It has gone from drearily overcast and rainy here to ominously black and threatening. Our temperature last I checked was 79 which would be balmy but for the 88 percent humidity accompanying it. My mail for the last two days has been water logged, a cruel irony when in the UK, parts of London and Manchester were burning.
While I have no answers as to why such astounding behaviour took hold and apparently succeeded before police intervened, the hand-wringing of the mainstream press continues, and likely will for days to come. I e-mailed some bloggers in London and finding them safe and sound, discovered a post by Zoe at her Mind and Language blog that is worth reading. See http//mindandlanguage.blogspot.com/2011/08/rising-up-against-riots-in-london.html.
This describes a local attempt to aid the police in stemming looting. Please read it for yourselves. In a world which sometimes appears to have gone mad, efforts such as this restore my faith in decency and commonsense across racial, ethnic, political and economic lines. I only wish I knew more about the individuals involved.
Until Next Time...
16 comments:
thanks for the hit on the post...off to read it now as i struggle to make sense...
try this link instead of copying and pasting
I believe that the riots in Britain are from the sam source of frustration that precluded the riots in Detroit in '67 and those that could go at any time in the US once the enormity of austerity hits the mind of a lackadaisical population.
The U.K., since the 1970s, has been building a huge industry in the 'care' sector...and it needs a'market' to 'care' for.
It has bred dependency and frustration in those subjected to it.
Re: Chance for riots in the US, with the growing underclass, the potential exists...
Re: Frustration in Britain, the point that Zoe and I were making was that some people in neighbourhoods, worked together to stop looting, across socioeconomic, racial and religious lines. This can be done regardless what the current "care" models suggest...
Thank you for this e.
Your post means a lot to me. I'm off to read the link you recommended.
It's good to see that order is finally being restored again. The post you linked to was interesting, I didn't realise local people were voluntarily patrolling the streets to prevent further trouble. That helps to explain why London has been so quiet for the last two nights.
Yes I quite see the point you and Zoe make...for me the problem is that while people do pull together faced with a sudden need, the effort peters out later. And to a large extent this is because societal institutions brook no rivals.
There's a good article in the Telegraph on the moral problem of Britain
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/peteroborne/100100708/the-moral-decay-of-our-society-is-as-bad-at-the-top-as-the-bottom/
Fly - Thanks for the link to the excellent Telegraph article. How very true that corruption and immorality is as rife at the top of society as at the bottom. The stench of hypocrisy from parliament and the media is overwhelming.
My dear e, I think the worst is over with the riots.
We should bring back the holiday/finishing schools (not just for the girls but also for the boys) during the school holidays. These holiday schools should be all free and available for all. I think that the school holidays are great for those who could afford to go abroad. But there are some children whose parents can't afford to go anywhere for holiday and these kids are left to their own devices to entertain themselves during their school holidays. They have too much free time on their hands so they go to the streets and they can't keep their mischief out.
I think that if there were such things as holiday schools, it should teach how to cook, how to sew and bake and take these kids out to camping, the museums and galleries, to the countryside and to the great country house gardens.
Thanks for the links you mention, I shall go read. As Nick says there is crime and corruption at all levels of society in the UK. Every way we turn we are being ripped off I am afraid.
"While I have no answers..." Absolutely. Neither have I. Great to hear someone else say so.
Thanks for the link to another good post!
This was very encouraging. It is nice to know that in the midst of all the unrest and pandemonium this man and others did the right thing.
Unfortunately I think we have only seen the tip of the iceberg in terms of this sort of behavior spawned in part by the deteriorating worldwide financial situation.
Happy birthday, e! I missed the day but not the monthlong celebration. Good.
I spent my career life in L.A., a land of strange things including riots. Given a flash point and a crowd, the crowd becomes a living organism, greater than its parts. The acts of its parts inflames it further, and it inflames its parts, becoming a perfect storm.
A lot of people live in close proximity in great frustration (I think of Haiti, Somalia) but the beast isn't unleashed. That interests me. Now I'm off to read your link...
Well, at least in the UK they are meting out some punishment and throwing a few behind bars. In Vancouver, after the riots of a while back, literally no arrests have been made. That is an utter disgrace.
It is madness stemming I guess from impotence and frustration boiling over...hard to make sense of it though...it always seems so odd to me that people destroy their property...
Otherwise, happy BD to a fellow Leo...
i am not a specialist in social behavior but as a rule, mob mentality brings humans to the lowest denominator, leading to degrading acts of violence. but as humans go, individuals can be decent primates, given half a chance. i also occasionally get disgusted with mankind, but i remind myself to look at individuals to comfort myself in believing there is hope, rather than looking at the ensemble and see our doom.
we've had our share of such events here in Montreal, for whatever reasons...
i'm just saying...
:)~
HUGZ
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