Britain Burning: Underclass/Youth Riots For Third Night

Live streaming coverage from the BBC.

Sketchy details about "youths:"

British prime minister David Cameron and other senior politicians were planning to fly back from holiday on Monday as riots spread through London with potent images of the capital ablaze beamed around the world and emboldened youths attacking in broad daylight.

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In a sign that rioters were growing in confidence, between 50 and 100 youths gathered on a busy junction in Hackney, east London, not far from the site of next year’s Olympic games, during the early afternoon, throwing missiles at police and setting light to cars.

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AP reported that police have ordered London football clubs to call off matches.

If you're consuming the media, you probably don't know what it's about. I assumed that meant it was racial, and the telegraph seems to obliquely confirm that with the euphemism "underclass."

The police shot a black guy in suspicious circumstances. Feral kids with no jobs ran amok. To Tony’s mind, this was a riot waiting for an excuse. In the hangover of the violence that spread through London, the uprisings seemed both inevitable and unthinkable. Over a few days in which attacks became a contagion the capital city of an advanced nation has reverted to a Hobbesian dystopia of chaos and brutality.

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Among several obvious answers, one is a failure of policing. The evidence so far points to more ignominy for the rudderless Met, as doubts emerge over whether Mark Duggan, whose death inspired the initial riots, fired at police. The stonewalling of Mr Duggan’s family precipitated the crisis, and the absence of officers to intervene in an orgy of looting led to a breakdown of order suggestive of the lawless badlands of a failing state.

It's pretty amazing that there are major riots going on in a world capital and the media won't tell us anything about them, out of a belief we can't handle it.

posted by Ace at 09:06 PM

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