Thread: Riots in London

Originally Posted by MK27

Ie, why should the violence remain one-sided? Myself, I'd just move to the country, keep to myself, and become a misanthrope but I do have a certain respect for people who are willing to get confrontational when a confrontation is perhaps called for. It's not really up to people who were not going to do anything anyway to sit around and go, "Well I was not going to do anything myself but for those who were: you know the proper way would be the Martha Stewart way, so we can all have a good laugh at new hour." Evidentially this lacked the comedy most of us want to see in our civil disobedience.

If there was any hope of this mob to storm the Buckingham Palace and get rid of the scum inside, I might think you made a point. You would definitely if this was about people killing cops and storming police stations. But that is not the case. Forget Martha Stewart (not even sure what that means). It's Reginald Denny you are witnessing once again.

These aren't people in search of their rights. These aren't people protesting against police brutality. This are criminals violently destroying from those that have as less as they do, because they aren't the courageous folks you want to paint them (willing to get confrontational, my arse). These are gangs of looters and pillagers that flee as soon as the police storms them, beat bystanders on the street on account of the color of their skin or how they look like, and invade stores to steal widescreen TV set and xboxes.

Originally Posted by MK27

Of course, I don't expect it will lead to any reform (I don't think there is the political will in the elected government to stand up to the police and police abuses of power) but at least a very loud and clear sense of outrage was registered.

Of course there isn't. What would that reform be? Law approving pillaging? Perhaps the right to turn over and burn cars. Certainly what most of these people would want would be laws permitting crime and no jail sentence to stealing, murdering and drug and weapon traffic.

What kind of reform are these people actually asking for? I can't see it. What I do think I know is why things turned this ugly (and I can see it happen on many other European cities sooner or later). But as much as we can complain about the lack of proper government policies to fight exclusion and segregation, we can complain about the lack of proper and strong civil movements to fight against the status quo in modern European societies. And certainly we can complain about trying to fight exclusion with violence. That's genius!

EDIT:
To put it more simply they are just promoting more oppressive policies. Because that's how stupid and ignorant they are (which they are in fact). No society tolerates this behavior, and that justifies many reforms. Not the kind you'd wish to see though. And don't actually think they care one bit about this. They are in it for the f. tv and xbox, not yet another black whoever that got killed by the police when he didn't obey a stop order.

In related news, independent music labels face the fury of the rioters. I always knew there was something deeply evil about independent labels and the way they have governed UK for the past decades.

Yes, I am.

The police response was a total failure.

Water canons and rubber bullets should have been used at the outset, as well as aerial water bombing to disperse crowds and put out fires.

If the police didn't have the numbers, bring in the army.