Not sure where this came from, was sent to me by email. An excellent cartoon.
Where I differ from so many of my commenters is in seeing all three caricatures as representing a real type of deeply unpleasant person involved in what has gone so wrong in our ultra-materialist society. Most of my commenters view the first two that way and the third as a noble class warrior fulfilling a legitimate desire for material goods (and killing pensioners and burning families out of their homes). Or some such bollocks.
apologies also, the ‘r’ fell off my earth type writer in transit, and is waiting to be replaced. Wendy, I see you also can be added to the list of those sympathetic to some smash and burn movings forward. I trust that you will also open the door of your abode of own free will when my less than salubrious friends arrive later in the lunar calender. Do you by any chance have a copy of the music of Hansen?
HG, sorry, I don’t think I have any Hansen, but you may find something you like here:
.
http://magnatune.com/
.
HG, it is not my ‘photo, it is part of the WikiMedia commons, a repository of media that is free to share.
.
If you have been gaining your impressions of Earth from our television transmissions, I warn you that most of it is commercial, which means that its fundamental purpose is to exploit. Humans and other Earthly beings also have strong tendencies towards altruism. However, the altruistic tendencies do not draw so much attention to themselves.
.
http://www.fsf.org/
I do not know of this MIX organisation. I have a summary digest of your protecting forces which includes: stagecoach, mumsnet, and the penguin cafe orchestra. Are you saying that groups of sinister people plot in secret to subvert the threads because the threads are so dangerous to the stability of your world? This is incredible; I never thought it would be so easy to make a first attack. Quick, I must rush to the viewing room where I hope to see the walls of your citadels already rocking from their tops.
“Most of my commenters view the first two that way and the third as a noble class warrior”
Utter bollocks, not worse debating, all three are led by the greed system we created, mere puppets to internationaql finance and conglomerates. Thanks for speaking your mind David, my sympathies, as long as you have not slaughtered and maimed to get your business off the ground, and you are not raping the earth resopurces for mere financial glutton, I think you have every right to rely on your obviously excellent workforce to grow your company and business, giving them a stake is a good idea though, it makes for more innovative minds.
Should one give a company to those who want to make it flourish if oneslef does not have the inclination to work?, fine by those who benefit from it, and one’s personal bank acount, but making it compulsory?
Multinational companies and banks are running rings round Governments, they are acutely ddifferent to Davids small business, using globalisation to rid themselves of sovereign states, collapse their economies, steal resources as fast as they can, and they own politician, because they are easy to nobble, all neatly centralised and simple to catch, they have em’dripping off their fingers like fat of a hog roast.
Scrap globalisation and start controlling the capital that leaves the country, how about an investment tax, i.e. money that has to be guaranteed to create employment, apprenticeships, how about getting rid of student fees, instead promote business creation within schools universities and charge past alumni.
My idea of charging university alumni, going back to 1970 and deducting a fee from those who made it in life, lets say 1% of their income/annum, or 05.%, its debatable, to enable students to study for free, does not seem to find any takers her.
The great haves against the non have’s war has started proper and the first tails are already pulled between legs.
Nice word by Mr. Mc Donell, Paul, not much said about child poverty doubling during the last ten years under nolabour. We shall see how he gets on with Labours hirarchy and the re establishment of clause 4.
I am quite disappointed to see repeated posts from Craig in which it is suggested that the core readership has been of the view that the looters are revolutionary. I have kept my distance for this reason: somehow the tone of the writing has become depressingly reactionary even though I am aware Craig (and most people here) are in favour of progressive solutions.
.
So, I fear that there has been a misunderstanding of the views of the readership – though of course we are only commentators, and in our “democracy” little people like us are quite used to having our views misrepresented and ignored. However since I have inadvertently stayed away I am not sure I made my perspective known. For those who might be marginally interested in it – and perhaps even for Craig’s eventual reassessment – it is this.
.
Certainly all three caricatures presented above are criminal, and one might add the imperialists pressing red buttons to their thieving line-up. I am in favour of a people’s revolution, but the actions of the rioters were in no way deliberately political, despite some voices on the far Left (that I am usually sympathetic to) insisting that they could be. I am cynical about the opportunity for reform within the Parliamentary system, which is why I am disinclined to attack the Left as mean spiritedly as the Daily Telegraph (and believe me, they’ve had a field day).
.
But the mistake Craig makes about the mood of the progressive left is assuming the emphasis on avoiding boot-camp responses is intended to sympathise with looting and theft. I am not of that view. But I think one needs to understand the looters environment, which is not the same thing; and for the avoidance of doubt, their environment is one is which materialism has been foisted upon them (not their fault) and dishonesty has been the core value of people who are educated enough to know better (again, not the fault of the impoverished classes).
.
This is not intended to be “touchy-feely” and “namby pampy” (add more playground insults as you will) – it is a determination of what works. It is also a determination that investment in the public sector and a massive containment of corporatism and neoliberal economics is required to bring a sense of fair play back to British (or, even, Western) society. Of course, the middle and privileged classes appear to want to lob families out on the street, or cut their benefits completely – even if this results in an increase in crime. The relatively comfortable really do seem to want to cut off their own notes to spite their faces.
.
There has been plenty of talk about the exercise of personal responsibility, which I agree with to a limited extent. But the view on the genuine Left – entirely unfashionable in the mainstream left and in New Labour – is that people do not have the same ability to exercise the same “amount” of responsibility. If a person has experienced consistently good parenting, they will have an improved ability to make their own moral decisions, and to do “the right thing” against the grain of popular dishonesty. Additionally, if a person has not been substantially disadvantaged by poverty, their moral compass – and indeed their mental health – will on average be boosted in comparison to someone who can barely put good food on the table. The point some days ago about being immersed in an intellectual environment is likely a factor too. The combination of these factors that will create “good people” of course is so complex it tends towards chaos theory – which is presumably why the field of parenting experts is so divided. I am not however arguing that those who have been rioting should be let off the hook entirely, so I will call this theory “partially diminished responsibility”.
.
In the main, the thievery and violence came from a class of people who have been bought off cheaply by welfare and then abandoned by the state. And by society too, I think, given some sections of the national mood. It seems that rather than tackling the core mechanisms for corruption, it is easier to dole out benefits – make the taxpayer responsible rather than the companies that dictate how society works. Where is the national living wage? Nowhere, of course. Where are the youth clubs? Dead or dying, thanks to successive cuts and already poor levels of investment. Drugs and alcohol programmes? Support for adoptions and broken families, which disproportionately hit the impoverished classes? Systems to give us some meaningful f*cking democracy?
.
This is why the class of the looters needs to be understood deeply. It is going to require a great deal of care and concern from ordinary people in England, and I am concerned that is in short supply at the moment. Of course, the largely reactionary media (again) are happy to whip people up into a hang-em-high fervour. Which suggests to me that some of the comfortable classes may have been lucky enough to have experienced all of the above benefits except the intellectual stimulation, and that even the “hard pressed middle class” have swapped their brain for an opportunity to spit on the disadvantaged.
@Andrew Sheerin May I point you to Robert Spencer’s work, and this little example of looting in plain sight. http://is.gd/qoaQOQ if thats not looting or freeloading then I beg to differ. Frankly thats paying someone who came here three years ago a salary net of tax more than £200000 gross You or I would have to earn £200000 pounds per annum in order to afford that mansion to live in. Even established consultants in the NHS dont get that much, unless they work privately.
I might also point out that I have no irrational fear of xenos Ie strangers or foreigners or as Wikipedia would put it thus “deep-rooted antipathy towards foreigners (Oxford English Dictionary; OED), unreasonable fear or hatred of the unfamiliar, especially people of other races (Webster’s)”
Yes I fear Islam and what it may do to the British way of life You can call me a patriot.
I make rational decisions based on truth and research around that. You can call me a heretic if you like, but I do not have a PhD sadly, No I have two degrees both bachelors in medicine and surgery, and I know that you would google me so then you would accuse me of being unwell in whatever format you would wish to do so.
Yes my health is a problem, but it doesn’t affect my moral compass nor interfere with my ability to read, digest and come to a decent conclusion ( if it did I wouldn’t be here, replying to your post which is an obvious flame, and I might have several former patients after me which of course is not the case as none of them have brought forward any complaints in my entire career to date. You see I tend to listen to what they have to say and I act accordingly with their wishes unless those are abjectly stupid and liable to cause them harm or they are trying to cheat the system which I cannot approve their demands for).
Flame on
@Suhayl Do you understand what Taqiyya is? If so then dispense with your mock outrage and your daily wail mentality. 250 million Hindus have been slaughtered by the Muslims in the last 1200 years and documented historically also. Its just not taught anywhere.
The Quran is full of violence and hatred towards the unbeliever. You know it if you have actually read the Quran and read the abrogating verses that completely destroy the peaceful ones.
Yes I live in a shoebox but its my shoebox and its fully paid for I don’t have debts to anyone.
And yes I have issue with you saying “If not, perhaps then, you may wish to audition for a regular column in The Daily Mail. You might get to sit next to Melanie Philips at parties in the House of Lords.”
You know nothing about me (apart from what you can glean off Google)
Hi Rohen,
.
Personally, I’d not be inclined to posit articles from the Daily Mail as evidence to back up a view ;). It is anonymously reported from the depths of the DM lairs that there is an unspoken policy to pull sympathetic stories if they are about people “of the dusky hue”. Of course, if it is a negative article, then the more disadvantaged or minority individuals, the better! In any case, the story may of course be nonsense – I wonder how either of us could check?
.
I am impressed that you managed to squeeze a negative reference to Islam into a topic in which religion isn’t in any way relevant – but then other people have rode in on their hobby horses as well. Since I am not in the habit of using “flame” as a verb, let me assure you instead that my response to you is not intended to be inflammatory or provocative. Actually, you’ll find most people here happy to swap ideas with you. We may even be able to reach some middle ground.
.
I should be particularly happy if you would respond to my theory of partially diminished responsibility I set out in my last comment. (I should be precise – it’s not my theory as such, but I’ve given it a name so it can be more easily discussed). Do you think you could come around to the view that people who are consistently disadvantaged in one way or another might behave less reasonably than people who have had it all? Or, to look at it another way, could you be more angry with the dishonesty of bankers and MPs, given that they – on average – have had many more material comforts made available to them throughout their lives?
.
Incidentally, I generally caution those on the Right that anecdotal evidence can be misleading, as in “I came from an impoverished family where there were a hundred and fifty of us living in a shoebox in the middle of the road, and I still got a good job and pay taxes (etc. ad nauseum)”. I like to refer to this as “a statistical test with a sample size of one”, which should make it obvious why it is useless!
Wow, what an odd coincidence. My post crossed with Rohen’s second one above, and we both appear to be talking about living in shoeboxes. Neither had I already read Suhayl’s post about shoeboxes. Perhaps I am getting more prescient as I get older!
HG Alien, this is ridiculous! If you have the technology to get here, mastery of energy sufficient to cross the starless void, surely there is nothing you could possibly want from us. Even our limited technology suggests that any matter can be synthesised given sufficient energy. Even the planet itself can hardly be of much value. Share our orbit, build a habitat from the material of the asteroids which don’t require lifting from our gravity well. We can set up transportation schedules and engage in cultural exchange.
Jon Thank you for making me laugh and cool my ardour.
Yes the Daily Mail has its detractors, certainly. As for hobby horses please don’t get me started on religion. I have learnt things in the last three weeks that I wish I hadn’t. Ignorance truly is bliss.
The story that you refer to, Originally 5 and 7 Hilltop were a care home registered in Camden as a C2 grade home. Ie not dwelling houses, They were sold to a business man and he retains one of them and the one that is inhabited by the aforementioned Somalis is at number 7 I think and was sold for over 1.5 million in 2008. There are planning applications which reference this and you can see all the associated evidence at http://is.gd/AUbhuI You can even find the address and google streetview of the area.
That having been swiftly dealt with lets deal with partially diminished responsibility
“Do you think you could come around to the view that people who are consistently disadvantaged in one way or another might behave less reasonably than people who have had it all? Or, to look at it another way, could you be more angry with the dishonesty of bankers and MPs, given that they – on average – have had many more material comforts made available to them throughout their lives?”
Oh definitely, They are privileged beyond belief yet they take more and more. ( does that express my anger?) ( On certain libertarian blogs its the piano wire and lamppost routine for those politicians who have sold us out to the EU) You can’t really get more angrier than that.
They(bankers and MPS) only do it because they know they can get away with it. Its almost as if they have carte blanche to do it, and we all know that the bank of England rules the country because thats where the Government debt is held ( paying the piper calling the tune)
The disadvantaged in society have every right to be angry, Especially those who have been here since before the second world war. They were promised better times and the government has systematically taken it away. Even those who have come here in recent times cannot get jobs, if they wish to work. You even have the education system dumbed down so that so many school leavers are not fit for work, and there are myriad causes behind that too. It unravels like a big fraying knot impossible to ascertain which thread is the right one.
And then you have the likes of the GMC who consistently target ethnic minorities of both dusky hue and Eastern European extraction for speaking out of turn at work and causing a merry upset with their outspoken views especially if they have been born here and brought up and expected parity with their more anglo saxonish colleagues with whom they went to medical school with ( I use it as an example of many doctors I know and also for Suhayl another ex doctor. You see after I gave him a piece of my mind here I went and looked him up properly)
It is when people are not interested in learning English and integrating or even assimilating into their new countries that I take slight offence. It worked for my brother My father made sure that he couldn’t speak any language other than English, He tries to speak Punjabi but we both speak it with a pronounced Yorkshire accent. I even speak French fluently with a Yorkshire accent.
I think that covers your question… or we can debate further?
Dr Rohen Kapur, what in the name of Mr Spock and the massed forces of the Klingons, Marcus Aurelius, Roky Erickson, Romulus and Remus are you talking about?
.
Now, where was that Monty Python sketch about shoeboxes…
.
youtube.com/watch?v=-eDaSvRO9xA&feature=related
.
Is this where you live, Dr Rohen Kapur? In a shoebox? Are you a product of bacterial mitosis? Do you have a brass plate on your door? Ah! Perhaps you are the British Mitochondrion of which (also Dr) Alfred Burdett has dreamed, in deepest, multiculturalist, multiracial, Canada, this past 60+ years of the Age of Kali.
.
Goodness Gracious Me.
.
Dr Rohen Kapur! Ah, how are, you, Old Fruity?
.
youtube.com/watch?v=zc_hpdvAdVI
.
Good Lord! As though it weren’t amusing enough to have the forces of the Far Right English Pinglish Oi! Racists (NOT you, Old Mark, please note!) and the White Nationalist Holy Joe Sol Great Beast Aleister Crowley worshippers, and the Jihadist Caliphantist Islamist Groin-scratching Weirdie-Beardies invading one’s discourses, one now has the Great Hindutva Aryan-Varyan BJP Hindu Vishnu Parishad RSS murderers of Mahatma Gandhi poking their little feet in through the door!
.
Welcome, all dear Fascists, to your collective asylum. Do have a cup of tea. You are most welcome.
Jon, as I said, you are fast approaching bodhisattva level. Telepathy is the least of it, man!
.
!All Power to Shoeboxes!
I knew you might come back with a little retort like that so I had the pleasure of reading part of 99 Kissograms. Then reading the index for Burning Mirror where you describe Azaad Kashmir as the part of Kashmir not occupied by India. How very dare you.
For your information and for your history lesson let me enlighten you. Partition happened at this time about 64 years to the day in fact. However Kashmir as a princely state had the option to join either India or Pakistan.
Jinnah thought that it was a slam dunk, but no the Ruler of Jammu and Kashmir (* Jammu being a Hindu province which is where my forbears came from ) He elected to join the Indian Union two months later in October. Pakistan immediately invaded. Therefore Pakistan is the aggressor and is illegally occupying Kashmir.
Get your sodding history straight before putting it in literary works that you sell.
As for Azaad Kashmir It basically has occupied Jammu and caused the Hindu population there to flee to India. You’re a doctor for pete’s sake can’t you read proper history? Or must you fall prey to altered history aswell?
Sorry Craig…. Wildly off topic but as today is 15th August… well… I see that Suhayl has to resort to wild humour and satire rather than trying to rationally debate with me.
Dr Rohen Kapur, thank you for reading my work. It is immensely gratifying for a writer to receive such detailed feedback from one’s readers. Do keep up the good work!
.
Happy Independence Day.
.
But tell me, referring to your original post, do you live in a house, or a shoebox? And is your family, large or small? And are you, or are you not, descended from immigrants?
.
I live in a flat, (its a shoebox) Its cramped and yes I can understand Glasgae speech I went to uni in Scotland.
Depends on your definition of family In one sense extended I have a huge family that I can trace back nine generations and that has over one hundred people strong, but as to my immediate family you can call it nuclear.
Depends on your definition of immigrant, I’m a fourth generation on one side Fourth generation British subject. But get this I can also be an NRI as one parent was born in Undivided India. Grandfather was head of CID in the police force for undivided Punjab under the British.
Most fourth generation immigrants do not refer to themselves as such… Nigella Lawson is a fourth generation immigrant from Lithuania.
As for you I would have thought a 49 year old to have put such childish comments as the youtubes that you put up, away a long time ago.
HG Alien thingummy,
Consider yourself welcome. But since I’m not sure which side of the Eurasian landmass I’m on, and Ghost pointed out that I might be Japanese, you’ll have to find me via my IP address.
.
There’s an intercom on my door. Speak to me wirelessly. If you can’t speak, shove a note in the letterbox.
Rohen, that’s really interesting. Thanks for sharing that with us. My great-uncle was a High Court judge in undivided Punjab. So, your grandfather and my great-uncle must’ve worked together. I think that says a lot and it is something we ought to hold onto amidst all the madness. Sorry about the puerile humour – you came on here attacking me out of the blue, satire and humour was the only response. You take it easy, man.
Dr Kapur, Suhayl, please, if you must argue, please do so constructively. Your disagreement over Kashmir would seem to straddle a grey area; as far as I understood, Kashmir is disputed territory between two nuclear power nations, and maybe the people who actually live there have complex feelings. Dr Kapur, I think you’ll find that Suhayl has plenty of criticism of the current power structures in Pakistan. If you’ll both chill out, I think things will be OK.
.
Things have got very shaken up here recently. We had a huge influx of aggressive racists after the Breivik massacre. They’ve gone now, so let’s hope that things calm down.
Yeah, Clark, you’re right on all counts. Mellow, mellow…
Ah, Suhayl, I see that our comments crossed, and you’re already calming things down. Thanks.
.
My alien conversationalist seems to have left. Damn, I guess I’m going to remain stuck on this ball of rock after all.
Don’t worry, Clark, they will come in the night, with long eyes and David Duchovny – or better still Gillian Anderson.
Clark , Kashmir has been fought over for generations, Since 800 AD probably.
The current situation isn’t particularly safe there. I would love to visit but its just too dangerous.
Interesting Suhayl Where? Punjab pre partition was as big as France or thereabouts My grandfather was based in Lahore and did an LLB later on.
Yep, I think my great-uncle too was based in Lahore. Small world, eh, Rohen?
.
This is probably not the place to discuss Kashmir in detail – the thread is about ‘Broken Britain’ – and as you know, it’s a huge subject in itself, suffice to say that I am aware that it is an extremely complex situation. I hope one day it will be peaceful again and you will be able to visit what is a beautiful place.
.
For the record, I think that the Partition of India was a hugely damaging and unnecessary historical event. I wish it hadn’t happened. I wish India had remained united. But it did, we have to accept that and to be simplistic for a moment, now the two countries need to get together and iron-out their differences over the negotiating table, compromise, cooperate and get on with what they ought to be focusing on, which is of course helping their people lift themselves out of poverty, illiteracy, etc.
.
I’ve posted this before, but here is an illuminating book by Ayesha Siddiqa on one of the barriers to comprehensive peace in the region:
.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/business/04shelf.html
.
And here are a couple of good sites for general interest on South Asia:
.
http://www.tehelka.com/
.
http://www.thefridaytimes.com/beta2/tft/index.php
.
Anyway, better get back to ‘Broken Britain’. Last week, when the riots began, I predicted that David Cameron would attempt to sound profound and statesmanlike and I brought up Disraeli’s ‘Two Nations’ – and now, here we go with ‘Broken Britain’, following-on from his fatuous and derivative ‘Big Society’ (pinched from LBJ’s 1960s’s ‘Great Society’ slogan). It’s all hot air. We know where Cameron’s (and Clegg’s, and Millband’s) allegiances reside and it’s not with the people of Britain. They’re a bunch of used car salesmen who can sell only one brand of car – the used (failed) car being the deregulated economic system which facilitates the parasitisation of entire countries by the institutions of global finance.
Jon,
Thanks for those thoughtful responses.
Broken Britain that has always orientated itself to broken America. Even this young toddler and his parents had to circumnavigate the powers that exist, in the end they had enough with pharmaceutical side effects.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rWZtnY_Tp4&feature=share
The power of international pharmaceutical companies are behind prohibitions, otherwise cancer UK would have been knocking on Government doors a long time ago.
I’m going to quote a paragraph from a speech by a politician in 1971 You will of course know who it is but it seems strangely prescient currently. Either that or I’m having a bad reaction to having consumed so much literature over the last few days, and yes its on topic.
“… millions of people believe they are watching, helpless and not so much unregarded as positively derided: the deliberate dismantling of the frontiers of decency, morality and respect, with a view to producing far-reaching and indeterminate alterations in society itself. They do not believe that these and other phenomena, such as the spread of drugs or the undermining of the universities, are simply reflections of a change taking place spontaneously and generally. They believe that intention is at work, and that it is the intention of a small and elusive but powerful minority.”
And having done a quick google search on it I find that someone already posted this paragraph to your post on August 8th
Let me add a rider.
“All this is now changed. In just those questions which are of most crucial and lasting importance, debate and conflict between the political parties is conspicuous by its non-existence. Instead, the electorate find themselves confronted, at elections and between elections, by the bland front of open agreement or tacit connivance between the two great parties in the state.”
Dr Rohen Kapur, I agree that there is little to choose between the political parties. Regarding the “small and elusive but powerful minority”, my opinion is that they are in plain sight, but unrecognised; they are the corporations. Not their CEOs or their boards or their shareholders, but the corporations themselves. Just as an organism imposes its order upon the cells of which it consists, so a corporate structure replaces at need the individuals that comprise it in its perpetual pursuit of profit and market dominance. This is why the political parties so resemble each other; they are all subservient to the corporations.