salute tottenham

[hucks]

If I hear the phrase 'opportunisitc looting' one more time I think I will do some opportunistic looting. People taking their thought patterns direct from Sky news. Scary.

Fuck it, I'll bite. What's not opportunistic about heading to JDs and walking off with free trainers once someone else has broken the window? Opportunistic doesn't seem to be the worst thing you could call it.

Anyhow, gumdrops posted a thing earlier that I found really interesting esp this bit

3
The polarisation between the claim that ‘the riots are a response to unemployment and wasted lives’ and the insistence ‘the violence constitutes mere criminality’ makes little sense. There is clearly more to the riots than simple random hooliganism. But that does not mean that the riots, as many have claimed, are protests against disenfranchisement, social exclusion and wasted lives. In fact, it’s precisely because of disenfranchisement, social exclusion and wasted lives that these are not ‘protests’ in any meaningful sense, but a mixture of incoherent rage, gang thuggery and teenage mayhem. Disengaged not just from the political process (largely because politicians, especially those on the left, have disengaged from them), there is a generation (in fact more than a generation) with no focus for their anger and resentment, no sense that they can change society and no reason to feel responsible for the consequences of their actions. That is very different from suggesting that the riots were caused by, a response to, or a protest against, unemployment, austerity and the cuts.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Obviously I agree with that sentiment, but where does such nihiliism come from? Seems pretty obvious - from the impression that society gives that it doesn't give a fuck about them as human beings, which is true. Political violence begets physical violence from those it is targeted against.

All of which is obv not to say that threat to life and damage to small businesses is not terrible, and the fact that the violence has been so indiscriminate is horrible. But as soon as people start othering the people who are doing this as amoral/completely non-understandable/stop granting them the right to feel pretty fucked off, you come closer to treating groups of people as sub-human, which is the problem in the first place. It's like a self-fulfilling prophecy, and then complaining when it comes true.

Edit: I'm writing a Masters dissertation about the war in the DRC right now, and it's interesting how many right-wing, rhetorical tropes to frame Africa as 'savage', replete with 'senseless violence' etc, are being virtually repeated by the media in the way it is reporting what happens here. Discourse very, VERY similar.

A lot of good points there, but however you look at it, setting fire to small shops and businesses with families living above them is pretty savage. I don't think there's much to be gained from mincing words. There might be underlying reasons why people are acting like sociopaths, but that doesn't mean they're not acting like sociopaths.

I mean, yeah, maybe it isn't helpful that words like 'senseless' and 'mindless' are always used, but in what way isn't it senseless to attack elements of your own community and neighbourhood? By all means firebomb the copshop and smash up McDonald's if you really have to, but Ali's Fruit & Veg has fuck all to do with the cuts, Mark Duggan or anything else a disaffected young Londoner might be justifiably pissed off about. Of course we should try to understand, in the literal sense, why this kind of socially self-directed violence is happening, but we should be wary of 'understanding' it in the empathetic sense to the point of starting to excuse it.

Another aspect to this is a generation that's grown up with no concept of authority, because they've never encountered any authority that's been worth two shits. A general breakdown of discipline in a lot of state schools, a huge number of inner-city kids, especially black kids, growing up with no father or any worthwhile father figure at all (see the gangs-as-substitute-families argument, passim) and the law seen as a joke ('ASBO pride') while, paradoxically, the police are seen as brutal, capricious thugs. And not without reason, of course.

 

[baboon2004]

Fuck it, I'll bite. What's not opportunistic about heading to JDs and walking off with free trainers once someone else has broken the window? Opportunistic doesn't seem to be the worst thing you could call it.

Anyhow, gumdrops posted a thing earlier that I found really interesting esp this bit

3
The polarisation between the claim that ‘the riots are a response to unemployment and wasted lives’ and the insistence ‘the violence constitutes mere criminality’ makes little sense. There is clearly more to the riots than simple random hooliganism. But that does not mean that the riots, as many have claimed, are protests against disenfranchisement, social exclusion and wasted lives. In fact, it’s precisely because of disenfranchisement, social exclusion and wasted lives that these are not ‘protests’ in any meaningful sense, but a mixture of incoherent rage, gang thuggery and teenage mayhem. Disengaged not just from the political process (largely because politicians, especially those on the left, have disengaged from them), there is a generation (in fact more than a generation) with no focus for their anger and resentment, no sense that they can change society and no reason to feel responsible for the consequences of their actions. That is very different from suggesting that the riots were caused by, a response to, or a protest against, unemployment, austerity and the cuts.

Not a question of biting, really. What bbothers me is the way people get so moralistic about commercial property. Why does it bother you if someone gets free trainers? Are you jealous, cos I'll bet your life is better than that kid's has ever been, and better than he has any reasonable hope of it being in the future? People dont' tend to steal if they can afford to buy stuff.

As to gumdrops' point, I agree with the general sentiment, but not with the separation of the 'political' from 'social anger'. Such a separation only exists in the minds of people theorising post-event, largely speaking. And of course if you've been subjugated by forces you barely understand (how many kids understand the machinations of the economy??), then there will an elment of incoherence. Do you want 15 year olds to be brandishing a bloody manifesto? Absurd. All they know is that other people have a better lot than they do for no discernible reason other than what family/area/class they were born into. And that's political in any meaningful sense.

 

[Mr. Tea]

People dont' tend to steal if they can afford to buy stuff.

In the petrol station across the road from my house there is a list of cars - make, colour, reg plate - with rewards offered for info about them because they've driven off without paying. The cars are two Mercs, two Beemers and a Jag. At least one of them has a personalised reg plate.

Not disagreeing with you entirely - just saying that some people love nicking stuff for the sake of it.

 

[hucks]

Not a question of biting, really. What bothers me is the way people get so moralistic about commercial property. Why does it bother you if someone gets free trainers?

It doesn't really, and I thought it was pretty OK that these big chain stores got ripped off. But it turns out it was bothering me that small businesses with no insurance were being trashed too, and I realised that I'd made a distinction in my mind as to good and bad looting that the looters don't share.

 

[baboon2004]

In the petrol station across the road from my house there is a list of cars - make, colour, reg plate - with rewards offered for info about them because they've driven off without paying. The cars are two Mercs, two Beemers and a Jag. At least one of them has a personalised reg plate.

Not disagreeing with you entirely - just saying that some people love nicking stuff for the sake of it.

Yep, which of us has never nicked anything in our lives? But, in the main, most theft is related to need.

 

[baboon2004]

It doesn't really, and I thought it was pretty OK that these big chain stores got ripped off. But it turns out it was bothering me that small businesses with no insurance were being trashed too, and I realised that I'd made a distinction in my mind as to good and bad looting that the looters don't share.

i completely agree! what irks me is that the media makes no such distinction, and talks about looting HMV in the same sentence as some poor guy whose family business has gone up.

Most people doing this are in their teens and from pretty bad economic backgrounds. Maybe in their minds all these people have more than they do. I don't know - maybe someone should ask them - I know my moral compass wasnt' fully developed when I was that age.

 

[sufi]

every bottle has a message

 

[Mr. Tea]

Yep, which of us has never nicked anything in our lives? But, in the main, most theft is related to need.

Come on, who "needs" a brand new pair of Nikes, or an iPhone, or a massive flatscreen TV? Let's not pretend we're talking about the starving masses ransacking bakeries.

Edit: and I can't recall ever stealing anything of value. This probably makes me an appalling dull-witted square, but there you go.

 

[baboon2004]

Best cartoon i've seen in ages

 

[baboon2004]

Come on, who "needs" a brand new pair of Nikes, or an iPhone, or a massive flatscreen TV? Let's not pretend we're talking about the starving masses ransacking bakeries.

what i am saying is, you and i can probably/pretty certainly afford most of these things. there are some people who can't, not through any fault of their own but because they simply grew up among less privilege, and who are looked down upon as 'chavs'/insert own hideous sobriquet by the middle classes/wannabe middle classes, for whom owning these things is indeed a signifier of self-worth, in the main. have you been in their situation? i haven't, and so i'm not going to pretend i know how it feels/what i would do if i were.

missing that social psychology angle (if that's the right term) misses the point, in my view. in capitalism, what you own = what society deems you are worth.

this is what happens if a radically unfair society is perpetuated for long enough, and lo and behold, those who 'have' get on their high horses as though they deserve the privilege they were born into.

 

[baboon2004]

Edit: and I can't recall ever stealing anything of value. This probably makes me an appalling dull-witted square, but there you go.

what 'value' do those nikes have, except to nike stockholders gorging on the extortionate profit margins (on the given assumption that those who make them receive precious little)? genuine question, i think it's a moot point. certainly not much profit going into the pockets of those who work at JD Sports, or wherever. If there were, I'd feel differently, as witht he small businesses that have been attacked, which is an inarguably bad thing. Wish they'd stuck to looting chains, but hey, I'm not an angry 16-year old (well, most of the time ).

 

[john eden]

what 'value' do those nikes have, except to nike stockholders gorging on the extortionate profit margins (on the given assumption that those who make them receive precious little)? genuine question, i think it's a moot point.

their value to users relates more to social capital (status, branding) than their actual monetary value (raw materials + labour + profit).

 

[Mr. Tea]

what i am saying is, you and i can probably/pretty certainly afford most of these things...

I'm unemployed at the moment and have a phone that's about 7 years old and barely works. I've never had any of those things I listed because I'm not particularly interested in them. Yes, I know that's not your main point. But.

I'm middle class and I don't consider owning things a "signifier of self-worth" - if anything this seems to be far more of a 'chavish' aspiration ('bling'/trainers/labels/whatever). Most people I know aren't obsessed with ownership-status.

I don't really know where I'm going with this because to a large extent I agree with you: yes, capitalism (or more accurately, consumerism) makes people want things they don't need. Yes, this can be especially problematic for people born into poverty with little chance to escape it other than perhaps through crime. Yes, probably everything I've said here can be disregarded because I didn't grow up on a shitty council estate in Edmonton...

 

[baboon2004]

sorry tea, didn't see this reply. Agreed that small businesses and homes being torched is horrible, but so is gorging on class privilege for all one's life. As for acting like sociopaths, stratified capitalist society IS sociopathic, especiaally with so little social movement as in the UK. So, yeah, huge point to be debated, not simple at all.

Difficult to answer that question. But being blamed for being mad by a society set up to drive you mad, is pretty rich (have sen this happen over and over again with incidents of racism; so here, shift to classism). yes, it isn't entirely logical or fair, the way they've acted, certainly not, but neither is what is essentially an apartheid between rich and poor that exists every day (particularly in London perhaps, not sure?). I don't think it's for the middle classes to 'excuse' anything, to be honest, think that way of thinking is part of the problem. As for the shopkeepers and civilians affected who are themselves poor and been affected, that's shit and no two ways about it. But responsibility lies on everyone who benefits every single day of their lives from keeping the rich/poor division firmly secured, not just on those kids.

Re authority - yes and no. Why should you give a shit when society is telling you you have been earmarked to fail from birth? I mean, really, why should you? Why should middle class kids getting Es in their A-level go to university, while poor kids can't now afford to TAKE A-levels. Why should you be part of the 'good' poor, smilingly accepting their lot?

This is complex, but also fucking simple - this is class anger (and class of course is riven by race as in any European country) from those who feel they have nothing to lose.

A lot of good points there, but however you look at it, setting fire to small shops and businesses with families living above them is pretty savage. I don't think there's much to be gained from mincing words. There might be underlying reasons why people are acting like sociopaths, but that doesn't mean they're not acting like sociopaths.

I mean, yeah, maybe it isn't helpful that words like 'senseless' and 'mindless' are always used, but in what way isn't it senseless to attack elements of your own community and neighbourhood? By all means firebomb the copshop and smash up McDonald's if you really have to, but Ali's Fruit & Veg has fuck all to do with the cuts, Mark Duggan or anything else a disaffected young Londoner might be justifiably pissed off about. Of course we should try to understand, in the literal sense, why this kind of socially self-directed violence is happening, but we should be wary of 'understanding' it in the empathetic sense to the point of starting to excuse it.

Another aspect to this is a generation that's grown up with no concept of authority, because they've never encountered any authority that's been worth two shits. A general breakdown of discipline in a lot of state schools, a huge number of inner-city kids, especially black kids, growing up with no father or any worthwhile father figure at all (see the gangs-as-substitute-families argument, passim) and the law seen as a joke ('ASBO pride') while, paradoxically, the police are seen as brutal, capricious thugs. And not without reason, of course.

 

[lanugo]

But, in the main, most theft is related to need.

This conjecture strikes me as completely unfounded. As Mr.Tea's little anecdote suggests even, or especially, those who are well-off and materially secure nevertheless steal out of sheer greed or criminal energy. Our current economic system, which really amounts to an institutionalised system of large-scale theft, encourages such ruthless and anti-social behaviour. I don't see any difference between a MIT-educated Goldman & Sachs banker enriching himself at the expense of others and any one of the London looters indiscriminately stealing from the big chain stores and small private businesses. If anything the latter causes lesser damage but I don't have sympathy for either. I'm also not interested in uncovering the alleged underlying socioeconomic causes for these riots. Rather, from a kind of Shakespearean view, I grasp these events as merely one of many manifestations of the general disorder and corruption of our times.

 

[baboon2004]

their value to users relates more to social capital (status, branding) than their actual monetary value (raw materials + labour + profit).

yep, more eloquently saying what I was trying to get at!

 

[FairiesWearBoots]

that's what I can see - manz jus want new creps innit?

fuck paying for it if you can get it for free free right?

from what I can see that is the attitude/reasoning of 99% of the 'trouble makers'

the arson is the worst bit - its the lives at risk that troubles me

I dont care if peeps want new '95's

 

[Mr. Tea]

what 'value' do those nikes have, except to nike stockholders gorging on the extortionate profit margins (on the given assumption that those who make them receive precious little)? genuine question, i think it's a moot point. certainly not much profit going into the pockets of those who work at JD Sports, or wherever. If there were, I'd feel differently, as witht he small businesses that have been attacked, which is an inarguably bad thing. Wish they'd stuck to looting chains, but hey, I'm not an angry 16-year old (well, most of the time ).

Nike trainers, like anything, have value to people who value them. If you own a pair and they're your pride and joy, then they have value to you.

As I'm sure I've mentioned elsewhere in this thread, I couldn't really give a toss about people damaging or looting huge chain stores that are insured up to the eyeballs and might see a drop in quarterly profits of a fraction of a %. In the case of a company like Nike which has notoriously unethical business practices, yeah great, fuck 'em. But as you say, when it's little local mom-and-pop stores getting torched, even the most hardened anti-capitalist would surely find it hard to make any excuse for that. And that's without even talking about people's homes being destroyed and their lives put at risk.

 

[baboon2004]

Nike trainers, like anything, have value to people who value them. If you own a pair and they're your pride and joy, then they have value to you.

As I'm sure I've mentioned elsewhere in this thread, I couldn't really give a toss about people damaging or looting huge chain stores that are insured up to the eyeballs and might see a drop in quarterly profits of a fraction of a %. In the case of a company like Nike which has notoriously unethical business practices, yeah great, fuck 'em. But as you say, when it's little local mom-and-pop stores getting torched, even the most hardened anti-capitalist would surely find it hard to make any excuse for that. And that's without even talking about people's homes being destroyed and their lives put at risk.

Agreed - but then the only question to ask is this - what kind of fucking society do we live in that pushes people into a situation where they go 'fuck it, dont' have anything to lose, might as well'?

Else you reduce people's motivations to that of animals ('scum', 'looters', whatever), and Sky/BBC were coming damn close to some horrible racialised discourse last night in that vein. And the repeated use of 'they' in reference to all the 'looters'/'rioters'/youths whatever, made it almost sound like a live 28 Days Later. "They're coming! They're not human!"