Riot of 2010?

[An archist]

For all you riotpornfans: what was the best Riot of 2010?

A few good ones

Khimki
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London
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Athens
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Toronto
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Kyrgysztan
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[¿Que?]

I thought the one where someone throws a petrol bomb at the cops, and one of them catches on fire and he's all freaking out all over the floor. I'll try to find it. That one was epic. I think it was in Greece somewhere.

[REVLEFT'S BIEGGST MATSER TROL]

Doubt anything will top Camilla and Charles' limo getting attacked :P

[Manic Impressive]

The Italian ones didn't make it in?

No matter, I think the Kyrgyzstan one was the best and most memorable. Here in the UK we still have a long way to go to match our European neighbours.

[An archist]

The Italian ones didn't make it in?

No matter, I think the Kyrgyzstan one was the best and most memorable. Here in the UK we still have a long way to go to match our European neighbours.

Well no, I knew I was forgetting tons, but that's why I didn't put a poll.

I also forgot Thailand
agLBIWDKWkI

[An archist]

... and Paris

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[Manic Impressive]

haha I forgot about Paris and of course Thailand actually the Thai ones were pretty amazing as well tbh.

[Aloysius]

Look at 1:05 in the London video...
Brilliant.

[Manic Impressive]

Look at 1:05 in the London video...
Brilliant.
the sign saying "down with this sort of thing"? I think it's a reference to father Ted
=6-F2HKLzB6c (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-F2HKLzB6c)

[Sam_b]

I don't think you should be calling a lot of these threads 'riots' politically.

[Tablo]

Awww, another good riot-porn thread. Greece had another good year of riots as always.
Kyrgysztan probably had the best. I especially enjoyed the Canada and the UK riots since it is just not something you see often in those countries.

[El Rojo]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJGfybI5Sds

Barcelona during the Spanish general strike

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPhKOlFBBE4&feature=related

Rome after the mafia don survived his no confidence vote

[FreeEire]

The last Student protest in London with the infamous royal car attack does it for me!

[bricolage]

I don't think you should be calling a lot of these threads 'riots' politically.
Why do you say that?

[El Rojo]

good call freefire, in London there were I think four large demos, the dets for which i can't be arsed to find since this is chit-chat. there was the battle for milbank, the time everyone got kettled in whitehall, the time everyone stayed mobile to avoid kettling, and the battle for parliament square. my personal favourite is a toss-up between milbank and parliament square. first time we took the state by suprise and trashed thier HQ, at Parliament, they threw everything they had at us and we fought them to a standstill.

[FreeFocus]

It's stunning how often there are riots in Europe. It's like commonplace there. If people riot in the US, they would get shot by police (who shoot people for no reason when they're just going about their business) and/or sent to prison on terrorism charges.

I'd go with the Greek riots, those were pretty epic.

[Magón]

The Thai riot/protests were pretty intense, probably more so than any others last year beside the Greek ones that of course were #1 in my book.

[Sam_b]

Why do you say that?

I don't think working class anger should be misconstrued as 'riotous'.

[bricolage]

I don't think working class anger should be misconstrued as 'riotous'.
Ahem...
Wish it was a riot.

But that aside I think you are dealing with semantics here. If you want to rebrand events for media relations or to not offend liberal sensibilities then I'm sure terms like 'riot' aren't that helpful but working class politics has never been about either of those things.

Riots are forms of public disorder, to be rioutous is to participate in rioting. I don't see the problem with this, its like I said, semantics.

[Rusty Shackleford]

FPTUbirMNL4
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obviously.


"oh fuck! oh fuck..."

[Omi]

... and Paris


What were those about? Totally missed those. Student protests?

[An archist]

What were those about? Totally missed those. Student protests?

The pension age going up, if I remember correctly.

[the last donut of the night]

for once i agree with sam_b on the name issue for a lot of these demos. personally my fave was the london student protests -- it was a first in a long time in the UK and it shows that political and class consciousness is growing in the 'first world'

[Omi]

The pension age going up, if I remember correctly.

Ofcourse. How could I forget?:confused:

[Sam_b]

Ahem...

Wow, a quote without context really makes my argument fall to pieces.

We all may wish things to be riots but do you think a time with developing class consciousness we are attracting fringe members of the class this way? It's not about 'liberal sensibilities' here. Maybe I would see your, arguably purist, viewpoint if class forces were an increasing threat to the current established order in many places where such 'riots' were taking place.

[bricolage]

Wow, a quote without context really makes my argument fall to pieces.
The context was one of the videos posted in this thread. So back when it happened you were wishing it was a riot but now you are against calling it that? I take it if you are saying that it (Millbank) wasn't a riot and so calling it such is misleading but you seem to be now using riot as a pejorative term meaning if it had got to a higher level you would, presumably, still be against calling it that.

So either you are saying rioting is a set of actions which begs the question what qualifies something as a riot or you are saying it is a form of, negative, discourse which can only serve to turn away 'fringe members of the class'. So I would agree with you that most (all?) of the examples in this thread were riots but that's due to the practical realities of them not because of any negative baggage I might attach to the term itself. If someone wants to discuss the 'student riots' or the 'student demos' I don't think it really makes much difference because what becomes evident is that these 'fringe members' care a lot more about the actual actions taking place than what terminology they are explained within or whether its supporters are on backfoot trying to do this explanation. Getting drawn into arguments about whether or not something is a riot completely distracts from the argument of whether such actions, no matter what you might call them, are justified and to the fact that 'rioting', as the term is commonly used, can be justified in itself.

You can dress riots up as civil disobedience you can dress civil disobedience down as riots but it's pretty patronising to assume which one you choose is going to determine what 'fringe members of the class' think about it.

[Sam_b]

The context was one of the videos posted in this thread. So back when it happened you were wishing it was a riot but now you are against calling it that? I take it if you are saying that it (Millbank) wasn't a riot and so calling it such is misleading but you seem to be now using riot as a pejorative term meaning if it had got to a higher level you would, presumably, still be against calling it that.


Hold on...


I think you are dealing with semantics here.

You've pretty much missed the point anyway. This is not about explanations or making excuses for action, this is projection to the wider class itself. What is there to stop some people equating 'student riots' with events in Oldham, for instance?

[bricolage]

What is there to stop some people equating 'student riots' with events in Oldham, for instance?
Because 'the wider class' is a bit more intelligent than you give them credit for.

[Tablo]

We need a poll.

[brigadista]

at the risk of being controversial I think that the police would have gone in much harder on any industrial action by workers in the UK, but the student demos were heart warming after such a long time.

[An archist]

We need a poll.
True

[Sam_b]

Because 'the wider class' is a bit more intelligent than you give them credit for.

This is essentially a copout answer which tries to portray those asking the questions in a negative light, while in fact not dealing at all with the substance of what is being said.

Indeed, an excellent example of this is the Keithley constitutency election this year, which swung from Labour to the Tories. It's not about 'intelligence' at all, one would hope that the movement isn't arrogant and out of touch enough to presume those who are not attached to a working class position are to be deemed as 'less intelligent' and so on. Politics doesn't necessarily hold a contested and tengeable factor as 'intelligence' on its successes and failures.

So are, for instance, working class constitutents in Keithley 'less intelligent' by voting against their class? Or is there, in fact, a larger theoretical and political battle here to be won within the wider class; rather than assuming that it is completely infallable and people 'do not give them credit'?

[bricolage]

Well no.... we were talking about the relative merits of terming something a 'riot' and the effect that might have. My point being that if you say calling it a riot is counter-productive because some people with associate it with other 'bad' riots then you are going down a slippery slope, I'm sure lots of people would associate socialism with national socialism or Stalin, does that mean the SWP is going to change its name in order to create a better 'projection to the wider class'?

I don't think your example is a very good one at all, not least because it is premised on the idea that voting for the Labour Party would not have been voting against their class, clearly it would have been. After a quick check on wikipedia (I know I know...) its quite clear which interests the previous Labour MP represented;


Cryer voted with the government to increase detention without trial to 42 days for terror suspects... calling on immigrants to learn to speak English before entering the country

But anyway what you are dealing with there is an issue of content. So talking to constituents of Keighley about why deficit reduction is not in working class interests is a similar example to talking about why smashing windows at Millbank is in working class interests. None of it has anything to do with which rhetoric you may dress the issue up in.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

The ones in Kyrgysztan were the best. I mean you know it's serious when people are shooting with real bullets at the force(And sadly demonstrators were killed) and actually jacked a rocket launcher from the riot police there(were they actually the army though, because last time I checked riot police didn't carry rocket launchers on them). They stormed the government building and torched it, basically won at the end of the day forcing the government to flee those parts and the people who were "rioting" controlled like 80% of the country after that(although I haven't heard about the situation since then). So that was definitely some of the coolest riot porn for 2010.

But I really love the one from Italy too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPhKOlFBBE4&feature=related
Just love the camera shot at around 6 seconds. That's one of those shots that would make a great painting. Reminds me of paintings I've seen of the "Storming the Bastille" during the French Revolution for some reason.