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Jeremy Cook
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Boyan S. Benev
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Society is falling apart in London right now. Young people are running amok, stealing everything they can without giving a damn about getting arrested. What's a criminal record when you don't have a future anyway? The message is obvious: "Fu*k the authorities, what did they ever do for us?"
Could Britain's social elastic finally be snapping? After years of the rich using and abusing the working class for all it can get away with and more, the long awaited proletariat uprising may finally be here.
All this news of the economy 'dying' is rich man talk for "we're not making enough money from you anymore". Like water, none of our money has ever left the world and disappeared into thin air, when it's spent it goes somewhere. It lines the pockets of the likes of Nike, Burberry and Apple. Growing and growing, feeding into owners and shareholders.
People aren't paid on merit, for the contribution they put into the world. They're paid for how much money they have that they can make work for them.
The inevitable rich/poor gap that grows out of this is the cause of these riots. People have had enough. Last month Polly Toynbee said Britain's social elastic is nearly at snapping point. I agreed then and I most certainly agree now.
The only young people with a chance in this city now are those with money. The rest are is standing by watching cuts slash their opportunity for a university education. £27,000 for a degree? Those who haven't been made to feel incapable of a degree before now certainly aren't thinking about it now. Youth clubs are being shut down, EMA terminated and jobs cut. What consolation is offered in return? Absolutely none.
If your future as a young, non-white teenager in Brixton didn't look hopeless enough before, it really does now.
All that can save fix this is if the billionaires stop with their insatiable greed. We can't all have billions of pounds in the bank to maintain a lifestyle of crippling luxury, and every billionaire added to the pile is a million people being pushed further into poverty.
Corporations can't grow ad infinitum without giving back to the people, and a nation of people with no jobs and no money will not keep buying the shiny toys you dangle in front of them, they'll just steal them.
The lesson is clear. Give back, or they'll take it back, big society be damned.
Follow Stephen Brewer on Twitter: www.twitter.com/stevevbrewer
All these riots did was give these horrible people the opportunity to do even more damage. Your average person does not think it's a good idea to burn down the business where his cousin works nor beat and rob people on the streets. If focused their rage on the police stations , banks or went downtown where the real money is then I might see the beginnings of revolution but just stealing fancy toys means they are nothing but shallow materialistic morally bankrupt criminals. They don't deserve our respect or sympathy. If being poor means your cellphone is over a year old and you can't afford a Ipod then don't expect me to cry for you.
The people who run the show are not going to put their troops on the line to save poor people from themselves. It's time we wise up and look for real heroes to lead the revolution because these kids ain't it.
When the rich crooks, political war criminals, and multinational mass murdering corporations all get away scoot free, rob the world blind, then demand austerity from the people, why should the citizens do any less?
The crooks at the top always think there will be no consequences to their brazen disregard for morals and laws.
That's because immorality at the top insidiously corrodes the societies bonds.
Not one of us lives a second without the support and protection of civilization, of our republics.
All that needs to happen to sweep away all civilization is for too many people to feel no hope, justice or share. Somalia, for instance.
We are on the edge of world chaos.
How about the prime minister goes out and announces reversals to the austerity programs, to taxation of the rich, to jailing the banksters, and breaking up the multinationals, so the citizens can prosper, not just the super rich?
This is not as much a physical problem, requiring guns and police as much as it is a social, as a psychological problem.
"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen."
- Samuel Adams
The promotion of egotistical behaviour is praised. Hip-hop, rap artists and pop goddesses promote selfishness and egotism. The wealthy flaunt their wealth. The rich are worshipped. Consumerism reigns. Advertisements are everywhere. You must have everything. Now. Or you are nothing.
We reap what we sow.
http://thinkingaboot.blogspot.com/2011/06/new-nihilism-in-chicago.html
http://thinkingaboot.blogspot.com/2011/06/new-nihilism-becomes-meme.html
When you realize the game is fixed; and you're to lose, and all social contracts are null and void there are but few who will remain calm. People are enraged. And even if they are simply "joiners" they feel entitled to express that rage against whom or whatsoever is presented to them as a target.
Between austerity packages, a jobless recovery, police brutality (perceived),a fixed game, an uncaring an unjust government pandering to the wealthy, the haves having more than ever, the right wing is creating a "perfect storm".
The banks went broke. We lent them money that our government had to borrow. From whom?
"The lesson is clear."
Anyone who believes that they are not dependant on anyone, shall be taken to an uninhabited island off the coast and left there. Then revisited from time to time, until they have changed their mind.
You are duly fanned and faved and I will now be stalking you daily for a healthy dose of humour!
I began to learn about Keynes (and his nemesis Ayn Rand), about European and American Imperialism being responsible for so many of the world's woes. How poverty is growing at an alarming rate, how the gulf between rich and poor is getting ever wider, about banks and multinational corporations and how they work in tandem with corrupt governments both in the first and third worlds in their eternal lust for money and power.
Then I discovered a masterful piece of investigative journalism by Nicholas Shaxston:
http://treasureislands.org/
I was incensed by what I read, how so much of the world's wealth is hidden in tax havens and how these havens weave a complex web of deceit through shell banks and phony subsidiaries to evade taxes. No amount of money will ever be enough, their greed is endless.
Society could be better in so many ways for so many people, if people would just play fair.
I in no way condone the events of the last 3 days - but there is no doubt, it is a symptom of something much more destructive than burned out cars and looted shops.
http://www.booktv.org/Watch/12437/Treasure+Islands+Uncovering+the+Damage+of+Offshore+Banking+and+Tax+Havens.aspx
Billions and Trillions that escape the democratic process that the common "thousandaire" has NO access to; and must make up for in the for of CUTS to lifes necessities.
You cannot keep throwing money at problems because the problems then get addicted to the money and lose the ability or will to change.
This nothing to do with "cuts" it is to do with a sub-culture which doesn't know any other way, and that is the fault of all of us. Reducing this to the level of left/right pointscoring is as cynical as it is simplistic.
This started as a peaceful demonstration, that turned into a looting orgy, that others have seen and emulated. "something for nothing" they know it's wrong, but they don't care and some even brag about how much they got away with.
It seems to be a case of, you've got it, you flaunt it, I want it and I'll get it, then I'll be as good as you even for a few hours.
This is my country and I feel sick at heart.