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A V's-Eye View of social and fiscal anarchy

I was given a legal copy of V for Vendetta the other day and amidst the reports of UK riots sat down to rewatch it.   For those who've never seen, the film's about a one-person-generated people's uprising against a repressive UK Government  The film shows the moment of uprising, but not the kind of aftermath currently grazing our airwaves.

Ever seen the 70's flick Convoy?  That's more close to what's happening now than V. In that story a trucker travelling in protest was joined by many who had completely different problems but wanted their voices to be heard.  Actually, both films are driven by the same notions, and now so is Englend.

People Power has come a long way since the initial London riots early this year- revoltng populations, communicating via social networks, have appeared all over the world as humanity learns it doesn't have to tolerate what it'sbeen told to.  The earlier anarchy in the UK has travelled, mutated and returned in a new, more virulent form.

Given the world's financial problems, and the now much more distinct possiblity of economic collapse in the U.S, another premise in the film V might be worth considering:  if America goes bung, how long before revolution breaks out?  And how long from there to a Global War?  Just wondering...

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Sins of the Father

Oh well, if only the dopey pricks, who ran amok, realised that their stupidity is only going to give the powers that be the justification to impose even stricter controls on everything, and the public at large will support same - more fucking laws.

Yep, stupid pricks with not much to lose, but as the lyric goes: when you got nothing you got nothing to lose.

We are going to have to get used to this sort of thing, in this the bed we made for ouselves and our children.

The psychology of looting

Interesting run-through the possible ways of looking at this from Zoe Williams in the Guardian: - some of my favorite quotes:

"I wasn't convinced by nihilism as a reading: how can you cease to believe in law and order, a moral universe, co-operation, the purpose of existence, and yet still believe in sportswear? How can you despise culture but still want the flatscreen TV from the bookies?

"an authoritarian reading is that this is a generation with a false sense of entitlement, created by the victim culture fostered, and overall leniency displayed, by the criminal justice system. It's just a glorified mugging, in other words, conducted by people who ask not what they can do for themselves, but what other people should have done for them

"The type of goods being looted seems peculiarly relevant: if they were going for bare necessities, I think one might incline towards sympathy. I could be wrong, but I don't get the impression that we're looking at people who are hungry. If they were going for more outlandish luxury, hitting Tiffany's and Gucci, they might seem more political, and thereby more respectable. Their achilles heel was in going for things they demonstrably want.

"As another criminologist, Professor John Pitts, has said: "Many of the people involved are likely to have been from low-income, high-unemployment estates, and many, if not most, do not have much of a legitimate future. There is a social question to be asked about young people with nothing to lose."

"Late on Monday night, news went round Twitter that Turkish shopkeepers on Stoke Newington Road in Dalston were fighting off the marauders with baseball bats, and someone tweeted: "Bloody immigrants. Coming over here, defending our boroughs & communities."

The psychology of the repressed (?)

Calculated violence-reducing brand-em-all-as-looting-anarchists rhetoric aside (not that what you've posted necessarily is David, but that's what I'm reading most).  I get the sense that what's being taken isn't just looting for the sake.. More so it's taking what they've been told tthey should have have but could never afford.  Now they can, and the seizing in itself is enactment of sentiment of dissent of being made a have-not. The having is now the act of p protest.  Ring familiar bells?  Friar Tuck, I don't think we're in Sherwood Forest any more...

Avoid naked flames... this looks like a powderkeg that could blow when an act of stupidity lights it.  And as previously alluded, if the UK burns, where's next? 

Don't get smug...

...because this stuff has been going on in Oz for a good piece now and if you're wondering what I'm talking about, visit some small remote towns outback with the shop fronts boarded up every night and areas that are no go for whites. Notice the similarities?

V for Vigilante- ish

You're corrext re the scifi show Paul (recently remade but still crap) but this V is closer to the first Sesame Street animations. Remember how they did animated strings of stuff  related to a letter?  I remember wondering, as a five year old what the hell a Vigilante was - obviously one of a bunch of blokes on horses chasing someone else from the cartoon... but I now think twas a strange lesson to be teaching little'uns. (Youtube tomorrow )

Share market's wobbling; ABC News24 needs an overnight switcher to feed current news instead of a comp rerunning last night's out of date stuff. Hell Aunty, I'd think about doing the job myself if you asked me, just to do you a favour ;)

On a more serious note. Even though the public admonishment routine worked so well for Howard in Oz during Gulf War II  I don't think Cameron's scolding of the revolting children of England willl enhance his profile in the 18-25 demographic ;)

Working class hero

Yes, the working class is revolting, but then again, they always have been.

A story I picked up on FB defines a related problem, a black bloke in Mississippi, knocking off shift from work, is assailed by two carloads of lads who have taken off to town to "stir up the n-ggers". Eventually the man is run over and killed and the two vehicles take off with those within yelling out, "white power". As Cronulla taught us, or ought to have, it only takes a small spark to ignite an incendiary atmosphere.

Elsewhere, I read that two coalition shadows off to the USA boast they are going to shit on Australia's economic fundamentals to initiate or precipitate a problem for the government here.

Given some of the mentalities afoot at the moment I'd say I share some of Richard's concerns. The people who pull the levers of instability ought to remember the foundations of their own ivory towers, while they are about these tasks.

"V"?

Wasn't that that sci fi thing, where the invaders looked human but were lizards underneath. A dark haired dominatrix was the chief villain, but does this go back to the eighties?

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