Jailed: Nicholas Francis, 26, left, was jailed for 30 years while co-defendant Tyrone Laidley, 20, right, received 20 years
Archangel, basically what you are saying is that it is wrong to take from big businesses? So what if the rioters wanted something for free? Whilst everyone goes on about the recession and how it is affecting them (Me being one of them), what most people seem to be forgetting is that for most of the rioters, they have been living in the recession their entire lives! So fuck if they want to take something. There were peoplethere taking baby milk for their kids that they would not have otherwise been able to afford but I suppose because they can not quote Kropotkin or have a clear vision of ‘workers councils’ then their kids or themselves must settle for either nothing or less.
As a working-class person myself, I don’t need to be told what way I should liberate myself and as a class, we don’t need to be told the almighty shining correct path to a revolution. Only we can liberate ourselves! I am an anarchist not a fucking Leninist!
As for not attempting to destroy power, do you know the individual motivation of each rioter? I think wanting to get at an institution, especially one which is hassling you every day (The police), makes you want to destroy that institution. Yeah, maybe they did not have red eyes or have workers’ councils in their minds but they hated the system and wanted to have a go at it. how do you expect we get to the point of workers’ councils without seizing control of the streets?
Archangel, do you praise the efforts of the revolutionaries in Egypt during the ‘Arab Spring’? Now, many people who condem the rioters during August 2011 praise the Egyptian revolutionaries without realising that the battles on the streets of Egypt were accompanied with looting. But I suppose it comes down to the old liberal chestnut of supporting any non-pacifist struggle aslong as it is not on their own doorstep. You say we are not going to get workers’ councils this way and maybe you are right, maybe you are wrong but one way we certainly will not get it is by sitting around talking about it, waving our fucking hands in the air and hoping for a nice, passive, perfect, pure and clean passge to liberation (One that has been mapped out by some self-important, pretentious twat!) in which the police, army etc. just stand back and allow us to take control of the streets without confrontation! As for no alternative being offered, what should they have done? Elect an organising committee, have a planning meeting and draw up a manifesto and then go and riot? Please…in a spontaneous situation, such things most certainly do not come into play!
Also, no one said that everything will be OK after the riots, certainly not me anyway.
Who gave you the mandate to decide the meaning of insurrection?
Anyway, in reply to ‘lol’, drug dealers are scum, no doubt about that but as far as the “standing up to organise their hyper-violent drug dealing gangster mates” comment goes, A.) Are they drug dealers? and B.) If they are not drug dealers and they just happen to have mates that are, why blame those two lads and tar them with the same brush as their mates? Also, no one said that they were revolutionaries
Ian Bone 
Eight month prison sentence given today to a Man today wearing an ‘offensive’ t-shirt celebrating the Death of the 2 shot policewomen! Welcome to the Totalitarian state of UK- no diff to China or North Korea.
Fuck it, we need to start printing Class War again!
Draconian sentences reflect the fear of the inevitable urban revolts in the near future. Lucky for the state that these men lacked basic tactical and forensic knowledge, fire and movement, dispersal, concealment, disposal, petrol as a cleaning agent etc. otherwise they may never have been prosecuted…
Are they drug dealers?
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http://www.birminghammail.net/news/top-stories/2012/06/06/birmingham-riots-sixth-man-guilty-of-police-shooting-at-the-bartons-arms-97319-31128217/
The guilty group of six – linked to the Birmingham-based Johnson Crew and West Bromwich-based Raiders gangs – had kept members of the public at bay as they set their trap on August 9 2011.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/sep/02/ukcrime.knifecrime1
Where the gangs began in Birmingham is open to debate, but in the 1990s the biggest networks were the Burgers (named after the burger joint they hung out in in Soho Road) and the Johnstons, aka Johnnies and JC, (named similarly after a cafe, in Heathfield Road). Aside from bullets, the gangs dealt in ***crack cocaine*** and created a kind of carnage the city had never seen. Soon enough, they had smaller crews affiliated to them – the Badder Bar Crew, the Bang Bang Crew, the Cash or Slash Money Crew and the ***Raiders***,
——————————————————————————-
Not exactly neighbourhood watch are they?
If these were the white CIA selling crack in Los Angeles they’d be villified by the anarchists as hierarchical oppressors, but because they’re black crack dealers in the UK they they’re lauded as freedom fighters?
Give me a fucking break.
Careful Stevey, you’ll have the ultra-angry incubus and mob along in a minute. Never mind the facts ‘comrade’, you must be racist / upper class / middle class / insert devil word here for daring to suggest that these parasites were anything other than glorious class warriors because they shot at the police and almost burnt bar workers to death.
These heroes, that flood estates with drugs, live off vulnerable women and instill terror in their areas are ‘in there for us’ dont forget. Still, what do I know, Ive deviated from the prolertarian purity and thus must be a cossetted middle class wanker, and should rightfully be put against the wall for my thought crimes. All hail the gangsters, liberators of our futures, all hail pure thoughts, death to middle class cossetted wankers.
Fair enough Stevey, I will give you that one. At least you came up with sources, unlike ‘lol’. Anyway, who said because they are black crack dealers that they are branded as heroes? Read my first comments and you will know that is not the case. If they personally sold crack then those actions are vile.
@’lol’, I find it ironic that you of all people on this blog are being sarcastic about “all hail pure thoughts”. Also, you are not a middle-class wanker, you are just a wanker! As for pure thoughts, back to the Black Panther thing, would you condem some of the Black Panthers for being gang members and drug dealers? I doubt it! You seem to be the most purist person I have ever came across, which is a mean feat in itself!
Sources? So, those that disagree with your position of supporting crack dealers and gangsters have to provide mountains of evidence? If I had said they were amazing revolutionaries would you have required my sources? Of course not. Seems if it confirms your prejudices no sources are needed, if it doesnt vice versa. Now I have been proved right I hope incubus and your good self can rethink your support for these brave crack dealers. At least you are now backtracking, wonder if the very angry incubus will? Doubt it.
Would I condemn Black Panthers if they were also involved in trafficking in human misery ala crack, prostitution and anti-social violence. Fucking right I would. I dont give a flying fart what you call yourself, if you trade in misery you get what’s coming and when it does, fucking good job.
As for the wanker etc, if it makes you feel better fill your boots. I’ve enjoyed our banter, you at least seem slightly less unhinged than mr angry incubus, who seems to feel very sorry for himself having to sell new age crap all the time. Them’s the breaks.
Have a good weekend.
The wanker.
There are two things to remember about the riots. The first is that they started as an anti-police protest and the police got the kicking they deserved. The second is that instead of going any further, they degenerated into looting where people followed consumer desires.
The fact the second happened is why the riots burned out and once again, following a massive explosion of class anger, capitalism continued and everyday life continued.
Saying this does not mean that it is wrong to take from big business. It’s saying that everyone being able to take a TV from big business will not reult in utopia. Only slightly bettter slaves. It is saying it is time to take what we can, but not stop there. It is time to discover our real desires not the ones we have been force fed. Anger can be dealt with by the ruling class and always is dealt with. Once it burns out the bosses move back in. It is building a new world that leads to success.
Obscene Turtle attempts to compare my responce to the Ian Bone’s rant about everyone except him caring for riot prisoners with how he imagines I would respond to the Arab Spring and Egypt. For the record I reckon there is alot wrong with Egypt. The rioters where heroes but they also allowed anti-social elements interested in personal gain to dominate some areas. Women on the streets were raped and it is only because the rioters organised that they were able to achieve change (and still are able to achieve change). The army might still be in control, but if the arab spring had been a cathartic week of anger being released followed by nothing then they would of achieved nothing!
I can’t quote Kropotkin or whoever is your favourite bearded theoretician. But I do know that Kropotkin said that in order for a revolution to succeed after the initial event you have to deepen it and spread it. This takes organisation, not hoping everyone magically correctly guess what to do next. I am not selling utopia or pretending I know what to do next. But I am saying that thinking and being prepared, being willing to listen and talk to people will build something better. Blindly supporting people who set fire to a pub with a family upstairs is not preparing and can be classed as turning your back on your class in favour of the lumpen anti-social elements who terrrorise our communities.
I know that change and revolutions don’t come about “by sitting around talking about it, waving our fucking hands in the air and hoping for a nice, passive, perfect, pure and clean passge to liberation”. Why do you think I mentioned Marion Price as a contrast to Francis and Laidley? I am not against givng them support, I am simply saying that isolated incidents of individuals shooting at cops are not leading us any nearer to a revolution.
Please give some evidence that they were acting in interests of the working class and not their individual interests when they burned a pub with a family living above it and fired at the police. Did they have those guns in preparation for a future insurrection or were they for enforcing their interests against other members of the working class?
You attempt to parody me by saying that I believe everything through organising committees etc. i’m saying that in situations like last summer it is too late to organise. We have missed out on the class anger and so after the riots everything returns to normal. In future the anger should be used to actually achieve something. This involves doing hard work and organising, not getting drunk and whingin abotu toffs while doing useless protests. It also doesn’t mean attacking people who have done prisoner support, saying they are supporting the wrong prisoners while doing nothing to support class struggle prisoners yourself!
I have not been given a mandate to decide what is or isn’t an insurrection. But i think the general definition of an uprising against a government or authority works for me. The organised attacks on the police fit this but the mass looting aimed at getting a better TV and clothing. Is that really an uprising against government?
I guess that after 27 odd years Ian has finally provided the answer to the question “what do we do when the cops fuck off?” The answer is nothing but hope for the best. Hope that everyone will be nicer and interaction between community and street fighter will magically appear after everyone has got a new TV and clothes and everyone won’t just keep thinking about the consumer goods capitalism keeps telling us are the only way to happiness.
Does it really matter if they sold crack personally or not? What were they doing to stop it? If they were indifferent, then why shouldn’t I be indifferent about them? If they were too scared that just shows the oppressive nature of gang culture.
On my Sunday afternoon dawdlings I came across the skull Hammond announcing that the territorials are to be renamed the army reserve. Yes, i know they always have been! The thing that struck me about it was, as the tattered bits of the army are marched back down the hill from the foothills of the Himalayas or the deserts of Mesopotamia, that a civil war scenario is set up for the Bully boys to play out more fantasies learnt on the playing fields and latrines of Eton. Absurd! I thought, paraniod ramblings of the bewildered, worthy of me with a hangover of mescalin proportions or incubus after being stung on the dick by a wasp. But no, given the track record of this shower of elitist shit to date, it is all too compelling and plausible. When you let a polecat like thrasher mitchell get away calling plod plebs, then you need other lines of support. War heroes and the territorials together, sounds a little like Ludendorf and the FreiKorps post WW! to me.
One volunteer is worth ten conscripts, ladles and jellyspoons. So, with the barrel empty, and with their bags packed to do a runner to the nearest canary island, they will scrape the botton of the barrel until the bottom gives way altogether. What else have they got? Boris the Bollocks!
‘the mass looting aimed at getting a better TV and clothing. Is that really an uprising against government?’- No, but it is a slap in the face for the respect for the ‘sanctity of private property’, that Holy of Holies for capital and the state. If you’re surviving on 50 or 60 quid a week, how the fuck could you ever afford a TV worth 4 or 500? People didn’t just expropriate ‘high-end’ goods either- they nicked basic commodities, Matalan clothes, fags, nappies etc.- and what insurrection or uprising throughout history has been ‘looting free’ anyway? It’s interesting to note that some of those who probably had a higher income due to dealing decided to directly attack the police in a semi-organised way that certainly lacked a ‘profit motive’, which points to the possibility that being more materially satisfied just isn’t satisfying enough (and all the dealers I’ve ever known always seemed to have state-of-the-art TVs…), so while people may have filled their boots with consumer goods and got away with it last time, which fundamentally doesn’t change their class position (‘capitalism continued and everyday life continued’.and people know it), but it does allow for the possiblity of going beyond just getting ‘free stuff’ next time around…A learning curve is indeed a learning curve.
My favourite video of the riots was filmed by a US crew who emphasised the purely British approach to looting: someone had smashed the glass door of the store and outside a small queue had formed waiting for their turn to enter the shop.
@ ‘lol’, “Sources? So, those that disagree with your position of supporting crack dealers and gangsters have to provide mountains of evidence?” Well, when you are making the claim that someone is/has been a crack dealer, that is a bold claim and so would require evidence to back it up. Imagine it like a court room, judge/magistrate asks the prosecution, “He/she was arrested for dealing crack, what evidence is there of this?” and the CPS say “We have none, we just think they are!”, it would not really hold up, would it? Also, if they are crack dealers, I would not support them but since there has been no evidence to say that they personally sold crack then I do support them.
@ Stevey, “Does it really matter if they sold crack personally or not?” Errrrm yes, because if someone is being called a crack dealer then that is a personal accusation. To say for example, one of their friends or neighbours sold crack does not mean to say they did aswell. If they did not personally sell/benefit from crack deals then they can’t be called crack dealers, can they? “What were they doing to stop it?” You could say that to anyone in society, “what were they doing to stop it?”, so does that mean those who do nothing to stop it are complicit? That would go for me, you, ‘lol’ and pretty much most of society. Doing nothing to stop it is not necessarily that same as being a dealer, is it?
@ Archangel, who do you define as ‘lumpen’?
@ Archangel, “There are two things to remember about the riots. The first is that they started as an anti-police protest and the police got the kicking they deserved. The second is that instead of going any further, they degenerated into looting where people followed consumer desires.” Agree with the first part. As for the second part? What would you suggest they do? Getting back to the baby milk thing, would that be consumer desires? Or getting what you can for your kid(s), or how about getting the Johnson set? Consumer desires too? or food even? Consumer desires also? or perhaps a pair of trainers for your kids to wear instead of having shoes on their feet that are dropping to bits? Consumer desires? (One of the most priceless moments of the riots when a mother was trying out looted shoes on her two gets, not just that, she was trying different ones for correct sizes! lol!)
Anyway, let’s say I agree that they decended in a consumerist frenzy, in a society where we are constantly told to consume, would you expect them to have this almost divine epiphany where the years of consumerist indoctrination get’s thrown right out the window?
“I am not selling utopia or pretending I know what to do next.”, if you, someone who is politically aware, does not/would not know what to do next then how are they supposed to know? I am not saying there should be someone to lead them but at some point the riots would have to stop in order to rebuild society. Anyway, as for Egypt, the initial week of the Egyptian phase of the ‘Arab Spring’ was a week of chaos.
“I am not against givng them support, I am simply saying that isolated incidents of individuals shooting at cops are not leading us any nearer to a revolution.” Whilst the incident itself was isolated, it was part of a much larger happening.
“Did they have those guns in preparation for a future insurrection or were they for enforcing their interests against other members of the working class? ” Who knows why they had them? Only them and their mates etc. But let’s face it, anyone can get a gun these days.
“We have missed out on the class anger and so after the riots everything returns to normal.” Errrrrm, no we haven’t missed out on the class anger, it is still there and still exists. I know this because I see, feel and hear it everyday. It is all around in society. Also, what is normality in your view? Getting back to being slapped around by the state, capitalism, racists etc.?
“It also doesn’t mean attacking people who have done prisoner support, saying they are supporting the wrong prisoners while doing nothing to support class struggle prisoners yourself!” Also, I am not saying and I don’t think other prisoners/former prisoners need support (Such as Marion Price, the Welling antifascists etc.) and certainly not being selective about which prisoners should have our support. All I and Ian were saying (I think that’s what he was saying anyway, maybe he can clarify that) was that why support one prisoner and not the other? As for doing nothing to support class struggle prisoners myself? How do you know what I have done? I have done a hell of a lot. I know it is an SWP front (But in this case I looked beyond that) but me and a couple of people from the ‘Defend the Right to Protest’ campaign (They were from that campaign but were acting independently of it, if you know what I mean) actually raised money for Alfie Meadows back in early 2011 when he was still hospitalised. We also sent letters of support to many of the class struggle prisoners. I believe in giving support in any way that is possible, be it with funds, actions or words of support.
“The organised attacks on the police fit this but the mass looting aimed at getting a better TV and clothing. Is that really an uprising against government?” No but it was a slap in the face the business’ who produce and sell these things and their profits.
“Hope that everyone will be nicer and interaction between community and street fighter will magically appear after everyone has got a new TV and clothes and everyone won’t just keep thinking about the consumer goods capitalism keeps telling us are the only way to happiness.” Are you now saying that you support the police or at least the idea of the police? Anyway, to go along with what I said before, they tell us to consume for profit, in that week, that went out of the window (Literally in some cases) as people were going against the grain and taking such things for free, creating a hole in their profits. That goes against exactly what they want.
When the Sony factory was torched, was that a consumer frenzy?
I am not being confrontational with you, just countering (Or at least attempting to counter) your arguments.
Have a good day Archangel!
Self-correction here, “Also, I am not saying and I don’t think other prisoners/former prisoners need support (Such as Marion Price, the Welling antifascists etc.) and certainly not being selective about which prisoners should have our support.” should be:
Also, I am not saying that I don’t think other prisoners/former prisoners need support (Such as Marion Price, the Welling antifascists etc.) and I am certainly not being selective about which prisoners should have our support.
“Anyway, let’s say I agree that they decended in a consumerist frenzy, in a society where we are constantly told to consume, would you expect them to have this almost divine epiphany where the years of consumerist indoctrination get’s thrown right out the window?”
This is exactly what I’m trying to say. Just hoping for bigger riots are not enough. Until we get something that will both offer an alternative to consumerism and be able to overcome consumerism, everything is doomed to fail. That is what political work is all about. Just hoping that a riot will magically make things OK and dismissing anyone who says otherwise as being too caught up in theory is a dead end.
“Also, what is normality in your view? Getting back to being slapped around by the state, capitalism, racists etc.?” That is a big part of normality and is still going on with no hope of overcomeing it. Normality is also where the only acknowledged opposition is the labour party and we are told that we have a choice between them and the Tories once every 4-5 years. It is believing that any opposition is built around this and everyone goes to work, pays their bills and watchs x factor for fun. Basically what life was like before the riots last year and what life is like again. Admittedly they had go all out on the olympics and jubilee to reassert this twisted idea of normal life, but basically that is what we have returned to.
As for the bit about prisoner support. Sorry, I wasn’t really aiming that at you but Ian Bone. I was lumping you in with him without knowing you.
I originally wrote in responce to him stating “……they’d much prefer an Alfie Meadows. If these geezers were Black Panthers there’d be a poster on every wall. And we wonder why are slogans are hollow an we are not trusted.”
My responce above was written as a reply to him adopting your reply and putting it as a blog. Not enough people do any kind of prison support and Ian Bone has never been a big feature in it. There for his suggesting that people who supported someone who recieved emergency brain surgery and was tried for violent disorder (currently awaiting a re-trial) was being supported instead of ‘real’ and more deserving working class prisoners annoyed me.
I’m not saying that the looting wasn’t a slap in the face of big business. It is just that’s all it was. Pretending it was something more when events failed to develop into something bigger is being dishonest to yourself and setting ourselves (as in all revolutionarys) to repeat the same mistakes.
“Are you now saying that you support the police or at least the idea of the police?” I am not supporting the police or the idea of the police as an outside force enforcing other peoples laws. But every community has the right to defend itself and it’s interests. It should be allowed to organise against anti-social and destructive elements that weaken it. This can take a number of forms, but basically if a class is to be a class in itself and for itself it has the right to attack and defend itself against those who are against it, even if superficially those against it are part of the class. For a class to move beyond a class that is ruled by others it must be able to rule itself and reject the elements that divide and hold it back.
This includes attacking the gangsters who make life hell for others in order to gain personal profit and the people who bully others and turn people into prisoners in their own home (i.e. abusive husbands etc.) We are aiming to get beyond a collection of ruled individuals and move towards a community which looks after everyones needs.
If you see that as a form of policing then fine. However it is a form of self policing and stting our own limits, not having someone elses law enforced.
Finally, the bit about not selling utopia was not saying I feel completely lost. I have an idea of what I want next and what whouls come next. I understand the present and the past and can use this to move forward. What I don’t have is a blueprint of what the future will be. The futre will develop as we move to it. IF we let things in the present be shit then the future will be shit. If we build things towards how we wnat the future to be, things will turn out better. It is that simple. What will cause problems is if we think that things at present will magically be overthrown by one big riot and we will then wake up in some anarchist utopia that appeared because all we needed to do was get rid of the bosses.
P.S. I define as lumpen the parasites who live off their class. The people who burgle working class homes, mug people in working class communitys etc. Of course some choose to work now. For example the enforcers employed by loan sharks, baliffs etc.
P.S. I have yet to meet anyone with a Malcolm X poster.
I do wonder Archangel, if you’ve had any direct experience of these ‘lumpens’ you talk about- I live in a London borough which, according to the local press is swarming with evil yardie gangs with funky sounding names- even just down the road from me, and yet I’ve never had any real grief off them- granted some cunts tried to mug me once, I’ve been burgled a few times just over the borough border and have known a few ‘lumpen’s myself…Just wondering.
In Argentina during the revolutionary crisis, local gangs were in the main, as I understand it, left powerless to act in the face of mass popular democracy, though later, organised crims managed to help fuck-up the barter economy that got started (possibly with state encouragement)- and currently in Athens, Greece, the anarchos and social-antagonists are making a point of beating street dealers for their pains- though it looks decidedly iffy since most of them are non-Greek and are also racial targets for the Golden Dawn nazis…
I do wonder Incubus, if you’ve had any direct experience outside of this blog. You automatically assume that anyone who criticises anti-social elements must be resorting to Daily mail style stereotypes and making things up. Your kind of like Owen Jones in his Chav book. There is no such thing as anti-social poor people, apart from the times there are and then they are working class heroes only responding to troy oppression and fighting their lot in life.
The problem is that reality intervenes. Although I get that capitalism and government creates the conditions of working class crime, it was not a group of bankers who burgled my flat and then moved on to my neighbours. It was not Tory MP’s who broke a friends jaw while they mugged him aged 18. It was not Yuppies who held a bloke I used to work with up at knife point at a cash point in order to steal the £30 he had got out. If was not the Cambridge boat team who vandalised my neighbours car and it was probably not the Bullingdon Club who left used needles in the local kids playground (although that one is open to debate). It is not the board of tescos who hang about intimidating women at the local station making the walk home in winter scary as fuck.
I could go on but I’ll tell you what I reckon, IT IS ALSO NOT THE WORKING CLASS DOING THIS BUT A BUNCH OF PARASITES WHO HAVE DECIDED TO TURN ON THEIR OWN COMMUNITY INSTEAD OF FIGHTING BACK. Yet you decide to romanticise their behaviour, see it as the real fight back. So what if they make life that little bit shitter for all of us. So what if it adds to the shit you get at work to get home and find your doors been kicked in? they are living outside the bosses law, we must support them. Well fuck that, they are parasites who are eating at their own and should be streated like parasites. Call them what you want, lumpens, the underclass, gangsters, but stop trying to glorify them to make up for the lack of any real politcal action. They are not the people who make up working class communitys and actively avoid participating in them. They are just one more group who lives off the working class. To be part of something you have to participate not attack it’s members.
So what if you haven’t been mugged. Neither have I, I’m relatively well built. But they prey on the weak, people they can easily step on. You know some yourself? Well ask them why they prey on their own and don’t rob the rich? Actually don’t bother, the answer is easy. The rich can afford decent security and they would never be able to flog exspensive goods. While if they nick form people with the same as them, they can get in, no one cares and then sell cheap stuff that doesn’t give them away. Fucking parasites.
Luckily I’m not the only one who feels this way. Try reading these two articles. Of course you’ll probably tell the authors to fuck since they must be middle class for disagreeing with Chairman Bone and yourself. I guess the majority of the working class are really middle class in your eyes, which kind of makes your views on class similair to the Daily Mails and the Tory party. How ironic.
http://www.iwca.info/?p=10134
http://www.iwca.info/?p=10184
“No, but it is a slap in the face for the respect for the ‘sanctity of private property’, that Holy of Holies for capital and the state.”
Yeah but this can’t be a fully thought out argument, it would only hold if the rioters had seized the property and held it in common.
Is there any evidence of that?
From what I’ve seen, the riot loot just becomes someone else’s private property. Try taking someone’s looted plasma TV from them and you’ll quickly find out whether it’s status as private property has been magicked away or not.
I say not.
What REALLY have been vicious sentences handed out have been for shitty little things like taking bottles of water. 6 months for stealing a bottle of water? Now that’s fucked up.
Let do some maths 30 years for shooting at a police chopper divided by 6 months for a bottle of water costing £3.50 (fucking overprice tap water in the first place)
So that’s a 1:60 ratio.
Shooting at an aircraft and possibly crashing it into innocent people and killing a bunch of cops is only 60 times worse than stealing a bottle of water.
Steal a couple of cases of water and you’re looking at life!
I will drink my Evian with more appreciation in the future, knowing how much society values it.
The trouble is, you seem to think our class is, or should, just consist of ‘decent, honest and hard-working’ people- the sort of bilge you get from the popular press and politicians, when in fact one in three men under 30 years of age have criminal records and at least 20% of the working population has a criminal record. Sure, a lot of it is low level thieving and dealing and there is definitely a minority of really nasty sociopaths, but the language you use plays into the stereotypical ‘criminal underclass’ –‘feral rats’ – ‘rioting muggers’ bollocks along with ‘culture-of entitlement-parasites’ shite. The ‘decent, honest and hard-working’ people are probably the least likely people to ‘fight back’- and your criticism that crims ought to do so, (and what were these guys doing, if not that?) rather than robbing people is as laughable as your furious moral indignation, and I don’t need a lesson on that- I know there are scumbags who prey on the weak- the bastards that nearly killed my then girlfriend’s 79yr old aunt by punching her in the face to nick her pension, the fucker that held me at chisel point in my own bedroom or the five home invaders I has to face down on my own. All the same, I won’t condemn these same people when they rise up against the forces of the state, cos all in all, a lot of those guys are more class-conscious than your average pleb, they ‘fight back’ in the only way they know to ‘fuck the system’-but not in the way you want them to, and yeah, a lot of them fall into an absolute amoral, dog-eat-dog nihilism, some of them are sociopaths and bullies, some of them become ‘Top Boy’ on their estate and corner the market for weed, crack or whatever, oftentimes in league with the Big Boys and the Old Bill (Like the Stoke Newington police) which is a different ballgame. It’s not as clear-cut as you’d like it to be, it’s a Grey Zone, but one created by the system- kids who get constantly stopped and searched by the cops end up thinking ‘fuck it’ and that they may as well ‘get hung for a wolf than a lamb’- and I know this from personal experience. Even so, I have no particular sympathy for psychos, rapists, racists or bullies- and at the end of the day it’s all about the context. What would your solution be? Perhaps have a ‘decent’ workers militias hunting down the ‘anti-social elements’, (not unlike the EDL on the streets in 2011)? Perhaps stopping looters unless, like Stevey said, the stuff looted was to be rigorously’ held in common.’- despite the fact that stuff was often shared out and that most people helped each other out (and yes, a minority took loot off looters for themselves). Of-course the alternative for ‘decent, honest and hard-working’ people to breaking the law and nicking a TV would be to ‘work hard’ for it and save-up, maybe even take out a fucking pay-day loan eh?
Seems to me that you have deliberately misinterpreted what I said because at no point have I ‘glorified’ or ‘romanticised’ anything, nor do I condone any actions of who you call ‘lumpens’ and ‘anti-social elements’ (which to me, has shades of Stalinist or fascist language) in terms of prole on prole crime. Everything you have written is verging on the divisive, and the IWCA stuff (which reads as if you wrote it) is decidedly iffy too, about Mark Duggan being a ‘ a major player, and perhaps tellingly also something of an elusive pimpernel’- That’s not what I hear in Tottenham. I don’t like your tone, and I don’t trust what you write. End of.
Interesting piece by Phil Dickens here mate:
http://libcom.org/library/revolutionary-potential-%E2%80%9Csocial-scum%E2%80%9D
Given its origins, the class-divisive views of the IWCA should come as no surprise. Class-divisive they are though and on that basis just as dangerous as racism, sexism etc.
Ok I think there is little chance of any resolution here. I don’t trust your position, you don’t trust mine. At least were only on the internet and not trying to organise together.
Anyway, I never used the phrase ‘feral rats’ or ‘rioting muggers’. I also never said that I supported the stereotype of the ‘decent, honest and hard working’ worker. I know how law is uised to control and how many people have convictions. However i also realise there is a world of difference to having a conviction for handling stolen goods or dealing and having a conviction for punching a 79 year old in the face to nick her pension. To pretend otherwise is to adopt the old Tory arguement that crime is crime is crime. It’s not and some of it actively harms the working class so why support the anti social criminals?
I won’t comment on why you’ve gone from saying “I’ve never had any real grief off them- granted some cunts tried to mug me once” to being “held me at chisel point in my own bedroom or the five home invaders I has to face down on my own.” other than to point out that you’ve clearly had problems with anti-social thugs and for some reason see them as the vanguard of some kind of fight back.
I’d truely be with the gangs if they actually rose against the forces of the state. However they have never actually done that. as I originally said (and you disagreed with me) a bit of looting does not make an insurrection. Fighting the police does, but the riots moved from fighting the police to mass looting. I guess we’ll have to disagree on the value of this.
I realise you were being ironic about organising ‘decent’ workers militias as a solution to anti social crime. However, communitys have in the past organised against gangs who attack them. It’s been done succesfully in Ireland and we are capable of organising against fascists. So maybe building towards community defence groups, as a long term aim, is a step forward.
Despite all this, we are meant to be on the same side and at least your fighting back so good luck to you. And thanks for the compliment about the IWCA stuff sounding like I wrote it. That made my day!
This is, I believe, the last major trial relating to the 2011 riots and I’m sure the judge was encouraged/told to send a message.
Nearly everyone* convicted of any involvement in the riots got a custodial sentence – even for nicking water or ice cream http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/8722733/UK-riots-Looter-who-pinched-too-scoops-of-ice-cream-jailed-for-16-months.html – interesting quote from the defence lawyer there – “It’s not the facts of the offence he committed, it’s the fact he’s committed it in circumstances where there’s public disorder.”
So in a “public disorder” situation sentences will be much, much heavier than normal. Whether that will stand up to legal challenge remains to be seen. If you’re doing serious time you’ve got nowt to lose by appealing against the length of the sentence.
Those convicted in Birmingham were not convicted for “shooting at a helicopter” (not an offence as far as I know). They were convicted of riot (maximum 10 years – use of firearms an aggravating factor), reckless arson (no sentencing guide), possession of a firearm with intent (maximum life).
http://www.birminghammail.net/news/top-stories/2012/06/08/five-men-and-teenager-sentenced-to-124-years-for-birmingham-riots-shooting-97319-31137938/
*No prison time for this young woman http://www.thisiscroydontoday.co.uk/CROYDON-RIOTS-daughter-s-10-seconds-madness/story-14412223-detail/story.html
Just to add, the maximum for reckless arson is life. Anyway, the main sentences were for “possession of a firearm with intent to danger life”. . The judge’s sentencing remarks are here: http://www.judiciary.gov.uk/Resources/JCO/Documents/Judgments/tyrone-laidley-others.pdf
Notions of left wing anarchism will always throw up a number of competing imperatives for activists. But when we adopt aggressive stances in support of particular positions we are not sorting out our problems, we are maintaining them. It is hard work to have constructive conversations with other people and it is difficult to learn to acknowledge their concerns. But we are going to have to, if we are serious about influencing people by our ideas and through our actions.
The most sensible thing I’ve read on this thread.
havent got much time, so skim read some of the above, but incubus old son, you come across as a complete idiot. You are so desperate not to form a hard judgement about people that mug old ladies, rob in their own neighbourhoods and so on. You laughingly argue about the kind of person that would mug and beat a 79 year old women
“I know there are scumbags who prey on the weak- the bastards that nearly killed my then girlfriend’s 79yr old aunt by punching her in the face to nick her pension”
but then go on to say ,”I won’t condemn these same people when they rise up against the forces of the state, cos all in all, a lot of those guys are more class-conscious than your average pleb”
What a load of absolute weak-assed drivel. Some cunt mugs an old lady for her pension, throw that same cunt into a riot and suddenly he’s a working class hero and more class concious than the ‘average pleb’.
I am flabbergasted and if the average ‘anarchist’ is anything like you there’s no wonder it’s not making many inroads with ordinary people. I remember years back in hackney, seeing stickers put out by class war saying ‘muggers, dont rob your own’ or something of the sort. I totally agree with that, by i see that’s all gone. You should stick to flogging your incense sticks , romanticisng chisel wielding burglars that rob in their own communtiies and muggers smashing old ladies. Bring on the revolution ? lol….
I’m not an anarchist. I never said they were ‘heroes’.How can I ‘romanticise’ the bloke who threatened to stab me when I was half awake? If I’d caught the cunts who attacked my ex’s aunt at the time, I would’ve beaten them to fuck, if not to death. But, if they turn on the state as a common enemy, then that’s fine by me. Anyone who’s done time knows the truth about the class system, but I never said ALL ‘of those guys are more class-conscious than your average pleb’. I reserve my hard judgements for the upper classes- the rich.