Contrast: USA Vs. UK - Outrage over police violence.

[televator]

Here's an interesting, if unfortunate, observation. 2 similar events between the 2 nations happening at almost the same time where an individual is killed. It sparks controversy in each respective nation, but lets examine the response.

Here's a beating/tazing incident that happened very recently in the US. It resulted in the death of Kelly Thomas who apparently was an addict with some mental problems. He was tazed about 5 times and beaten into a comma by several police.



What I've read and heard so far is that some officers have been put on leave.

Now lets look at the UK. The recent shooting of Mark Duggan. The only details I can get about him is that he might have been some sort of thug with a gang affiliation. Cops stooped the cab he was riding in and opened fire with sub machine guns. What sparked the "firefight" I still don't know.

But here's the reaction from that:



Yup, those are huge fires we see burning, coupled with some rampant looting, and general rioting that currently overwhelms the police.

Personally, I'm a bit open about the details in the UK shooting as opposed to how I find it the police's actions int the US to have been much more than excessive. Regardless, it's amazing to see the stark contrast in the level of outrage resulting from both stories. Why the hell is it like this?

 

[kenandkids]

There are dozens of possible reasons for the difference. For one thing, Americans are nearly immune from having much anger because the death of "just one more" homeless guy or addict at the hands of police is hard to be angry about when the occurrences are so fucking routine. The only aberration here seems to be that the guy was white, minorities are the preferred targets of police. Was the victim there of a group that has especially high unemployment or disenfranchisement? Riots do often occur here when that is the case.

 

[kenandkids]

Very sad, this was in my G+ feed.


http://s3.amazonaws.com/twitpic/photos/full/368124349.png?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAJF3XCCKACR3QDMOA&Expires=1312849393&Signature=3vc%2BG/CZhPtz0CnGi3BI0vIpaxU%3D

Caption: This building survived the Nazi Blietzkrieg but not mindless London riots. A shame this is happening.


edit: that image isn't working, but this is the current state of the building.

 

[Case]

Caption: This building survived the Nazi Blietzkrieg but not mindless London riots. A shame this is happening.

What you mean is probably World War II, as Britain (i.e. the island's soil) has never witnessed a Blitzkrieg (irrespective of the definition you pick for the term).

 

[Moky]

Police violence doesn't matter now. The riots are causing damage to innocent people's properties and innocent people are getting mugged. Now is the time for England to get over its inhibitions and to lay the law down. If your people are suffering and getting attacked, it's time to step up.

 

[australopithecus]

Caption: This building survived the Nazi Blietzkrieg but not mindless London riots. A shame this is happening.

What you mean is probably World War II, as Britain (i.e. the island's soil) has never witnessed a Blitzkrieg (irrespective of the definition you pick for the term).

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

Define 'Lightening War' as you wish, the Nazi's systematically bombed the shit out several British cities over a sustained period of 8 months. The caption is very much accurate.

Police violence doesn't matter now. The riots are causing damage to innocent people's properties and innocent people are getting mugged. Now is the time for England to get over its inhibitions and to lay the law down. If your people are suffering and getting attacked, it's time to step up.

You might not be aware, but we have an ineffectual government (and at the time of the start of the riots the Prime Minister was on holiday) coupled with the fact that, due to the NOTW phone hacking nonsense, a lot of the Police's head guys had quit. The violence has spread to several other cities now. Basically it's a mess of idiocy, and I'm staying in bed until it's over.

 

[kenandkids]

Caption: This building survived the Nazi Blietzkrieg but not mindless London riots. A shame this is happening.

What you mean is probably World War II, as Britain (i.e. the island's soil) has never witnessed a Blitzkrieg (irrespective of the definition you pick for the term).

As Australopithicus said, the term blitzkrieg isn't inaccurate and was even a verifiable historical term for the repeated bombings in England. Regardless of that, you cut out an important part of my post in your quotemine:

Very sad, this was in my G+ feed.


http://s3.amazonaws.com/twitpic/photos/ ... 0vIpaxU%3D

Caption: This building survived the Nazi Blietzkrieg but not mindless London riots. A shame this is happening.

Notice the first line...

 

[Moky]

You might not be aware, but we have an ineffectual government (and at the time of the start of the riots the Prime Minister was on holiday) coupled with the fact that, due to the NOTW phone hacking nonsense, a lot of the Police's head guys had quit. The violence has spread to several other cities now. Basically it's a mess of idiocy, and I'm staying in bed until it's over.

I'm aware. I hope your country has emergency measures for such occasions, people will get hurt and people will die if something is not done soon. I hope your bed is a safe place, I'd sleep with a weapon if I were in your shoes.

 

[Prolescum]

Blitzkreig and the blitz are two different things entirely and are not interchangeable. The blitz refers exclusively to the bombing of Britain, blitzkrieg referring to the German land offensives on mainland Europe.

Kenandkids still hasn't learned what a quote-mine is... that's hilarious. Still hilarious, I mean. :lol:

 

[australopithecus]

Blitzkreig and the blitz are two different things entirely and are not interchangeable. The blitz refers exclusively to Britain, blitzkrieg referring to the German land offensives on mainland Europe.

Meh, Nazi's being dicks to lots of people, what we call it is irrelevant. I think the statement is still valid though, the Luftwaffe had a crack in the 40's but it took some oxygen thieves playing with fire to ruin the building. Although this is an unnecessary semantic tangent when shit like this is happening:

 

[Prolescum]

Yeah you're right, we might as well call the battle of Britain blitzkrieg, and when the Americans finally joined on on the European front, blitzkrieg. How about the Vietnam war? Blitzkrieg. It's irrelevant after all... perfectly valid.

So we have some rudebwois taking advantage and causing some damage... big whoop.

 

[australopithecus]

Why not? After all it's not actually important and I don't actually care. Point is, this tangent of "what is/isn't Blitzkrieg" isn't actually relevant to the discussion which is that of the riots that have been kicking off over the last few days. It was a comment on a photo, whatever it's semantic or historical accuracy it's nothing more than an aside.

So the Blitz wan't definitionally Blitzkrieg? Fair enough, I'll concede I was wrong in that regard. But that still has shite all to do with the London/Birmingham/Liverpool/Bristol rioting.

 

[Prolescum]

Okay fine. I'll try to avoid correcting mistakes unless it's on topic. There's a time and place for accuracy and this must not be one of them.

 

[australopithecus]

The mistake has been corrected, now it's just overkill. Unless the definition of Blitzkrieg is relevant to the riots I suggest we let the topic progress.

 

[Prolescum]

Agreed. My apologies.

 

[Case]

Yeah you're right, we might as well call the battle of Britain blitzkrieg, and when the Americans finally joined on on the European front, blitzkrieg. How about the Vietnam war? Blitzkrieg. It's irrelevant after all... perfectly valid.

Prolescum, you...

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{TEXT}

And I was only away for an hour or two.

On topic: so... are the riots a result of the killing (as in: some people who knew the guy got pissed) or are these just punks who enjoy a good trashing of their own (or not?) city?

I mean... in Germany, we got riots scheduled (as good Germans do) for one day per year (May 1st, the infamous "Mai-Krawalle"), maybe such an arrangement could be made for British hooligans, too?

 

[australopithecus]

As far as I know, there was a peaceful protest after the guy was shot by police. That, predictably, turned into a riot as morons hijacked it and morons have continued to copy cat the riot since then. Then other idiots in other cities have decided to join in for no other reason other than they might get to loot a HD TV and break things.

 

[Prolescum]

Point is, this tangent of "what is/isn't Blitzkrieg" isn't actually relevant to the discussion which is that of the riots that have been kicking off over the last few days. It was a comment on a photo, whatever it's semantic or historical accuracy it's nothing more than an aside.

I've been thinking about this, and I now think it's entirely relevant to the topic, let me explain...

Much like when "the media" append -gate to anything remotely controversial when the issue rarely requires sexing up, so equating a bunch of opportunistic thugs smashing stuff up to the blitz (or a blitzkrieg) is applying a status undeserved and adds nothing but a chance for people to get worked up and blow it out of proportion.


As a vaguely related aside, my primary school is at the non-Tottenham side of Wood Green.


Edit: Oh Case, you punster!

 

[Your Funny Uncle]

I bet in the US people didn't make make the police tea though... I was quite depressed about this last night but all the #riotcleanup stuff on twitter has been quite cheering...

 

[Squawk]

This has got fuck all to do with teh shooting of that chap. Ok that might have been the catalyst, the spark to get the first protest. The rest of this is thugs and robbers who have simply jumped on the most appropriate bandwagon to cause havoc and loot as much as possible.