Hard News by Russell Brown

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Hard News: London's Burning

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  • Sacha,

    Who'd have expected sense from Russell Brand?

    Amidst the bleakness of this social landscape, squinting all the while in the glare of a culture that radiates ultraviolet consumerism and infrared celebrity. That daily, hourly, incessantly enforces the egregious, deceitful message that you are what you wear, what you drive, what you watch and what you watch it on, in livid, neon pixels. The only light in their lives comes from these luminous corporate messages. No wonder they have their fucking hoods up.

    I remember Cameron saying "hug a hoodie" but I haven't seen him doing it. Why would he? Hoodies don't vote, they've realised it's pointless, that whoever gets elected will just be a different shade of the "we don't give a toss about you" party.
    ...

    Why am I surprised that these young people behave destructively, "mindlessly", motivated only by self-interest? How should we describe the actions of the city bankers who brought our economy to its knees in 2010? Altruistic? Mindful? Kind? But then again, they do wear suits, so they deserve to be bailed out, perhaps that's why not one of them has been imprisoned. And they got away with a lot more than a few fucking pairs of trainers.

    These young people have no sense of community because they haven't been given one. They have no stake in society because Cameron's mentor Margaret Thatcher told us there's no such thing.

    If we don't want our young people to tear apart our communities then don't let people in power tear apart the values that hold our communities together.

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

  • BenWilson, in reply to DexterX,

    This is a bit broad and unconnected, what is or where would you set an unsustainably high income and who gets paid it.

    I'm pretty much referring to GDP per head, which has been historically been high for NZ and many other Western nations. For a long time this was because of high industrial development and high skill levels. This has not kept pace with emerging industrial nations, nor could it, realistically, with globalized labour and capital. Not without actually fucking those countries up deliberately, which has been a favored tactic in the past in economic rivalry between nations. Or nicking their resources, which is another way of fucking them up.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report Reply

  • Simon Grigg, in reply to Sacha,

    Who'd have expected sense from Russell Brand?

    Or from the Telegraph?

    In the past 24 hours I've seen sensible commentary on both the Telegraph and Time sites. I'm with Ben - this may well be the end of times.

    David Cameron, Ed Miliband and the entire British political class came together yesterday to denounce the rioters. They were of course right to say that the actions of these looters, arsonists and muggers were abhorrent and criminal, and that the police should be given more support.

    But there was also something very phony and hypocritical about all the shock and outrage expressed in parliament. MPs spoke about the week’s dreadful events as if they were nothing to do with them.

    I cannot accept that this is the case. Indeed, I believe that the criminality in our streets cannot be dissociated from the moral disintegration in the highest ranks of modern British society. The last two decades have seen a terrifying decline in standards among the British governing elite. It has become acceptable for our politicians to lie and to cheat. An almost universal culture of selfishness and greed has grown up.

    It is not just the feral youth of Tottenham who have forgotten they have duties as well as rights. So have the feral rich of Chelsea and Kensington. A few years ago, my wife and I went to a dinner party in a large house in west London. A security guard prowled along the street outside, and there was much talk of the “north-south divide”, which I took literally for a while until I realised that my hosts were facetiously referring to the difference between those who lived north and south of Kensington High Street.

    Most of the people in this very expensive street were every bit as deracinated and cut off from the rest of Britain as the young, unemployed men and women who have caused such terrible damage over the last few days. For them, the repellent Financial Times magazine How to Spend It is a bible. I’d guess that few of them bother to pay British tax if they can avoid it, and that fewer still feel the sense of obligation to society that only a few decades ago came naturally to the wealthy and better off.

    Yet we celebrate people who live empty lives like this.

    Just another klong... • Since Nov 2006 • 3284 posts Report Reply

  • Sacha, in reply to Simon Grigg,

    Or from the Telegraph?

    Good. I was hoping someone would post that - and that local political folk notice there are potential coalitions of interest with the more conservative right against radically selfish and immoral neolib positions.

    The Prime Minister showed no sign that he understood that something stank about yesterday’s Commons debate. He spoke of morality, but only as something which applies to the very poor: “We will restore a stronger sense of morality and responsibility – in every town, in every street and in every estate.” He appeared not to grasp that this should apply to the rich and powerful as well.
    ...

    These double standards from Downing Street are symptomatic of widespread double standards at the very top of our society. It should be stressed that most people (including, I know, Telegraph readers) continue to believe in honesty, decency, hard work, and putting back into society at least as much as they take out.

    But there are those who do not. Certainly, the so-called feral youth seem oblivious to decency and morality. But so are the venal rich and powerful – too many of our bankers, footballers, wealthy businessmen and politicians.

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

  • Sofie Bribiesca, in reply to DexterX,

    Eventually you make a human sacrifice and it rains.

    I know what/where you come from DexterX , but let's for a change try the top 003% and the rest up there at the top income bracket of the country instead of always targeting the poor/suffering/ incapable/can'ts of the country and in many cases/countries exactly the same problems.
    Happy to sacrifice fewer people who are able to afford it for the sake of humanity. I have nothing against getting up the top of the ladder, just consequences should/could be fair and if they would, I reckon all sorts of people will get along with minimal suffering.That's raining, in my book :)

    here and there. • Since Nov 2007 • 6796 posts Report Reply

  • DexterX, in reply to Sofie Bribiesca,

    In my role as a gnomic economist and commentator I consider a possible underlying message from Key is going to be, "You're own your own deal with it", the underlying message from the right. It would have been good if govts around the world had delivered that message to those banks and financial institutions that were responsible for caught up in the GFC.

    In my view the value of hard real assets would have plummeted much faster than the value of wages and the paper assets would have burnt and this would have created a better basis for a sustainable recovery and future. It is not as if those hard assets disappear or cease to be able to do what they did before the “recession”.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 1224 posts Report Reply

  • Hebe, in reply to Simon Grigg,

    the rioters have this defence: they are just following the example set by senior and respected figures in society. Let’s bear in mind that many of the youths in our inner cities have never been trained in decent values. All they have ever known is barbarism. Our politicians and bankers, in sharp contrast, tend to have been to good schools and universities and to have been given every opportunity in life
    Something has gone horribly wrong in Britain. If we are ever to confront the problems which have been exposed in the past week, it is essential to bear in mind that they do not only exist in inner-city housing estates.

    The culture of greed and impunity we are witnessing on our TV screens stretches right up into corporate boardrooms and the Cabinet. It embraces the police and large parts of our media. It is not just its damaged youth, but Britain itself that needs a moral reformation.

    'Kin oath.Reading this and Russell Brand in the Guardian makes me wonder if anyone cannot see through the sanctimonious sods in Westminster.

    Meanwhile John Key aims the gun on tonight's TV news at New Zealand's young underclass. Who advises the Key inner circle? Why the PR maestros Crosby Textor, who also have a Very Close Relationship with the UK's Conservatives.

    Christchurch • Since May 2011 • 2899 posts Report Reply

  • Rich Lock,

    I don't understand it. Why are they doing this, smashing the shops and now each other, destroying the livelihoods of decent people in furious rampages organised by the miracle of the text. Are they so disaffected? Do they not feel they have a stake? Are they so badly educated? Is it racist, all of this? How can you tell, with their balaclavas and hoodies? Young hoodlums lighting massive fires simply to watch buildings burn. I mean, it is so catastrophically un-British.

    And then...

    who would have thought the British police would have so much riot gear available to them?

    You can smell the logic disconnect burning from ten miles away. Upwind.

    This man is paid by a national newpaper to write this shit?

    back in the mother countr… • Since Feb 2007 • 2728 posts Report Reply

  • Sacha, in reply to Rich Lock,

    This man is paid by a national newpaper to write this shit?

    When you add Garth George, Michael Lhaws, et al, it seems fatuous bigoted wittering has a reliable market, if only among middle-aged newspaper editors.

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

  • Rich Lock,

    And let's not forget ker-ay-zee old uncle Jimmy Hopkins, with his zany spinning bow-tie of truthiness.

    back in the mother countr… • Since Feb 2007 • 2728 posts Report Reply

  • BenWilson, in reply to DexterX,

    Deepening the recession is the only way to get out of the recession – refer GST increase. The slashing of benefits will help foster the recovery in the longer term, it will work the same way that throwing human sacrifices into the volcano, time and time again, made it rain and stopped the crops from failing. Eventually you make a human sacrifice and it rains.

    Can I just say for the record that I think these ideas suck arse? I think you were somewhat joking but in some ways it's no joke, that really is the way capitalism gets out of recession, left to its own devices, just as the way that nature copes with overpopulation is through mass starvation. We're fucking HUMANS! We can do better.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report Reply

  • Sacha, in reply to BenWilson,

    I think you were somewhat joking

    being satirical, I thought

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

  • BenWilson, in reply to Sacha,

    I'm sure of it, although there was grim irony there.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report Reply

  • Sacha,

    Guardian article about the impact of youth programme closures and parental poverty with (gasp) quotes from actual young Londoners.

    Agnes and her friends chose their route carefully from their estate to the chicken shop. Most often they were to be found at the Crib youth club, a safe space for dozens of children who wanted to avoid trouble. But the Crib this year lost three quarters of its funding. Its opening hours have been slashed. "Usually we have loads of things going on in the summer, this year – nothing," said youth worker Kelly Reid. "What are the kids doing instead? Looting. We were out patrolling those nights, making our kids go home, we BB'd [BlackBerryed] lots of them, telling them to go home. They are latchkey kids and there's no one at home telling them to get indoors. That's why you saw so many little ones out there on the streets, they were being looked after by the older ones. That's the only childcare anyone can afford or when the mums are out working their fingers to the bone trying to bring in some money."

    Many youth projects across London's inner city estates have closed down due to funding cuts. Yet the capital dominates the child poverty statistics, with far higher proportions of poor children than other European cities – 44% of Hackney's children live in poverty.

    For Candy, 14, on the Whitmore estate off Hoxton Street, that's a poverty that sees her sleep each night under a coat on a bare mattress on a bare floor. "Sometimes we have food, and sometimes not much," she says, opening an old, scratched fridge. Her mother is asleep on a plastic-covered sofa in front of an old TV. "She is not very well, she gets depressed," explains Candy. Next door three children under nine are home alone. Their mother will feed Candy when she gets back from work for keeping an eye on them.

    Ak • Since May 2008 • 19745 posts Report Reply

  • DexterX, in reply to BenWilson,

    It was not an idea - It is not the way Capitalism or any of the isms gets out of a recession - it is what happened and will happen regardless of the prevailing "ism".
    .

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 1224 posts Report Reply

  • BenWilson, in reply to DexterX,

    The idea that we can't shape our future better is something that might be true, but it's also apathetic, setting up a self fulfilling prophecy. Again, I think we can do better. There are any number of tweaks that would make an enormous difference. You have mentioned many of them yourself.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report Reply

  • Kumara Republic, in reply to DexterX,

    Deepening the recession is the only way to get out of the recession – refer GST increase. The slashing of benefits will help foster the recovery in the longer term, it will work the same way that throwing human sacrifices into the volcano, time and time again, made it rain and stopped the crops from failing. Eventually you make a human sacrifice and it rains.

    And of course, the Sharpeville police knew how to eradicate poverty in 1960. So too do the BOPE of Rio de Janeiro.

    The southernmost capital … • Since Nov 2006 • 5446 posts Report Reply

  • Jeremy Eade,

    Who'd have expected sense from Russell Brand?

    He's from the street, he'd have first hand knowledge of where it all goes wrong.

    auckland • Since Mar 2008 • 1112 posts Report Reply

  • DexterX, in reply to Kumara Republic,

    The Sharpeville massacre bears no relation to the present riots in London.

    The London riots are not representative of a serious movement to overthrow the government and challenge the social order of the day – they are in the nature of opportunistic looting and rioting.

    Riots/uprising that are politically based and take place in an environment with over arching oppression are swiftly and violently put down – as is the mode of oppression.

    It is interesting to me that in Thailand an organiser for the red shirts was shot in the head at a rally or on the barricades and that although there has been a democratic election with a result that favoured the red shirts the govt/prime minister has not been sworn in.

    I have no knowledge of the I am not qualified to comment on Brazil BOPE or Brazilian politics and my views here would be 30 years out of date. The only comment I can offer about the BOPE is that in Brazil the two movies based on its operation Elite squad and Elite Squad 2 have been box office successes and the video game also does well.

    What the conservative coalition, particularly in London, is likely to be held to account for, in the electoral process, is the perception that the initial response was inadequate. It took time, too long for many, for the police and the govt to organise an adequate response.

    Had the riots broken out in a more affluent suburb, more connected to the conservative coalition, would the initial response have been more adequate and contained the situation at the outset.

    Conversely if there had been a left leaning coalition or Labour Govt and the London riots kicked of where they did would the response have been more swift as the government may have had a greater degree of connection with the community and more inclined to be responsive.

    One New Years Eve about five or more years ago there was a giant brawl/riot in the Glen Innes shops and the police response was to let it wear itself out. The next day I looked for a news article and it was never reported.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 1224 posts Report Reply

  • DexterX, in reply to BenWilson,

    There are any number of tweaks that would make an enormous difference. You have mentioned many of them yourself.

    You are suggesting DexterX act as a benevolent dictator, it is NZ's only real hope, No?

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 1224 posts Report Reply

  • Kyle Matthews,

    I’d say it’s a different but significant systemic crisis/challenge, especially if you take in the unrest in other places like the middle east over similar factors like poverty, food prices, youth unemployment and political disengagement.

    What's been happening in the Middle East has yet to reach the significance of the post-war end of colonialism, which ruptured much of Africa, South and South-East Asia, along with parts of the Middle East, along with the spread of communism to various parts of the world. Cuba, Vietnam, Cambodia, India-Pakistan, wars between Israel and its neighbours.

    Over the past year we've seen significant change in a couple of countries, and attempts in several others to bring about change. I'd struggle to compare that to the significance of Vietnam falling to communism and America targeting it as its cold war battle ground, let along the umpteen other things that were happening around the world at the time.

    I also don't see any connection between what young people have been doing in the Middle East, and what young people have been doing in London. During the 1960s those connections existed - Weatherman broke away from the mainstream to bring the war home to America and bring down an imperialist empire that they directly connected to colonial empires that had been collapsing. The leaders of that group had been to Cuba, and to Vietnam and developed plans with NLF leaders.

    What did you make of the Will Davies article that Stephen linked to?

    My impression is that what's been happening in London will pass by with nothing changing. There's no structure, ideology, group etc behind it. Might just be a flash in the pan that we're getting big coverage of because it's in England and we get good media coverage and have links with England. The developments in the Middle East are ten times as significant.

    Since Nov 2006 • 6243 posts Report Reply

  • Kumara Republic, in reply to DexterX,

    I have no knowledge of the I am not qualified to comment on Brazil BOPE or Brazilian politics and my views here would be 30 years out of date. The only comment I can offer about the BOPE is that in Brazil the two movies based on its operation Elite squad and Elite Squad 2 have been box office successes and the video game also does well.

    The BOPE have not been above acting as judge, jury & executioner when sent to Rio’s favelas. It doesn’t help that many work on a pittance and encounter gun violence against them on a regular basis. So many just say, ‘fuck the world’, and let their rifles do the talking.

    The southernmost capital … • Since Nov 2006 • 5446 posts Report Reply

  • Simon Grigg, in reply to DexterX,

    It is interesting to me that in Thailand an organiser for the red shirts was shot in the head at a rally or on the barricades and that although there has been a democratic election with a result that favoured the red shirts the govt/prime minister has not been sworn in.

    I have no idea where you get that from.

    Yingluck Shinawatra was confirmed by Parliament in the first post-election session, exactly as required by the constitution, on the 5th of August and sworn in on the 10th, without issue. She's the current PM of Thailand and her cabinet was sworn in on the same day.

    Nobody, beyond those who did it, knows exactly who shot Seh Daeng, who was not an 'organiser' but a so-called security advisor - the leader of the militant Black Shirts - on May 13, some 60 days after the protests began. Nor do they know why. There are all sorts of theories, but those who do know are not talking.

    The red-shirt movement was not 'swiftly and violently put down' as you put it. It was anything but - the government spent two months trying to work its way through the impasse. Imagine if MLK had moved 50,000 marchers into Wall Street and Times Square for two months and shut down all commercial and financial activity and you have a rough equivalence (aside from the fact that the populist Thai movement has no MLK equivalent). The government was anything but 'oppressive' in its reaction and there was broad public support for the way it handled the protests. Where it lost support (and thus the election it is said), was by its pretty poor handling of the aftermath and the inquiries.

    The ending was nasty, but it was nasty on both sides and I think all parties at the time breathed a sign of relief that it wasn't very much worse.

    Just another klong... • Since Nov 2006 • 3284 posts Report Reply

  • BenWilson, in reply to Simon Grigg,

    Imagine if MLK had moved 50,000 marchers into Wall Street and Times Square for two months

    I can imagine a swift and violent response. I think the same thing might happen here too.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 10657 posts Report Reply

  • Rich of Observationz,

    He’s from the street

    I'm surprised we haven't heard from Westwood.

    Back in Wellington • Since Nov 2006 • 5550 posts Report Reply

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