Posts by Russell Brown
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Far too much conjecture and not enough reporting – and yes I know all the issues surrounding getting an interview from a brick throwing looter.
I think there has been a great deal of reporting, but yeah: I liked the simple descriptive accounts in the London Review of Books blogs much more than Tariq Ali pronouncing on Western civilisation before the fire were even out.
But, from Andy's link above, a BBC World Service reporter got a brief audio interview with a couple of 18 year-old girls (which took some courage, given the number of attacks on journalists overnight). It's fascinating, not edifying.
The girls also mention Blackberry Broadcast, which seems to be the major messaging platform for it all.
Anyway, Sarah Carr puts it way more eloquently than I ever could.
Hmmm. There are some good comments under it, but I've read a lot better commentary than that.
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Harry Stopes' short, purely descriptive post on the London Review of Books blogsite does it for me -- this is all around my old house, I've walked on every one of those streets. He doesn't say so, but some of this shit's going down about 100 metres from the police station.
His final paragraph says something about how this was organised on the night:
Going back a little while later I saw a lot of empty cardboard boxes and packing foam, and a guy walking across the road with a flatscreen TV under his arm. A group of girls, phones out, were discussing what was going to happen next. Croydon? Streatham? ‘No one’s going Streatham,’ one of them said.
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Hard News: London's Burning, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
Possibly. But also, in the UK (and most other countries) the underclass is urban. In NZ, a lot of the poorest people live out in the country. A lot of the central NI settlements are probably more disadvantaged than Hackney, but we don’t see them, right? Even the affluent (mainly white) people in the area don’t see them, apart from having to be sure to lock the Land Rover when going into Tokoroa for shopping.
NZ’s criminal gangs are rurally-based than most, too. But, without minimising poverty in the Hokianga, I’d rather grow up there than in, say, Big Wendover in Peckham.
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Hard News: London's Burning, in reply to Rich Lock,
redacted as the attachment button appears to have stopped working.
Try typing something in the comment box before doing the file upload. Crazy, I know.
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Hard News: London's Burning, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
The other part is the whole social-control apparatus that the Brits have created. It isn't well tolerated.
I think there's certainly a conversation to be had about that. It would be ironic if the communitarian philosophy advanced by Tony Blair -- which underpins those social control initiatives -- turned out to have fostered a hitherto unseen level of alienation.
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Speaker: Listening to Coldharbour Lane, in reply to Paul Williams,
This is so strongly against the media narrative, thanks for telling us
There's a #riotcleanup hashtag going off right now. That will be a cheering sight on a sobering morning.
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This is just depressing. No, that hardly seems a strong enough word ...
Some passers-by help a disorientated and bleeding kid -- and then mug him.
Fuck.
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Hard News: London's Burning, in reply to BenWilson,
For now. How long before people discover that they can, though? I was constantly amazed in online gaming just how many people who didn't have a plan were susceptible to the power of suggestion from anyone who did.
Just out of interest, how does Blackberry messaging work? Is it easy to quickly form groups and share messages? I suspect there's a mix of just running into whatever's around the corner and the message going out on the next place to hit.
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Hard News: London's Burning, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
And, no: Still not caring where David Cameron is.
I gather his office decided that not returning from Tuscany would be the better choice, to avoid making the earlier rioting look more important than it was. Looks like an unfortunate call now. Ditto for Boris Johnson -- it's Ken Livingstone who looks like the mayor at the moment.
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Hard News: London's Burning, in reply to Idiot Savant,
Anarchism <> chaos. Just because people oppose the state, coercion, and pretensions of “authority” doesn’t mean they can’t get together voluntarily to work towards their collective ends.
Yes. Our local anarchist crew in Elephant & Castle published a great squatters' newsletter. A friend of mine was part of a group in Islington that ran an open house and cafe, where a lot of fun was had.