I want to write about new albums and good fantasy books, but it seems childish, an obvious escape from all the stuff going on.
Amidst pictures of civilized looting, as people stand in line to pick up televisions they haven’t paid for, and images of people pelting police cars with bricks and stones, the London riots have escalated and are still being drawn out.
Starting out as a protest to question the death of Mark Duggan, a suspected drug dealer who was shot by the London police; has since spread into a much larger, inarticulate cry spread over several neighborhoods, of the disenfranchised and distrustful.
Police blame Twitter and social media, and a particularly inflammatory has also been blamed. (Even though Mashable reports that BlackBerry Messenger has been the primary mode of organization).
Now I don’t think it’s that easy to explain away what has been an uneasy truce between law enforcement and minority groups in poor neighborhoods in London… but somehow this reminds me of the unfortunate incident in Norway just a few weeks ago, and how people blame right-wing, anti-Islamist bloggers for that. From Islamic mullahs who have lost their religion for bloodshed, to the SIOA groups who promote the killing and bombing of all Islamic countries, nothing is scarier than someone who is incited to a “justified” act of violence. The justified is in quotes because no matter what, it never is. What point has been proven, except that we’re all monstrous? And easily manipulated.
