The Riots, Summarised
“A disorientated and bleeding teenager on the streets of London. A gang pretend to help him, and then mug him.”
Captures the ethos, I think.
Meanwhile, our pocket-size revolutionary Laurie Penny – who of course has “no problem with principled, thought-through political ‘violence’” – is telling her readers: “Violence is rarely mindless. The politics of a burning building, a smashed-in shop or a young man shot by police may be obscured even to those who lit the rags or fired the gun, but the politics are there.” Doubtless Laurie will soon tell us exactly what those politics are and how closely they match her own. She is, after all, keen to see the emergence of a “radical youth movement” – “a movement not just for reform but for revolution” – one that “requires direct action” and “upsetting… our parents, our future employers… and quite possibly the police.” Ms Penny also thinks that spitting on women she doesn’t know is pretty rad too.
Elsewhere, while Mothercare burned to the ground and female fire-fighters were dragged from their vehicles and punched insensible, a number of leftist anti-cuts groups announced their “solidarity” with the thugs, thieves and predators. “London,” we learn, “is the world’s biggest Black Bloc.” While student “activist,” chronic liar and Independent blogger Jody McIntyre was busy using his new media profile to urge further rioting and arson. No doubt the Indie, the Guardian and the New Statesman will be swollen with pride at the doings of their latest protégé. But remember, people. As the Guardian’s Priyamvada Gopal told us recently, setting fire to occupied buildings – resulting in this – isn’t “real” violence. Not when compared to “hypocritical language.”
Update, via the comments:
Outside of the delinquent left, it’s hard to see gangs of predatory vermin – robbing passers-by, setting people’s homes on fire and assaulting the people trying to put those fires out – as particularly sympathetic or deserving of indulgence. (It will, I think, be interesting to see how many of the rioters have records for previous convictions.) Conceivably, though, one might argue that those predators are products of socialist indulgence – and a cultivated belief that the world owes them whatever it is they want. And thus their neighbours’ homes and businesses are just a flammable backdrop for their own thrilling psychodrama.
Nevertheless, readers may have noticed just how readily and persistently many of our leftist commentators have tried to hammer their default narrative onto events, regardless of the fit. Our glorious state broadcaster spent three days referring to muggers and arsonists as “protestors,” until finally embarrassed out of doing so. I heard one reporter asking a besieged resident, “Is this about the cuts? It’s about the cuts, isn’t it?” When the resident disagreed, the disappointment was audible.
Those actually doing the thieving offered more revealing explanations. As one pair of female looters put it while drinking stolen wine: “Chucking bottles, breaking into stuff, it was madness… good though. Good fun. Free alcohol.” Obligingly, with prompting, the duo added a political dimension, of a sort: “It’s the government’s fault. I dunno… the Conservatives… yeah, whatever, whoever it is. We’re showing the police we can do what we want.”
In the Guardian, the comical Nina Power – yes, her – once again wheeled out her rickety Marxist boilerplate. For our academic radical, the causes of the riots are “clear.” And they just happen to correspond with her own doctrinaire outlook. And so, eagerly, she casts the muggers, thieves and arsonists as the “dispossessed” fighting against “entitlement” and therefore deserving of our “understanding,” which in her case means projection, excuses and flattery. Yet these “dispossessed” souls seemed for the most part quite well kitted out and intent on possessing more. Say, by beating up pensioners, punching women and robbing children of their clothes. The muggers’ own rather prodigious sense of entitlement – which you’d think was hard to miss – somehow escaped Dr Power’s notice. Must be all that “critical thinking” she does.
And, as Tim notes,
We are told, endlessly, that only the rapist is to blame for rape. Nothing that the victim does, has done, where they go, how they’re dressed, nothing at all changes the fact that the rapist is solely and completely responsible, in and of themselves, for the crime. So why isn’t this true for rioters?
Maybe the socialist maths, premised as it is on Designated Victim Groups, doesn’t quite add up.
Update 2:
Causes, more causes and the politics of trainers.
Update 3:
I suggested it might be interesting to see how many of the rioters had records for previous convictions. And goodness, lookee here. 
We’ve heard plenty of the usual blather about “deprivation” and “social exclusion,” but what we’ve seen over the last four days is as much about attitude and presumed entitlement as any social circumstance. Which is why many of those who’ve been arrested – including a teacher and a youth social worker – are in no meaningful sense “deprived” or “excluded,” just arrogant, nihilistic or leftwing.
As Brian noted here, with riots there are usually any number of factors – or excuses – to consider. High among them, though, is the fact that rioting, mugging and looting are exciting and can result in free stuff. The penalties for rioting are also fairly small and usually non-existent – relatively few of the rioters are likely to be caught, let alone sentenced. It’s a notoriously difficult crime to prosecute. And, as Brian points out, rioters tend not to regard rioting as wrong. This self-justifying narcissism is rather important yet overlooked – or studiously ignored – by many leftist commentators. Rioters generally feel entitled. As the looting girls quoted in the update put it: “Good fun, free alcohol… We’re showing the police we can do what we want.”
If one were to try to frame this with some over-arching narrative, I think it would be this: almost all of our current woes – the dire economic situation, looming default on sovereign debt, youth unemployment, 20% functional illiteracy among school leavers and now, of course, these riots and the dismal police and political resposnse to them – can be blamed on a refusal to believe that choices have consequences or even, in some cases, that a choice exists in the first place. But they do, and there is always a choice (even if it’s the choice to do nothing.) It was a CHOICE that led us to spend unsustainably more than was taken in taxes. It was a CHOICE to defang the police and criminal justice system, so that the worst sort of criminality attracts few or no adverse effects. It was a CHOICE to allow a huge swath of children to languish under provably-ineffectual teaching methods. And the list goes on…
And ultimately, in a representative democracy, it was OUR* choice, and not just that of drivelling cretins like Laurie Penny and Seumas Milne and Harriet Harman. Of course, the necessary corollary of this is that if we choose, we can row it back. I do not think the outcome of these disturbances will be wholly palatable to the Polly Toynbees of this world. I just hope the pendulum doesn’t swing back too far the other way.
* ah, but we didn’t know, did we? We left it to the politicos and cultural Marxists. Reminds me of that old story about the Presbyterian minister berating his congregation: “and on that day of Judgement, as ye be consumed by the fire and the ashes, ye will cry out to the Lord, “Lord! Lord! We did’nae ken!” And the Lord will say unto ye, “well, ye buggers, ye ken noo!” “
“it’s hard to see gangs of predatory vermin ”
It’s hard for me to see the difference between the socialist nomeklatura and the rioters. The academics, politicians, and bureaucrats rob by using the state: opposition gets a quick trip to the camps. The rioters are more honest; they punch their victims themselves instead of hiring others to do it for them.
I continue to draw some hope from this situation. I think it’s of significance that the “looting girls” that David referred to above were broadcast by the BBC. To be sure, there’s the usual silliness and cant from the likes of Harriet Harman and Ken Livingstone but even the BBC are allowing the true story to come through the normal obfucation. When Michael Gove, with genuine fury in his face, laid into Harman on the Newsnight clip, I think you’ll find that the nation, to a large extent, applauded. It has become difficult for the Milnes, Toynbees and Benns of this world to hide the failings of their ideologies. They need more now than their usual weasel words to maintain their social standing.
“…but even the BBC are allowing the true story to come through the normal obfucation.”
Because they think they can drown it out by constant repetition of the party line after the dust settles, is the only thing I can think.
David Gillies: “…a refusal to believe that choices have consequences or even, in some cases, that a choice exists in the first place.”
Spot on.
The muggers’ own rather prodigious sense of entitlement – which you’d think was hard to miss – somehow escaped Dr Power’s notice. Must be all that “critical thinking” she does.
Consider yourself bookmarked, Mr Thompson. 😉
Leftwing Apostate,
“Consider yourself bookmarked.”
And so my terrible influence grows.
Horace,
“I continue to draw some hope from this situation… even the BBC are allowing the true story to come through…”
I suppose that depends on whether you think BBC News belatedly allowing reality to reach us is an acceptable state of affairs. As our official, publicly-funded gatekeepers of reality, their track record isn’t exactly glorious. Though, again, there’s a chance that more people will now have registered the degree of filtering and distortion, and what that implies.
a sizeable chunk of the leftist commentariat is overtly titillated by mob violence and physical intimidation, which they frame as retaliation and payback for “injustice,” generally of a tendentious or question-begging kind
And lookee here…
“A group calling itself “Coalition of Resistance: Can’t Pay, Won’t Pay” is organising an event called “Riots, Recession, Resistance” at the University of London. From the title they appear very keen to re-brand the criminal riots blighting London and other cities around the UK as “resistance” and somehow a reaction to “recession” and thus lending these acts of thuggery, theft, arson and mindless vandalism some sort of credibility and legitimacy.”
http://hurryupharry.org/2011/08/11/inciting-fresh-riots-whos-who/
Can’t Pay, Won’t Pay
Can’t Pay, Won’t Pay, Can’t Have.
There, fixed it.
Julia
“Because they think they can drown it out by constant repetition of the party line after the dust settles, is the only thing I can think.”
Well, perhaps. I also think the fact that there was some rioting going on in Islington might have had something to do with it. All of a sudden these BBC types saw that what was going on could threaten them and their chums. It ceased to be some abstraction for them to pontificate about and became all too real. It’s remarkable how lefties change their tune in such situations.
David
“I suppose that depends on whether you think BBC News belatedly allowing reality to reach us is an acceptable state of affairs.”
Well, no, I don’t. But this still might be a step in the right direction. According to something I read at Samizdata, even Diane Abbott was seen on Newsnight talking sense. I think I need the evidence of my own eyes before I can be entirely convinced of that, though.
What the far left fails to understand is that In a society of property holders used to the rule of law there will always be more freikorps than Spartacists… i.e. People will fight for their property and family if the state fails…. best that the state tries to keep its monopoly on force though….
Horace,
Well, I don’t mean to sound unduly pessimistic. But the BBC has been called on its distortions and omissions more times than I care to recall, in front page stories, including several by its own former employees. It’s practically a tradition. I see little evidence that recent events are likely to change how the Beeb frames events or where its sympathies will tend to be, at least in the long term. The BBC is ultimately socialised news and, like socialised art, is largely immune from normal corrective pressures, so I doubt one can change the nature of the beast. Though, as others have suggested, if the “protestors” started targeting BBC premises – say, to “redistribute” some computers and audio equipment – that might count as a corrective pressure too.
[ Added: ]
We’ll see how well the BBC handles the current shift in public mood, which seems more vehement and may well be more permanent than the small concessions of BBC editors. Again, I think the question is the Beeb’s long-term adjustment, if any, once repairs have been made and the debris swept up. (And I suppose much the same might be said of our political establishment.)
Some of the witterings from the hard left are simply beyond parody. Have a gander at this bit of idiocy
http://universityforstrategicoptimism.wordpress.com/2011/08/10/riotcleanup-or-riotwhitewash/
By the symbolic cleaning, cleansing and casting out of the rioters from the community, the sweepers appear to enact the closest thing to popular fascism that we have seen on the streets of certain ‘leafy’ bits of London for years.
Thanks for the link Paolo. Best laugh I’ve had in days. But I’m finding it very hard to believe that “Dr Sofia Himmelblau” is not a spoof.
While I have seen the occasional story about gun ownership in the UK, what’s the story there? Aren’t there a few people in London or near by that have their own personal firearms that they can use to guard their property? It wouldn’t take but one or two incidents to put a little fear into these fear mongers themselves.
And why are people handing over the clothing that they are wearing? Do they fear the thugs will bop them over the head and then struggle to remove their pants? Is there no one willing to come to these people’s aid? The incidents that I saw were not taking place in some back alley. Why not put the camera down and get involved? Perhaps my limited exposure to what is going on over there is slanting my perceptions, but it seems like the only areas where I hear of people joining together in their communities to protect themselves are the Muslims. I’d like to see one of these thugs try to take someone’s burka. Maybe Mo’ had a point.
“… but it seems like the only areas where I hear of people joining together in their communities to protect themselves are the Muslims. “
And the Sikhs, and the Turks. The police rolled an eye in their direction, but took no action.
A handful of EDL/football fans in Eltham, however, and the police moved like greased cheetahs to flood the place.
I suspect that Laurie imagines her idealised, “revolutionary,” terribly radical violence would – somehow – look very different. I can’t say I share that assumption.
College ‘radicals’ like Penny Red are basically spoiled children. They want a world that doesn’t have consequences.
Jody McIntyre — crash and burn:
http://order-order.com/2011/08/12/so-long-jody/
It’s funny how the NS, Indie, Guardian, Channel 4, etc were so eager to believe this lying piece of shit…
I’ve never heard of Laurie Penny until now – but leave it to a leftist to lionize a pathetic junkie as a role model. Just more evidence – as if we needed any – that leftists are basically the bad guys, and we can thank four decades of their insidious ubiquitous propaganda for most of the West’s problems.
I’ve decided to go with the Mini-14.
Wm T Sherman/
Good choice…one I made a looongg time ago..
BTW the “original” (lol) WTS was the first President of my alma mater, LSU. (actually, its pre-Civil War predecessor, LMI–Louisiana Military Institute–hence LSUs nickname of “The Old War Skule.”)