# Rioting - how far will it get you?



## ska invita (Jul 26, 2010)

To some, the reason we haven't had a 'revolution' in this country is because we were a couple of riots short before the energy fizzled out. Next time comrades, they say, the riot will be big enough that we'll really overthrow the system etc.

I'm not saying that riots have no effect - they clearly do help either change a particular policy, and at best bring in reforms, but does anyone here really make the case that it's riots that will bring in the promised land? 

Of course it depends on the place and time, but right here right now it would appear to me that at best they serve is as a modest reformist engine. Worth looking at Greece: week long anarchist riots, general strikes around the clock, financial system imploding - but what is the outcome? Too soon to say, but I don't think we are about to see a revolutionary change in government.

Thats at best - at worst they serve to reinforce the state, and particularly police power. I was reading about dutch anarcho's The Provos - one of their actions led to a riot. One of the main provos was asked about rioting, and he said he was against it and the riot had nothing to do with them. He said unless you have a full-scale coup all a riot does is give police new powers to oppress. Hard to argue against that - a quick look over 100 years of policing goes from having a cape to looking like a stormtrooper with all the techno-backup you can dream of. Public outbursts are used to justify the stepping up...

So is it fair to say that unless you're planning a coup, theres little reason to hope for a riot: at best your might achieve a small reform, more likely you reinforce the role of the police, and paint your political ideology as one with no concrete ideas beyond breaking stuff?


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## Cruxby (Jul 27, 2010)

About as far as the local nick maybe. On the odd occasions I've been in the vicinity of a riot it seems to just piss off the locals and alienate them from your cause. There are exeptions where riots have been the expression of the anger of a community towards its oppressors but I doubt these situations are about to occur in a revolutionary sense. 
I think maybe it's difference between converging on a location to combat the police/military and the more organic moment when a large group of people feel they cant take any more and have to push beyond the boundaries of simply protesting.


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## Spanky Longhorn (Jul 27, 2010)

ska invita said:


> To some, the reason we haven't had a 'revolution' in this country is because we were a couple of riots short before the energy fizzled out?



Who believes this?

Would you like to provide some links or named quotes to back up this assertion?

I mean I've been active in politics for over ten years and I've never come across such a belief.


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## Pickman's model (Jul 27, 2010)

ska invita said:


> Hard to argue against that - a quick look over 100 years of policing goes from having a cape to looking like a stormtrooper with all the techno-backup you can dream of. Public outbursts are used to justify the stepping up...


 have you looked back over the previous hundred years or do you think the victorians did fuck all rioting?


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## Zonk (Jul 27, 2010)

We've been rioting all the way back to Boudicca and beyond...nowadays however everyone goes home for tea when the SWAPPIE stewards direct them to...

Stick the scum on burning barricades in future and go for the prize..


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## Pickman's model (Jul 27, 2010)

ska invita said:


> So is it fair to say that unless you're planning a coup, theres little reason to hope for a riot: at best your might achieve a small reform, more likely you reinforce the role of the police, and paint your political ideology as one with no concrete ideas beyond breaking stuff?


no


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## Bahnhof Strasse (Jul 27, 2010)

Looting. Can't beat a free TV.


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## krtek a houby (Jul 27, 2010)

Rioting doesn't change anything, imho. Sure, it can hilight injustices and intolerable situations but after all the correct concerns have been shown, the media usually hold sway and people tut tut.

I mean, beyond sites like this, do people out there really care? I get the feeling that there's much more apathy than passion about doing something to change the status quo. And I'm probably as guilty as the next person - having been disillusioned to the stage where I think nothing's ever going to change. And ironically, witnessing the squabbles on these threads has contributed to my own apathy.

Argh.


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## el-ahrairah (Jul 27, 2010)

When the British riot, they get proxies to do it for them.

During the poll tax middle england turned out to cheer on the working class rioters.

The same instinct was there during the anti-war years.  In some cases anarchist groups or individuals i know of were being asked to orchestrate violent resistance on behalf of  embarrassed middle class people.  Of course, some of them were probably state agents, but in a number of cases they were people for whom their prejudices about anarchists represented hope for someone to do something.  In the end the movement was co-opted by liberals and swappies, people who genuinely believed marching from a to b would change things or people who had a vested interest in the failure of the movement.  middle english rebels were so disappointed in the anarchists then, by our failure to riot on demand we lost a lot of face


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## Blagsta (Jul 27, 2010)

I don't know anyone in the SWP who believes that "marching from a to b would change things".  

What are you on about?

I don't know anyone who thinks rioting will change things either.


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## fractionMan (Jul 27, 2010)

Bahnhof Strasse said:


> Looting. Can't beat a free TV.


 
We got a free tv out of the brixton riots, but only cos they burnt down the tv rental shop.


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## laptop (Jul 27, 2010)

> Rioting - how far will it get you?



That would depend entirely on the state of the rest of the constellation of forces, wouldn't it?


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## stanie (Jul 27, 2010)

of course rioting changes things. to what extent, is the question.


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## DotCommunist (Jul 27, 2010)

well on a purely aesthetic level it is always nice to see coppers running AWAY from crowds instead of AT them. *hefts a half-brick*


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## N_igma (Jul 27, 2010)

Fuck all. Rioting is almost always sporadic and localised. Police will always have the resources to deal with. Orchestrated campaigns of violence on the other hand....


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## el-ahrairah (Jul 30, 2010)

Blagsta said:


> I don't know anyone in the SWP who believes that "marching from a to b would change things".
> 
> What are you on about?
> 
> I don't know anyone who thinks rioting will change things either.



no, the SWP are people with a vested interest in the failure of the movement.  the liberals are the ones who think they can change things by marching.


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## Blagsta (Jul 30, 2010)

what vested interest is that?


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## behemoth (Jul 31, 2010)

Rioting or voting BNP are probably the quickest ways to get government to pour money into your area.


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## Doctor Carrot (Jul 31, 2010)

jer said:


> I mean, beyond sites like this, do people out there really care? I get the feeling that there's much more apathy than passion about doing something to change the status quo. And I'm probably as guilty as the next person - having been disillusioned to the stage where I think nothing's ever going to change. And ironically, witnessing the squabbles on these threads has contributed to my own apathy.
> 
> Argh.


 
I don't think this is correct, I think people do care but due to a barrage of consumerist propaganda they feel atomised and marginalised and tend to have this "Meh, i'll just keep my head down and get on with it, nothing's going to change anyway" attitude.  I'm guilty of that too but these feelings are exactly what's intended.  I think the majority of people have pretty sane and progressive political views and know this system is unsustainable and soul less.  

Does this change anything? Not at the moment but it has in the past, feminism, environmentalism, solidarity, anti sweat shop organisations, anti globalisation movements etc have all sprung up in the last 50 years, which is fairly recent when you consider capitalism is around 400 years old.  Of course these movements haven't fundamentally changed anything but they have eroded things somewhat and I think that's the best one can hope for, gradual erosion in the form of small victories.  Whether that erosion will be enough to do anything before we blow ourselves up and burn down the planet is another matter.


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## stuff_it (Jul 31, 2010)

Coups rarely succed unless the police or army or both are already on your side, at least in part.





Rioting's still good fun though....


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## Bakunin (Jul 31, 2010)

I can't help being curious as to whether there'll be another one in Bradford in a couple of weeks, assuming that the EDL actually show up in enough numbers.


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## tar1984 (Jul 31, 2010)

I'd like to be in a riot for the lulz.  The police are a worthy target anyway.


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## spawnofsatan (Jul 31, 2010)

tar1984 said:


> I'd like to be in a riot for the lulz.  The police are a worthy target anyway.



You wouldn't if you'ld actually been in one, if you want it for the lulz join the hibs casuals.


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## emanymton (Jul 31, 2010)

About the only sensible comment on the thread.


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## tar1984 (Jul 31, 2010)

I was being flippant, but really, there's a difference between fighting against fellow working-class football supporters and fighting against the heavy-handed enforcers of capitalist state policy.  

Neither will achieve much, but at least one target is deserving.


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## emanymton (Jul 31, 2010)

Opps, just noticed I meant to quote laptops post above. I got you where being flippant.

I'll takes this as a sign to get to bed.


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## DotCommunist (Jul 31, 2010)

A riot is good for the body politic, like a fever alerts you to some infection so does a riot alert you to some societal infection, like say for instance a tory government. And really, ask yourself this. Does it not make your heart sing to see OB fleeing in disorder? And to those who want to moralise about rioters fucking up thier own estates- what if your estate is so fucked up already that it makes no odds?

There is poetry in a molotov.


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## tar1984 (Jul 31, 2010)

DotCommunist said:


> Does it not make your heart sing to see OB fleeing in disorder?



Every single time


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## emanymton (Jul 31, 2010)

It has to be said there is something special about a look of fear in a riot cops eyes.


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## ViolentPanda (Aug 1, 2010)

tar1984 said:


> I'd like to be in a riot for the lulz.  The police are a worthy target anyway.


Having experienced riots on both sides, you're usually too pumped full of adrenaline to lol at the time. It's usually afterwards, when you've wound down, that you realise that parts of it were a laugh.


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## ViolentPanda (Aug 1, 2010)

tar1984 said:


> I was being flippant, but really, there's a difference between fighting against fellow working-class football supporters and fighting against the heavy-handed enforcers of capitalist state policy.
> 
> Neither will achieve much, but at least one target is deserving.


 
It's foolish to believe that riots don't achieve much, as they've been an effective way of gaining gradual ground for the w/c for at least 2,000 years. What we *shouldn't* expect is for civil disorder to always have an immediate effect. Sometimes it needs to be built on, sometimes not.


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## ViolentPanda (Aug 1, 2010)

DotCommunist said:


> A riot is good for the body politic, like a fever alerts you to some infection so does a riot alert you to some societal infection, like say for instance a tory government. And really, ask yourself this. Does it not make your heart sing to see OB fleeing in disorder? And to those who want to moralise about rioters fucking up thier own estates- what if your estate is so fucked up already that it makes no odds?
> 
> There is poetry in a molotov.


And, if you have any sense, petrol rather than vodka.


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## Bakunin (Aug 1, 2010)

ViolentPanda said:


> And, if you have any sense, petrol rather than vodka.


 
And, if you chuck polystyrene or washing powder in with the petrol, it turns into a sticky sludge that works in a similar fashion to napalm.

Which is nice.


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## DotCommunist (Aug 1, 2010)

ghetto napalm is cheap and that but I really wouldn't lay it on my worst enemy. Like whitr phos it is one of those weapons I think should not be used. Things get ugly when you start with the nasty gear.


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## DotCommunist (Aug 1, 2010)

oh and the state has the monopoly on violence. Expedient weaponry is the key and you aren't getting it from volounteer forces. We just have to wait. Sooner or later a resource war or an eco fuck-up will push us to the point and some bollocks gov ministerial silliness will light the match. I can't fucking wait.


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## Bakunin (Aug 1, 2010)

DotCommunist said:


> ghetto napalm is cheap and that but I really wouldn't lay it on my worst enemy. Like whitr phos it is one of those weapons I think should not be used. Things get ugly when you start with the nasty gear.


 
Does that mean that the recipe for home-made Sarin I've got is off the agenda?


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## Catherine Lech (Aug 1, 2010)

ViolentPanda said:


> It's foolish to believe that riots don't achieve much, as they've been an effective way of gaining gradual ground for the w/c for at least 2,000 years. What we *shouldn't* expect is for civil disorder to always have an immediate effect. Sometimes it needs to be built on, sometimes not.





Is there any evidence for this, at least in the modern context? As far as I can see, riots in working class communities usually create space for the bullies, thugs and thieves to expand their influence.


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## Catherine Lech (Aug 1, 2010)

DotCommunist said:


> oh and the state has the monopoly on violence. Expedient weaponry is the key and you aren't getting it from volounteer forces. We just have to wait. Sooner or later a resource war or an eco fuck-up will push us to the point and some bollocks gov ministerial silliness will light the match. I can't fucking wait.





However justified the cause, the likeliest outcome in such a scenario is the triumph of the strong and healthy over the weak, sick and powerless; arbitrary tyranny over law, order and humane values.


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## Lo Siento. (Aug 1, 2010)

like with demos, it depends on the context. A demo can be effective if it's a demonstration of strength, an act that reveals the solidarity and numbers of the protesters. A riot can be genuinely threatening to the authority if it looks like the tip of the iceberg, that stronger forces lurk behind.


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## Lo Siento. (Aug 1, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> However justified the cause, the likeliest outcome in such a scenario is *the triumph of the strong and healthy over the weak, sick and powerless*; arbitrary tyranny over law, order and humane values.


 

Is that not the point of the system we live under anyway?


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## DotCommunist (Aug 1, 2010)

yep. We can have humane values after we have washed the streets clean with the blood of those who take them from us day in day out.

^^^oh bloodthirsty.

Mut be off to bard it so no responses till evening now!...


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## Catherine Lech (Aug 1, 2010)

Lo Siento. said:


> Is that not the point of the system we live under anyway?





Maybe it is, ultimately-but under the situation described it would all happen a lot quicker and more ferociously. 'You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone.'


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## Catherine Lech (Aug 1, 2010)

DotCommunist said:


> yep. We can have humane values after we have washed the streets clean with the blood of those who take them from us day in day out.
> 
> ^^^oh bloodthirsty.





The trouble is that the chances of it all happening that way are precisely zero.

Who are these people who take the streets from us on a daily basis anyway? Every day when I look out of the window, the streets are still there. The only people who occasionally make me feel unsafe on them are the kind of thugs and bullies to whom I've refered above.


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## Catherine Lech (Aug 1, 2010)

Lo Siento. said:


> like with demos, it depends on the context. A demo can be effective if it's a demonstration of strength, an act that reveals the solidarity and numbers of the protesters. A riot can be genuinely threatening to the authority if it looks like the tip of the iceberg, that stronger forces lurk behind.





And when the authorities are more than aware that no such forces are lurking?


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## DotCommunist (Aug 1, 2010)

all revolutions are inconceivable til they aren't. I love the absolute confidence- mystic meg


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## Catherine Lech (Aug 1, 2010)

DotCommunist said:


> all revolutions are inconceivable til they aren't. I love the absolute confidence- mystic meg





That may be the case, but no revolution will result from the kind of scenario being described in this thread. History shows that if you destroy the rule of law, tyranny comes riding in.


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## DotCommunist (Aug 1, 2010)

vangaurdism. Whose law? whose take on history?


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## Catherine Lech (Aug 1, 2010)

Perhaps you can point to some cases where the destruction of law and order hasn't resulted in what I've said? Are there any revolutions where a vanguard hasn't come to the fore? I'm not saying that there were not very good reasons why such situations arose, nor that the outcome has been absolutely the same everywhere. But it's difficult to imagine that a stategy reliant on rioting and the creation of chaos would not bring either arbitrary rule or, much more likely, mass repression by the existing authorities, particularly as their option begin to narrow over the years ahead. 

Whose law? Everybody knows that the law is skewed towards the wealthy and influential. But it's the same law that every one of us relies on for protection. Personally I'd rather be judged in the courts we know than by a bunch of cowboys who think there's something admirable about setting people on fire.


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## DotCommunist (Aug 1, 2010)

if I mention cuba or venezuala I sort of lose right? 

I'm an authoritarian commie at heart so of course I do believe in rule of law, but our law not thiers. Rioting doesn't have to be a constant but it can be a temp. bridge from here to there.


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## Catherine Lech (Aug 1, 2010)

DotCommunist said:


> if I mention cuba or venezuala I sort of lose right?
> 
> I'm an authoritarian commie at heart so of course I do believe in rule of law, but our law not thiers. Rioting doesn't have to be a constant but it can be a temp. bridge from here to there.




What about Cuba and Venezuala? One is a revolution led, luckily for Cubans, by relatively benign and well-intentioned leaders. The other is a capitalist society in which another well-intentioned group are attempting to bring about positive change in a carefully controlled manner, with mixed results. Neither society arose out of a prolonged bout of rioting. If prolonged mass rioting were to break out in either place now, US proxies intending to undo all the positive achievements would come riding in. 

There has been precious little rule of law where 'authoritarian commies' have come to power. What protection their citizens did enjoy arose from those aspects of their law that most closely resembled ours. One of the first things Khruschev did, for instance, was to massively dilute earlier methods of arbitrary rule and replace them with a semblance of West European-style law.


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## ViolentPanda (Aug 1, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> Is there any evidence for this, at least in the modern context?


Plenty. If you're minded to, check out the divisional policing reports for the areas that experienced riots in 1980-81 to see how the new community relations dynamic affected stop and search rates as well as improving clear-up rates of crimes on "ethnic minorities". Longer term, the riots had a positive effect on social policy formulation in terms of making policy formulators and government address issues that affect the working class beyond conceiving of us as a homogeneous mass.[/quote] 


> As far as I can see, riots in working class communities usually create space for the bullies, thugs and thieves to expand their influence.


Based on...?


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## ViolentPanda (Aug 1, 2010)

DotCommunist said:


> ghetto napalm is cheap and that but I really wouldn't lay it on my worst enemy. Like whitr phos it is one of those weapons I think should not be used. Things get ugly when you start with the nasty gear.



Fair point. Flash burns from a Molotov aren't usually too bad if you're suited up. Burns from a sticky bomb would be horrendous.


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## Lo Siento. (Aug 1, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> Maybe it is, ultimately-but under the situation described it would all happen a lot quicker and more ferociously. 'You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone.'



It probably won't you know. Usually the thought of opposition (of any kind) is what stops governments from doing their worst.


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## Lo Siento. (Aug 1, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> And when the authorities are more than aware that no such forces are lurking?


 
It's pretty pointless (both demos and riots).


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## ViolentPanda (Aug 1, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> And when the authorities are more than aware that no such forces are lurking?



Then the authorities will have been failing to think strategically. They'll have been failing to take into account a very old and very obvious strategic reality, which is that if you only allow for/plan against the probable threats, you'll get caught with your trousers down and your arse dangling over the latrine. Lurking forces aren't the threat you imply. What *is* a threat are the situations that have the potential to catalyse mass response, situations that can ignite spontaneous insurrection.


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## ViolentPanda (Aug 1, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> That may be the case, but no revolution will result from the kind of scenario being described in this thread. History shows that if you destroy the rule of law, tyranny comes riding in.



This would depend entirely on how you define "revolution"; how you interpret history, and how you constitute the ideas of "rule of law" and "tyranny". 
For example, a "rule of law" that asymmetrically serves the ruling class over the working class isn't, in any "decent" person's mind, a "rule of law" worth preserving, and the rule of a benevolent tyrant may be preferable to many people over such a "rule of law".


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## Catherine Lech (Aug 1, 2010)

ViolentPanda said:


> Plenty. If you're minded to, check out the divisional policing reports for the areas that experienced riots in 1980-81 to see how the new community relations dynamic affected stop and search rates as well as improving clear-up rates of crimes on "ethnic minorities". Longer term, the riots had a positive effect on social policy formulation in terms of making policy formulators and government address issues that affect the working class beyond conceiving of us as a homogeneous mass.



Based on...?[/QUOTE]



Based on what I know of places where riots have taken place. After all, when a large part of a community's young men are laying siege to the forces of law and order, is it really conceivable that the many self-seeking felons that exist in large numbers in any deprived community will not seek to use the situation to their own advantage? It might be in one respect a positive outcome that the police had to tone it down after the inner-city riots, but it also led to a reinforcing of organised crime.


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## Catherine Lech (Aug 1, 2010)

Lo Siento. said:


> It probably won't you know. Usually the thought of opposition (of any kind) is what stops governments from doing their worst.




Under the situation that some people are hypothesising above, is it really conceivable that the response would not be severe? After all, both history and the present day are littered with bloodbaths and clampdowns unleashed by the authorities.


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## Catherine Lech (Aug 1, 2010)

ViolentPanda said:


> Then the authorities will have been failing to think strategically. They'll have been failing to take into account a very old and very obvious strategic reality, which is that if you only allow for/plan against the probable threats, you'll get caught with your trousers down and your arse dangling over the latrine. Lurking forces aren't the threat you imply. What *is* a threat are the situations that have the potential to catalyse mass response, situations that can ignite spontaneous insurrection.





All I was getting at is that fact that no forces capable of challenging the existing order are present either in Greece or anywhere else in the western world.


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## Catherine Lech (Aug 1, 2010)

ViolentPanda said:


> This would depend entirely on how you define "revolution"; how you interpret history, and how you constitute the ideas of "rule of law" and "tyranny".
> For example, a "rule of law" that asymmetrically serves the ruling class over the working class isn't, in any "decent" person's mind, a "rule of law" worth preserving, and the rule of a benevolent tyrant may be preferable to many people over such a "rule of law".




It's worth preserving in the face of its disapearance, which is, in my opinion, a likely outcome of what people are describing in this thread if it's taken to its ultimate conclusion. A benevolent tyrant may well be preferable to some people, but I wouldn't have thought one would be preferable to anarchists and communists. 

To my eyes, a revolution is what happens when a political and/or economic system is overthrown and replaced by another one, examples of which there are many. How would you define it?


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## ViolentPanda (Aug 1, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> Based on what I know of places where riots have taken place.


I'm also basing my points on "what I know of" such places personally.


> After all, when a large part of a community's young men are laying siege to the forces of law and order, is it really conceivable that the many self-seeking felons that exist in large numbers in any deprived community will not seek to use the situation to their own advantage?


I'd say that it is *quite* conceivable that apart from the usual riot-accompanying looting, the long-term effects in terms of "expanding influence" by "the bullies, thugs and thieves" is negligible. Generally because an improvement of relations within communities, and between communities and officialdom, puts the kybosh on such expansion.



> It might be in one respect a positive outcome that the police had to tone it down after the inner-city riots, but it also led to a reinforcing of organised crime.


What led to an *increase* (as opposed to a reinforcing) of organised crime in many inner-city communities from the mid-1980s onward was an upsurge of drug use, coupled with the emergence of several factions of new "players" in the Afro-Caribbean, Turkish and Kurdish, and South Asian communities, all with strong ties to new and existing sources of drugs. Add that little brew to the existing run of organised crime, _et voila!_


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## ViolentPanda (Aug 1, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> All I was getting at is that fact that no forces capable of challenging the existing order are present either in Greece or anywhere else in the western world.



And all I was getting at is that your point is entirely dependent on what constitutes YOUR definition of "forces".


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## ViolentPanda (Aug 1, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> It's worth preserving in the face of its disapearance, which is, in my opinion, a likely outcome of what people are describing in this thread if it's taken to its ultimate conclusion.


So, the rule of law, the system, "disappears"?
And yet, further down your post you say something different, you say it is "replaced by another one".
So it doesn't actually disappear, it metamorphoses.


> A benevolent tyrant may well be preferable to some people, but I wouldn't have thought one would be preferable to anarchists and communists.


I wasn't aware that we were only speaking in terms of what was acceptable to anarchists and communists.


> To my eyes, a revolution is what happens when a political and/or economic system is overthrown and replaced by another one, examples of which there are many. How would you define it?


Much the same. The difference between us is that I see the effects of a revolution as possibly emancipatory, and thus possibly worth the cost, whereas you appear to see the price of revolution as a reason for continuing to play the loaded game of our current political franchise.


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## Catherine Lech (Aug 1, 2010)

ViolentPanda said:


> I'm also basing my points on "what I know of" such places personally.
> 
> I'd say that it is *quite* conceivable that apart from the usual riot-accompanying looting, the long-term effects in terms of "expanding influence" by "the bullies, thugs and thieves" is negligible. Generally because an improvement of relations within communities, and between communities and officialdom, puts the kybosh on such expansion.
> 
> ...





You seem to place a surprising amount of faith in the liberal establishment politics of community relations, if you don't mind me saying so. 

Fair enough if you have knowledge of rioting communities which are thug and bully-free zones. Is there no connection, then, between the upsurge in organised crime brought about by the factors you highlight and the necessity for the police to take a softer approach as an outcome of inner-city unrest?


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## Catherine Lech (Aug 1, 2010)

ViolentPanda said:


> And all I was getting at is that your point is entirely dependent on what constitutes YOUR definition of "forces".





Is the lack of forces capable of challenging the existing order across the western world merely an individual perception, or is it a reality?


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## Catherine Lech (Aug 1, 2010)

ViolentPanda said:


> So, the rule of law, the system, "disappears"?
> And yet, further down your post you say something different, you say it is "replaced by another one".
> So it doesn't actually disappear, it metamorphoses.
> 
> ...




Yes-usually it metamorphoses into something, on the whole, worse than we have in this society now. Can you offer some exceptions to this rule? 

I was questioning why an anarchist or communist would use the argument that a benevolent tyranny is to some people preferable to the rule of law when debating whether the destruction of the latter is a good or bad thing. 

Anything can be possibly this or possibly that, but I prefer concrete examples. Aside from that both revoultionaries and non-revolutionaries have little choice but to 'play the loaded game of our current political franchise' (or abstain from it) given the complete lack of alternatives.


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## Blagsta (Aug 1, 2010)

The problem with an appeal to "the rule of law" is that it often serves to hide structural inequalities in society.  How can we have a truly independent judiciary when judges and magistrates are disproportinately drawn from the middle and upper classes?  Same goes for the legal profession.  As for everyone being subject to it?  I think the recent case of Ian Tomlinson shows that up to be a fallacy.  It's an abstract concept, divorced from the concrete realities of power.


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## DotCommunist (Aug 1, 2010)

which is why I am not opposed to rule of law, simply that it must be ours and not theirs.

the demographic make up of any prison population tells you all you need to know about structural inequality. The idea that rioting will 'only make it worse' is predicated on having something to fucking lose! This is why it is nonsense to think that a rioter will think about the harm he id doing to his own, the harm is already there


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## DotCommunist (Aug 1, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> What about Cuba and Venezuala? One is a revolution led, luckily for Cubans, by relatively benign and well-intentioned leaders. The other is a capitalist society in which another well-intentioned group are attempting to bring about positive change in a carefully controlled manner, with mixed results. Neither society arose out of a prolonged bout of rioting. If prolonged mass rioting were to break out in either place now, US proxies intending to undo all the positive achievements would come riding in.
> 
> There has been precious little rule of law where 'authoritarian commies' have come to power. What protection their citizens did enjoy arose from those aspects of their law that most closely resembled ours. One of the first things Khruschev did, for instance, was to massively dilute earlier methods of arbitrary rule and replace them with a semblance of West European-style law.


 
even here you describe laws as 'ours and theirs' making comparative judgement on legal systems where you previously appealed to abstracts. So what is it, rule of law or rule of their law?


----------



## sleaterkinney (Aug 1, 2010)

DotCommunist said:


> yep. We can have humane values after we have washed the streets clean with the blood of those who take them from us day in day out.


And survived the inevitable cull thereafter... Once the genie of using violence to achieve political means is out of the bottle.


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## FridgeMagnet (Aug 1, 2010)

It is already out of the bottle. One group just has a huge monopoly on using it.


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## sleaterkinney (Aug 1, 2010)

FridgeMagnet said:


> It is already out of the bottle. One group just has a huge monopoly on using it.


 
Oh come on...


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## FridgeMagnet (Aug 1, 2010)

Oh come on what?


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## sleaterkinney (Aug 1, 2010)

There are plenty of "revolutionary" parties in this state that aren't crushed by violence, people just don't vote for them that's all.


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## FridgeMagnet (Aug 1, 2010)

That seems like a non sequitur. The "violence genie" has never been put back in the bottle; it is a tool used for political means, not all the time obviously (that would be silly) but it is used and overwhelmingly by the state rather than any other group.


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## Pickman's model (Aug 1, 2010)

sleaterkinney said:


> Oh come on...


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## ferrelhadley (Aug 1, 2010)

Does rioting including physically defending protest space, or defensive engaments against state actors? If so then there is not even a question.


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## DotCommunist (Aug 1, 2010)

name these revolutinary parties, who stand in electoral process


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## ViolentPanda (Aug 1, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> You seem to place a surprising amount of faith in the liberal establishment politics of community relations, if you don't mind me saying so.


Why do you assume that community relations are necessarily based in "liberal establishment politics"?
Community relations and the politics thereof pre-exist liberalism and most other of the "modern" political strands by a long while.


> Fair enough if you have knowledge of rioting communities which are thug and bully-free zones. Is there no connection, then, between the upsurge in organised crime brought about by the factors you highlight and the necessity for the police to take a softer approach as an outcome of inner-city unrest?


Of course there are connections.
You weren't asking if there were connections, though. You were asking whether it was conceivable that: "the many self-seeking felons that exist in large numbers in any deprived community will not seek to use the situation to their own advantage", which is a of different order of question to your latest.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 1, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> Is the lack of forces capable of challenging the existing order across the western world merely an individual perception, or is it a reality?



Which brings us back to the question: How do *you* define "forces"?
Are you talking about political parties?
Perhaps about new social movements?
Even about non-aligned revolutionary socialists of the Trotskyist ilk?
Or something else?


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 1, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> Yes-usually it metamorphoses into something, on the whole, worse than we have in this society now. Can you offer some exceptions to this rule?


You're shifting your goalposts again.
First you talked about whether it would be better than what preceded it or not, now you're talking specifically about what we have "in this society now". 
Which is it?


> I was questioning why an anarchist or communist would use the argument that a benevolent tyranny is to some people preferable to the rule of law when debating whether the destruction of the latter is a good or bad thing.


Perhaps because it's an argument worth exploring? After all, not everybody accepts a pre-ordained party line.


> Anything can be possibly this or possibly that, but I prefer concrete examples. Aside from that both revoultionaries and non-revolutionaries have little choice but to 'play the loaded game of our current political franchise' (or abstain from it) given the complete lack of alternatives.


In other words, you're not prepared to take the slightest chance that might cause you any hardship or even inconvenience. Good for you.


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## ViolentPanda (Aug 1, 2010)

sleaterkinney said:


> And survived the inevitable cull thereafter... Once the genie of using violence to achieve political means is out of the bottle.



The genie has always been loose. It's use is justified by those who commit it as "policing" (in the sense both of police forces and of the state policing what people can or cannot do, and using parts of the state's apparatus to do so).


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## ViolentPanda (Aug 1, 2010)

sleaterkinney said:


> There are plenty of "revolutionary" parties in this state that aren't crushed by violence, people just don't vote for them that's all.


 
There are very few revolutionary parties in this state, and some of them are electoralist, which is hardly "revolutionary".
As for crushing them, a government and establishment with any sense doesn't do that (we're not still in the first half of the 20th century, for fuck's sake!). They undermine, de-stabilise and infiltrate.


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## stuff_it (Aug 2, 2010)

ferrelhadley said:


> Does rioting including physically defending protest space, or defensive engaments against state actors? If so then there is not even a question.


 
Different intents - usually defence of protest space is at least _intended_ to be non-violent. Mind you it depends how much cider you've laid in


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## Catherine Lech (Aug 2, 2010)

Blagsta said:


> The problem with an appeal to "the rule of law" is that it often serves to hide structural inequalities in society.  How can we have a truly independent judiciary when judges and magistrates are disproportinately drawn from the middle and upper classes?  Same goes for the legal profession.  As for everyone being subject to it?  I think the recent case of Ian Tomlinson shows that up to be a fallacy.  It's an abstract concept, divorced from the concrete realities of power.





Yes, everybody knows that. But, as I said, I'd still rather take my chances with the courts as presently structured than place myself in the hands of the kind of idiots who think setting people on fire is a good thing.


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## Catherine Lech (Aug 2, 2010)

DotCommunist said:


> which is why I am not opposed to rule of law, simply that it must be ours and not theirs.
> 
> the demographic make up of any prison population tells you all you need to know about structural inequality. The idea that rioting will 'only make it worse' is predicated on having something to fucking lose! This is why it is nonsense to think that a rioter will think about the harm he id doing to his own, the harm is already there





Most people in modern capitalist societies have something to lose from destroying the existing order by violence, particularly as those indulging  in it have no idea whatsoever of what to put in its place. That's why so few people join in the rioting.


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## Catherine Lech (Aug 2, 2010)

DotCommunist said:


> even here you describe laws as 'ours and theirs' making comparative judgement on legal systems where you previously appealed to abstracts. So what is it, rule of law or rule of their law?





I've already conceded that the law is skewed in favour of the rich. But it still offers the only protection we have, as we'd find out if it was destroyed by the violence of those who have nothing to replace it with.


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## Catherine Lech (Aug 2, 2010)

FridgeMagnet said:


> That seems like a non sequitur. The "violence genie" has never been put back in the bottle; it is a tool used for political means, not all the time obviously (that would be silly) but it is used and overwhelmingly by the state rather than any other group.





This is just it: the genie is indeed out of the bottle, so much so that anybody trying to challenge it with bricks and molotov cocktails (or even small arms) is doomed to failure.


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## Catherine Lech (Aug 2, 2010)

ViolentPanda said:


> Why do you assume that community relations are necessarily based in "liberal establishment politics"?
> Community relations and the politics thereof pre-exist liberalism and most other of the "modern" political strands by a long while.
> 
> Of course there are connections.
> You weren't asking if there were connections, though. You were asking whether it was conceivable that: "the many self-seeking felons that exist in large numbers in any deprived community will not seek to use the situation to their own advantage", which is a of different order of question to your latest.





You know very well the kind of community politics I'm referring to. The kind that depends of state and local government funding, elevating self-appointed community leaders to positions of power with fat salaries. Usually they're the kind of people who can't bear to do a normal, mundane job and suffer from the delusion that you can change the world and receive a salary for doing it. And that's leaving aside the complete cynics. 

I was just pointing out that rioting and mass civil disorder, however justified the cause, has the effect of creating space for criminality. This is why regimes that have come to power on the back of mass civil disorder have either had to shoot the criminals it's unleashed soon after or incorporate them into the new order.


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## Catherine Lech (Aug 2, 2010)

ViolentPanda said:


> Which brings us back to the question: How do *you* define "forces"?
> Are you talking about political parties?
> Perhaps about new social movements?
> Even about non-aligned revolutionary socialists of the Trotskyist ilk?
> Or something else?




I'm talking about all those things, and whatever other anti-capitalist formations you might wish to add, and their absence in the kind of numbers capable of replacing the existing order.


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## Catherine Lech (Aug 2, 2010)

ViolentPanda said:


> You're shifting your goalposts again.
> First you talked about whether it would be better than what preceded it or not, now you're talking specifically about what we have "in this society now".
> Which is it?
> 
> ...




It's got nothing to do with being caused personal hardship or inconvenience and everything to do with entering into futile, doomed activities. 

What hardship or inconvenience is promoting such futility on here causing you, by the way?


----------



## Blagsta (Aug 2, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> Yes, everybody knows that. But, as I said, I'd still rather take my chances with the courts as presently structured than place myself in the hands of the kind of idiots who think setting people on fire is a good thing.


 
So why are you appealing to the "rule of law" when it's a useless concept?


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## Catherine Lech (Aug 2, 2010)

Blagsta said:


> So why are you appealing to the "rule of law" when it's a useless concept?





It isn't useless, although it is, as it seems necessary to keep repeating, skewed in favour of the rich. What do you suggest is put in place of the rule of law as currently constituted?


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## Blagsta (Aug 2, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> It isn't useless, although it is, as it seems necessary to keep repeating, skewed in favour of the rich. What do you suggest is put in place of the rule of law as currently constituted?


 
The rule of law is an abstract concept.  It bears little resemblance to concrete reality.


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## London_Calling (Aug 2, 2010)

Blagsta said:


> So why are you appealing to the "rule of law" when it's a useless concept?


 
Because it requires a conviction by your peers in the jury; the law might be an arse but the jury need not be.


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## Catherine Lech (Aug 2, 2010)

Blagsta said:


> The rule of law is an abstract concept.  It bears little resemblance to concrete reality.


 
If somebody came up and stabbed you in the street during your lunch break, I think you'd find that the rule of law is more than an abstract concept, if only for the fact that the perpetrator would hopefully be sought, captured and rightfully punished. It's also why nobody can legally drag you from your bed in the middle of the night and throw you in a cell without good reason. 

Are you going to say what you'd replace the existing rule of law with?


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## Blagsta (Aug 2, 2010)

London_Calling said:


> Because it requires a conviction by your peers in the jury; the law might be an arse but the jury need not be.


 
I don't think you understood my criticism.


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## Blagsta (Aug 2, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> If somebody came up and stabbed you in the street during your lunch break, I think you'd find that the rule of law is more than an abstract concept, if only for the fact that the perpetrator would be sought, captured and rightfully punished. It's also why nobody can legally drag you from you bed in the middle of the night and throw you in a cell without good reason.
> 
> Are you going to say what you'd replace the existing rule of law with?


 
You neither.


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## Catherine Lech (Aug 2, 2010)

Blagsta said:


> You neither.




I see how it works now: you avoid answering questions put to you by claiming the questions arise from having misunderstood what you're saying. 

So the rule of law (however flawed) does not, in your eyes exist? Can you give us some examples of where you've suffered from its absence?


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## Pickman's model (Aug 2, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> I see how it works now: you avoid answering questions put to you by claiming the questions arise from having misunderstood what you're saying.
> 
> So the rule of law (however flawed) does not, in your eyes exist? Can you give us some examples of where you've suffered from its absence?


oh for fuck's sake

what a pisspoor post

if the rule of law does not exist then we all suffer from its absence in every sphere of our lives. fucking picking one or two examples from the totality of space to indicate the effects of the absence of atmosphere would be stupid: likewise your post.


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## Catherine Lech (Aug 2, 2010)

Pickman's model said:


> oh for fuck's sake
> 
> what a pisspoor post
> 
> if the rule of law does not exist then we all suffer from its absence in every sphere of our lives. fucking picking one or two examples from the totality of space to indicate the effects of the absence of atmosphere would be stupid: likewise your post.





So in what ways do you think we all suffer from an absence of the rule of law?


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## Catherine Lech (Aug 2, 2010)

No answers then?


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## ViolentPanda (Aug 2, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> You know very well the kind of community politics I'm referring to. The kind that depends of state and local government funding, elevating self-appointed community leaders to positions of power with fat salaries. Usually they're the kind of people who can't bear to do a normal, mundane job and suffer from the delusion that you can change the world and receive a salary for doing it. And that's leaving aside the complete cynics.


Which aren't the kind of "community relations" I was referring to, as I thought I'd made clear (as nobody except yourself assumed I meant the type you're speaking of).


> I was just pointing out that rioting and mass civil disorder, however justified the cause, has the effect of creating space for criminality.


If you were "just" pointing that out, then why include your claim as to the *volume* of that possible criminality?


> This is why regimes that have come to power on the back of mass civil disorder have either had to shoot the criminals it's unleashed soon after or incorporate them into the new order.


Actually, most regimes (except for a few high-visibility ones) go for the third option of imprisonment and attempted rehabilitation.


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## ViolentPanda (Aug 2, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> I'm talking about all those things, and whatever other anti-capitalist formations you might wish to add, and their absence in the kind of numbers capable of replacing the existing order.



So, you're appealing to a deliberately vague definition of "forces" which doesn't allow elucidation of your argument in order to elucidate your argument. How very.....different.
What is apparent from your "answers" (if we can call them by such an august term) is that you believe that "forces" reduce to a numbers game. That's an incredibly foolish point-of-view to take. Numbers are *a* factor, not the prime determinant. A well designed strategy and good tactical execution matter just as much, and sometimes more (something the current training methods of our police services don't take nearly enough account of).


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## Catherine Lech (Aug 2, 2010)

ViolentPanda said:


> Which aren't the kind of "community relations" I was referring to, as I thought I'd made clear (as nobody except yourself assumed I meant the type you're speaking of).
> 
> If you were "just" pointing that out, then why include your claim as to the *volume* of that possible criminality?
> 
> Actually, most regimes (except for a few high-visibility ones) go for the third option of imprisonment and attempted rehabilitation.





Doesn't the argument go back to the claim that after rioting you allegedly get an improvement in community relations? As far as I'm aware, this is usually attempted through co-operation between self-styled, often state salaried, community leaders, local government and the police. What other kind of community relations are you refering to? You surely can't be making an impossible to verify claim that people in general start treating each other differently? To my eyes, since the riots of the 1980s, the inner-cities and society in general has become considerably more hard-faced and cynical, with social atomisation continuing apace, while politics at grass roots level fragments along ethnic lines. 

As I said, I think that the toning down of their interventions in certain areas, while necessary on many levels, undoubtedly results in an increase in the volume of criminality.

Which regimes arising out of mass civil disorder are you referring to?


----------



## Catherine Lech (Aug 2, 2010)

ViolentPanda said:


> So, you're appealing to a deliberately vague definition of "forces" which doesn't allow elucidation of your argument in order to elucidate your argument. How very.....different.
> What is apparent from your "answers" (if we can call them by such an august term) is that you believe that "forces" reduce to a numbers game. That's an incredibly foolish point-of-view to take. Numbers are *a* factor, not the prime determinant. A well designed strategy and good tactical execution matter just as much, and sometimes more (something the current training methods of our police services don't take nearly enough account of).




What's vague about what I said? Can you get any clearer than saying that the political forces (not to mention the will) to fundamentally challenge the existing order is almost entirely absent right across the western world? That includes those who peddle straegies based on street violence. Anybody with an ounce of common sense can see that such people do not genuinely seek fundamental change, and would run a mile even if the opportunity to bring it about were handed to them on a plate, if only for the fact that they simply wouldn't know what to do.


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## ViolentPanda (Aug 2, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> It's got nothing to do with being caused personal hardship or inconvenience and everything to do with entering into futile, doomed activities.



You're excusing yourself from admitting inertia with your assumption, _a priori_, that such activities are "futile, doomed". I'm extrapolating, from experience of such activities (riot, civil disorder, physical direct action), that they are not and don't have to be. 



> What hardship or inconvenience is promoting such futility on here causing you, by the way?


None. I don't recall arguing that doing so had caused me any, either.
perhaps, rather than projecting, you should indulge in some reflexive thinking?


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## Catherine Lech (Aug 2, 2010)

ViolentPanda said:


> You're excusing yourself from admitting inertia with your assumption, _a priori_, that such activities are "futile, doomed". I'm extrapolating, from experience of such activities (riot, civil disorder, physical direct action), that they are not and don't have to be.
> 
> 
> None. I don't recall arguing that doing so had caused me any, either.
> perhaps, rather than projecting, you should indulge in some reflexive thinking?





So abstaining from such activities as rioting, because they see it, as I believe most people would, as futile makes somebody inert? Ever heard of the dog that chased his tail? 

Yes, I know you and others have claimed that rioting achieves results, but these results are at best questionable and always vague.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 2, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> Doesn't the argument go back to the claim that after rioting you allegedly get an improvement in community relations? As far as I'm aware, this is usually attempted through co-operation between self-styled, often state salaried, community leaders, local government and the police.


That is *a* manifestation of a type of (officially-endorsed) community relations, and one that is not necessarily seen as valid by the communities the self-appointed community leaders purport to represent. 


> What other kind of community relations are you refering to? You surely can't be making an impossible to verify claim that people in general start treating each other differently?


I'm referring to relations between disparate elements of communities, about the *fact* that after the riots, many non-aligned community organisations sprang up that catered for the whole community and its' problems, and that working class solidarity in general had a boost. I'm *not* referring to mutual masturbation between bureaucrats, "community leaders" and the police. 


> To my eyes, since the riots of the 1980s, the inner-cities and society in general has become considerably more hard-faced and cynical, with social atomisation continuing apace, while politics at grass roots level fragments along ethnic lines.


So, why has that happened? Is it an artifact of the social disorders of the 1970s and 1980s, or is it, perhaps, directly linkable to such political manouvers as "Right to Buy", which decimated the social housing stock and fractured communities; centralisation of power away from local government and the increasing prevalence of the neo-liberal discourse, with its' effects infiltrating deeper and deeper into the lives of communities and individuals?
personally, given much academic study in these matters, plus some painful personal experience, I think that the latter has had far more bearing on social atomisation than the former. 


> As I said, I think that the toning down of their interventions in certain areas, while necessary on many levels, undoubtedly results in an increase in the volume of criminality.


You keep making claims of the tenor of "undoubtedly", and that all well and good,  but you don't substantiate, which is quite amusing, given how often you ask stuff like...


> Which regimes arising out of mass civil disorder are you referring to?


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## Catherine Lech (Aug 2, 2010)

ViolentPanda said:


> That is *a* manifestation of a type of (officially-endorsed) community relations, and one that is not necessarily seen as valid by the communities the self-appointed community leaders purport to represent.
> 
> I'm referring to relations between disparate elements of communities, about the *fact* that after the riots, many non-aligned community organisations sprang up that catered for the whole community and its' problems, and that working class solidarity in general had a boost. I'm *not* referring to mutual masturbation between bureaucrats, "community leaders" and the police.
> 
> ...





Do you have any examples of these non-aligned community organisations?  find it hard to believe that, even if they existed, they left any lasting legacy, if only for the fact that working class solidarity, particularly in the kind of areas affected by rioting, has, along with political consciousness, probably never been lower. 

All of that which you highlight has had a profound effect, but what I meant was that the last twenty-five years or so have left precious little evidence that communities improve after riots, whatever the causes. At best you seem to get 'regeneration' based on gentrification and social cleansing. 

I say that the toning down of policing in troubled areas undoubtedly creates expanded space for criminals to operate because the crime figures in those areas, particularly for organised crime, seem to have increased considerably since the riots of the 1980s and '90s. You only have to spend a short time in the inner-cities to gain the sense that all is not well.


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## Teaboy (Aug 2, 2010)

I always find it surprising how many people come on with a strident point of view backed up by little more than assumptions and 'it's my experience' stuff yet when anyone disagrees or makes a counter point they demand examples.


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## Catherine Lech (Aug 2, 2010)

Teaboy said:


> I always find it surprising how many people come on with a strident point of view backed up by little more than assumptions and 'it's my experience' stuff yet when anyone disagrees or makes a counter point they demand examples.




Well, people are claiming this and that always arises from rioting without providing any concrete examples at all. Others are merely questioning their assumptions.

As for stridency, a view doesn't come much more strident than the one that naively assumes that you can overthrow a modern state by rioting. Or even the one that claims that rioting will encourage the state to throw a few more crumbs your way.


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## Catherine Lech (Aug 2, 2010)

Teaboy said:


> I always find it surprising how many people come on with a strident point of view backed up by little more than assumptions and 'it's my experience' stuff yet when anyone disagrees or makes a counter point they demand examples.


 

Do you have any examples of these non-aligned community organisations arising from riots, by the way Teaboy? Anywhere that increased working class solidarity has arisen as a result?


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## ska invita (Aug 3, 2010)

DotCommunist said:


> name these revolutionary parties, who stand in electoral process


 
i think the sometimes called velvet or colour revolutions of eastern europe and beyond could count (czechoslovakia, georgia, ukraine, kyrgyzstan) - possibly even starting with Solidarnosc. Solidarnosc eventually won the election that brought down the communists. None of these was based on rioting or violence, but it would seem to me, a strong sense of mass public support followed by the ballot box with a bit of nonviolent civil disobedience/defiance thrown in for good measure. The key i think is bringing the majority of people on board in a conscious way. Anyone else know more about the colour revolutions that might add to this thread?

how revolutionary any of these parties are/were is up for debate... I think they would have felt revolutionary at the time


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## ViolentPanda (Aug 3, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> Do you have any examples of these non-aligned community organisations?  find it hard to believe that, even if they existed, they left any lasting legacy, if only for the fact that working class solidarity, particularly in the kind of areas affected by rioting, has, along with political consciousness, probably never been lower.


To give a fairly ubiquitous example, Southall Black Sisters. Born out of the riots of '79, and despite their name, catering across the "racial" divide. Aligned to nothing but sound principles.


> All of that which you highlight has had a profound effect, but what I meant was that the last twenty-five years or so have left precious little evidence that communities improve after riots whatever the causes. At best you seem to get 'regeneration' based on gentrification and social cleansing.


From that, you appear to view community as purely geographically located, rather than as an admixture of place and peoples.


> I say that the toning down of policing in troubled areas undoubtedly creates expanded space for criminals to operate because the crime figures in those areas, particularly for organised crime, seem to have increased considerably since the riots of the 1980s and '90s. You only have to spend a short time in the inner-cities to gain the sense that all is not well.


I *live* in the "inner city". I have done for about 90% of my almost 50 years of life. The vibe in the air is generally more righteous now than it was  20 and 30 years ago.  Crime expands and crime contracts. Measures of crime come and go, priortisation of particular crime becomes fashionable and falls out of fashion, none of which means that "the inner cities" are crumbling around us, with sections of the populace degenerating into latter-day Morlocks.


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## ViolentPanda (Aug 3, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> Well, people are claiming this and that always arises from rioting without providing any concrete examples at all. Others are merely questioning their assumptions.
> 
> As for stridency, a view doesn't come much more strident than the one that naively assumes that you can overthrow a modern state by rioting. Or even the one that claims that rioting will encourage the state to throw a few more crumbs your way.



You'll be hard-pressed to find any post on this thread that assumes, naively or otherwise, that "....you can overthrow a modern state by rioting". What people *have* claimed is that rioting can be a tool and/or a factor that provokes change.


----------



## ska invita (Aug 3, 2010)

ViolentPanda said:


> To give a fairly ubiquitous example, Southall Black Sisters. Born out of the riots of '79, and despite their name, catering across the "racial" divide. Aligned to nothing but sound principles.


you could add to that the Notting Hill Carnival organising group, which was born of the race riots in the 50s. however Im not sure this makes much of a pro-riot case!


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## Catherine Lech (Aug 3, 2010)

ViolentPanda said:


> To give a fairly ubiquitous example, Southall Black Sisters. Born out of the riots of '79, and despite their name, catering across the "racial" divide. Aligned to nothing but sound principles.
> 
> From that, you appear to view community as purely geographically located, rather than as an admixture of place and peoples.
> 
> I *live* in the "inner city". I have done for about 90% of my almost 50 years of life. The vibe in the air is generally more righteous now than it was  20 and 30 years ago.  Crime expands and crime contracts. Measures of crime come and go, priortisation of particular crime becomes fashionable and falls out of fashion, none of which means that "the inner cities" are crumbling around us, with sections of the populace degenerating into latter-day Morlocks.





So that's one example for how many inner-city riots? What about the rest? Where are the Southall Sisters now? What legacy did they leave? In what way can it be said that working class solidarity is greater in Southall now than it was before the riot of thirty years ago? 

As far as I can see, communities are geographically located. The one I live in, for example (such as it exists), has little in common with, for instance, Southall. In fact being 200 miles away from Southall, I'd bet that nobody here ever even thinks of the place. And vice -versa. What kind of 'community' is that? And what's an 'admixture of people and places' when it's at home? 

I can't believe that you're actually using, at fifty years old, terms like 'a vibe in the air,' and 'generally more righteous!' The inner-city areas I've lived in have no such 'vibe.' But more interestingly, what does this 'righteous vibe' (titter) do to alleviate the real pressure that working class people are under from the widening wealth gap and the looming threat of unemployment and cuts in services? 

I expected better after twenty-four hours for you to think about it.


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## Catherine Lech (Aug 3, 2010)

ViolentPanda said:


> You'll be hard-pressed to find any post on this thread that assumes, naively or otherwise, that "....you can overthrow a modern state by rioting". What people *have* claimed is that rioting can be a tool and/or a factor that provokes change.




And yet, when pressed, nobody can provide any convincing examples of genuine and lasting change arising out of instances of rioting. No more than others can describe what they see as an absence of the rule of law in this country.


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## ska invita (Aug 3, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> So that's one example for how many inner-city riots? What about the rest? Where are the Southall Sisters now? What legacy did they leave? In what way can it be said that working class solidarity is greater in Southall now than it was before the riot of thirty years ago?
> 
> As far as I can see, communities are geographically located. The one I live in, for example (such as it exists), has little in common with, for instance, Southall. In fact being 200 miles away from Southall, I'd bet that nobody here ever even thinks of the place. And vice -versa. What kind of 'community' is that? And what's an 'admixture of people and places' when it's at home?
> 
> ...


 
bit harsh


----------



## Catherine Lech (Aug 3, 2010)

ska invita said:


> bit harsh


 
Why?


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 3, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> So in what ways do you think we all suffer from an absence of the rule of law?


 
everything from cyclists on the pavement to cops getting away with murder


----------



## Catherine Lech (Aug 3, 2010)

Pickman's model said:


> everything from cyclists on the pavement to cops getting away with murder





These things mean we don't have the rule of law?


----------



## Blagsta (Aug 3, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> I see how it works now: you avoid answering questions put to you by claiming the questions arise from having misunderstood what you're saying.
> 
> So the rule of law (however flawed) does not, in your eyes exist? Can you give us some examples of where you've suffered from its absence?



I'm pointing out the uselessness of appealing to an abstract concept with no actual bearing on reality.  Sure, it's a fine ideal to aspire to, but when we live in a society dominated by inequality, how can it ever be realised?  More useful surely, is an analysis of power and inequality and an understanding of how that effects justice and the imposition of law.


----------



## Catherine Lech (Aug 3, 2010)

Blagsta said:


> I'm pointing out the uselessness of appealing to an abstract concept with no actual bearing on reality.  Sure, it's a fine ideal to aspire to, but when we live in a society dominated by inequality, how can it ever be realised?  More useful surely, is an analysis of power and inequality and an understanding of how that effects justice and the imposition of law.




The very real inequalities that exist are a seperate issue. Are you really trying to say that just because it's an unequal, unjust society, most of us don't have recourse to the law?


----------



## Blagsta (Aug 3, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> The very real inequalities that exist are a seperate issue. Are you really trying to say that just because it's an unequal, unjust society, most of us don't have recourse to the law?



How are they seperate?  And quit the straw man ploy, it's irritating.  Address what I actually say.


----------



## Catherine Lech (Aug 3, 2010)

Blagsta said:


> How are they seperate?  And quit the straw man ploy, it's irritating.  Address what I actually say.





I did address it. You say that the rule of law is ' a nice idea to aspire to,' but we don't have it because society is unequal. At least that's what I understand you to be saying. It's a bizarre claim.


----------



## Blagsta (Aug 3, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> I did address it. You say that the rule of law is ' a nice idea to aspire to,' but we don't have it because society is unequal. At least that's what I understand you to be saying. It's a bizarre claim.



If you think it's bizarre, then tell me why you think that.


----------



## Catherine Lech (Aug 3, 2010)

Blagsta said:


> If you think it's bizarre, then tell me why you think that.





So not a staw man after all? 

If you were robbed or beaten up tonight, presumably you'd have recourse to the police and the legal process. And even if there are forces lurking within ruling circles who might, should they deem it necessary, drag you from your bed and throw you in a cell for simply opposing them, they can't. In countries without the rule of law, the former course of action isn't necessarily guaranteed, and the latter, at times, a certainty. 

It's nothing to do with economic and social inequality, although the quality of the legal representaion you can afford undoubtedly is.


----------



## Blagsta (Aug 3, 2010)

What has that to do with what I posted?


----------



## Blagsta (Aug 3, 2010)

Maybe we need some definitions of the rule of law here.

According to wikipedia, this is the UN's


> a principle of governance in which all persons, institutions and entities, public and private, including the State itself, are accountable to laws that are publicly promulgated, equally enforced and independently adjudicated, and which are consistent with international human rights norms and standards. It requires, as well, measures to ensure adherence to the principles of supremacy of law, equality before the law, accountability to the law, fairness in the application of the law, separation of powers, participation in decision-making, legal certainty, avoidance of arbitrariness and procedural and legal transparency.



and this is the international bar associations



> An independent, impartial judiciary; the presumption of innocence; the right to a fair and public trial without undue delay; a rational and proportionate approach to punishment; a strong and independent legal profession; strict protection of confidential communications between lawyer and client; equality of all before the law; these are all fundamental principles of the Rule of Law. Accordingly, arbitrary arrests; secret trials; indefinite detention without trial; cruel or degrading treatment or punishment; intimidation or corruption in the electoral process, are all unacceptable. The Rule of Law is the foundation of a civilised society. It establishes a transparent process accessible and equal to all. It ensures adherence to principles that both liberate and protect. The IBA calls upon all countries to respect these fundamental principles. It also calls upon its members to speak out in support of the Rule of Law within their respective communities.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_law

I've already given a partial critique of the International Bar Association's definition.  Perhaps you can respond to the points I put to you?


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## Catherine Lech (Aug 3, 2010)

Blagsta said:


> What has that to do with what I posted?





Maybe you should be clearer about what you're saying.

Let's start again: why, exactly, do you think the rule of law doesn't exist in this country?


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## Blagsta (Aug 3, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> Maybe you should be clearer about what you're saying.
> 
> Let's start again: why, exactly, do you think the rule of law doesn't exist in this country?


 
if you're not going to respond to what I've already said, you can fuck off, i'm not interested in game playing


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## Catherine Lech (Aug 3, 2010)

Blagsta said:


> Maybe we need some definitions of the rule of law here.
> 
> According to wikipedia, this is the UN's
> 
> ...





You didn't put any coherent points to me. Why not give a full 'critique' instead of a partial one? 

For what it's worth I'd say that, in formal terms, all contained in those definitions exists in the UK now.


----------



## Catherine Lech (Aug 3, 2010)

Blagsta said:


> if you're not going to respond to what I've already said, you can fuck off, i'm not interested in game playing




Don't throw your toys out of the pram.  Maybe I'm not adressing what you think you're saying, but that's because you're completely incoherent.


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## Blagsta (Aug 3, 2010)

Sorry, how am I incoherent?  I'm looking at what the rule of law means and then looking at power struc

can't be arsed, it's in my posts if you want to re-read


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## Catherine Lech (Aug 3, 2010)

Blagsta said:


> Sorry, how am I incoherent?  I'm looking at what the rule of law means and then looking at power struc
> 
> can't be arsed, it's in my posts if you want to re-read





I've answered everything in your posts, as far as I can understand them. To recap once again: you seem to be saying that inequality means that the rule of law doesn't exist. I've said that although inequality does affect such matters as the type of legal representation you can afford, and how the law enforcemnet bodies might treat you, even the poorest in society can still appeal to the law for protection and usually recieve it.


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## Blagsta (Aug 4, 2010)

Yes, indeed, poor people can appeal to the law for protection, I haven't disputed that.  What I _have_ said is that we don't have an truly independent judiciary (which is one of the requirements for rule of law, according to the International Bar Association).  Police and the state are clearly not subject to the same legal processes as everyone else, e.g. the killing of Blair Peach, Jean Charles de Menezes, Ian Tomlinson, Bloody Sunday, the rendition of terrorist suspects etc.

Rule of law also assumes that the law is a neutral instrument.  It isn't, as any examination of it's role in class conflict will show.


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## Pickman's model (Aug 4, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> These things mean we don't have the rule of law?


 
are you slow or something?


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## Catherine Lech (Aug 4, 2010)

Pickman's model said:


> are you slow or something?





Is the best you can do to suggest that we don't have the rule of law to say that people cycle on the pavement and a copper occasionally gets away with murder?


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## Catherine Lech (Aug 4, 2010)

Blagsta said:


> Yes, indeed, poor people can appeal to the law for protection, I haven't disputed that.  What I _have_ said is that we don't have an truly independent judiciary (which is one of the requirements for rule of law, according to the International Bar Association).  Police and the state are clearly not subject to the same legal processes as everyone else, e.g. the killing of Blair Peach, Jean Charles de Menezes, Ian Tomlinson, Bloody Sunday, the rendition of terrorist suspects etc.
> 
> Rule of law also assumes that the law is a neutral instrument.  It isn't, as any examination of it's role in class conflict will show.





In actual fact you have said nothing of the kind. This is the first time you've made your opinion clear. Just because the state isn't subject to the same legal processes as everybody else, it doesn't mean that the rule of law is absent-which is what people have been claiming further up the thread. If it was, we'd all know about it.

Can the law ever be truly neutral? Presumably, if your politics triumphed, the new order would discriminate against those old remnants of the ruling elites you mention, and capitalists generally, just as in all places where revolutionary politics have triumphed before.


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## Blagsta (Aug 4, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> In actual fact you have said nothing of the kind. This is the first time you've made your opinion clear. Just because the state isn't subject to the same legal processes as everybody else, it doesn't mean that the rule of law is absent-which is what people have been claiming further up the thread. If it was, we'd all know about it.
> 
> Can the law ever be truly neutral? Presumably, if your politics triumphed, the new order would discriminate against those old remnants of the ruling elites you mention, and capitalists generally, just as in all places where revolutionary politics have triumphed before.


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## DotCommunist (Aug 4, 2010)

The nuremburg trials were dead discriminating against the Nazis- allied politics prevailed and then persecuted those poor nazis. 




Godwins already? well someone had to I suppose.


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## Catherine Lech (Aug 4, 2010)

Blagsta said:


>





I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that you, my friend, are a bit of an idiot.


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## Catherine Lech (Aug 4, 2010)

DotCommunist said:


> The nuremburg trials were dead discriminating against the Nazis- allied politics prevailed and then persecuted those poor nazis.
> 
> 
> 
> ...





And presumably this piece of childhisness is supposed to add something to the discussion?


----------



## Blagsta (Aug 4, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that you, my friend, are a bit of an idiot.



Funny, that's exactly what I was thinking about you.  Hence my response.  You seem unable to think things through and require people to join the dots for you.  Either that or you like playing games.  Either way, I ain't interested.

FWIW, I thought you had some valid points re: use of violence without a social base behind you.  Pity you seem unable to actually think further than that though.


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## DotCommunist (Aug 4, 2010)

yes it is comparative. You asked if justice could ever truly be neutral and then mentioned that communists would use rule of law to 'persecute' capitalists as if this was an epic point. When everyone has been telling you law is not an abstract etc.

Ours not theirs, as I said to you ages ago.

oh and I adore your pomposity btw.


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## Blagsta (Aug 4, 2010)

it might help if Catherine could read through some definitions of rule of law


then again, it probably won't


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## Catherine Lech (Aug 4, 2010)

Blagsta said:


> Funny, that's exactly what I was thinking about you.  Hence my response.  You seem unable to think things through and require people to join the dots for you.  Either that or you like playing games.  Either way, I ain't interested.
> 
> FWIW, I thought you had some valid points re: use of violence without a social base behind you.  Pity you seem unable to actually think further than that though.





Yes indeed-so uninterested that you keep coming back. 

Are your extremely brief and cryptic (and utterly wrong) half-statements, followed by some petulance or other, examples of thinking things through and joining the dots? You seem to think you're saying something profound when you're actually saying nothing.


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## Catherine Lech (Aug 4, 2010)

DotCommunist said:


> yes it is comparative. You asked if justice could ever truly be neutral and then mentioned that communists would use rule of law to 'persecute' capitalists as if this was an epic point. When everyone has been telling you law is not an abstract etc.
> 
> Ours not theirs, as I said to you ages ago.
> 
> oh and I adore your pomposity btw.





Exactly. The law can never be neutral. 

I adore your zeal too. Good job, and not just for capitalists, that it's entirely confined to the internet.


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## Catherine Lech (Aug 4, 2010)

Blagsta said:


> it might help if Catherine could read through some definitions of rule of law
> 
> 
> then again, it probably won't


 




I've already answered your (non) points regarding the cut-and-pastes you've posted up.


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## DotCommunist (Aug 4, 2010)

since we seem to have reached the fingers in ears stage of 'I'm right!' shrillness I'll leave it here.


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## Blagsta (Aug 4, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> I've already answered your (non) points regarding the cut-and-pastes you've posted up.



Posting up and critiquing the definitions of rule of law are non-points?


from now on you're on ignore as you can't engage in debate properly, instead preferring to play silly games


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## Catherine Lech (Aug 4, 2010)

DotCommunist said:


> since we seem to have reached the fingers in ears stage of 'I'm right!' shrillness I'll leave it here.





You mean you're not going to come back with any more communism for toddlers? Better go back to the other board and wank about shooting people then.


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## Catherine Lech (Aug 4, 2010)

Blagsta said:


> Posting up and critiquing the definitions of rule of law are non-points?
> 
> 
> from now on you're on ignore as you can't engage in debate properly, instead preferring to play silly games





You haven't 'critiqued' anything (why do people insist on using this term so beloved of pseudo-academics?)

It's impossible to 'engage' in debate with somebody whom, as only a brief run through the thread shows, thinks he's making some definitive points when all he offers is cryptic, juvenile comment interspersed with petulant insults.


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## Pickman's model (Aug 4, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> Is the best you can do to suggest that we don't have the rule of law to say that people cycle on the pavement and a copper occasionally gets away with murder?


 
slow AND in need of remedial reading


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## Catherine Lech (Aug 4, 2010)

Pickman's model said:


> slow AND in need of remedial reading





I can only read the words you leave in the post. So far you've seemed to claim that we don't have the rule of law because people cycle on footpaths and coppers sometimes get off murder charges. I don't see anything more. Maybe you could elaborate?


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## Pickman's model (Aug 4, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> I can only read the words you leave in the post.


 perhaps you could read it.


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## Catherine Lech (Aug 4, 2010)

Pickman's model said:


> perhaps you could read it.




This was your reply to the request to provide some examples of why we don't have the rule of law:



Pickman's model said:


> everything from cyclists on the pavement to cops getting away with murder




Profound uh?


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## likesfish (Aug 4, 2010)

goverments still fear the mob and will avoid doing anything to provoke said mob.
 Get enough people Angry enough all bets are off.
 the loyalists derailed the 1973 peace deal with riots and strikes all over ulster 
 probably not the example your looking for  though


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## ViolentPanda (Aug 4, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> So that's one example for how many inner-city riots? What about the rest?


You asked for an example, you got one. Now you want a *list* of examples.
yet again you move the goalposts when it suits you.


> Where are the Southall Sisters now?


Still going. They have a storefront in Southall, strangely enough


> What legacy did they leave?


They're still creating their legacy, still helping working-class women.


> In what way can it be said that working class solidarity is greater in Southall now than it was before the riot of thirty years ago?


Greater solidarity between working class women via the various services that SBS offer.
Greater awareness that you don't necessarily need recourse to conventional solutions to solve problems

I know that's only two examples, but I'm not about to write an essay for you. I save that for paying customers.


> As far as I can see, communities are geographically located. The one I live in, for example (such as it exists), has little in common with, for instance, Southall. In fact being 200 miles away from Southall, I'd bet that nobody here ever even thinks of the place. And vice -versa. What kind of 'community' is that? And what's an 'admixture of people and places' when it's at home?


Interesting that you're happy to discuss community when you don't appear to understand the concept.
A community is the coming together of a place and the people within it. What Friedrich Toennies called _Gemeinschaft_ (which refers to groupings based on a feeling of togetherness). It's not *just* a place (there are plenty of places where community doesn't really exist)


> I can't believe...


What you believe is irrelevant.


> ....that you're actually using, at fifty years old, terms like 'a vibe in the air,' and 'generally more righteous!'


Now you're quibbling about language? Both those terms were current when I was growing up. Pardon me for being a creature of my times!


> The inner-city areas I've lived in have no such 'vibe.'


An unkind person might speculate as to the effect your presence had.
Or perhaps you weren't interested enough in engaging with your human and geographical surroundings to sense such a "vibe"?


> But more interestingly, what does this 'righteous vibe' (titter) do to alleviate the real pressure that working class people are under from the widening wealth gap and the looming threat of unemployment and cuts in services?


So now it's about the wealth gap and unemployment? More goalpost-shifting.


> I expected better after twenty-four hours for you to think about it.


What you expect is nothing to do with me, and some of us have other things to do than answering your challenges.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 4, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> And yet, when pressed, nobody can provide any convincing examples of genuine and lasting change arising out of instances of rioting. No more than others can describe what they see as an absence of the rule of law in this country.



However many examples are provided you, you'll still find a reason to dismiss them. That much is obvious from your prior posts on this thread


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 4, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> These things mean we don't have the rule of law?



It means that the rule of law is not evenly applied. If that is the case then the rule of law is worthless, because it's application is arbitrary.


----------



## Catherine Lech (Aug 4, 2010)

ViolentPanda said:


> You asked for an example, you got one. Now you want a *list* of examples.
> yet again you move the goalposts when it suits you.
> 
> Still going. They have a storefront in Southall, strangely enough
> ...





In actual fact I asked for examples of community organisations arising out of rioting-that's examples in the plural-from the off. Not too much to ask for what amounts to quite a number of inner-city riots over the decades. I don't dispute that the Southall Black Sisters might be still doing some good things, but the point is that they appear to be an isolated example and had no impact outside a very narrow area both geographically and politically. During their existence, working class political consciousness and organisation has continued to plummet. 

Thanks for your textbook example of what a community looks like, but I never said that a community was just a place. And you accuse me of creating straw men and moving the goalposts. 

'Righteous vibes' was a pretty daft term to use in any era, except maybe if you were a recent arrival from Jamaica. Maybe I've been missing the fact that you're really Ali G. 

I assume I've done as much 'engaging' with the communities I've lived in as the next person. 'Righteous vibes' have always been in short supply no matter what you say. 

How can speaking of the wealth gap and unemployment be goalpost shifting when it's at the heart of what we've been talking about? And if you've better things to do than answer points put in response to what you've said in a thread, what are you doing here in the first place?


----------



## Catherine Lech (Aug 4, 2010)

ViolentPanda said:


> However many examples are provided you, you'll still find a reason to dismiss them. That much is obvious from your prior posts on this thread


 
As you've admitted, you haven't even attempted to provide more than one example. I can't help it if that makes me suspect it's because no other lasting examples exist. 

I can't dismiss what isn't there. Is that how you operate-by witholding information for those you suspect might not agree with you?


----------



## Catherine Lech (Aug 4, 2010)

ViolentPanda said:


> It means that the rule of law is not evenly applied. If that is the case then the rule of law is worthless, because it's application is arbitrary.





I haven't tried to claim that it's evenly applied. In fact, I've agree more than once that it isn't. 

So now it isn't that it doesn't exist, just that it's worthless? What exactly do you think you would do if you were a victim of a crime without being able to appeal to the law, whether unevenly applied or not? As I said, you don't know what you've got till it's gone. Ho hum.


----------



## Red Paul (Aug 4, 2010)

"Classes struggle, some classes triumph, others are eliminated. Such is history, such is the history of civilization for thousands of years."
"The enemy will not perish of himself. Neither the British reactionaries nor the aggressive forces of the state"
A riot is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, its a act of violence by which one class overthrows another.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 4, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> I haven't tried to claim that it's evenly applied...


I haven't claimed that you did.


> ...In fact, I've agree more than once that it isn't.


Yes, you keep saying this, usually followed by a quasi-homily about how something is better than nothing.


> ...So now it isn't that it doesn't exist, just that it's worthless?


If you read back, you'll see that it isn't me that's claimed that the rule of law doesn't exist. The nearest I've got to such a sentiment is that an unevenly applied rule of law *shouldn't* exist. 


> What exactly do you think you would do if you were a victim of a crime without being able to appeal to the law...


What do you think I'd do? I'd look for another solution, perhaps by interacting with my community!


> whether unevenly applied or not? As I said, you don't know what you've got till it's gone. Ho hum.



Sorry, I'd forgotten that you're always right.  

All your posts come back to the point that we might as well tolerate what we have because we can't get anything better. My point is that we won't know that's the case unless we actually stir ourselves to look for something better.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 4, 2010)

Red Paul said:


> "Classes struggle, some classes triumph, others are eliminated. Such is history, such is the history of civilization for thousands of years."
> "The enemy will not perish of himself. Neither the British reactionaries nor the aggressive forces of the state"
> A riot is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, its a act of violence by which one class overthrows another.



Thanks for the historical quotations.
By the way, a riot is only very rarely directly an "act of violence by which one class overthrows another". More usually it's a single battle within the class war, although I'd much prefer if a class could be overthrown via a single riot.


----------



## Catherine Lech (Aug 5, 2010)

Red Paul said:


> "A riot is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, its a act of violence by which one class overthrows another.





Possibly the most stupid thing ever written on here, when you consider that no ruling class was overthrown by any of the inner-city riots of the past few decades, and none by the considerably bigger and more widespread ones which have recently taken place in Greece, for instance. Nor will they be.


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 5, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> Nor will they be.


 i bet you believe in astrology too


----------



## Catherine Lech (Aug 5, 2010)

ViolentPanda said:


> I haven't claimed that you did.
> 
> Yes, you keep saying this, usually followed by a quasi-homily about how something is better than nothing.
> 
> ...




Pointing out the obvious fact that having a flawed and biased system of law to appeal to is better than none at all is not a homily. I'm beginning to wonder what planet some of you live on. 

So if you were the victim of a crime, you'd 'interact with your community' for a solution? How exactly would this work? 

Can you point out where I've stated that we might as well tolerate what we've got? And in what way are you 'stirring yourself to look for something better' (apart from feeling the 'righteous vibe')? I'd be very interested to hear where there are some alternatives to the current system of law, and to this society generally, on offer.


----------



## Catherine Lech (Aug 5, 2010)

Pickman's model said:


> i bet you believe in astrology too




So you honestly believe that it's possible to bring down ruling classes in the modern, well-armed western states by rioting?


----------



## smokedout (Aug 5, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> I'd be very interested to hear where there are some alternatives to the current system of law, and to this society generally, on offer.



do you really think that on a planet of 6 billion people and 100,000 years of human history that we have suddenly just happened to have found the only way?


----------



## Catherine Lech (Aug 5, 2010)

ViolentPanda said:


> Thanks for the historical quotations.
> By the way, a riot is only very rarely directly an "act of violence by which one class overthrows another". More usually it's a single battle within the class war, although I'd much prefer if a class could be overthrown via a single riot.





In actual fact, most riots end up having very little bearing on the class war. You could actually go as far as to say that a lot of riots that take place have only tenuous connections to the class war, if any at all. At best, riots are an act of despair by the powerless. And today, people are increasingly powerless to affect genuine political change, as we are seeing in a situation where the ruling class has come under no threat whatsoever from the mostly feeble reactions to the greatest economic crisis since the great depression. I've a feeling that those who fetishise riots on here are simply compensating for their feelings of powerlessness.


----------



## DotCommunist (Aug 5, 2010)

likesfish said:


> goverments still fear the mob and will avoid doing anything to provoke said mob.
> Get enough people Angry enough all bets are off.
> the loyalists derailed the 1973 peace deal with riots and strikes all over ulster
> probably not the example your looking for  though


 
not the first time the loyalists used rioting and armed insurrection to keep ulster in the union. 1912-1914.


----------



## Catherine Lech (Aug 5, 2010)

smokedout said:


> do you really think that on a planet of 6 billion people and 100,000 years of human history that we have suddenly just happened to have found the only way?





Of course I don't. That's why I haven't said so. I would be interested in your ideas on an alternative 'way' though.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 5, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> Pointing out the obvious fact that having a flawed and biased system of law to appeal to is better than none at all is not a homily.


I'm afraid it is. You're pretty much saying "be satisfied with what you've got, and be grateful". To me that's just the sort of unthinking sermonising that most homilies are made of.


> I'm beginning to wonder what planet some of you live on.


You're good with the arch comments, but not so good at sticking to the subject without shifting the goalposts.
A shame, that.


> So if you were the victim of a crime, you'd 'interact with your community' for a solution? How exactly would this work?


Well, as we're talking of a situation outwith your "rule of law", it could be anything from vigilantism to a communally-elected sheriff, reeve or constable(s) on the pre-modern model, which involved greater community participation. 


> Can you point out where I've stated that we might as well tolerate what we've got?


You've repeatedly aired the sentiment that we should be grateful for what we've got, however one-sided it is. That's a vote for toleration. 


> And in what way are you 'stirring yourself to look for something better' (apart from feeling the 'righteous vibe')? I'd be very interested to hear where there are some alternatives to the current system of law, and to this society generally, on offer.


And now you do it again, you shift the goalposts from the concept of "the rule of law" to the current "system of law".
Do everyone a favour: State your points clearly, so that no-one has to put up with your constant oscillation between your original points, and whatever you decide to put in their place once the replies from others show them to be flawed.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 5, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> In actual fact, most riots end up having very little bearing on the class war. You could actually go as far as to say that a lot of riots that take place have only tenuous connections to the class war, if any at all. At best, riots are an act of despair by the powerless. And today, people are increasingly powerless to affect genuine political change, as we are seeing in a situation where the ruling class has come under no threat whatsoever from the mostly feeble reactions to the greatest economic crisis since the great depression. I've a feeling that those who fetishise riots on here are simply compensating for their feelings of powerlessness.



Interesting premise.

Care to substantiate?


----------



## Catherine Lech (Aug 5, 2010)

ViolentPanda said:


> I'm afraid it is. You're pretty much saying "be satisfied with what you've got, and be grateful". To me that's just the sort of unthinking sermonising that most homilies are made of.
> 
> You're good with the arch comments, but not so good at sticking to the subject without shifting the goalposts.
> A shame, that.
> ...



I haven't shifted the goalposts once. What I have done is repeatedly questioned the assumptions of other posters, and the replies have been at best feeble (yours) or else non-existent (Pickman's model, Blagsta and others.)

It isn't 'my' system of law,' is it? It's the one we all live under whether we like it or not, and therefore ours. And how can you accuse me of moving the goalpsosts when it was obvious that I asked you what you'd do if you were a victim of a crime under existing conditions, not in some hypothetical situation. And it is an hypothetical situation because I doubt very much that you would participate in any vigilantism (invites dubious allies, can easily backfire and can easily land you in jail.) Nor are there any communally-elected sheriffs to turn to (will they have a big star badge attached to their shirts and ride horses?) Noting the complete absence of bodies and individuals of this nature does not amount to uncritically supporting what we've got, but recognising that no alternative exists. So I ask you again-who would you turn to if you were the victim of a crime tomorrow? 

The current system of law pretty much amounts to the rule of law. I didn't realise you were required to stick to exactly the same words when repeatedly describing the same thing. Perhaps you could post up a glossary of acceptable terms?


----------



## Catherine Lech (Aug 5, 2010)

ViolentPanda said:


> Interesting premise.
> 
> Care to substantiate?


 
Only to say that even the inner-city riots people on here like to fetishise were not directly political. Social grievances do not necessarily lead to political conclusions and demands, nor, I suspect, are those who can articulate them usually in the majority in such situations, which, as I said,are simply cries of despair by the powerless. The inner-city riots did not challenge the legitimacy of the existing political system; they didn't even lead to any fundamental political change. The much bigger and broader actions in, for example, Greece or, a few years ago Argentina, will not and did not challenege the legitimacy of the system or lead to any fundamental political change. 

Furthermore, probably most riots and skirmishes with the police involve no political motivations at all-ie riots at football matches, raves or outdoor festivals, although there are plenty of people willing to attach the political label to anything that involves conflict with the state-a bit problematic when you consider that there's no evidence to suggest that even a small percentage of those who participate in such activities have any desire to challenge the political and economic system.

As for the rest of what I said, perhaps, unlike me, you've have evidence that the political and economic system has been fundamentally challenged by the existing economic crisis? If so, I think you should share that information, as you should any evidence that refutes my declaration that most people today are increasingly powerless to affect such a challenge.


----------



## Red Paul (Aug 5, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> In actual fact, most riots end up having very little bearing on the class war. You could actually go as far as to say that a lot of riots that take place have only tenuous connections to the class war, if any at all. At best, riots are an act of despair by the powerless. And today, people are increasingly powerless to affect genuine political change, as we are seeing in a situation where the ruling class has come under no threat whatsoever from the mostly feeble reactions to the greatest economic crisis since the great depression. I've a feeling that those who fetishise riots on here are simply compensating for their feelings of powerlessness.


 My eyes have seenthe mystical words of Will Blake when he wrote.

I will not cease from mental fight!
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand
Till we have built Jerusalem 
In Britain's green and pleasent land.


----------



## Catherine Lech (Aug 5, 2010)

Red Paul said:


> My eyes have seenthe mystical words of Will Blake when he wrote.
> 
> I will not cease from mental fight!
> Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand
> ...


 
Good. Good.


----------



## Red Paul (Aug 5, 2010)

Capitalist Class seem to always out think us, come up with powers and laws to keep the lower class on the back foot they don't give us breathing space the lower class's always open to attack by the capitalist press , people all over Britain been refused benefit. The British capitalists are going to prevent a repetition of the Miners 84/85 . Some How we must meet the capitalist attack and smash it to a complete victory over the upper class's.


----------



## Catherine Lech (Aug 5, 2010)

Red Paul said:


> Capitalist Class seem to always out think us, come up with powers and laws to keep the lower class on the back foot they don't give us breathing space the lower class's always open to attack by the capitalist press , people all over Britain been refused benefit. The British capitalists are going to prevent a repetition of the Miners 84/85 . Some How we must meet the capitalist attack and smash it to a complete victory over the upper class's.





Somehow yes. But nobody (literally nobody) these days has the faintest idea of how to do it. The radical left right across the western world is incapable of even creating a viable opposition. In the UK the wider left is absolutely incapable of even effectively opposing the SWP (always the primary motivation for everybody outside the SWP.)


----------



## Spion (Aug 5, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> Only to say that even the inner-city riots people on here like to fetishise were not directly political.


The riots of the 80s were sparked by police harassment and heavy-handedness against a background of racism and social inequality. They led to changes in police practice following eg Scarman and arguably set the tone for a much bigger sea change in white-black relations in the UK.

Now, I'm no fan of rioting per se, but it wold be a fool who didn't acknowledge that the riots of the 80s did not lead to change


----------



## Catherine Lech (Aug 5, 2010)

Spion said:


> The riots of the 80s were sparked by police harassment and heavy-handedness against a background of racism and social inequality. They led to changes in police practice following eg Scarman and arguably set the tone for a much bigger sea change in white-black relations in the UK.
> 
> Now, I'm no fan of rioting per se, but it wold be a fool who didn't acknowledge that the riots of the 80s did not lead to change




I didn't say they led to no change, but that they led to no real political change. All the things you mention can be comfortably accommodated by the existing system, and have been. At the same time working class political consciousness and organisation has continued its steady decline, while an openly racist party is able to command an unprecedented numberof votes despite the 'sea change in black-white relations.'


----------



## Spion (Aug 5, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> I didn't say they led to no change, but that they led to no real political change. All the things you mention can be comfortably accommodated by the existing system, and have been. At the same time working class political consciousness and organisation has continued its steady decline, while an openly racist party is able to command an unprecedented numberof votes despite the 'sea change in black-white relations.'


I tend to agree. Rioting is reformism with petrol bombs, IMO.

What do you mean by 'real political change'?


----------



## Catherine Lech (Aug 5, 2010)

Spion said:


> I tend to agree. Rioting is reformism with petrol bombs, IMO.
> 
> What do you mean by 'real political change'?





As I said above, change that poses a fundamental challenge to the system. A bit hard to achieve when political consciousness takes an uninterrupted nosedive and political organisation is relentlessly hollowed out


----------



## Spion (Aug 5, 2010)

I was being one-sided in describing rioting as reformism with petrol bombs. It can also contain the seeds of community/workplace self defence and organisation.


----------



## Spion (Aug 5, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> As I said above, change that poses a fundamental challenge to the system. A bit hard to achieve when political consciousness takes an uninterrupted nosedive and political organisation is relentlessly hollowed out


Que profundo. Now what?


----------



## Catherine Lech (Aug 5, 2010)

Spion said:


> I was being one-sided in describing rioting as reformism with petrol bombs. It can also contain the seeds of community/workplace self defence and organisation.





But usually doesn't.


----------



## Catherine Lech (Aug 5, 2010)

Spion said:


> Que profundo. Now what?




As I said somewhere else recently, we're on the Titanic and somebody has trashed all the lifeboats. Hope everybody can swim.


----------



## Spion (Aug 5, 2010)

You're a proper beacon for 'real political change' eh?


----------



## Catherine Lech (Aug 5, 2010)

Spion said:


> You're a proper beacon for 'real political change' eh?





Well what do you want me to do? Paint a false picture of a society on the verge of genuine and lasting change for the better?


----------



## Spion (Aug 5, 2010)

No, of course not. I do think someone who's so keen to talk about 'real political change' would give us some suggestions of how that might happen


----------



## Catherine Lech (Aug 5, 2010)

Spion said:


> No, of course not. I do think someone who's so keen to talk about 'real political change' would give us some suggestions of how that might happen





Isn't that just the thing? Hardly anybody's got a clue anymore. You only have to look at the stuff that gets written on sites like this for confirmation.


----------



## Spion (Aug 5, 2010)

Never mind everyone else. What's your answer to the current malaise?


----------



## Catherine Lech (Aug 5, 2010)

Spion said:


> Never mind everyone else. What's your answer to the current malaise?




I haven't got one. There probably isn't one, unfortunately.


----------



## DotCommunist (Aug 5, 2010)

so you definitely don't have anything to say other than you don't know what to do but that the other fellow is not doing it right. Off you fuck.


----------



## Catherine Lech (Aug 5, 2010)

DotCommunist said:


> so you definitely don't have anything to say other than you don't know what to do but that the other fellow is not doing it right. Off you fuck.





Since when did not pretending to have the answers preclude criticising what others have to say? Particularly when so much of it is nonsense, such as most of what you come out with as far as I've been able to see.


----------



## Spion (Aug 5, 2010)

To criticise others you must have way of comparing what they say/do to what you think is the right thing to do/say. You've talked about why rioting falls short of 'real political change', so why not fill us in with some details of what that means as you see it?


----------



## DotCommunist (Aug 5, 2010)

You are crap, bog off. People have described the hows whys and what happens afters of rioting and you aint able to answer it with anything but sulky insults and pretend superiority. Studiously avoiding the NI question I note.


----------



## Catherine Lech (Aug 5, 2010)

Spion said:


> To criticise others you must have way of comparing what they say/do to what you think is the right thing to do/say. You've talked about why rioting falls short of 'real political change', so why not fill us in with some details of what that means as you see it?


 
I shouldn't have to 'fill you in' with details of what real political change looks like.You know damn well what it looks like.

In criticising others, you have no obligation whatsoever to provide answers. While actions which are futile are obvious, it doesn't follow at all that alternatives are equally obvious.


----------



## Catherine Lech (Aug 5, 2010)

DotCommunist said:


> You are crap, bog off. People have described the hows whys and what happens afters of rioting and you aint able to answer it with anything but sulky insults and pretend superiority. Studiously avoiding the NI question I note.





You didn't clearly direct 'the NI question' at me, but I ignored it anyway because it's irrelevent in that our own situation is entirely different.

I have answered everything anybody has offered about the supposed benefits of rioting, and the only real insults have been directed at me, rather than having come from me.


----------



## Spion (Aug 5, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> I shouldn't have to 'fill you in' with details of what real political change looks like.You know damn well what it looks like.
> 
> In criticising others, you have no obligation whatsoever to provide answers. While actions which are futile are obvious, it doesn't follow at all that alternatives are equally obvious.


It's a straightforward question -- what are the alternatives to rioting that constitute 'real political change'? Come on, don't be coy


----------



## Catherine Lech (Aug 5, 2010)

Spion said:


> It's a straightforward question -- what are the alternatives to rioting that constitute 'real political change'? Come on, don't be coy



You'll get nowhere by repeating questions I've already answered. Not that rioting is actually a political strategy anyway, as already expalined, but it appears that radical left politics hit a brick wall several decades ago and is yet to get up off the floor, as we see from its complete failure to make any headway in the biggest crisis of capitalism since the Great Depression.

The organised left will continue to decline, and working class politics in general seems set to continue to struggle to gain an audience.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 5, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> I haven't shifted the goalposts once. What I have done is repeatedly questioned the assumptions of other posters...


What you've done is questioned assumptions, and then when someone supports their point, you've said (to paraphrase) "well what I *actually* meant was...".


> and the replies have been at best feeble (yours) or else non-existent (Pickman's model, Blagsta and others.)


Trans: You bastards haven't agreed with me!


> It isn't 'my' system of law,' is it? It's the one we all live under whether we like it or not, and therefore ours. And how can you accuse me of moving the goalpsosts when it was obvious that I asked you what you'd do if you were a victim of a crime under existing conditions...


Tut tut, telling fibs. What you asked me was:
*What exactly do you think you would do if you were a victim of a crime without being able to appeal to the law..."*
Now, if I were "unable to appeal to the law", that would imply that there were no law to appeal to, so you're claim about "existing conditions" is just  another example of your goalpost-shifting.


> ....not in some hypothetical situation. And it is an hypothetical situation because I doubt very much that you would participate in any vigilantism (invites dubious allies, can easily backfire and can easily land you in jail.)...


Well, given that I was replying to your own point (and I'll again quote your own words here) I'd be having to act "without being able to appeal to the law", then vigilantism *might* (although I'd hope otherwise) be part of a process of justice.


> Nor are there any communally-elected sheriffs to turn to (will they have a big star badge attached to their shirts and ride horses?)


Did you not study British history at school, or were you too busy watching westerns? The Yanks weren't the first people to have sheriffs. England and Scotland preceded them by about 5 centuries.


> Noting the complete absence of bodies and individuals of this nature does not amount to uncritically supporting what we've got, but recognising that no alternative exists.


It amounts to accepting the _status quo_, tolerating what there is. 


> So I ask you again-who would you turn to if you were the victim of a crime tomorrow?


Are you asking from the perspective of me not "being able to appeal to the law", or being able to appeal to the law if I wish?
I'm just checking, because I'd hate for you to not make yourself clear or give yourself further wriggle room.


> The current system of law pretty much amounts to the rule of law.


No, it doesn't. the "system of law" the coming together of legal and judicial practice, statute, the policing of crime and of people and property and other sundry functions of the criminal justice system.
All the "rule of law" is, is an often-voiced principle that contends that all are subject to the law.


> I didn't realise you were required to stick to exactly the same words when repeatedly describing the same thing. Perhaps you could post up a glossary of acceptable terms?


If you're going to attempt sarcasm, you could at least do it well, rather than coming across as whining.


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 5, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> You'll get nowhere by repeating questions I've already answered. Not that rioting is actually a political strategy anyway, as already expalined, but it appears that radical left politics hit a brick wall several decades ago and is yet to get up off the floor, as we see from its complete failure to make any headway in the biggest crisis of capitalism since the Great Depression.
> 
> The organised left will continue to decline, and working class politics in general seems set to continue to struggle to gain an audience.


i don't think you've grasped the difference between strategy and tactics. cos you come across as a bit slow, you know.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 5, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> Only to say that even the inner-city riots people on here like to fetishise were not directly political. Social grievances do not necessarily lead to political conclusions and demands, nor, I suspect, are those who can articulate them usually in the majority in such situations, which, as I said,are simply cries of despair by the powerless. The inner-city riots did not challenge the legitimacy of the existing political system; they didn't even lead to any fundamental political change. The much bigger and broader actions in, for example, Greece or, a few years ago Argentina, will not and did not challenege the legitimacy of the system or lead to any fundamental political change.
> 
> Furthermore, probably most riots and skirmishes with the police involve no political motivations at all-ie riots at football matches, raves or outdoor festivals, although there are plenty of people willing to attach the political label to anything that involves conflict with the state-a bit problematic when you consider that there's no evidence to suggest that even a small percentage of those who participate in such activities have any desire to challenge the political and economic system.
> 
> As for the rest of what I said, perhaps, unlike me, you've have evidence that the political and economic system has been fundamentally challenged by the existing economic crisis? If so, I think you should share that information, as you should any evidence that refutes my declaration that most people today are increasingly powerless to affect such a challenge.


 
I'll take that as a "no, I don't care to substantiate", shall I?


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 5, 2010)

Pickman's model said:


> i don't think you've grasped the difference between strategy and tactics. cos you come across as a bit slow, you know.



A lot of people confuse the two, even when it really matters that you shouldn't.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 5, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> As I said somewhere else recently, we're on the Titanic and somebody has trashed all the lifeboats. Hope everybody can swim.



The lifeboats are trashed, so you hope everyone can swim, because it'd be utterly pointless trying to find or manufacture an alternative source of buoyancy to the lifeboats, wouldn't it?


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 5, 2010)

DotCommunist said:


> so you definitely don't have anything to say other than you don't know what to do but that the other fellow is not doing it right.



Like an articulate tbaldwin, eeyoring through life.


----------



## DotCommunist (Aug 5, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> You didn't clearly direct 'the NI question' at me, but I ignored it anyway because it's irrelevent in that our own situation is entirely different.
> 
> I have answered everything anybody has offered about the supposed benefits of rioting, and the only real insults have been directed at me, rather than having come from me.


 
did the UVF bastards achieve clear and concrete change when faced with home rule? Did they do it through rioting and threat of armed insurrection to follow?

Yes they did. You crap liberal tool.


----------



## DotCommunist (Aug 5, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> You didn't clearly direct 'the NI question' at me, but I ignored it anyway because it's irrelevent in that our own situation is entirely different.


no I didn't, I was simply commenting on how adroitly you avoided it. Situational differences count now do they? All riots were bad before and never moved anything forward. I hear the 'baaw' of someone who won't admit they might have been a bit wrong. 


> I have answered everything anybody has offered about the supposed benefits of rioting, and the only real insults have been directed at me, rather than having come from me.



If you mean people have laughed at you as you deployed every trick in the Big Book Of Wriggling then yeah, that is true.


----------



## Catherine Lech (Aug 5, 2010)

ViolentPanda said:


> What you've done is questioned assumptions, and then when someone supports their point, you've said (to paraphrase) "well what I *actually* meant was...".
> 
> Trans: You bastards haven't agreed with me!
> 
> ...





You can claim what you want about what I'm supposed to have done, but the evidence is in the thread and shows the rather feeble arguments put up by all my detractors, as well as a refusal to answer simple questions.

Perhaps I put it badly and I should have asked what you'd do apart from appealing to the law if you were the victim of a crime. Whatever the case, it's what I meant.

I'm well aware that other places had sherriffs before the Yanks, but the wild west variety are what people usually think of, hence my little joke (ho ho ho.) 

It's a bit odd, this ticking people off for tolerating the status quo when you and everybody else does precisely that. Or perhaps I'm unaware of your involvement in the creation of an alternative system of law for rebels? 

I'm simply asking what you'd do if you were the victim of a crime.Your refusal (being the rebel you are) to say that you'd do what everybody else does and go to the police suggests that you are the one doing the wriggling.

The rule of law requires a system of law, doesn't it?


----------



## Catherine Lech (Aug 5, 2010)

Pickman's model said:


> i don't think you've grasped the difference between strategy and tactics. cos you come across as a bit slow, you know.




I do know the difference between strategy and tactics. My use of the word strategy comes because some people seem to be offering the act of rioting as a political strategy: people riot; conditions improve, so the argument seems to go.

That this is taken seriously by the likes of you suggests that it isn't those who don't who are the slow ones.


----------



## Catherine Lech (Aug 5, 2010)

ViolentPanda said:


> I'll take that as a "no, I don't care to substantiate", shall I?




You can take it any way you like. It's a description of the reality, however you choose to delude yourself.


----------



## Catherine Lech (Aug 5, 2010)

ViolentPanda said:


> The lifeboats are trashed, so you hope everyone can swim, because it'd be utterly pointless trying to find or manufacture an alternative source of buoyancy to the lifeboats, wouldn't it?





You can't manufacture an alternative when the requiredmaterials are not on board and the know-how absent.


----------



## Catherine Lech (Aug 5, 2010)

ViolentPanda said:


> Like an articulate tbaldwin, eeyoring through life.




What's a tbaldwin?


----------



## Catherine Lech (Aug 5, 2010)

DotCommunist said:


> did the UVF bastards achieve clear and concrete change when faced with home rule? Did they do it through rioting and threat of armed insurrection to follow?
> 
> Yes they did. You crap liberal tool.




They might have done. But in a place, time and situation totally unlike the one we are faced with.

I'm not a liberal but I'd rather be one than some ranting fool who appears to have all the reasoning powers of a junior school kid.


----------



## Blagsta (Aug 5, 2010)

why are you all bothering with this clown?


----------



## Catherine Lech (Aug 5, 2010)

Blagsta said:


> why are you all bothering with this clown?




A bit much coming from the gobshite who flounces without even being able to put up an halfway decent argument.

In fact, nobody opposing what I'm saying has put up anything remotely approaching a decent argument in favour of rioting as a political tactic or strategy, let alone outline a convincing alternative to the current system of law. Mickey Mouse, the lot of you.


----------



## DotCommunist (Aug 5, 2010)

cos it is funny to watch a liberal squirm while desperately trying to frame the debate in terms where they can win.


----------



## Catherine Lech (Aug 5, 2010)

DotCommunist said:


> cos it is funny to watch a liberal squirm while desperately trying to frame the debate in terms where they can win.





Perhaps I find it funny, in a sad kind of way, to see the dregs of a dying radical left tradition in action (the only action most of them will ever see is on the internet, too.)


----------



## DotCommunist (Aug 5, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> However justified the cause, the likeliest outcome in such a scenario is the triumph of the strong and healthy over the weak, sick and powerless; arbitrary tyranny over law, order and humane values.


 


Catherine Lech said:


> They might have done. But in a place, time and situation totally unlike the one we are faced with.
> 
> I'm not a liberal but I'd rather be one than some ranting fool who appears to have all the reasoning powers of a junior school kid.


 
I agree with Nick.


----------



## Blagsta (Aug 5, 2010)

She's a fucking idiot who can't follow an argument.  Better off on ignore.


----------



## Catherine Lech (Aug 5, 2010)

DotCommunist said:


> I agree with Nick.




Good.Now go back to the other board and carry on with some wanking over the fantasy of others shedding some blood for you.


----------



## Catherine Lech (Aug 5, 2010)

Blagsta said:


> She's a fucking idiot who can't follow an argument.  Better off on ignore.





I think I can stand being called an idiot by the kind of Mickey Mouse cretin that, politically, nobody in their right mind would touch with a bargepole.

Incredible that these jokers spend so much time puzzling over their political isolation. It really isn't any mystery, kiddies.


----------



## DotCommunist (Aug 5, 2010)

So basically you have no comeback or reasoned response other than men of straw and petulance? Carry on sweetie, or maybe return when you get some politics


----------



## Catherine Lech (Aug 5, 2010)

DotCommunist said:


> So basically you have no comeback or reasoned response other than men of straw and petulance? Carry on sweetie, or maybe return when you get some politics




I've given reasoned responses throughout and received mostly petulance and insult in response.

Are you an example of having some politics? Because from where I'm sitting you sound like a Wolfie Smith caricature of a communist, only more bloodthirsty. And bloodthirstiness is particularly unattractive in somebody who lives a very safe and secure life.


----------



## DotCommunist (Aug 5, 2010)

You've given reasoned responses and had them taken apart, then you have resorted to the petulant insults. My objectionable bloodthirsty ranting doesn't validate your shit responses btw, it just makes me look like a  bloodthirsty arsehole. Why do you liberals always think that other peoples desire for lime-pit justice validates their Mellow Birds politics?

It is fascinating to see the libral apply aesthetics onto politics as well. Attractive. I agree with Nick.


----------



## Blagsta (Aug 5, 2010)

She hasn't given many reasonable responses.  Mainly she's showed her inability to follow an argument.


----------



## Catherine Lech (Aug 5, 2010)

Blagsta said:


> She hasn't given many reasonable responses.  Mainly she's showed her inability to follow an argument.





You keep saying that, but the thread belies your claim. 

Anyway, how would you know, seeing as you've got me on ignore?


----------



## Catherine Lech (Aug 5, 2010)

DotCommunist said:


> You've given reasoned responses and had them taken apart, then you have resorted to the petulant insults. My objectionable bloodthirsty ranting doesn't validate your shit responses btw, it just makes me look like a  bloodthirsty arsehole. Why do you liberals always think that other peoples desire for lime-pit justice validates their Mellow Birds politics?
> 
> It is fascinating to see the libral apply aesthetics onto politics as well. Attractive. I agree with Nick.





If you think that the replies to me in this thread constitute taking an argument apart, then no wonder you're in the political wilderness. And again-a read through the thread reveals that, despite what you claim, I am not the main one dishing out insults. 

It isn't a matter of Mellow Birds politics, but of the slightly nauseating spectacle of somebody spilling blood and gore from the safety of a keyboard in his bedroom.


----------



## DotCommunist (Aug 5, 2010)

so decaff Mellow Birds.

you lost the arguement long ago but you keep whining on cos you don't like the fact that rioting can and has effected societal change in the past. Your increasingly shrill personal digs are like that sound kids make when they pinch the end of a deflating balloon.


----------



## DotCommunist (Aug 5, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> You keep saying that, but the thread belies your claim.
> 
> Anyway, how would you know, seeing as you've got me on ignore?


 
He was replying to what I had written, you genius.


----------



## Catherine Lech (Aug 5, 2010)

DotCommunist said:


> He was replying to what I had written, you genius.




I know-but the fact that he's put me on ignore would suggest that all further interest in my activities on these boards would have ceased. Evidently not.


----------



## Blagsta (Aug 5, 2010)

DotCommunist said:


> He was replying to what I had written, you genius.


 
She ain't the brightest of sparks is she.


----------



## Catherine Lech (Aug 5, 2010)

DotCommunist said:


> so decaff Mellow Birds.
> 
> you lost the arguement long ago but you keep whining on cos you don't like the fact that rioting can and has effected societal change in the past. Your increasingly shrill personal digs are like that sound kids make when they pinch the end of a deflating balloon.





Go back and read your own contributions before accusing others of shrill personal digs. And I repeat-nobody has said anything even remotely convincing as to the political effectiveness of rioting; the thread speaks for itself. 

I get the impression that you perhaps don't see much life off the internet, Mr 61,000 (!) posts. Are you housebound or something?


----------



## Catherine Lech (Aug 5, 2010)

Blagsta said:


> She ain't the brightest of sparks is she.




I've a feeling that Blagsta will be taking a box of tissues with him for when he's thinking of me in bed.


----------



## DotCommunist (Aug 6, 2010)

did the rioting and armed insurrection of Ulster keep them in the Union y/n? Oh, I just wikied it and apparently the six counties are still brit territory! who knew eh? You clown.

We will leave aside postcount jibes as the cheap digs of someone who knows they have lost the point they were badly attempting to make.


----------



## DotCommunist (Aug 6, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> I've a feeling that Blagsta will be taking a box of tissues with him for when he's thinking of me in bed.


 
to wipe his lips after involuntary vomiting at your sheer stupidity? Yeah, me n all.


----------



## Catherine Lech (Aug 6, 2010)

DotCommunist said:


> did the rioting and armed insurrection of Ulster keep them in the Union y/n? Oh, I just wikied it and apparently the six counties are still brit territory! who knew eh? You clown.
> 
> We will leave aside postcount jibes as the cheap digs of someone who knows they have lost the point they were badly attempting to make.





Why do you keep going on about Ulster rioters? I haven't even responded to your apparent obsession with them except to say their example is largely irrelevant, and that was some way back.

Are you some kind of closet Orangeman? 

Postcount jibes? Struck a nerve? Are you in an institution perhaps?


----------



## Catherine Lech (Aug 6, 2010)

DotCommunist said:


> to wipe his lips after involuntary vomiting at your sheer stupidity? Yeah, me n all.




Don't vomit involuntarily.It's just an internet thread, old son.


----------



## DotCommunist (Aug 6, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> Why do you keep going on about Ulster rioters? I haven't even responded to your apparent obsession with them except to say their example is largely irrelevant, and that was some way back.
> 
> Are you some kind of closet Orangeman?
> 
> Postcount jibes? Struck a nerve? Are you in an institution perhaps?


 
of course you haven't, and it wasn't me who raised the irish situ. Makes you 'riots never changed nuffink' rubbish seen as it is though.

I'm descnded from oirash prods thanks  and all manner of objectionable forefathers. This liberal obsession with credentials ticks another box, you just cannot help yourself.

As for postcount, I've been here ten fucking years ffs. Grow up. You got pulled for talking shit, get over it. Can't you just admit that you might have tslked shit? 

what a tool


----------



## Catherine Lech (Aug 6, 2010)

DotCommunist said:


> of course you haven't, and it wasn't me who raised the irish situ. Makes you 'riots never changed nuffink' rubbish seen as it is though.
> 
> I'm descnded from oirash prods thanks  and all manner of objectionable forefathers. This liberal obsession with credentials ticks another box, you just cannot help yourself.
> 
> ...





Who did raise 'the Irish situ' then? And why do you keep going on about it as if it's definitive proof that rioting affects definitive political change, when it's obvious that the example is of relevance only to a particular, isolated situation? 

Sixty thousand posts is a gargantuan effort no matter how long you've been here. Have you ever considered turning off the computer and testing out your political stance on some real people?


----------



## DotCommunist (Aug 6, 2010)

mew mew look at your big post count that validates my bullshit

You've lost it 

Job done, every bit of bull you've raised has been destroyed and you've nothing left except asking me to search the thread for you. This is ,e sticking a fork in you- you're done my sweet sweet pedigree chum. Here is your arse on a plate. Take it off with you and think before gobbing off again yeah?

And you can have the last word by the way,  even though you have already mugged yourself off.


----------



## Catherine Lech (Aug 6, 2010)

DotCommunist said:


> mew mew look at your big post count that validates my bullshit
> 
> You've lost it
> 
> ...





I've lost it? At least I'm managing to remain coherent, which is more than can be said for you. Have you heard yourself in the last few posts? If you're more than about fourteen I really do feel for you. Cup of cocoa and half a jar of valerian, and off to beddy-byes, eh?


----------



## DotCommunist (Aug 6, 2010)

I was going to let you have the last word but then I remembered this gif

I don't know how to rate this thread, have you mugged yourself off the most or been mugged off more? 50/50 I recon


----------



## smokedout (Aug 6, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> Who did raise 'the Irish situ' then? And why do you keep going on about it as if it's definitive proof that rioting affects definitive political change, when it's obvious that the example is of relevance only to a particular, isolated situation?



what's obvious is that those riots were of relevance only to that particular, isolated situation, you can't pick up one riot transplant it somewhere else and expect it to fit

it was one example of rioting bringing about political change, there are many more of riots bringing about local reformism and of having a lasting impact within communities, southall black sisters being one well known exmaple of such a group, I could point to several similiar groups formed from grassroots up in both broadwater farm and bradford

along with a mass campaign of civil disobedience the poll tax riots, whilst not leading to radical change, did manage to prevent an assault, the riots in the city helped to spawn a global movement and at least made people aware of the imf/world ban etc

then there are the unseen changes, that come from the threat of the mob, you might question why the French work less hours a week than here and retire at 60, Europe has a long history in fact of political change being informed by violent political street action, something both the left and the far right have capitalised on

there are countless more examples of riots being used effectively as a tactic often to bring about radical reform, sometimes as a defensive action, and sometimes, as in ireland, italy and spain to bring about radical political change whether for good or ill, to say any different is to deny history


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## Catherine Lech (Aug 6, 2010)

smokedout said:


> what's obvious is that those riots were of relevance only to that particular, isolated situation, you can't pick up one riot transplant it somewhere else and expect it to fit
> 
> it was one example of rioting bringing about political change, there are many more of riots bringing about local reformism and of having a lasting impact within communities, southall black sisters being one well known exmaple of such a group, I could point to several similiar groups formed from grassroots up in both broadwater farm and bradford
> 
> ...


 
Perhaps your idea of political change, and that of others in this thread, is simply different to mine. As I've conceded, it may be true that the Southall Black Sisters did some good things, but as far as I'm aware their sphere of activity is narrow and their geographical impact limited to the small area where they operate. In the country as a whole, almost nobody outside the tiny left/anarchist ghetto has ever heard of them. It isn't a criticism, by the way, to say that their area of activity is narrow as, to my knowledge, they have never tried to broaden it out, as general political activity wasn't what they were set up for. As noted much earlier, though, their period of existence coincides with an ongoing decline in working class political activity and organisation, which suggests that whatever impact the riots have had, their contribution to resisting the advance of neo-liberalism has been negligible, if not non-existent. The same applies to whatever came out of Broadwater Farm and Bradford, which you claim you could 'point to' but interestingly do not name.

As a couple of more sober voices early on in the thread explained, it wasn't the riot that ended the Poll Tax but the wider campaign. And the Poll Tax would not have been defeated if the Tory hierarchy hadn't already come to view Thatcher as a liability. Meanwhile, the 'worldwide movement' that 'the riots in the city' allegedly spawned has had no impact at all on halting the neo-liberal assault (which is wobbling only due to its inherent flaws.)

Similarly to the Poll Tax, it isn't because of the threat of the mob that French workers generally enjoy better conditions than we do, but because they are better organised and the fact that the ruling class in France has been less committed to neo-liberal destructiveness over the last thirty years than ours. When the French did try to take on the state on the streets they lost miserably, and a centre-right government was returned just a few weeks later. 

I'm not denying that riots are sometimes inevitable. As I said, they are a cry of despair by the powerless, most of whom are completely unaware that some self-appointed generals see them as a political tactic. But against the modern, well-armed state, increasingly powerless citizens can only invite a bloodbath and a clampdown if relying on street rioting to affect change. As I said, despite all the energy that went into the recent riots in Greece, the government is pressing ahead with austerity. Similarly, the larger scale unrest that happened in Argentina a few years ago resulted in nothing else but what the Greeks are going to be enduring over the next few years. I don't like the idea any more than you do, but it's the way it's going to be, and not only in Greece, because the left is a shell and working class political organisation now so weak that it is incapable of either effective resistance or of offering a positive alternative.


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## Pickman's model (Aug 6, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> As a couple of more sober voices early on in the thread explained, it wasn't the riot that ended the Poll Tax but the wider campaign.And the Poll Tax would not have been defeated if the Tory hierarchy hadn't aleady come to view Thatcher as a liability. Meanwhile, the 'worldwide movement' that 'the riots in the city' allegedly spawned has had no impact at all on halting the neo-liberal assault (which is wobbling only due to its inherent flaws.)


 the poll tax riot? as anyone who was there will recall, it was riots, at town halls up and down the country. do you think there'd have been a 'wider movement' without the riots? it certainly wouldn't have been so popular.


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## Catherine Lech (Aug 6, 2010)

Pickman's model said:


> the poll tax riot? as anyone who was there will recall, it was riots, at town halls up and down the country. do you think there'd have been a 'wider movement' without the riots? it certainly wouldn't have been so popular.





Were most people attracted to the movement simply because it offered the chance of a riot? The composition of the movement suggests not. There were riots in some towns and cities and not in others. Whether there had been a riot seems to have had no bearing on the effectiveness of the wider campaigning.

In any case, as I said, if the Tory hierarchy hadn't already come to view Thatcher as a liability, the Poll Tax would not have been ditched.


----------



## Pickman's model (Aug 6, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> Were most people attracted to the movement simply because it offered the chance of a riot? The composition of the movement suggests not. There were riots in some towns and cities and not in others. Whether there had been a riot seems to have had no bearing on the effectiveness of the wider campaigning.


what's your source for 'the composition of the movement'?


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## Catherine Lech (Aug 6, 2010)

Pickman's model said:


> what's your source for 'the composition of the movement'?




Memory. All sorts of people were involved in the Poll Tax movement, as is well-known.


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## Pickman's model (Aug 6, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> Memory. All sorts of people were involved in the Poll Tax movement, as is well-known.


 
and where were you?


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## Catherine Lech (Aug 6, 2010)

Pickman's model said:


> and where were you?




Somewhere in the north. But what bearing does that have on whether the composition of the movement was broader than just riot fetishists? As I said, it's well-known that all kinds of mostly working class people were involved, young, elderly and old.


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## Pickman's model (Aug 6, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> Somewhere in the north. But what bearing does that have on whether the composition of the movement was broader than just riot fetishists? As I said, it's well-known that all kinds of mostly working class people were involved, young, elderly and old.


 
yeh. and i suppose you'll be telling me that the only people in central london, the only people in front of twon halls, were 18-35 up for it rioters because obviously elderly people don't go on demonstrations. btw, elderly people are usually old too.


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## Catherine Lech (Aug 6, 2010)

Pickman's model said:


> yeh. and i suppose you'll be telling me that the only people in central london, the only people in front of twon halls, were 18-35 up for it rioters because obviously elderly people don't go on demonstrations. btw, elderly people are usually old too.



Most, but not all, rioters are usually young. That is not to say that you don't get older people joining in sometimes, but most people usually do gain a bit of common sense as they age.That said, most people, either young or old, clearly don't share your enthusiasm for rioting, which seems to suggest that most people, old or otherwise, do have more sense than you. 

People usually do distinguish between the elderly and the old. These days, I'd say most people regard the old as those who are at least seventy or so. You can be considered elderly before you reach that age though. 

Having said all that you don't half have a strange line of argument.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 6, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> You can't manufacture an alternative when the requiredmaterials are not on board and the know-how absent.



Of course not, because a sinking ship wouldn't have any of those materials, and no-one in the entire complement of crew and passengers would know how to tie a hitch.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 6, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> You can claim what you want about what I'm supposed to have done, but the evidence is in the thread and shows the rather feeble arguments put up by all my detractors, as well as a refusal to answer simple questions.


You're right, the evidence *is* in the thread.
Unfortunately for you, consensus appears to be that you're chatting shit. 


> Perhaps I put it badly and I should have asked what you'd do apart from appealing to the law if you were the victim of a crime. Whatever the case, it's what I meant.


So you didn't mean what you said, *or* say what you meant?
Why doesn't that surprise me?


> I'm well aware that other places had sherriffs before the Yanks, but the wild west variety are what people usually think of, hence my little joke (ho ho ho.)


Correct form is to suffix "jokes" (especially ones that contain little humour) with a smilie.
I get the feeling that your "joke" only became on when you realised you'd been an arse.


> It's a bit odd, this ticking people off for tolerating the status quo when you and everybody else does precisely that.


Everybody else *doesn't* do precisely that, though. Do they? 


> Or perhaps I'm unaware of your involvement in the creation of an alternative system of law for rebels?


Would anyone who was, be foolish enough to alert you to such involvement, eeyore?


> I'm simply asking what you'd do if you were the victim of a crime.Your refusal (being the rebel you are) to say that you'd do what everybody else does and go to the police suggests that you are the one doing the wriggling.


I haven't refused to answer. I gave you an answer even though you contradicted yourself by framing the question via two entirely different POVs.
I'll do you a favour and make it clear for you, though, because you strike me as being hard-of-thinking when answers don't accord to your worldview:
If the crime was of the sort where interaction by myself could "solve" it, that's the route I'd take. I've done this in the past when stuff has been stolen, when I've been assaulted, etc. If the crime was of the sort that can't be dealt with that way, I'd *consider* using the police, but so far my only interaction with them has been to get a crime number, or when I've been moved on, nicked or likewise, mostly on anti-fascist demos and other protests and picketings (see what I mean about how "everybody else" *doesn't* tolerate the _status quo_?


> The rule of law requires a system of law, doesn't it?


Yes.
However, you claimed they were the same thing, not that they were complementary.

_Oy_ fucking _vey!_


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## ViolentPanda (Aug 6, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> What's a tbaldwin?



A poster on here with similar views, but less skill with the English language. He too is an Eeyore.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 6, 2010)

DotCommunist said:


> cos it is funny to watch a liberal squirm while desperately trying to frame the debate in terms where they can win.



If CL were *actually* trying to "frame" the debate at all, I wouldn't mind, but we're talking major boundary shifts at almost every post.


----------



## ska invita (Aug 6, 2010)

im dead confused - whats the argument thats going on in a nutshell?


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## ViolentPanda (Aug 6, 2010)

ska invita said:


> im dead confused - whats the argument thats going on in a nutshell?



Whether rioting can, or ever has, brought about political change.


----------



## Catherine Lech (Aug 6, 2010)

ViolentPanda said:


> Of course not, because a sinking ship wouldn't have any of those materials, and no-one in the entire complement of crew and passengers would know how to tie a hitch.




Precisely. And on the particular Titanic we're on, none of those materials do exist. In other words, all the alternatives are bankrupt, as the fond notions of the riot fetishists on here highlights.


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## Catherine Lech (Aug 6, 2010)

ViolentPanda said:


> You're right, the evidence *is* in the thread.
> Unfortunately for you, consensus appears to be that you're chatting shit.
> 
> So you didn't mean what you said, *or* say what you meant?
> ...




Yes, it seems I'm faced with a consensus of fools. Do I look bothered? 

Smilies are for people who are too dull-witted to recognise the point being made. As for the sherriff thing, I guarantee you that nobody thinks of Scotland when the word sherriff is uttered. (I can't believe you're still going on about this. (Chortling Smilie, facepalm etc.) 

Of course everybody tolerates the status quo, including hardened rebels like you, Blagsta, Smoked Out and other jokers. You might make disapproving noises about it on the internet, or even in real life from time to time, but there is no evidence that any of you are doing anything that comes anywhere near undermining it (going on a demo  from time-to-time does not challenge the status quo, and nor, sadly, do the vast majority of pickets. Most people who stand on picket lines are not even trying to undermine the staus quo. Unfortunate but true.) I do accept that you delude yourselves into thinking that you do however, and it probably keeps you out of trouble. You can alert me to whatever you like. Or not. Bargepoles I do not need.

So if your house was totally done over, you'd start doing an Inspector Morse impersonation? Or do you prefer Frost? (I know your image of yourself is probably more Mike Hammer but never mind.) No-whatever you say on here you'd do what everybody else does and phone the police, if only because you don't have the time, expertise and backup to sort it out yourself.

And with the last point you're just splitting hairs.


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## Catherine Lech (Aug 6, 2010)

ViolentPanda said:


> If CL were *actually* trying to "frame" the debate at all, I wouldn't mind, but we're talking major boundary shifts at almost every post.




Yes-by you and your playmates, not me.


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## ViolentPanda (Aug 6, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> Yes-by you and your playmates, not me.



Ah, a manifestation of the psychological phenomenon known as "projection", I believe.


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## DotCommunist (Aug 6, 2010)

am I bovvered!

the descent into schoolgirl face/bovvered chat is complete- and followed by a few para's of waffle as well.


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## Catherine Lech (Aug 6, 2010)

ViolentPanda said:


> Ah, a manifestation of the psychological phenomenon known as "projection", I believe.


 

You do believe some questionable things, however.


----------



## Catherine Lech (Aug 6, 2010)

DotCommunist said:


> am I bovvered!
> 
> the descent into schoolgirl face/bovvered chat is complete- and followed by a few para's of waffle as well.



Have you killed any class enemies yet?


----------



## DotCommunist (Aug 6, 2010)




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## ViolentPanda (Aug 6, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> Yes, it seems I'm faced with a consensus of fools. Do I look bothered?


If I were you, I would be, as you appear to be prey to some really humdingingly awful delusions about your own superiority.


> Smilies are for people who are too dull-witted to recognise the point being made.


No, smilies are indications of emotion or humour that can't easily be conveyed in the written medium, nothing to do with dull-wittedness, although if it makes you feel better to believe so, you go ahead!


> As for the sherriff thing, I guarantee you that nobody thinks of Scotland when the word sherriff is uttered. (I can't believe you're still going on about this. (Chortling Smilie, facepalm etc.)


I think of Scotland and Nottingham. I'm sure others do too. 


> Of course everybody tolerates the status quo, including hardened rebels like you, Blagsta, Smoked Out and other jokers.


You're really quite childish, aren't you?


> You might make disapproving noises about it on the internet, or even in real life from time to time, but there is no evidence that any of you are doing anything that comes anywhere near undermining it (going on a demo  from time-to-time does not challenge the status quo, and nor, sadly, do the vast majority of pickets. Most people who stand on picket lines are not even trying to undermine the staus quo. Unfortunate but true.) I do accept that you delude yourselves into thinking that you do however, and it probably keeps you out of trouble. You can alert me to whatever you like. Or not. Bargepoles I do not need.


Trans: Nothing anyone does changes anything. I'm a realist and you're all idiots for not seeing things my way.


> So if your house was totally done over, you'd start doing an Inspector Morse impersonation?


Is that what I said?
Nope, as usual it isn't.
I'd try and find out if the burglar is local (they usually are on estates like this, and they're usually either young and still living with parents or are junkies), and pay them a visit to convince them to return my stuff. It's worked well in the past, and anything beyond glowering is generally unnecessary.
See, nothing about playing "private eyes", just about knowing the people I live among and them knowing me. It's part of living in a community.


> Or do you prefer Frost? (I know your image of yourself is probably more Mike Hammer but never mind.)


I'm not a Spillane fan. I was put off long ago when Stacey Keach ruined the Mike Hammer stories for me by being such a shite actor. I can't read Spillane without seeing Keach's fat face.


> No-whatever you say on here you'd do what everybody else does and phone the police, if only because you don't have the time, expertise and backup to sort it out yourself.


So, I'm a liar, because whatever I say on here, I'd do what you would do?
What astounding arrogance you have! 


> And with the last point you're just splitting hairs.


No, I'm not. I'm making a sound point that your claim in the prior post was not reflected in your latter post, where you shifted the goalposts from similarity ("they're the same thing") to complementarity ("one is needed for the other").


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 6, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> You do believe some questionable things, however.



Such as?

You see, if you're claiming something, it's generally incumbent on you to make an effort to substantively support that claim, and while you're vehement in your claims ("I strongly suspect"; "it seems I'm faced with a consensus of fools"; "whatever you say on here you'd do what everybody else does" for example), your inability and/or willingness to substantiate your claims with anything but waffle and snide comments is striking.


----------



## Catherine Lech (Aug 6, 2010)

ViolentPanda said:


> Such as?
> 
> You see, if you're claiming something, it's generally incumbent on you to make an effort to substantively support that claim, and while you're vehement in your claims ("I strongly suspect"; "it seems I'm faced with a consensus of fools"; "whatever you say on here you'd do what everybody else does" for example), your inability and/or willingness to substantiate your claims with anything but waffle and snide comments is striking.




Haven't I been arguing with you about your dubious claims for the benefits of rioting for about eight or ten pages now?


----------



## Catherine Lech (Aug 6, 2010)

ViolentPanda said:


> If I were you, I would be, as you appear to be prey to some really humdingingly awful delusions about your own superiority.
> 
> No, smilies are indications of emotion or humour that can't easily be conveyed in the written medium, nothing to do with dull-wittedness, although if it makes you feel better to believe so, you go ahead!
> 
> ...




To recognise fools when you encounter them doesn't require a sense of superiority.

Smilies may have their use, but people tend to use them willy-nilly, whether the meaning of what they've written is obvious or not. Part of our dumbed down culture, I suppose. 

It's a poor reply to my declaration that you, and nearly everybody else, tolerates (as you put it) the status quo, no matter what political views they hold. It's surprising anybody can argue the contrary when you consider the lack of any challenge to the status quo. That you do so seems to be due to a wild over-estimation of the significance of your political activities (if any.) 

I don't believe that you have a track record of facing down burglars and getting your stuff back (if you're repeatedly burgled you need to secure your home a bit better.)  I suspect that you are creating a scenario to make a political point. But let's go with the claim for a moment and see that it completely falls down as a suggested alternative to appealing to the law when you consider that people are often not burgled by kids they can intimidate, and are not all like you. Too many people are too old, enfeebled or sick, and too isolated, to do what you suggest, or else too busy or lack the confidence. it can also leave you open to the kind of reprisals you just don't need. And not too many people live today in anything that could be realistically called a community. I'm surprised that these points have to be put to grown adult, by the way.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 7, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> To recognise fools when you encounter them doesn't require a sense of superiority.


Doesn't it?


> Smilies may have their use, but people tend to use them willy-nilly, whether the meaning of what they've written is obvious or not. Part of our dumbed down culture, I suppose.


More unsubstantiated supposition! Bravo!


> It's a poor reply to my declaration that you, and nearly everybody else, tolerates (as you put it) the status quo, no matter what political views they hold. It's surprising anybody can argue the contrary when you consider the lack of any challenge to the status quo.


I see plenty of challenge to the _status quo_. Unfortunately, you, in your superior way, decry challenge as "insignificant" it if doesn't meet your own set of measures as to "significance". 


> That you do so seems to be due to a wild over-estimation of the significance of your political activities (if any.)


I don't over-estimate the significance or relevance of my activities. I'm happy to acknowledge I'm just a single individual. Thing is, optimists like myself are aware that the better sort of political change is change that's born at the grass-roots, and permeates upward, and try to build locally, rather than just whining about how there's no challenge to the _status quo_. 


> I don't believe that you have a track record of facing down burglars and getting your stuff back (if you're repeatedly burgled you need to secure your home a bit better.)


I don't really care what you believe, Catherine. 
As for being "repeatedly burgled" (your words, not mine), spending 8 years living in a ground floor flat on one of the most crime- and drug-ridden estates in the borough of Lambeth in the 1980s meant that however good your home security was, there was always people desperate enough to be able to circumvent it, especially when the police were scared to set foot there unless they were mob-handed.


> I suspect that you are creating a scenario to make a political point.


*I* suspect that you're projecting your own motivations and practices again.


> But let's go with the claim for a moment and see that it completely falls down as a suggested alternative to appealing to the law when you consider that people are often not burgled by kids they can intimidate, and are not all like you. Too many people are too old, enfeebled or sick, and too isolated, to do what you suggest, or else too busy or lack the confidence.


I haven't said it's a cure-all or a replacement for police activity, I've said that it's an option.


> it can also leave you open to the kind of reprisals you just don't need.


So can appealing to the rule of law. 


> And not too many people live today in anything that could be realistically called a community.


Another of your unsubstantiated (and, from a sociological point of view, unsubstantiatable) claims. 


> I'm surprised that these points have to be put to grown adult, by the way.


I'm surprised you believe you're making substantive points, rather than airing vague opinions.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 7, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> Haven't I been arguing with you about your dubious claims for the benefits of rioting for about eight or ten pages now?


No.
What you've been doing is airily nay-saying anything that contradicts your opinion, while not giving anything except opinions and pessimistic received wisdom of the "common-sense" variety to support that nay-saying.


----------



## Red Paul (Aug 7, 2010)

ViolentPanda said:


> If I were you, I would be, as you appear to be prey to some really humdingingly awful delusions about your own superiority.
> 
> No, smilies are indications of emotion or humour that can't easily be conveyed in the written medium, nothing to do with dull-wittedness, although if it makes you feel better to believe so, you go ahead!
> 
> ...


 
Total retrograde. Move on


----------



## Catherine Lech (Aug 7, 2010)

ViolentPanda said:


> Doesn't it?
> 
> More unsubstantiated supposition! Bravo!
> 
> ...


 
You can say that you see plenty of challenges to the status quo, but typically you don't specify what they are? In what way are they a challenge? What do they lead to that weakens the status quo, makes it less secure? I don't see anything at the moment and don't foresee anything easily changing in a situation where the left is dead, the labour movement moribund and working class political consciousness and organisation at its lowest ebb for a century or more. So what do you see as significant? You can tell yourself that grass roots organisation begins from blah blah, but it doesn't mean that anything much is going to actually happen. 

You don't have to tell me what it's like to live in shitty areas. But in these kind of places there is little evidence that people sort out their own problems with crime. Those that do usually have criminal connections themselves, and thus the confidence of having backup, while the rest are cowed and keep their heads down. Your romantic notions about people sorting it out for themselves are simply imaginary. Most people have no such option. 

It's one of the most common refrains of our times to say that community, in any genuine sense of the term, is dead over large parts of the country. Again, your imaginary world of working class communities, pregnant with the promise of 'self-organisation,' and full of people feeling 'righteous vibes,' is simply a romantic notion.


----------



## Catherine Lech (Aug 7, 2010)

ViolentPanda said:


> No.
> What you've been doing is airily nay-saying anything that contradicts your opinion, while not giving anything except opinions and pessimistic received wisdom of the "common-sense" variety to support that nay-saying.




Youy can say what you want, but I've addressed more or less every point you've made with rational argument.


----------



## ViolentPanda (Aug 7, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> You can say that you see plenty of challenges to the status quo, but typically you don't specify what they are?


Is that a question or a statement?
*Any* opposition to the _status quo_ is a challenge. Anything from disability rights campaigners agitating for equal treatment to pensioners getting up a petition about...whatever pensioners get up petitions about.
It's not just about grand narratives, it's about realising that the _status quo_ is contingent, and that change can be achieved.


> In what way are they a challenge? What do they lead to that weakens the status quo, makes it less secure?


I hate to get all Gramscian, but the _status quo_ *isn't* "secure" the hegemony of power is contingent, something those in power are well aware of, but that seems to have passed you by.


> I don't see anything at the moment and don't foresee anything easily changing in a situation where the left is dead, the labour movement moribund and working class political consciousness and organisation at its lowest ebb for a century or more. So what do you see as significant? You can tell yourself that grass roots organisation begins from blah blah, but it doesn't mean that anything much is going to actually happen.


Where do movements come from, Eeyore?
Do they spring fully-formed from the forehead of the political vanguard?
No. They emerge organically, from the union of the ideas, needs and practices of like-minded people - communities of people and of interests. You whine about the left, but what's your reasoning for why the left is in the pass it has come to? It's fairly obvious to me that the soft-left carried on their historic programme of ceding ground to capital and accommodating the demands of power, and that elements of the harder left, instead of taking up the slack, started to define themselves in opposition to the soft left rather than offering an alternative. The left is stuffed because one section bought into neo-liberalism, and another bought into permanent oppositionism, and what is left is swirled thither and yon between reacting to the crises neo-liberalism forces on us and attempting to mount a populist critique of power.  


> You don't have to tell me what it's like to live in shitty areas.But in these kind of places there is little evidence that people sort out their own problems with crime.


Because, of course, you'd get to hear about it, wouldn't you? 


> Those that do usually have criminal connections themselves, and thus the confidence of having backup, while the rest are cowed and keep their heads down. Your romantic notions about people sorting it out for themselves are simply imaginary. Most people have no such option.


Again, you call me liar, but don't have the courage to say it openly.


> It's one of the most common refrains of our times to say that community, in any genuine sense of the term...


What is *your* "genuine sense of the term"?
I'd like to know before I dismantle your falsehood. 


> ...is dead over large parts of the country.


No-one could ever accuse you of hyperbole, could they? 


> Again, your imaginary world of working class communities, pregnant with the promise of 'self-organisation,' and full of people feeling 'righteous vibes,' is simply a romantic notion.


It always will be for people who've already decided that there's nothing to be done. I'd pity you, but I save my pity and my sympathy for those who have problems thrust upon them, rather than those who Eeyore themselves into a state of political stasis.


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## ViolentPanda (Aug 7, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> Youy can say what you want, but I've addressed more or less every point you've made with rational argument.



Only in your own imaginary world is that the case, I'm afraid.


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## Catherine Lech (Aug 7, 2010)

ViolentPanda said:


> Is that a question or a statement?
> *Any* opposition to the _status quo_ is a challenge. Anything from disability rights campaigners agitating for equal treatment to pensioners getting up a petition about...whatever pensioners get up petitions about.
> It's not just about grand narratives, it's about realising that the _status quo_ is contingent, and that change can be achieved.
> 
> ...




It's a statement, with an option for you to fill in the details of the one you made. The activities you mention are worthwhile and necessary. But they don't even remotely challenge the status quo, and the people participating them are as 'tolerant' of the status quo as those who don't, in that they live in it without undermining it. They may sometimes bring about change within the system, but that isn't the same as challenging it. 

I know the staus quo is contingent, but when no coherent challenge to it is on offer it's also secure in its contingency. 

What's this political vanguard you mention? I haven't said anything that could remotely be considered as favouring a vanguard. I've already agreed that social movements etc emerge in the manner you suggest-but usually they're reliant on the same few politically conscious people. Where they're not (or quite often when they are) they usually emerge and then disappear either after securing modest victories, or more usually these days, in defeat. Your diagnosis of what happened to the left has a lot of truth in it, but in reality the radical left was absolutely incapable of offering an alternative, as once reformism had gained a secure hold, the radical element was destined to be permanently marginalised. Now both are all but dead, there is no guarantee that an alternative will emerge even despite the best efforts of good people. Times change, history moves on. Sure enough some people will defend themselves and campaign for their own interests, but it in no way follows that a political alternative will emerge from this.

In my experience people most people don't deal with their problems with crime on their own or even with their neighbours, for reasons already explained. I see no evidence that it's any different for the vast majority of people. I do think you're lying about your experiences with crime, yes. And it takes no courage to say that. As I said, you are creating an imaginary scenario to justify your hoplesssly utopian politics. 

It's obvious what 'community in any genuine sense of the term' means. It means that communities containing real potential for close co-operation between people living in them. I don't dispute that they might still exist here and there, but there are acres of commentary about how and why these kinds of communities began to disappear decades ago. No hyperbole involved in saying this. Maybe you should get out more? 

I haven't said there's nothing can be done. I've said that politics of the kind you attach yourself to are based more in romantic notions than in reality.


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## Red Paul (Aug 7, 2010)

The only way to settle questions of an ideological nature or controversial issues among the poeple is by the democcratic method, the method of discussion, of criticism, of persuasion and education, and not by the method of coercion or repression." Chairman MAO.


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## ViolentPanda (Aug 8, 2010)

Red Paul said:


> The only way to settle questions of an ideological nature or controversial issues among the poeple is by the democcratic method, the method of discussion, of criticism, of persuasion and education, and not by the method of coercion or repression." Chairman MAO.



So the Chairman said, before inveigling another 13-yr old schoolgirl to have sexual relations with him.


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## Red Paul (Aug 9, 2010)

ViolentPanda said:


> So the Chairman said, before inveigling another 13-yr old schoolgirl to have sexual relations with him.


 
 " Enable every woman who can work to take her place on the labour front, under the principle of equal pay for equal work. This should be done as quickly as possible. "
    year 1955 Chairman Mao.  Do this sound like someone who would inveigle a person. When Have the right wing press told the truth, do not you belive they have a pretext to tell and mislead the British poeple?


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## The Black Hand (Aug 10, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> Haven't I been arguing with you about your dubious claims for the benefits of rioting for about eight or ten pages now?


 
Rioting is a silly discussion anyway. What we shouldb e talking about is the great british tradition of imaginitive protest so ably described by EP Thompson - the love that dare not speak its name! These events sometimes got a bit frisky, but generally they were well organised and disciplined affairs (see "Customs in Common"). Back to today, and there is definately a need to recreate vibrant cultures of resistance, and that can be done through the thousands and millions who have been on protests in recent years. (Think Iraq demo, going back a bit poll tax/CND etc).


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## The Black Hand (Aug 10, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> I've said that politics of the kind you attach yourself to are based more in romantic notions than in reality.


 
AS ever the great EP Thompson criticises your sort of lame, compromised and expedient politics;

"We cannot impose our will upon history in anyway we choose. We ought not to surrender to its circumstantial logic. We can hope and act only as 'gardeners of our circumstance'... I have been meditating not only on the meanings of 'history' but on meanings of people whom I have known and trusted. I have been encountering the paradox that many of those whom 'reality' has proved to be wrong, still seem to me to have been better people than those who were, with a facile and conformist realism, right. I would still wish to justify the aspirations of those whom history, at this point in time, appears to have refuted".

BTW i do not think we have been refuted or defeated, fragmented yes. Of course the miners were defeated but that is not the whole of the working class, the last time the working class as a whole can be said to have fought was the poll tax. I think we won that one, not completely but enough. I think there are tremedous possibilities in the current period too, the outcome of which can make Lechs views even more irrelevant than they already are. I certainly hope so.


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## Red Paul (Aug 10, 2010)

The Black Hand said:


> Rioting is a silly discussion anyway. What we shouldb e talking about is the great british tradition of imaginitive protest so ably described by EP Thompson - the love that dare not speak its name! These events sometimes got a bit frisky, but generally they were well organised and disciplined affairs (see "Customs in Common"). Back to today, and there is definately a need to recreate vibrant cultures of resistance, and that can be done through the thousands and millions who have been on protests in recent years. (Think Iraq demo, going back a bit poll tax/CND etc).


 Tell it as it is you are right-on. 10 out of 10.


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## Catherine Lech (Aug 10, 2010)

The Black Hand said:


> AS ever the great EP Thompson criticises your sort of lame, compromised and expedient politics;
> 
> "We cannot impose our will upon history in anyway we choose. We ought not to surrender to its circumstantial logic. We can hope and act only as 'gardeners of our circumstance'... I have been meditating not only on the meanings of 'history' but on meanings of people whom I have known and trusted. I have been encountering the paradox that many of those whom 'reality' has proved to be wrong, still seem to me to have been better people than those who were, with a facile and conformist realism, right. I would still wish to justify the aspirations of those whom history, at this point in time, appears to have refuted".
> 
> BTW i do not think we have been refuted or defeated, fragmented yes. Of course the miners were defeated but that is not the whole of the working class, the last time the working class as a whole can be said to have fought was the poll tax. I think we won that one, not completely but enough. I think there are tremedous possibilities in the current period too, the outcome of which can make Lechs views even more irrelevant than they already are. I certainly hope so.



Again, all very nice stuff, but I haven't criticised the millions of individuals who've fought for a better society. If I did so, I'd be disowning my own family background and culture. 

The fact that the last time the working class 'as a whole' fought was twenty years ago only goes to emphasise the scale of the deafeat suffered (although in reality 'the class as a whole' didn't fight the Poll Tax; nor did 'the class as a whole' back the miners.) As for tremendous possibilities in in the current period, we'll see.


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## The Black Hand (Aug 13, 2010)

Red Paul said:


> Tell it as it is you are right-on. 10 out of 10.


 
Top man


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## The Black Hand (Aug 13, 2010)

Catherine Lech said:


> Again, all very nice stuff, but I haven't criticised the millions of individuals who've fought for a better society. If I did so, I'd be disowning my own family background and culture.
> 
> A) The fact that the last time the working class 'as a whole' fought was twenty years ago only goes to emphasise the scale of the deafeat suffered * (although in reality 'the class as a whole' didn't fight the Poll Tax; nor did 'the class as a whole' back the miners.) As for tremendous possibilities in in the current period, we'll see.*


*

A) Not really, the class getting together, nationally, across communities, workplaces etc is a rare thing - once a generation if you are lucky. Thinking back I cannot remember any period with constant huge protests, of course there have been periods of struggles. 1910-14, 1926, Hunger marches, & protests against Moseley in the 1930s but I don't think these qualify, Vietnam war '68, the strikes in the early 1970s, and the Winter of discontent. You get the picture, this isn't a story of constant working class struggles in the UK, to think as you are saying is a misnomer.

B) Of course the class as a whole ie 100% doesn't EVER get together, there are reactionary working class people, fascists even, who will never be part of the working class movement. What it does do, in periods of hightened class struggle, is that it gets together and forms a class consciousness across communities in sufficient strength,  ie passes critical mass, so that the dominant community opinion can be said to be radical enough to the extent that it mobilises many people, beyond the usual suspects, and thus can form an apparent dynamic working class movement.*


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## tbaldwin (Aug 16, 2010)

Blagsta said:


> She ain't the brightest of sparks is she.


 
You could learn a lot from her blagsta but your arrogance and conservatism is getting in the way as usual....


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## ViolentPanda (Aug 16, 2010)

tbaldwin said:


> You could learn a lot from her blagsta but your arrogance and conservatism is getting in the way as usual....



And you're being a cowardly snide as usual.


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## Blagsta (Aug 16, 2010)

lol at balders


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## ViolentPanda (Aug 16, 2010)

Blagsta said:


> lol at balders



Just about every time he posts.


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