Buring Car in Manchester During Recent Rioting
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I heard the part of David Cameron's speech where the UK PM implied the rioters were just greedy immature bastards. Later I heard the Lib Dem Deputy PM Nick Clegg make similar allegations.
Isn't that amazingly rich coming from the ultimate leaders of the New Britain, the all for me, none for you Britain, the I am rich and well connected to aristocracy from which I can soak millions of dollars (and from you, too) nation of burgeoning snobbery.
Even in Southern California we didn't have to listen to such grandiose idiocy 19 years ago. At least we didn't have to have our ears assaulted by supposedly balanced leaders going on about how some grand greedy plot settled into the poor people of inner cities (though recent rioting has produced some Nixonian doublespeak that does sound similar).
A little history:
Our LA Riot(s) of 1992 started because the officers who had severely beaten a subdued man, Rodney King, were set free without any punishment whatsoever. (A second trial at the federal level found two of the cops had violated Mr. King's civil rights and put one of them in jail for a while, but that didn't take place until months later.) And in fact, the first big events in the Rampart Riots (at least to which the news media paid any attention) was a mass attempt to storm the Rampart (main Los Angeles) police station and the beating of a truck driver in South LA. The driver's beating might have ended in death for the man as LAPD officers actually left him to his fate, but other people rescued him. In Long Beach (at least 20 miles away) a man was actually dragged from a motorcycle and beaten to death as the news of the verdict enraged groups across the region.
So, it started as anger against the police and payback beatings by people who had experienced the same or threat of the same so often from police.
And then grew to looting. Fires were set because they helped distract from the looting, and to cover tracks. And yes, all the communities of our ghettos joined in the looting except for the people who owned the shops.
One story emerged a few weeks later in which the writer, a teacher, said one of her students, and young immigrant girl, showed her some new shoes, probably the first pair of shiny Mary Janes the child had ever had that had likely been snatched from the shelves. The lady couldn't find it in herself to condemn the family members who picked them up for her (or to turn them in).
And yes, there was a big push to try to find looters or receivers of looted materials to claim restitution for the shop owners and to dole out punishment.
Since then the disparities in income have only increased in Southern California.
I imagine the poor neighborhoods of the UK have the same problems. The people are watching the cost of living price them out of more and more of what makes life seem worth living.
Meanwhile, the favored classes are still trying to extract more from the rest of us to support their engorged lifestyles.
So, David Cameron and Nick Clegg, please spare us your great astonishment, and your implication that base greed of the poor is responsible for the riots in your nation.
Yes, greed is part of the equation, but it appears on both sides of the equal sign, yours and theirs. And since your class has so much more, I think we can figure out who has the most greed.
It's not just the Middle East that needs some changing.
Grandstanding over the riots instead of making changes that help the poor, may lead to your constituents making a change that leads to you guys not working at 10 Downing Street any more.
Laurie Penny has a good piece on the rioting at Al Jazeera too. Panic on the streets of London
