Aftermath

It was interesting to read   poliphilo 's  take on the recent riots ( Not The Riots We're Expecting) and elsewhere, I have read some considered views across the media and have come up with some more thoughts.

I think it's a combination of the ever increasing gap between rich and poor, the fact that the rich are the one section who appear not to have suffered in the current economic climate, and a shitty child protection system that allows children to be raised in homes where violence is common and good role models rare.

On a related problem, one thing that shocked me most about the whole Raoul Moat event was that so many people appeared to view him as some kind of folk hero; 30,000 odd followers on a Facebook account called "Raoul Moat: Legend". This was despite the fact they knew he murdered and blinded people, beat his girlfriends up and abused his children.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Northumbria_Police_manhunt

The important thing for these people was that he stood up against 'the system'. That kind of attitude is now commonplace in sections of the population, the sections whose children have been looting and rioting these last few nights. Britain has nursed this viper in its bosom for the last 30 years and these riots are just the most tangible manifestation of this so far.

The Police struggled to contain the rioting because they don't have the men, the equipment or the authorisation to do anything else. The Met in particular have no leadership - the people in charge who haven't resigned in the last few weeks are not policemen, but politicians, and, ridiculous as it may seem, they probably simply don't have the budget to provide a strong response. You can thank Theresa May for that.

Riots and disorder is infectious. It escalates, takes over and in the mind of those rioting and looting and somehow makes them do things they would never normally do. It makes acting and imagining real. Also, when the poor and the dispossessed act out and imagine their fantasies they nick phones, kick police men, rob the rich and burn cars and buildings. To me, this speaks miles of a system that has made the poor and dispossessed sick in the head with lust for all the things they can't have and never will.

In terms of politics since the fall of the Berlin Wall the message most people have understood is there is no political alternative to capitalism (other than radical Islam maybe), so why attack politics. But stealing is an attack on capitalism that is real and visceral. I think kids are both unlikely to see much point in burning down parliament, whereas stealing a phone has an immediate benefit and if you see it as all part of some them/the system you can square that circle.

The whole capitalist system is predicated on greed power and corruption, and you do not need to be a Marxist to realise this.. If you feel that the politicians don't care about you, why should you care about the system enough to make a 'political' demonstration? But you will care about getting 'stuff' because everything around you is telling you that commidification and commercialisation is the right way to live our lives

As poliphilo  said "Riot and revolution are powerful drugs. They get you high. They stop the pain."

(thanks to contributions from vg+)