Day: August 12, 2011

RE the recent rioting in London, I ran across the following telling observation reported by blogger Penny Red:

In one NBC report, a young man in Tottenham was asked if rioting really achieved anything:

"Yes," said the young man. "You wouldn't be talking to me now if we didn't riot, would you?"

"Two months ago we marched to Scotland Yard, more than 2,000 of us, all blacks, and it was peaceful and calm and you know what? Not a word in the press. Last night a bit of rioting and looting and look around you."

I remember the 1992 riots in L.A.  I was living in Pasadena at the time – they were pretty much an immediate part of my environment.  My thought at the time was that part of it was about that feeling of simply not having any way of being heard.  And so giving up on efforts to be heard, on efforts at dialog, and just letting it vent into pure rage.  I suspect something similar must be what's involved in London.

Given the increasing stratifications (gap between rich and poor) of most Western societies, and the troubled economy and the emphasis everywhere on "austerity" as opposed to expansive (i.e. Keynesian) government responses, we will only be seeing more of this, in the future. 

I saw another blogger (I uncharactistically neglected to bookmark so I don't recall who) who observed that it's quite ridiculous that we don't view social welfare spending as a component of the supposedly critical (and generally uncuttable) national security budget.  Obviously, the recent and ongoing cuts to social welfare in Britain were major contributors to the conflagration in London this past week.  How is that not "national security"?