UK looting

[Jimmie Higgins]

Why is that not right? Why should we care about small business?

We should care that people's homes and cars and even small shops are destroyed... we just shouldn't use that concern to condemn working class and oppressed people when there are flair ups of anger brought on by the conditions we face. More people loose their homes and cars and shops due to austerity, housing speculation, capitalist crisis, unfair lending by banks and so on than ever loose their personal belongings to rioting, so some perspective is necessary first of all IMO.

Riots are unorganized by definition so there's no way to really organize for them or organize against them anyway. Blaming riots for anything is useless, this society is a pressure-cooker and riots are a natural reaction to inequality and oppression and have been in all recorded class societies. So if folks really don't want to see riots, then the only thing to do is change the circumstances that create them: inequality and oppression i.e. capitalism. Anything else is basically an appeal for people to take their oppression and shut up about it (unless they organize themselves in some pre-approved way in the eyes of critics). Would it be better and more effective if people organized a mass movement based on class politics... undoubtedly, but like I said, riots happen and aren't pre-meditated (even if some people try... won't work unless a riot was going to happen anyway) so it's not like people are choosing one form of rebellion over another in this case.

[Vanguard1917]

I think the #1 thing that sums up this event is that people are looting FOOD AND CLOTHES and other basic necesseties.

Are you claiming that what motivated these rioters were their lack of calories and insufficient clothing?

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

[FONT=Verdana]I can remember previous riots and watched as the ‘Militant Tendency’ (of the Labour Party) now calling themselves the ‘Socialist Party’ set-up loud speakers in a block of flats and told the youth on the streets below not to attack the police because they were “workers in uniform”. [/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana]Any movement the sectarian British left can’t parachute into or chuck a net over, they condemn one way or another while they think up ways of channelling class struggle into the safe calm waters of peaceful protest and electoral opportunism. [/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana]This latest uprising is as much a spontaneous attack on the ‘left’ as it is on the system that offers only a future of unemployment, low pay, police harassment, and criminal economic abuse at the hands of landlords, loan sharks, ‘entertain’ gurus, drug barons, and is then insulted by press and TV and the corrupt parliamentary racket, who really are a “law unto themselves”. And that’s all before the opportunism if the religious and community ‘leaders’ come knocking for a free hand out claiming to be able to alleviate the confusion and misery, and inevitable violence inherited from capitalism’s brutal “dog-eat-dog”, “cut-through” competition culture.[/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana]The economic crisis of the degenerate capitalist system, the ‘War on Terror’ and the New of the World ‘scandal’ are not just some complementary backdrops or adjuncts for theses latest riots, they are the conditions which produce the ‘grab it and run’ consciousness at present, not only, or even mostly of the rebellious crowds, but of every bit of personal opportunism deemed necessary for survival as the walls of ‘Babylon’ come crashing down. [/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana]Since forever, the ‘lefts’ have been telling workers to, protest peacefully, vote for the parliamentary racket, because the ‘left’ regardless of all its posturing about revolutionism, has in practice always dumbed down and trashed the real struggle for revolutionary theory about the capitalist crisis in favour of trendy activism that might one day get them elected. Them days are gone, but it won’t stop the ‘lefts’ trying to revive them. Again, if you don’t believe it, just watch out for next weekend’s ‘left’ press response to the riots. Understanding the counter-revolutionary anti-communist nature of the ‘left’ is revolutionary theory and will be decisive for the working class in the battles to come. [/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana]Develop this revolutionary theory![/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana]Build Leninism! [/FONT]
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[FONT=Verdana]Oh ye, and read Lenin first hand. [/FONT]

Yeah, blokes pulling up in BMWs and Mercedes, grabbing a few PS3s and speeding off really are strugglign to survive in this Babylon.

Stop trolling you idiot, we don't need you to repeat your Leninist-loving crap at the end of every post.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Are you claiming that what motivated these rioters were their lack of calories and insufficient clothing?

Perhaps not, but they were certainly motivated by all the goodies they've been seeing paraded on telly and in the shopping centres, and which has been denied to them for most of their lives.

[Vanguard1917]

Perhaps not, but they were certainly motivated by all the goodies they've been seeing paraded on telly and in the shopping centres, and which has been denied to them for most of their lives.

Alcohol, cigarettes, TVs, and Playstations? If this was simply all about a longing to acquire products the kids could never otherwise afford, how would that explain the random arsons, burning buses and people's cars, attacking people on the street, and all the other acts of random destruction and violence in their own neighbourhoods?

[RedRaptor]

The system was week and the people are disconnected from their society. Some may have been going for a political angle but the vast majority were just in it for fun. Now the crowd is just out their for mayhem and looting. This is NOT political. They are thugs, not rebels.

[CommunityBeliever]

They are thugs

Are these your own words or is this coming from some bourgeoisie news source?

I suppose you think we need to bring in the army to deal with these "thugs"?

[RedRaptor]

Im going by the actions being committed and the online invitations to the loot-a-thon.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Alcohol, cigarettes, TVs, and Playstations? If this was simply all about a longing to acquire products the kids could never otherwise afford, how would that explain the random arsons, burning buses and people's cars, attacking people on the street, and all the other acts of random destruction and violence in their own neighbourhoods?

Because it's a fucking riot. There's no conscious political intent behind it, but it's clear there are genuine socioeconomic issues behind these events. These are people who feel they owe nothing to society, who are alienated from it. Is it any wonder shit like this happens? It doesn't excuse the targeting of homes and individuals, but to join the borgeouis media in taking them to task for stealing goods is a monstrous distortion of perspective in light of the ongoing ruling class larceny that results in far more people losing their homes and livelihoods.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Because it's a fucking riot. There's no conscious political intent behind it, but it's clear there are genuine socioeconomic issues behind these events. These are people who feel they owe nothing to society, who are alienated from it. Is it any wonder shit like this happens? It doesn't excuse the targeting of homes and individuals, but to join the borgeouis media in taking them to task for stealing goods is a monstrous distortion of perspective in light of the ongoing ruling class larceny that results in far more people losing their homes and livelihoods.

After a revolution, people won't wonder why people in our society rioted, they will wonder why people didn't riot constantly.

[I.Drink.Your.Milkshake]

I think the #1 thing that sums up this event is that people are looting FOOD AND CLOTHES and other basic necesseties.

Sorry, no, this simply is not true. Predominantly being looted are high-end goods stores - mobile phone shops, sporting goods, electronic goods. The armani store in town reported £500,000 worth of damage (!).

But, as some of the messages reported via on Blackberry messaging demonstrate:

"I don't care what (gangs) you're from, you're personally invited to come down and get in it"
"terror and havoc and free stuff"
"if you're up for making money we're going in hard in east London tonight. Yes, tonight"

It's all to do with ripping off stuff that will sell. What is this if not the cash nexus? Being the good guy that runs the local youthclub, barely being able to afford giving up your own time doesnt give you status, it makes you a mug.

STUFF and MONEY is status. Human relations devolved to how much cash you have, or how much stuff you have. Banks get bailed, education spending gets cut.

[Delenda Carthago]

Not to worry, it seems that the middle class is shrinking, and if current trends continue, it won't exist for much longer.

A wounded beast is at its most aggresive.

[I.Drink.Your.Milkshake]

Why is that not right? Why should we care about small business?

Most of the small businesses being attacked in the area I live in are owned by working class people simply trying to get by. As has been pointed out many times before on these boards, you can't avoid capitalism even if you oppose it. Some guy that's opened a shop underneath his house in an attempt to get some control in his life and be his own boss shouldnt be the target for violence.

The huge fire at the Sony depot in Enfield, on the other hand, was very funny.

[thefinalmarch]

Most of the small businesses being attacked in the area I live in are owned by working class people

Wait, what?

“By proletariat [is meant], the class of modern wage labourers who, having no means of production of their own, are reduced to selling their labour power in order to live.”- Engels, The Communist Manifesto 1888 English edition

[Hit The North]

When we are ruled over by the commodity, looting is consistent with the overthrow of power.

We should applaud these people for taking what they want. If this policy was generalised across the working class then we'd have a revolution on our hands.

As some comrades have pointed out, it is out of these spontaneous and often ugly and messy eruptions, that genuine insurrection emerges as a possibility.

[I.Drink.Your.Milkshake]

Wait, what?

“By proletariat [is meant], the class of modern wage labourers who, having no means of production of their own, are reduced to selling their labour power in order to live.”- Engels, The Communist Manifesto 1888 English edition

I knew that was coming. But id already posted and by then it was too late.

I still dont think the average grocery store owner, running to support his family with no staff other than relatives is really worthy of the wrath of the revolution. Call me a sell-out if you want, but there it is.

EDIT:

That said, the guy that owns the my local shop works 12 hours a day, 7 days a week to be able to afford to pay his rent and support his family. Is this not "selling his labour power in order to live"? He is superficially his own boss, with his own business, but still has to work his ass off in order to survive. Think he would do this if he had a choice? Nah....

This, in my book, makes him working class. Despite what Marx might have written over 150 years ago.

[Vanguard1917]

Because it's a fucking riot.

But it's a very distinct kind of riot, at least when compared to the politically motivated riots in places like Tottenham and Brixton in the '80s. There is no political content here; it's basically turned out to be just about theft and random destruction. Even the police-fighting (the only feature of these riots that i could have some knee-jerk sympathy with) appears to have just been incidental, just one aspect of a general desire to cause mayhem.

To me, this is looking more and more like a more violent, larger-scale version of a group of teenagers on the top deck of a packed bus smoking, fighting and playing Grime Daily videos loud on their smart phones as a general middle finger to the general population. Indeed, there has been no attempt whatsoever by these rioters to justify their actions and win some support from the public; the driving sentiment here is basically 'fuck you all'. In the riots of the '80s the black youth involved received a great deal of sympathy from the wider black population, because the riots looked like justified action with a cause. In this case, there's only general public disgust -- not least among the areas where these kids come from.

[thefinalmarch]

I knew that was coming. But id already posted and by then it was too late.

I still dont think the average grocery store owner, running to support his family with no staff other than relatives is really worthy of the wrath of the revolution. Call me a sell-out if you want, but there it is.

In a hypothetical working class revolution I doubt the grocery store owner's few (related) employees would consider any sort of "wrath" like you imagine. I imagine the worst his employees would do is absorb him into the so-called association of free labourers, if indeed they took control of the grocery at all which I doubt.

[thefinalmarch]

EDIT:

That said, the guy that owns the my local shop works 12 hours a day, 7 days a week to be able to afford to pay his rent and support his family. Is this not "selling his labour power in order to live"? He is superficially his own boss, with his own business, but still has to work his ass off in order to survive. Think he would do this if he had a choice? Nah....

This, in my book, makes him working class. Despite what Marx might have written over 150 years ago.

You raise a good point - and that's why he's considered petty-bourgeois, and many are of the view that members of this class are likely to side with either of the two main classes in a revolution.

[CommunityBeliever]

But it's a very distinct kind of riot, at least when compared to the politically motivated riots in places like Tottenham and Brixton in the '80s. There is no political content here; it's basically turned out to be just about theft and random destruction. Even the police-fighting (the only feature of these riots that i could have some knee-jerk sympathy with) appears to have just been incidental, just one aspect of a general desire to cause mayhem.

There is no "random destruction."

This is a direct reaction to a system that leaves the people with no future.

The conditions don't justify the destruction of personal property, but they definitely indicate that they are not "random" or "incidental."