This is What Austerity Looks Like

[kpete]

SUN AUG 07, 2011 AT 04:38 AM PDT
This is What Austerity Looks Like: Riots in North London
byBrit




....................

So those Chickens are coming home to roost. It's not condoning criminal activity to show how economic austerity has social consequences. Indeed it would be immoral NOT to point it out. And the factors here are obvious.

1. A massive rise in Youth Unemployment
2. The Closure of facilities for young people
3. The Removal of the EMA grant which have 16-18 years a weekly sum for remaining in education.
4. A rise in VAT (sales taxes) and energy price hikes


.......

MORE:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/08/07/1004145/-This-is-What-Austerity-Looks-Like:-Riots-in-North-London?via=siderec

[dipsydoodle]

1. Those pictures have got sfa to do with austerity

That was opportunism by out of towners.

[closeupready]

2. How many times does it have to be said, economic inequality historically has led

to civil unrest? Governments sometimes seem populated with fiscal policy hawks who were born only yesterday.

[slackmaster]

3. Austerity causes people to riot in and burn down their own neighborhoods?

:crazy:

[dipsydoodle]

4. The locals are horrified

at what was contributed too substantially by outsiders.

Riots and looting which scarred Tottenham were condemned as “totally unacceptable” by David Lammy MP, who blamed troublemakers from outside the area for much of the violence, last night.

Mr Lammy rejected comparisons between the scenes on Saturday in Tottenham High Road, with the notorious Broadwater Farm clashes between police and protestors 25 years ago.

Forty two arrests were made by police during a night of chaos in Tottenham, when petrol bombs set alight buildings, cash machines were stolen and looters ransacked shops.

http://www.london24.com/news/crime/tottenham_riots_condemned_by_david_lammy_pm_police_response_questioned_1_986827

Homes were broken into too. :(

[maddezmom]

7. thanks for the link...seems like a protest about the shooting that went out of control

when outsiders came in. very sad. :(

[dipsydoodle]

8. Something else started it

There was a peaceful protest at the police station. A girl of 16 started giving the police "some of that" probably right in their faces and was pushed away . By that the time that incident had done the rounds on twitter it had become she'd been murdered whatever by the police. That was what caused the subsequent problem and the influx from outsiders getting in on the act for some looting.

Assuming some of the 40 arrested to be outsiders I wouldn't want to be in their shoes when they come out of the magistrates and the locals vent their anger.

[dixiegrrrrl]

11. Apparenlty riots sparked by shooting of an armed "gansta" who police say shot first

and this quote by the police after the shooting:
One source said: ‘We can only hope that the backlash from the community is not severe – it is effectively a death in custody.’
Hopes dashed, apparently. The riots broke out 2 days later.

links:
story immediately after the shooting:( sorry, it is the Daily Mail)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2022670/Gangster-Mark-Duggan-shot-police-London-cab-shootout.html

riots:
from the Gaurdian:
"It started out as a peaceful demonstration. The police shot a guy here last week and they lied about what happened. They said he pulled a gun but he wouldn't have done that with armed police. They shot him so badly that his mother could not recognise him." a woman was quoted as saying.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/06/tottenham-riots-protesters-police

[izquierdista]

5. Their OWN neighborhoods?

People don't generally torch their own property, but if the top 1% own your house (via your upside down mortgage), your car, your job, your schools, and your government, I could understand somebody, after being told to suck it up even more, striking a match.

[dixiegrrrrl]

6. Don't remember the 60's, eh?

[PatSeg]

9. I was thinking the same thing

I remember many urban neighborhoods burning in the U.S. and it wasn't just the sixties.



1992 LA riots

"The rioting was the single most violent episode of social unrest in the US in the twentieth century, far outstripping the urban revolts of the 1960s both in sheer destructiveness and in the fact that the riots were a multiracial revolt of the poor. In the initial phase of the LA riots, the police were rapidly overwhelmed and retreated, and the military did not appear until the rioting had abated."
http://libcom.org/history/1992-the-la-riots


Revolt of the poor.

[slackmaster]

15. Yes, as a matter of fact I do remember

People torching their own neighborhoods (e.g. Watts) seemed just as self-destructive and stupid then as the situation in London does today.

Shouldn't they be torching rich peoples' homes, or the offices of politicians?

[jwirr]

12. That was what happened in the 60s. Why should it be any different

today?

[Union Thug]

10. When the wealthy in a capitalist nation decide to keep it all

for themselves, and voting accomplishes nothing, guess what...

[butterfly77]

13. K&R..

[CaliforniaPeggy]

14. Greatest Page for your post, my dear kpete...

Highly recommended.

[cali]

16. what bullshit. I have nothing but contempt for the kos diarist

who's trying to push a false narrative. It's disgusting.

[Skidmore]

17. These riots were NOT caused by austerity. Let's just create disinformation.

The only truth is that the rioting harms the local economy there. Austerity as current policy is not the cause of problems already existing in the area. Conflating the two muddles the issues.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/aug/08/london-riots-tottenham-hotspur

"The Tottenham Hotspur chairman, Daniel Levy, has voiced his concern at the damage caused to the club's ticket office and the rest of the area by rioters in London this weekend.

Rioting erupted on Saturday evening less than a mile from White Hart Lane after a peaceful protest against the fatal shooting of local man Mark Duggan turned violent."