August 5, 2011
The following is a partial transcript of a recent speech delivered by Noam Chomsky at the University of Toronto at Scarborough on the rapid privatization process of public higher education in the United States.
A couple of months ago, I went to Mexico to give talks at the National University in Mexico, UNAM. It's quite an impressive university — hundreds of thousands of students, high-quality and engaged students, excellent faculty. It's free. And the city — Mexico City — actually, the government ten years ago did try to add a little tuition, but there was a national student strike, and the government backed off. And, in fact, there's still an administrative building on campus that is still occupied by students and used as a center for activism throughout the city. There's also, in the city itself, another university, which is not only free but has open admissions. It has compensatory options for those who need them. I was there, too; it's also quite an impressive level, students, faculty, and so on. That's Mexico, a poor country.
Right after that I happened to go to California, maybe the richest place in the world. I was giving talks at the universities there. In California, the main universities — Berkeley and UCLA — they're essentially Ivy League private universities — colossal tuition, tens of thousands of dollars, huge endowment. General assumption is they are pretty soon going to be privatized, and the rest of the system will be, which was a very good system — best public system in the world — that's probably going to be reduced to technical training or something like that. The privatization, of course, means privatization for the rich [and a] lower level of mostly technical training for the rest. And that is happening across the country. Next year, for the first time ever, the California system, which was a really great system, best anywhere, is getting more funding from tuition than from the state of California. And that is happening across the country. In most states, tuition covers more than half of the college budget. It's also most of the public research universities. Pretty soon only the community colleges — you know, the lowest level of the system — will be state-financed in any serious sense. And even they're under attack. And analysts generally agree, I'm quoting, "The era of affordable four-year public universities heavily subsidized by the state may be over."
Now that's one important way to implement the policy of indoctrination of the young. People who are in a debt trap have very few options. Now that is true of social control generally; that is also a regular feature of international policy — those of you who study the IMF and the World Bank and others are well aware. As the Mexico-California example illustrates, the reasons for conscious destruction of the greatest public education system in the world are not economic. Economist Doug Henwood points out that it would be quite easy to make higher education completely free. In the U.S., it accounts for less than 2 percent of gross domestic product. The personal share of about 1 percent of gross domestic product is a third of the income of the richest 10,000 households. That's the same as three months of Pentagon spending. It's less than four months of wasted administrative costs of the privatized healthcare system, which is an international scandal.
It's about twice the per capita cost of comparable countries, has some of the worst outcomes, and in fact it's the basis for the famous deficit. If the U.S. had the same kind of healthcare system as other industrial countries, not only would there be no deficit, but there would be a surplus. However, to introduce these facts into an electoral campaign would be suicidally insane, Henwood points out. Now he's correct. In a democracy where elections are essentially bought by concentrations of private capital, it doesn't matter what the public wants. The public has actually been in favor of that for a long of time, but they are irrelevant in a properly run democracy.
We should recall that the great growth period in the economy -- the U.S. economy -- was in the several decades after WWII, commonly called the "Golden Age" by economists. It was substantially fueled by affordable public education and by university research. Affordable public education includes the GI Bill, which provided free education for veterans — and remember, that was a much poorer country than today. Extremely low tuition was found even at private colleges. Actually, I went to an Ivy League college, and it cost $100 a year; that's more now, but it's not that high, it's not 30 or 40,000, you know?
What about university-based research? Well, as I mentioned, that is the core of the modern high-tech economy. That includes computers, the Internet — in fact, the whole IT revolution — and a whole lot more. The dismantling of this system since the 1970s is among the many moves toward a very sharply two-tiered society, a very narrow concentration of wealth and stagnation for most everyone else. It also has direct economic consequences. Take, say, California. What they are doing to the public education system is going to undermine the economy that relies on a skilled work force and creative innovation, Silicon Valley and so on. Well, apart from the enormous human cost of depriving most people of decent educational opportunities, these policies undermine the U.S. competitive capacity. That's very harmful to the mass of the population, but it doesn't matter to the tiny percent of concentrated wealth and power. In fact, in the years since the Pell Memorandum, we've entered into a new stage in state capitalism in which the future just doesn't amount to much. Profit comes increasingly from financial manipulations. The corporate policies are geared toward the short-term profit, and that reduces the concern for loyalty to a firm over a longer stretch. We'll talk about this more tomorrow, but right now let me talk about the consequences for education, which are quite significant.
Suppose, as is increasingly happening not only in the United States, incidentally, that universities are not funded by the state, meaning the general community. So how are the universities going to survive? Universities are parasitic institutions; they don't produce commodities for profit, thankfully. They may one of these days. The funding issue raises many troubling questions, which would not arise if fostering independent thought and inquiry were regarded as a public good, having intrinsic value. That's the traditional ideal of the universities, although there are major efforts to change that. Take Britain. According to the British press, the Arts and Humanities Research Council was just ordered to spend a significant amount of funding on the prime minister's vision for the country. His so-called "Big Society," which means big corporate profits, and the rest look out for themselves. The government produced what they call a clarification of the famous Haldane Principle. That's the century-old principle that barred such government intrusion into academic research. If this stands, which I think is kind of hard to believe, but if it stands, the hand of Big Brother will rest quite heavily on inquiry and innovation in the arts and humanities as the masters of mankind follow the advice of the Pell Memorandum. Of course, defending academic freedom in ways that would receive nods of approval from Those-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, borrowing my grandchildren's rhetoric. Cameron's Britain is seeking to take the lead on the assault on public education. The rest of the Western world is not very far behind. In some ways the U.S. is ahead.
More generally, in a corporate-run culture, the traditional ideal of free and independent thought may be given lip service, but other values tend to rank higher. Defending authentic institutional freedom is no small task. However, it is not hopeless by any means. I'll talk about the case I know best, at my own university. It is a very striking case, because of the nature of its funding. Technically, it's a private university, but it has vast state funding, overwhelming, particularly since the Second World War. When I adjoined the faculty over 55 years ago, there were military labs. Since then, they've been technically severed. The academic programs, too, at that time, the 1950s, were almost entirely funded by the Pentagon. Under student pressure in the time of troubles, the 1960s, there were protests about this and calls for investigation. A faculty-student commission was formed in 1969 to investigate the matter. I was a member, thanks to student pressure. The commission was interesting. It found that despite the funding source, the Pentagon, almost the entire academic program, there was no military-related work on campus, except in the sense that virtually anything can have some military application. Actually, there was an exception to this, the political science department, [which] was deeply engaged in the Vietnam War under the guise of peace research. Since that time, Pentagon funding has been declining, and funding from health-related state institutions — National Institute of Health and so on — that's been increasing. There's a reason for that. It's reflecting changes in the economy.
In the 1950s and 1960s the cutting edge of the economy was electronics-based. The Pentagon was a natural way to steal money from the taxpayers, making them think they're being protected from the Russians or somebody, and to direct it to eventual corporate profits. That was done very effectively. It includes computers, the Internet, the IT revolution. In fact most of the modern economy comes from that. In more recent years, the economy is becoming more biology based. Therefore state funding is shifting. Fifty years ago, if you looked around MIT, you found small electronics startups from the faculty. They were drawing on Pentagon funding for research, and if they were successful, they were bought up by major corporations. Those of you who know something about the high-tech economy will know that that's the famous Route 128. That was 50 years ago. Now, if you go around the campus, the startups are biology based, and the same process continues. The genetic engineering, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals and the big buildings going up are Novartis and so on. That's the way the so-called free enterprise economy works. There's also been a shift to more short-term applied work. The Pentagon and the National Institutes of Health are concerned with the long-term future of the advanced economy. In contrast to a business firm, it typically wants something that it can use — it can use and not its competitors, and tomorrow. I don't actually know of a careful study, but it seems pretty clear that the shift toward corporate funding is leading towards more short-term applied research and less exploration of what might turn out to be interesting and important down the road.
Another consequence of corporate funding is more secrecy. This surprises a lot of people, but during the period of Pentagon funding, there was no secrecy. There was also no security on campus. You may remember this. You walk into the Pentagon-funded labs 24 hours a day, and no cards to stick into things and so on. No secrecy; it was all entirely open. There is secrecy today. A corporation can't compel secrecy, but they can make it very clear that you're not going to get your contract renewed if your work leaks to others. That has happened. In fact, it's lead to some scandals, some big enough to appear on the front page of the Wall Street Journal.
Outside funding has other effects on the university, unless it's free and unconstrained, observing the Haldane Principle. Indeed, it has been true to a significant degree by funding from the Pentagon and the other national institutions. However, any kind of outside funding [has effects], even keeping to the Haldane Principle, supposing it establishes a teaching or research facility. That kind of automatically shifts the balance of academic activity, and that can threaten the independence and integrity of the institution. And in the case of corporate funding, quite severely.
Corporatization can have considerable influence in other ways. Corporate managers have a duty. They have to focus on profit making and seeking to convert as much of life as possible into commodities. It's not because they're bad people; it's their task. Under Anglo-American law, it's their legal obligation as well. There's a lot to say about this topic, but one element of it concerns the universities and much else. One particular consequence is the focus on what's called efficiency. It's an interesting concept. It's not strictly an economic concept. It has crucial ideological dimensions. If a business reduces personnel, it might become more efficient by standard measures with lower costs. Typically, that shifts the burden to the public, a very familiar phenomenon we see all the time. Costs to the public are not counted, and they're colossal. That's a choice that's not based on economic theory. That's based on an ideological decision, which applies directly to the "business models," as they're called, of the universities. Increasing class-size or employing cheap temporary labor, say graduate students instead of full-time faculty, may look good on a university budget, but there are significant costs. They're transferred and not measured. They're transferred to students and to the society generally as the quality of education, the quality of instruction is lowered.
There's, furthermore, no way to measure the human and social costs of converting schools and universities into facilities that produce commodities for the job market, abandoning the traditional ideal of the universities. Creating creative and independent thought and inquiry, challenging perceived beliefs, exploring new horizons and forgetting external constraints. That's an ideal that's no doubt been flawed in practice, but to the extent that it's realized is a good measure of the level of civilization achieved.
That idea is being challenged very openly by Adam Smith's Principal Architects of Policy in the State Corporate Complex, the direct attack on the Haldane Principle in Britain. That's an extreme case; in fact so extreme I assume it may be beaten back. There are less blatant examples. Many of them are just inherent in the reliance on outside funding, state or private. These are two sources that are not easy to distinguish given the control of the state by private interest. So what's the right reaction to outside funding that threatens the ideal of a free university? Well one choice is just to reject it in principle, in which case the university would go down the tubes. It's a parasitic institution. Another choice is just to recognize it as a fact of life that when I'm at work, I have to walk past the Lockheed Martin Lecture Hall, and I have to look out my office window at the Koch building, which is named after the multibillionaires who are the major funders of the Tea Party and a leading force in ongoing campaigns to wipe out the remnants of the labor movement and to institute a kind-of corporate tyranny.
Now, if that outside funding seeks to [influence] teaching, research and other activities, then there's a strong argument that it should simply be resisted or rejected outright no matter what the costs. Such influences are not inevitable, and that's worth bearing in mind.
Read more of Noam Chomsky's work at Chomsky.info.
387 comments:
1 – 200 of 387 Newer› Newest»Hi Laurie,
Much like you I'm currently sat in my living room in Croydon watching the violence unfold. I have just seen images on Sky News of my local shops and local flats being burned to a cinder and my first reaction was "What gives them the right?" What gives these people the right to hijack a peaceful protest and use it as an excuse for mindless violence destroying the livelihoods and homes of people who already live on the breadline? Those aren't chain superstores burning in front of me. Those are local businesses which are a valuable part of the fabric of the community here.The only problem with that is that the community here is Broad Green is one that is, as you quite rightly pointed out above, forgotten. It is inherently Labour and has been for many years in Croydon North due to its large proportion of immigrant families I would imagine.
It is forgotten because all of the money in Croydon never sees the light of day in Broad Green or West Croydon. These see none of the public money which is spent on regenerating the town centre when it is merely ten minutes from the town centre that properties are in desperate need of renovation and rejuvenation, where green spaces are scarce, where libraries are shut and replaced with car dealerships, where more and more pressure is put on the area as more and more flats are built but with no rise in job opportunities.
Instead all that happens is that more and more people occupy the same space and it becomes a matter of time until the segregated community (which was last given media attention after the 7/7 bombings, cf. "Croydon Mosque" which received a lot of unwarranted negative press because of a tenuous link to one of the bombers in the right-wing press) explodes. Of course the young people are disenfranchised - a lot of the schools in the West Croydon area, while many are very successful, do not enjoy nearly enough of the privilege and kudos granted to schools in other parts of the borough. All this does is breed resentment.
All night the question from BBC and Sky reporters has been "Why has this happened?" when really it should be "How did this not happen sooner?"
I read this as a privileged American, but one who knows the cry of the oppressed, it's familiar ring. Thank you for sharing your insight and clarity on what is a emotional time for many, and I hope that you and other Londoner's remain safe. As you have stated in this piece, this is not the work of people who are heard, this is the work of people who are unheard, a last cry, a chance to be heard, to air their grievances. This is a situation of gross disparity between have and have not, rich and poor, White and Brown. We don't know where this story will end, but we do know that it has begun, and we must all take notice.
The disorder has spread to Bristol [...] and Leeds.
It has? Whereabouts in Bristol and Leeds?Thanks for this. Trying to filter through the talking heads and the photos... nothing making sense from the states...
Apparently in Bristol town centre.
I actually saw something like this coming. I knew we were going back to a 70s/early 80s situation. I can tell you the other aspects of that situation will also come in eg. stagflation. These riots are not the last we'll see, and the economic situationis thoroughly connected -- was then, is now.
As far as this being the time to decide what kind of country we live in, it is in many ways too late. The country as we know it is in strong decline now and unfortunately owing to peak oil that decline is irreversible. A very important lesson tonight has been the behaviour of the Turkish community in for example Dalston -- the men turned out en masse to protect their areas. This is something more areas will need to learn to do.Thank you for writing this. Your observations are spot-on and much needed. www.sistersofresistance.org
wonderful piece of writing. i live in chicago and came across your blog when Naomi Klein shared it on facebook. may cool heads prevail
Thank you so much for your words and insight. I'm a Canadian, sitting in a very quiet west coast town, so far from you that it's already almost morning in London. It's like watching the future from the past. Keep blogging, please!
~JeninCanada
www.fatandnotafraid.jigsy.com
Goldman Sachs CEO walks free: the real looters are the wizards of finance capital, on Wall Street and in the City. A flat screen TV or a pensioner's nest egg? "Opportunity" cannot replace justice as a public and social good.
Your writing deserves much more exposure, for you've nailed the zeitgeist of these events better than anyone else I've read.
Good luck and stay safe!A very well-thought and considered analysis, particularly considering the fear of the situation you're in. One can only hope that community after community in the wake of this will say that this is not acceptable in any way, and seriously tackle the causes of the situation.
This should never happen again. But then it shouldn't have happened this time, or any time in the past when people have rioted because they had no other way to react. Somehow this time feels different, though, as if the looting is the prime motivation rather than the politics. Maybe I'm wrong on that - hopefully the next few days will see serious debate on how we got here.the police don't seem motivated, i wonder why not ?
When young people (and the not so young) see a criminal conspiracy between the police and the media and another between politicians and bankers and see the rich getting richer and everyone else getting poorer is it surprising they engage in some bottom up criminality.
My immediate securityy may be threatened by the young people on the streets but it's not them who have destroyed the economic and social security of the country.Thanks for the insight.
Jesus. I cycled about 20 miles tonight around various places between Clapham and Camden. On the way back I was anxious to get in front of the keyboard. But then this, this was just perfect. Full marks.
Very good. Everything we do is political, including criminality. Whether it be by a government, a corporation or an individual. In any case, the scale of the unrest has made it political.
This is the best blog I have ever read. I ended up leaving South London and moving to New Zealand as opposed to put up with the endless spiral of no jobs and a Government that takes bureaucracy to extremes. New Zealand is not that much better, especially with the rich idiots we have in power now, but at least I can be me here, and not just another number.
Thank you for such a great insight.First of all, I'm going to point out a blatant inaccuracy in your "report".
"Police stations are being set alight all over the country." No, they're not! One unmanned police outpost has been set ablaze. Hardly the novel-exciting story you'd have your readers believe. Now to what I consider a more important issue... Where did you grow up? Was your family poor? Was everyone around you a feckless thug, smoking, drinking, having sex under-age because they consider it "cool"? Well, I grew up in one of the poorest neighbourhoods in England. My family was not only poor, it was only one step removed from a cardboard box beneath a bridge.I went to the same schools as these looting, mugging thugs. I was presented with the same lack of opportunity as them, I was just as disenfranchised with this floundering country.
I have been searched (many times) without justification by police, I've been charged with an offence which never even took place. Am I out there smashing windows, mugging old ladies, torching builds and cars? No... I'm not! You can blame society as much as you like, but you're demonstrating a noxious delusion an unfortunate number of ill-informed and ill-experienced people. More depressingly, it is predominately people such as yourself who dictate policy as short-sighted as your rhetoric. What makes me different to these morons? Simple: I CHOSE not to be a moron. I elected to LEARN when I went to school (and ever-after), I wanted to make something of my life.
Inversely, these morons have no desire to WORK. They've no drive to learn, or to achieve anything for themselves. They're content to live on "the dole", sponging from taxpayers such as myself who work bloody hard to make a distressingly poor wage. You can try to justify their behaviour as much as you like, but not only does it fail to excuse it, you're doing nothing more than deluding yourself. As for "racism", well... I've been watching the news for god-knows how many hours... and every single image of rioters and looters I'm seeing has a disproportionately large number of black people (particularly young black women with bags full of ill-gotten loot).
I'm not at all racist... but let me tell you, I DO believe what I see with my own eyes. If 60+% of rioters happen to be black, then that 60+% are proliferating a stereotype, and have only themselves to blame for any racist sentiment aimed in their direction. These people are wilfully unintelligent! They CHOSE not to pay attention in school. Not because they're poor, not because they're "downtrodden", but because they are plain stupid.... by CHOICE.
They are simply too lazy to do their own thinking, and so are easily cajoled into "gangs", empowering them to be a complete moron... thus, you end up with mobs rioting and looting. You cannot change the way these people behave, because they LIKE the way they are. They lack any moral compass, any social responsibility, any willingness to be productive. In the place of those purposefully belayed virtues, they have weaknesses: desire to steal, to "make fast money" at the expense of those of us who work hard, to cause others pain, to seek "popularity" within their gang, to watch the world burn. There's NO justification for their actions, no excuse. They made their bed, and I for one would be sincerely happy to see copper-jacketed projectiles put them to rest in it.
Thank you, brilliant. Following #londonriot tweets as much as I can without going insane, I'm surprised and disappointed how smug are so many Londoners' reactions to this, how lacking in any perspective. Such as blog might help change that.
I fear London burning is merely a harbinger of what is coming for all of us as night descends. Best wishes on the cleanup. We're all going to be cleaning up, I fear, for a very long time.I'm in tears reading this. I've been searching for even the faintest hint of answers to the things you raise here - where is all of this violence coming from? I think you've put your finger on it quite well, and to hear it from the perspective of someone in the midst of it is always refreshing. Thank you for your words.
This is a brilliant and powerful piece of writing, piercingly true. It should run in every paper in the country tomorrow--instead of the flailing drivel that no doubt will be published instead. All the best from Canada, and I hope that tomorrow begins the cleanup and the reconsideration of what has led to this and what will lead to a better future.
Cry of the oppressed also means attacking gay men in the gay village in Birmingham apparently. It means mugging kids who have been knocked over. It means torching people's homes.
Please don't romanticise this; I can see the oppressed aspect, but a lot of nasty 'phobic and evil mob mentality and criminality. I don't cry for a wrecked bank, but seeing people jump for their lives in Croydon brings me up sharp. This is no revolution. This is no poll tax riot or even the student protests I supported, it's drawn on those for ideas I think but far darker and far more yes - mindless. Fighting back has become fighting for mine in Thatcher's Grandchildren. For to quote the Boomtown Rats 'you see there are no reasons'...I think Tottenham might've had a point. The others far less...I eagerly await people's analysis how looting and torching a Sony factory is somehow a cry of failed yoot and a strike for freedom from oppression...but I think the kids would laugh at your rhetoric, they just want a free Wii.The most rational analysis I've read.
@Simon, yeah as a NZer we arent much better, but I feel the fabric of society is a a bit thicker, maybe it comes with being a bit smaller. All I know is that im kinda glad to be living in a small insignificant part of the world right now.
Hello from the USA, where the same unrest is imminent. Thanks for your well-written, open-hearted observations.
Thanks for perspective and watch your six – we're gonna need you.
@fingertrouble - at least someone here has some common sense and can see this for what it really is!
Fed up with these naive people dismissing wanton destruction and thuggery as some "expression of civil disobedience". WAKE UP, PEOPLE... THEY'RE LUNATICS, NOT REVOLUTIONARIES!@SJS: I realise that it is a difficult and complex truth but people can be both products of their environment AND make choices about their lives. To say that we who have emerged from these backgrounds unscathed prove the fecklessness and depravity of those left behind is naive.
There are so many shocking aspects to this, but nothing is more startling than reading those who blame it on everyone except the people actually doing it. There is nothing political about this. It is greed, and ignorance. And ignorance, these days, is by choice. These are bullies, and thugs, and thieves.
this bought me to tears - in part because it's so much what i feel myself (see my blog from last night - highly incoherent, but, hopefully, arguing a similar thing in terms of a need to look at context and background). that response by the young man ('you wouldn't be talking to me now if we didn't riot') is the sad truth.
glad to know you're safe.
"They thought that after thirty years of soaring inequality, in the middle of a recession, they could take away the last little things that gave people hope, the benefits, the jobs, the possibility of higher education, the support structures, and nothing would happen. They were wrong."
Particularly haunting. Those of us that have an ounce of compassion have said all along that our governments complete lack of it, would end in trouble. People asking 'if it's a protest, why don't they go for police stations, or government buildings or protest peacefully' ...Anger is anger, and to them a target is a target. How many protests have there been in recent years? Anti-war, G20, students? 2000+ marching to scotland yard.. what use did it do?They have no voices. Nobody listens.
The lack of jobs, education, facilities, and the poorest in society getting ever-poorer, it's always somebody elses problem as long as Cameron gets his holidays, and osbourne looks like he's got a plan.
And now it's all of our problem, because these people believe, through example, that actions speak louder than words ever will. Now we have to look seriously at our country, into every nook and cranny that was previously glossed over and ignored. And LISTEN to these people. Or regardless of c.o.b.r.a. meetings, and 'calls for calm' and promises of 'justice against this pure criminality' This will happen again.. and again... and again.
Excellent blog penny red.
Stay safe everyone x
"structural inequalities", "People riot because they have spent their whole lives being told that they are good for nothing, and they realise that together they can do anything – literally, anything at all. People to whom respect has never been shown riot because they feel they have little reason to show respect themselves"
excellent analysis of the situation. the inequalities of this country have led to this situation.People comment on how these youth are simply using this as an excuse to commit crime; Images in the media of sexy lifestyles and no means to achieve them, have frustrated the youth and they have now had enough.
No one on this blog or comments section can say what its like to be an youth living in a deprived area going through an inadequate schooling system, being faced by racism daily and being treated as a 2nd class citizen.
So whilst you easily disregard their pain and frustration, you actually have no idea of the situation.
@mryashin: There's nothing complex about it! Many of the people looting, mugging, and causing destruction in London right now are people I will have grown up with in some regard or another. Many of them will have gone to the same schools as I did, been my neighbours, been the bullies who made everyone's lives hell for their own sick enjoyment.
These are the same people who torture small animals because it gives them a thrill... it'd be absolutely no loss to the world for these lunatics to simply be shot dead. Naive is the idea that those that would jump at any opportunity to steal, mug, maim and assault others could be motivated by any rational political or social environment. They are a product of THEIR OWN stupidity, not society's oppressive constraints. If these fools were motivated by politics or social circumstance as you seem to believe, then they would be targeting institutions responsible for this circumstance... not high-street electronics stores, people's homes and cars. They're interested in stealing items of monetary worth... because they're too lazy to do an honest day's work to actually EARN their way through life.What they can't steal, they smash and burn. If you feel society is to blame, then you're part of the problem, not the solution!
Stringing a narrative to justify these kinds of actions is really not helpful either. You mention that 'this is not about poor parenting'. But clearly it is about a certain culture within the poor areas of London. I agree that acts of criminality are about power, about taking back with force what you feel denied. It is people such as yourself which are feeding these feelings of class distinction and isolation. This is not an inevitable result of class warfare, but a opportunist expression of thug idealism. It is a time to be principled and not 'political'. Violence is horrible, lock the fuckers up.
Watching the riots from Canada, I was ever more confused... you have given me a perspective that appeals not only to your community but gives voices to all of those who cannot materialize their expressions through words.
I feel the pain your community must have gone through, for that struggle is everywhere in the world. Perhaps this is the beginning of the end of a system that systematically silences so many voices, so many struggles... Hang in there & stay safe. In solidarity Thank you.I apologise for providing a link for SJS to follow.
He's one of those people that think stupid people are not really people.@SJS Oh yes, your rags to riches story. How inspiring and original.
Spare us the pep talk. There are structural problems that mean that the growth required for this amazing story to happen for everyone, can't happen. We live on a finite planet. Growth is to be exponential at 2-3% a year or we're in a "recession" which must be avoided at all costs. So we have "austerity" measures to try to put this global Ponzi scheme - the world economy - back on track. Just how will that growth keep going? Efficiency? Nope, that's only 1-2% a year, not fast enough. Increase in non-material growth compared to material growth? Not fast enough, either. Economists have a mantra that with economic growth comes prosperity for all. But the potential for growth has been reached. Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, all wrote about this but the jobsworth bankers and gambling-addict traders of the world were too busy giving themselves bonuses to notice that it has come. We have reached it, the end of growth, and now we need to look at what our priorities are instead of economic growth. We need to grow civilization.The sheer power of your words... just wow!
sending prayers your way, sweets. may the lord protect you.
@SJS: you are spot-on.
Life is about choices. These rioters have had years to take actions to better themselves and make decisions that define the direction of their lives for the better. They have instead chosen to join gangs, or generally become worthless members of society, and on this night they have chosen to take advantage of an opportunity to terrorise innocent civilians, wreck livelihoods, and instil fear in their communities. The sooner the army is deployed and these cowards, muggers, arsonists, common thieves, and general human-trash are removed from the streets the better.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gh5ogOH82Aw this song represents whats going on in London to a tee.
Laurie,
As an older person from the States watching this horror show unfold on the BBC streaming video, I'm reminded of the inner city riots and burning in the 1960s. That resulted in a commission being established by President Johnson to determine the causes of the riots and what policies should be implemented to prevent it from re-occurring. It was called the Kerner Commission. Subsequent riots have often noted that the problems identified in the Kerner Commission report were never seriously addressed. Perhaps it might be helpful in sorting out things in the UK today. Stay safe! Kerner Commission - Wikipediahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerner_Commission
excellent blog, thanks for the insight
This is amazing writing though sadly I wish you didn't have this subject to write about. I hope the issues you discussed here is finally heard, and addressed even if it happens over some time. Praying for your cities and people's safety and well being, soon.
@SJS, an experiment for you
"...There's nothing complex about it! Many of the people looting, mugging, and causing destruction in Falluja right now are people I will have grown up with in some regard or another. Many of them will have gone to the same schools as I did, been my neighbours, been the bullies who made everyone's lives hell for their own sick enjoyment. These are the same people who torture small animals because it gives them a thrill... it'd be absolutely no loss to the world for these lunatics to simply be shot dead. Naive is the idea that those that would jump at any opportunity to steal, mug, maim and assault others could be motivated by any rational political or social environment." (some upsetting images)http://tinyurl.com/3m38746 Our Boys. Funded by you. But I suppose it's OK with you because you're benefiting from the looting ? Or maybe just that your victims are brown ? Even if very few of the rioters see this as a political act it's not hard to see where they got their inspiration from.
Thank you so much, Laurie, this is great. Many times in political topics the tone of an article is much more important than the content... You usually choose very good tones for your articles, but this one is perfect.
No, the looters don't have the right to loot and set things on fire, but they have, and since we cannot turn back time, we should just try to learn why this happened.great reading. The contrasting comments of SJS and Penny Red are really provoking.great reading. The contrasting comments of SJS and Penny Red are really provoking.
A very nice post; I appreciate being able to read some on the ground perspectives from across the pond. One question, although I still have many: if the attention, and the need to be heard, are so important, why is it, do you think, that journalists are being attacked?
Bigged you up on the main US liberal blog Daily Kos in a hasty late night diary. But hey, you ought to think of blogging there
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/08/08/1004737/-London-Burning:-Police-Now-... PS. I think you once said you loved me on Labourlist. I was AntiTory Troll back in the day.Thank You for the courage of your pen and voice. I spent a year in London between 2007-08. I came away with a picture which horrified me. On the one hand there is this opulence - unattainable for most. Nothing shocking there. It was the deprivation in the inner cities that most caught my attention. The poverty and quality of life in many of these areas was heartrenching. I made it my business to go into parts of Peckham, Croydon, Brixton, Dalston, Hackney -- to see how indeed people in these communities lived. Why? I am West Indian. I had heard rumours about ongoing racism, the kind which is not overt but felt in marginalisation, fewer opportunities, etc. I am not surprised by the riots. People in these communities live extremely challenged lives, that is fairly brutal for a first world country. I do not know how confined these lifestyles are within particular areas/communities of the country or even how "black" communities are. I only know that this should never be. A recession would definitely ignite the flames of dissent. The riots in France clearly did not serve as a warning to England. It is time the UK wakes up to what many of us visitors see. While your parliament is lined with gold, the poor suffer. No, never as in Dickens' England. Racism and classism combined is too rich a brew to easily overcome. But as Robert F Kennedy said there is a kind of violence that does not come from the barrel of a gun, it's the violence of institutions, the violence of not being able to live as a man amongst men, the violence of inaction, the violence of decay...