London riots : neoliberal chickens coming home to roost?

Another Update (September 4) : The always-outrageous IWCA stick the boot into the lumps.
Update : More blah: Why here, why now?, Tariq Ali, LRB blog, August 9, 2011 | An open letter to those who condemn looting (Part one) & An open letter to those who condemn looting (Part two), Socialism and/or barbarism, August 9 & 10, 2011 | London riots: the limits of Left and Right, Potlatch, August 10, 2011.

“The violence started over the shooting of Mark Duggan, 29, in Tottenham last Thursday but soon escalated into looting and attacks by anarchists and organised criminal gangs.” ~ Evening Standard, August 9, 2011

“When Thatcher said there was no such thing as society it wasn’t an empirical observation it was a statement of intent.” ~ revol68

See also : London Riots Map | London rioters: ‘Showing the rich we do what we want’, BBC, August 9, 2011 | Tottenham and Beyond: neoliberal riots and the possibility of politics, William Wall, Ice Moon, August 9, 2011 | North London Solfed’s response to the London riots, August 9, 2011 | The 1965 Watts Riot (Situationist International) | From Riot to Insurrection: Analysis for Anarchist Perspective Against Post Industrial Capitalism, Alfredo M. Bonanno | Menacingly rolling towards Ben Brown in my wheelchair…, December 14, 2010.

And The Rioting Act, Derek Turner, Alternative Right, August 10, 2011.

Chile student protests explode into violence, Jonathan Franklin, guardian.co.uk, August 5, 2011 (“Riot police clash with protesters calling for education reform as anger with Sebastiàn Piñera’s government boils over”).

„Das ist der Aufstand der Arbeiterklasse. Wir verteilen den Wohlstand um“, sagte der 28-jährige Bryan Phillips, der sich selbst als Anarchist bezeichnet.

Bonus Bendle!

Militant groups fuel the fires, Merv Bendle, The Australian, August 11, 2011. Choice line: “[Negri’s] objective is to achieve “true democracy” as exemplified by the UN and international non-governmental agencies such as Greenpeace…” LOL.

About @ndy

I live in Melbourne, Australia. I like anarchy. I don't like nazis. I enjoy eating pizza and drinking beer. I barrack for the greatest football team on Earth: Collingwood Magpies. The 2024 premiership's a cakewalk for the good old Collingwood.
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34 Responses to London riots : neoliberal chickens coming home to roost?

  1. aesorpg says:

    The British rioters were mainly black – with a few whiteys and other assorted hangers on. If these Blacks have reason to complain about their ‘situation’ in modern British society let them organise politically and bring their complaints to the right forums. There is nothing preventing Blacks in Britain from organising and bringing [society’s] attention to their grievances. There is no excuse for what we have witnessed in Britain this last week. More than any other Western country Britain has gone to extraordinary lengths to build an inclusive society – only to have a bunch of mostly Black savages vomit filth and mayhem in its face. If newcomers to Western civilisation wont leave their barbarous ways behind them when they come to live among us they must be sent back from whence they came. People like Andy cant stop moving the goalposts to [accommodate] the dreadful behaviour of many third world [immigrants]. When Andy has finally finished moving the goalposts they wont even be on the field – and probably Andys house will have been burned down by them and his mother stripped naked in the street in broad daylight and humiliated. And White [?] Andy et all will still be apologising for having the temerity to even exist, oh and dont forget all the so called oppressions visited on the third world by Andys forebears. Yes indeed the race war being waged against Whites is a just and [necessary] affair which all Whites (like Andy) welcome and applaud.

  2. cmv says:

    Yeah, I’ve seen this youtube clip, and so what? Some plucky, latter day Village Elder rattles of[f] some boilerplate excuses as to why people of African descent seem to be disporportionaly [sic] obstreperous & prone to rioting, compared to people of other ethnicities. And look, people have got to realize that the fact that hyphenated Africans are inordinately search[ed] by cops is due to the very well founded reason that people of African descent tend to disporportionately [sic] commit crimes, a sort of vicious circle if you will.

    And what of you, Andy? Heading to our own antipodean Mother Country anytime soon for some strategic anarchic car-burning? I mean this stuff has got [to] be the closest that an anarchist can get to any sort of political action, huh?

  3. The riots throughout England could have been predicted after the first day. The television showed rioting and looting, with the police just watching. The police looked scared. So a million young people got the message that all they needed to do was to collect in gangs, and the police would not dare stop them stealing everything they wanted. So they did just that: came out in gangs and looted. Actually I found your blog by accident, while searching for something else on Google. All the same, I stayed to read more because I found your posts interesting, and (most of all) well written. Perhaps I should introduce myself and explain that last remark! My name is Goodwin A I Manson, and I am a retired schoolteacher. So I am rather fussy about proper spelling and grammar. When I was marking school homework, I always looked for innovative thoughts, credible information, and clear accurate facts. If you had been one of my students, I would have been pleased with your efforts! You obviously enjoy writing, and I hope that you will appreciate a quick comment saying that I liked your blog. Keep up the good work. Wishing you all the best, Kindest regards, Goodwin A I Manson.

  4. @ndy says:

    Oh dear.

    @Goodwin A I Manson: You may be right. On the other hand, as I understand it, the initial spark for the riots was the shooting death of Mark Duggan on August 4, which was followed by a small protest of several hundred people outside of the police station on Tottenham High Road on August 6. This became a flashpoint for confrontation with police and rapidly expanded into riots involving thousands more. In this context, I’m not sure a failure in policing is to blame for the subsequent escalation in conflict. That is, a harsher clampdown by police — especially upon Duggan’s family and friends, a number of whom had gathered at the station — may well have backfired. Further, it’s simply not the case that police have endless resources with which to engage in these kinds of social control: as many commentators have remarked, the problem could be said to lie in the fact that many youth have failed to internalise the necessary forms of self-regulation which would otherwise prevent them from (burning and) looting. (Like an MP who rorts the system, these could be said to be crimes of opportunity — though perhaps with greater moral justification.) To put it another way, when large numbers of people mobilise in this fashion, policing their behaviour is no easy task. (The smooth functioning of any society relies less upon repression than it does in/voluntary cooperation and assimilation to cultural and social norms.) Beyond this, the police and the state as a whole is obliged to bring the situation back under control eventually, and if necessary employ lethal force in order to do so. This too contains risks, but sending in the tanks doesn’t appear to be necessary at this stage, and much of the broader public is unsympathetic to the rioters’ cause (such as it is).

    Another interesting text:

    An open letter to those who condemn looting (Part one)
    August 9, 2011
    http://socialismandorbarbarism.blogspot.com/2011/08/open-letter-to-those-who-condemn.html

    An open letter to those who condemn looting (Part two)
    August 10, 2011
    http://socialismandorbarbarism.blogspot.com/2011/08/open-letter-to-those-who-condemn_10.html

  5. @ndy says:

    @aesorpg:

    “The British rioters were mainly black…”

    Were they? Dunno. Don’t care much either. Otherwise: black people in Britain do organise politically; there’s even a dozen or so black Britons sitting in Parliament. In other words, the fact that black Britons are politically active is hardly newsworthy. Further, your racialism obscures other pertinent features of these recent events, the nature of contemporary England, and the place of blacks within it.

    Otherwise: you collapse the conceptual distinction between explanation and justification; your understanding of recent British history and the response of social institutions to black migration from other parts of the Commonwealth is faulty; your appreciation of the nature of Western civilisation is naive (at best); my political perspective is actually relatively consistent and does not countenance my mother’s humiliation; you know nothing of my ancestry; your style of argument is to engage in tedious trolling rather than serious debate.

    @cmv: Read a book. Seriously.

  6. @ndy says:

    Criminality and Rewards
    max von sudo
    August 9, 2011

    What is the crime of looting a corporate chain store next to the crime of owning one? — Luther Brecht

    Looters don’t give many press conferences. This made all of the conversations on today’s BBC morning show a little bit one-sided.

    Having been out last night in Brixton, I feel as qualified as anybody to offer at least a bit of perspective as an anarchist living in the area for the past six years.

    First things first. None of the people hauling ass out of Currys last night will ever pay £9000 annual tuition to David Cameron’s shiny new neo-liberal university system, so beloved by the young people of London. Although Britain has a bit more social mobility now than in the Victorian era which Cameron seems to idolize, the racist overtones in the Great British societal symphony are still pretty loud. Most of the black people who participated in last night’s looting of the Currys over on Effra Road may never make it off their housing estates and into the Big Society. They don’t have a hell of a lot to lose.

    Despite this, the fairly mixed (for Brixton) crowd of several hundred was feeling festive last night, as cars lined up on both sides of the road, all the way to Brixton Water Lane. They’re not people who are used to winning very often. The chance to haul away several hundred thousand pounds worth of electronics, right under the helpless noses of the police who routinely harass, beat, and kill them, made it a great night. The fourteen year old girls heading for that 60 inch plasma TV of their dreams were polite enough to say “excuse me”, quite sincerely, as they bumped into me while springing into the Currys parking lot. Last night, everybody on Effra Road was in a great mood.

    This morning, killjoys in the corporate media disagreed.

    Many commentators decried the lack of a clear political motive in the riots, and seemed worried about how unrespectable the looting makes it all seem. According to this line of thought, poverty is not political.

    On the radio, on the web, and in the papers, there’s a lot of talk right now about the ‘stupidity’ of the rioters, burning down their own neighbourhoods. All of the commentators who follow this line of argument haven’t considered some pretty basic facts.

    Outraged Guardian readers, I say to you: you’re only partially correct. It’s true that the guy carrying that cash register past Brixton Academy last night probably didn’t conceptualize his actions according to rational choice economic theories. However, when compared with four years of failed state capitalist attempts to catapult us out of the economic crisis, his maneuvers were in fact the height of rationality. Destroying evidence by turning on the gas cooker full-blast and burning down the Stockwell Road Nandos is pretty crazy. But it makes a lot more economic sense, for Brixton, than anything so far attempted by Labour, the Conservatives, or the wizard brains of the City of London.

    Smashing windows in Brixton is probably a surer road to prosperity for most people than any of the more respectable paths already explored.

    The guy who showed up today to fix the smashed windows on Brixton Road may live just down the street from the shattered glass lying on the pavement; it’s unlikely that he’s a currency speculator or a hedge fund manager on the side. Any money he makes from fixing the windows will be mostly spent back in the local community.

    The merits of endlessly sucking money out of the pockets of working people into the reserve accounts of the supercharged risk-takers at Canary wharf are quite a bit less clear to me, at present. The crisis is entering year five. Throwing hundreds of billions into the endless rounds of bank bailouts, corporate tax breaks, and other props for a global economy which increasingly resembles that of the USSR circa 1987 is not clearly a winning strategy.

    The eruption of economic chaos in the Eurozone, and the police bullets which ripped into Mark Duggan, ending his life, are now two events which are bound together in a massive sequence of riots in London, the European continent’s largest financial centre.

    These riots are remarkable chiefly for the role-reversals they bring about, and most of the outrage in the corporate media is a reflection of this. The outrage is really interesting if you stop to think about it.

    For instance: retail profit is a kind of theft. It’s economic value which is hoovered out of a local community via corporate cash registers. The decisions about where to re-invest the profits are the preserve of corporate managers and shareholders, not the decision of the people from whom the value was extracted. The whole process is fundamentally anti-democratic.

    This daily denial of basic democratic political rights is “normal”, and may last for years, decades or centuries. Corporations may steal from poor people – but any attempt on the part of poor people to steal back must be condemned in the strongest possible terms.

    Similarly, I had multiple conversations today about Saturday night’s riots in Tottenham. They invariably referenced the case of Keith Blakelock, the police officer who was killed during the Broadwater Farm riots of 1985. Not one of the conversations I had included any reference to Cynthia Jarrett, the woman whose killing during a search of her apartment sparked those riots in the first place.

    In the same way, I doubt whether any of the outraged middle-class commentators on the BBC 4 radio show this morning gave much thought to the dozens of people that the cops have killed in custody, or to the more or less daily humiliation of black youths who get stopped and searched outside my house. The message conveyed by all of this is pretty clear: police attacks on poor people who can’t defend themselves (especially black ones) are normal. Conversely, popular attacks on police are an outrage, especially if they happen to succeed. And don’t ask that guy who nicked the cash register to give his side of the story.

    None of this is to say that the fire truck which just screamed past my window is a good thing. The political and economic problems of Brixton are complex. It’s too easy to spout platitudes about how nothing will ever be the same again – but for a few hours last night, walking down Effra road with plasma screen TVs and Macintosh laptops, the losers were the winners. And that could have a powerful effect.

  7. Foot Soldier says:

    In 1981, Tebbit said “I grew up in the thirties with an unemployed father. He didn’t riot. He got on his bike and looked for work and he kept looking until he found it”. 30 years later, some one should tell this to the untermenschen rioting in Britain.

  8. Robin says:

    Good analysis, if a bit polemic.
    http://libcom.org/news/tottenham-beyond-neoliberal-riots-possibility-politics-10082011

    I live in the uk and saw the riots. @aesorpg: they were not ‘mainly black’, there was a mix of all ethnicities. Flippant comments like that only expose your own prejudices (or the ones you’ve been sold by the media) and reinforce division.

    Just found this blog. Very well written.

  9. cmv says:

    LOL @ndy, but I was just trolling your blog for a bit of amusement. I don’t actually adhere to the sort of crass beliefs that I tried to portray through my last email, in real life. The message I submitted was also written hastily, hence the simple typing mistakes and grammatical elisions that I committed.

    To be frank, I thought the person interviewing Darcus Howe treated him in a fairly hostile manner, given the accusatory stance of some of the questions she asked toward the end of the interview.

    In terms of the demographics of the British riots, some of the more even-headed estimates I’ve heard seem to indicate that they were about 70% Afro-Carribean, with the rest being a melange of lower-class Whites and British Asians.

    And yes, I’m sure some of the drastic cuts to welfare/university tuition, combined with a protractedly high unemployment rate that disproportionately affects already marginalized communities, are just some of the latent factors that are (were) driving these riots.
    regards,
    cmv.

  10. Doug says:

    http://www.theage.com.au/world/cameron-backs-eviction-for-london-rioters-20110813-1irlo.html
    I hope all those Pommie kids remember this day when they come into parliament.
    I seriously think we have to start threatening Baby Boomer politicians and bureaucrats with asset seizure and denial of superannuation if they don’t quit.
    You know what really pisses me off?
    Our teachers in the ’70s and ’80s used to terrify us with exactly these scenarios, saying our future was going to be filled with civil unrest and environmental degradation as the doomsday clock ticked toward midnight.
    What did they do to prevent it?
    Jack Shit would be my assessment of their efforts.

    Here’s splash of Ice water in the face of “The Man” as personified by Boomers,
    WE KNOW IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT AND WE’RE GOING TO TELL ON YOU!
    And when you’re old and frail and these kids come looking for retribution we’re going to hand you straight over to them and applaud as you’re wheeled off to the Tribunal.
    Better still let’s just forget my generation’s political ascension, Refuse/Resist and concentrate on tutoring the young in the ways of the Righteous.

    http://youtu.be/_Y_1Mn7LPwc

  11. Doug says:

    Anyone hear David Starkey’s comments?
    He’s almost completely wrong, almost.
    He’s right about the character of Gangsta/Chav lifestyles, no doubt about it, but he’s wrong about its origin.
    Gangsta/Chav/Hip-Hop/Urban culture isn’t “Black”, a minority of Black people live that way but when you talk to them about it it’s clearly life imitating art.
    I know an African guy my age who is using African music, that is to say authentic black music (he calls them “Nigger Bands”) to draw young migrants away from what he calls the “Negativity of Hip Hop”, because he sees it as a cause, not a symptom of social disadvantage.
    The lifestyle to which Starkey is referring to is GLOBAL CAPITALIST youth culture and it’s a problem all over the world, from Wadeye, to Kinshasa to Mexico City, to Paris, New York, London and Melbourne.

  12. @ndy says:

    Oh right. David Starkey… “the problem is that the whites have become black”. Reminds me of former Collingwood President Alan McAlister infamous quip that “As long as they (Indigenous people) conduct themselves like white people, well, off the field, everyone will admire them and respect them”.

    David Starkey claims ‘the whites have become black’
    Ben Quinn
    The Guardian
    August 13, 2011

    I blame LKJ.

  13. @ndy says:

    Owen Jones @ New Statesman:

    Where to begin with David Starkey? Having spoken to friends and seen the response on Twitter, it’s clear that many were left speechless at his racially inflammatory tirade on Newsnight. I can more than empathise: it was one of those moments when what is said so extreme, it is initially difficult to compute.

    Let’s be clear: what David Starkey said was not just offensive, it was downright dangerous. His initial suggestion that Enoch Powell had been vindicated — “The Tiber did not foam with blood but flames lambent, they wrapped around Tottenham and wrapped around Clapham” — would, in isolation, be outrageous enough.

    Powell predicted that mass immigration would bring turmoil to Britain’s streets. It was a prophecy that proved unfounded. We are far less racist a society than we were in the 1950s, when a large majority objected to interracial relationships. But Starkey knew there would be a newly receptive audience in the post-riot aftermath.

    His championing of Powell was eclipsed by his subsequent comments. In offering an explanation for last week’s violence, Starkey claimed that “the problem is that the whites have become black”. His theory was that white kids had become infected by black culture, and this had led them to violence and disorder. A prominent black politician like David Lammy, on the other hand, sounded “white”. For Starkey, being white meant being “respectable” ; being black meant “violence”.

    There is strong competition for the lowest point of Starkey’s rant — but when he embarked on an impression of a “patwa” accent, I could barely believe what I was watching. It was Enoch Powell meets Alan Partridge.

    Some would argue that it’s not worth even engaging with such apparent bigotry, but — uncomfortable as it may make many of us — his arguments will have resonated with many. We have to take them on.

    His point that hip-hop culture transforms white kids into gangsters was an assertion grounded in prejudice, not fact (indeed, I challenged him — as a historian — to justify his sweeping assertions with evidence). I grew up sharing a room with a brother who was obsessed with hip-hop. I hope he doesn’t mind me saying it, but he’s about as far from “gangster” as it’s possible to be.

    Anti-social behaviour is real, and should never be dismissed by the left. It is far more common in poorer communities. When I went to Ashington — once the biggest mining village in the world, since devastated by the closure of the pits — I heard a number of stories about teenage anti-social behaviour.

    But the point made eloquently to me by residents was that young people, who had grown up with all the frustrations and boredom of poverty, felt they had little future to look forward to. That’s a reality in communities across the country – and, though no excuse, no wonder a small number respond by making other people’s lives a misery.

    The Joseph Rowntree Foundation completed an extensive study into gangs: I doubt Starkey has read it. It found that there was a strong link between “territorial behaviour” and poorer communities. Gangs could provide some young people with fun, excitement and support they otherwise lacked. It “appeared for some to be a product of deprivation, a lack of opportunities and attractive activities, limited aspirations and an expression of identity”, as well as a “coping mechanism” for those living in poverty.

    It’s nothing to do with ethnicity, in other words. It’s to do with poverty.

    As for riots — well, Starkey has found an all-too-convenient way of blaming black people for riots that involved people from a whole range of ethnic backgrounds. Even if the looters weren’t black, they had somehow “become” black.

    Now, I’m intrigued that Starkey has such a unique in-depth knowledge of the cultural interests of those who took part in the violence. But let’s deal with the facts that have emerged.

    Of those who have appeared in court, the vast majority are men, aged under 24, and out of work. The riots took place in some of the poorest communities in Britain — like Hackney and Tottenham. This was a tiny slither of Britain’s burgeoning young, jobless poor: indeed, one in five young people are out of work. That isn’t to justify their behaviour, any more than to state that a lack of affordable housing and good jobs has fuelled the rise of the BNP is to justify Nick Griffin’s racist cabal. But, if a tiny proportion of those who feel they have no future to risk respond by rioting and looting, that is enough to bring chaos to Britain’s streets.

    Other commentators have looked to other explanations: Britain’s hyper-consumerism, where our status has so much to do with what we possess; and a profound inequality in British society, not least in London where the richest 10 per cent are 273 times better off than the bottom 10 per cent.

    Now that peace has returned to our communities, we have time to think through these explanations. But my fear is that — with an understandable backlash underway — Starkey’s comments could prove to be a disastrous turning point. He has put race at the top of the agenda when millions are scared and angry. As some took to the streets in support of Enoch Powell’s “river of blood”, there will be whispers across the country “that Starkey has a point”.

    I did my best to challenge David Starkey in the studio — difficult though that was. At a time of backlash and economic insecurity, we all need to be taking these arguments on in our communities. If we fail, last week’s riots could be a dark foreshadow of far worse to come.

    Owen Jones is author of Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class.

  14. Doug says:

    I like music too.
    Try and get kids to listen to the good stuff…ie contemporary music from their own society, instead of Hollywood trash…no easy task…ech, any excuse to link to some tunes.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQsdfnbOevM

  15. Smithy says:

    I hadn’t heard of David Starkey until fifteen minutes ago. I just watched him speak — or at least endeavoured to through the constant interruptions of the reactionary ‘Chav’ author and the ‘Negro violence apologist’. The only person on that panel arguing deftly was David Starkey. Is it any wonder that a thoroughly socialised state like England would confront the blessed truth with a rueful denial? Not explored by all the apologists for black disharmony, is why indeed that blacks find it impossible to live with other blacks without killing each other, and indeed, why a majority of them end up living with us in the first place. Name how many White nations are currently torn asunder by the inability of Whites to live with other Whites? Nope, none comes to mind. Somalia is a fine example of how Europe and elsewhere becomes burdened with the excess of a people that are simply incapable of living along anything but savage tribal lines. This too is true of Arab nations.

    Blacks are violent. Given asylum in Australia the Sudanese, Somalis waste no time in exerting their innate gift for savagery upon both themselves and the wider populace… and are adroit and learning to play the ‘racist’ card in their defence. The only proselyting comes not from these Africans but from the Semillon-sipping cafe radical elite, who argue this and that and point to this and that about their ‘traumatised circumstances’. They have nothing ever to say about those among us here who are traumatised because of our government’s decision to adhere as a gullible signatory to an anachronistic refugee convention that in this day and age serves only to create a gumball flood of persons seeking a geographical change of circumstances. What do they say to those who signed the paper on refugee quotas, only to find that sons and daughters here have become victims of an imported crime and violence?

    I have watched these scenarios of race and refugees in this country debated on stacked forums like Q&A and Insight, and always, always the spokespeople for the African refugees wag a figurative figure at Whites (just because it is the thing to do) — even THOUGH it is the Whites who have granted them asylum. Never at all have I ever heard ‘thank you’ from these people. The sense of entitlement from these admitted desperadoes born halfway across the globe, from places we have scant dealings with yet whom we do support charitably, whose relatives have never contributed an iota to building up this nation into the enviable economic outpost it represents in this region, leaves me furious.

    And so, to London and Starkey’s comments, I have to side with his position. England is the most PC, downright straight-jacketed welfare state on the nation. Lenin would’ve felt at home there. So many laws exist to gag any kind of contrary racial sentiment, and to service any kind of minority requirement, that frankly the continued utterance of overly worn grievances by these ‘downtrodden minorities’ is nothing but excuse-making that is permanently resuscitated by the socialist side of the coin to perpetuate its voice in the political body whenever they fear it might be flagging. It shouldn’t bother, because it has become such a dogma that it virtually can’t be challenged by law. The basis of Starkey’s argument is correct, and it’s provable by asking this: where is the shining example of a thriving black state anywhere on the face of this planet? And is its non-existence (yawn) the fault of Caucasians?

    We’ve all heard the term ‘wigger’. Is this NOT a White person, who through the primary brainwashing of capitalist inculcation and cultural bastardry has not been conditioned to a nihilistic, causeless state of rebellion, and only for the sake of emulation and identity? Only the other week London’s Daily Mail ran a story about how in at least one primary school, only (if memory serves) 4% of the school spoke English. They reported how past students had learned the Pakistani tongue (not sure what they call it, don’t have the article on hand) and were ’embarrassed’ to speak the mother tongue. Is that NOT an example of the indigenous culture being artificially altered?

    Let’s not be naïve though, and let’s not be afear of the truth: White England has always had an ingrained culture of youth violence: Teddy Boys, Mods, rockers, skinheads (which derived, again, from black culture) and of course England’s greatest export – soccer hooligans. Acknowledging that, this kind of subculture created solutions to the class problem: the kind of riots seen only with the arrival of black and Asian communities is not about a solution… it’s about a perpetuation of a problem. And they might not be the problem, but they are a symptom of it, and always will be.

    Equality is a stupid myth. After all, can we really transpose extraneous cultures into a single land with a long history and expect that nation to remain socially intact? Is England what it is by dint of its geographical location and geological makeup, or is it the culture, customs and history of the people? Should Japan be 40% Japanese and 60% ‘other races’? Would that make the world ‘better’? Can you really throw ten-large of Asians, twenty-large of Africans, etc, onto an Island and sit back in Utopian bliss expecting harmony? Why indeed should it be expected to? But they aren’t really the problem. No, no, the problem is the same fat, flatulent elite sitting on their glaucous derrieres in White Hall, pontificating about problems which generations of their soulless interchangeable-parties have engineered, and which it is tacitly understood they’ll do nothing to change.

    I don’t blame the blacks I blame the people who imported them, since they’re only acting like they were born to. Like Doug says, it’s all about ‘the man’. The man will continue to be the fat boy. And we all must feed the fat boy if we want our due.

  16. @ndy says:

    @kurt: Yeah… it’s OK.

    @Robin: Cheers. I actually done included it in the post above (the original not the libcom link).

    @cmv: I’m not sure how much government spending cuts had to do with it. Something, maybe. Most commentary seems to dwell on either failed socialisation (yoof failing to adapt to cultural norms around not breaking stuff/stealing shit/setting fire to things–unless yr OHMS) or structural issues involving a permanent underclass otoh and a temporary failure to dull the pain of being condemned to it otoh. Reading over a few bios of those arrested, it seems that this too may be overplayed…

    @Doug: I find generational theses highly problematic / Cameron’s reaction is knee-jerk. I dunno about Starkey’s appreciation of chavism; the term ‘chav’ seems to be used in a manner rather similar to that in which the term ‘bogan’ is used. That is, to describe uncouth behaviour on the part of (white) working class people. Oh, and all this stuff about “The Man” is OK, but often confused/confusing/unnecessary.

    @Smithy.

    Very briefly.
    You read like a racially-conscious Theodore Dalrymple.
    The stuff about White Civilisation and Black (Negro?!?) Violence is pretty tedious.
    I dunno about Q&A and Insight and African spokespeople–you can always provide details if you wish.
    Expressions of gratitude towards Australia by refugees and immigrants are out there if you look for them. Given that you’re furious that so many thousands of African refugees are granted asylum in Australia and you want them and all Blacks removed from the country, I dunno if it makes much difference.
    England is not a fascist state.
    Your arguments are generally unsound.
    A ‘wigger’ is a white nigger. Leaving aside the meaning and significance of such terminology, white appropriation of black cultural forms is a complex subject.
    Bradford Moor Community Primary School is the skool; 4 out of 417 students have English as their ‘mother tongue’; 90% are from Pakistan and would appear to speak Urdu or Punjabi at home; unsurprisingly, over time, English will become more prevalent; the answer to the question “Is that NOT an example of the indigenous culture being artificially altered?” is ‘Yes, it’s not’.

    Read a book.

  17. Doug says:

    @ndy.
    Mmmmm…OK, I can tend to labour my points but I can take criticism.
    Those kids in the video really don’t look or sound Black to me, does Obama “sound White”?
    There is a point to be made about “forced assimilation” even if it’s pretty much a meeting in the middle of any theoretical Black/White divide. Force can be applied from the top down in many forms and in this case I’d suggest that those boys might not have any option but “Wiggerism” due to their material circumstances.
    I lived on the edge of a public housing estate for a few years when my parents fell on hard times, the last thing you want to do in that environment is stand out, all the kids dressed the same, talked the same, liked the same music etc.
    Jealousy is a BIG issue in poor neighbourhoods, if you’re even perceived as “up yourself” or “arrogant” life can become very difficult…once I almost got the shit beaten out of me by an adult for being a “Stuck up little prick”, presumably because my parents, though not well off had a decent car, a colour TV and the phone on.
    But in the end we have to ask who’s responsible for the lack of options that means people have to conform to this lifestyle just to get by?
    I’m pretty certain there is a large generational as well as a racial element to this story, it’s always a combination of factors.

  18. Smithy says:

    @Andy

    You have to be commended for allowing uncensored and alternative points of view. However, we are simply at partisanship here.
    * Q&A and Insight, watch ’em yourself, fella.
    * White civilisation and the Black? You ain’t ever expected to agree with me.
    * Gratitude for refugees? If you say so — and you WOULD say so.
    * England a ‘fascist state’? YOU said that, NOT me. I called it a socialist ‘welfare state’.
    * I expect you to consider my arguments ‘unsound’.
    * I know what a wigger is, Andy, that’s why I employed the term. Sheesh. Oy Vey, even.
    * Balls to your statistics thereafter, I simply don’t accept them, and you haven’t cited a source.
    * As to your remark thereafter, well, I expect that of a (snerk) LIBERAL ANARCHIST. Really.
    * Read a book? Come on, that’s weak, man. I ain’t even taking that bait.
    – Anyhow, I ain’t trying to convert you to my point of view (naturally), I was simply refreshed I was allowed to express it, and again, to that end, you deserve praise. Stormfront wouldn’t have allowed likewise, but only under impossible conditions.
    So I bugger off knowing that we can never be friends, but that at least you allow voices to be heard. That really is anarchy. In a liberal kind of way. You can sort that out with your fellow anarchists.

  19. @ndy says:

    * Q&A and Insight, watch ‘em yourself, fella.

    I have. My question concerned your claim that “always, always the spokespeople for the African refugees wag a figurative figure at Whites” — and so on. Hyperbole is to be expected, but I don’t recall too many of the talking heads on those shows (Q&A especially) being spokespersons for African refugees; I suppose partly on account of the fact that there are, in reality, relatively few such people in Australia.

    * White civilisation and the Black? You ain’t ever expected to agree with me.

    I am a sensible boy after all.

    * Gratitude for refugees? If you say so — and you WOULD say so.

    Er, I mean: refugees living in Australia have expressed gratitude for the fact. That you find this fact remarkable isn’t, in the final analysis, all that remarkable.

    * England a ‘fascist state’? YOU said that, NOT me. I called it a socialist ‘welfare state’.

    True. Also “a thoroughly socialised state”, “the most PC, downright straight-jacketed welfare state” (in the world?), a place Lenin “would’ve felt at home” with

    so many laws exist[ing] to gag any kind of contrary racial sentiment, and to service any kind of minority requirement, that frankly the continued utterance of overly worn grievances by these ‘downtrodden minorities’ is nothing but excuse-making that is permanently resuscitated by the socialist side of the coin to perpetuate its voice in the political body whenever they fear it might be flagging. It shouldn’t bother, because it has become such a dogma that it virtually can’t be challenged by law.

    In other words, a highly authoritarian country in which the state has assumed total control over society and the economy, a doctrine of multiculturalism is official state policy, the masses are repressed, and dissent, however benign in intent, is outlawed. Kinda fascist-like. Beyond this: socialism is not social democracy; elements of the so-called ‘welfare state’ have been supported by a broad array of non-socialist forces, including but not limited to the UK; exaggerated claims of this sort are typical of the extreme right.

    * I expect you to consider my arguments ‘unsound’.

    ‘Cause they are? *jks*

    * I know what a wigger is, Andy, that’s why I employed the term. Sheesh. Oy Vey, even.

    Yeah but no but in this context I think ‘chav’ is possibly moar appropriate; ‘wigger’ I think is moar Yanqui.

    * Balls to your statistics thereafter, I simply don’t accept them, and you haven’t cited a source.

    The source is the article you referred to from the Daily Mail: ‘The primary school where just FOUR pupils out of over 400 speak English as mother tongue’, Louise Eccles, August 4, 2011.

    * As to your remark thereafter, well, I expect that of a (snerk) LIBERAL ANARCHIST. Really.

    I think maybe you need to read over this one. But leaving aside the fact that cultures change over time, I don’t think it’s a very good example.

    * Read a book? Come on, that’s weak, man. I ain’t even taking that bait.

    Weak but succinct. On multiple levels you express ignorance and make numerous tendentious claims.

    – Anyhow, I ain’t trying to convert you to my point of view (naturally), I was simply refreshed I was allowed to express it, and again, to that end, you deserve praise. Stormfront wouldn’t have allowed likewise, but only under impossible conditions.
    So I bugger off knowing that we can never be friends, but that at least you allow voices to be heard. That really is anarchy. In a liberal kind of way. You can sort that out with your fellow anarchists.

    …in the meantime…

  20. Doug says:

    A young Eritrean migrant who’d been here since he was little once told me when the Sudanese kids in his area started wearing “Gangsta” gear him and his mates started wearing jeans and Ed Hardy shirts because they didn’t want to be taken for “Daggy Sudos”.
    I think the media image of Black People as “Cool” is different to the reality, I’ve only met a few, mostly young adults and they’ve been for the most part insufferable squares or religious nuts.
    My cousin is a Pentecostal Christian “Happy Clapper”, even her brother and sisters avoid her whenever possible but I’m sure she gets on like a house on fire with African migrants.
    That’s the point, this “Culture Clash” is pretty overplayed, the vast majority of African “Refugees” here are Christians and the African interpretation of Christianity makes Fred Nile look like Julian Clary.
    Hey, isn’t it interesting that these ADL wingnuts protest about “Sharia Law” and the nose choppings and clit snippings over there but don’t say a word about African Christian fanatics burning “Wizards” or stoning “possessed” children in Nigeria and South Sudan.
    Seems a bit one-eyed to me.

  21. @ndy says:

    Doug,

    Irregular capitalisation. Please explain?

  22. Foot Soldier says:

    The Semitic religions are all backwards in my opinion.

    In fact, all religions are outdated and backwards. There is no God or spiritual force. Humans are animals and we evolved from lesser beings. We all came from the sea. No being created us.

    Christianity kept Europe in the Dark Ages for a thousand years while the Arabs were making ground breaking discoveries in science and developed modern maths. The Asians, during the time Europe was going through its Dark Age, developed fireworks and paper money. The Chinese were sailing around Asia and the Indian Ocean.

    In regards to Britain being Fascist or Socialist, you have got to be kidding me.

    Britain, like most of the White West, is neither Socialist nor Fascist.

    Liberal Democratic Capitalist societies are run by the international capitalist-intelligentsia. Now, depending on who you believe, the capitalist-intelligentsia are either controlled by Jews, lizards or by big international capitalists.

    As more of a Socialist, I would say that it is a combination of big capitalists and intellectuals.

    To get what they want, they call themselves whatever and use whatever means necessary to achieve their goals.

  23. @ndy says:

    The international capitalist-intelligentsia? What about the Goths?

  24. Doug says:

    @ndy,
    Goths indeed, it seems that the Germanic origins of the European elites isn’t a problem for Strasserites like it is for…whatever I am…a Gravesite? ROFL.
    Ol’ Liz Windsor is a Saxon Queen through and through, Anglo…not so much.

  25. Doug says:

    A SYSTEMS VIEW OF VALUES PROBLEMS
    http://www.clarewgraves.com/articles_content/1969/CWG_1969.html

    Clare W. Graves
    Department of Psychology
    Union College
    Schenectady, New York

    (Presented at the IEEE Systems Seminar, Cybernetic Corporation,
    Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, October 1969.)

  26. Foot Soldier says:

    That was so 2006-07.

    The Anti-Normal People’s Conspiracy is indeed the international capitalist-intelligentsia. They are one [and] the same.

    Now let’s party like it’s 1985 to Girls Just Want To Have Fun and old school techno. I’ll come dressed as Stalin and you can come dressed as Imelda Marcos. We can all come dressed as dictators and other historical figures. Everyone is invited. See you at the Condamine!

  27. @ndy says:

    @”Foot Soldier”: Now you’re finally beginning to make sense. Whatever happened to yr high skool science teacher?

    @Doug: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olP2KvITKSQ

  28. Pingback: All Anarchists are Terrorists | slackbastard

  29. @ndy says:

    The lumpen rebellion, IWCA, August 31, 2011

    What lies behind the riots seen on English streets three weeks ago?

    In January ‘09, an IWCA analysis piece entitled ‘Dealing with the renegades’ stated: ‘Amidst all the concern about knife crime and gang culture, it is often tacitly assumed that the perpetrators are representative of alienated working class youth. Not so: what they are more generally representative of is a new -and growing- social formation that has willingly embraced a non-work ethic. It needs to be recognised that these lumpen elements represent a grouping that is quite separate from, and actively hostile to, the interests and well-being of the working class proper.’

    It was a piece which provoked controversy, including within the IWCA itself. After all, right-wing commentators delight in denigrating the ‘underclass’: were we not now joining in? Whenever the right, or the liberal left, discuss this matter, there is an underlying assumption that ‘underclass’ and ‘working class’ are two interchangeable terms: the two groupings are one and the same, to be regarded with either pity or loathing depending on one’s orientation. By contrast, the IWCA analysis made clear that not only is the ‘underclass’ not synonymous with or representative of the working class, its instincts and actions are often opposed to the working class (who tend to constitute its primary prey). The term ‘lumpen proletariat’ is not a right-wing canard, but was coined by Karl Marx, who described this grouping as ‘the “dangerous class”’ whose ‘members felt the need of benefiting themselves at the expense of the labouring nation’. Our analysis explicitly distinguished between the working class and what we described as ‘a renegade section of the working class that has learned to embrace the ‘no-work ethic’’.

    The riots and looting of three weeks ago mark the emergence of that renegade section onto the national stage. It became newsworthy because its actions have, for the first time, impacted on the middle class, particularly for those who choose to live in areas they like to describe as ‘edgy’. Previously reassured by the deference of Big Issue sellers and the unfailing good manners of street drinkers, the stepping up onto the stage of the militant wing will have caused profound shock…

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