If you do not know already, England is suffering heavy rioting in some of its main cities; Manchester, Salford, Liverpool, Nottingham and Birmingham. The rioters are mostly youths looting electronic stores breaking into pubs for alcohol and burning houses and cars. It's got so bad in fact that one guy living in London was knocked off his bike and beaten up by a gang of yobs and left there on the road. He called 999 and explained what had happened. The tired man on the other side of the phone told him that there was nothing he could do and that he should just go home. People are trapped in burning houses and can't be helped despite being a load of police officers not 100 ft away. Thank god I'm not near any major cities (it sounds like a Zombie Apocalyse - stay away from major cities!) but seriously this is having a massive social and economic toll. Anyone affected by the riots, or have any thoughts?
I heard about this after by reading that Apple has pulled all their Mac and iOS display units from the front of their stores in order to avoid getting looted. http://www.tuaw.com/2011/08/09/apple-reacts-to-london-riots/ I can't seem to find any information on the actual cause of the riots. CNN is reporting a lot on the damage but not on the reasons behind it. Have people just reverted back to their basic human nature after realizing the futility of living under the thumb of a phantom economic and needlessly bureaucratic system? That's what they're making it sound like. If that's the case I say good for them, anyone that's played Civilization knows you need one turn of anarchy every now and then.
I hope football matches of the new EPL season won't be cancelled because of these riots. This would mess up my fantasy team. :/
Well, it all started with someone being shot at somewhere and there was a supposed big uproar about it. That coupled with the financial crisis got the idea in a small number of people's heads that hey, we should protest. So in on city, a small group of people protest. A load of opportunists, yobs, thugs (whatever you want to call them) decide, hey, this is a great reason to loot some electronic stores in my area. So chaos erupts in that area where looting occurs. The problem escalates as more lower-class people decide that they can make an opportunity out of this chaos and while the police are occupied they can loot some stores. Other cities see what is happening and decide to do it themselves. The problem escalates etc. It's important to note that these are low lives of our country. These are all the lower-class people who don't have a stable job and are rather resentful for the establishment for being hard done by. These aren't normal day-to-day people. Just the dregs of society coming together to release their anger.
So the lower class that's hard up for employment and has trouble making ends meet harbor some resentment and decide to lash out at a society that considers them abnormal low life dregs. People that live in poverty their entire lives (that's "normal" to them) and are ignored until the point where they whip up a frenzy are apparently very angry. Gee, I wonder why?
It's strange for me watching UK rioting on TV that isn't in Belfast I've grown up quite used to them It's basicly a yearly occurance here. I won't pretend I completely understand the motives for them in England but I think lack of jobs in recent years is probably playing a role and things like this will probably get worse as time goes on. I would say if you find yourself in one watch out for those water cannons though they have been known to actually rip peoples eyes out and I'm not joking.
It's disgraceful, especially with the Olympics coming over next year. Bored teenagers make up most of the rioting (I imagine), partly due to government costs on facilities for us. "If you are old enough to commit these crimes, you are old enough to face the consequences" - David Cameron.
To give further detail on the start of the riot, the police shot and killed a father of 4, stated that he pulled a gun on them and shot at them, even though all evidence points to the police murdering an innocent man. Then a series of events transpired like madmud said, and now its like Vancouver after the Stanley Cup all over again.
....I was also thinking why the police can't throw that grenade-type thing at the rioters (the one in The Longest Yard). They aren't real grenades, FYI.
And with the olympics approaching, it is almost tradition for the police of the host city to do the whipping up of said frenzy in order to score a larger slice of olympic security pie.
Lol, pretty much. There are talks about if anything positive comes out of this it will be that there are people that need help and support. But i think personally I have become more sour towards the lower class recently purely because of what they're doing right now; looting, burning etc.
Government is acting wrong. A bullet in the heads of a few dozen rioters should calm down the situation immensely. All it needs is a little bit of lead and a few snipers.
Yes, because if there's anything that pacifies a large angry demonstration stemming from a person getting shot due to police overreaction it's more people getting shot due to police overreaction.
I think that would have the complete opposite effect as an example I can guarantee if the cops shot a member of my family no matter what they did I'd be on the absolute warpath and they would have to eventually kill me also. I'll admit the situation is different over there as most of the community doesn't support the rioters but it's an incredible risky gamble when someone getting shot was what kicked it off to start with. Edit: They should deploy baton rounds though I got hit with a ricochet from the ground once on the calf when I was younger and I had a painful giant bruise (most of the leg) and a limp for at least a month it's quite the deterrent at least for a while.
Despite the violence breaking out in major cities across the country, the North East has not succumbed to any riots or looting, proving how awesome Newcastle upon Tyne and the Geordies really are! In all seriousness though, this has kind of split into two separate groups. It started off as riots in response to the killing of a family man and 'suspected' criminal, and these riots escalated. Looters then joined in on the action, and the looting of businesses really has nothing to do with the original issue. It's just mindless violence and theft. Many of these idiots don't even know what the riots are about, they're just taking advantage of the situation to get free stuff. It's despicable. However, from a sociological point of view, riots like these were predictable. Many of the young people involved in the violence cannot get work, are involved in some kind of gang culture, and many youth centres across London have also been closed due to recent cuts, so positive activities have been taken away from them. They're angry and feel like they have no support from their communities, hence why they don't care about trashing it. Anger like this runs deep and will take more than a few rubber bullets to sort out. Sadly, I don't think the British government wants to or can spend the money on bettering their lives.
Some people might say the occasional violent riot and lone agitated sociopath shooting up a school or mall is a small to price to pay for living in a modern society. Some problems are too complex to be solved with government bureaucracy even if there were unlimited resources to throw at them. If you start loading up food with corn syrup eventually the underprivileged will become too fat to riot, that solution has worked well in the US.
