London Riot's

Started by Silk, August 09, 2011, 10:59:39 AM

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Silk

For a fair while now there has been constant rioting in London, and is threatening to spill over into other major cities such as southampton. There is a fair few theories behind them. But its majoritally coming into the benefit community who don't want to work getting pissed at the government. Oh, and a drug dealer attacked the police and got killed. I don't know of any other reasons yet as to why this is all kicking off. But it is mostly in the minority areas. Such as Lewisham.

Kendra

The first incident was a man was shot by the guards police and a riot occurred as a result. Now however it is pure all out thuggery and chaos. We were watching it on the news and on the phone to some mates who live in East London and it's just crazy.

Teenagers are looting, attacking and burning out wheelie bins, stores and peoples cars etc. You can see them on the news actually filming the entire events as they happen on their mobiles. Personally I think they should call out the national guard before it gets worse than what it has. It's not just the rough North London districts that every one is more or less not surprised by, the riot police have been issued to all the London boroughs.

We were watching a clip today of a guy who was injured, not sure if he was one of the many looters or not but he got looted himself ...

London Riots - Scum steal from injured boy.

WhiteyChan

Quote from: Kendra on August 09, 2011, 11:30:49 AM
The first incident was a man was shot by the guards police and a riot occurred as a result. Now however it is pure all out thuggery and chaos. We were watching it on the news and on the phone to some mates who live in East London and it's just crazy.

Teenagers are looting, attacking and burning out wheelie bins, stores and peoples cars etc. You can see them on the news actually filming the entire events as they happen on their mobiles. Personally I think they should call out the national guard before it gets worse than what it has. It's not just the rough North London districts that every one is more or less not surprised by, the riot police have been issued to all the London boroughs.

We were watching a clip today of a guy who was injured, not sure if he was one of the many looters or not but he got looted himself ...

London Riots - Scum steal from injured boy.

Its spread to Birmingham, Southampton, Bristol, Brighton, Portsmouth... I wouldn't be surprised if most major towns/cities in the UK are going to see some form of it in the next couple of days. The people doing it are just pathetic. I mean, seriously - do they really have nothing else to do? No, wait, don't answer that, silly question. A Sky news reporter was videoing some of the destruction in London (he had some major balls of steel, going up to some of the looters and yelling "Are you proud? Are you proud of what you're doing?" at them) and he said that some shops weren't touched, such as Waterstone's. All I could think was, well, that's not a surprise, is it? Maybe if they did loot Waterstone's they'd actually learn something.

If any E members are in London, I wish you well. Stay safe.


Nico

This is just terrible. I am with Wayne Rooney who said that it's horrible. What people can do to their own country and their towns. It's a shame. :-(

Malefique

Damn right it's awful, and it's all about greed; the excuses about deprivation are just that, excuses.  I live in an area where one household in three has someone with a job; our city has devastating unemployment, poor health care and education, and a dreadful housing crisis, but there's no rioting here.  Not a peep.  This is about criminal gangs resenting the police fighting back, and using it as an excuse for looting - but note, not bookshops; they loot electrical goods shops, designer clothing outlets, phone shops, PC World...  Incidentally the man shot was a crack dealer who had a gun of his own (which is illegal in the UK, BTW) and ran with a gang who are known for pouring boiling water over the genitals of people they don't like. 
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Inkidu

If you're searching the lines for a point, well you've probably missed it; there was never anything there in the first place.

Kendra

I've been watching the news and had it on the background all of today and I've never been angrier in my life. Teenage bloody thugs and nothing else, they showed the level of damage to peoples homes and businesses. Complete apartment blocks burned out! They were dragging people from their cars, beating them up and then setting fire to the cars. It made me sick that the 'education' system got blamed, that some people were saying 'oh there's nothing for them to do, there's no youth clubs or places for them to hang out' ... so what ... go destroy public and private property then? destroy innocent peoples lives?

They caught a guy who was inciting a riot via facebook - there's kids out there as young as eleven years of age looting! I mean where the F#@K are their parents?

What I was chuffed with was one small community, they knew the rioters were drawing close to their cul de sac and they got the kids and elderly in doors, then all the grown-ups went side by side and blocked the entire entrance to where they lived. The rioters couldn't get through - that's the bloody way to do it ;)


HockeyGod

I know I'm being really, really selfish, and my heart goes out to the people of England...but I'm supposed to be there in 6 days. Please, please, please find calm and peace.

Nadir

If you think it's just teenagers doing this, you've not been paying attention. People as young as 12 and as old as 43 have been arrested (or whatever the word is for minors) - in Manchester at least. The Ugg shop was smashed into and raided buy teens under the direction of a man in his 30s who fled the scene when he noticed someone was videoing him on a camera phone.

While the teens might be the face of the attacks, there are others behind them - people the police are familiar with from causing riots at football games.

And, come on, what the government has been doing lately has been practically begging the lower classes to rebel. They had smashed these kids futures - no jobs, pushing education prices even higher, taking away what merger income they get from the dole, and giving nothing back in return. The government made enemies of these kids, made them desperate and vulnerable to the suggestions of violent minded men.

I think it's disgusting how black and white the media are portraying this.     

Sabby

Quote from: The article about the video game connectionInitially that seems hyperbolic, but the Standard's story quotes both an anonymous police officer and a local resident who place the blame squarely on Rockstar's magnum opus. Intriguingly, neither the officer, nor the resident are referenced anywhere in the story beyond the quotations

Well I'm convinced.

Inkidu

Quote from: Sabby on August 09, 2011, 06:36:34 PM
Well I'm convinced.
God, isn't this whole affair just horrible enough without crappy media coverage. Why can't they get to the real heart of the issue.
If you're searching the lines for a point, well you've probably missed it; there was never anything there in the first place.

Saerrael

#11
Pointing the blame at a video game is easy. Also, media coverage is often black and white to increase the amount of readers. It's easier to state something than to get to the heart of things. People don't have to think too deeply to understand what is written. People who actually do wish to think a bit deeper than what media gives them, are rare.
Don't forget that the news is often but another way to be entertained, not to be informed.

Callie Del Noire

#12
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14458424

It blows my mind.. like one news short I saw about six weeks after the Rodney King riots in LA. These, excuse my crudity, FUCKING IDIOTS burn stuff down in their own neighborhoods and then look surprised when the owners move on to other locations. I doubt the business owners are likely to trust folks that on a ragged tear burn down their own livelihoods and then expect the owners to come back for more.

It was stupid then.. it's stupid now.

I guess it goes to show that stupid people are truly universal. Makes me want to get a big shot of something potent and put in a shooting game or something minimially brain exercising to get my anger out before I take it out on someone who doesn't deserve it.


Update..

Then I saw this..

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14470772

and here the story of the families that put their kids in their home and blocked off their street to protect their homes. At least someone is being sensitble and working together.

Kendra

Quote from: Eden on August 09, 2011, 05:51:00 PM
If you think it's just teenagers doing this, you've not been paying attention. People as young as 12 and as old as 43 have been arrested (or whatever the word is for minors) - in Manchester at least. The Ugg shop was smashed into and raided buy teens under the direction of a man in his 30s who fled the scene when he noticed someone was videoing him on a camera phone.

While the teens might be the face of the attacks, there are others behind them - people the police are familiar with from causing riots at football games.

And, come on, what the government has been doing lately has been practically begging the lower classes to rebel. They had smashed these kids futures - no jobs, pushing education prices even higher, taking away what merger income they get from the dole, and giving nothing back in return. The government made enemies of these kids, made them desperate and vulnerable to the suggestions of violent minded men.

I think it's disgusting how black and white the media are portraying this.     

not sure what news reel you've been watching but as yet on Sky news I haven't seen any thing relating to any of the 'Combat 18' crew that are infamous for inciting the soccer riots or anything relating to those 'usual suspects'. I'd be interested in seeing it if you have a link. Again any images of those arrested seem to be of the younger persuasion but I wouldn't doubt for a second that there are older thugs out there as well. To say that these are inciting the violence however is a tad naive however, these hooligans have been doing a bang up job looting and destroying buildings on their own without any help from any one. Peddling about on their bikes on the first day, tossing any makeshift weapon they could at the police.

Yes it's fine to say the 'lower classes' are being hard done by the government but that is no reason for this sort of anarchy. It seems even in Santiago in Chile, students are rioting.

It's savage lawlessness and nothing more. If they wanted to  protest their lack of education then walk the streets and protest peacefully but that's not what they chose to do. If they wanted to protest their lack of jobs, then do like wise but destroying the very lively hoods of those that might have been the only people to give them employment is mindless.

I've literally just been watching a clip where one guy with his sunglasses and hoodie and mouth covered told the news team that 'it's all about the money' - 'they got no money' - two other guys mentioned that there is no job prospects for them, for any of them and it makes my mind boggle that they think that now there will be jobs when in fact there will be far less, now that so many businesses have been burnt out and destroyed and plundered.

@ Callie Del Noire ~ I'm delighted that other parts of the communities are taking a stand. I just wish more and more would.
Unfortunately 3 men in Birmingham trying to keep an eye outside their mosque and community were killed last night. A car mounted the kerb they were on and mowed them down.

Liverpool, Manchester and so many others got hit last night but London apparently had its quietest night yet.

Bristol got hit last night as well and had a message this morning from my Dad saying that my Grand-Aunt and Grand-Uncle both in their late seventies are absolutely terrified. That's no way to live.

No way to live at all.


Nadir

The think I saw about the leaders is from the BBC who have it off eyewitnesses and reporters who were in the middle

Here is a BBC interview with a looter gang who say what they did was a protest against the government - and you realise there were protests earlier this year against student fees, and the government did nothing but break an EU law against kettling. There is no one listening to them, and when they try to protest legally they get treated like animals and get a criminal record anyway.

TheGlyphstone

What percentage of these people, though, do you honestly believe are rioting over legitimate issues, rather than just joining in for "A Night of Fun With Fabulous Free Prizes" (as another forum discussion put it) and tacking on the 'politics' excuse after the fact?

Transgirlenstein

One of the looters posted a photo of him with his loot.  He showed his face.  His face.  On the internet.  Sheesh.

Some of the targets say a lot about what groups are behind this.  The one that gets me?  On Russell Square, there is a LGBT bookshop called "Gay is the Word".  Someone smashed up the windows and it was the only shop in the area that got hit.

I've been following it on Facebook, making sure that the people I know over there are okay.

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Nadir

I doubt any of them go out thinking 'This is for such-and-such issue!' but rather the general oppressive hopelessness that stems from the issues. 55% of Haringey population live below the poverty line. Their average unemployment is double that of the national average. Eight youth centres were shut down. They have been alienated. They should be prosecuted for the damage done, no question, but unless people understand the motivating causes for this sort of outlash, it'll happen again and with more ferocity. 

Kendra

And yet who is to say that any of the youths from that area were the trouble makers? From one of the links you posted, one guy actually says that he can afford the stuff that he's been stealing, he prefers that he can get the stuff free when he nicks it and will keep going until he gets caught. Other comments written up from the links were ... 'I'll get shouted at by my parents when I get home but that's it, it's my first offense if I get caught. They can only slap an ASBOs on me, I can live with that!"
When asked how they'd feel if their own home got smashed into and looted, they were aghast!

There may be motivating causes Eden but personally speaking and from what I gather from lots of other people I've spoken with and seen on the television - the majority of those rioting are doing it for the freebies and the fun of it. Another guy stated that it was 'The best night of his life!'

People have been badly brutalised and many will never be able to afford to rebuild, while some businesses don't want to rebuild at all in those areas fearing the same to happen again. And I have no doubt that it will.

It's not always the government that oppresses the people but the people themselves, their lack of will and their attitude that they deserve everything the easy way. It's so easy to blame every one around them when they could stay in school which in the UK is free before third level.
Yes jobs are short but they are the world over, yet not every country and poorly affected area are rioting!

No ... it's far easier to sign on the dole and complain. They want everything but are not prepared to work for it
- so incite a riot and get what they want that way instead??






Nadir

I'm not condoning what they have done. I'm not saying they are in the right to do this. They should be punished for their actions. They should help rebuild what they destroyed. But you need to look at the bigger picture. Content people don't go around wrecking cities. You say they oppress themselves - I think that's ridiculous. I grew up under the poverty line. I live half a mile from a growing council estate. I have a lot of close contact with people who depend on welfare and have been abandoned by the government. Your way of expressing your point of view comes across as ignorant and out of touch. The media will not tell you the whole truth. Word of mouth can be distorted to suit either angle.


Oniya

I spent way too much time yesterday reading a thread on the Escapist forum started by someone who said he 'agreed with the rioters'.  Ten pages with surprisingly little flaming of the OP - lots of contradicting, but it was pretty coherent contradicting.

Things that make me suspicious of the rioters motivation:

Organizing through Blackberry phones and Twitter.
Posting pictures of their loot on Facebook.
Attempting to sell such loot on Facebook.
A recording of two girls claiming 'It's just a bit o' fun, innit?'
More than a few just shrugging when asked why they were rioting.

Just my opinion, but if you're protesting something - even if you're resorting to a violent protest ala the Rodney King riots - you should be able to tell the TV news crew why you're out there.  Otherwise, your message doesn't get out there, and you look like a bunch of hoodlums.
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Kendra

I grew up on a council estate as well Eden.

You are not the only one who grew up below the poverty line - many did and many do - it's not an excuse for the madness we all witnessed the past few days.

To say that my views and opinions come across as ignorant is in itself a highly ignorant thing to say.
You are asking us to feel sorry for those who are out there destroying lives because there is an underlying problem -
what exactly is their solution to this problem? a riot
What is yours??

I'm tired of listening to the procrastinations of those who feel sorry for these thugs.

You seem to be blaming  those living below the poverty line for the riots and yet plenty of the youths have mobiles etc and don't seem to be very poor at all to me.
In other words - I don't believe it is a 'poverty' issue.

pulling this discussion into a personal bashing on my views is inconsequential and now to say that the media won't tell us the truth after linking us to so much of it, is in itself ridiculous.
QuoteWord of mouth can be distorted to suit either angle.
and now don't believe anything anyone tells us?
what is it you're trying to say Eden because quite frankly your word of mouth is confusing.

I deplore how these rioters have behaved.
I deplore their inane violence against innocent people and their property.
I do not believe that they acted out of good conscience in that they did it as an act of protest.

I think I've made my views quite clear that time.

And I agree completely Oniya - any of the rioters I've seen on the news all mumbled incoherently their speel about the government but then were quite clear when it came to what they managed to steal - this again was even seen on one of the links from Eden.

discussion is over for me - I'm heading to Wales for a week.
Will still be following the news closely however and hoping that there won't be another night of riots and violence for the people of England.

All of whom are in my thoughts.

Nadir

You're determination in misunderstanding what I say is alarming, but fine, whatever.

OldSchoolGamer

Quote from: TheGlyphstone on August 10, 2011, 09:41:53 AM
What percentage of these people, though, do you honestly believe are rioting over legitimate issues, rather than just joining in for "A Night of Fun With Fabulous Free Prizes" (as another forum discussion put it) and tacking on the 'politics' excuse after the fact?

As with most controversies like this, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle.  Yes, there are some rioters who are in it for the cash and prizes.  Many of the folks who had their buildings burned down or property destroyed were innocent citizens who had little or nothing to do with the bad public policies in question.  That is undeniably true, and in most cases the rioters certainly delivered their grievances to the wrong addresses  But I've also studied enough history to know that things like this seldom arise in a vacuum.  And make no mistake: this is coming to America's shores soon enough.  And what's scary is firearms are a lot more freely available in America than Britain.

Groups like the Tea Party here in America should take note: giving the working class the finger when it complains about economic/austerity hardship might play well to your affluent, conservative base...but don't be too terribly surprised if the (far more numerous) working class and unemployed youth with no prospects break off that middle finger, bend you over, and jam it "where the sun don't shine."  Is it a constructive, productive response?  No.  Is it human?  Yes indeed.


Malefique

@ Eden - it isn't a poverty issue.  The thugs involved have been organising and orchestrating their systematic looting via Blackberry.  I live in a place, as I said, which has one of the highest unemployment rates in the UK; we have several estates where 50% of the adults between 18 and 65 are unemployed, and of those working less than 20 % have full time permanent employment.  We also have one of the highest rates of substandard housing in the UK, exceptionally high mortality rates for both adults and infants, most of our schools have been or are in special measures because they are performing badly, and our authority's plan for mending it is to bulldoze good housing and thriving businesses to make way for shoddy 'executive' housing priced higher than most local people could afford if entire families contributed to the mortgage payments, and shopping developments nobody wants to open shops in.  But there have been no riots here.  Are we less deprived?  Are our future prospects better?  No.  But we don't have an large entrenched gang culture which has been encouraged in the belief that whatever consumables they want are their 'yoomin right', and that they will go unpunished for this.  We do have a number of these vile yobs, of various ages; some are fifth generation scum.  But they are scum.  And they don't give a stuff about education cuts because they claim benefits on the basis that they have learning difficulties - meaning they never bothered showing up at school.  Shutting the youth clubs  doesn't bother them because the only time they show up is when they feel like causing bother or robbing the place.  Unemployment is a career choice for them, though in fact they do have a trade or two, theft and drug trafficking.  Why should they do real work when a couple of hours peddling heroin in a club earns them more than working people see in a month here?  This situation is a result of  the nurturing of these spoiled brat thugs. 
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