A creepy clown show for the Chemical Brothers film night at #adidasunderground.
London, August 3, 2012.
Occupy London is occupying @ Bank of England, outside the Royal exchange. 2 to 300 folks initially, police kettling, then arresting people one by one, apparently 20 protesters still on the steps; there are reports of coppers punching people.
An official removes a mask placed on a statue of Britain’s Queen Anne at the ‘Occupy’ camp outside St Paul’s Cathedral in London February 27, 2012.
Credits: REUTERS/Toby Melville
Britain: Cameron plots social media crackdown
The government is considering whether social media services should be shut off at times of disorder, the British prime minister, David Cameron, has told parliament.
Cameron’s comments were made in a speech to the House of Commons on Thursday. Parliament has been recalled from its summer recess to respond to the violent disorder that has affected London, Manchester, Birmingham and other UK cities.
“Mr Speaker, everyone watching these horrific actions will be stuck by how they were organised via social media,” Cameron said. “Free flow of information can be used for good. But it can also be used for ill.”
“When people are using social media for violence we need to stop them,” he added in a statement.
To that end, the government is working with the police, the intelligence services and industry to look at whether it would be right to cut people off from social media when they are plotting violence, disorder and criminality, he said.classe: ci siamo raga
Se è in Egitto allora le reti sociali sono una figata fuck yeah, ma quando la rivoluzione arriva a casa tua ti brucia il culo, eh pezzo di merda?
#londonriots #ukriots identify them!
http://londonrioters.co.uk/identify/
I do NOT know this person
but I DO know these persons:
where is the web page where I can identify them?
(via uomoinpolvere)
London Riots. (The BBC will never replay this. Send it out) (by mYcHeMiCaLrOmAnCeGaL)
‘Darcus Howe, a West Indian Writer and Broadcaster with a voice about the riots. Speaking about the mistreatment of youths by police leading to an up-roar and the ignorance of both police and the governement. Intelligent black male. SEND THIS TO EVERYONE!
(Also, did anyone notice that the interviewer tried to make him ignorant… Complete back-fire I must say)’
(via soupsoup)
Violence in Liverpool - BBC News 24 saying there are reports of disturbances from Manchester as well.
(via coqbaroque)
A few words.
It’s easy to dismiss the rioters as “scum with nothing better to do” but there are much deeper problems here. As a young, male, ethnic minority in the inner city myself, chances are, I probably know some of these people. I can relate to the feelings of helplessness. I’ve been fortunate enough to be successful as a musician myself and been able to create my own positive future, but these kids rioting don’t see themselves having a future at all. They have been failed by society as a whole, they’ve been failed by the government cutting arts funding and closing youth centres, unemployment is rife to the point where even the ones desperately trying to seek work simply can’t find it, and the boiling point to all this (Mark Duggan events) is a situation that is VERY REAL. I myself have been stopped and searched many times by police for no given reason. They raided my apartment at 6.30 in the morning once while my wife and I were asleep claiming they’d had reports of a disturbance. I’ve been questioned for gang activity that I had no part of, because of how I look and where I come from. It’s simple racial profiling, and whilst that is NOT an excuse for the behaviours of rioters, the sad fact is that it happens.
We live in pretty desperate times as a whole, and the inner city youth are at the bottom of the barrel. So whilst this behaviour IS disgusting, try and have some compassion and relate to fellow human beings who literally feel hopeless and don’t see a way out. When you think about, the right emotion to feel in some of the cases is just sadness and pity - kids robbing a flat screen TV when they see an opportunity to… because they know they’ll never be able to afford it. Is a kid robbing some trainers that different to a corrupt politician fiddling the expenses accounts, or corrupt policemen and journalists taking bribes (as we’ve seen in the phone-hacking scandals?). So what kind of example are those people setting?
Remember, most of these kids looting ARE just opportunists. It’s only the really violent ones smashing the windows, the rest just go in after them and take what they can. I have faith in humanity and I don’t think that most of these kids are bad people. I really don’t. They are the lost ones, neglected and marginalized, in many cases without the basic education to understand that there are better ways to go about life.
You don’t have to condone their actions to have some compassion and to ask yourself, is there anything I can do to help? Even if there isn’t - ranting and dismissing them as animals isn’t going to help. The latter is precisely why many of them act the way they do. I’m not saying you can’t be angry at what they’ve done…but I think we all owe each other a few minutes thought at exactly why things like this happen.
Just my own personal thoughts and opinions. You don’t have to agree, but hopefully you can respect them and my right to have them.
It seems events in Birmingham might be calming, so hopefully I won’t have to continue this blog much longer, if at all. We’ll see how the events unfold. Remember to stay safe, folks. I need to take a break and have a drink and when I come back, hopefully there won’t be a need to report further. I can’t say that’ll definitely be the case, but let’s all hope so.
Peace.
classe: well said.
Just try to imagine what would happen if this spontaneous* and genuine acts of rebellion find a direction and a leadership.
If these young rioters would been politically prepared.
They could fight for a better society and for a better world but finally they are fighting for a “television that they can’t afford”.
Since they have recognized the problem (capitalism), they are still focusing on the wrong objective.And this is the results of the well assembled weapons of consumerism and individualism.
The lack of strong labour movements and unions leading the youngsters will finally conduct the new birth revolutionary movement to his natural death, bound to be no more than a flash in the pan.*rage is never spontaneous. In this case spontaneity is an obvious consequence of the socio-economics background that lead to the cuts and austherity.
Socialist Unity (UK): London Riots
The riots that began in Tottenham and have spread across London over the past few nights are a predictable consequence of the breakdown in trust between large and growing numbers of alienated youth and the Metropolitan Police over recent years. A culture of corruption at the top has long been tolerated within the Met, which has infected the entire force with a gung-ho attitude and mindset when it comes to policing on the ground. This has reached the stage where nothing less than a root and branch structural reform will suffice if public confidence is to be restored.
In recent years we’ve witnessed the police execution of Jean Charles De Menezes at Stockwell tube station and the officers responsible being exonorated. Worse, in what was a low point for then mayor, Ken Livingstone, the existing Met commissioner, Ian Blair, kept his job while the commanding officer of the operation, Cressida Dick, not only kept her job but was later promoted.
The confrontational approach to policing the 2009 G20 protests, involving the kettling of large numbers of protestors for hours on end, and where Ian Tomlinson was killed as a direct result of an incident of police brutality as he attempted to make his way home, has since been joined by recent revelations surrounding the corrupt relationship that existed for years between Met officers and the Murdoch press, involving ranking detectives and officers accepting bribes for confidential information regarding ongoing criminal investigations.
Along with the myriad daily incidents of police brutality and corruption experienced by those living in low income communities around London, the shooting dead of Mark Duggan in Tottenham on Thursday in what is daily emerging were dubious circumstances, has resulted in an inevitable explosion of anger and violence.
For people to have confidence in the police the police must be accountable to the communities in which they operate. As things stand the Met are unaccountable and have been for far too long. In fact increasingly the Met has appeared more akin to an organised militia intent on enforcing its writ via confrontation rather than consensus and cooperation with the public it is meant to be policing and protecting, especially young people living in low income and working class communities.
The ongoing economic crisis and the increased level of social and economic injustice it has presaged as a direct result of the government’s response is another factor in these events that cannot be ignored. The blatant and callous disregard for the human cost of the swingeing cuts to the welfare system is made worse by the lack of pain being endured by those responsible for the recession, the banks and the rich.
Law and order without justice is impossible to maintain for long in any society, and the outburst of rioting and anger London is currently witnessing will have come as no surprise to anyone living in the communities concerned.
Time and again events prove that where there is no justice there can be no peace.
classe: exactly. Oh raga domani ci vado a londra. Bellalì.
Welcome to England (please loot orderly)
Bus on fire in Tottenham, London riots. More at BBC.
Photo via Sky News TV capped by JonathanHaynes
Additional reports from Guardian
(via soupsoup)
