What have we become when European leftists are happy to see more police in the street, more social control, more protections for the middle classes? Did I wake up in an alternate universe where the left has abandoned all ideology in pursuit of private property?! It couldn’t possibly be that these leftists have bought into the “brown menace”, no? Nah, I am sure I am just seeing things now.
“As Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett point out in The Spirit Level: Why Equality is Better for Everyone, phenomena usually described as "social problems" (crime, ill-health, imprisonment rates, mental illness) are far more common in unequal societies than ones with better economic distribution and less gap between the richest and the poorest. Decades of individualism, competition and state-encouraged selfishness – combined with a systematic crushing of unions and the ever-increasing criminalisation of dissent – have made Britain one of the most unequal countries in the developed world.”
—There is a context to the London riots that can’t be ignored.
If you think it’s any different in the States, you’re fucking kidding yourselves.
NYT: "Revolt Begins Like Others, but Its End Is Less Certain"
nytimes.comWUKAN, China — Each day begins with a morning rally in the banner-bedecked square, where village leaders address a packed crowd about their seizure of the village and plans for its future. Friday’s session was followed by a daylong mock funeral for a fallen comrade, whose body lies somewhere outside the village in government custody…
by Michael Wines
There is a wry “Occupy Tian’anmen” joke to be made here, but in reality this situation scares me too much to be funny about it. If history can serve as any guide, this will only end in violence. It appears that the police kidnapped and beat to death the villager chosen to negotiate with the authorities, and that SWAT teams are massing outside the village as the protests continue.
Meanwhile, China has published long-expected regulations requiring all users of microblogs to register accounts with their real names. Among other things, the new regulations reiterate the numerous ways in which free speech can be abridged:
Article 10. No organization or individual shall make unlawful use of a micro-blog to reproduce, publish, or transmit information with the following contents:
(i) violating the basic principles of the Constitution;
(ii) jeopardizing national security, leaking state secrets, subverting the government, undermining national unity;
(iii) harming national honor and interests;
(iv) inciting ethnic hatred or ethnic discrimination, undermining national unity;
(v) violating the state religion policies or propagating cults and feudal superstitions;
(vi) spreading rumors, disturbing social order, or undermining social stability;
(vii) spreading obscenity, pornography, gambling, violence, terror or instigating crimes;
(viii) insulting or libeling other or infringing on other people’s legitimate rights and interests;
(ix) inciting illegal assembly, association, procession or demonstration, assembling to disturb social order;
(x) illegal activities on behalf of civil society organizations;
(xi) contains content prohibited under other laws and administrative regulations.
For reference, here is a selection from the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China:
Article 35. Citizens of the People’s Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration.
In China, the Grievances Keep Coming
nytimes.comAlarmed by worsening social unrest, government officials have adopted “stability maintenance” as a mantra — and a pretext to stifle protest. While the grievance process coexists politely with the regular legal system, the insistence on maintaining stability is, all too often, utterly at odds with it.
This week in abundance: plenty of European commentary that uses the word “community” in reference to the London riots. Examples: the looters are damaging their own communities. Communities will organize and come together for the clean up. Many more. You get the idea.
This week in absence: the explanation of how exactly these analysts define community. Because I am almost certain the word does not mean what they think it means to everyone else. Example: you can live in a neighborhood, surrounded by people who even look like you and share your cultural traits and yet, you might be utterly isolated because in urban settings, not everyone talks to each other. And there are many forms of invisible exclusion (i.e. you are perceived as a trouble maker; you do not like to talk to people you don’t know; you are a new comer to town, etc. etc.).
Many of the people talking about “community”, particularly those who have an inclination to Social Justice seem to operate under a kind of romanticized prism of what community entails and how it is evident that it is available to everyone (one of the premises of Social Justice: organize your community!). Uh? That would imply that these youth have one or feel they belong to one in the first place.
Copy-Pasting from Facebook because I'm young and angry.
When you write an article about the millennial generation, it might be pertinent to listen to the truckloads of millenials telling you that you’re full of it. We’re broke. Almost all of us. We have student loan debt and rent and gas and car insurance (if we have cars), and now we have to pay out the ass for internet because its all but REQUIRED for almost everything we do. We’re trying to live in a society that gives next to no jobs without a degree, then calls us stupid because we accrued debt bettering ourselves. We have to deal with people laughing at our degrees and telling us that knowledge is useless. Back. The fuck. Off. It is not 1960, and your notions and experiences at certain points are going to amount to jack shit. We are nothing if not adaptable. We just need you to give us a freaking break. We’re going to be cleaning up your mess for the rest of our lives, how about you let us do it our way?
HOW’S THIS FOR SOCIAL UNREST?
sovereignman.com
by SIMON BLACK October 18, 2011
Phnom Penh, Cambodia
In his seminal work The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, William Shirer recounts how the struggling Weimar Republic printed its way out of reparation debt from World War I. Out-of-control printing caused the German mark to fall from 75 per dollar in 1921, to more than 4 billion just 3-years later.
Talk about chaos. After a brief period of credit-fueled economic respite, the onset of the global depression in 1929 had people in the streets clamoring for change. Hitler’s National Socialism promised the world… and under such economic distress, people believed him.
There are two important lessons here. First is that hyperinflation comes very quickly. Confidence languishes for months, even years… until one day the currency begins to slide, slowly at first, then exponentially.
The second is what followed. Economic disaster begets social unrest, the two are inextricably linked. Populist rebellions and roving gangs became a constant presence in the republic.
It’s at this point, when people are really hurting, they’re the most impressionable. They’re looking for somebody, anybody, to lead them out of the turmoil. What they got was a charismatic leader with a grand plan.
Here in Cambodia, a similar story unfolded in the 1970s.
Read more »
