London Riots. (The BBC will never replay this. Send it out) | YouTube

Riot of a Time | Bad Conscience

I’ve been observing my family’s reactions to the rioting and my own. I’m very reluctant to form any opinions at all at the moment—aside from the view that people shouldn’t be rioting and I feel for those who have had their homes and small businesses destroyed, ofc—because after the media’s (esp. the BBC’s) coverage of protests over the past year I don’t trust them to be anything like impartial.

There are so many points where one can interpret the media as being one massive propaganda machine. I have been fleshing out such possibilities in my head as I watch, but I’m almost certainly overdoing it in my naïvety.

I have been pleased to see the reluctance on the part of the police to deploy their various weapons, water cannons etc., as middle England call for them. I was impressed to hear the head of the ACPO explaining how such ‘tools’ only work in narrow situations that don’t match with what’s going on. They seem to be sticking to ideas of using minimal force and force to protect people not things: I get the impression that if employing a weapon would save some shops but would hurt people and wouldn’t save any lives/injuries, they’re not willing to employ it. This is good.

It says a lot about the hold of consumerist capitalism when the attacks on the state following their brutal slashing of public spending has come down to little more than stealing flat-screen TVs.