BS: London disorder - police photo set

Subject: BS: London disorder - police photo set
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 14 Aug 11 - 04:45 AM

http://www.flickr.com/photos/metropolitanpolice/sets/72157627267892973

None of these look "poor" and starving!!!

Subject: RE: BS: London disorder - police photo set
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 14 Aug 11 - 04:57 AM

The victims of the drought in East Africa are poor and starving. These are just greedy, destructive and anarchic.

Subject: RE: BS: London disorder - police photo set
From: GUEST,PeterC
Date: 14 Aug 11 - 04:57 AM

What has "starving" got to do with anything? "Poor" means not being able to aford the most fashionable brand of trainers.

Subject: RE: BS: London disorder - police photo set
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 14 Aug 11 - 05:03 AM

I should imagine that almost nobody in the UK is living in 'poverty'. They may be a bit short, especially pensioners, and I feel for them. But really terrifying 'poverty' can be seen for example in Dakar, Senegal. People on the street, emaciated and begging, clothes in shreds and their children crying for some food. I've seen that, and it wrenches the heart. Those here who grouse about their 'poverty' don't know what they're talking about.

Subject: RE: BS: London disorder - police photo set
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 14 Aug 11 - 05:15 AM

"Poor" means not being able to aford the most fashionable brand of trainers. That means I'm "poor" then!!!!!

My mobile cost me £39 pounds - even more poor!!!

Subject: RE: BS: London disorder - police photo set
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 14 Aug 11 - 05:17 AM

"Starving" is of course not the issue.

I am however surprised that even you cannot look at the photos and see the disaffection and alienation. I suggest you look again.

You do however offer me an opportunity to raise David Starkey's recent television comments - that white culture had been invaded by black culture. In its crudest form that is racist rubbish, but it seems to me that he put a point with crudeness that if aimed more accurately may offer some explanation.

Modern "Mobo" ("music of black origin") seems to have two cultural wellsprings. The earlier is Jamaican and then there was a US based parallel. The former grew out of reggae (and that in turn out of ska and rock steady): it is often termed "ragga". All of those came from the most disadvantaged elements of Jamaica - not a pleasant social or economic station. The latter now seems to have many names, and involved a rather sudden break from what we used to call "soul" which often bought into mainstream social values with glosses, and perhaps owed a little to the internal hardness of early blues, which made a virtue out of suffering - and had its share of antisocial heroes, one prime example being Robert Johnson. For convenience I shall call it "rap". That came out of the most disadvantaged US ghettoes.

In those places, largely, the writ does not run. Advantage, and even survival, can depend on the crudest forms of advancement, based on violence and sociopathy. These musics stress an alienation from mainstream society, material gains acquired without legitimacy, and the subordination of women. The devil has all the best songs.

Those songs provided a constant stream of propaganda. Youth of course always wishes to demonstrate its independence from its parents and the anger of these songs provided a peg for that - which in turn provided a pathway for a belief system, in which it is legitimate (there being no realistic alternative) to take from "the man".

There are then two roots for modern alienation of those who have been so influenced - their own (or their peers' - don't tell me about millionaire's daughters and I won't tell you about Patti Hearst) disadvantage and a constant narrative based in a deeper disadvantage in Jamaica and US ghettoes. The result is a reprise of the chorus "Burn Baby Burn".


Does this lead us to an answer? IMHO it does point to the need to break the cycle of deprivation. It is not sensible to do that simply by a youth assimilation programme (compare Australia) nor separation (vide "reservations" in the USA). We know that taking children into care always causes damage (the balance being whether it is likely to be more or less than leaving them in a bad environment) and care systems are expensive. We know that prison does not work - and is expensive. We can infer from the fact that children over-punished enter into the destructive path of adverse-attention that something similar is likely to happen in youth and young adulthood, and being marked as "an offender" becomes a badge of rank, and indeed a Baroness Wooton approach to "re-education" puts us all at risk of subjection without due process.

It seems to me that in the long term it does indeed all come back to an environment of disadvantage, coupled with a pressure to consume that is less likely to be capable of satisfaction within societal norms. So in the long term the answer is likely to lie in the alleviation of poverty and the creation of uniform opportunity.



I am now going to hide while a shit-storm breaks out.

Subject: RE: BS: London disorder - police photo set
From: Penny S.
Date: 14 Aug 11 - 05:24 AM

Here's a report on hunger in the UK.

Report from Trussell Trust on Food Bank use in the UK

It may not be as bad as Somalia, but it exists and is not to be written off for those suffering.

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: London disorder - police photo set
From: Penny S.
Date: 14 Aug 11 - 05:34 AM

And here's some examples of real people in poverty.

Poverty in the UK

Penny

Subject: RE: BS: London disorder - police photo set
From: GUEST,999
Date: 14 Aug 11 - 05:54 AM

Fully one in five malnourished/hungry people live in developed countries according to the UN.

Subject: RE: BS: London disorder - police photo set
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 14 Aug 11 - 06:00 AM

The new Class Sketch

Subject: RE: BS: London disorder - police photo set
From: GUEST,livelylass
Date: 14 Aug 11 - 06:23 AM

Lots of those needing to use the food banks are immigrants who are not entitled to any benefits. Some of these people resort to going through bins and eating other peoples waste. Others will be those who have lost their jobs or or otherwise experienced a major reduction in their wages and are using whatever income they may have remaining just barely keeping the payments on their mortgage up (even if claiming job seekers allowance, benefits will only pay for rent) so they don't lose their homes. Also, as one of those cases above illustrates, there can be long hold-ups for some benefit claimants, sometimes several months due to processing errors and sometimes needed paperwork has to go through lengthy appeals and so-on, during such periods there can be no income whatsoever.

Having said that I know numerous people on benefits, not one of them to my knowledge has ever felt the need to avail themselves of a food bank. I think such services are generally required by people who somehow slip through the net, such as above.

Subject: RE: BS: London disorder - police photo set
From: GUEST,999
Date: 14 Aug 11 - 07:27 AM

Good post, livelylass.

We have food banks in Canada, too. Disgraceful 'institutions', and that's the real disgrace. They have become institutions. Well meaning people and some businesses do give to food banks, but we have now become inured to the revulsion they should make us feel, especially in developed countries. imo

Subject: RE: BS: London disorder - police photo set
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 14 Aug 11 - 07:55 AM

My mobile cost me £39 pounds - even more poor!!!

But what does your house cost/is worth? And your car? And your holidays?

Why use a phone as a measure of wealth - because it's sometheing these people actually can own and dare to own?

Subject: RE: BS: London disorder - police photo set
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 14 Aug 11 - 08:59 AM

We have way too many poor people in this country and elsewhere...

Poverty is not purely financial you known.

Poverty of the Spirit & Poverty of the Soul are equally as devastating, both to the Individual and to Society in general.

I've been banging on to you all for years about this, yet all so many tried to do was bury my voice.

So many voices that have shouting out have also fallen on deaf ears...

Well, now you have explosion, in your midst...

Years back, I told you the Teachers themselves, at the National Conference in Torquay, where I now live, said that MANY of their pupils were showing signs of mental problems...depression, agression etc......

But STILL no-one acted upon that...

Still they go on putting more and more stress on already troubled souls, more exams, higher passes required, more money for a Uni Education, more debt, less and less and less HOPE!

You are all talking from a generation which had oodles of hope! A generation which knew they could leave a job one week, and get a new one the next, if they so chose.

A generation which, for the most part, came from loving, happy, supportive families.

A generation which was not tested to within the limits of their sanity, from when they were young children...

A generation which was not bombared by The Corporate Bastards...

A generation which still had Love running right alongside, entwined with sex...

A generation which had not been 'groomed' to sex acts alone, devoid of Love

A generation which still had faith, which was far more in contact with the Earth...

A generation brought up in a far more gentle climate, and a climate that wasn't burning up with drought, of both the planet's natural water and the soul of the human species..


Ah well....never mind...for it's far more important to silence the voices of those you decide you do not want to listen to, rather than dare to try to open your minds, just a little...to open your eyes, just a little wider....

Eliza, I know exactly what Richard means.........................

Subject: RE: BS: London disorder - police photo set
From: Musket
Date: 14 Aug 11 - 10:49 AM

My brother has for the past thirty years worked in many third world countries as an aid worker. I suppose his views will be polarised by his experiences but I see what he means when he says that if you live in the Western world, you have won the lottery.

If you feel you have not won the lottery then there is opportunity for you to do so. The 5,000 jobs on the books of Tottenham and neighbouring within 3 miles Job Centres for instance...

If that doesn't suit, then don't worry, there are many idiots around who will analyse your idle selfish mentality and call you a victim. (If that telly you are carrying is a Toshiba, then you are a victim, join the club. My Toshiba is a crock of shit.)

Until they become victims themselves, then they join the ranks of the reactionary.

Funny old world.

Subject: RE: BS: London disorder - police photo set
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 14 Aug 11 - 12:33 PM

Well clever old you Lizzie.

Subject: RE: BS: London disorder - police photo set
From: michaelr
Date: 14 Aug 11 - 12:48 PM

Richard Bridge: So in the long term the answer is likely to lie in the alleviation of poverty and the creation of uniform opportunity.

Exactly, hear hear, and amen to that. Now who can we look to for making that happen?

Subject: RE: BS: London disorder - police photo set
From: gnu
Date: 14 Aug 11 - 12:50 PM

I'll second that, Eliza.

Subject: RE: BS: London disorder - police photo set
From: Lizzie Cornish 1
Date: 14 Aug 11 - 01:23 PM

Sorry, Eliza, I didn't mean that rudely...

I'm more than likely the 'what', basically... ;0)

Subject: RE: BS: London disorder - police photo set
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 14 Aug 11 - 01:31 PM

"I am however surprised that even you cannot look at the photos and see the disaffection and alienation. I suggest you look again."
=====
Where in the pictures do you see these, Richard? I have looked again. & still all I can see is a set of ordinary looking people who appear neither particularly cheerful, nor particularly "disaffected or alienated" or miserable or unhappy. The way we all look, in fact, while going about our usual occasions with no distractions. The idea that people who are not 'disaffected' &c go around all the time with happy smiling faces is an absurdity. Try it some time & see how long before the men in white coats just happen along.

Perhaps you could pinpoint one or two of the pix, R, and expound a bit on where you perceive this "d & a" which you purport to see and believe to be so evident?

~Michael~

Subject: RE: BS: London disorder - police photo set
From: Andy Jackson
Date: 14 Aug 11 - 02:43 PM

They look like a random bunch of ordinary people to me. Perhaps excited maybe, but no more than the usual Christmas shopping or pub chuckout time crowd.
If you didn't know the context you wouldn't give any of them a secomd glance.

Subject: RE: BS: London disorder - police photo set
From: gnu
Date: 14 Aug 11 - 02:45 PM

We are about to get "police-cams" here. Good idea.

Subject: RE: BS: London disorder - police photo set
From: Donuel
Date: 14 Aug 11 - 04:49 PM

Suspect S 96 is wanted dead or alive. She is clearly seen stealing new shoes, shampoo and a Sham Wow. If you see a woman with clean hair new shoes and a clean car, call the police. Do not attempt to apprehend yourself.

Street police photos of gnu clealy shows that she is up to something and is grounds enough for her detention or arrest.