Small collection of riot-related material

NEEEENAAAAAWWWWW!!

examples of good writing about riot things sprouted up in the last week.

Right what have we got here? Everyone know what you're going to get in the mainstream press: empty condemnation, populist rhetoric etc. You might get a whiff of discussion in the Independent or Guardian about what could be some causes, but that's just the same shtick as usual, now being proven correct. Politicians and the majority of mainstream media depoliticise things like this or politicise it into rhetorical corners. Likewise the kids involved don't politicise it, they embody it, as James said. Social media, hailed as the lubricant of the Arab Spring, condemned as the lubricant of the "England Riots," contains not only impetus for collective action, but is also the most important opinions. People on the ground or at least closer to it than the stratospheric Conservatives or the media elite. Individuals and small collectives, a mess of eccentric discussion. Here's some tingz I've come across.

East London poet Raymond Antrobus has had a pretty creative blast with the riots, mediating sentiments and pictures. I found this articulate short essay by Anthony Anaxagorou on Raymond's blog. He fears not only the Right's response to the riots, but also the Left's. (As the Right wait earnestly to slam the Left's sympathetic mothering of looters, 'Britain's ethnic citizens' get caught in a sort of possessed middle-ground - "They're our vehicle for change!" "No, they're ours!"...)

And a poem by the guy...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqusuhaPeDQ

Someone commented on Anaxagorou's essay saying that the 'Black leadership' and thus community should not seek vengeance for the 'righteous kill' that was the shooting of Mark Duggan, a 'parasite and a blight to the Black community.' This reactionary mentality is prominent right now, and the appetite for looking beyond simple punishment/deterrent is low. Strangely enough, its George Osborne who says today that this is about more than police numbers, they're 'deep-seated issues'. What's more scary, the usual Tory lack of understanding with punitive moralising, or the usual Tory lack of understanding with a social rehabilitation programme?

One thing can stuck from Anaxagorou's message and the response was an exhaustion with the educated armchair lefties, who are always harping on about revolution but maybe found themselves asking where the police is on Monday night. A few days go by and the intellectuals come out of hiding and start writing articles to enforce a political agenda, or so the caricature goes. I may be in this group, may be not. I do like a mocha, it's true.

But: we also cant find jobs, we know how our 'overseas student' friends are treated, we've had the police squaring up to us at protests, we get treated like shit by the Jobcentre, the benefits people, with their ineptitude and scorn, we care when our libraries close and we notice when milk goes up 3p, even through we don't have milk in honey and ginger tea. It's been a monumental time to be a student, as the political laboratory has revolved around the university, the distinction between labour and learning. So, with a highly relevant position, after all, the University for Strategic Optimism's Dr. Sofia Himmelblau writes a very popular and much debated article, lambasting the divisive tactics of the post-riot self-righteous, which mark line between citizens and non-citizens and opportunistically exploit it while the media are onside.

Dan Taylor, on it before most, wrote a typically insightful commentary on the politics of riots, after standing by an increasingly battered Currys in New Cross. Poverty, discrimination, police violence and boredom on the one side, contempt on the other:

White middle-class pundits pass judgement. I want a fuckin satnav: young and old, men and women, a community comes together in looting. Big society? We’re all in it together, so hand me that toaster.

Keeping with white middle-class pundits for a moment, William Wall, Irish writer, came up with a small article linking the riots directly to neoliberal theory. This day has been coming. The state functions to '[facilitate] the accumulation of wealth.' Cue privatisation, the 'looting of the public sphere,' and increasing wealth divides. Here we don't have citizens and non-citizens, a la Dr. Himmelblau but consumers and, I'd add, non-consumers.

Meanwhile, back to the street. One man conveys some very apt sentiments. 'This is not a movement, this is a cry for help,' says he. And one frustrated woman laments the kids inability to understand what they're doing and act in a more appropriate way. "If we're fighting for a cause let's fight for a fucking cause!"

Sorry I don't know how to embed videos.

Darcus Howe, not shocked, calls it an insurrection, talking to a pretty bewildered and patronising BBC Newswoman. Which beings us to the media's gesturing, and the 'neutral' BBC, who's own particular social position has been exposed, speaking as they have for the appalled middle-classes.

Also on the BBC, a report about one man, a pharmacist, who, like many other unfortunate people, have had their shops looted. In that pity voice the reporter adopts for stories you are meant to feel bad for (picked from from voice-cupboard for such occasions as: plight in Africa, Japan explosion, Haiti earthquake, Thailand tsunami, New Orleans hurricane, and now = hapless shopkeeper) we are told that his 'livelihood' has been wrecked. All his stock is gone, his windows are smashed. His family business, over. Hold on, it's fucking Boots!

Stories of the Reeves furniture store are few and far between, which we can be grateful for. But at the same time, family businesses are also few and far between. And the banks aren't lending so we can't expect much more. Most places are wealth-accumulator-factories run by fat-cat capitalists, as John Hutnyk would put it.

John has had an ongoing commentary on the riots, particularly in sections of 11 notes. He covers a lot of stuff. Political agendas, wealth divides, police behaviour, media reportage, and more about insurrections:

Cut through this phantasmal comedy and it’s illusions of civic responsibility, morality and myths of political representation – contemporary Capital is nothing less than theft and plunder and should be hounded into the annals of history.

So I'll refrain from having my own rant, there are plenty out there put far more forcefully, cleverly and poetically than I could.

But, briefly: our society rewards greed. Success = financial success. To 'achieve' is to have money. To have money is to be able to 'get what you want'. Lots of kids went out and did just that. And they've been rewarded with world-wide fame. Where social mobility is inhibited and opportunities are low, this is some achievement. To try to understand what brought about these riots is not to excuse it. The myopic reaction that simply condemns is a sign that those in power are scared about what we might find if we do try to understand. It's far simpler to make it all about kids in tracksuits. It's recognisable, it's safe. Kids in tracksuits have given us grief since we were kids, now they're world famous, and we hate them.

So out come the racist jokes, the ill-thought-out petitions, the political empty gesturing, the reactionary righteousness of a country which has learnt to think about things with Murdoch and the Daily Mail as tutors.

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Update: A bunch more links of stuff from Yu-Mei's pleasant little blog

http://blog.toomanythoughts.org/2011/08/linkdump-perspectives-on-london-riots.html

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key words of the week, from all sides of a debate which everyone apart from looters is allowed to have.

looting

wanton

orgy of violence

sick

pockets

insurrection

lack of identity

lack of respect

opportunism

copycat

bad parenting

cuts

youth centres

community

society

education

police brutality

not enough police brutality

politicians return from holiday

excuses

reasons

game-changer

mindless thuggery

victims

perpetrators

benefits

black people

fire!

water cannon

martial law

copycat

moralising

causes

normal life.

Reviewing reviewing

Reflections on a week of Camden Fringe.

It's fringe month! The world amass in one place: the media flock, industry collides with culture, the whole city is a stage. Well, yeah that's Edinburgh Fringe. How about Camden?

A couple of weeks ago I managed to steal the opportunity to review the Camden fringe. Four shows a week, or thereabouts, all free. Offbeat theatre, tiny stages in pub backrooms, curious comedy, one man shows, and my routine of arbitrarily selected performances to get myself to and comment upon. And no payment, such is the climate.

Bring it on, I thought. The summer is a hole in existence. Everyone has their head in books, or staring at walls making logical constructs, or working (some people do that too). I am condemned to a cruel freedom. Cafe-hopping, reading philosophy with no academic purpose, like in the olden days. And not even a rejection for the jobs I suck-up to. No mail for you today sir, says the postman as I peer into my mailbox.

So to be at Camden by Six p.m. on the Monday, I could just walk from home, which is down Brockley way. Make a day of it. But do you remember the weather that day? Monday to Wednesday: heatwave. So I went to Charing Cross, walked from there. Still a hefty, heated walk.

First show, stand-up comedy. Now I haven't been to much stand-up, especially of the club/pub variety. Ricky Gervais in a massive theatre, it's another world. Even so, somewhere in the depths of my being is a sense of humour, deep deep down. It was James W. Smith, exploring the comic potential of language. Review here.

I sat there alone, amongst giggling groups with pints of beer. Going to a comedy show alone has a certain feel to it. I felt thoroughly professional. Afterwards I got another drink and made some notes on a bench outside. 'Twas a pleasant eve, weather-wise, and Camden was a-buzzin'. And this is where it differs from Edinburgh: the small smattering of people who had been in the audience were gone, somewhere else; I sat on the bench as was joined by a builder, from North somewhere, here on building business, a traveller by heart, tried marriage - can't do it. Camden, full of life, but same as usual - this is not "Fringe Town". The Camden Fringe is a subtler affair, almost subcultural.

The next day I was free, apart from a Nyx meeting. Nyx 6, the Monster edition is coming along nicely, keep your eyes peeled. And this may just rear it's monstrous head.

Wednesday, back to Camden. Another long walk, another theatre above a pub. Ah, but a delightful show - The Shoemaker's Wonderful Wife, highlight of my fringe thus far. Review here. I happily descended the stairs afterwards, following, not stalking, a girl who was also alone. Was she a reviewer like me?

"What did you think?" I asked when we got to the bar.

"Oh, no thanks, I'm fine," she replied.

"Uh, no I mean, er, what did you think . . . of the show?"

"Oh yeah, really good. I know someone in it."

I case you hadn't guessed, she must have thought I'd said "Do you want a drink?" Great, rejected when I wasn't even trying.

We chatted a bit and I missioned on, that reviews not gonna right itself.

Then no plays till Saturday, I relaxed. My dad visited. Cue Chinese restaurant, Holiday Inn, quite bad breakfast and free Independent newspaper, another meal out, and I'm back in Camden for Saturday's shows. Two this time.

At Mornington Crescent I waited for Chris, "Be there in 5," says the message. What am I to make of this? 20 Minutes till the show starts, five minutes to get there, and Chris' notorious punctuality. I waited 15 minutes, sent directions on a text, and bounded round to the Sheephaven Bay, just in time to grab a beer.

All these shows start a bit late, so Chris squeezed in having only missed a couple of minutes. It was poetry. And it was OK. Review here.

Not a long show, but maybe that's OK. We went out and got a beer. Chris and his Wind-up pal Billy moved on and I went and got some chicken wings. It rained. There was a rainbow. Came back and got a whiskey for the next show. This theatre is literally a conservatory. And not exactly soundproof either. So, under difficult circumstances we had a pretty mediocre show. Review here.

Afterwards I chatted for a couple of hours to a girl from Singapore, student of York Uni and periodical Londoner, and had more whiskeys. With the chairs on the tables throughout the pub, like some barren forest, we were finally chucked out. So it wasn't the best night, performance-wise, but was saved by the good company.

Another week on the fringe awaits. With London's suburbs erupting, this could get messy.

Bad wisdom - aphorism 21

"The moment is a black hole, towards which the whole of history collapses."

Bad wisdom - aphorism 20

"If you ride the Rich Tea of life, be prepared to be dunked."

Murdoch Mayhem: Media, Markets and Morals.

Or, On the market as an arbitrator of ethical practice.

An empire crumbles. A week or two of headline news, trumping other seemingly more disastrous and immediate problems - famine, debt crises, NHS privatisation carried out with an invisible cloaking device. No time for that, with a scandal that deepens every day. The police, the free press, the Government - who in their right might could believe that these humble institutions, with only our interests at heart, could be corrupt??

Murdoch and his worldwide organisation have taken a blow. Many hope

it is the start of a complete downfall of News Corp. Others hope it will herald a shift in journalistic practice in the UK; toward a better, cleaner, free press. A free press which has no questionable links to police or politicians. A new start for all!

But before we invent a new calendar, counting year Zero from now - the year democracy became clean - perhaps we should look at some of the reasons as to why these curious relationships developed in the first place, and what it is that has caused us all to finally become awakened to it.

Rightly so, it has been describes as a scandal which cuts through the entirety of the UK's power bloc. The esteemed Professor Effra from the University for Strategic Optimism has outlined a selection of reasons as to why this scandal highlights the inadequacy of the 'political-social-economic-juridical' structure, in the hope that taken with the crisis of the Eurozone, the collapse of consent in parliament, and crises in the Crown Prosecution Service and the Met, the News Corp scandal may open a gap into which the recent momentum of dissent may gain an extra, crucially more widespread, burst. Effra's polemic is ultimately directed at David Cameron; this collapse of consent will see his head roll next, perhaps. But it's a bittersweet optimism, for as Effra knows, some new crony would take his place pretty quick.

On Newsnight a few days ago Carl Bernstein, a big player in the exposure of the Watergate scandal (Dustin Hoffman in All the President's Men), remarked on how appalling it is that we, the British public, had allowed the institution to get like this. Erm, as opposed to the righteous 'free press', and economic elite in the US? Obviously not: Bernstein himself reported in 1977 that over 400 journalists were employed at the CIA. Thirty years later, who's surprised to learn that the Met is no different?

So we call for transparency in Government, we call for a police service with a clean conscience. And lastly, a press that regulates itself responsibly. Because the notion of free press is fundamental to our way of life. But can we really equate corporate agendas and political populism with free speech? I am less sure. Laura Charlotte, on her blog, writes about the abandonment of News Corp's BSkyB bid, noting that it seems that Murdoch jumped before being pushed and that the concentration of power became too much and burst. She concludes that public outcry was too great for News Corp to plough on with the BSkyB takeover, and that the British public will not accept this concentration of power. But what is this public? What was this outcry? Has there not been campaigns against Murdoch since he moved to Wapping? Was there not controversy after the Sun's reporting on the Hillsborough disaster and the sinking of the Belgrano? Were we unaware of the political campaigns and the cosy relationships with the governments from Thatcher onwards? We knew what News Corp was all about, but a bigger player was at hand, sustaining their crusade: it was the belief that this unstoppable force was an unstoppable force. And then one day, a couple of weeks ago, this belief just stopped. Suddenly everyone just realised.

Charlie Brooker was on to something with his bumbling metaphor. Murdoch was God, he owned the sun. He wanted the sky too. Cue the 'tornado ripping through an orphanage' of the hacking scandal and "What kind of a God would allow such a thing?" But who are these followers who suddenly doubt this media God?

We all know in what terms Žižek would explain this: the (Lacanian) big Other's belief in the power of Murdoch could no longer be sustained. It wasn't that some revelation had changed our mind about Murdoch, but that the fragile illusion surrounding Murdoch had finally collapsed. Somewhere, Žižek recounts the useful tale of an executive of a jewellery company: everyone new the jewellery was crap, but it wasn't until the executive made a joke about the shoddiness of his own jewels at a company party that the whole lot became worthless. Until that moment everyone could go along with the charade, as if no one really knew. But once the truth was out there, bam! This newly found knowledge by the big Other needs to be accounted for, so in step the financial markets, the ethereal life of capital, to consider how best to respond.

So are we to thereby conclude that the virtuous market is an arbitrator of ethical behaviour? For here we have Murdoch put in his place, 'humbled', if you will, by the market, right? Ultimately it was not the appalled public who acted to stop Murdoch's continuing expansion of power, nor the withdrawal of customers who buy the News of the World. I bet a whole heap of people in this country just don't care about Murdoch's goons and their unethical antics. No, it was the media attention, endowing an evermore glistening gleam of controversy around the issue; the politicians seeing the opportunity to point out all the things that are wrong with media, in hope that they will deflect some of the controversy away from themselves; and the advertisers who pulled out of the News of the World, in an attempt to prove that their business ethics are superior to that of News Corp's. In short, it was the impression generated by an industry of representation that seemed to suggest that the News Corp brand was toxic. The actual level of toxicity is irrelevant. These occurrences, playing out on news bulletins and continuous updates induced a reaction by the market that forced News Corp to focus all their energy on the only card they had left to play: PR. Cue apologies in the newspapers and a few hours of theatre before a committee. Sure enough, the company's shares rose after the hearing.

Thus the direction of change seems to link directly to the West's dependence and infatuation with representation and public relations - the committed assurance that everything will appear to be doing OK. For is this not the same logic which ensures the prosperity and continuing of global dominance of the Western Powers, specifically the USA? Blind belief in the system will ensure the system's survival; and the system works for those who believe, i.e., those with the capital. This logic, with its heart in Wall Street, has been intensified and trotted out around the world since the 70's. With Thatcher lapping it up then, and with no one since having enough power and/or balls to make drastic changes, it is no wonder that the Government is in cahoots with big business, and moreover with big business which has the power to widely influence public opinion. It is also no wonder that such a large proportion of the Met's press office staff are ex-News of the World journalists. For, as the logic beholds, the appearance of a smooth running police force is half way to ensuring the smooth running of it. But we shouldn't be asking ourselves where these press office workers used to work, but why the police invest so heavily in public relation.

Because it's the same story in Government. Why do we question Cameron's 'judgement' in hiring a probably-corrupt ex-News of the World editor as his advisor without questioning why it is OK to have the Prime Minister, so frequently harping on about his Government's transparency, hiring someone who's expertise revolve around bull-shitting? To convince the public that bad ideas are good, that ideas designed to benefit the few will benefit the many - that was the job of Andy Coulson, as it was for Alastair Campbell before him. Does not the very existence of such a position highlight the absolutely scheming and menacing nature of the political class, their complete commitment to a very narrow and particular vision of the shape of our democracy? This commitment relies on a massive ubiquitous industry of media and public relation, for while this relationship works in favour of the elite, things can just contintue as normal. It reminds one of the Gaddafi situation. Until hell broke loose in Libya, Gaddafi was our pal. He was a business partner. Cameron went on an arms selling binge in spring just as the Arabs were rising. Saddam Hussein was our ally in the Middle-East not long before. In both situations, a bubble of belief was burst and our friends became our enemies, with those back home who are complicit in the problem take the moral highground in an environment devoid of morals, dependent only on business, opportunities, contracts and trade.

So what it all comes back to, it seems to me, is market logic and its pervasive spread beyond the realm of business and finance into the structures of power which run the country, and the alienation that this gloss posits between the ruling and the ruled. This spread has occurred in line with what David Harvey refers to as the 'financialization of everything', whereby the financial condition of an institution is increasingly more economically important that production. Shares supersede sales. This is one aspect of Neoliberal economics, in which all areas of social life can be effectively maintained by the market: the drive towards profits will ensure prosperity, the trickle-down effect will allow a dribble of cash for those at the bottom, and the best things on offer will be naturally selected by the market to prosper. As a result, we have Starbucks, Wall-Mart, Tesco and News Corp. We have monopolies, and goods made cheap by outsourcing (exploiting foreign labour), streamlining (redundancies) and unfair payments to suppliers. We have Corporate Social Responsibility - a pay-off for an unequally weighted distribution of wealth; sponsored good-will gestures. We have a global energy industry where companies (and recipients of tax revenues back home) enjoy the returns of natural resources, instead of those who live alongside those resources. We have Western healthcare increasingly privatised, competition-driven, with sickening results in the US and a hope in the UK to follow in those footsteps. We have McDonalds as an official Olympic restaurant. Irony, anyone? Meanwhile, global trade mechanisms don't make it financially viable to supply medicine and resources to the poorest countries, where people die from diseases which are solved in an afternoon in the 'developed' world. Investment in these places is not deemed viable, as the infrastructure does not bode well for good returns to investors. Back home, government subsidies and tax incentives ensure that poorer countries can't compete with richer ones, so their exports become all but worthless. We have the ties between capital and government becoming increasingly blurred. We have a plutocracy, who in turn take orders from the unelected IMF, the biggest

threat to the democratic principle in the West. Neoliberal logic is pushed, enforced, by the IMF who hold countries to ransom - take Greece, for example - so their interest rates and opportunities to borrow capital are only preferable if it appears to foreign investors that there are opportunities to make good returns on their investment. In other words, Greece's only hope is that others can culturally and economically acquire their country. Only then, will the market act as a friend to Greece. The present UK Government's economic policy is often greatly encouraged as being the correct plan because it has appeased the markets. This means that wealthy organisations around the world see opportunities to make money at our expense. No longer will we fund our own services with our own wealth, instead we will pay wealthy people to employ people with low wages to do the same thing, no better, with great profits for them, and tax incentives to stop them moving away. The recent care-home controversies, privatised prisons, and the money spent on PFI's in healthcare are good examples of companies creaming profits from tax payers without doing a better job. And increasingly so, prosperity is contingent on the ability for companies to appear to have stock worth buying, and wealth remains suspended, always in potential, never quite cashed-in because it's mostly abstract. Even so, policies enacted to drive this abstract wealth has real social implications.

So basically, the market's treatment of Murdoch and his company is analogous to severing an arm infected beyond repair, when all along that arm belonged too a braindead zombie. The zombie is amoral, it is only incidental that this time, in the wake of hacking revelations, the market sought to sever a toxic limb. Chances are, however, that this limb will grow back. The market has become the one thing that can cripple an organisation, and it's the same thing that allows it to thrive should the perception of the organisation remain positive. It is because the Government play the same game that they followed suit in condemning News Corp. That's damage limitation. One casualty, News Corp, to ensure the survival of hegemonic economic discourse, the sweeping financialization of everything, the growth and withering of wealth being dependent on speculations, speculations being dependent on the mediation of fabricated mass opinion, an endemic preoccupation with public relations. Turns out, after all, that these other seemingly more pressing issues - famine, healthcare, EU bail-outs, US arguments on defaults and taxes - they're all hidden somewhere in this Murdoch scandal, all products of a strategy of abstract global wealth.

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interesting things to read...

Richard Peet - Geography of Power for an insight into the economic mechanisms, theories and policies which are becoming more prevalent around the world, and the institutions which act to maintain the dominance of such ideas. Also, a few alternatives.

The work of David Harvey, for effects of neoliberalism in the UK, US and japan, and a look at the restructuring and redefinition of classes since WW2.

Slavoj Žižek's Lacanian twist on Marxist theory, always entertaining. Big Others and symbolic orders - a social psychoanalysis for our contemporary cultural landscape.

Bad wisdom - aphorism 19

"School is merely the crumbling corner which falls from the biscuit of education."

Bad wisdom - aphorism 18

"The bubbles in beer may contain hope or despair,

but they will always rise towards the surface."