In the news

Football will be cancelled anyway.

natas pihsrow... natas pihsrow... natas pihsrow...

Football will be cancelled anyway.

By who? Fifa? The Christians? The Tories? The Jews? The working class?

Christ, you're a tedious cunt at times, Kris...

It's not what I think, jesus!

Only yesterday people had their houses burned down and today everyone is happy about it?
It looks to me like the law abiding part of the UK population has some sort of self-esteem issues. Why blame it all on ourselves. It wasn't us who burned houses. WTF?!

natas pihsrow... natas pihsrow... natas pihsrow...

Reported

^ lol

by who? Fifa? The christians? The tories? The jews? The working class?

police !

By who? Fifa? The Christians? The Tories? The Jews? The working class?

Platini

#cliveouefaconspira cy

police !

I don't see how Sting or Stuart Copeland has anything to do with it?

Barcelona!

Back track.

Bigtime...

You went looting then?

Of course people need to be punished. Why does everyone always think it's one or the other?

Or, like some of the highlife scum on here thinks, let them out with a pat on the back for showing us how screwed up this society is. Well done! Get them certificates and badges too.

Seriously? You just posted this without any sense of irony. You just gave an example of the point that I was making in the post you quoted.

Christ, you're a tedious cunt at times, Kris...

Y u no see irony?

Back track.

It's not what I think, jesus!

Only yesterday people had their houses burned down and today everyone is happy about it?
It looks to me like the law abiding part of the UK population has some sort of self-esteem issues. Why blame it all on ourselves. It wasn't us who burned houses. WTF?!

You still don't get it.

great even al jazzera is reporting the riots..
when protesters are being killed by government forces in syria..

http://english.aljazeera.net/

qwe

great even al jazzera is reporting the riots..
when protesters are being killed by government forces in syria..

http://english.aljazeera.net/

and the bbc/sky has been giving blanket coverage to a bunch of scrotes nicking some tellys while millions of kids are about to starve to death in africa for the price of a pint.

what's your point?

and the bbc/sky has been giving blanket coverage to a bunch of scrotes nicking some tellys while millions of kids are about to starve to death in africa for the price of a pint.

what's your point?

repped

Dear All,

I have read with intrigue, wonder and delight the developments so far....
and a great deal of nervousness.

You see I was a youth worker, for quite a while (six years) and then a
journalist, for 20. *My 'client group' was these 'thugs' these people who
hurled missiles and stones.
I became a journalist- for the BBC - in the days when they still ran reports
talking to single women about how they got pregnant to 'get council homes'
or actually funded me to interview slum dwellers in Kenya about how they saw
their housing options. And then, because I wanted to go deeper, after 20
years of hammering loudly on the media door (and knowing I can use those
platforms on behalf of people I know much more about than many other
journalists from different socio-economic backgrounds than my own) I started
a PhD, thinking maybe anthropology can 'help'.

I am from Peckham (I now live in Africa): I grew up in those streets. I ran
a (very small) youth club on North Peckham estate, working specifically with
media using techniques we developed doing peace and reconcilitation work in
Kayleitsha, South Africa. The tools we used to broker conversation between
the PAC and the ANC were the same ones we used with angry young men yielding
AK 47's, small weaponry, knives, in my own home area, SE15. *I argued with
Leroy (one of my favourite people) for two years about why 'white people'
wouldn't employ him and his friends, about how the world he knew, the
language he uses, automatically excludes him for multiple power structures,
forums, from 'being acceptable' to the establishment.

Now Leroy works as a 'consultant' for various youth projects- as a son of a
very big gang leader in Southwark, he absolutely knows, first hand, what
poverty and exclusion means. Leroy got me thinking- as did some of the
young, self harming, drug dependant single women I worked with- about what
it means to have 'no voice', no agency, not to connect, to feel so angry
that all you CAN do is riot- someone on this list mentioned the Penny Red
Blog- for me the comments attached to it remain the most pertinent,
invigorating and authentic I have read so far. See
http://pennyred.blogspot.com/2011/08/panic-on-streets-of-london.html?spref=fb
.
The bit in it that seems so real, and meaningful to me, having worked as a
youth worker, is this: "In one NBC report, a young man in Tottenham was
asked if rioting really achieved anything: *"Yes," said the young man. "You
wouldn't be talking to me now if we didn't riot, would you? Two months ago
we marched to Scotland Yard, more than 2,000 of us, all blacks, and it was
peaceful and calm and you know what? Not a word in the press. Last night a
bit of rioting and looting and look around you."
*

For me, the key issues remain- what does 'political agency and engagement'
actually mean- for those who resort to stealing trainers, knickers,
blackberries. How do actually put into practice some of the theories, the
knowledge, about how to lessen the divides, increase promotion and
visibility in the axis of power? Yes, I am fascinated as to why people
destroy Currys, nick phones (yet it seems obvious to me: we brandish these
things in the faces of people who don't have them, marks of desirability,
then are confused when they tell us they want them too! Billig, maybe is
pertinent here?)

I apologise for sounding thick: I am not at heart an academic. I am a youth
worker and journalist, who happens to be completing a PhD. And is lucky
enough to teach some classes to undergrads. I *can put names and
personalities to the people who burned, broke, pillaged and rampaged my home
town, my neighbourhood, the places where I have emotional and historical
investment and narratives. I want change, real change, and a chance for
those of who have weight, clout, security, safety and luxury of perspective
and social/emotional/political mobility, to make this change.

As an afterthought: I am also part of a the LSE alumni blogging network-
last week a call went out for people to set up new venture capital groups. I
rather innocently asked why they weren't thinking about social and ethical
enterprise venture capital, where wealth inequality is actually sanctioned
against- where equitable distribution was embedded into the fund. It was, of
course, met with total derision and hostility- yet this is PRECISELY what is
happening in certain investment areas in Sweden etc.... not so nuts
actually.

Please, can we keep looking outwards: not get so lost in conversations about
silencing, timing, our own procedures, that we forget that there are real
people, with real situations, and Hire Purchase loans and debts and mould in
their flats, and who have NEVER ever been out of their post code....

Thanks for reading!

Thanks for reading. Thembi Mutch (Ms, SOAS, University of London

An interesting read IMO

You still don't get it.

I only wanted to balance your comment about the lowlife scum on this forum.
It does not necessary represent my views and any similarities to living persons on this forum was not intentional.

Fuck, I'm a right troll. Need to go out - have Marathons and all.

Also a nice convoy of police vans nailed it past me just now on lr Richmond rd.

I only wanted to balance your comment about the lowlife scum on this forum.
It does not necessary represent my views and any similarities to living persons on this forum was not intentional.

Fuck, I'm a right troll. Need to go out - have Marathons and all.

Lowlife scum on the forum was a reference to all of us. Me included. It was light-hearted. And what you're saying still fails to acknowledge the point I was making. It's not one or the other.

Is it kicking off in Kew?

Is it kicking off in Kew?

yes but only because BoJo cut Prancer up again on his way to work.

Lowlife scum on the forum was a reference to all of us. Me included. It was light-hearted. And what you're saying still fails to acknowledge the point I was making. It's not one or the other.

Right.
But we're probably both type of scum. And I'm also never 100% serious, although bit annoyed that some are stuck a bit in one vantage point whereas this is far too complex matter for us to comprehend and discuss on here.

and the bbc/sky has been giving blanket coverage to a bunch of scrotes nicking some tellys while millions of kids are about to starve to death in africa for the price of a pint.

what's your point?
my point is that this media coverage is bullshit, why give the rioters / looters so much attention, they want to be the news, and we have become fixated by it, time to switch off, do some work, or get on with our scummy lives..