h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I stopped believing any US foreign policy was what it said it was after El Salvador. As for domestic policy, that's about politicians scoring points against the opposition. It has nothing to do with what the actual needs are or the most sensible solutions. It is easy to understand frustration on the part of people who never seem to get a break. But that doesn't justify mob violence.

It is a shame that groups and individuals believe they have to resort to violence to get anyone to listen to them. Perhaps this is what we need to really change. We need to protest the media and the way they operate.

Hyp, we need to protest the whole damn system. The section of rioters who were doing it as a grievance, rather than out of greed and a desire to destroy, don't 'believe' they have to resort to violence, they're not that rational. It's an emotional response. None of us can imagine what it's like to be in their shoes, and trying to explain it in our terms doesn't come close to understanding it.

I want to add something to the previous post. In the US, policy is about protecting special interests, not the public.


I've spent the majority of my adult life wishing I lived someplace other than where I was. A serious case of "grass is greener" syndrome. An I love cities as opposed to small towns. But I can't even imagine a mob in Little DooDah out destroying property and endangering people's lives. We have some really poor people here who live in conditions as bad as those in the poor neighborhoods of London. But still, I can't fathom them turning violent. It must be something particular to large population areas. All of a sudden I feel quite safe. Not particularly satisfied, but safe.

Oh... I've typed so much today while not hitting "Post Message".

I reckon it doesn't happen in smaller towns because you need a critical mass and an unpleasant urban environment.

In small towns they're called lynchings.

I can't imagine a lynching in Little DooDah, either. Perhaps what you aren't as likely to find in a small town is enough people to make it worth the while of some instigator. I know a lot of people who are resentful of their situation and looking for someone, anyone, to blame.

I'm grateful that we can't imagine lynchings anymore. A list for Missouri I just found (from a professor at UT Austin) sets the last one at 1981 (though the one before that was in 1942).

A Dr Vann Newkirk has written a book about lynching in North Carolina between 1865-1941. I'm hoping that's the terminal date.

I think this brings up a question about group violence. We don't believe it happens where we live, or among people we know. But people we thought of as civilised once did things we cannot imagine going on. Not just lynchings - public hangings, judicial mutliation, etc.

Not being a psychologist, I don't know what the trigger is, or how many it takes to make a mob.

"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K.

Who's the K? (Pardon my ignorance.)

He's just a man... a man in black.

I find this very disturbing:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44076411/ns/technology_and_science-wireless/#.TkF7t2Fr95Y

Citizens mustn't be allowed privacy in their communications. They might use it for something.

Oh, please! 'Economic hardship' in a city with few prospects for youths, and they have Blackberry phones. That's more than hard working ordinary decent people can afford.

Most of the 'rioters' were way under working age, with parents who clearly didn't give a fig where they were or what they were doing. This was childish boredom and excitement ramped up by hysteria evoked by a few idiots. They hadn't the brains to have a 'cause' or a reason.

There is no doubt that the social sites and mobile phones made it possible and worse, but I don't think they can be blamed, any more than old fashioned telephones, morse, drums or fire beacons have passed such messages on in the past.

Websailor

Te https is off on my fb account. Of course, this could just be fb having its usual pop at my settings.

I live where the crows turn before breakfast... to be honest, quite far out but still close to bigger cities.

What I understand from what you write, Hyp, is that most people in your city is too proud of being who they are to cause havoc. Or is not brave enough to stand up for their rights. To interpret it in one fashion.

What I really like to think about your fellow citizens is, that they don't want to litter their own nest - OR - they are proud to be citizens of your town because of a lot of cultural reasons, because of the community, because you need each other - and that you respect that you are different.

That is an ideal.

My husband, who has been a foreigner in Denmark since he was twelve - 50 years ago - is still measured by his origin. He is accepted in the local society - but only because we engage in school, church, sports and bars. He is a very good billiard player - and speaks almost perfect Danish.

None of us are religious in any way. He is a babtised catholic, I'm a babtised protestant - but I left the church when I was 24 years old. We still have very good connections with the local priest, because we are good musicians

We contribute to the local society - culturally - and especially with muscles - so no riots there.

But yes. I have stood before several police persons to protest against right wing matters. We knew exactly that when the police for the third time asked us to move - we moved. Those were the rules - in the law.

I think you may have hit on the difference between protest and simple destruction, tartaronne.

It's the idea of focus and purpose.

I'm still desperately fighting an end-of-week deadline over here, and for the past four hours, it's been civil rights, among other issues of the 1950s and 1960s.

Take the lunch-counter sit-ins. They were purposeful. They were focussed. They were dangerous, sure, and emotive, and they required persistence of a high order. But they WORKED.

If there's an identifiable cause behind the violence, somebody needs to give it a focus and a purpose. And to remind them of Gandhi, as MLK did...

And I just got the bit about K. (doh> Wasn't thinking about space aliens - which, for me, is unusual.

Good, Dmitri. I wanted it to be just veiled enough to figure it out.

The entire quote is one of my favorites though.

"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it. Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you'll know tomorrow." - K.

morning all had a bit of a night last night, ,

RJR, are you still near Bristol? Did you have a problem in your village?

tartaronne, I don't know the answer to your question. Perhaps it has less to do with size or location than it does with culture. Up until the last decade or so, we had a very homogeneous community. It is still primarily so, even though we now have a small number of several different ethnic groups. London, on the other hand, is the poster child for multi-culturalism.

Whatever the cause, and in spite of a high percentage of people here living below the poverty line and high unemployment, I would be absolutely astonished for a protest to become violent.

It seems likely to me that when there are ethnic divisions it is easier to single out an oppressed and oppressor. Here I think the impoverished look at those who are better off and feel that it is possible for them to better themselves. There isn't so much the us and them equation. Being female and having suffered job discrimination I understand the feeling of "it doesn't matter how hard I try, I will be prevented from achieving because of my sex/race/religion/ethnicity." When everyone is in the same boat, it is harder to make that argument.

"He's just a man... a man in black."

Thanks, for the hint -- I was thinking of that line last night, but couldn't remember where I'd heard it.

I don't think the fact that this started as an honest, peaceful protest to a real injustice will be remembered at election time. I think things will swing the other way, to more totalitarian measures and more calls on high against immigration, and social programs. And a lot of money is being spent for "non-lethal" high tech weapons lately. A number of sites repeated this one, which I saw on FB last week:
http://www.alternet.org/world/151864/6_creepy_new_weapons_the_police_and_military_use_t?page=4

For that matter, when so many cuts are being called for from essential services, this is what they're spending millions on? They must be suspecting the worst, or planning to cause it.