I heard about this a couple days ago but only now am seeing how big this riot in London has become. Evidently it started with a protest after a man was killed in a cab when police tried to arrest him. My God, theirs fires, looting, violence. It sounds awful. Reminds me of the riots of 67.

Maybe the UK BB members can keep us posted. Stay safe you guys.

TIS

http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/europe/08/08/uk.riots/index.html

I am from Manchester England, I hope everyone is ok there! Hopefully this can all end soon.

I'm from Ealing in London.

A man was shot dead by police after allegedly opening fire at them a few days ago. Members of the deceased's community challenged the notion that he had opened fire first and suggested that the man was not in possession of a gun. It was also put forward that the man was 'executed' by police as he was lying on the floor. Obviously this is very contentious and how much truth there is in that is debateable, but they took to the street to 'protest'. These protests rapidly turned into riots and has since descended into full scale looting, thieving and acts of criminality, including major arson, first across London and now across the Uk. Theres absoutely no doubt that any political motivation for the initial protests have been completely lost and its now just an excuse for hoodlums, mainly youths, to loot some free goods. Shameful.

Its the worst police crisis I have ever witnessed. All police leave has been cancelled, major sporting events have been postponed and its has been ssuggested that 'martial law' may have to be implemented. I actually feel ashamed to be from this country.

Animals.....It is time for someone to but their foot down.

and on someones neck would be a good place for it.

There is a feeling by some, that as long as they have mass numbers doing this that they can get away with it.

There is no way that you can allow this to happen. This has gone way overboard, and these thugs have to be punished.

This is no protest!

Perfectly put. There's nothing political about acting violently just to get your hands on some "free" stuff.

To be honest, I haven't been following that closely. Is there any possibility of the military getting involved? Also, does England have an equivalent of the National Guard here in the United States?

And where has my best Brit pal Yogi been? This thing has his name written all over it .

HP has some very disturbing and vivid pictures of this riot.
This is amazing and sad.

TIS

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/

Things appear to be quieter in London tonight but trouble spreading to other cities

Spread to Manchester and a few other cities tonight.

In my home town of Southall 500 men from the local community have gathered to protect its citizens.

'Southall' is also trending on twitter. Makes me proud.

Has to be said though...today a myth has been destroyed... the myth that the authorities are in control and a bunch of yobs can't just take over at will.

There have been trouble in my city Nottingham for the last two night a police station was set on fire and many cars smashed.. Shocking scenes and needs to be dealt with..

Of course, these aren't political protests. Or maybe politics is just their excuse for the violence.
BUT: The social injustices in the big cities such as London, Manchester and Liverpool have become unbearable. Young men rightly believe they are unlikely to ever get a chance. A baseball bat is cheap.

And you know what, they are right....they are unlikely to ever get a chance when they act like this!

That is all a cop out. Some of these kids where only 9 YEARS OLD!
Where the hell are their parents?

The damage that they have done is on a grand scale and so should the punishment. Baseball bats may be cheap, but so are bullets. And this kind of destruction is as bad as any bomb a terrorist may had planned or planted.

This is no joke or game. If left uncontrolled this will happen every time someone gets mad at something and only grow larger and faster.

If they think times are tuff, just wait to people stop going into these citys and the money dry's up, and it will very fast as the tourist stop coming.

And to think we are hosting an Olympics next year..

Excellent point, FS. If people become leery of visiting London, their economy will only get worse. Not just London, you can substitute any city in the world.

I guess the best example is the Middle East; specifically the "Holy Land." I visited Israel many years ago with my family. As a Catholic with a strong interest in Judaism, I'd love to see the place today with fresh eyes. That said, today you couldn't get me to take my family to a place like Tel Aviv. I just feel it would be irresponsible on my part. It's too dangerous.

Being from the UK, I think 'unbearable' may be a slight exaggeration. A lot of countries, including the USA, have it far worse in my opinion, but I do agree that there are social and economic factors that have contributed to these people being disillusioned and wanting to rebel against the machine – indeed some looters even came on the news to cite such ’problems’ . If these problems had manifested themselves in some other way, ideally through peaceful protests, but even via more extreme methods, such as targeted damage to government buildings, though still despicable and condemnable, I and other people may have been more considerate to their plight.

However, when you going out robbing and looting local business’ and members of your own community, it becomes impossible to search for any decent political motivation to their actions, you cannot provide any justifiable ‘reason’ for their behaviour aside from them being ‘thieving little ********’ , which is in my opinion is entirely the case.

Their conduct will in fact counteract any political movements or developments they claim to wish to further. For example, the initial riots protests were to do with abuse of police power, well now, as result directly of the riots, the demographic is calling for police to be given even more power, in order to stop another situation like this from occurring.

At best, when the dust has settled, their actions may have caused people to ask the question ‘what is wrong with our society that people will act in this way?’ but this would only be in the manner that football (soccer) hooliganism or the heroine/crack epidemic begs the same question. Hardly groundbreaking activism is it? Having the same political impact as a crackhead!

In summary, I’m just reiterating your point that these are not political protests, merely vicious thugs out robbing and stealing. There are issues and social injustices in Britain which need addressing however, I refuse to consider them in relation to these riots. They don’t deserve it frankly.

American's have guns, guns, guns, protecting life and treasure - enormous difference.

Hope everyone will be ok````!!!!







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This is the horrible mugging that is the talk in our media about the riots, the poor boy. Just disgusting bullies and scum these people...

http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/europe/5427188/The-story-behind-the-mugging-that-shocked-the-world

It's horrible enough to have these riots in the first place and disgusting to see what scum comes out of the woodwork.

Btw, I've not been around much today, how has it been today? Any less violent?



TIS

Yes I have spoken to my family back home and they say things are starting to die down, some of the looters have already been in court. I have heard some Americans say that they wouldn't be surprised if something like this occurred there, due to the state of the economy etc.

I may agree if we're talking about two or three guys. But here's a bigger thing at hand. No terrible personal situation justifies what's going on.
The psychologist Phil Zimbardo (who was responsible for the terrible prison experiment in the 70s) explains how situations makes the devil alive in almost all of us. To call those people ‘thieving little ********’ makes it a little too easy. By calling them names it's easier to distance ourselves from them, when in fact the situations have their own momentum. (As I said, this is not an excuse for anything.)

By the way, only a minority of those '********' is younger than 21.

Thanks for the link, it was an interesting watch but I don't think it contributed to the crux of the discussion much.

It may be a little dismissive to call them 'thieving little bastards', as I'v said there are many factors which have contributed to the despicable attitude these looters are showing, but they do not deserve to be considered in relation to these actions.

I consider myself to be quite left wing, but a 'bleeding-hearts liberal' approach to this situation is entirely the wrong way to go. Searching for excuses on their behalf is quite ridiculous, there are people who are in just as bad a situation as some of the looters but have not gone out there ruining their own communities. When does personal responsibility come into it?

I keep hearing 'theres no justification for their actions but...' or ' I'm not defending them but...' and its quite infuriating. Its known that the rioters are disenchanted, but the fact is that there are no justifiable reasons for acting like a bunch of yobs and endangering your own community. Picking out social injustices that they may suffer is the point of a different, though extremely valid, discussion.

Also, the majority of the looters were under 21. What are your sources which made you think otherwise?

Throwing 'the right to bear arms' into the equation would have made a bad situation infinitely worse.

Really? Tell that to post Katrina New Orleans.

Who are some of the accused rioters??

Amazing what a mob mentality can do to the average person. I just hope that these idiots haven't confused vandalism and theft with revolution. If they want to try to justify their actions with some lofty purpose, they're just plain wrong.

2000 people arrested including 2 men charged for the murder of the 3 men that were run over and killed in Birmingham.

Obviously been a few days now but there was some pretty shocking scenes going on. Pictures of the youths complaining about having nothing whilst jumping round with i-phones,top of the range trainers and enough bling to sink the Titanic make my stomach turn. Crazy daye we live in, although up north where i live we had no bother at all!!!

Glad to hear that you and your family are good, Yogi.

Yogi,

Glad you are safe. Has it been calming down this week? I certainly hope so.


TIS

Yes a lot calmer TIS an SB thanks. The pols are making the right noises for a change, the public are outraged and the police are using CCTV images to blitz the scum who have all been told they are going to jail, so we will see!