DEM not gonna CON dis NATION: Rolling UK politics in the short-lived post-Murdoch era

xp Sorry suzy but you are endorsing them. Just as depressing as the predictable establishment attempt to depoliticise the riot is the refusal of some on the left (especially the drooling riot-porn voyeurs over at DSG) to distinguish between different kinds of behaviour in a riot. Setting fire to a police car is a political act. Setting fire to Allied Carpets, smashing up local traders or trying on trainers outside Foot Locker - these are not and it's absurd to pretend that certain shops were especially hard-hit because of tax rebates or executive bonuses as opposed to just having the most enticing stuff. It's not like the black bloc on the TUC march who vandalised banks as symbolic gestures (I don't like them but the intent was clearly political) - it's nicking trainers. What's the defence of Wood Green where there were next to no police because they were all in Tottenham, hence no confrontations, and the looters were just on a shopping spree?

lol i guess this millionaire cunt has solved the economy in the past 12 months

It's interesting, to me, at least in *my* neighbourhood, the shops which seemed to be targeted for the most intensive looting, and also destruction (like, burning down a shop seems to me to be expressing a lot more anger than just peeling back the shutters or smashing a door in) were the trainer shops. Like, down my way, a lot of phone shops were targeted for smashed windows, peeling back the shutters, and it's obviously small, portable, high value consumer goods. But JD Sports and Footlocker were the ones that were not just looted, but utterly torched.

I'm trying not to draw conclusions, because I wasn't there, I haven't spoken to anyone who was rioting (in fact, no one seems to have - there's lots of people talking to "experts" about rioting, but no one talking to anyone who was there doing it) but you could read that in two ways: 1) ha ha LOL chavs be wanting trackies and trainers coz they chavs LOL or 2) these are vastly overinflated-in-price consumer goods, marketed intensely at urban areas, exploiting both the people making them for pennies a day and also more importantly they are marketed so heavily in poor and minority as signifiers of affluence, status symbols, exploiting the people to whom they are being sold at huge prices.

And it does say something to me, that they're not just *stealing* the things, but venting huge amounts of anger at the shops selling them. We may not see those shops as appropriate targets, but I do wonder what they represent to the people trashing them.

But then again, I recognise that I've been infected with a lot of semi-marxist anti-consumerist thought recently, I do *not* think of "looting" as a completey non-political action within these contexts. In a society that routinely values corporations and consumer goods as more important than people, I do think that looting *can* (not always, but it certainly *can*) be a politicised act in and of itself. It is certainly a way of registering discontent which might be voiceless otherwise. But I do not know, it is simply musing on observed damage.

Well, it can take a mass of people to loot a shop, and only a few to torch one.

DL, I don't think it's wise - or strictly accurate - to assert that my posts constitute an endorsement for the looters' actions; you can't expect to be permitted to tell me how I feel about this - my emotions and POV are for me, not others, to determine.

Also, KDT is pretty OTM.

nah looting is just poor people making the most of a bad situation and capitalising on a chance to get expensive and overpriced goods that they crave for free. simple as. no one is angry at nike or footlocker, they just WANT that stuff. yeah its pushed to them a lot which feeds the desire and places pressure on them to get this stuff by hook or crook but ultimately they just want this stuff. theyre not fucking over footlockers as a political gesture, other than 'fuck you footlocker for being out my budget', which is the same reason for looting any other shop.

i think anger can be unfocused though - just cos theyre not taking on explicitly political targets like banks, doesnt mean theyre not angry at things beyond their control. someone on lbc said that we are much more lenient and empathetic in how we look towards riots in other countries than we are here which is prob true.

Also banks kinda hard to break into, for obvious reasons, about all you're going to be able to loot are the little pens on chains and some withdrawal slips

^^^Saw a lot of pix of capsized, demolished cashpoint housings.

x-posts I don't think it's that simple. Poverty isn't simple, the psychology of coveting and the manufacture of desire is not that simple. I think it's a bit more comlex than "I want stuff, for free" - because of the targeted nature of the stuff being taken. Why do they want *that* stuff so badly, as to riot to get it? (Which is the picture being drawn with these descriptions of "opportunistic looters")

Why *is* Footlocker "out of people's budget" when the shoes cost pennies to make?

I dunno, there might be nothing to it, in that I'm reading now about jewelry shop grabs and Curry's mobs and Nando's being destroyed. (Why Nando's? You don't think there's a political or race/class based edge to the stereotype of Nando's customers in inner city London?) I guess it's my background to look for patterns to seemingly random events. But when I see specific things being targeted, I wonder if there's something to it. The property damage over Brixton Hill into Streatham was anything but random. I wonder why.

these are vastly overinflated-in-price consumer goods, marketed intensely at urban areas, exploiting both the people making them for pennies a day and also more importantly they are marketed so heavily in poor and minority as signifiers of affluence, status symbols, exploiting the people to whom they are being sold at huge prices.

This is correct I think, and in a riot there's an opportunity to get them for nothing.

And it does say something to me, that they're not just *stealing* the things, but venting huge amounts of anger at the shops selling them. We may not see those shops as appropriate targets, but I do wonder what they represent to the people trashing them.

This is where the cognitive leap takes place I think. Not convinced they're venting anger AT Foot Locker or JD Sports or wherever, in the way they're venting anger at the police. It's more likely to be rage that's just boiling over into smashing things, but I don't know for sure, none of us do.

^^^Saw a lot of pix of capsized, demolished cashpoint housings

Yes, saw those too. From banks tho?

Sorry suzy, obviously I can't read your mind but I was just responding to the substance of your posts. There wasn't a lot of distance there.

titchy OTM - it's too easy to project anti-consumerist theory onto looters. Karen, you honestly think the people looting Foot Locker thought for a moment about the injustice of Asian sweatshops? From a certain political angle society has always valued corporations and consumer goods above other people, ergo all looting is always justified as a politicised act - well no, it isn't. A riot is composed of so many different agents and agendas that it's impossible to generalise about what the looters thought but the history of riots indicates that the initial political impetus - the arrest, the shooting, the baton charge - leads to a chaotic situation which sucks in all kinds of people, including some (by no means the majority) who just want to take shit for free and some who will vent

Karen, you can do better than strawmanning anyone who thinks looting is wrong, and a shitty, self-defeating element of a riot which enables many observers to completely ignore the real and important tensions behind the initial violence, as "ha ha LOL chavs be wanting trackies and trainers coz they chavs LOL". And "opportunistic looters" does not imply that people riot to get consumer goods. Quite the opposite - it means that they use the cover of an existing riot to take stuff.

I think they're venting anger at a system where shoes made for pennies are out of their budgets because they're exploitatively marketed as providing "urban status" or some such thing. Is that a vast cognitive leap? I don't think it's an either/or with venting anger at the police, more of an and/both.

x-post

Oops, "and some who will vent" was a fragment of a deleted thought.

xpost - its not just 'i want it for free', it is very much about manufacturing desire to a group that doesnt have that much money to spend there, which is perverse, but how does currys target this group, or ikea, or nandos even? (what book are you reading about this btw - i might pick it up). thats just opportunism and anger boiling over. but the footlocker thing is similar to how you used to get stories about people getting robbed for their trainers. pretty much everything is overpriced. its why currys was targeted (expensive electronic goods), phone shops (stuff people need but is still wallet-lightening). nandos is bizarre cos thats not exactly that expensive but its just a place where a lot of young kids like to go, same as footlocker.

Is the progression of anger at "*why* can't I afford this?" while in a situation of expressing anger at "the system is unfair" is not such a quantum cognitive leap.

Phone shops are like banks though, in that their stock is locked away and all that's on display are dummy versions?

A lot of the stuff that was taken wasn't just covetable, it was easy to sell on for cash - portable, valuable and difficult to trace.

There would have been some stock out front in the phone shops, wouldn't there? Nobody bothered breaking into Gamestation in Wood Green as all they have in the main section are empty boxes.

DL, I carefully stated that I did not think that *all* looting was a political act, but that I did not think that looting was *categorically* a politics-negating act. Please stop disregarding my actual words while accusing me of strawmanning? Thanks.

DL, I'm still confused and quite clearly need a man to explain - where in my posts am I endorsing behaviour rather than reporting it?

Suzy, don't worry, DL isn't actually talking to us at all, but to straw liberals in his head.

Good recent posts KDT...I'm broadly of the same opinion, i think there's a lot of subconscious or unconscious anger/motive and some of the reactions about this are really black and white about what/who/why is a target

I think we're all reacting in our various ways to constantly being told there's no money by people who are on their way to RAF Northolt to catch their G5 to Davos. Most of those brownfields box stores up by the North Circ where most looting has taken place are there because huge corps get massive, massive tax rebates for building in 'deprived' areas and giving a few low-responsibility MW jobs to 'local people' from 'communities' - did we think those people were too thick to notice?

Reads like an endorsement to me. Maybe I'm the confused one.

xp Karen, I didn't say you thought all looting was political but that it seemed like the logical extension of your argument - or are only trainer-looters political?

"Is the progression of anger at "*why* can't I afford this?" while in a situation of expressing anger at "the system is unfair" is not such a quantum cognitive leap."

i cant really argue with that. but without wanting to sound like the daily mail, while i sympathise with the view that the system and corporations are out to exploit disenfranchised groups on both ends of the production scale, these kids havent been taught the idea that 'if you cant afford it, you cant have it'. for all the apparent media literacy and media savvy-iness of todays kids, funny how they arent so literate that they cant resist what theyre being fed.

"*Why* can't I afford this?" is surely more likely to be "why don't I have the job/income/opportunities to afford this?" rather than "are these overpriced given they are made for pennies in sweatshops?"

I mean in that context it's pretty undeniable as to why there'd be anger to vent.

xpost - its not just 'i want it for free', it is very much about manufacturing desire to a group that doesnt have that much money to spend there, which is perverse, but how does currys target this group, or ikea, or nandos even? (what book are you reading about this btw - i might pick it up). thats just opportunism and anger boiling over. but the footlocker thing is similar to how you used to get stories about people getting robbed for their trainers. pretty much everything is overpriced. its why currys was targeted (expensive electronic goods), phone shops (stuff people need but is still wallet-lightening). nandos is bizarre cos thats not exactly that expensive but its just a place where a lot of young kids like to go, same as footlocker.

Currys - incessant advertising, "interest free" credit, wide screen tv American style fridge the sine qua non of modern life

Ikea - the Nike of furniture, cheap but aspirational

Nando's - aspirational Wimpy, happy chef mcdonalds, whatever

All agents in the manufacture of desire, all selling things with a high degree of unattainability to the average unemployed youth.

yep.

yep to matt dc's last post that is

I'm sorry, DL but going from "this subset of situation X is potentially Y" to "the logical extension is that ALL subsets of situation X are Y" is a very basic error of logic and I'm not going to bother continuing this thread with you because, like, most of us learned not to make those errors in 8th grade maths.

don't see anything more complex here than

all the cops are over there <--- we can nick stuff over here ---> and not get busted

kinda admire the torturous attempts to blame this on david cameron tho :D

Karen I'm trying to work out what you're saying and therefore asking for clarification. You're finding ways to avoid those questions and chuck insults.

A lot of the stuff that was taken wasn't just covetable, it was easy to sell on for cash - portable, valuable and difficult to trace.

yeah this leapt out at me too - not convinced it's so simple as looters wanting things for themselves.

i don't think rioters are expressing anger against capitalism - the capitalist mindset is, i think, hugely embedded in them. it's been constantly drummed into kids in poor areas and estates that their best way out is via capitalism x protestant work ethic - work hard and you can be an entrepreneur, set up your own business, make money. stealing consumer goods to sell on (if that's what was going on) seems an oddly logical manifestation of that.

i don't think rioters are expressing anger against capitalism - the capitalist mindset is, i think, hugely embedded in them. it's been constantly drummed into kids in poor areas and estates that their best way out is via capitalism x protestant work ethic - work hard and you can be an entrepreneur, set up your own business, make money. stealing consumer goods to sell on (if that's what was going on) seems an oddly logical manifestation of that.

Cosign all of this.

though that may be projection (which kinda goes for everyone in this thread, which shouldn't prevent theories and discussion obv)

No, you aren't, Dorian. You're repeatedly *telling* me what I'm saying, and I'm not doing this with you any more.

OK, fine, excellent. I look forward to it.

xp to lex. Right. I don't see how one can read looting as anti-capitalist rather than another manifestation of capitalism, unless the looted items are distributed to other people. I understand the frustration and the unfairness and the appalling job prospects in somewhere like Tottenham but I stop short of making apologies for looting.

DL, might I politely suggest that for something to be endorsed rather than simply cited, I'd have to be a lot less neutral in my choice of words? I'm just finding the 'mindlessness' ascribed to looters to be a wee bit patronizing, wherever it comes from.

A lot of the stuff that was taken wasn't just covetable, it was easy to sell on for cash - portable, valuable and difficult to trace.

yeah this leapt out at me too - not convinced it's so simple as looters wanting things for themselves.

I don't think there's much of a distinction between looting things to sell and looting to keep.

i don't think rioters are expressing anger against capitalism - the capitalist mindset is, i think, hugely embedded in them. it's been constantly drummed into kids in poor areas and estates that their best way out is via capitalism x protestant work ethic - work hard and you can be an entrepreneur, set up your own business, make money. stealing consumer goods to sell on (if that's what was going on) seems an oddly logical manifestation of that.

OK, that's a perfectly logical and reasonable assesssment, and an interesting one. It's not anger at capitalism so much as a twisted take on capitalism extended to its brutal ends?

That's kind of a same input, different conclusion to the things I was thinking aloud about.

it's been constantly drummed into kids in poor areas and estates that their best way out is via capitalism x protestant work ethic - work hard and you can be an entrepreneur, set up your own business, make money.

also alongside being constantly told that they can achieve this if they work hard enough is the reality that, if they're from that background, becoming richard branson or jay-z or alan sugar is the exception not the rule, and ISN'T just a question of hard work, and that's where a lot of the anger probably derives from

lex was half right. the second half was about some sort of capitalist robin hood theory.

"All agents in the manufacture of desire, all selling things with a high degree of unattainability to the average unemployed youth."

yes yes, we get it, they are making people want things. LIKE EVERY OTHER BUSINESS DOES. THIS IS WHAT ALL BUSINESSES DO. it makes people who cant afford it want it more. you can analyse it as 'why nandos' or 'why footlocker' but there isnt much discrimination other than 'can i get it' and 'do they have something i want'. H&M, M&S, currys, mcdonalds, it made no difference. yeah the chains will prob suffer more as they are more coveted but if there was an independent shop selling the same goods it will get fucked over too. its basically just "*Why* can't I afford this?" and "why don't I have the job/income/opportunities to afford this?" resulting in 'im going to get it'.

"I don't think there's much of a distinction between looting things to sell and looting to keep."

you are overlooking the entrepreneurial spirit at play here.

I don't think there's much of a distinction between looting things to sell and looting to keep.

seems like a pretty important distinction to me

xp to suzy - I agree. "Mindless" is one of those entirely inaccurate, argument-closing words politicians always reach for in these situations. Actions are never mindless even if you don't like the minds behind them. Sorry if I misread you. I wasn't doing it for kicks - it was genuinely how I interpreted your two posts.

independent shops DID get fucked over too.

Karen, you honestly think the people looting Foot Locker thought for a moment about the injustice of Asian sweatshops?

(a) How did you know they weren't?
(b) Isn't that a rather patronising assumption to make, namely that (by inference) none of them was capable of thinking this?
(c) Isn't it, by extension, continued patronising of the working class and the deprived by well-meaning "liberals" which contributes majorly to the incremental pissed-off/piss-off feeling that leads to rioting or looting? The condescending pat on the head which implies, "very good, now back to work (if you can find it) and contribute to our profits under the illusion that you're buying yourself life?"

I actually don't understand the Nando's thing. Are they taking the chicken home and cooking it?

surely the same people are doing both, keeping x pairs of trainers selling the rest?
xp

There's a difference between not assuming they're illiterate idiots and projecting thoughts onto them.

― Matt DC, Monday, 8 August 2011 10:05 (1 hour ago)