London riots caused by working class parents not being able to smack their childen

[ed miliband]

so says Labour MP David Lammy:


Raising the controversial issue of smacking children is "necessary and right", a senior Labour MP has said, after he was criticised for suggesting working-class parents needed to be able to discipline their children without fear of prosecution.

David Lammy, the MP for Tottenham, said the government should not impose how parents disciplined their children and said many families felt confused and disempowered by laws around punishing children.

The row erupted after Lammy was accused of partly blaming last year's riots on parents' inability to smack their children in order punish them. He later said the riots could not be blamed on smacking, but that the issue needed to be tackled.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/jan/29/labour-mp-backs-smacking-children

Reminds me of an amazing Tony Benn interview where Benn claims that because they working class no longer have the Labour Party or trade unions they form gangs and stab people. I sound like I'm making that up. I wish I was.

[X5N]

Yes, how awful that parents aren't allowed to beat their children into obedience.

[dodger]

The MP has never done a days work in his life, Born and bred in Tottenham, he was shoehorned in as MP. Black working class intelligent articulate, scholarship to one of the finest choir schools in the country. First in law at London University, went on to gain Masters at Harvard. All that achievement for what? To be known as the man who wants children beaten. Thatcher was known earlier in her career as"Thatcher....milk snatcher!" Seizing a school childs bottle of free milk is quite mild compared to beating one. So be it!
David Lammy ....kid Whammy. Corny, it is true, but it'll stick.

Westminster is a sewer, well he got his name in the papers, who knows what his agenda is, just empty talk to raise his profile, I had already forgotten his name. Cabinet ambitions or next London Mayor.Very sordid, to be sure.

[brigadista]

hes no bernie grant ...

what is this discipline BS anyway? i think they are confusing beating with boundaries...

the ruling class really produced fucked up kids its just they don't have the social police[social services] breathing down their necks because they have money to leave their kids off with nannies etc...

[ВАЛТЕР]

Beating your childs ass is one way to show the inherent violence in the system.

"If you ever question mommy and daddy, you are getting fucked up."

Eventually develops into: "If you question the ruling class, you are getting fucked up."

[Agathor]

Is Labour trying to roll up the Tories' right flank? Blue Labour, spending cut capitulation, now corporal punishment? Ed Miliband must have some guts under that pasty translucent skin.

Britain is one of the few countries in Western Europe in which assault is legal on the condition that the assaultee is too small to defend himself and related to his abuser. However it is an offence to leave a lasting wound. Maybe if parents were allowed to thrash their children with bike chains for an hour and a half and pull out some finger-nails we wouldn't have so much social discontent in the slums. I can't think of a better solution to riots than massive amounts of violence directed at children.

I've heard gruesome accounts of corporal punishment from American friends, where sadistic parents enjoy a degree of autonomy similar to Southern states in the 1930s. I'd prefer that we didn't go down that road.

[brigadista]

you don't hit someone you believe is your equal- just saying

and i have no time for the school of hard knocks argument either

[Ocean Seal]

I think what he meant to say was that the London riots were caused by the working class not smacking the ruling class enough.

[ВАЛТЕР]

I've gotten beat before. But nothing that bad. I remember crying because my parents were mad at me more so than because of the actual spanking itself.

[Rafiq]

Parents can beat there children here in the good 'ol USA and we never have had riots before.

[Fennec]

What century are we in? This is so fucking sick.

How is this neoliberal party not ashamed to keep "labour" in its name?!

[MotherCossack]

in the name of the wee man!!!!!!!
[a scottish saying i picked up as a kid growing up in the highlands]
i have to put my oar in at this point... dont i?
being as i seem to be rev-lefts newest mummy, well not a new mummy... rather a mummy who is new to rev-left.....whatever..... where was i....oh yeah....
holy guacomole....is it not obvious?
smacking aint the thing....
it might be a kind of side thing....
but not THE THING...
the thing is ....TIME...
the thing that a heap of kids... posh, average, middle-class, poor, council-housed and every flavour of kid imaginable doesnt get enough of..... time...

we dont play games with them... we dont talk to them... we dont eat with them... we dont include them ... we certainly dont teach them anymore... about being a decent person ..we dont show them how to behave...how to care... how to take responsibility.
i am sure most of us have learnt, from somewhere, if you want something done well.... do it properly, take time, attend to detail, and preferably do it yourself....
same thing applies to little folk.... if you want them to turn out good .... take care when you are making them...and the most important ingredient is TIME.

discipline and how you choose to practise it.... that is one of many details that are further down on the list, a list which is barely even relevant if the essential ingredients are incomplete.

[MotherCossack]

you know what absolutely terrifies me......
when these young folk who do seem to be a bit lost, socially and who have kind of rejected the notion of community and of any kind of 'us' in favour of 'me'.
when they start have children, where will those children learn how to be....er nice to each other?

[PhoenixAsh]

Good point.

The problem with capitalism is that it fosters and stimulates egocentrism by continuously emphasizing competition. From a very early age we are taught to compete with one another. Somebody always has to be better than somebody else and by being beter you get rewarded by either social or economic status. And this gets more and more prevalent...till in the end you have to compete on the job market, or for social benefits even... No matter how you draw the lines throughout the generations...somebody always needs to be better...and that means others have to be worse.

The entire system is designed to boost induvidualism and egotism instead of mutual respect and cooperation.

[#FF0000]

oh look at that a dumb motherfucker saying dumb things

[ed miliband]

oh look at that a dumb motherfucker saying dumb things

a dumb motherfucker in the Labour Party, which vast chunks of the british "revolutionary left" still seem intent on "critically" supporting. wouldn't have posted it if it was a tory that had said it tbh

[bcbm]

What century are we in?

a lot of people seem to have unfortunately gotten stuck around the 17th

[Igor]

This should do well with the whole "vote Labour, at least we're not Tories" thing

[MotherCossack]

goodness!
for a moment there i thought you were talking about me!
yeah ... well the labour party is full of them unfortunately...

In my book they have hijacked the only party that has ever done anything even remotely worthwhile.
They stole the only party that has ever managed to take part in their game, win , playing their game, playing by their shit rules, and acheive a modicum of change.... NHS.

It werent much... but under the circumstances it was better than a poke in the face with an aristocrat's umbrella, or a stab in the back by a devious party-swiping pretender.

in my book blair and his deviants were as bad as thatcher...

Under Thatcher and co..... we still had hope for a future, some day.....

Blair and his bastard buddies... they took even our hope away.. all with that smile a smile that satan himself would have struggled to maintain!

these days...as far as i am concerned democracy ......
you wouldnt hire a snowman to organise a rodeo....would you

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ Um, the SPD in Germany achieved far more progress than the Labour Party ever did, and for us revolutionaries even moreso before WWI.

[Sasha]

^^^ Um, the SPD in Germany achieved far more progress than the Labour Party ever did, and for us revolutionaries even moreso before WWI.

And look where they are now, would almost make you think there was something in parliamentarism that inherently leads to collaboration with the bourgeois and other counter-revolutionary unpleasantries :rolleyes:

[Fennec]

"He was a loving, gentle and indulgent father. “Children should educate their parents,” he used to say. There was never even a trace of the bossy parent in his relations with his daughters, whose love for him was extraordinary. He never gave them an order, but asked them to do what he wished as a favour or made them feel that they should not do what he wanted to forbid them. And yet a father could seldom have had more docile children than he. His daughters considered him as their friend and treated him as a companion; they did not call him “father”, but “Moor” – a nickname that he owed to his dark complexion and jet-black hair and beard."
- "Reminiscences of Marx" by Paul Lafargue

The only normal way of raising children.

[Die Neue Zeit]

And look where they are now, would almost make you think there was something in parliamentarism that inherently leads to collaboration with the bourgeois and other counter-revolutionary unpleasantries :rolleyes:

I wasn't referring to the party's parliamentary activity at all.

[Obs]

I wasn't referring to the party's parliamentary activity at all.
No one so much as passingly mentioned the SPD, Germany, or the early 1900s, but here we are.

edit: and I don't even agree with psycho

[MotherCossack]

^^^ Um, the SPD in Germany achieved far more progress than the Labour Party ever did, and for us revolutionaries even moreso before WWI.

Ok fair enough. but as far as GB is concerned...lets face it..never really been a steaming hot-bed of political unrest.
We cant really lay claim to much in the way of radical, revolutionary history, i am ashamed to say.
Yeah... sadly the extremely modest adjustments made by our fragile little labour party way back in the 20th C. didnt amount to very much at all in the grand scheme of things.
still it could {theoretically} have been different.
Anyway i still maintain that the bourgois bunch who, armed with their silver spoons and insincerity, have since moved in, did so to nullify any even remotely working class party.
Well maybe it is a ludicrous notion... but i for one like to think that prior to their arrival we had a 1% chance of achieving something.
On the other hand maybe it is a good thing.... the labour party was never realistically going to get anywhere... at least now we can concentrate on the job in hand.

errr whenever you are ready... shall we make a start....? soonish?!

[Ostrinski]

Seriously DNZ. Why ARE you so obsessed with the SPD? Every thread somehow comes back to them.

[Q]

Seriously DNZ. Why ARE you so obsessed with the SPD? Every thread somehow comes back to them.

It's a form of agitation: Repeat a simple message whenever you can. DNZ is consistent, but I don't think obsessed.

That said, I don't see why the SPD is connected to this either. And that Labour MP is a total douche, obviously.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I was responding to Mother Cossack's somewhat idealistic portrayal of "Old Labour."

[SHORAS]

Lammyface needs a good fucking smacking

[praxis1966]

Ok fair enough. but as far as GB is concerned...lets face it..never really been a steaming hot-bed of political unrest.
We cant really lay claim to much in the way of radical, revolutionary history, i am ashamed to say.


Not so fast. There's plenty in the way of radical labor movements to be proud of in terms of the history of GB. The trouble is, it all stopped in the mid 19th Century, lol.

[SHORAS]

Not so fast. There's plenty in the way of radical labor movements to be proud of in terms of the history of GB. The trouble is, it all stopped in the mid 19th Century, lol.

Agree with Praxis, this is a harmful myth which should not be perpetuated.
Off the top of my head I can think of The Great Unrest, Poll Tax, Miners Strikes, assassination attempts on monarchs and Prime Ministers, Ireland etc

What makes people think not much has happened it Britain? I think it has to do with a lack of class history including its active suppression and distortion and also the ideology of (small 'c') conservative Britain, "keep calm and carry on" etc I am sure there are many other ideological points. In a sense it gets hidden behind both of these factors.

I mean come on chaps, it's really very vulgar and unnecessary to strike, let's do this for the nation, a fair days pay for a fair days work after all, let's show how the British go to work with pride and a smile on our faces.

[praxis1966]

Agree with Praxis, this is a harmful myth which should not be perpetuated.
Off the top of my head I can think of The Great Unrest, Poll Tax, Miners Strikes, assassination attempts on monarchs and Prime Ministers, Ireland etc

This should actually be considered a correction to my original assertion and a good one at that. Admittedly, I'm not as well versed in terms of labor uprisings in GB as probably some of the comrades from across the pond. A good portion of my knowledge of those struggles derives from the analysis of Rocker. Given that he passed in '58, it's pretty easy to see how I could overlook that latter half of the 20th Century.

At any rate, the Miners' Strikes is probably the best example of a more modern working class rebellion. Ireland not so much, at least not from where I sit, because technically NI isn't part of GB, rather the UK... unless of course you're referring to the activities of James Connolly, the early IRSP, 'Big' Jim Larkin et al predating the Anglo-Irish Treaty in '21... in which case I apologize, lol.

[Firebrand]

I'd say we've got one of the longest rebel histories of any country, think everything from the chartists to the poll tax riots. The trouble is that the ruling classes here have got very good at controlling history, none of the events on its own is too big for them to skim past. Its only when you piece them altogether that you can see their significance.
Most countries that are percieved as having a strong revolutionary tradition have it because they had a few very major events punctuated by virtually nothing happening. e.g. the french revolution was followed by total surpression of working class dissent, what we had is a long period of struggle that never completely died down and never completely flared up. Slow burn rather than sudden flare up.
Each event seems insignificant compared to the major ones in other countries, but the sum total is stronger.

[Proteus]

There is a distinct theme which runs through western capitalist intellectual, political and business thinking ie, anything bad that happens here is the fault of individuals and anything bad that happens in states that we don't control is the fault of their system and rulers. People only legitimately react against inequality and poverty in regimes that we wish to overthrow and every missile they through is a blow for democracy. In the UK if people riot its because they weren't beaten as kids.

[Rocky Rococo]

as this movement gains strength...

"Prime Minister Louise Woodward engaged in yet another cabinet shakeup today, the fifth in the past week. In the event the Home Secretary was manhandled to such an extent as to have suffered a concussion, while the Minister of Trade and Industry received a stout caning of 25 good strokes."