electro_fan

yeah, I definitely wouldn't call the riots revolutionary. It definitely lacked revolutionary class consciousness, although it was driven by a form of class consciousness in that working class people were venting their fury and frustration with their structural position in capitalist society. But the main thing is it shakes things up and points to the vulnerability of the police and government if enough people decide to take to the streets and act aggressively. And after fifteen years of everyone just bending over and taking it, the riots were a refreshing thing.

Anyway, take care x

Hopefully, the student protests and the riots will provide indirect inspiration for a new generation of radicals. There are some huge struggles coming up for the British working class so there's always hope.

No, not really. The party is a bit fucked-up at the moment imo. I've been in and out of it for a long time now and things are more depressing than ever.

Yeah, I'm cool, comrade. How are you doing?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/20...arnival-police

the panorama was great Mangrove won again - thats the steel band competition

also this weekend the whole of london is locked down on a s60 stop and search...

thanks -im fine

yeah, i understand, you made a very good point about the system placing more value on property than human life. personally i don't see how a prison sentence will do anything for a "thief" who has stolen some food or water, that is an example of a crime born out of necessity.

as for the baby p case, it's horrific, and i'm as disgusted by it as anyone but given that my belief is that a justice system should be centred around rehabilitation rather than retribution i can't really support locking these people up with no chance of parole.
like i said though the justice system here is a complete mess and doesn't work to prevent re-offending so... it's difficult to know where to stand on it.

My point was that two years should be enough and would be enough if we had an effective and rehabilitative justice system. People aren't born criminals, societal factors create the conditions which lead to people becoming criminals. So, if an honest person can be turned to crime by specific conditions, then equally a criminal can be turned to an honest person. Unfortunately our system is deeply flawed and doesn't do enough to rehabilitate offenders, so I can understand your anger at this case and cases like this.

As far as I'm aware this guy is or was a crack addict and they were living in squalid conditions to say the least. That doesn't excuse his actions but almost certainly will have contributed to them, and just shows how preventable this crime was. Sadly, it's not a unique case.
I don't assume you're a reactionary daily mail type anyway, don't worry about that.