UK riots Google map

[NotLostJustWandering]

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps/ms?msi...195%2C0.298691

[ukmale32]

Tonight, if continues, I hope the army cracks their heads, they are a f*cking disgrace.

[Gearbox]

All the hot pacifists are welcome to take refuge at my place btw!

What the Hell is going on there?

[Hephaestion]

All the hot pacifists are welcome to take refuge at my place btw!

What the Hell is going on there?

The story goes that a cab was halted by the police. The claim was that a shot was fired from within at a policeman. The man in the cab was shot dead. The policeman was taken to hospital. The bullet was reported to have lodged in his radio rather than penetrate his body.

A small protest march was held. The dead man's mother is not well versed in public speaking. The airwaves have been filled with questions about the man's background and the strong implication has been that he was 'a villain'.

On that very day the entrepreneurial spirit took over and the main driving force has since been to burgle, loot and destroy. Ill gotten gains have been openly traded. The demonstration has been that areas of deprivation are newly created more than they are inherited from the past.

The danger now is that Da Ali G catch phrase may well be seen as the definitive causality of all of the events by all parties.

.

[Hephaestion]

Announced on TV news that no shots were fired by the man in the cab. A gun was found 'at the scene' and whether or not it belonged to the man is 'still being investigated'. 2 shots fired both by a policeman, one 'missed' the other was fatal to the man.

One other man found shot in Croydon during the riot has since died.

[Gearbox]

I don't watch TV, so I get my info by word of mouth or the net. So thanks lovely man Hephaestion.

Hope all are safe there and the madness will fizzle out real soon.

[darkeyes]

My mum's family mostly live in Salford and Manchester and so far all are safe and well.... but talking to relatives there is a real air of tension in much of the greater Manchester area. So far things havent got out of hand as seriously as in London but its early yet. Fingies crossed.

I have friends who live in Tottenham and they have been scared out of their wits with the mayhem which has been created in the streets. Luckily their home was not damaged by houses just a few streets away were burned out.

Also I have friends in the Croydon area who so far are untouched by any violence.

I thank kismet for the safety of all those I care for and know and hope it is kind to everyone on site and off it who live in the areas concerned.

We went to a concert at the festival tonight and when we came out I looked round and noticed the calm and lack of fear in this old town I love more than any other place on this earth. This is a beautiful very wealthy city but it too has large areas which are as impoverished and deprived as any in London and anywhere south of the border. I shivered as I thought of such mayhem and appalling destruction happening here. There seems no reason to any of it and for once I am shocked almost into silence and have no ready opinionated answers to why. I am grappling with this and trying to understand just what is gained by any of it.

[Pasadenacpl2]

If you had the right to keep arms within your homes and businesses, this wouldn't have gotten so far. I dare any group of torch and pitchfork waving thugs to attack my home. A shotgun blast over their heads is more than enough to disavow them of any inclination to make a run for my front door. And if not? I have 4 shotguns and three sons all who are versed in their use. It only takes two shotguns to hold a siege off of a home.

Pasa

[NotLostJustWandering]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...ots?CMP=twt_gu

There is a context to London's riots that can't be ignored

Those condemning the events in north London and elsewhere would do well to take a step back and consider the bigger picture

Since the coalition came to power just over a year ago, the country has seen multiple student protests, occupations of dozens of universities, several strikes, a half-a-million-strong trade union march and now unrest on the streets of the capital (preceded by clashes with Bristol police in Stokes Croft earlier in the year). Each of these events was sparked by a different cause, yet all take place against a backdrop of brutal cuts and enforced austerity measures. The government knows very well that it is taking a gamble, and that its policies run the risk of sparking mass unrest on a scale we haven't seen since the early 1980s. With people taking to the streets of Tottenham, Edmonton, Brixton and elsewhere over the past few nights, we could be about to see the government enter a sustained and serious losing streak.

The policies of the past year may have clarified the division between the entitled and the dispossessed in extreme terms, but the context for social unrest cuts much deeper. The fatal shooting of Mark Duggan last Thursday, where it appears, contrary to initial accounts, that only police bullets were fired, is another tragic event in a longer history of the Metropolitan police's treatment of ordinary Londoners, especially those from black and minority ethnic backgrounds, and the singling out of specific areas and individuals for monitoring, stop and search and daily harassment.

One journalist wrote that he was surprised how many people in Tottenham knew of and were critical of the IPCC, but there should be nothing surprising about this. When you look at the figures for deaths in police custody (at least 333 since 1998 and not a single conviction of any police officer for any of them), then the IPCC and the courts are seen by many, quite reasonably, to be protecting the police rather than the people.

Combine understandable suspicion of and resentment towards the police based on experience and memory with high poverty and large unemployment and the reasons why people are taking to the streets become clear. (Haringey, the borough that includes Tottenham, has the fourth highest level of child poverty in London and an unemployment rate of 8.8%, double the national average, with one vacancy for every 54 seeking work in the borough.)

Those condemning the events of the past couple of nights in north London and elsewhere would do well to take a step back and consider the bigger picture: a country in which the richest 10% are now 100 times better off than the poorest, where consumerism predicated on personal debt has been pushed for years as the solution to a faltering economy, and where, according to the OECD, social mobility is worse than any other developed country.

As Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett point out in The Spirit Level: Why Equality is Better for Everyone, phenomena usually described as "social problems" (crime, ill-health, imprisonment rates, mental illness) are far more common in unequal societies than ones with better economic distribution and less gap between the richest and the poorest. Decades of individualism, competition and state-encouraged selfishness – combined with a systematic crushing of unions and the ever-increasing criminalisation of dissent – have made Britain one of the most unequal countries in the developed world.

Images of burning buildings, cars aflame and stripped-out shops may provide spectacular fodder for a restless media, ever hungry for new stories and fresh groups to demonise, but we will understand nothing of these events if we ignore the history and the context in which they occur.

[NotLostJustWandering]

I have mixed feelings about these riots, just as I did about LA back in '91 (or was it '92?). On the one hand, total sympathy for the rioters' anger, and admiration for their effectiveness in evading police. On the other, I'm horrified at the randomness of the violence; that ordinary people must take the brunt of it. This is not revolution. The government has to clean up the mess, but the government isn't getting taken down. Maybe the Tories will get voted out of office next election, maybe not. But the men running the democracy show will continue to be in charge. I'd like to see violence of this sort directed against appropriate targets, like banks and political offices.

[NotLostJustWandering]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biJgI...&feature=share

Description:
"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)"

[darkeyes]

If you had the right to keep arms within your homes and businesses, this wouldn't have gotten so far. I dare any group of torch and pitchfork waving thugs to attack my home. A shotgun blast over their heads is more than enough to disavow them of any inclination to make a run for my front door. And if not? I have 4 shotguns and three sons all who are versed in their use. It only takes two shotguns to hold a siege off of a home.

Pasa

Right, Pasa.. if u say it, it must be true...

Dread to think of the carnage if peeps had guns as commonly as u lot... we have riots in this country on this scale hardly ever.. 30 years ago was the last time.. an that justifies armin the peeps? yea right...

[NotLostJustWandering]

Facebook conversation with an English friend:

RF: *
how is USA covering the london riots?

AZ:
Front page of the NY Times yesterday.
*
Just read the coverage this jmorning

RF:
i stayed up all night watching it, chatting to my mates. most of them live in the hotspots, hackney, camden, clapham,

AZ:
so what do they think: legitimate political rebellion, or opportunistic looting?

RF:
both
*
my friend who has a way with words wrote somethign very poignant

AZ:
yes?

RF:
i mean it's echoing: something is wrong. something is wrong. we always knew that, but something is very wrong. there are enough people, people we see every day with nothing to lose to the point that they're destroying their own homes, because their homes mean little to them, because they haven't given them enough back to give them a community, a sense of safety, a minimal degree of education, and thus a sense of value. they're lashing out, animalistically, with nothing to lose, and the right, so i hear, in my kitchen and on the bbc, are still using words like thugs and criminals and trying to admonish a confused, disappointed wave of anger without acknowledging any responsibility or understanding for what's going on. i'm not too sure what i'm saying, or if i get it. just so saddened, yet so utterly useless at the moment, which ends in you feeling responsible. i think we all are it's just easier to sleep at night when it's not thrown in our faces as a wave of despair from people our age, in our neighborhoods.

RF:
i think its that plus adding to it the massive advertising campaigns and the commodification of the world, its not who you are its what you own, and these people have nothign in their lives, and no prospects and see all this shit in the news that they dont understand apart form seeing it bacl and white the governemtn is fucking shit up and we are suffering, and decide that they can take what they want like this as its the only way to gain wealth

AZ:
well put
*
it reminds me of LA after Rodney King. I had similar mixed feelings, strongly disapproving of the indiscrimate thieving, violence, and destruction, while feeling great empathy nd sharing the anger

RF:
exactly
*
its awful what is happening, but you cant just ignore the social aspects, the world is falling apart

AZ:
I have to say I admire the deftness of mobs using Blackberrys to mobolilize on the spot & evade the police. would love to hear of such things happening in damascus

#

*
do you think anything good will come of it? II can't remember LA '91 making any lasting change

RF:

*
fuck knows mate
*
nothign good comes from anything
*
several millions march against war
*
we go to war with 2 countries
*
peaceful or violent, nothign will change short of the entire population really coming to terms with the fact that the way the modern world works is just wrong

AZ:
*
That's a tall order. Look how stupid most of the population is.

RF:
*
exactly
*
our world truelly is and not even being drastic, proper fucked. which means even people who are clued up and switched on give up trying to change it and just become selfish like everyone else and try and make the most of their limited lifespan

AZ:
*
what to do?

RF:
*
exactly
*
fucking riot and destroy it all

[darkeyes]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...ots?CMP=twt_gu

There is a context to London's riots that can't be ignored

Those condemning the events in north London and elsewhere would do well to take a step back and consider the bigger picture

Since the coalition came to power just over a year ago, the country has seen multiple student protests, occupations of dozens of universities, several strikes, a half-a-million-strong trade union march and now unrest on the streets of the capital (preceded by clashes with Bristol police in Stokes Croft earlier in the year). Each of these events was sparked by a different cause, yet all take place against a backdrop of brutal cuts and enforced austerity measures. The government knows very well that it is taking a gamble, and that its policies run the risk of sparking mass unrest on a scale we haven't seen since the early 1980s. With people taking to the streets of Tottenham, Edmonton, Brixton and elsewhere over the past few nights, we could be about to see the government enter a sustained and serious losing streak.

The policies of the past year may have clarified the division between the entitled and the dispossessed in extreme terms, but the context for social unrest cuts much deeper. The fatal shooting of Mark Duggan last Thursday, where it appears, contrary to initial accounts, that only police bullets were fired, is another tragic event in a longer history of the Metropolitan police's treatment of ordinary Londoners, especially those from black and minority ethnic backgrounds, and the singling out of specific areas and individuals for monitoring, stop and search and daily harassment.

One journalist wrote that he was surprised how many people in Tottenham knew of and were critical of the IPCC, but there should be nothing surprising about this. When you look at the figures for deaths in police custody (at least 333 since 1998 and not a single conviction of any police officer for any of them), then the IPCC and the courts are seen by many, quite reasonably, to be protecting the police rather than the people.

Combine understandable suspicion of and resentment towards the police based on experience and memory with high poverty and large unemployment and the reasons why people are taking to the streets become clear. (Haringey, the borough that includes Tottenham, has the fourth highest level of child poverty in London and an unemployment rate of 8.8%, double the national average, with one vacancy for every 54 seeking work in the borough.)

Those condemning the events of the past couple of nights in north London and elsewhere would do well to take a step back and consider the bigger picture: a country in which the richest 10% are now 100 times better off than the poorest, where consumerism predicated on personal debt has been pushed for years as the solution to a faltering economy, and where, according to the OECD, social mobility is worse than any other developed country.

As Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett point out in The Spirit Level: Why Equality is Better for Everyone, phenomena usually described as "social problems" (crime, ill-health, imprisonment rates, mental illness) are far more common in unequal societies than ones with better economic distribution and less gap between the richest and the poorest. Decades of individualism, competition and state-encouraged selfishness – combined with a systematic crushing of unions and the ever-increasing criminalisation of dissent – have made Britain one of the most unequal countries in the developed world.

Images of burning buildings, cars aflame and stripped-out shops may provide spectacular fodder for a restless media, ever hungry for new stories and fresh groups to demonise, but we will understand nothing of these events if we ignore the history and the context in which they occur.

Atiq.. ta for trying to see that there is a bigger picture than just absolute mayhem and ciminality.. I am struggling to do this myself.. there is something more to all this than just people running riot, thieving and destroying homes and property willy nilly. I am not excusing the rioters one bit.. the poor and dispossessed often find themselves to the fore in a fight against the forces which they see as having failed them... there is an element of that here but for the life of me I just cant get my head around it nor can I understand fully just what has happened and the real meaning of it.

The government talks up the criminality as if thats all there is.... I think a little time will be needed for the smoke to clear for us to begin the process of analysing just what happened here, why and what can we do to ensure it doesnt happen again.

The actions of the police the distrust people have for them are an area which has to be considered.... The police are often viewed as a law unto themselves and the IPCC is not considered by many people fair and just in the way it investigates the police. It is considered partial. Its record in investigating the police is patchy at best.... but there is far far more going on here than just police distrust. Just what we cannot yet see. We make a great mistake if we simply look at just criminality and thuggery, but equally we cannot look at this as a political protest against injustice. Somehow all the strands of these riots are so intertwined it is going to take some undoing to get to the bottom of it...

Criminality always increases during times of recession as the poor and dispossessed become even more poor and dispossessed, and greater in number as the yawning gap between the rich and poor becomes an even greater chasm.. the present government and its policies have contributed to that and it cant be ignored.. but it is not the whole story...

[niftyshellshock]

Only in the West could rioters wearing designer duds with iPods and iPhones, looting immigrant shop owners and beating them up -- be considered "poverty stricken"
So disgustingly privileged, I only wish they could face and understand what those in so many other developing nations go through to have what they have. Ungrateful, privileged wretches.
Dead bodies, actually dire conflict goes on in the world every single day, but a few people's shit gets burnt in England and everyone in the United States is suddenly a humanitarian.

Send in the troops. Worked in 1883 in the United States and everyone chilled the fuck out.

[Pasadenacpl2]

There is a reason riots don't last long in the US and never become widespread. It is not the use of armed policemen or riot gear that causes this almost instant cooling off once the powder keg is lit. The UK has that, and yet, it doesn't seem to work.

The difference: an armed citizenry. This keeps rioting contained to small areas, and even then keeps it focused against the government for the most part. Even within the mob mentality, people understand that while the police and military are loath to fire upon civilians, a shop owner defending his life's work has no problem pulling the trigger. No one wants to be the first one shot.

Also, the earlier concern about the rioters being worae if they had guns...people who riot almost never have guns. I cannot say why this is true...but statistically it is what is is.

An armed society is a polite society. ~ Mark Twain

Pasa

[darkeyes]

There is a reason riots don't last long in the US and never become widespread. It is not the use of armed policemen or riot gear that causes this almost instant cooling off once the powder keg is lit. The UK has that, and yet, it doesn't seem to work.

The difference: an armed citizenry. This keeps rioting contained to small areas, and even then keeps it focused against the government for the most part. Even within the mob mentality, people understand that while the police and military are loath to fire upon civilians, a shop owner defending his life's work has no problem pulling the trigger. No one wants to be the first one shot.

Also, the earlier concern about the rioters being worae if they had guns...people who riot almost never have guns. I cannot say why this is true...but statistically it is what is is.

An armed society is a polite society. ~ Mark Twain

Pasa

Its wot goes on on the 30 years tween big riots Pasa.. wudnt like 2 think we would ever go down ur road an have umpteen times the numbers of killings an God knows wot else put down to guns an ya armed citizenry..ya armed as a matter of course polis an all.. an ya armed banditry... think we will pass on that useless piece of advice tyvm..

Have never been to ur country btw Pasa.. mite pay a lil visit 1a these days.. but much prefer the European way wich dusnt quite rely so much on blowing heads off.. but me sister has.. an Mark Twain's lil piece of advice? Well she saw much that wos polite an met loadsa ver nice polite peeps.. but she also met summa the rudest most obnxious peeps ya cud imagine... an several bastard bobbies fulla their own importance.. bit like here really... cept scarier.. her words.. not mine... also far more likely 2 meet an early violent death in ur place.. will stick 2 our rather inept waya doin things ta Pasa.. wanna grow up 2 be a lil old lady an see me kids wiv ther kids... reckon they will be bit safer an happier here for all the shit we havta put up wiv...

[Pasadenacpl2]

Hrm..the numbers don't seem to agree with you, Fran. I like data. It's our friend.

According to the Geneva Declaration on Armed Violence, the rate of violent deaths (homicide) in Europe is 5.4/100,000. North America is only 6.5 per 100,000. So, 5 or 6 people per 100,000 whether you are in Europe or the United States. Statistically, this is an insignificant difference.

Incidentally, more than half of the United State's gun related deaths are suicides, and not the result of violent crime. And the suicide rate in both of our nations is almost identical.

Unlike yourself, Fran, I have been to your nation multiple times as well as living and traveling all over Europe. I can safely say that the rudest people I have ever met are the French, and the people who fear their police the most are the Brits. We don't fear our police here. Not like y'all do.

You seem to envision the United States as some sort of wild west cowboys with guns on our hips and gun violence happening all over the place. Nothing could be further from the truth. Gun ownership is not a thing we do lightly. We take it seriously. We have courses on gun safety, and we have licensing classes to carry it concealed (which most do that I know). Guns aren't out and in your face. They are kept close, and used wisely, if at all. Most police officers go entire careers without ever having to draw their service pistol, much less fire it.

I leave with this thought. When weapons are made illegal, only criminals will have them.

Pasa

[tenni]

I am inclined to think that Pasa is way off topic. Applying his cultural thoughts/beliefs do not transfer well to more generally peaceful nations.

Citizens standing up to thugs is a good idea but guns were not needed to stop looters in London the other night in some areas. On CBCnewsworld there was a fellow who lived in the part of area where the riots started. He stated that it was scarey and arson and looting was rampant on the streets where the "electronics" were(his words for large stores I guess selling electronic equipment etc.?). He and fellow neighbours stood at the end of their street and when the gangs approached they were told that they should turn back. None of the men telling them to turn back had a gun. The rioters did turn back and did not try to break through the twenty to thirty people blocking their street. The independent shops on that street were not damaged. Neither the looters nor the citizens had guns. From what he said...not one punch was even thrown. No one died. Bad things have happened but other than two people no one has died from gun fire. (one died before the riots...not sure about the other as to how he was shot?)

Citizens with guns are not the solution at all.

I thought that it was fantastic that scores.....hundreds? of British people united via Facebook to go out yesterday and clean up the streets with brooms!!!!! Fantastic. Standing up for what you believe without more violence. Good on ya...Brits!!!!

There will be much evaluation as to what is going on in Britain and hopefully this doesn't spill over to other countries. It has been happening in such places as Greece. The difference is that it is not yet clear why these people are rioting. There is an ambiguous factor going on here.

[Pasadenacpl2]

I am inclined to think that Pasa is way off topic. Applying his cultural thoughts/beliefs do not transfer well to more generally peaceful nations.

Please show me your standards for being a more peaceful nation, Tenni. Please, Tenni, show me some data to back up your assertions.

I agree that it was great that the citizens stood up using brooms. You use what you have. That has been true since time began. Had they had guns, they would have not had a need to do so after a full week into the riots. It would have ended almost immediately.

Pasa

[jamieknyc]

Its wot goes on on the 30 years tween big riots Pasa.. wudnt like 2 think we would ever go down ur road an have umpteen times the numbers of killings an God knows wot else put down to guns an ya armed citizenry..ya armed as a matter of course polis an all.. an ya armed banditry... think we will pass on that useless piece of advice tyvm..

Have never been to ur country btw Pasa.. mite pay a lil visit 1a these days.. but much prefer the European way wich dusnt quite rely so much on blowing heads off.. but me sister has.. an Mark Twain's lil piece of advice? Well she saw much that wos polite an met loadsa ver nice polite peeps.. but she also met summa the rudest most obnxious peeps ya cud imagine... an several bastard bobbies fulla their own importance.. bit like here really... cept scarier.. her words.. not mine... also far more likely 2 meet an early violent death in ur place.. will stick 2 our rather inept waya doin things ta Pasa.. wanna grow up 2 be a lil old lady an see me kids wiv ther kids... reckon they will be bit safer an happier here for all the shit we havta put up wiv...

Don't believe all the bluster you read on the internet, especially if you have never been to the United States. Ninety per cent of Americans have never been in a place where a riot took place anytime, let alone defending their homes and properties against rioters with guns. If you visit here, I doubt you will go to any place where a riot took place anytime in your lifetime, or meet anyone with a gun except police. In places where there were riots, there were instances in which shopkeepers prevented their stores from being looted by being there with a firearm. However, 90% of Americans don't do anything more dangerous than driving to the mall.

[darkeyes]

Hrm..the numbers don't seem to agree with you, Fran. I like data. It's our friend.

According to the Geneva Declaration on Armed Violence, the rate of violent deaths (homicide) in Europe is 5.4/100,000. North America is only 6.5 per 100,000. So, 5 or 6 people per 100,000 whether you are in Europe or the United States. Statistically, this is an insignificant difference.

Incidentally, more than half of the United State's gun related deaths are suicides, and not the result of violent crime. And the suicide rate in both of our nations is almost identical.

Unlike yourself, Fran, I have been to your nation multiple times as well as living and traveling all over Europe. I can safely say that the rudest people I have ever met are the French, and the people who fear their police the most are the Brits. We don't fear our police here. Not like y'all do.

You seem to envision the United States as some sort of wild west cowboys with guns on our hips and gun violence happening all over the place. Nothing could be further from the truth. Gun ownership is not a thing we do lightly. We take it seriously. We have courses on gun safety, and we have licensing classes to carry it concealed (which most do that I know). Guns aren't out and in your face. They are kept close, and used wisely, if at all. Most police officers go entire careers without ever having to draw their service pistol, much less fire it.

I leave with this thought. When weapons are made illegal, only criminals will have them.

Pasa

No? In Britain in 2008 there were 42 gun related deaths, not all murders. Compare that to the numbers in your country? In the US in 2004 there were well over 9000 not counting other gun related death. Even allowing for the disparity on population size I think my clim holds up better than yours. Yes we have other ways people kill each other but even then comparing the numbers who die as a result of murder of any kind in the UK you have a far greater prospect of not bein butchered in this country before your time than ever you have where you are. Easy availability of guns does not make a society more polite but invariably more callous and brutal. You can argue that point all you like, but thats life as they say...

This country is far from perfect and crime is appallingly high, possibly even higher than in your own.. but one thing we do not have is out of control homicide rates because of an irrational attachemnt to guns..

I dont think the US is like the wild west at all... I do think it is a much less safe place in which to live than where I do... and do think that American attachment to guns, that bloody right to bear arms, has much to do with it being so...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_pol...Firearms_crime

[jamieknyc]

I dont think the US is like the wild west at all... I do think it is a much less safe place in which to live than where I do... and do think that American attachment to guns, that bloody right to bear arms, has much to do with it being so...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_pol...Firearms_crime

*You* however, and people like you, are unlikely to go anywhere in teh U.S. where you are at risk from gun violence.

[darkeyes]

*You* however, and people like you, are unlikely to go anywhere in teh U.S. where you are at risk from gun violence.

Thats a stupid thing to say Jamie..

..like most of us I care about my skin.. but if i had need to go somewhere where there was a likelihood of being faced with a gun that wouldnt stop me going.. but like anyone else I would be daft, no, stupid not to weigh up the risk... I have been faced with both armed police and soldiers now and then while on demos.. thats just an occupational hazard of standing up for your rights in and round Europe..... and even a simple thing like going on me hols and flying has its own risks in that regard...

[jamieknyc]

Thats a stupid thing to say Jamie..

..like most of us I care about my skin.. but if i had need to go somewhere where there was a likelihood of being faced with a gun that wouldnt stop me going.. but like anyone else I would be daft, no, stupid not to weigh up the risk... I have been faced with both armed police and soldiers now and then while on demos.. thats just an occupational hazard of standing up for your rights in and round Europe..... and even a simple thing like going on me hols and flying has its own risks in that regard...

I can't conceive of a scenario in which you would have a reason to go into dangerous inner-city neighorhoods in the United States. Also, even if you went to a 'demo,' any 'demo' you are likely to go to would be unlikely to be confronted with anything more dangerous than orange plastic netting.

[niftyshellshock]

I can't conceive of a scenario in which you would have a reason to go into dangerous inner-city neighorhoods in the United States. Also, even if you went to a 'demo,' any 'demo' you are likely to go to would be unlikely to be confronted with anything more dangerous than orange plastic netting.

Hey now, those riots in England are srs bzns. Think of all the poor dustbins in Shaftsbury that have been knocked over by the hooligans. OH THE HUMANITY.

[tenni]

Pasa
How did this become a thread about the USA?

Number of murders with guns
*in United Kingdom-34 (39th highest number of murders in the world out of 46 with last place a three way tie with all three having no murders with guns)
* in the USA-9 369 (4th highest number of murders in the world..that's nine thousand three hundred sixty-nine for the non metric readers)

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cr...-with-firearms

[love1234]

I have mixed feelings about these riots, just as I did about LA back in '91 (or was it '92?). On the one hand, total sympathy for the rioters' anger, and admiration for their effectiveness in evading police. On the other, I'm horrified at the randomness of the violence; that ordinary people must take the brunt of it. This is not revolution. The government has to clean up the mess, but the government isn't getting taken down. Maybe the Tories will get voted out of office next election, maybe not. But the men running the democracy show will continue to be in charge. I'd like to see violence of this sort directed against appropriate targets, like banks and political offices.

Agree 100% but the evil elite have been playing these games for a super long time. They know how to get the people in and up roar against someone else.

He in the u.s. they are getting the blacks to act up with these flash riots. Many whites are fed up as many know someone that has been mugged, raped, shot or murdered by black thugs. The elite love to get people fighting against each other and not getting the pitch forks and all of us going after them. You can see that is working even on here. People are mad at the rioters not the criminal police state that caused the riots.

If things get bad for them they will do a big false flag attack and blame some country with their propaganda machines tv, new papers. This again always works and people wave the flag and hate the enemy and forget about the elites robbing them and their country.

The elites have been using these same old tricks for thousands of years. The people seem to always fall for them.

Voting really does not work as the elites own the printing press that print the money and they own both sides. They call it demon-crazy (democracy) and poli=many, ticks= bloodsuckers (politicks) for a reason. A demon-crazy bloodsucking system will never work for people.

[darkeyes]

I can't conceive of a scenario in which you would have a reason to go into dangerous inner-city neighorhoods in the United States. Also, even if you went to a 'demo,' any 'demo' you are likely to go to would be unlikely to be confronted with anything more dangerous than orange plastic netting.

You know Jamie, you do talk through your arse quite often. Off hand I cant think of any reason I would go into an inner city district in the US...
but I have been and do go to inner city heavy, pretty unpleasant and dangerous areas of this country and have been in quite a few on continental Europe as well as the city of Tunis. You have no idea what I would and wouldn't do.

Parts of this city are drug addled council housing schemes consisting of pretty shambolic flats and are hardly the safest and I have friends there I visit quite regularly, as I do in Easterhouse in Glasgow and Castlemilk. Edinburgh has a reputation for gentility but it has areas which make your hair stand on end and are pretty heavy... and if u think Glasgow is a soft place then so is your head...pay a visit a couple of times a year as I do... see just how safe you feel there...

Half of my family are from and still live in very dangerous inner city areas of Manchester and Salford in the north of England. I still visit from time to time as I do friends in Tottenham and Hackney in London and in Croydon to the south of the city. All of these are areas which have gone up in smoke in one way or other in the last few days. I may be a well brought up girl from prosperous parents, but when u have a father whose family were miners and a mother whose family were brickies, cab drivers and labourers, you dont grow up soft. I may be a pacifist with absolute contempt for violence and guns, and don't deny I have a fear of both, but I was raised to face my fears and not be cowered by them.

The US is not so very different from this country in that many of its inner cities are rotten with violence and are very dangerous places.. that doesnt stop me visiting friends and family and staying when invited, drinking in the local pubs with those people and their friends and having a jolly time, going to working men's clubs, local dances, parties and other late night events... the threat of violence is never far away and gun crime, if much more rare, is always a possibility... Jamie.. scoff all u like.. hating guns and violence, loathing aspects of our society which should not be, does not make me run from them or avoid areas where I have reason to visit. U picked the wrong girl to make that accusation to...

...and if u think that the worst demonstrators in this country and in other European countries face is orange plastic netting, you need to broaden your horizons, pop over for a lil hol and take part in a few...

[darkeyes]

Pasa
How did this become a thread about the USA?

Number of murders with guns
*in United Kingdom-34 (39th highest number of murders in the world out of 46 with last place a three way tie with all three having no murders with guns)
* in the USA-9 369 (4th highest number of murders in the world..that's nine thousand three hundred sixty-nine for the non metric readers)

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cr...-with-firearms

It became so, Tenni babes, cos Pasa wants to arm the British people and turn us into nice safe place just like the US....seems we are about 1500 gun murders short of our target....