London/UK violence

[Peter Korsten]

(Meant to go to the bar in the first place, but for some reason only 
ended up with Gert.)

Op 10-8-2011 0:03, Gert van Santen schreef:

> So where does the correct information come from, then?

That's a philosophical question, more than anything else. First, you'd 
have to answer questions such as 'is there absolute truth?', and stuff 
like that. Any religious organisation will happily tell you that, yes, 
there is indeed absolute truth, but I'll settle for relative truth, or 
what I believe is the case.

What is pretty much true is that there are riots going on, right now, in 
London. What is much less clear is why they are going on. Is it because 
they're scum, mob mentality, that sort of thing? Or is it the poor 
oppressed masses, rising against the relentless machinations of big, 
anonymous businesses that are the real government, and use this as an 
excuse to repress those masses?

It's really what you believe. Quite a few people on this list will tell 
you that, yup, it's the big companies and the corrupt government that 
are to blame. I tend to verge toward the scum/mob/idiots theory, but 
that immediately raises the question: what made them like this? For some 
reason, this sort of thing seems to happen more often in the UK than in 
other European countries.

Inequality has been mentioned, and I think that's a good starting point. 
Most European societies are egalitarian to a fault, with perhaps France 
as a notable exception. Until the eighties, when the USA took over this 
questionable crown, France was the country with the greatest income 
differences in the world.

Hang on a second, weren't there big riots in and around Paris and 
several other French cities a few years back?

I also believe that the idiotic electoral system in both the UK and the 
USA has a strong connection to what's going on. The 'first past the 
post' system encourages self-preservation and selfishness. The system in 
the USA has been created to have so many checks and balances that it is 
impossible for any person (the president) or group (senate, house, 
states) to have too much power. The net result, combined with the 
aforementioned system, is that populism works best to get re-elected, 
and that the USA's government is a lame duck when compared to the power 
that any European government has.

In Europe, the head of state usually has a ceremonial system (again with 
the exception of France, and some eastern countries such as Russia), and 
the power lies with a government built on a majority in parliament. The 
embarrassing bickering we saw in the USA last week is simply 
inconceivable in Europe, where parliaments usually evolved from a system 
where they favoured the monarch. (The Netherlands are an excellent 
example of that.)

As a result, in Europe a government can much more easily ignore popular 
or populist opinion and get away with it. This is, in my opinion, why in 
the USA they'd rather kick their own granny out of Medicare ("it's her 
own fault that she didn't make provisions") than save a few bucks on the 
biggest social work project in existence: the defence industry. ("But by 
spending on a sixth generation jet fighter, thousands of people have a 
job." Never mind that no other country than the USA even has a fifth 
generation jet fighter, and that spending money for people to have jobs 
in, let's say, the social sector, is absolutely out of the question.) In 
Europe, there's much more of a welfare state, and people love it, 
although they don't want to pay for it.

So why, you may ask, aren't there major riots in the USA every day of 
the week? Well, that's a good question. Private gun ownership might have 
something to do with it, and let's face it, certain areas are best 
avoided at all costs. (South Central, Watts, Compton, Texas.)

Still, everybody makes his own choices, and his own mistakes. I can have 
no sympathy for the rioters and looters, at all. The people they steal 
from have to work hard, every day. And that's the most tragic part of 
it. The ones affected most are retailers, not the faceless big 
multinationals that everybody is supposed to be angry at.

Oh, and has there ever been a more appropriate song than this one to 
describe the current situation? :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ylxbb54fuV4

- Peter