France

[skitty]

Apparently France's Interior Minister announced that nearly 2,000 parked cars were burned new year's eve and this is becoming a regular event. I'm wondering if there is more to this than random vandalism?

[cynicles]

If we can increase that number we can help deal with global warming by taking millions of cars off the road!

[hetz]

That's bullshit, burning a car creates loads of very poisonous fumes x DDD
And also most of them are insured, insuring that more resources would be wasted for making new cars. Even though that's good for the economy...

[Let's Get Free]

Seems like the work of egotistical kids.

[skitty]

That's bullshit, burning a car creates loads of very poisonous fumes x DDD
And also most of them are insured, insuring that more resources would be wasted for making new cars. Even though that's good for the economy...
Also, a crushing blow to owners with few resources and a car not covered for that type of damage.

[hetz]

Also, a crushing blow to owners with few resources and a car not covered for that type of damage.
Yeah but it looks nice.
Sure as shit beats some lame-ass breaking Starbucks windows and stuff.
ZOMG RIOT PORN!!!11

x DDD

[Futility Personified]

Isn't this a Baader quote or something? One car on fire is criminal, a thousand is political action? Sadly, this just seems hooligan without an explanation, and if it's not even targeting the well off then it's just utter bastardry.

[bcbm]

burnings up four percent this year! and wow 'egotistical kids' 'utter bastardry' what is this talk radio? article from time that goes just a little more in depth (http://world.time.com/2013/01/03/in-france-nothing-says-happy-new-year-like-a-burning-car/):


According to sociologists and delinquency experts, car burning as a ritualistic expression of protest began in disadvantaged areas of northeastern France in the 1980s, before gradually spreading to project communities elsewhere. Initially, scholars say, torching autos was seen as a spectacular form of destruction that pulled the attention of news media and authorities to the dismal economic and social conditions in the perpetrators’ neighborhoods. Others offer more subjective and artistic explanations for the phenomenon, seeing it as a perverse form of protest over the isolation of project areas with little or no link via public transportation to more affluent city centers or expressing a contradiction between individualism and social solidarity.

Then, there’s the pecuniary motivation. French insurance experts and justice officials estimate that around 20% of all annual car arson is financially motivated fraud conducted by—or with the accord of—owners themselves. The perpetrators of random auto burning often, in fact, dismiss ethical questions about scorching a neighborhood car with rationalizations that insured victims will be compensated for their loss. The average pay-out on an automobile protected by fire insurance is around $6,500—no mean sum in areas where unemployment exceeds 25%, and youth joblessness is closer to 50%.

Whatever the motives, increasingly demoralized advocates for improving conditions in the projects warn that one day delinquent arsonists will question the protest strategy of torching what few objects of value exist in their disadvantaged midst, and instead start targeting autos in middle class and affluent neighborhoods where such destruction will really gain attention

[hetz]

Are they seriously arguing that poor people systematically burn their own cars in order to get 6,5k dollars in insurance? You can get a brand-new French "middle-class" car for about 12k dollars.

Yeah, egotistical kids doing pointless vandalism is more like it.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

To invent the prison is to invent the prison riot. To invent the oppressive police force is to invent the violent confrontation with the police. To invent the Metropolis is to invent the city on fire. To invent systems of domination is to invent those who violently fight to destroy them.

[skitty]

To invent the prison is to invent the prison riot. To invent the oppressive police force is to invent the violent confrontation with the police. To invent the Metropolis is to invent the city on fire. To invent systems of domination is to invent those who violently fight to destroy them.
Is that from "The Coming Insurrection"?

[Let's Get Free]

According to sociologists and delinquency experts, car burning as a ritualistic expression of protest began in disadvantaged areas of northeastern France in the 1980s, before gradually spreading to project communities elsewhere. Initially, scholars say, torching autos was seen as a spectacular form of destruction that pulled the attention of news media and authorities to the dismal economic and social conditions in the perpetrators’ neighborhoods. Others offer more subjective and artistic explanations for the phenomenon, seeing it as a perverse form of protest over the isolation of project areas with little or no link via public transportation to more affluent city centers or expressing a contradiction between individualism and social solidarity.


May be true, but it doesn't change the fact that their activities are objectively reactionary.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

Is that from "The Coming Insurrection"?

Nah it's from a pamphlet I read a while ago, accident or attack? I see references to it on the internet but all the links to download it are gone. It was written by someone who really likes their Virilio.

[Ravachol]

May be true, but it doesn't change the fact that their activities are objectively reactionary.

Anyone who says 'objectively reactionary' makes me both laugh and cry on the inside at the same time. Get a grip or go tell those kids, mr. 'objective revolutionary' :laugh:

[bcbm]

apparently at a certain point the left does meet the right:rolleyes:

[Flying Purple People Eater]

Oh, here come the philosphers with their moralistic hoop-jumps about how burning some poor guy's car down is in someway a contribution to anarchy, freedom and class consciousness again..

[bcbm]

don't think, don't try to understand why these things occur, throw analysis out the window and embrace your inner bourgeois in condemning them! clean up the scum sarkozys of the left

[Let's Get Free]

Anyone who says 'objectively reactionary' makes me both laugh and cry on the inside at the same time. Get a grip or go tell those kids, mr. 'objective revolutionary' :laugh:


apparently at a certain point the left does meet the right

uhh, whatever. my point is there is absolutely 0 positive about lighting cars on fire. the excitement you anarchists show makes it obvious and clear that you are easily aroused. But away from you fantasies about flames, there is nothing in this for the working class, only more grief, more oppression and more confusion. Only the state can gain from this - maybe that's what you want?

[hetz]

Only the state can gain from this
Quoted for truth. It really can't be any other way around.

[Ravachol]

uhh, whatever. my point is there is absolutely 0 positive about lighting cars on fire. the excitement you anarchists show makes it obvious and clear that you are easily aroused. But away from you fantasies about flames, there is nothing in this for the working class, only more grief, more oppression and more confusion. Only the state can gain from this - maybe that's what you want?

Yes, that is what we want. Every action provokes state reaction and as such sitting perfectly still is the only sensible thing to do in this world.

But as bcbm said, don't try to see why stuff like this happens, just keep on regurgitating the dusty old mantra of 'mass movements', 'alienating the masses', 'gaining working class confidence' and perhaps in 10 years you'll have some union bureaucrat's position.

In the unlikely case of anyone on this forum being interested in the background of such 'objectively counter-revolutionary acts' as inner city riots, looting and the torching of cars (which is only a valid act when painted scarlet red and accompanied by a communique from the central committee of a 3-letter acronym organisation in the jungles of the 3rd world): here (http://www.blaumachen.gr/2012/10/the-feral-underclass-hits-the-streets/) is (http://libcom.org/library/grassroots-political-militants-banlieusards-politics) some (http://libcom.org/library/intakes-communities-commodities-class-august-2011-riots-aufheben) stuff (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaA2DKuC1Js).

[Geiseric]

An inner city riot isn't reactionary, planning one is though.

[hetz]

It's really funny how you Americans talk of "inner cities", as if the rest of the world is just like America with its inner cities and the suburbs.
In France, and you should know that, the poor live in suburb tower blocks far, far away from the center. Some of these can't even be called suburbs, but communities barely in the city district limits.
Which gives me the impression that you don't really know what you're talking about.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HLM

[Ravachol]

It's really funny how you Americans talk of "inner cities", as if the rest of the world is just like America with its inner cities and the suburbs.
In France, and you should know that, the poor live in suburb tower blocks far, far away from the center. Some of these can't even be called suburbs, but communities barely in the city district limits.
Which gives me the impression that you don't really know what you're talking about.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HLM

I'm not American, i'm European. Don't just go around assuming shit.
As the links I posted referred to the British estates (which are located in the inner city) as well as to the Paris banlieus, the term 'inner city' was kinda appropriate.

[hetz]

Fine then.
You're not the only person in this thread though, which is about the recent events in France ( though these have become a "tradition" years ago ).
I don't even see the point of your links. What is there to say about this vandalism?
Sure we all know how poor these neighborhoods are, but that is nothing new to us. Some Gypsy towns in E. Europe look like hell on Earth, but there's no "festive car burning there".

[Ravachol]

Fine then.
You're not the only person in this thread though, which is about the recent events in France ( though these have become a "tradition" years ago ).
I don't even see the point of your links. What is there to say about this vandalism?

Nothing. There is nothing to say in those articles you didn't even bother to read. The only thing to do now is join the chorus of condemnation, of chastising the barbarians, of jumping to the defense of 'la republique'.

What is there to say about Bangladeshi garment workers who prefer to torch their factories to occupying them? What is there to say about anything that doesn't fit the leftist mold? In Berlin hundreds if not thousands of cars are burned in order to drive back gentrification, often accompanied by a communique or two. At that instant, the chorus of condemnation seems to sing softer as it becomes 'political' to them. When workers go on strike, leftists applaud yet when people slack of or take money from the till, they stand next to the bosses in condemnation because its 'not political'.

Its funny how people not only fail to grasp that there's nothing to be praised or condemned here (as if the voices of a few marginals would mean anything), only to be interpreted. An ever growing section of the proletariat is expelled from the productive sphere and is increasingly pushed out of the reproductive process as well (the diminishing welfare state is accompanied by a boom in the informal economy). Talk about 'the masses' (as if there's anything massive left in a society as fragmented as this one, where not even the cubicle-seperated workfloor unites us in our misery) and 'alienating people' (which is funny as apparently not even the constant bombardment of hunger, war and ecological collapse that is blasted in our faces 24/7 seems to be able to alienate us further from this society) is laughable in this day and age. This growing 'surplus' (from the point of view of capital) proletariat expresses itself exactly in ways that are politically 'useless', there's is nothing to bargain for, nothing to hold on to and as such the only instinctive response that remains is drawing attention through shock and doing so in ways that express disgust at the whole social and urban terrain (the entire metropolis, including its cars, poor, poor cars) that makes them what they are and defines what and where they no longer want to be. But because this cannot be filtered through the leftist's glasses which are tinted with politics, it registers in the same way as it registers to the baffled sociologists, urban planners and media: as a barbaric oddity that defies understanding.

[Os Cangaceiros]

They're really into the car burning next door in Germany, too. Must be a European thing. ;)

[Let's Get Free]

Yes, that is what we want. Every action provokes state reaction and as such sitting perfectly still is the only sensible thing to do in this world.

But as bcbm said, don't try to see why stuff like this happens, just keep on regurgitating the dusty old mantra of 'mass movements', 'alienating the masses', 'gaining working class confidence' and perhaps in 10 years you'll have some union bureaucrat's position.

In the unlikely case of anyone on this forum being interested in the background of such 'objectively counter-revolutionary acts' as inner city riots, looting and the torching of cars (which is only a valid act when painted scarlet red and accompanied by a communique from the central committee of a 3-letter acronym organisation in the jungles of the 3rd world): here (http://www.blaumachen.gr/2012/10/the-feral-underclass-hits-the-streets/) is (http://libcom.org/library/grassroots-political-militants-banlieusards-politics) some (http://libcom.org/library/intakes-communities-commodities-class-august-2011-riots-aufheben) stuff (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaA2DKuC1Js).

I'm guessing if someone lit your car on fire and tried to justify it with their shitty politics, you'd be pretty angry, would you not? The point is that the state has been strengthened in this case on the back of an event that's completely negative for the working class. Nothing has been gained from adventurists setting cars alight at all. not a damn thing.

Pretend rebellion like these energizes capitalism, which depends on the notion of counterculture to peddle new styles to the many who seek a veneer of cool as they go about their quotidian lives.

[Pelarys]

I'm guessing if someone lit your car on fire and tried to justify it with their shitty politics, you'd be pretty angry, would you not? The point is that the state has been strengthened in this case on the back of an event that's completely negative for the working class. Nothing has been gained from adventurists setting cars alight at all. not a damn thing.

Pretend rebellion like these energizes capitalism, which depends on the notion of counterculture to peddle new styles to the many who seek a veneer of cool as they go about their quotidian lives.


That's not the point is making though.

[Ravachol]

I'm guessing if someone lit your car on fire and tried to justify it with their shitty politics, you'd be pretty angry, would you not?


I don't have a car. And way to miss the point, by the way. I mean, if someone lit YOUR means of production of fire I bet you would be pissed, wouldn't you?! See how retorts like this are kinda inane...



The point is that the state has been strengthened in this case on the back of an event that's completely negative for the working class. Nothing has been gained from adventurists setting cars alight at all. not a damn thing.


Yeah, except if you'd actually read what I wrote, you would see how you're talking bullshit. Besides, if we're talking about 'gaining something' (which none of this stuff is about), tell me how building the party is working out? :rolleyes:



Pretend rebellion like these energizes capitalism


If you believe that I'd dust of Das Kapital again 'cause that sure as hell isn't how it works, unless you're arguing capital is energized because dead labor has been destroyed (which is true), in which case you should be shaking your fists at hurricanes, earthquakes and development projects. But I guess that's not the point you're making as you seem to be under the illusion that 'capitalism' is an abstract entity hovering over 'society' and somehow requires a justification before wrapping its black tentacles around the poor, poor proletariat who, like imbeciles, set cars on fire to usher in communism.

Maybe you should take a step back and not try to regurgitate the standard denunciations and soundbites from this or that leftist sect when some black bloc does smashy smashy after a large convention. This is a different thing. I would like to know your opinion on the french petrochemical workers who, throughout 2006 to 2009, in various instances took bosses hostage at knifepoint and amassed gas cannisters in front of their petrochemical plants, threatening to blow up the factory if they didn't get redundancy pay. I'm sure that energized capitalism, alienated the masses, was full of scandalous adventurism and was 'totally antisocial'.



which depends on the notion of counterculture to peddle new styles to the many who seek a veneer of cool as they go about their quotidian lives.

lolwat

[Let's Get Free]

Yeah, except if you'd actually read what I wrote, you would see how you're talking bullshit. Besides, if we're talking about 'gaining something' (which none of this stuff is about), tell me how building the party is working out? :rolleyes:

You talk of "Every action provoking state reaction and as such sitting perfectly still is the only sensible thing to do in this world." To which I say that on top of this being harmful to the working class, it also gives the state a pretense to crack down. Also, no one mentioned “building a party.”


If you believe that I'd dust of Das Kapital again 'cause that sure as hell isn't how it works, unless you're arguing capital is energized because dead labor has been destroyed (which is true), in which case you should be shaking your fists at hurricanes, earthquakes and development projects. But I guess that's not the point you're making as you seem to be under the illusion that 'capitalism' is an abstract entity hovering over 'society' and somehow requires a justification before wrapping its black tentacles around the poor, poor proletariat who, like imbeciles, set cars on fire to usher in communism.

I never said they were trying to “usher in communism.” This just seems like a stupid tradition, perhaps for those who fancy themselves against something, the State, the established social order... a vague and pointless rebellious behavior, something that only the bourgeois can gain from




Maybe you should take a step back and not try to regurgitate the standard denunciations and soundbites from this or that leftist sect when some black bloc does smashy smashy after a large convention.

And you armchair cheerleaders can wallow in your abstract "support" but what are you supporting? The destruction workers' cars (which the insurance companies will probably pay out peanuts for).


This is a different thing. I would like to know your opinion on the french petrochemical workers who, throughout 2006 to 2009, in various instances took bosses hostage at knifepoint and amassed gas cannisters in front of their petrochemical plants, threatening to blow up the factory if they didn't get redundancy pay. I'm sure that energized capitalism, alienated the masses, was full of scandalous adventurism and was 'totally antisocial'.
I don’t think you can compare that to people lighting cars on fire. Where is the class solidarity, the overt and explicit rejection of the system and political consciousness with the latter?



lolwat
It's true. Counter culture? Capital will commodity it, instigate it, reproduce it and sell it.

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

That poster already said that there was nothing to praise or condemn. Nobody is wallowing in support, abstract or otherwise. Something tells me that the people involved in this are not interested in creating a counter-culture, this is proof of existence, not a black bloc.

[Art Vandelay]

Whatever people find personally liberating is their choice. I mean I've never done anything like that before, but I've done actions in the past simply because I found them personal liberating, they temporarily lessened the alienation capitalist society causes.

I think you're really missing the point here Gladiator and should probably re-read Ravachol's posts. As he said, there is nothing here to condemn or support, merely to analyze.

[Raúl Duke]

Fine then.
You're not the only person in this thread though, which is about the recent events in France ( though these have become a "tradition" years ago ).
I don't even see the point of your links. What is there to say about this vandalism?
Sure we all know how poor these neighborhoods are, but that is nothing new to us. Some Gypsy towns in E. Europe look like hell on Earth, but there's no "festive car burning there".

Sorry to be pedantic, but "gypsy" is considered an offensive term and those communities you are referring to may prefer the term Roma, Romani, Rom, or some other variation. Just so you know for next time.

Well, my opinion.

People vandalizing cars...
of course it isn't strictly speaking a "political" action in the sense of it building up to something wider or greater.

But perhaps it is kinda like a "symptomatic" action; it points towards social displeasure with the status quo among some segments of the population.

And possibly other things.

I don't find it pertinent for a radical/left organization to "take a position" on this exactly, much less a negative/chastising position on car-burning.

[piet11111]

Burning someones car is a really shitty thing to do especially because his/her job might depend on it for them to be able to make it on time.

If you absolutely must burn a car let it be one that is clearly more expensive then say 30.000 euro's.

And if someone would burn my car you can bet your arse i would come after him with a knife :cursing:

[Pelarys]

We're not saying it's a good thing for a revolutionary to do, for Marx's sake! It's just something that happens, and therefore we should be trying to understand, analyse if you prefer, the phenomena beyond "they're egoistical kid/retards". I have to reiterate : "there is nothing to praise or condemn merely to analyse." (see above)
It's a fact that it is becoming very common and therefore could be "symptomatic" as Raùl puts it. Now if we could add something else than "I would stab the bastard that touches my car" that would be most welcome.

[bcbm]

You talk of "Every action provoking state reaction and as such sitting perfectly still is the only sensible thing to do in this world." To which I say that on top of this being harmful to the working class, it also gives the state a pretense to crack down. Also, no one mentioned “building a party.”

lol


I never said they were trying to “usher in communism.” This just seems like a stupid tradition, perhaps for those who fancy themselves against something, the State, the established social order... a vague and pointless rebellious behavior, something that only the bourgeois can gain from

i don't think this is coming from any sort of leftist milieu


And you armchair cheerleaders can wallow in your abstract "support" but what are you supporting? The destruction workers' cars (which the insurance companies will probably pay out peanuts for).

who said they support this?


It's true. Counter culture? Capital will commodity it, instigate it, reproduce it and sell it.

who wants a counter culture?


I'm guessing if someone lit your car on fire and tried to justify it with their shitty politics, you'd be pretty angry, would you not?

as far as i know nobody has tried to 'justify' any of the car lightings with their politics, though some are trying to analyze it from a political viewpoint. as for my car, my insurance would cover it and i wouldnt have to worry about fixing the bastard all the time

[Narcissus]

I think it shows how desperate they are. Perhaps if they had a car they would have burned their own. It clearly involves no planning or thought otherwise they would burn bourgeois' cars or officials' cars. It's a show of just how alienated they are, and of how little left they have in life to care about. It obviously doesn't benefit anyone but the system.

I think it's deeply saddening, and indicative of the nature of the shadow of hopelessness that the dark cloud of Capitalism casts over the working class.

[black magick hustla]

the problem is that when people analyze these things, they try to situate themselves inside them. of course, if your own car was burned and you didn't have insurance/and or you had to pay a chunk of it then it would kinda blow. but that's not the point. if some manager incinerated by indian workers was your godfather it would suck, but that's not the point. the point is that this things are political. people need to stop thinking that politics are just parties or w/e. there are infinite more ways to express your discontent with the state and capital than meres programs. of course if some kids came for my car and i was inside it i would run them over lol but that's not the point ok.

[black magick hustla]

Nothing. There is nothing to say in those articles you didn't even bother to read. The only thing to do now is join the chorus of condemnation, of chastising the barbarians, of jumping to the defense of 'la republique'.

What is there to say about Bangladeshi garment workers who prefer to torch their factories to occupying them? What is there to say about anything that doesn't fit the leftist mold? In Berlin hundreds if not thousands of cars are burned in order to drive back gentrification, often accompanied by a communique or two. At that instant, the chorus of condemnation seems to sing softer as it becomes 'political' to them. When workers go on strike, leftists applaud yet when people slack of or take money from the till, they stand next to the bosses in condemnation because its 'not political'.

Its funny how people not only fail to grasp that there's nothing to be praised or condemned here (as if the voices of a few marginals would mean anything), only to be interpreted. An ever growing section of the proletariat is expelled from the productive sphere and is increasingly pushed out of the reproductive process as well (the diminishing welfare state is accompanied by a boom in the informal economy). Talk about 'the masses' (as if there's anything massive left in a society as fragmented as this one, where not even the cubicle-seperated workfloor unites us in our misery) and 'alienating people' (which is funny as apparently not even the constant bombardment of hunger, war and ecological collapse that is blasted in our faces 24/7 seems to be able to alienate us further from this society) is laughable in this day and age. This growing 'surplus' (from the point of view of capital) proletariat expresses itself exactly in ways that are politically 'useless', there's is nothing to bargain for, nothing to hold on to and as such the only instinctive response that remains is drawing attention through shock and doing so in ways that express disgust at the whole social and urban terrain (the entire metropolis, including its cars, poor, poor cars) that makes them what they are and defines what and where they no longer want to be. But because this cannot be filtered through the leftist's glasses which are tinted with politics, it registers in the same way as it registers to the baffled sociologists, urban planners and media: as a barbaric oddity that defies understanding.

just wanted to add that all of this is a communisation perspective, and if someone wants to read more about it, google endnotes, sic and theorie communiste

[Althusser]

How are these random acts of vandalism a blow to the bourgeoisie? Why is it something to stand behind? Pretend your car, if you own one, was burned by some kids. Would you stick a red flag on top of the rubble that used to be your car in solidarity? And then dial your petty-bourgeois boss and call in sick for work? This is stupid.

Burning your neighbor's means of transportation is anti-worker. Burning down his boss's house... that's a different story.

[roy]

How are these random acts of vandalism a blow to the bourgeoisie? Why is it something to stand behind? Pretend your car, if you own one, was burned by some kids. Would you stick a red flag on top of the rubble that used to be your car in solidarity? And then dial your petty-bourgeois boss and call in sick for work? This is stupid.

Burning your neighbor's means of transportation is anti-worker. Burning down his boss's house... that's a different story.

man i'm sorry but it seems as though you didn't read the thread. no one is standing behind this; it's just that some have felt it pertinent to offer a more thoughtful analysis than "oh those darn hooligans are at it again".

[bcbm]

How are these random acts of vandalism a blow to the bourgeoisie?

they are probably not in any meaningful sense, though the amount of hand wringing they cause from the state is pretty amusing.


Why is it something to stand behind?

who is standing behind it?


Pretend your car, if you own one, was burned by some kids. Would you stick a red flag on top of the rubble that used to be your car in solidarity?

no i would call my insurance company and file a claim.



And then dial your petty-bourgeois boss and call in sick for work? This is stupid.

actually my boss is a real bourgeois and i wouldn't call him, i'd talk to a manager. but i would just take the bus.


Burning your neighbor's means of transportation is anti-worker. Burning down his boss's house... that's a different story.

doesnt it suck when things dont fit into your pre conceived notions

[Ravachol]

For a forum of people jacking off over mass revolts and insurrections decades, if not centuries ago, it is pretty funny to see how some people already get their panties in a bunch over some burned cars because it doesn't fit 'the clean revolutionary pattern' or whatever. I'm sure during an actual revolutionary period (which isn't filled with glorious orderly speeches atop barricades and the waving of red flags by proletarian masses coming out of bistros and little brick houses singing the Internationale or whatever) you lot will have the time of your lives. Revolutionary periods are accompanied by an explosion of all social contradictions, waves of 'opportunism' by all social strata and groupings from the bourgeoisie to proles and from criminal gangs and black market dealers looking to make a quick buck to god knows who does what when the state's attention is focused primarily on repression.

Besides, communism comes into existence not under the conditions of our own choosing, but under the weight of history, as the result of the premises currently in existence. This means that at various places and various moments it will take multiple and contradictory forms and means of expressing itself, which will look nothing like the orderly putsch, social movement, strike or 'demo-gone-wrong' all the "revolutionary strategists" have planned out.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Apparently France's Interior Minister announced that nearly 2,000 parked cars were burned new year's eve and this is becoming a regular event. I'm wondering if there is more to this than random vandalism?

This is neither random vandalism nor political expression. It has become some sort of weird custom for custom's sake, like football riots.


Oh, here come the philosphers with their moralistic hoop-jumps about how burning some poor guy's car down is in someway a contribution to anarchy, freedom and class consciousness again..

Nah, the article says a lot of the cars are owned by the arsonists themselves.