Mail" political themes of the IWCA & the Reds, that article also begins with the following gem.

The economic policies of the governments during the same period have seen a total embracing of the doctrines of neo-liberalism. Despite its relatively small role in GDP, the finance and banking sector has been held up as the key to Britain’s future success. Of course, it is only the people in these sectors who gain from this.

Which is economically illiterate. For ref, see the latest Blue Book 2010 Part 2, Ch 2 "The industrial analyses at a glance from Table 2.1"

An analysis of the 11 broad industrial sectors shows that in 2008 the financial intermediation and other business services sector provided the largest contribution to gross value added at current basic prices, at £420 billion out of a total of £1,295.7 billion (32.4 per cent). The distribution and hotels sector contributed 14.2 per cent; the education, health and social work sector accounted for 13.1 per cent; and the manufacturing sector 11.6 per cent.

I don't have to hand the employment % figures, but a fairly hefty chunk of the workforce is also engaged in this (hugely over-inflated) sector - and by that I mean ordinary workers, not the small minority of financial predators with their snouts in the multi-million bonuses trough.

I know it's a side issue, but I wish left(ish) commentators would check their basic economic facts first before coming out with capitalist conspiracy factoids.

edit: the figures for % employment are in Table 2.5 of the Blue Book (link above) and the figures are (in thousands, latest 2009): SIC J-K "Financial intermediation;
real estate, renting & business activities" 6,598 of Total 30,997, being ~ 21% of the employed workforce. In summary, a third of GDP and a fifth of the workforce is employed in the FIRE sector.

http://rt.com/programs/keiser-report/keiser-herbert-british-justice/

The Guardian's Paul Lewis gives his first-hand account:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/12/uk-riots-paul-lewis-five-day-journey?CMP=twt_gu

An interesting passage regarding people's willingness to consider the safety of others.

'So why did the English riots of 2011 stop? Police chiefs will argue their strategy, which took three days to formulate, of flooding the streets with riot officers, proved a significant deterrence. The fact police numbers were bolstered by people determined to protect their own streets must also have had an impact, as did the rain.

But there was also a social pressure at work, and it came from the very same "culture" that David Cameron has blamed for the riots.

I spoke to parents who said they had persuaded their children to stay indoors, and young people who had held back their friends from taking part.

Even in the midst of the seeming immorality of rioting without a cause, there were signs of a moral compass, with young men trying to rein back others they felt were going too far.'

I wonder what role the protection rackets Turkish shopkeepers pay gangs for played in the 'vigilante' 'community' defence of local shops in, eg, Green Lanes, nrth London? http://gangsinlondon.blogspot.com/2011/03/londons-mafia-history-of-turkish.html

Two men in Chester have been jailed for FOUR YEARS for 'inciting violence through facebook'. Both posted invitations to riot on facebook. Neither group resulted in an actual riot or even any disorder at all. The second man removed the post the next morning and said it was a joke. Yet he still got four years.

Makes me fucking sick. Surely they know it'll all end in more riots? Surely they can't be that short-sighted?

Arbeiten: I know this reply is 5 days late but I just read it,

I just wasn't sure by your first post whether it was you saying you believe looters are also muggers, or whether you think other people think looters are also muggers.

Also, I think it is worth pursuing this further. What is a mugger? do these people actually recognize the people who mugged them as also looters (then, fair enough), or is it just some shite condescending prejudice based on what inner city working class youth look like. If it is the latter kind, then I don't have much sympathy. It's that same attitude that has been a contributing factor to this in the first place. police sees a kid, 'oh he/she looks like a mugger', lets stop search him/her.

I meant I know (cos we grew up together, were friends and still occasionally see each other) a couple of the people involved, and they do mug people and worse on a day-to-day basis. But yeah, I definitely get your general point.

All the sentencing is really grim.

Auto

http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereveningnews/news/s/1455763_suspected-arson-attack-at-home-of-man-accused-of-setting-fire-to-miss-selfridge-store-during-manchester-riots

Arson attack on the home of the man accused of burning the Miss Selfridge in Manchester.

The old 'innocent until proven guilty' lie has clearly gone out the window. Now it's 'innocent until your name appears in the paper'.

Or it proves that if the ruling classes and media single out a human as the enemy, it'll be restricted to an article in a local paper if their home comes under attack.

If a large corporate chain store (which hoovers the profits from a community anyway) get it's sweatshop-made goods taken, it's a fucking travesty of unfathomable proportions.

Sorry for the derail, but...

ocelot

I know it's a side issue, but I wish left(ish) commentators would check their basic economic facts.... economically illiterate....

The article referred to the relative size of the Finance & Banking sector. This is classified within the Blue Book as Financial Intermediation (i.e. banks, hedge funds etc..).

If you look at section 2.3 on Page 104 of the document you linked to, you will see that the Gross Value Added of the Financial Intermediation sector in 2008 was £116.8bn which amounts to 9.0% of the total. This is slightly more than say the £93.7bn (7.2%) that was added by the Health & Social work sector, but a great deal less than the £420bn (32%) which relates to a much wider category than just banking & financial intermediation

Your numbers for employment also includes other categories that do not belong specifically to the financial intermediation, however the Blue Book doesn't break these down any further so the actual number employed in Financial Intermediation can't be identified from this information. However other estimates put the number at just over a million this and this for example . So instead of Financial Intermediation making up a third of GDP and a fifth of the workforce as you suggested, it's actually 9% of GDP and 3.5% of the workforce.

If you're going to accuse others of being economically illiterate and being ignorant of the facts you should perhaps make sure your own facts (and attention to detail) are in order before doing so (which does require going beyond the somewhat misleading summaries and category classifications shown in the beginning of the blue book chapters)

Any political points to make about, or substantive engagement with, the article itself - or is this all there is?

Auto

Two men in Chester have been jailed for FOUR YEARS for 'inciting violence through facebook'. Both posted invitations to riot on facebook. Neither group resulted in an actual riot or even any disorder at all. The second man removed the post the next morning and said it was a joke. Yet he still got four years.

Makes me fucking sick. Surely they know it'll all end in more riots? Surely they can't be that short-sighted?

Jesus, there is dark times ahead. At least the Mail will be happy.

Arbeiten

I'm reading it pretty carefully (a little bit more annoyed that you have suggested I didn't the first time), and I would still argue that that distinction is not made firm enough (if at all). Even so, given the structure of a 'gang' (of which I don't claim to be an expert), is everyone in the gang from the small runners at the bottom to the guys at the top etc, etc all equally bagged in scummary? Do we know how much organized gang activity influenced these riots? Or are we making the horrible mistake of presuming this happened in the city - there are gangs in the city = therefore it was perpetrated by gangs. This is a difficult issue and i don't think we should be involved in blind piñata blame stick waving. There were certainly gang elements involved, but as wojtek's post shows, the inter-gang violence was side lined for the larger picture*. That seems to me like the largest problem with gang violence, is that they kill and maim one and other. If that is sidelined then I don't see this is a particularly blaring gang issue?

I had hoped that people on this board would ease off on the scum language (apart from when talking about Tories of course, who are all equally filthy c**ts from top to bottom).

*and we can moan about what we thought about the larger picture all we want. I personally think that is a bit of a blind alley because, whatever this was, it was massively disparate and contradictory.

Firstly, you did misread my post. You said "I find it ten times more irritating, actually infuriating, when people call these people 'scumbags'.", referring to the rioters in general, in response to a comment I made referring specifically to the rioting "gangland scumbags". If you don't think that the term "gangland scumbags" is specific enough as a reference to gangs, well....

The rest of the post is unrelated to anything I've ever said here.

Proletarian

Thanks for linking up the video: it was fascinating to watch the discussion unfold. Interesting that the police broke it up at one point, but then it carried on. Several people made the point about some kids not knowing how to articulate their anger and rage and just exploding. An interesting point was made that hip hop expresses this immediate rage. Comrades who have not watched should because it give you a lot to think about. The last few minutes are particularly interesting because there is a sort of agreed conclusion that the riots were a reflection of a much wider inter-generational anger about deteriorating conditions.

Rap responds to the riots: 'They have to take us seriously'

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/aug/12/rap-riots-professor-green-lethal-bizzle-wiley

As you liked that one earnie here's another, though this one's more of a rant. A good rant though.

These riots have sparked quite a lot of further discussion, something which has been building I think.

[youtube]8HFUSPzpi9A[/youtube]

Lurch

Perhaps with the exception of the shopkeepers bit, I can’t see a substantive difference between the SolFed, ALARM, ICT or ICC statements. They all go in the same direction.

i was referring to baboons comments in the thread which irritated me and reminded me of being surrounded by sp'ers barely defending anything while people came over and told us thieves shoud be hanged, anyways i'm more interested in what people are doing than what tehy're saying, so meh

proletarian.

As you liked that one earnie here's another, though this one's more of a rant. A good rant though.

These riots have sparked quite a lot of further discussion, something which has been building I think.

[youtube]8HFUSPzpi9A[/youtube]

That man is a legend.

I think that the government is tailoring their responses to the percieved 'public mood'. But from some of the videos and comments I've seen appearing online, things aren't as clear cut as they think...

oisleep

Sorry for the derail, but...

ocelot

I know it's a side issue, but I wish left(ish) commentators would check their basic economic facts.... economically illiterate....

The article referred to the relative size of the Finance & Banking sector. This is classified within the Blue Book as Financial Intermediation (i.e. banks, hedge funds etc..).

If you look at section 2.3 on Page 104 of the document you linked to, you will see that the Gross Value Added of the Financial Intermediation sector in 2008 was £116.8bn which amounts to 9.0% of the total. This is slightly more than say the £93.7bn (7.2%) that was added by the Health & Social work sector, but a great deal less than the £420bn (32%) which relates to a much wider category than just banking & financial intermediation

Your numbers for employment also includes other categories that do not belong specifically to the financial intermediation, however the Blue Book doesn't break these down any further so the actual number employed in Financial Intermediation can't be identified from this information. However other estimates put the number at just over a million this and this for example . So instead of Financial Intermediation making up a third of GDP and a fifth of the workforce as you suggested, it's actually 9% of GDP and 3.5% of the workforce.

If you're going to accuse others of being economically illiterate and being ignorant of the facts you should perhaps make sure your own facts (and attention to detail) are in order before doing so (which does require going beyond the somewhat misleading summaries and category classifications shown in the beginning of the blue book chapters)

Heh. Out-geeked. We could argue about the stats (and you're right, this is a total de-rail, but then I started it, so mea culpa) - i.e. about the % of the insurance, real estate and business services (i.e. legal firms, consultants, etc) are actually dependent on the finance sector (and walking through the CBDs of London, Leeds or Edinbuirgh and looking what's in those buildings gives an unscientific but not necessarily invalid impression) - but that could get very tedious very quickly. But even on your minimalist figures, the idea that 10% of GDP corresponds to "a relatively small proportion of GDP" is questionable. My basic point stands, your statement of departure, in terms of the current makeup of the UK economy, is ideological and flies in the face of the facts.

oisleep

Any political points to make about, or substantive engagement with, the article itself - or is this all there is?

I dunno, there's so many things. I don't want to do a line-by-line, but there's a couple of other sentences at the outset, that leap out.

Riots almost only occur in societies that are in crisis.

That's highly debateable (unless you fall back on circularity, i.e. that mass public disorder is itself an element of social crisis). Riots are a long British tradition. In fact I knew a comrade back in the 1980s who was so outraged by the statement of a London top copper (after the 1985 Broadwater Farm riots, as it happens) that "this violent rioting and disorder is foreign to our traditions" (translation: it's these black animals that are the cause of the problem) that he intended to write a pamphlet on "The Great British Riot". Sadly never completed. But from a historical perspective, to say that riots only occur in societies in crisis means that for most of its history Britain has been a society permanently in crisis, which kinda evacuates the concept of crisis. Ditto for the implied contention in the article that this is a sign of the decay brought about by Thatcherism and the neo-liberal revolution. The riotous mob with looting and all its other "carnival of the oppressed" characteristics, have been with us for a lot longer than neo-liberalism.

from that IWCA quote

once a lumpen mentality is allowed to take root over a generation or more, a pattern is set seemingly for other socio/ political relationships too. In place of civic pride, community spirit, or basic empathy and solidarity (none of which have any place in their world) there is instead an over-developed sense of individual entitlement combined with a perverse pride in subverting a core socialist tenet: ‘you only take out exactly what you’ve put in’. It follows that outside of what affects them directly as individuals or maybe immediate family there is a malign indifference. After all what is society to them, or they to society? All told, the corrupting consequences of the no-work ethic appear to be numerous and hardwired.

Obviously ‘you only take out exactly what you’ve put in’ is only a "core tenant of socialism" if you're a Proudhonist or a Lassallean. Both Marx and Kropotkin would have rejected that outright. It certainly is not going to accepted by any libertarian communist. Beyond that, overall the statement is a key example of the kind of leftist Daily Mail tendency I mentioned. That is, a nostalgia for an identitarian notion of "proper British working class culture and values" that never really existed. The very project of the moral reconstruction of the class-as-positive-identity with "proper" values (presumably a work ethic to negate that nasty "no-work ethic") is imo reactionary and shades towards the Melanie Phillips view of society.

But these are details. To balance things out a bit, there are of course many things I agree with in the article, e.g.

Whilst, as I have argued, there are political, economic and social reasons behind why riots happen, riots themselves explode out of nowhere, triggered by a particular incident. Riots are by their very nature contradictory and incoherent. They are both political in one sense and apolitical in another. The anger that they encapsulate is against all authority but at the same time, because of their nature they are not able to articulate anything better. That is why they are so unpredictable. Riots produce a negative rage, which is capable of destroying everything in their path.

We have to be very careful about praising riots just because they are seen as fighting against the state. They happen at a juncture where society is sharply divided between classes but they can also foreshadow a future where things just get worse. Riots express the anger of individuals; revolutions express the anger of the whole working class.

But on the economics side, the foundations remind me very much of the problems with orthodox Marxists analyses such as that given by Magdfoff and Foster in "The Great Financial Crisis". The economy of the nation state still appears as an island and neoliberalism less an evolution of the capitalist world-system than a set of malicious social policies applied on a national level by a capitalist coterie of evil-doers. Of course this model of neoliberalism is convenient for the nostalgics of Keynesian social-democracy ("end the dominance of the unproductive financial speculator-parasites!", "bring back manufacturing jobs, unions and proper working class pride in labour!", etc, etc, ad nauseam...) because if a thing can be done by national government policy alone, then it can equally be undone by electing a anti-neoliberal government to bring back social-democracy. This parochial focus on the (western) nation state as the exclusive locus of struggle is increasingly unsustainable in a globalised world.

On the political/social side, I find the reiteration of the IWCA focus on "drug dealers and gangsterism" as the source of social ills (even if those ills are couched in the terms of the decomposition of the class) resonates too much with the current Tory discourse on blaming social alienation of the excluded, alienated and dispossessed on "the evil disease of gang culture". It's also too reminiscent of the various groups of "dissident" republicans in Ireland, seeking to find a social function via an "anti-drugs" campaign of beating up dope dealers and burning down "legal high" shops. Class war it ain't. Also, like a lot of AFA vets, I always found it somewhat ironic given the historical links between the Reds and a certain Manchester clan (who in fact have been in the news in relation to these riots - google "uk riots" + name, for e.g.). But anyway...

It's maybe worth mentioning that urban75 has a long thread on the original IWCA article.

Gerostock I think you are completely ignorant of what you mean by 'gangland scumbags', why don't you go and do some research before spouting your bourgeois garbage. Oh no, the working class get together in alternative economies and alternative value systems and create structures out side of the mainstream boo hoo. As I said, 'gangs' are complex phenomena and 'gangland scum' seems to be shorthand for 'My name is Trees 'R' May and I don't know what I'm talking about'. Your reply was quite frankly a bit of an embarrassment.....

I think right now we should look at the way the state is responding to this. There has been night raids, people are getting evicted from their homes and doing years in prison for creating facebook groups. Cameron the other day spoke about the 'chilling' effects of 'human rights culture' and is talking about repealing some human rights legislation. This seems to me to be my big gripe with the riots. It isn't so much what they 'mean', what they 'represent' or what they ontologically are, I'm more concerned with the states response. They are using the fear and the populism created around these riots to push through some nasty policy initiatives.

Also, I went to a meeting in Tottenham the other day and they were talking about setting together some support group around all the people who have been arrested, when more information is available I will let you know.

A lot of the convictions being handed down have more to do with setting an example, rather than individual cases. This is a disturbing departure from standard judicial principles where normally each case is treated as an individual event.
Especially with the 2 men sentenced for creating riot events on facebook where the punishment has been decided based on what could have happened taking into account the other events taking place elsewhere.
Suspects have been treated in a very different manner than they normally would be, basically being rushed through court as quickly as possible meaning that defendants cannot prepare a defence and in many cases they do not know what they are being tried for until they take the stand.

While I understand the obvious bias of a bourgeois court, I would at least expect to be given a decent shot at defending myself in a UK court. Over the last few days, this has not been the case for many defendants

A precedent has been set where high profile cases can be treated differently than low profile ones. In other words the next protest which turns 'violent' should expect to be met with the same kind of sham trials. Also expect protests relating to the Olympics to be treated like this, because the events are high profile and it would be 'embarrassing' to Londons image.

Someone just got a 12 month ban on social media and narrowly avoided prison for merely expressing support for the rioters on a facebook status. His friends called him an idiot and he deleted it, but the police still arrested him. Like i've no illusions in bourgeois justice, but fuck it turns into Iran at the drop of a hat. Imagine what it would be like in the face of actual deep social unrest?

Proletarian. good vids, keep 'em coming if you find more.

Someone just got a 12 month ban on social media and narrowly avoided prison

I keep seeing these and I can't get my head around the fact they're not made up.

Do you think they're deliberately targeting people for extremely petty shit like this (especially small towns like Bury St. Edmunds) or is it just that they're trying to hit as many people as possible?

That someone is a 17 year old. Punishment other than being banned from social media, includes 120 hours community service, 12 month youth rehab order and a 7pm-6am curfew for 3 months!!!!
The status was "It's about time we stood up for ourselves for once. So come on rioters – get some. LOL."
So basically hes been done for 'come on rioters'.

"LOL"

Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling

A lot of the convictions being handed down have more to do with setting an example, rather than individual cases. This is a disturbing departure from standard judicial principles where normally each case is treated as an individual event.
Especially with the 2 men sentenced for creating riot events on facebook where the punishment has been decided based on what could have happened taking into account the other events taking place elsewhere.
Suspects have been treated in a very different manner than they normally would be, basically being rushed through court as quickly as possible meaning that defendants cannot prepare a defence and in many cases they do not know what they are being tried for until they take the stand.

Well, it's not exactly a first. Previous political public order related trials have resulted in exceptional sentencing tariffs being applied (we even got a stipe to admit that there was an agreed tariff of 4 weeks for a first-offence section 4 POA, in one of the APT cases). The same phenonemon was seen in the sentencing of the Bradford 2001 riot defendants. That's before we even go back to the judicial lynchings of the Birmingham 6, Guildford 4 etc in the wake of the media "hang them!" hysteria following the pub bombings. But anyway.

The rapidity of the trials is new though (and will no doubt be the subject of appeals - but these will take months, so the damage is done really).

On a practical note, someone (I think related to the Guardian, not clear) is maintaining a google docs spreadsheet of all the trial results of the magistrates appearances so far, which is handy.

Also this, from one of my old APT defendant comrades who knows his way around the legal system.

Dear [ocelot],

I got the spreadsheet from the 'lefthooked' blog (James Doleman - the guy who covered the Tommy 'satsuma' Sheridan trial - Tommah had his application for leave to appeal his conviction refused a week ago). But it seems to emanate from a source around The Grauniad.

Judge Edwards is Recorder of Chester. I could only find one reference to counsel's (Rebecca Tanner) mitigation along the lines of 'he was drunk and regretted it in the morning' when I would have thought reference to the lack of Disgracebook views and the fact that no riots took place as a result of the posting was the strongest mitigation!

The CPS prosecutor was a Mr McRobb(!) and he referred to the local populace being effectively terrified by the postings - I doubt very much if he had any evidence to back that claim up; in which case it was purely speculative, prejudicial and should have played no part in the case opening.

Worryingly, there are said to be at least 27 similar 'incitement' cases in the pipeline.

The Resident Judge at Manchester Crown Court laid down some local guidelines in sentencing three people yesterday.
You can find the full transcript on the Crimeline page (R v Carter & Others) along with a link to the oucomes spreadsheet and other leading riot cases, mainly from the Bradford Riots. Just scroll down the Crimeline page to find these:

http://www.crimeline.info/

Note that any theft, however minor, is recommended for at least a one year sentence!
Actually entering commercial premises and stealing is burglary with a 2 to 4 year stretch.

Over 65% of defendants are being refused bail - presumably on (increasingly spurious) grounds they will commit further offences when everything has calmed down. The reality for many is that they will spend longer remanded than they will ever get for minor public order offences - thus a remand become effectively a punishment of the cart before the horse variety.

Let me know if you hear of any defence campaigns springing up.

All the best.

[comrade A]

Both political and legal officers have been fairly honest that these sentences are meant to be a 'deterrent' against any recurrance of this 'copycat' rash of mass looting and property destruction and are harsher than normal as a result. In practice sentences have been determined as though those before the courts were 'guilty' of 'riot' or other forms of 'conspiracy to commit crime', although they have not been prosecuted, for reasons of convenience to the authorities, under the laws that would allow that. (conservatives and liberals are arguing about whether that will work but agree on the aims).

There is inevitably an element of establishment vengefulness about it all as well.

Joseph Kay

Imagine what it would be like in the face of actual deep social unrest?

Patrick Mercer, tory MP and former officer in the British army, was interveiewd on the Tuesday (I think) and asked whether they should have sent in the army to support the police?

His response was "Oh heavens, no, it's not the revolution or anything, just youths rioting.."

miles

Joseph Kay

Imagine what it would be like in the face of actual deep social unrest?

Patrick Mercer, tory MP and former officer in the British army, was interveiewd on the Tuesday (I think) and asked whether they should have sent in the army to support the police?

His response was "Oh heavens, no, it's not the revolution or anything, just youths rioting.."

lol

The legalistics of the flagship Wandsworth council case claiming to be trying to evict the tenant mother of an alleged rioter;
http://nearlylegal.co.uk/blog/2011/08/wandsworth-headed-for-the-naughty-step/

As expected, legal challenges will be made as to whether there has been a breach of clauses in tenancy agreement etc. It's also uncertain if Wandsworth council have, as they originally claimed in their press statement, begun possession proceedings. One obstacle; the son hasn't apparently even been convicted yet, making claims of anti-social behaviour harder to prove.

Joseph Kay

Someone just got a 12 month ban on social media and narrowly avoided prison for merely expressing support for the rioters on a facebook status. His friends called him an idiot and he deleted it, but the police still arrested him. Like i've no illusions in bourgeois justice, but fuck it turns into Iran at the drop of a hat. Imagine what it would be like in the face of actual deep social unrest?

Yep this just reinforces what I always thought the state would do in times of social unrest. It has also exposed the so called independence of the judiciary. Hopefully these mental sentences are reduced on appeal.

proletarian.

As you liked that one earnie here's another, though this one's more of a rant. A good rant though.

These riots have sparked quite a lot of further discussion, something which has been building I think.

[youtube]8HFUSPzpi9A[/youtube]

Notice Charlie Veitch trying to butt in at every opportunity on that video.

Charlie Veitch is an asshole, that much is certain, but is he a paedo?

gypsy

Notice Charlie (the paed) Veitch trying to butt in at every opportunity on that video.

I'd actually like to hear a proper interview with that guy (the speaker in the video, not Veitch). It sounds like he does a lot of work in the community and I'd like to know more about it.

Maybe something for one of the London groups to consider.

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Charlie Veitch is an asshole, that much is certain, but is he a paedo?

Apparently his ex missus claims he groomed a 15 year old girl for sex.

http://nwoupdate.blogspot.com/2011/08/charlie-veitch-website-post-claims-more.html

I guess innocent until proven guilty.

well, I think it's important to remember that Veitch's ex is prolly a member of the Illuminati

jokes jokes jokes.

Yes your right Auto, it would be better to hear the guy speak without Veitchmeister butting in. That was the same with the Darcus Howe interview. The people cannot represent themselves, they must be represented!...or something like that.....

I accept Cantdo's criticism of my post above; in the context of the unfolding discussion it was inappropriate and divisive iand against the sense of some very measured approaches to events from individuals, groups and publications above. I work closely with the ICC but speak here on my own behalf and obviously don't check with the group before posting. It probably would have been wiser if I had done so rather than blundered in from isolation on the sidelines. This underlines for me the necessity of the unity of the working class against the bourgeoisie and the collective, patient approach above everything.

JK makes the point above about having no illusions in bourgeois justice but I think that his sense of shock at the savagery of the state's response is generally felt among many. It seems more ferocious to me than when they put the boot in after the defeat of the miners' strike with dole payments cut, police raids, arrests, over the top sentences, etc. I think that we are seeing a more open expression of the fortress state and a pointer for the future. At the moment Iranian TV is having a field day on police state Britain.

On Aug 7 2011 22:03
Caiman del Barrio

Twitter's reporting that petrol bombs are being thrown at cars on the A10 while rioters are moving onto Ponders End.

I saw about this on twitter and immediately smelt a rat. Have there been any confirmed reports of this happening? I'm wondering if it was a rumour from the Met to discourage mobile looters... I might be wrong.

Woman jailed after riots in Manchester freed by judge
Breaking news
A judge has freed a woman who was jailed following last week's riots in Manchester.
It is thought to be the first successful appeal against a sentence in relation to the disorder in England.
Mother-of-two Ursula Nevin, 24 was jailed for five months by a district judge at Manchester magistrates earlier this week.
She had admitted accepting a pair of shorts that had been looted from a city centre shop by a friend.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-14589259

Perhaps they're worried about the "may as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb" ethos. Or they just don't want the legal system to be too crudely part of their side in the class war.

On the somewhat brighter side, some advice: Smash something..

Riots redistribute

In the wake of recent weeks in London, the Gini Coefficient of the UK inched down 0.00002 (a wild guestimate). Surely, burning cars is not the most efficient way of lowering the Gini. But nobody else is doing even that much
Riots are Keynesian

During the Great Depression, Andrew Melon recommended roughly the same policies that are enacted now by governments today under the name of "austerity": "liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate farmers..." In contrast, Keynes suggested that the government should hire people to dig useless holes and then fill them in order to boost the economy. While the UK government is on the side of Melon, the rioters are objectively on the side of Keynes. Every smashed window has to be mended. Someone will have to be paid to do it (maybe even the brother-in-law of the person who smashed it). As a model of economic growth, smashing London is not as painless as Keynes imagined the New Deal should be, and yet it is a lot less painful than what the current UK government has in mind. It is also somewhat less immoral than the military Keynesianism of Bush and Blair, which consisted in hiring the people who might otherwise riot and sending them to smash Baghdad and Kandahar.

;)

Bristol, UK: Police raid squat looking for riot suspect(s) —17/8

'A teenager who said he joined the riots to "give a voice to the underclass" was sentenced to two years and four months in a young offenders' institution... [He] claimed he took part in looting... because he "doesn't think it's fair that he works but can't afford the things he wants"' -
Here:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/looting-student-jailed-for-16-months-2339898.html

A good article about gentrification and the inevitability of the riots:

http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/owen-hatherley/look-at-englands-urban-spaces-riots-were-inevitable

Gentrification and the riots article is good. Made me chuckle to myself when I saw tweeters warning the moustacheos to not cycle in London Fields because they might get their fixy gears nicked.

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bourgeois garbage.

You think the working class sympathizes with gangs? Many people I know who lives around Hackney and Tower Hamlets are scared to leave their homes at night because of gangs. You're the one who is comically detached from public opinion -- not I.

Oh no, the working class get together in alternative economies and alternative value systems and create structures out side of the mainstream boo hoo.

Lol. Gangs are typically peopled by school children; the average age seems to be around fifteen. Mugging is anti-social parasitic behaviour. They're like little bourgeoises.

I'm more concerned with the states response. They are using the fear and the populism created around these riots to push through some nasty policy initiatives

It was obvious to everyone who can dress unassisted that the government would use the riots to jam through reactionary legislation. The left-wing riot fetishists who supported and encouraged the utterly fruitless explosion of dumb violence are partly culpable through their idiocy.

Gerostock

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bourgeois garbage.

You think the working class sympathizes with gangs? Many people I know who lives around Hackney and Tower Hamlets are scared to leave their homes at night because of gangs. You're the one who is comically detached from public opinion -- not I.

That is absolutely hilarious. I grew up in east London, and I've lived in Hackney for nine years, and have loads of friends who live here and in Tower Hamlets. I do not know anyone who is scared to leave their homes at night because of gangs. And anyone who is is either someone who has personal beef with one gang or another, or has a diagnosable psychological phobia.

Where do you live then? And who are these supposed "friends" of yours that you have invented?

Hackney/Tower Hamlets are among the safest places on the planet you could possibly be, so if I were you I would stop reading the Daily Mail and get over yourself. Given these type of views, not to mention your vocal support for antisocial violence, murder and terror in the Falklands (many hundreds of times worse than anything in the riots), what is it you are actually doing on libcom?

The left-wing riot fetishists who supported and encouraged the utterly fruitless explosion of dumb violence are partly culpable through their idiocy.

:lol: :lol: :lol: I think the left wish they had that much influence! So, if we don't condemn rioting uncritically out of hand (as you do here), we are riot fetishists. Brilliant. I know your not at all detached from public opinion. That's your problem, the endless spouting of of recited half-truthes that stand in for 'public opinion' today. I'm sure you and Boris Johnson would get on like a house on fire.....

Just for the record, I haven't denied the existence of 'gangs' or street crime, I just think what you offer here is an off the cuff hackneyed 'fits all' approach to gangs in london. Violence? gangs. Drugs? Gangs. Speeding cars? GANGS!

Look, I really don't want to get into a flame war, I know you 'enjoy' it (as you said a few posts ago), but I really can't be bothered with this at all.

off the cuff hackneyed 'fits all' approach

How about an off the cuff wooded greened approach?
This is boroughism - the regional equivalent of sexism! Hackney rioters aren't hackneyed .

Chapter 5 of this thing on gangs during the Rodney King uprising in Aufheben is good. How relevant it is to the current situation in the UK I don't know - in fact, this seems an area of research worth looking into as previous posters have hinted at.

Meanwhile, the Daily Maul:

The shocking moment looting yobs SHOT at police helicopter during Birmingham riots
Police have released dramatic video of yobs shooting at unarmed police on the ground and in a hovering helicopter during the height of the riots.
An attempted murder investigation has been launched after 11 shots were fired as police as they tried to control the disorder in the Birmingham suburb of Newtown late on August 9.
Officers had to duck for cover as petrol bombs were also thrown after money and alcohol was stolen from the Bartons Arms and it was set alight.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2028208/Birmingham-riots-Looting-yobs-SHOT-police-helicopter.html

I've heard that helicopter pilots are far more scared of rescue flares being fired at the rotors.

Jesus Christ Sam, good going, I didn't even notice I had done that!

As Mike Davis put it in 1988, "the contemporary Gang scare has become an imaginary class relationship, a terrain of pseudo-knowledge and fantasy projection, a talisman."

Great line from Aufheben quote. That bit on gangs is quite good, especially mentioning the fact drugs dealing is an alternative economic system. Can't say London has the same crack problem as early 90s LA though thank christ. However I think there is also substantive differences between Bloods and Crips and what w have in London. I think a big problem right now is also the ways in which the media and political pundits seems to be conflating the two.

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Jesus Christ Sam, good going, I didn't even notice I had done that!

As Mike Davis put it in 1988, "the contemporary Gang scare has become an imaginary class relationship, a terrain of pseudo-knowledge and fantasy projection, a talisman."

Great line from Aufheben quote. That bit on gangs is quite good, especially mentioning the fact drugs dealing is an alternative economic system. Can't say London has the same crack problem as early 90s LA though thank christ. [b]However I think there is also substantive differences between Bloods and Crips and what w have in London. I think a big problem right now is also the ways in which the media and political pundits seems to be conflating the two.

[/b]

I agree with this.

I would say generally the 'gangs' the media speak of are just groups of young males who hang around together and sometimes do anti-social shit. The media not only exagerates their existence but also suggests they are far more organised and set in stone in terms of members etc than they are

Although I do think we also shouldn't suggest that anti-social crime is no big deal in Britain or not a significant problem because in particular places for some people it definitetely is.

Steven.

Gerostock

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bourgeois garbage.

You think the working class sympathizes with gangs? Many people I know who lives around Hackney and Tower Hamlets are scared to leave their homes at night because of gangs. You're the one who is comically detached from public opinion -- not I.

That is absolutely hilarious. I grew up in east London, and I've lived in Hackney for nine years, and have loads of friends who live here and in Tower Hamlets. I do not know anyone who is scared to leave their homes at night because of gangs. And anyone who is is either someone who has personal beef with one gang or another, or has a diagnosable psychological phobia.

Where do you live then? And who are these supposed "friends" of yours that you have invented?

Hackney/Tower Hamlets are among the safest places on the planet you could possibly be, so if I were you I would stop reading the Daily Mail and get over yourself. Given these type of views, not to mention your vocal support for antisocial violence, murder and terror in the Falklands (many hundreds of times worse than anything in the riots), what is it you are actually doing on libcom?

I wouldn't say there is no trouble with gangs in East London. Depends where you live.

I don't think the point is to deny there is gangs in existence and sometimes they do some pretty shitty things. I think the point is not to make it the causal explanation for what happened.

I don't think it is a case of 'the working class supporting gangs'. First thing has to be pointed out, what section are we talking about. I really don't care if a portion of the working class in say Worthing, doesn't support so called 'gang activity' in Tottenham or something. When I went to a meeting in Tottenham the other day there seemed to be a broad consensus that gangs wasn't their main issue.

I think we also need to be careful about falling into David Starky-ism ;)

wojtek:

A good article about gentrification and the inevitability of the riots:
http://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdom/owen-hatherley/look-at-englands-urban-spaces-riots-were-inevitable

Interesting and perhaps the least banal of the articles I've read - up until the condemnation/parody of the Gordon riots as simply a massacre of Catholics ( Catholics were targetted at the start of the riots, but it soon became an attack on hierarchical power in all its aspects: rich houses, Anglican or Catholic were attacked, the prisons liberated and burnt to the ground - 4 or 5 in all, breweries liberated, Bedlam asylum liberated, the Bank of England attacked...), the condemnation/parody of Watts '65 as an attack on small shops (this moralism against atacking small shops is getting ridiculous; ok - when there are people living above them, it's totally "mindless" in the worst sense to burn them down, but the petit-bourgeoisie are inevitably going to get looted - should you patronisingly condemn some kid for shoplifting sweets from the local sweetshop ? "no no - you young hooligan - you shouldn't be so nihilist - you should be seizing the Smarties factories!"), the condemnation/parody of the Rodney King uprising as killing innocent people - I don't support killing the guy who got dragged out of his truck which was shown on TV a million times - and I'm not even sure he was killed - but he'd driven into a crowd of people angry about the trial result and had shouted out some racist crap supporting the cops...), etc etc - which just shows how there are so many Middle class critics of what's happened who are incapable of trying , and unwilling to try because their career would be undermined, to seriously contribute to ways of pushing these riots forward and then assume that an uprising only brings out the worst in people even if there are reasons for it coming from the obvious contradictions of the current epoch. See, for instance this at best banal lefty-liberal socio-psychological reformist crowd psychology article in the Guardian yesterday which condemns the crudely brutally repressive responses to the riots in these terms:

It dooms us to more disaffection, more division and more violence.

Not doom in my point of view (but what can one expect from psychologists, since psychology inevitably wants to get back to some notion of "normality"?): more like a glimpse of hope tainted with some doomish contradictions - since disaffection with this society , division against the supporters of this society , violence against this society is what i want.

gypsy

I wouldn't say there is no trouble with gangs in East London. Depends where you live.

did anyone say there was no trouble? What Gerostock said was this:

Many people I know who lives around Hackney and Tower Hamlets are scared to leave their homes at night because of gangs.

And I say, as someone who lives around Hackney and Tower Hamlets, as do most of my friends, that that is bullshit.

Steven.

gypsy

I wouldn't say there is no trouble with gangs in East London. Depends where you live.

did anyone say there was no trouble? What Gerostock said was this:

Many people I know who lives around Hackney and Tower Hamlets are scared to leave their homes at night because of gangs.

And I say, as someone who lives around Hackney and Tower Hamlets, as do most of my friends, that that is bullshit.

Maybe not around where you are. But I don't think it's dailymailish to say that some people do genuinely feel fear in (mostly) working class areas around the UK from antisocial elements in their communities.

Samotnaf

- I don't support killing the guy who got dragged out of his truck which was shown on TV a million times - and I'm not even sure he was killed - but he'd driven into a crowd of people angry about the trial result and had shouted out some racist crap supporting the cops...),

i'm not sure but i think i saw an interview with him during some documentary about those riots

Samotnaf, I thought that the guy followed the 'pedestrian right of way' law, so said Bill Hicks anyway?

Steven.

Gerostock

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bourgeois garbage.

You think the working class sympathizes with gangs? Many people I know who lives around Hackney and Tower Hamlets are scared to leave their homes at night because of gangs. You're the one who is comically detached from public opinion -- not I.

That is absolutely hilarious. I grew up in east London, and I've lived in Hackney for nine years, and have loads of friends who live here and in Tower Hamlets. I do not know anyone who is scared to leave their homes at night because of gangs. And anyone who is is either someone who has personal beef with one gang or another, or has a diagnosable psychological phobia.

Where do you live then? And who are these supposed "friends" of yours that you have invented? (Champ, the clever ironic quotes were enough to imply that they were imaginary; you didn't have to flesh it out explicitly.)

Hackney/Tower Hamlets are among the safest places on the planet you could possibly be, so if I were you I would stop reading the Daily Mail and get over yourself. Given these type of views, not to mention your vocal support for antisocial violence, murder and terror in the Falklands (many hundreds of times worse than anything in the riots), what is it you are actually doing on libcom?

What am I doing on Libcom? Good question. Before I came here I thought the libertarian left was calm and objective. If this site is a good representation, it's about as pathetic and dogmatic as the SWP. There would be more satire if the groups could muster enough members to fill, say, a small kitchen.

I exaggerated the experiences a little, so I'll give you a specific example. My cousin has lived in Tower Hamlets for a few years. He was recently mugged for his phone and his reaction was, "I finally got mugged last night". According to the MET Tower Hamlets is one of the most dangerous areas in London. http://maps.met.police.uk/.

As for the Falklands: the only casualties of that conflict worth mourning were the British troops and the tiny number of civilians accidentally killed. Significantly more civilians would have been killed if the Islanders had revolted, which you probably would have supported. As you presumably support the far bloodier and more costly liberations of Syria and Egypt currently in motion. If Galtieri's brownshirts hadn't been busy in the Falklands they would have been back in Argentina smashing strikes and terrorizing trade unionists. And if the unionists had retaliated by killing a few hundred of them, you would have been bursting with adulation. But alas, Britain was involved, and so....
And the collapse of the Junta in 1983 was far from certain. If it had been allowed to seize the Falklands it would certainly have recovered from the crisis of low popularity and continued. Instead, because Galtieri was humiliated in the Falklands, Argentinians are now allowed to vote for a social democrat who builds hospitals and thrashes poverty. I don't imagine that I can persuade any of you to my position, as you have clearly programmed yourselves to mechanically oppose everything that the UK and US do. I just like winning arguments, so feel free to bring this up whenever you like, buddy.

So much fail.

[quote=Gerostock][quote=Steven.]Gerostock

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bourgeois garbage.

As for the Falklands: the only casualties of that conflict worth mourning were the British troops and the tiny number of civilians accidentally killed.

Wtf.

Gerostock

I exaggerated the experiences a little

right, so basically you made it up, like I said you did. Thanks.

According to the MET Tower Hamlets is one of the most dangerous areas in London. http://maps.met.police.uk/.

what I said was that east London is one of the safest places on the planet you could live, which is true.

I just like winning arguments, so feel free to bring this up whenever you like, buddy.

If lying to try to make a point, then being forced to admit you were lying is your idea of winning arguments and I think you need to Google "winning".

Anyway, back to the riots…

Turns out the teenager who was accused of setting fire to Miss Selfridge in Manchester was completely innocent...

The Guardian

Williamson's flat in Salford was damaged by fire while he was on remand in Forest Bank prison; he lost all of his possessions and is now homeless. He suffered panic attacks after he was targeted by other prisoners who taunted him about what he'd supposedly done.

A 50-year-old man has since been arrested in connection with the incident but Greater Manchester police say they are still searching for those who started the fire.

During his time on remand, Williamson was called a firebug, told he would be jailed for life by prisoner officers, and initially locked up for 23 hours a day as a category A prisoner.

Yeah, greater Manchester police tweeted his name, at which point his house was firebombed.

Three people accused of rioting on remand have also been hospitalised following a violent prison attack

Steven

Gero

According to the MET Tower Hamlets is one of the most dangerous areas in London. http://maps.met.police.uk/.

what I said was that east London is one of the safest places on the planet you could live, which is true.

Tbf, you were a bit more specific than that;
Steven

Hackney/Tower Hamlets are among the safest places on the planet you could possibly be

Without siding with the vague generalisations of Gerostock, talking about the safety of "east London" is a bit too generalising itself. East London is a large and varied area, stretching from inner city estates to the beginning of Essex suburbs. "Among the safest places on the planet"? Compared to the likes of, eg Somalia, of course - but who needs convincing of that?

As relevant to this discussion, safety defined as risk factor/danger will have many variations; the mixed, gentrified nature of London means social conditions change greatly from area to area, sometimes from one side of the street to the other. One's age group is often a big factor; local turf wars, school bullying, youth on youth crime etc can make the same area a very different experience for the young. And while personal anecdotes are of limited use for a general view, one has to accept that one burglary or violent incident can permanently change someone's relationship to their neighbourhood.

Health factors; housing conditions, pollution varies a lot depending on location, as does life expectancy according to material wealth. For example; in leafy wealthy Hampstead, in the north of the Borough of Camden, life expectancy is about a decade higher than in the Borough's poorer south around Euston/King's Cross - 2 miles down the road. But even in that southern area, gentrification means that St Pancras Chambers penthouse flats are now selling for £10 million (next to the Eurostar terminal) - 2 minute's walk from under-maintained council estates in one of the poorest parts of London.

Steven.

Gerostock

I exaggerated the experiences a little

right, so basically you made it up, like I said you did. Thanks.

According to the MET Tower Hamlets is one of the most dangerous areas in London. http://maps.met.police.uk/.

what I said was that east London is one of the safest places on the planet you could live, which is true.

I just like winning arguments, so feel free to bring this up whenever you like, buddy.

If lying to try to make a point, then being forced to admit you were lying is your idea of winning arguments and I think you need to Google "winning".

Anyway, back to the riots…

Lies distortion and stupidity. You say I "basically" lied, based on no more than an admission that I exaggerated slightly. You said that the Tower Hamlets/Hackney was the safest place on the planet then changed to the whole of east London when I brought up the crime figures. How old are you?

i like how steven expanded his point to 'the world', knowing fully well that he would be laughed out of the room with claims that tower hamlets/hackney are proper safe. y'know, since tower hamlets/hackney are obviously not among the the safest areas in the subject, the uk. n
ow to suggest that tower hamlets/hackney are run by gangs is erroneous but to imply that they are really safe places compared to others, in the uk, is a flat out lie.

perspective people, please!

Totally off-subject but it's been brought up so it needs cleaning up and disinfecting - ie Gerostock's:

As for the Falklands: the only casualties of that conflict worth mourning were the British troops and the tiny number of civilians accidentally killed. ...

So the 275 deaths caused by the sinking of the Belgrano, for instance - these people weren't worth mourning, but the (admittedly indefensible) attacks by some gangs, much exaggerated by the ruling media, during the recent riots has to be considered far worse. It's because of reasoning like this that people justify their cowardice and passivity in the face of the insanity of capital.

Samotnaf

Totally off-subject but it's been brought up so it needs cleaning up and disinfecting - ie Gerostock's:

As for the Falklands: the only casualties of that conflict worth mourning were the British troops and the tiny number of civilians accidentally killed. ...

So the 275 deaths caused by the sinking of the Belgrano, for instance - these people weren't worth mourning, but the (admittedly indefensible) attacks by some gangs, much exaggerated by the ruling media, during the recent riots has to be considered far worse. .

greater Manchester police tweeted his name, at which point his house was firebombed.

Is there any way of tweeting or whatever the names of the Manchester cops or the prison guards who taunted the guy? This isn't just bravado - it's a serious question - I'd do it if i knew how or who.

Gerostock

Lies distortion and stupidity. You say I "basically" lied, based on no more than an admission that I exaggerated slightly.

okay then, you originally claimed that many people you know in Hackney/Tower Hamlets are afraid to leave their homes because of gangs. When challenged, you then said you know one person who got mugged once, not specifying if this was by a gang not. If you could list some of these many people who are afraid to leave their homes, this would be some sort of evidence that you were not lying. As it stands, it looks like you're lying, as I don't know anyone here who is scared to leave their homes. Where do you live, by the way?

You said that the Tower Hamlets/Hackney was the safest place on the planet then changed to the whole of east London when I brought up the crime figures.

I was still using "East London" to refer to Tower Hamlets and Hackney. I'm aware of the crime figures - as I said I've grown up here - and I stand by my point that Hackney/Tower Hamlets are amongst the safest places on the planet.
action_now

i like how steven expanded his point to 'the world', knowing fully well that he would be laughed out of the room with claims that tower hamlets/hackney are proper safe.

I didn't expand my point - that was my point.

ow to suggest that tower hamlets/hackney are run by gangs is erroneous

no one has said that, so I'm not sure why you bring that up. Gerostock stated he knows "many people" scared to leave their homes. I think that is a flat-out lie: that is what I'm discussing.

but to imply that they are really safe places compared to others, in the uk, is a flat out lie.

again, no one has said that. I think you need to reread the discussion if you want to say something relevant to it.

On a more general point, people who talk about how "safe" an area is normally focus on areas highlighted by the media, such as crime. Whereas in fact how "safe" you are is much more dependent on other factors, such as your employer. For example, over 30 times as many people in the UK are killed by their work every year as by a murderer.

perspective people, please!

yes, exactly

Samotnaf

greater Manchester police tweeted his name, at which point his house was firebombed.

Is there any way of tweeting or whatever the names of the Manchester cops or the prison guards who taunted the guy? This isn't just bravado - it's a serious question - I'd do it if i knew how or who.

No because it was tweeted from an official account - http://twitter.com/#!/gmpolice

Mm anecdotally, I'd have to go with Steven here, in my (limited) experience Hackney's not particularly dangerous to live in atm and no-one I know here thinks of it as such (some panicking around the riots aside). I'd assume it gets more so if you're part of the fairly nasty local gang rivalries mind.

Steven.

I was still using "East London" to refer to Tower Hamlets and Hackney. I'm aware of the crime figures - as I said I've grown up here - and I stand by my point that Hackney/Tower Hamlets are amongst the safest places on the planet.

Steven, you might have a basic point here, but you are exaggerating it out of all proportion. East London is of course not amongst the safest places on the planet. According to EU statistics Ankara is the safest capital city in Europe (members and applicants).

To give an example, how many people do you know who have been mugged? It is not that I don't know anybody here who has been, but that I have never even heard of it happening.

Gerostock

Many people I know who lives around Hackney and Tower Hamlets are scared to leave their homes at night because of gangs.

I know East London reasonably well, and I can imagine that this is true. The whole thing though is not about how dangerous it actually is, but that a climate of fear can be created. In a way it is self-fulfilling.

Devrim

Devrim

Steven.

I was still using "East London" to refer to Tower Hamlets and Hackney. I'm aware of the crime figures - as I said I've grown up here - and I stand by my point that Hackney/Tower Hamlets are amongst the safest places on the planet.

Steven, you might have a basic point here, but you are exaggerating it out of all proportion. East London is of course not amongst the safest places on the planet. According to EU statistics Ankara is the safest capital city in Europe (members and applicants).

To give an example, how many people do you know who have been mugged? It is not that I don't know anybody here who has been, but that I have never even heard of it happening.

Gerostock

Many people I know who lives around Hackney and Tower Hamlets are scared to leave their homes at night because of gangs.

I know East London reasonably well, and I can imagine that this is true. The whole thing though is not about how dangerous it actually is, but that a climate of fear can be created. In a way it is self-fulfilling.

Devrim

This could be just a one off of course. But after the last bookfair near Mile end I had some bother with some bengali lads who were trying to get money off me. Every time I have been to whitechapel I have had no trouble but still just one incident like that can create a lot of fear for some people and confirmation bias.

this is going to get us no where trying to determine the rate of crime, its direct connection to organized gangs (which was my original intention of pushing Gerostock's point), the relation to 'safety' policing, and the spatialization of the city and its relation to class (e.g there is no problems in Chelsea not because of policing but because of class segregation).

What is going to compound this difficulty is us pulling from our personal experience. I have lived in both South and East for a few years and only ever experienced the slightest problems down south (which were usually dealt with through conversation believe it or not. once I had a 20 minute convo. with a 'mugger' that told me he had a gun!). This is 'crime' yes, but I don't know if he was a gang member or not. With what is currently being banded around in the public sphere right now though, I bet all these experiences (especially if there is more than one involved) will be put into the anomalous (and quite deliberately so) category of 'gang problems'.

Devrim

Steven.

I was still using "East London" to refer to Tower Hamlets and Hackney. I'm aware of the crime figures - as I said I've grown up here - and I stand by my point that Hackney/Tower Hamlets are amongst the safest places on the planet.

Steven, you might have a basic point here, but you are exaggerating it out of all proportion. East London is of course not amongst the safest places on the planet. According to EU statistics Ankara is the safest capital city in Europe (members and applicants).

well it depends how you define "safe" doesn't it? I'm trying to use quite an objective definition, of safe being your risk of experiencing physical injury or premature death. Whereas you are probably talking about crime statistics, which I do not think an accurate indicator of safety. I couldn't find the exact figures for cities, but Turkey has nearly triple the rate of road deaths as the UK. As well as a life expectancy eight years younger. And I would be very surprised if there weren't more work-related deaths in Turkey than here. So all told I think I'm safer here than most people in the world.

To give an example, how many people do you know who have been mugged? It is not that I don't know anybody here who has been, but that I have never even heard of it happening.

I don't know. I've only ever been mugged once, in Paris. But it doesn't mean I think Paris is really dangerous. And while you might not know people who have been mugged, in Turkey 40,000 people have been killed in the past 30 years in the Kurdistan conflict. There is nothing comparable to that here. And tens of thousands of people have been killed in car accidents. I would rather get mugged than run over.

Gerostock

Many people I know who lives around Hackney and Tower Hamlets are scared to leave their homes at night because of gangs.

I know East London reasonably well, and I can imagine that this is true. The whole thing though is not about how dangerous it actually is, but that a climate of fear can be created. In a way it is self-fulfilling.

sorry Devrim, but how long is it since you have lived in London? Gerostock has even admitted this wasn't true.

There was an interesting article in the Metro today, showing that 88% of Londoners mostly felt safe here, whereas only 48% of survey respondents outside London thought London was safe. You are right about the culture of fear, so I think it's important we don't add to that ourselves with ridiculous exaggerations. The only things that bumpkins outside London hear about our stories about crimes, murders, robberies, drugs, so it's hardly surprising they have a warped view of what it is like here.

Anyway, I'm an admin here and this thread has got way off topic, so we should get back to the riots.

Steven.

Anyway, I'm an admin here and this thread has got way off topic, so we should get back to the riots.

I wanted to reply to this so I put it in Libcommunity: http://libcom.org/forums/libcommunity/london-dangerous-22082011

Devrim

Important piece of writing, 'RIOT POLIT ECON':

http://www.metamute.org/en/news_and_analysis/a_joint_report_of_the_khalid_qureshi_foundation_and_the_chelsea_ives_youth_centre

POLICE RAID ON LOCAL RADICAL PAPER

Police raid on an anarchist paper above.
In the last week, 2 men have been tasered to death by the police and another killed "by pepper spray". All three were reportedly beaten up by numbers of police. At least one of the men had learning difficulties.
Aren't our death squads wonderful?

aloeveraone

POLICE RAID ON LOCAL RADICAL PAPER

I can swear that that read like an article describing state political violence in another country. Something that'd be reported over here as a demonstration of suppression of freedom in a far away land....

Kind of changing conversation slightly, but the last week all the locals in the pub I work at in South London having been talking about Notting Hill Carnival this week as having the potential to kick right off again. Is this just a result of media scaremongering or are people really getting a feeling that's things are changing? Even one Carnival organiser was reported as saying Notting Hill Carnival has always been about protest (which I thought was an odd thing to say to be honest), and he didn't seem as if he minded at all, quite the opposite in fact.

From a barman's perspective, one thing these riots have caused is people are talking about politics. My opinions are often dismissed, but I've found more than a few people who aren't taking the Daily Mail "thug" route, and actually talking about social problems.

I suppose we'll see over this weekend if anything happens in Notting Hill.

This about Notting Hill, from the late 80s, is interesting, and includes stuff on the riots from that epoch. For the riot of '87, see this bit: "THE I987 CARNIVAL AND THE LIMITS OF AN URBAN PACIFICATION", a bit over a third of the way down.

baboon

In the last week, 2 men have been tasered to death by the police and another killed "by pepper spray". All three were reportedly beaten up by numbers of police. At least one of the men had learning difficulties.

In the UK? I haven't heard of this, is there a link? Cheers.

Samotnaf

This about Notting Hill, from the late 80s, is interesting, and includes stuff on the riots from that epoch. For the riot of '87, see this bit: "THE I987 CARNIVAL AND THE LIMITS OF AN URBAN PACIFICATION", a bit over a third of the way down.

Yeah, that is pretty interesting... I was originally thinking that if anything did happen in Notting Hill this year, it would be more to target police than for any looting (thus becoming more outwardly and obviously political), just due to the sheer numbers of police that will be present (6,500 I think). I doubt there would be any advantage in looting, as the shops are few around that area (and those that are will mostly be boarded up like it says in that article), and there will be around 500,000 people going each day. Interesting to see the Carnival being used as a crowd-control testing ground by the Police. And this comment I found interesting:

As regards the police, it makes sense to concentrate on the big crowd-pulling events which are being torn apart particularly in the UK from within. This crisis in the audience/performer nexus is axiomatic if contemporary spectacular society is to breakdown. The crowds are drawn by the performance in any case but what then ensues is on a scale so devastating as to dwarf the clichés of political upheaval and political activism

No one link; I kept thinking that I was reading the same report.
The first was Dale Burns killed in his bed-sit by tasering and eight cops on top of him in Cumbria on August 18.
Philip Hulmes was tasered to death by cops after he barricaded himself in his home in Bolton on August 24.
Jacob Michael, aged 24, was killed on the same day in Widnes by "pepper spray". He had called the police himself. There were plenty of eye-witnesses to this 15 minute assault because it happened in the street where eleven cops jumped on him after the spray. One witness said "What the police did was outrageous... (they were) kneeling on his head... giving him a good kicking (including the one policewoman)... banged his head on the floor and threw him into the van".
It's not just the tactical groups. The examples above in the space of eight days show the cops being unleashed like dogs on what are obviously men with serious mental problems. We need a profound movement of the working class to deal with the murderous democratic state.

Standfield

baboon

In the last week, 2 men have been tasered to death by the police and another killed "by pepper spray". All three were reportedly beaten up by numbers of police. At least one of the men had learning difficulties.

In the UK? I haven't heard of this, is there a link? Cheers.

Links...
Dale Burns dies after being Tasered by police in Barrow
Man hit by police Taser in Bolton died from stab wounds
Pepper spray arrest: Call for calm after Jacob Michael death

I am really confused about the Jacob Michael case (as I am the Demetre Fraser, Kingsley Burrell Brown and Smiley Culture ones), so let me get this straight.

Jacob calls the police....waits for them.....they come and kill him?

Arbeiten

Jacob calls the police....waits for them.....they come and kill him?

Yes.

The Daily Mail story has more details than the BBC. They seem to have pepper-sprayed him in the face, he ran away, then 11 pigs beat him in the street:

'He was handcuffed, on the floor with his legs restrained and they didn't even have the decency to pull up his pants.
'They seemed to be kneeing him in the back of the head. I counted 11 cops. They were all sat on him, giving him a kicking and giving him side digs. There was one woman officer, the rest were men, and she was getting her kicks in as well.
'They were chasing him in the street. I saw it because they chased him in front of my house.
[...]
'His mum told me Jake was the one who rang the police himself, saying that someone was threatening him with a gun.
'They started chasing him and hitting him in the back of the legs with batons. They said, "Why don't you stand up and give yourself some dignity," to him. But he couldn't even stand up after they'd hit him with the batons.
'It was so upsetting to see. I couldn't believe the police could do that. It was like something you see on those TV cop shows.
'I went to speak to his mum. She didn't know what happened. She was mortified when they knocked on her door those hours later and told her, "Your son's died".
'They had banged his head on the floor and they were giving him punches. He was already handcuffed and he was restrained when I saw him. I don't know what happened in the house, I just saw when they were on the street.
'He was shouting, "Help me, help me". He wasn't coherent.

I haven't seen an explanation as to why they attacked the person who called them, but since he was young, male, unemployed and black, maybe no explanation is necessary.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2029173/Jacob-Michael-dies-pepper-sprayed-arrested-ELEVEN-officers.html

Yeah I read that story before. Its fucking crazy. I really want it from another source though because I just don't trust the Daily Hate Mail. All the other coverage has been really shitty, it says he was arrested for affray, but not whether or not it was him who phoned the snorters. Also that picture of his dad is bloody horrible, why do they need to publish that!

I think what he was 'arrested' for is notable as well. Affray. Affray can be anything from brandishing a weapon to scratching your ass in the wrong direction....

Arbeiten

I really want it from another source though because I just don't trust the Daily Hate Mail.

Sure, but do they have an anti-police bias?

no1

Arbeiten

I really want it from another source though because I just don't trust the Daily Hate Mail.

Sure, but do they have an anti-police bias?

Depends. If it's cops vs protesters or strikers, obv they're with the cops all the way. But they're not averse to going off on one about the Orwellian police state trampling on the sacred English liberties of the Magna Carta etc as well. That said, their lawyers would have checked this for libel so even if they're embellishing the narrative I'd imagine they've sourced the basic claims (which seem to be presented as eyewitness quotes, not journalistic assertion).

The Daily Mail was at the forefront of the campaign for the Steven Lawrence family and for the prosecution of his racist killers. I believe that Steven's father worked for the company as a driver. That said, the right wing press is quite capable of being anti-police, anti-racist while being pro-repression and stirring up Islamophobia. It's not unusual.

But the fact remains of 3 men killed by "bobbies on the beat" in very suspicious circumstances in the space of a week.

Sorry to jump into the middle of things here, but we wanted to post something by one of our comrades in the UK.

There will be more discussion/postings of the riots on our blog at

http://internationalist-perspective.org/blog

Fischer

for Internationalist Perspective

---------------------

2011 London Burning – Some Observations

There’s madness in the air – of rioters and rulers, of quite different kinds, and what’s to be made of it? The majority of the population looks on with near-disbelief. But, class activity there is none.

The extent of the riots – in many major cities – following on from the first in London shows that the social conditions and feelings are widespread throughout this country. Clearly, the marginalisation of vast swathes of young people provides the condition from which much of the rage and nihilism comes from. The condition under which they live did not arise from current government policy (as the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, Harman, said this week) but from decades of successive governments restructuring economic activity and stripping out of social life whatever it could to drive down the social wage. As everywhere else in the world, this process has ejected millions from the production process in the UK. So many of our young people see no future in this situation; and they’re right. At the same time, they see the most egregious displays of wealth, the worship of greed by the bankers, the scams by Members of Parliament syphoning outrageous expenses into their pockets, and most recently the exposure of the hugely profitable relationships between journalists, police, lawyers and politicians; everyone knew they were all corrupt, it’s just that the evidence is all pouring out. It’s little wonder that looters talked about ‘taking’ just as the rich did.

Many swept on by social adrenaline were caught up in the action. Rioting and looting are not the same thing. Youngsters and children involved. Fights with the police. Targeting the more impersonal stores; also some iconic brands. But also a wildness that led to looting of small local shops, setting fire to homes and to killings; effectively turning against their own neighbours. It wasn’t just unemployed youth and children; those turning up at the courts have included adult employed.

This looting and arson had nothing to do with the social distribution of unobtainable necessities; it was a physical re-enactment of what the bourgeoisie does to society. So far as I’ve found yet, there was no class content. Regarding positive collective activity, this could be seen in local people getting together to defend their neighbourhoods. In other words, they were defending their neighbourhoods, not against the violence of the thugs of a Maghreb state but against the madness of local young people. However, there was a current of thoughtfulness to which I’ll return.

The madness in the state and in the ruling class is of a different kind – reaching from their side of the streets all the way to the global markets – and shows in the tortuous issues and relationships that entwine the bourgeoisie. In Tottenham, the current events were triggered in the aftermath of what appears to have been yet another summary state execution in an undercover police operation. The callousness of the police to the family of the victim was evident – and not that unusual – and certainly riled local people. In the police reaction then and over the next few days, the already severe tensions between them and the government have only heightened. On top of the plans for large cuts in police budgets and manpower London’s Metropolitan Police has had its Chief Commissioner and an Assistant Chief Commissioner resign in recent weeks over their roles in the phone-hacking rackets. The lack of ‘appropriate response’ to the riots, as the politicians now put it, might well be seen as a warning to the government of the consequences of acting against their interests. And even now the police spokesmen and the government are still slagging each other off publicly while the embers of the street fires have not yet cooled.

Not that the police are not the only ones pressing on the government. Industry – particularly the SMEs (small and medium enterprises) – are still complaining vociferously about the behaviour of the banks towards them and the difficulty of getting the kind of financing they need to expand. They want the government to do more to support this section of industry. The military rumble on about the commitments they are given while budgets shrink. The Health Service is being turned into a shambles. These budget cuts are digging into all aspects of the state and most other sections of capital; the favoured area remains the financial services sector. Still the government stands on its policy of hard spending cuts to the worry of more sections of the ruling class. It would seem that its objective is still to look to finance as a way of staving off the effects of the global crisis. This week the Chancellor, Osborne, was still banging on about the importance of having the world see the UK as a haven, a refuge for global capital. Of course, the sight of London Burning does not fit the image for a politically and socially stable haven for their capital.

The recent scandals and the new-found courage of British politicians to criticise the Murdoch empire have provided a smokescreen that has diverted public attention in the UK away from the worsening state of the world economy and the shenanigans in the Eurozone. Osborne and the other European finance ministers all know that the economic outlook is dire and just don’t know what to do. They can see that they have no solution – but they have to do something. They are faced with a system that is awash with money, and it is nonetheless bankrupt. No wonder they exude a sense of madness. (The behaviour of the US political class over the debt ceiling legislation shows that the UK bourgeoisie is not alone.)

They may have no solution to their problems but the UK ruling class – like all others – will have to follow some course of action, part of which will be to face up to the social disaffection across the country. When they have sorted out their disputes with the police, whatever else, they will turn on the streets and we’ll all be targets. It will be soon.

I said there is evidence of a current of thoughtfulness. Although the media has focussed on ‘mindlessness’ and ‘criminality’ and continues to set up interviews to denounce or to drown discussion into moralistic pap, some people on the streets have had sound reflections on the events. It was impressive how many people – some were victims of specific actions – said that they were against the actions but could see where the young people were coming from and why they had erupted. Others asked ‘why were we looting shops? – in Egypt they went for the government’. There were also insightful social critiques accompanied by a sense that this was not the way forward; these, of course, are a minority voice on television.

Anger is necessary to want to revolt against the system, but this mix of rage and opportunism had no perspective. For me it shows the absolute necessity for a class expression that can provide a context for the development of consciousness, and a focus for collective action. Outside of this, explosions of anger can be dangerously self-defeating. I don’t know how this is to come about, and it has been frustrating not to have seen more explicit political expression. It certainly shows that immiseration on its own doesn’t generate consciousness. We’ll see what develops in the aftermath.

Marlowe / 12 August 2011

———————————————————

Afterword

The judicial conveyor belt is running at full speed: over 1400 people have been sentenced so far as the courts stay open day and night. Exemplary sentences are being handed out to rioters and looters not only pour décourager les autres but also as a ‘respectable’ vent for the bourgeoisie’s own anger.

The riots have been a godsend to the police as they fight against the budget and manpower cuts the government wants to make and hostilities have been open over the past couple of weeks. Exchanges of blows and insults have been overt and covert. Cameron has taken on the American ‘supercop’ William Bratton as unpaid advisor onto the UK government concerning gang violence; the Independent (sic) Police Complaints Commission exonerating the recently-resigned Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Deputy Commissioner and others from misconduct over the phone-hacking scandal. More hidden arguments are taking place within the appointment process for the next Metropolitan Police Commissioner.

Other sections of the bourgeoisie are groping for the public explanation for the riots. ‘Sheer criminality and nothing else’, goes one refrain. Cameron has resurrected his ‘broken society’ bleat, a more difficult metaphor for his right wing to deal with given the actual experience of the riots. Both he and Miliband, the Labour opposition leader, talk of the moral decay in British society; Blair now enters the domestic scene arguing against his classmates to appeal for a focus on dealing with people who are ‘beyond the pale’. Decoded, the argument is about how much is to be dealt with by modified social policies and how much by state repression. To date, they seem to be searching for some background set of conditions that can be superficially addressed with legislative measures and – in the foreground – a gang culture that can be explicitly targeted by the police. All the arguments about what are the appropriate cuts and expenditures takes place in the context of the austerity promoted as a result of the global crisis.

But not only is this the context within which the ruling class in the UK has to decide how to deal with economic problems and social challenges, it is the context for all the social processes taking place today. There have been decades of corrosion of social and individual worth by the relentless development of the value-form exacerbated by politico-cultural specificities in different parts of the country. In Northern Ireland, the violence of the para-militaries is again on the streets – with bombs and bullets – showing up the so-called peace process for what it is. In Scotland, sectarian hostilities have been intensifying and they are again on the devolved national agenda. The explosion of anger seen on the English streets a few weeks ago has its specificities – including the police activity in major cities against young people, and especially against racial minorities. Also, in vast swathes of the country – particularly in Midlands and Northern areas of England – that were at one time based on heavy industries and have little perspective for future employment or re-building..

As Marxists, we always look for expressions of the development of consciousness within activity that is directed against the structures of capitalist society. What do we see here? The riots were inchoate, the looting directed towards expensive personal consumer items with no political project and did not show any challenge to capitalist norms. No class struggle is ‘pure’, without the accompaniment of ‘rioting’ and ‘disorder’ to a greater or lesser extent in the wider society. But, if the riots cannot be considered as ‘just gangsterism’ even if there were gang elements present, neither was there a conscious class dimension. And to my mind, the idea of an unconscious rejection of commodity relations implicit in some critiques is a non-starter. All of the social unrest we see across the world has roots in the deepening crisis of capitalism and with it has come substantial variations in political consciousness. The English riots share the same roots and illustrate the futility of reaction when there is no expression of communisation and a political project. There were a few brave souls within the mayhem who called for a redirection of energies (see Youtube for examples); future confrontations with the state will need a very different expression.

Marlowe

to my mind, the idea of an unconscious rejection of commodity relations implicit in some critiques is a non-starter. All of the social unrest we see across the world has roots in the deepening crisis of capitalism and with it has come substantial variations in political consciousness. The English riots share the same roots and illustrate the futility of reaction when there is no expression of communisation and a political project.

But it wasn't totally "unconscious" was it - though they didn't quote Volumes 1 to 300 of Marx's "Capital", many looters, insofar as they made their voices heard, expressed a hatred of the cops, the rich and of the corrupt politicians; obvious, banal even, but no more an unconscious rejection of commodity relations than a wildcat strike or other forms of independent opposition; moreover, the movements in Egypt's "political" consciousness is also not a conscious rejection of commodity relations and has/had various illusions in authority figures. There, the "political project" you refer to is almost invariably a reform of the State (not that these illusions mean that there hasn't and doesn't continue to be significant independent social opposition).
Since the riots have happened it's completely useless saying they don't show the way forward: aspects of them do, other aspects force people to either think of ways of suppressing those aspects of these riots that were anti-working class and encouraging those aspects that involved an element of a class conscious rejection of exchange value (though not put in these terms of course) or of siding with the State to protect them against the stupid and nasty aspects (which really would be self-defeating) which would inevitably also be against the more radical aspects. In this sense the riots should be forcing people to strive for a way forward, which their absence would not have done.

if "class consciousness" is to be more than "consciously" reproducing its existence as a class in capitalist relations it has to do with at least a feeling of revolt against society, and the more it leads into action the better. if it has to do with a revolutionnary movement class consciousness and class activity has to be acting against society in a way or in another.
only something that moves can go forward. if people are not acting or expressing their revolt you don't have somehing that can go forward...

This looting and arson had nothing to do with the social distribution of unobtainable necessities; it was a physical re-enactment of what the bourgeoisie does to society. So far as I’ve found yet, there was no class content

so social wealth appropriation by the bourgeoisie and looting by working class people are the same?
looting have nothing to do with the class situation of the looters? breaking with private property has nothing to do with some kind of class activity and consciousness?

What do we see here? The riots were inchoate, the looting directed towards expensive personal consumer items with no political project and did not show any challenge to capitalist norms

some people only see in looting the want for commodity. but it's not only that. that looters not only want it. they want it for free. and they take it against the law. and something you have for free is no more a commodity. consumers get commodities, they're buying it. looters don't buy it, they just take it.

of course looting is not a replacement of commodity relations. it needs more than rioting or looting.
of course a riot is not a revolution. what what is the point of accusing a riot for not being a revolution?
a riot if not a revolution but there will be no revolution if people don't even riot (or express their revolt in some other way).
a strike is also not a revolution. do you look down at strike, saying, I don't see no expression of communisation in it...

The English riots share the same roots and illustrate the futility of reaction when there is no expression of communisation and a political project

better rioting and lootings than no reaction...
and is regretting the futility of the riots such a constructive reaction?

Anger is necessary to want to revolt against the system, but this mix of rage and opportunism had no perspective

regretting the lack of perspective don't get you nowhere, it's in action that people will get perspectives, not by reading revolutionnary cookbook...
(I don't mean that people formulating and developping revolutionnary theories is not useful, but most people will mainly learn from taking an actual part in class struggle and anyway even those formulating in theoretical way the revolutionnary perspectives do it starting from the struggles. the perspective comes from the struggle much more than the other way round...)

No class struggle is ‘pure’, without the accompaniment of ‘rioting’ and ‘disorder’ to a greater or lesser extent in the wider society. [...], neither was there a conscious class dimension

so "pure" class struggle would have to be orderly, polite, respectable?
that is nonsense...
do you need people declaiming Marx while throwing bricks to the cops, or gathering to vote statement about communisation?
where can you expect class consciousness in riot apart from the rioting in itself? (even without mentionning that police brutality started it. would a demo against it been more appropriate? or nothing short than crushing the state? )
the revolt expressed in rioting is in itself class consciousness.

it seems that for some people "class content" means following their "politcal project"...
it seems like for some people class activity has not to be a rejection of capitalist society but a confirmation of their "political project"...

ans as Samotnaf said the best thing to do against the bad aspects of the riots is pushing forward what was good in it.

it seems that for some people "class content" means following their "politcal project"...
it seems like for some people class activity has not to be a rejection of capitalist society but a confirmation of their "political project"...

ans as Samotnaf said the best thing to do against the bad aspects of the riots is pushing forward what was good in it.

I agree with piter and Samotnaf here. I have to say that IP's response, as posted by fischerzed, is one of the weakest I've seen - I suspect, pretty indistinguishable in many respects from standard leftist responses (I suspect because I can't be arsed to wade through a lot of the verbiage of standard left stuff - there are many better analyses worth taking time on).

Marlowe’s formulations "class activity there is none" and "so far as I've found yet, there was no class content" do create the impression that IP thinks that the riots were not a struggle of (strata of) the working class, and thus that the participants were either 'lumpen proletariat' or 'underclass' or criminal gangs or acted as individuals, simply reflecting the power of capitalist ideology, or more profoundly, of the value-form. I am not saying Marlowe is saying this, but it seems implied. The advantage of that is, the honor of the working class is saved, by separating it from struggles that are wild outbursts of pent-up anger and frustration, that are without rudder or direction, that sometimes take forms that affirm the value-form, imitate capitalism in its plundering and indiscriminate violence. But judging from the arrest-records, the participants were overwhemingly working class, employed and unemployed. They acted clearly collectively, against the police, against the stores. I don't see how we can claim that there was no class struggle there. There was clearly also involvment of criminals using the occasion to be criminals but we cannot reduce the whole event to just that, like the mass media tend to do.
That doesn't mean that we should applaud it. Nor does it imply that the UK riots will have a positive impact on the development of revolutionary consciousness -that remains to be seen. I think we should be uncompromising in our critique of the riots, but also that the critique should recognize that such riots are indeed class struggle, and will probably become more frequent and intense in the coming years, whether we like it or not.
But if the class struggle would remain limited to riots, no matter how intense they’d be, it would be doomed. Struggle at the points of production is indispensable to give the working class struggle both power and perspective. But in that struggle, the anger and energy displayed by young rebels in the UK, the "current of thoughtfulness" that Marlowe recognized, will also be a much needed ingredient. So rather than distancing ourselves from the rioters, our critique should attack that distance, aim at overcoming it. I agree that "the best thing to do against the bad aspects of the riots is pushing forward what was good in it”.

But if the class struggle would remain limited to riots, no matter how intense they’d be, it would be doomed. Struggle at the points of production is indispensable to give the working class struggle both power and perspective. But in that struggle, the anger and energy displayed by young rebels in the UK, the "current of thoughtfulness" that Marlowe recognized, will also be a much needed ingredient

yes. struggles must develop both inside and outside production (and will have to overcome in the end the separation between the two as it must abolish work as a separated sphere). and indeed it must display both thoughtfullness and anger and energy (and creativity I would add. but I guess some creativity had been displayed in the riots).

the direct production of commodities must be attacked, but another production must be attacked, the production of everyday life, the production of the whole of capitalists relationships, and in that regards struggling outside production can be strongness and understanding if it's aimed at the global reproduction of capital.
maybe the riots didn't achieved to do that, but we can't say about any struggle that it's not class struggle because it didn't occur in the workplaces. workplaces are highly strategic for the working class but if it wants to abolish itself as a class then its struggle must be aimed against all the aspects of capitalist reproduction, against the production of capitalist relationships in every places.

The question is not that class struggles cannot take place outside the point of production. We have been seeing many examples of this in the proletarian dimension of the social revolts going on in Greece, Spain, Egypt etc. The question is whether the form and methods of a movement permit the unification of the working class against capital. The assemblies and occupations in those movements do permit that. The original demonstration in Tottenham against the police also contained that possibility. The wave of looting that, however comprehensible, followed the police attack on the demonstration did not; in fact it tended to exacerbate divisions within the class, and deviated energies from the original focus of the protest, providing a context where the more anti-social actions (muggings, torching of buildings with people still inside, etc) could take place on what appeared to be a growing scale. The question that needs to be answered is why did the 'bad' things (even if they were obviously given maximum attention by the press) come to dominate the whole situation so quickly?

The question is whether the form and methods of a movement permit the unification of the working class against capital. The assemblies and occupations in those movements do permit that. The original demonstration in Tottenham against the police also contained that possibility. The wave of looting that, however comprehensible, followed the police attack on the demonstration did not

maybe you are not interested by situations where a party cannot exercise its activity in the way you like...some others don't share this concern...

anyway, unity is well and good, but it's easier to have unity on the basis of reformist politics as in Spain than to have it on the basis of fighting the police or looting...
it don't means that chatting about democratic reforms is better than fighting the police or rioting...or is it?

unity is good, but the question is also : unity on what grounds?

I guess you are not an advocates of "popular fronts" so I think you can easily understand that rejecting some working class activity on the basis of the concern for "unity" can be quite problematic...

of course what you call anti-social actions is a concern and must be criticized sharply, but rejecting the riots because of that is "throwing the baby with the bathwater".

and is the deviation of energies from the original focus, as you said, really a problem? I don't think so. I don't think it would have been better if it had stayed on the ground of a protest against police brutality (which is good, but in the riots there was in some ways expressions of a more global reject of the power of the bourgeoisie).

and I'm not sure about the "growing scale" of anti-social actions, and "that it quickly dominated the whole situation".that's your interpretation of it...
frankly, I think that you paint it this way because its suits better your a priori position about riots...
I feel (but I hope that I am wrong) that maybe what I said above apply to you as well. that is :

"it seems that for some people "class content" means following their "political project"...
it seems like for some people class activity has not to be a rejection of capitalist society but a confirmation of their "political project"...

piter

The question is whether the form and methods of a movement permit the unification of the working class against capital. The assemblies and occupations in those movements do permit that. The original demonstration in Tottenham against the police also contained that possibility. The wave of looting that, however comprehensible, followed the police attack on the demonstration did not

maybe you are not interested by situations where a party cannot exercise its activity in the way you like...some others don't share this concern...

anyway, unity is well and good, but it's easier to have unity on the basis of reformist politics as in Spain than to have it on the basis of fighting the police or looting...
it don't means that chatting about democratic reforms is better than fighting the police or rioting...or is it?

unity is good, but the question is also : unity on what grounds?

I guess you are not an advocates of "popular fronts" so I think you can easily understand that rejecting some working class activity on the basis of the concern for "unity" can be quite problematic...

of course what you call anti-social actions is a concern and must be criticized sharply, but rejecting the riots because of that is "throwing the baby with the bathwater".

and is the deviation of energies from the original focus, as you said, really a problem? I don't think so. I don't think it would have been better if it had stayed on the ground of a protest against police brutality (which is good, but in the riots there was in some ways expressions of a more global reject of the power of the bourgeoisie).

and I'm not sure about the "growing scale" of anti-social actions, and "that it quickly dominated the whole situation".that's your interpretation of it...
frankly, I think that you paint it this way because its suits better your a priori position about riots...
I feel (but I hope that I am wrong) that maybe what I said above apply to you as well. that is :

"it seems that for some people "class content" means following their "political project"...
it seems like for some people class activity has not to be a rejection of capitalist society but a confirmation of their "political project"...

Piter, I think your instincts on this are pretty spot on and thoughtfully put.

yes interesting comments, but can you explain why you think this:

piter

in the riots there was in some ways expressions of a more global reject of the power of the bourgeoisie.

piter

and I'm not sure about the "growing scale" of anti-social actions, and "that it quickly dominated the whole situation".that's your interpretation of it...
frankly, I think that you paint it this way because its suits better your a priori position about riots...

I think you're probably right in your characterisation of the ICC posters, but certainly public perception of the riots was thus, and this perception doesn't just inform the static, spectator 'public' but also those considering or actually participating in the disorder. I mean, the media basically painted a picture of a London that was temporarily ungovernable so a lot of people mobilised (for a variety of ends) cos of the opportunity that they thought that presented.

And indeed, by Monday night, there were vans pulling up in Walworth Rd, talk of orders being made by black market contacts (watch the Sky interviews with the looters), whole streets burning in Croydon, deaths in Birmingham, and so on.

can you explain why you think this:
piter wrote:

in the riots there was in some ways expressions of a more global reject of the power of the bourgeoisie.

no1, doing this in a really satisfying way would need some time and documentation...

but I'll give you a quick and incomplete answer with a few remarks :

-from what I read some rioters were quite vocal about their opposition to those in power.
-some of the targets were symbols of state power and/or capitalist society.
-the combination of fights with the police and lootings indicates a fight on both political and economic grounds.
-even the absence of demands and representatives can in some way indicate a rejection of classical politics and a global reject of society the way it is now. proposing no alternative can be more awareness than following illusory ones, an awareness that the problem can't be solved by the alternatives proposed on the "political market" because it is at a deeper level.
(this can be said about the majority of riots maybe, but It seems to me that, to some extent, the last UK riots showed these features)

I 'm sure some people here can complete this list or develop the few points I make here, and I'm sure it can be done better if you search through all documents about the riots...

piter wrote:

and I'm not sure about the "growing scale" of anti-social actions, and "that it quickly dominated the whole situation".that's your interpretation of it...
frankly, I think that you paint it this way because its suits better your a priori position about riots...

I think you're probably right in your characterisation of the ICC posters, but certainly public perception of the riots was thus, and this perception doesn't just inform the static, spectator 'public' but also those considering or actually participating in the disorder. I mean, the media basically painted a picture of a London that was temporarily ungovernable so a lot of people mobilised (for a variety of ends) cos of the opportunity that they thought that presented.

And indeed, by Monday night, there were vans pulling up in Walworth Rd, talk of orders being made by black market contacts (watch the Sky interviews with the looters), whole streets burning in Croydon, deaths in Birmingham, and so on.

it will take some time to get a clear view and more precise evaluation of what had been really going on during the riots..
but the extension of the riots (more actors in it, more neighbourhoods and more cities involved, etc...) implies a growing scale for all aspects in the riots, the bad ones yes, but also the good ones. of course as it grows it also evolves. but it's hard to tell what aspects grew faster (I guess in some places it get worse, in some others better, in some new place it started mainly with the good aspects, in some other new places not, etc...).

Piter: at some point, I will show you my "political project" if you show me yours. But forget my particular politics. Caiman's post makes it pretty clear that things had already taken a dark turn by Monday night at least, and that this was not just a media creation.

piter

maybe you are not interested by situations where a party cannot exercise its activity in the way you like...some others don't share this concern...

Not sure what you're referring to here - is there any (revolutionary) political party in the UK that has one iota of influence in the wider working class at this present moment? I don't think so.

unity is good, but the question is also : unity on what grounds?

I guess you are not an advocates of "popular fronts" so I think you can easily understand that rejecting some working class activity on the basis of the concern for "unity" can be quite problematic...

That's a good question and point. But I think the question is more important, on what basis do we call for 'unity'? The reason I would reject calls for 'popular' fronts' is because they almost invariably involve leftists / trot groups making calls for unity with groups and individuals from all classes - from workers through to liberals up to 'sympathetic' MPs.... they're a distraction from genuine working class perspectives and are aimed at recuperating some movement / action.

of course what you call anti-social actions is a concern and must be criticized sharply, but rejecting the riots because of that is "throwing the baby with the bathwater".

I'm glad we agree that there were some concerning elements of the riots - perhaps you could elaborate what, for you, was concerning?

Regarding 'rejecting the riots' - I don't think alf, myself or the ICC has said that we 'reject the riots'. The statement on our website went to great pains to place the riots in a context, to explain where there had come from, to point out the moral bankruptcy of the ruling class in its condemnation of the rioters and then to try to explain why some elements of these events were negative for class struggle generally. In particular:

(my emphasis)

I personally don't understand some of the comments made towards the ICC. On the other threads (ALARM, SOLFED text) discussing the riots various posters expressed doubts about aspects of the events and there was a discussion. The ICC makes some points about some negative aspects and we just get abused. :confused:

Miles writes: I personally don't understand some of the comments made towards the ICC
Well, I’ve got serious issues with the ICC , and also reckon their presentation can often alienate folk. But I also get very pissed off at the banal level of some of the criticism they get from a few on this site.
Piter’s recent posts are an example, and despite winning the approval of a couple of others, come across as pretty petty.
Attacking the ICC, he writes;
some people only see in looting the want for commodity. but it's not only that - Yup, that’s right. Which is what the ICC says.
a strike is also not a revolution. do you look down at strike, saying, I don't see no expression of communisation in it... Strikes are intrinsically about communisation –bewildered by the point being made here.
of course a riot is not a revolution. what what is the point of accusing a riot for not being a revolution? The ICC made this accusation? Buggrit, I musta been reading the wrong ICC stuff.
regretting the lack of perspective don't get you nowhere, it's in action that people will get perspectives, not by reading revolutionnary cookbook... Yup, again quite right. Now who else says that? Oh, aye, the fecking ICC.
so "pure" class struggle would have to be orderly, polite, respectable? that is nonsense...
Yup, nonsense. Which is perhaps why nobody was arguing such bollocks.
I guess you are not an advocates of "popular fronts". Difficult to follow Piter’s meaning here. Of course the ICC aren’t advocates of “popular fronts”, as Miles points out . Even the slightest contact with their politics would have confirmed this. They rightly see support for “popular fronts” as always a betrayal of working class interests. They’ve written exhaustively on this for more than 35 years – try their website.
I could go on through his posts, but I’m losing the will to live.

There’s been some good comment on this thread; useful contributions towards developing all our understanding of what has happened and why it happened. I reckon the ICC’s, (and the ICT’s and IP’s ) statements on their sites have been excellent and useful too. Folk will disagree and debate some (or maybe much) of the things they say, which is both fine and welcome on a forum for debate, but the invention of straw men is tiresome. Criticise the ICC on the basis of what they write (which will probably involve reading them) rather than on some fevered imaginings. ( That ICC lot – they’re Stalinists you know, and Trots, and Leninists, and Jesuits, and they all want to be commissars ordering folk about, and they eat babies too.)

shug

Miles writes: I personally don't understand some of the comments made towards the ICC
Well, I’ve got serious issues with the ICC , and also reckon their presentation can often alienate folk. But I also get very pissed off at the banal level of some of the criticism they get from a few on this site.
Piter’s recent posts are an example, and despite winning the approval of a couple of others, come across as pretty petty.
Attacking the ICC, he writes;
some people only see in looting the want for commodity. but it's not only that - Yup, that’s right. Which is what the ICC says.
a strike is also not a revolution. do you look down at strike, saying, I don't see no expression of communisation in it... Strikes are intrinsically about communisation –bewildered by the point being made here.
of course a riot is not a revolution. what what is the point of accusing a riot for not being a revolution? The ICC made this accusation? Buggrit, I musta been reading the wrong ICC stuff.
regretting the lack of perspective don't get you nowhere, it's in action that people will get perspectives, not by reading revolutionnary cookbook... Yup, again quite right. Now who else says that? Oh, aye, the fecking ICC.
so "pure" class struggle would have to be orderly, polite, respectable? that is nonsense...
Yup, nonsense. Which is perhaps why nobody was arguing such bollocks.
I guess you are not an advocates of "popular fronts". Difficult to follow Piter’s meaning here. Of course the ICC aren’t advocates of “popular fronts”, as Miles points out . Even the slightest contact with their politics would have confirmed this. They rightly see support for “popular fronts” as always a betrayal of working class interests. They’ve written exhaustively on this for more than 35 years – try their website.
I could go on through his posts, but I’m losing the will to live.

There’s been some good comment on this thread; useful contributions towards developing all our understanding of what has happened and why it happened. I reckon the ICC’s, (and the ICT’s and IP’s ) statements on their sites have been excellent and useful too. Folk will disagree and debate some (or maybe much) of the things they say, which is both fine and welcome on a forum for debate, but the invention of straw men is tiresome. Criticise the ICC on the basis of what they write (which will probably involve reading them) rather than on some fevered imaginings. ( That ICC lot – they’re Stalinists you know, and Trots, and Leninists, and Jesuits, and they all want to be commissars ordering folk about, and they eat babies too.)

Yes. "Some good comment... useful contributions... why?... ICC... (ICT... IP...)... excellent and useful too... disagree... debate... fine and welcome on a forum for debate [wot, no-where else?] ...straw men... tiresome... fevered imaginings"

Miles said:

abuse

Shug, concerning the first text I commented, I didn't even knew it was from the ICC (and I am still not sure it is...).
I criticised the text (not really knowing were it came from), and the general attitude of some group (if the ICC felt attacked that's not my problem) of judging strugle with a priori and with their own perspective in mind, like with a check list, seeing it good or bad depending to what degree it fits their politics. If you think that no groups are doing that then you are maybe a bit naive I would say...
it's okay to have a political project, but the actual movements don't have to fit anyone's political project, they just achieve their own course, progressing or not towards communism in their own complex ways...and if they don't express explicitly a political project(or anti political) of their own it doesn't mean that they are no good or not thoughtfull enough...emancipation can express and progress in many ways...

concerning popular fronts I think we agree, that was my point, you know that the concern for unity is not every time a good thing, depends on what for and and what ground unity is...

Rank, I don't get your point...

Some random comments on various points in this discussion:

If as miles suggest there are no 'revolutionary' political parties (or groups) with an iota of influence in the wider working class what is the significance of a discussion around '..the basis on which we call for unity' ?

I suspect piter's questioning of the emphasis being placed on the need for unity relates to the suspicion that these are often made on the basis of some pre-formed abstract political programme and that they ignore the potential arising from an initial confrontation and negotiation between sections of workers from positions of power developed in the course of practical struggles (recognising that there are significant differencies in power relations within the class as between waged and unwaged, black and white, men and women, young and old etc).

There is also a tendency in political groups of the left and ultra-left to understand struggles entirely in terms of their consciously and publicly expressed reasons rather than any other objective material significance they may have.

By the way whatever most day to day (rather than mass ) strikes might have over the riots in their temporary collective refusal of wage labour they are far from expressing an intrinsic 'communisation'

I can agree with some of the views expressed on the recent riots/looting by the ICC, ICT and IP (especially with Sanders qualification) but they are far from the best that have appeared on this website in expressing a fuller analysis or balance sheet emphasising as they have all the most negative aspects.

Alf

Caiman's post makes it pretty clear that things had already taken a dark turn by Monday night at least, and that this was not just a media creation.

God, what a crude, modernist characterisation of my comment. Piter did a much better job of showing how actually the disorder as a whole escalated and multiplied, leading to more organised, high profile acts.

As for the role of the media, I wanted to show that it acted to fan the flames and perpetuate the disorder via its publicisation - and demonisation - of it. This is pretty much the same thing as what happened towards the end of the student protests. By Dec 9 in Parliament Square, it was seemingly inevitable that it would turn violent, which in itself, attracted a lot of folk who were up for participating in anti-police violence.

God, what a crude, modernist characterisation of my comment

Modernist? In what sense? Like Bauhaus, or like Camatte? In any case, perhaps I have misunderstood what you were saying, but it certainly looked to me like you were providing evidence that the negative elements very quickly took centre stage.

“And indeed, by Monday night, there were vans pulling up in Walworth Rd, talk of orders being made by black market contacts (watch the Sky interviews with the looters), whole streets burning in Croydon, deaths in Birmingham, and so on”.

No doubt the media were fanning the flames. Nonetheless these developments were real and require explanation. I have expressed the view that these developments were made all the more likely by the fact that looting had already become the main focus of the riots. I don’t think you have answered this.

trots vs. zizek:
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/aug2011/zize-a27.shtml

Alf

No doubt the media were fanning the flames. Nonetheless these developments were real and require explanation.

Yes but these 'real developments' were in part influenced by the media's trumpeting of the disorder. Media (including social media) played a massive role in spreading the disorder, making it go viral.

I have expressed the view that these developments were made all the more likely by the fact that looting had already become the main focus of the riots. I don’t think you have answered this.

Again, the media's focus on the most spectacular or antisocial acts (that burning carpet store in Croydon on loop for instance) played its part in that. We simply don't know much of what happened on a lower scale (or even away from the media's gaze, ie on Deptford High St), even on Monday night.

The Independent Working Class Association have their say on the riots:

http://www.iwca.info/?p=10184

I suppose that the two posted links above, without a fuller introduction, is the reason this important discussion has dropped down the list a bit. I have only just finnished reading both the trot criticism of Zizek and the IWCA article, but I think it is worth recent contributors having a look and commenting on both, because it struck me that the IWCA article seemed to reinforce some of the more straightforwardly negative views expressed by left communists here, which in turn also reflected the conservative views of the 'post modernist' Zizek - a strange overlap between otherwise political opponents.

Perhaps the problem in this whole discussion lies with people seeking to overlay their preformed political analysis (even where based on some previous experience of apparently similar events) on new events, in changed circumstances, and equally the desire of competing political groups in our milieu to distinguish their brand in the market place of ideas.

Thus analysis (with some exceptions) becomes polarised and the possibility of their being some half truths in the competing analysis, resulting from the events being more complex and contradictory in practice than the theories of the specialists in political analysis, is often overlooked.

Some respect is due to those writers who have real experience (unlike me) of the situations and events that have been discussed here, but few have a wide, or in depth, enough experience to allow, even now, a full understanding of these events.

We should all be prepared to amend our initial thoughts about these events the more we find out.

Most rioters not in gangs, admits May: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-14834827

Not quite sure what to make of this. It certainly demonstrates the vacuity of British political debate over the riots (largely instigated by Theresa fucking May herself incidentally), but then, taking into account the equally broad and problematic term of 'gangster' in itself, it sorta feels like the Home Office have been attemptign to measure a piece of string.

I feel vindicated by May's statement, especially given how ridiculous the whole 'gang' discussion has got (both from certain members of libcom and the wider general public).

http://youtu.be/Zmo8DG1gno4

can't remember if I already posted this here but well worth a watch.

'Jailed rioters are being targeted by existing inmates because prison conditions have been made worse by the influx of prisoners following last month's civil unrest, Channel 4 News has learned...'

http://www.channel4.com/news/jailed-rioters-being-targeted-by-existing-inmates

and

“Are we paying people just to come and kill us?”: London family subject to brutal police raid speaks out

Where are all the sanctimonious liberals now hey?

can't remember if I already posted this here but well worth a watch.

You may have posted it before because I have seen it, or something very similar with the guy's face on camera. But no matter if you did: it's one of the clearest statements from someone at the heart of what happened.

That link to the family getting their house raided is nuts!

Arbeiten

That link to the family getting their house raided is nuts!

It's nuts, it's crazy, and it's.... well, it's no suprise. After the riots, police went on with their Operation Withern, a proper retribution campaign. This is a scare-campaign also, to see how omnipotent they are. Of course, it comes in vain since they are only big guys after the riots, picking the suspects one-by-one.

It's unfortunate that no organised resistance sprung up against this but it shows how under-developed is our solidarity in general. We allow these filths to terrorise our neighbourhoods without any serious resistance. The autumn is approaching with prospects of nationwide rank'n'file spectacles, marches and one day industrial actions whilst the prisons gets overcrowded with our brothers and sisters, but the "public focus" has already moved on. We need to do better than this, a lot better!

yes, I have read/heard that a lot. The question is how/when, with whom? I saw a rousing speech from a guy in Tottenham about the need to have late night call outs to turn up to police raids but it never materialized into action :roll:

soc

It's unfortunate that no organised resistance sprung up against this but it shows how under-developed is our solidarity in general. We allow these filths to terrorise our neighbourhoods without any serious resistance. The autumn is approaching with prospects of nationwide rank'n'file spectacles, marches and one day industrial actions whilst the prisons gets overcrowded with our brothers and sisters, but the "public focus" has already moved on.

Well quite, and this is the gaping hole in class struggle theory. Those without unions, without workplaces, what can they (we!) do? Sit quietly and pray that those with access to the means of production will save us?

Caiman del barrio wrote :
Well quite, and this is the gaping hole in class struggle theory. Those without unions, without workplaces, what can they (we!) do? Sit quietly and pray that those with access to the means of production will save us?

even those able to struggle collectively withe their fellow worker on their workplace would fail if they don't also wage their struggle outside the wokplaces and also outside concerns about work.

we have to develop new kinds of associations or communities to replace capitalsits relations and if worplaces associations have a place in this and can be a start we must not restrict ourself to it (even for those active in workplaces). maybe it has been a start for the revolutionnary movement (with a few other try) but its victory implies going beyond it.

I wouldn't say it shows gap in class strule theory, it shows that class struggle theory must includes every forms of struggle going towards the abolition of classes.
if class struggle is to be a revolutionnary struggle it must means struggle to abolish classes (that implies stuggle against every forms of commodified and hierarchical relations).

Miles: personally don't understand some of the comments made towards the ICC. On the other threads (ALARM, SOLFED text) discussing the riots various posters expressed doubts about aspects of the events and there was a discussion. The ICC makes some points about some negative aspects and we just get abused.

Shug: Miles writes: I personally don't understand some of the comments made towards the ICC
Well, I’ve got serious issues with the ICC , and also reckon their presentation can often alienate folk. But I also get very pissed off at the banal level of some of the criticism they get from a few on this site.
Piter’s recent posts are an example, and despite winning the approval of a couple of others, come across as pretty petty.
Attacking the ICC, he writes;
some people only see in looting the want for commodity. but it's not only that- Yup, that’s right. Which is what the ICC says.
a strike is also not a revolution. do you look down at strike, saying, I don't see no expression of communisation in it... Strikes are intrinsically about communisation –bewildered by the point being made here.
of course a riot is not a revolution. what what is the point of accusing a riot for not being a revolution? The ICC made this accusation? Buggrit, I musta been reading the wrong ICC stuff.
regretting the lack of perspective don't get you nowhere, it's in action that people will get perspectives, not by reading revolutionnary cookbook... Yup, again quite right. Now who else says that? Oh, aye, the fecking ICC.
so "pure" class struggle would have to be orderly, polite, respectable? that is nonsense...
Yup, nonsense. Which is perhaps why nobody was arguing such bollocks.
I guess you are not an advocates of "popular fronts". Difficult to follow Piter’s meaning here. Of course the ICC aren’t advocates of “popular fronts”, as Miles points out . Even the slightest contact with their politics would have confirmed this. They rightly see support for “popular fronts” as always a betrayal of working class interests. They’ve written exhaustively on this for more than 35 years – try their website.
I could go on through his posts, but I’m losing the will to live.

There’s been some good comment on this thread; useful contributions towards developing all our understanding of what has happened and why it happened. I reckon the ICC’s, (and the ICT’s and IP’s ) statements on their sites have been excellent and useful too. Folk will disagree and debate some (or maybe much) of the things they say, which is both fine and welcome on a forum for debate, but the invention of straw men is tiresome. Criticise the ICC on the basis of what they write (which will probably involve reading them) rather than on some fevered imaginings. ( That ICC lot – they’re Stalinists you know, and Trots, and Leninists, and Jesuits, and they all want to be commissars ordering folk about, and they eat babies too.)

Anyone who follows this forum should be able to recognise the recurring abuse - perhaps too stronger a word, members/sympathisers of the ICC get. There is no reason why debate and discussion can't be respectful and fraternal regardless of political differences. Essentially for some I think the problem is the fact they are communists and not anarchists. It's about time the admin did something about it rather than simply restrict the ICC as whole which I think has been done? Or they have changed their approach to this forum.

There has never been a restriction on the ICC as a whole, although some people have called for it. I personally got a temporary ban a while back for alleged 'spamming'. I didn't agree with it but I am over it. On the whole there is less abuse than there was when we first starting posting here, although some people seem unable to control themselves very well. I agree it's a problem, but I don't think it has been a major one on this thread and we shouldn't get too drawn into it here. I certainly welcome your insistence on the need for fraternal discussion despite differences.

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yes, I have read/heard that a lot. The question is how/when, with whom? I saw a rousing speech from a guy in Tottenham about the need to have late night call outs to turn up to police raids but it never materialized into action :roll:

To be honest, I didn't hear that much, but that's subjective. If that matters, I would go out on the street immediately, if I see the police turning up in my neighbourhood. The reason of forming 'gangs' in urban neighbourhoods was the defense against the police, and outsider abuses (which was due to the fact that the police were never there to protect them) in the first place, AFAIK. Unfortunately, even within the anarchist movement, and here in the libcom there are great many, who sees the gangs as a generally evil group of thugs and reflecting the ms media perspective on them.

Personally I come to the conclusion that there has to be the link between workers' organisations and gangs as the latter one could embrace the jobless, home-worker, or criminalised working class on territorial basis. While organisations such as SolFed have their territorial structure, by their intentions they mostly involved in workplace struggles and their focus (rightly) isn't really include neighbourhood relations in this sense. (Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's my impression so far.) I guess it takes time, but building up relations with "gangs" along with call-chains, social centres, hiding places, etc. could make a real difference in order to defend ourselves against the police.

oops double post.

soc

To be honest, I didn't hear that much, but that's subjective. If that matters, I would go out on the street immediately, if I see the police turning up in my neighbourhood. The reason of forming 'gangs' in urban neighbourhoods was the defense against the police, and outsider abuses (which was due to the fact that the police were never there to protect them) in the first place, AFAIK. Unfortunately, even within the anarchist movement, and here in the libcom there are great many, who sees the gangs as a generally evil group of thugs and reflecting the ms media perspective on them.

I don't think this is completely true. 'Gangs' are formed for a variety of reasons, not just defense against police and outsider abuses.

soc

Personally I come to the conclusion that there has to be the link between workers' organisations and gangs as the latter one could embrace the jobless, home-worker, or criminalised working class on territorial basis. While organisations such as SolFed have their territorial structure, by their intentions they mostly involved in workplace struggles and their focus (rightly) isn't really include neighbourhood relations in this sense. (Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's my impression so far.) I guess it takes time, but building up relations with "gangs" along with call-chains, social centres, hiding places, etc. could make a real difference in order to defend ourselves against the police.

I also find this very strange, I mean yh we shouldn't fall into the trap of labelling all gang members as mindless thugs but at the same time we shouldn't ignore the fact that many 'gangs' do do lots of anti-social activities that make the lives of many people (in particular, poorer people) a lot worse. To say SolFed/other anarchist groups should work with gangs seems to me to ignore this point. That's not to say we shouldn't work with anyone who's in a 'gang' but to say we should work with the 'gangs' legitimises all their actions IMO, many of which are completely anti communist.

D

To say SolFed/other anarchist groups should work with gangs seems to me to ignore this point.

Although as I said, I don't suggest that SolFed should work with gangs, I am curious why do you dismiss the anarchist involvement with gangs in general. I mean, hell yeah, there are pretty disgusting characters everywhere, so there are in the gang "culture", but as my understanding goes, I have nothing less to reject in gangs in general, than at workplaces. After all, there are pretty disgusting, and anticommunist characters at my workplace too...

Just a little clarification:

What I mean under the term 'gang' is informal urban youth groups in general. Now these are mostly arising on a basis of close friendship and the actions of them can be very different time to time. Many of these groups are subjected to larger organisations who are clearly set up for profit aims, and thus these groups are more or less collectively exploited in contrast to the legal employment. Thus their situation is fundamentally different to the employed layer of the working class.

Also need to add, that their actions are no more, no less directed against their own than other workers. It is a fact, and as anarchists our aim is to change these habits through organisation whether it is about workplace or neighbourhood. While these formations need different approach, nonetheless they are important part of the proletariat. Remember, we are no moral judges, we have important aims to realise.

Ok, I think I got confused by what you meant from the word 'gang'. I took it to mean groups of people involved in antisocial stuff, generally on the streets, as this is how most people use it from my experience. In that sense I would be against encouraging working with 'gangs' as a gang, although of course working with individuals would be fine. Just as we wouldn't encourage working with Labour party supporters as a group but would obviously be fine with working them individually if the issue was something worthy of support.

I see nothing wrong with working with 'informal urban youth groups' though.

To be honest, I didn't hear that much, but that's subjective. If that matters, I would go out on the street immediately, if I see the police turning up in my neighbourhood. The reason of forming 'gangs' in urban neighbourhoods was the defense against the police, and outsider abuses (which was due to the fact that the police were never there to protect them) in the first place, AFAIK. Unfortunately, even within the anarchist movement, and here in the libcom there are great many, who sees the gangs as a generally evil group of thugs and reflecting the ms media perspective on them.

Yeah, it hasn't been said on here. But it was said at a large community group I went to in Tottenham. I was quite excited when someone bought the idea up, and there seemed to be a positive reaction. But it never really materialized. But I think we should get back on the agenda with that one. Just to clarify my position on gangs, if you look through the older pages on this discussion, i have made numerous posts asking for a more nuanced approached to what a 'gang' actually is ;)

'Fuck the police!' Working-class youth and the routine abuse of power

and

[youtube]Faysa6h0lR8[/youtube]

Good vid, thanks for posting. Some interesting comments about police 'tactics', level of harassment and spirit/atmosphere of events. Lots of stuff there that hasn't really been said in any media anywhere else.

Great video. If only the media actually spoke to working class people who live in London about this. For obvious reasons they don't.

Anecdotally, I have no trouble believing this abuse is endemic and even what attracts people to joining the police. I met a London Transport Police officer at a party once and the guy openly said that what he loved about his job was 'confrontation'. This included physically threatening people, getting in their face and general being a menacing presence. These guys are plain bullies with guns and the law on their side.

It's also come out that an off duty firefighter was tasered for trying to help (!).

This is a statement I wrote on Sunday 4th September at unknown time between 6am and 9am in a cell (South Harrow Police Station), within five hours of the incident that took place. I wasn’t aware how long I was going to be in the cell, so I wrote this statement whilst events where fresh in my head.

I was driving from Watford Sunday morning (approximately 0345hours) heading down harrow view towards south harrow. As I travelled the road I was forced to stop as there was a police van in a fend off position blocking the road. I could see nothing ahead at this point. Initially my thoughts were that there was a possible RTA ahead. Whilst I sat in my car waiting to manoeuvre around the police vehicle, there were youths traversing the pavement on my right side. One of the youths picked up what I thought to be a big rock and launched it at the driver window of the police vehicle. I took a description of the youth in order to relay it to the officer when he turned the van around. Surprisingly to me, this took over a minute. I knew he had not seen the individual who committed the offence, so I flagged him down in order to pass on the description. ‘”Sorry mate,”’ I said, but before I could finish my sentence the officer replied, ‘”Fuck off you prick!!’” I was shocked at this response and felt extremely disrespected.

The van was out of the way, and I could now see the road block ahead. Police cars and dozens of officers. Most holding shields to my recollection. I pulled in relatively close to them in order to:

Identify the officer driving the van as I felt there was no need for the manner in which he spoke and I wished to report it.

Relay the description of the youth who threw the rock
Request the quickest diversion route to my final destination

An Asian officer 35-48 approached me cautiously holding his shield and told me to turn around and get out of there. I attempted to voice my question and information and found myself once again met with swearing and hostility. ‘” Fuck Off!”’ is all I can recall at this time. I replied, ‘”There’s no need for that, who do you think you’re talking to you fucking mug.”’ More of the officers began to hurl verbal abuse at me. All this commotion and I just wanted to assist. I wanted to turn my car around, park up, and speak to someone with sense in order to explain the situation. More than 10 officers began charging at me with their asps once again hurling abuse and telling me that my car was about to get smashed up. A few officers reached in through my car window grabbing my neck and ripping my shirt buttons as they did so. Officers on the other side also grabbed me viciously and attempted to remove the keys from the ignition. I quickly removed my keys and placed them in my pocket. I was then dragged out of the car into the middle of the road. I stood up as they all attempted to grab a piece of me and bend me up. I made my body rigid and maintained a calm and collective manner whilst saying to the officers, ‘”What are you doing? Is any of this necessary? I’m not putting up a fight. I’d just like to explain something”’. It was as if I was talking to a brick wall. No one was interested. They just wanted to bend me up. They were like wild animals. I managed to release myself from the grasp of the officers by making a quick dash out of there. When I was approximately 5-10 metres away, I faced the mob once again saying, ‘”What is wrong with you guys? I pose you no threat. I’m a firefighter, I work with you lot and just want to explain something. I’ve showed no aggression towards any of you.”’ Once again my words fell on deaf ears and they began to run at me with their asps. I wasn’t just going to stand there as I’d never come across ‘animal like’ officers before, so I took a quick jog which was enough to escape the grasp of the slow and unfit officers. They continued to hurl abuse whilst chasing me.

I was now faced with the dilemma of my £30,000 vehicle being in the middle of the road, both doors open with these wild officers around it. All I wanted to do was explain the situation, retrieve my vehicle and go home. Once again I tried to address the officers in a calm and civilised manner. (At no point throughout this incident did I demonstrate aggression or give the impression that I was a likely threat). As I slowly walked towards them, they had their asps out and looked like they wanted to use them. I began to traverse backwards as they advanced towards me. The next thing I knew I was having multiple spasms on the ground after being shot with a taser gun. This seemed to go on for more than 5 seconds. Officers laughed in the background as this took place. I was then jumped on, stood on, bent up, and handcuffed in such a manner I thought my shoulders were going to pop out. I was then roughly marched up the road to the meat wagon.

When speaking to the officers at this time. It was clear to me that they knew I wasn’t a threat. * I requested my handcuffs be taken off or put to the front of me as my shoulders had been in constant pain since applied. They used my ‘size’ and the possibility that I could be a ‘super star martial artist’ to try and justify their actions. I laughed and said, ‘”Look into my eyes, you know I’m no threat. *The cuffs where then removed and I relocated my hands to the front.

I then spoke to the officer who tasered me in the presence of the other officers telling him there was no need for that. Once hearing my explanation, one officer said, ‘” It’s a case of wrong place, wrong time mate.”’ That seemed to be the general consensus with the officers around at that time.

I was then escorted back to the station where the standard booking and procedures took place.
* Due to the fact that I sustained injuries and had been tasered, I had to see the Dr in attendance at the station. When I was escorted to the room, the officer opened the door. The Dr looked up and said, ‘”What is this man doing in here?! He should not be in here. This is a good man!”’ This happened to be my Dr of the last 15 years who knows me very well. When explaining what happened, he sat their speechless shaking his head whilst examining my injuries.

Whilst these events took place, many witnesses were present. Some merely spectating, others recording the event. On seeing this, officers shouted, ‘”Turn those fucking cameras off!”’ I’ll endeavour to get these recordings. It will then be clear to see how WRONG my treatment was early hours this morning. I’m still in shock.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION AND MY THOUGHTS I LATER ADDED AFTER OTHER EVENTS HAD TAKEN PLACE WITHIN MY CELL

Nil food or drink since 7pm Sat evening

What was the need to search my vehicle (for ‘”Other items of interest?”’). Do you not need reasonable grounds to do this? What are his reasonable grounds?

Could it be the officers are aware that I’ve done absolutely nothing wrong and are in search of something/anything to pin on me?

Could it be because I am young black and drive an expensive vehicle?

Why have I been kept waiting for so long? (Over 13 hours in a cell. Station not busy)

Are they trying to collaborate a story?

Racial factor? The rioters were black.

What happened to my mobile phone? (Brand new I Phone 4g miraculously disappeared from my vehicle. Never to be seen again).

What happened to my car? Is there any damage?

Am I a drug dealer because I’m black and I have nice possessions?

Everything that has happened as yet is truly unbelievable. Does it get worse? Will they try and plant something in my vehicle
Camera footage will reveal everything

I don’t claim to be perfect but I can positively say that I am of good character. I have numerous people to vouch for me including officers who are good friends. I’ve been a hard worker all my life completing school with good grades and likewise college with four A levels. I’ve worked in so many different fields. Advertising, Met Police, Personal Training, HM Prison service, Security work, Modelling and TV work, and I’ve been with the London fire brigade for 6 years now. Six years ago (I was 22 at the time) my Mother passed away leaving me to take responsibility for my younger brother (12 at the time). I’ve brought him up to the age of 18 and have tried to be a good role model and set a good example as my mother did for me. He’s just completed college with good grades and is set to start university this week.

Every single person who knows me from whatever aspect of life will tell you that I am not an aggressive person at all, and always act in a calm and collected manner.
I no longer have faith in the police service. I honestly feel this is a mockery.

Signed Edric Kennedy-Macfoy 04-09-2011

Maybe cops should replace teachers in school, since they clearly teach people a good lesson: this firefighter now knows why rioters attack the cops and hopefully won't try to grass any of them up in the future.

"Police force UK broadcasters to hand over footage from London riots"

thats horrific flaneur, where did you find it?

[youtube]EZnEpaSOFwk[/youtube]

I'd hate to have been a dustbin in Tottenham :p

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thats horrific flaneur, where did you find it?

Was on the Smiley Culture page on Facebook.

Samotnaf

Maybe cops should replace teachers in school, since they clearly teach people a good lesson: this firefighter now knows why rioters attack the cops and hopefully won't try to grass any of them up in the future.

To be honest, I'd rather like to see a similar lesson being taught to all those shitbag liberals, who were screaming for the armed forces to be brought in and the rioters(or, "mindless looting chav scum who had no interest in politics" as they said) to be shot, to get their wish and be the first to be flattened under a tank tread for being mistaken for rioters.

Fuck me, the riots really showed some people's true colours...I know there were some horrible incidents during the riots, such as that guy getting mugged and beaten by a gang, but of course that's going to happen. Riots aren't fucking picnics, always some people are going to find an excuse to be cunts amidst all the mayhem.

Medialens Alert: Inciting Violence - Irony And The English Riots

EGADS

Samotnaf

Maybe cops should replace teachers in school, since they clearly teach people a good lesson: this firefighter now knows why rioters attack the cops and hopefully won't try to grass any of them up in the future.

To be honest, I'd rather like to see a similar lesson being taught to all those shitbag liberals, who were screaming for the armed forces to be brought in and the rioters(or, "mindless looting chav scum who had no interest in politics" as they said) to be shot, to get their wish and be the first to be flattened under a tank tread for being mistaken for rioters.

On this i have found the following, coming from wildcat in germany, very meaningful (i don't know if it has been posted before):

This drive to isolate a sub-class and punish it indiscriminately is mentioned not because it’s shocking or exceptional but because it is normal. The present policing spectacle draws temporary attention to a process going on for years, in which the working class in the broadest sense is divided into an ‘aspirational’ and ‘hard-to-reach’/’antisocial’ components through concentrated use of punitive machinery against the latter. [See previous Wildcat reports.] Thus Wandsworth (London) borough council is trying to evict a whole family on the grounds that one child has been charged with – not convicted of – ‘riot-related’ offences. This combination of wartime-style collective reprisal and disregard for the legal presumption of innocence would be struck down by any court, but it’s standard procedure across the outsourced ‘social’ housing and welfare systems. These agencies are perfectly suited to the work of class-specific extrajudicial punishment: they deal almost exclusively with the targeted sub-class, and are not subject to criminal standards of proof. Evictions for ‘antisocial behaviour’ based on unsubstantiated tip-offs happen all the time, but in the absence of a riot there’s nothing newsworthy about them, let alone about the fact that constantly being profiled, monitored and corrected as a human ‘risk factor’ is something you can only escape by buying your way out. Perpetual pre-emptive street policing of particular race, class and age groups is only the most visible aspect5 of a wider process of class decomposition.

http://www.wildcat-www.de/en/actual/DETEST_AND_SURVIVE.html

As more and more of us will fall into exclussion, this procedure by the state of distinguishing among good poor, deserving state's charity, and bad poor, deserving the state's truncheon will be more and more widespread (because common, as the article states, in some places it already is) If you have read Chris Ealham's Class, culture and conflict in Barcelona (1900-1937), it was already a tactic used against the unemployed in the first years of the II Republic in Barcelona...So better be careful with our righteous and sanctimonious temptations, just in case the ones that still can keep our heads out of the shite and continue to breath air would shortly start to beehave like looters.

To be honest, perhaps the police are digging themselves some much needed graves in these situations. The recent incidents in the USA have been treated as brutality, but most of the attacks have been less severe than stuff that's happened to me and my friends in times when I've been genuinely innocent, and nothing to do with politics. Just arrogant men with power complexes in uniforms, the same types we see attacking people in the riots just with uniforms instead. Unfortunately liberals are terrible when it comes to realising most police aren't forced into these situations at all, and seem to believe violent nature is quelled when people are given authority and a weapon.

'First' riot-related Asbo issued in Manchester:

Assistant Chief Constable Ian Hopkins said: "This case offers a timely reminder ahead of this weekend's Trade Union Congress (TUC), where we are expecting large numbers of people to peacefully protest on the streets of Manchester, that anyone who wishes to cause trouble or incite disorder will be met by the full force of the law."

Eviction planned in Greenwich:

http://www.greenwich.co.uk/news/06146-greenwich-council-eviction-london-riots/

Wellclose Square

'A teenager who said he joined the riots to "give a voice to the underclass" was sentenced to two years and four months in a young offenders' institution... [He] claimed he took part in looting... because he "doesn't think it's fair that he works but can't afford the things he wants"' -
Here:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/looting-student-jailed-for-16-months-2339898.html

Now contrast that and similar incidents like this with this.

Fucking hell...

[youtube]hmp2dDZObB8[/youtube]

and

UK riots analysis reveals gangs did not play pivotal role

[quote]Gangs did not play a pivotal role in the August riots, according to the latest official analysis of those arrested during the disturbances.

Official figures show that 13% of those arrested in the riots have been identified as gang members, rising to 19% in London, but even where police identified gang members being present most forces believe they did not play a pivotal role.

The finding by senior Whitehall officials is a blow to the principal response to the riots being pushed strongly by the work and pensions secretary, Iain Duncan Smith – that tackling gang culture is key to preventing any repeat of the disturbances.

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and Home Office background analysis shows that those arrested during the riots overwhelmingly came from deprived areas and had the poorest educational backgrounds.

More than two-thirds of the young people involved were classed as having special educational needs and one-third had been excluded from school in the past year. More than 42% received free school meals.

The analysis shows that the ethnic backgrounds of those brought before the courts for riot-related offences were in line with the local population, with 42% of defendants white and 46% black. Only 7% were Asian.

The ethnic composition of court defendants was significantly different from the local area profile in three places: Haringey in north London, where 55% of defendants were black compared with 17% of young people locally; Nottingham, where 62% of defendants were black compared with 9% locally; and Birmingham, where 46% of defendants were black compared with 9% of young people locally.

The Home Office figures were based on 5,175 crimes recorded across 19 police forces – the vast majority in London, Manchester and Birmingham. More than 40% happened in town or city centres and 20% in shopping malls or other "defined retail cores".

Half the crimes were committed against commercial premises. A total of 2,584 shops and other commercial premises were targeted in the riots.

The MoJ figures confirm that 90% of those arrested in the riots were male. More than half were under 20. They also confirm the more punitive nature of the courts, with 42% of those tried in magistrates courts sent to prison compared with only 12% normally...[quote]

Samotnaf

Maybe cops should replace teachers in school, since they clearly teach people a good lesson: this firefighter now knows why rioters attack the cops and hopefully won't try to grass any of them up in the future.

There's a nice video of police being sent into schools here:

http://www.snagfilms.com/films/title/behind_the_rent_strike about 13 minutes in (only copy I can find online, but worth putting up with the incongruous Goldman Sachs adverts).

The Guardian are reporting on a study that they and London School of Economics have done, interviewing people who took part in the riots. They're basically saying that most people interviewed said that the cause of the riots was being pissed off with policing and the police in general, whereas the wider public cite poor parenting and 'criminality' (fkcing hate that word :x ).

Guardian

What appears to have been the result of this outpouring of anti-police attitudes was, for some at least, a five-day catharsis. Many spoke "of being empowered liberated" and paradoxically, while the streets burned, of being euphoric. Repeatedly, the rioters said their confrontations with police made them feel "powerful".

"We had [the police] under control," said one 21-year-old London rioter. "We had them under manners for once. They never had us under manners. We had them on lock. On smash. Running away from us. We weren't running from the police. They was the criminals today. We was enforcing the law. Getting them out of our town because they ain't doing nothing good anyway for no one."

Actually pretty good podcast on the riots from the guardian where they talk to five young people about their thoughts.

http://www.sunderlandecho.com/news/local/copycat_riot_teenagers_in_court_1_4213808

" This was an attack on an arm of the state..........."

any thoughts on this?:

http://kpbsfs.wordpress.com/2012/01/07/the-london-insurrections-again/

this is basically just a rambling vindication of 'the yoof' in 'the riots'. not much in the way of 'original ideas', but i do like the start where the wills&kate wedding is set as a background to london burning.

i'd like some criticism and some outside opinions (even though this topic has been debated to death).

incidentally, this is a dissertation i wrote about 'delinquent youth as revolutionary agents' about 2 months before the riots:

http://libcom.org/library/untapped-revolutionary-potential-wayward-youth-juvenile-delinquents

it was marked as a fail (obviously by some Toynbeeist/crypto-fascist lecturer, which i thought was slightly unfair), but again, i'd like some second opinions and criticisms.

Leading neuroscientists believe that the UK Government may be about to sanction the development of nerve agents for British police that would be banned in warfare under an international treaty on chemical weapons.

A high-level group of experts has asked the Government to clarify its position on whether it intends to develop "incapacitating chemical agents" for a range of domestic uses that go beyond the limited use of chemical irritants such as CS gas for riot control...

The UK to use nerve gas on 'rioters'

A history of bio-chemical weapons

:x

edit: lol talk about scare stories...

SALFORD COUNCIL SO FAR FAILS WITH COURT EVICTIONS FOR RIOTERS

SALFORD READING THE RIOTS

flaneur

It's also come out that an off duty firefighter was tasered for trying to help (!).

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/apr/19/metropolitan-police-accused-racism-firefighter

Scotland Yard is facing a new case of alleged police racism after a black firefighter who tried to assist officers while off duty claimed he was targeted because of his skin colour, abused, assaulted and shot with a stun gun.

The complaint lodged by Edric Kennedy-Macfoy, 28, from north London, is the 10th case involving alleged racism known to have been referred to the official police watchdog in the last three weeks.

Kennedy-Macfoy was driving through Harrow around 3.30am on 4 September when he saw a young man hurl a rock at a police van. After noting a description of the young man, Kennedy-Macfoy, who also trained as a police constable, flagged down the van driver and approached a line of officers to pass the information on.

He said he was horrified at their response, which he alleges included officers behaving like "wild animals": swearing at him, dragging him from his car, subjecting him to a "violent" attack and eventually shooting him with a stun gun.

Kennedy-Macfoy was found not guilty in February of obstructing police. During a two-day trial at Brent magistrates court, Inspector David Bergum, who was present on the night, said his officers were in a "stressful" situation and had been dealing with a group of partygoers who had been throwing missiles at them.

He said of Kennedy-Macfoy: "I couldn't say he was anything to do with the party. The party was all black. He was black. He had driven through the cordon. I had to do a quick risk assessment."

A documentary showing on Thursday, July the 5th at The Rio Cinema Dalston, forming part of The East End Film Festival.[youtube]dXPfpJ4fo68[/youtube]
[youtube]oXN1H_Bp0VU[/youtube]

[youtube]MPC58B23I40[/youtube]

http://nplusonemag.com/After+the+Riots

The BBC documentary which was pulled, does anyone know if it's online? Sleep seems a bit elusive for me at the moment, and I might as well do something other than watch my Firefly DVDs.

I've not seen them, but you can watch both episodes here:

http://watchseries.eu/serie/the_riots:_in_their_own_words

Hope they make you fall asleep! ;)

Thanks :)

'we're fighting over postcodes, street corners that don't belong to us'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnzIOqGN6y4

BUMP cos South Atlantic Quarterly has a special issue on the riots, which appears to be open access at the moment: http://saq.dukejournals.org/content/112/3.toc#AGAINSTtheDAYRebelliousSubjectsThePoliticsofEnglands2011Riots

Articles from Paul Gilroy and some of the Free Association folks, among others.

I'm glad I didn't have private access to the World Wide Web in 2011: my experience of local events in the UK would have been impoverished.

James MacBryde

I'm glad I didn't have private access to the World Wide Web in 2011: my experience of local events in the UK would have been impoverished.

how?

My experience would have been impoverished by following events on a computer.

James MacBryde

My experience would have been impoverished by following events on a computer.

in what way would the addition of information available on the internet to what ever you had anyway have "impoverished your experience"?

To radicalgraffiti,

Consuming my time gaining information from the Internet would have meant not participating in events occurring under my nose. The law prohibits me from elaborating further.

Hmmm, maybe I've been slow on the uptake(?) but would I be correct Comrade Macbryde in describing you as a snarky poster?

James MacBryde

To radicalgraffiti,

Consuming my time gaining information from the Internet would have meant not participating in events occurring under my nose. The law prohibits me from elaborating further.

Ooh James, you're so mysteeerious.

For those who weren't involved here is an extract of the Wikipedia account of the beginnings of the 2011 insurrection in the UK:

"The rioting occurred shortly after about 120 people marched from Broadwater Farm to Tottenham Police Station via the High Road. The group demanded that a senior local police officer speak to them. They stayed in front of the police station hours longer than originally planned because they were not satisfied with the seniority of the officers available at the time. A younger and more aggressive crowd arrived around dusk, some of whom were armed. Violence broke out following a rumour that police had attacked a 16-year-old girl..."