Vibes And Pressure

If you have read any of my pieces you may be aware that I haven’t got the fortitude to sit down and churn out one piece in one sitting. At the rate things are going in this world right now, not finishing a piece of writing, is liable to render all your thoughts irrelevant because of the simple fact that information is being spread so quickly. When I watched the scenes on the news during the riot I had a similar feeling to what I had during 9/11 or 7/7. (Note to any new readers; I am a conspiracy theorist extraordinaire, I scare myself sometimes) I was seeing it all with my own eyes but something was not quite right. For one thing the news coverage of the “revolution” was rather strange. On the evening of Monday 8 August they were showing the same images over and over again. Okay, so there may be an issue with scarcity of footage, but I can only watch the same “mindless thug” looting or fighting with the Gestapo…..I mean the Metropolitan police force before I start to transform like the Hulk into my conspiracy theorist alter-ego. The bottom line is repeating the same image over and over again has an effect on your psyche.

If I recall the coverage there were a few types of images that were prominent. 1. Fires burning but hardly any being put out. 2. Looting with no police. 3. Youths fighting with the police (The brave ones out front, in their hoodies, whilst the police were in full riot gear) 4.The Aftermath (i.e. destruction, destruction, destruction.) It seemed by the reporting methods that there was an agenda when the riot were being reported and in many cases the riots that were reported never actually happened in the way the newscaster stated.
Nowadays when I watch the news a little method that I use which helps me to “read between the lines” is to imagine that I’m watching a film and ask myself “what is it that these actors need us to believe? (It’s fun and it works every time!)
In the case of these riots or “disorder” as the police try to term it, they want us to believe that our young people are out of control in their hoodies, and they want to kill, maim, burn, loot and pillage. From my recollection there were reports of riots and/or looting in Camden, Chalk farm, Ealing, Bayswater, Hackney, Woolwich. I even heard that they were planning to attack the mass ritual Olympic site.

The plot read like a Hollywood disaster movie. Our “leader” was away on holiday apparently the third one this year, no doubt taking a break from the incestuous relationship he was having with the police and the media. Correct me if I’m wrong but just before these riots hit, the tabloids were in phone hacking city. The right wing on the big fat political bird was taking the flak for the shit that went down when the left wing of the political bird was in power. (Please note that both wings are on the same bird, so you really have to choose the same tired old chicken when you vote) He stayed away whilst Tottenham burned, following the murder of a “gangsta” who came from the Broadwater Farm estate. Hindsight is great thing but I honestly thought that there was going to be a riot after I heard Mark Duggan had been shot. My reasoning? The amount of civil unrest and general dissatisfaction that authority faces is increasing around the world. We’ve seen, in this country the student riots against fees and the wave of uprisings in the so called Middle East. We have all seen with our eyes the power of the people and what it can and will achieve.
In days of old, our leaders would be out front charging into battle but now they are pampered and protected. When SamCam’s husband came back, he started all the tough talk, and promptly held an emergency meeting with the rather sinister name of COBRA. It’s an acronym for Cabinet Office Briefing Room A. (I wonder what goes on in Cabinet Office Briefing Room B? Not much I presume, and COBRB doesn’t quite have the same reptilian ring to it)

Now the courts are issuing draconian sentences for looters who committed crimes against property. I’m not condoning burning people’s homes, and acts of violence against small and private business, but stealing from JD sports or Carphone Warehouse? While it’s stupid and petty, it’s hardly evil. The media have demonised looters and rioters, to the extent a mother even informed on her own child.
On the evening of the day after the shooting, I drove up to the stretch of road were Mark was assassinated (Yes I said it. Before you dismiss me a conspiracy theorist extraordinaire I quote my good friend Mr Wik Pedia, An assassination is "to murder (a usually prominent person) by a sudden and/or secret attack, often for political reasons."[1][2] An additional definition is "the act of deliberately killing someone, especially a public figure, usually for hire or for political reasons." So that’s why I have decided to call it an assassination. Is revenge for the killing of a police officer political enough? Not sure? Okay, you call it what you want.

Mark came from an estate where during a riot following the death of a member of the black community a police officer was brutally murdered and no one has ever been convicted.(If that’s not a political motivation, I’m a conspiracy theorist extraordinaire) Anyway, as I was saying I attempted to drive up past Blackhorse Road and the road was blocked off. In my mind I was thinking “why have they blocked off such a large section of the road?” According to the reports that were put out following the killing, Mark was said to have fired first. To me that sounded fishy, but if that was the truth it would have been an open and shut case, and we would conclude that Mr Duggan was suicidal. I‘m not condoning police brutality, but remember we are in a country where the police killed an electrician who walked into Stockwell tube station, so firing rounds at armed police (who no doubt need little excuse to fire) is a sure fire way to get your arse well and truly killed.

When the first reports came out stating that Mark had shot at police I thought the likelihood of that to be dubious. The police allowed that version of events to be circulated, knowing that not to be the case. As the shooting happened in broad daylight, all any witnesses would have seen was the police executing a seemingly innocent man. The thing is; there was a wave of misinformation by the media, after Mark was shot. For at least 3 or 4 days all we heard was that he had shot at police, and the fact that one of the police had a bullet lodged in his radio. It turned out later that the bullet was police issue and Mark had not shot at the police.
When Jean Charles De Menezes was shot it was said that he had run away from police down into Stockwell tube station, wearing a bag with wires coming out. It later turned out that he had been followed into the underground station after he had used an oyster card to get through the barriers. (Not leaped over them as it was first reported) When the police cornered him they shot him eight or nine times in the head in front of passengers who probably though Halloween had come early. I picked up on the similarity between the murder of Mark Duggan and the murder of Jean Charles De Menezes. This similarity was way the media allowed lies about the shootings to be circulated to the public.To me, coupled with the level of dissatisfaction with authority in the world at present, shooting someone from the Black community with a connection to an estate where there was a riot following the death of someone from the Black community equates to a march/protest at the very least and another riot at the worst.

The looting was the result of the perception that the police had lost control of the situation. In my opinion the police never lost control of the situation. It was rather a case of them relinquishing control .My belief is that the looting in Tottenham and Wood Green was allowed to happen. There were military Police at the junction of White Hart Lane and Tottenham High Road at approximately 5am on the Sunday morning. We had received “Intelligence” that looting was going on in Wood Green but the authorities did nothing to prevent it. It would have taken one police car, one armoured black military police vehicle to drive down and stop the looting in Wood Green. News of this spread swiftly and the rest is history. This has now created a climate where people are being criminalised for theft of minor items or in some cases stealing no items at all, and the prisons are filled to the brim, all in time for the Olympics. A little too much orchestration if you ask me but what do I know?

The current climate is one of economic and political uncertainty. The Student riots, the upheaval in the Middle East and all the marches against the cuts are evidence of the tension. We have also seen unrest in Greece, Spain, Italy and Portugal. The government would have us believe that the riots were perpetrated by materialistic young people who didn’t care about the death of Mark Duggan. I believe that there was a great deal of opportunism mixed in with a general disillusionment with the system. The fact that ‘normal’ people who had never gotten in trouble with the police before have now been caught up in the penal system is very ironic. I believe that the ‘system’ is aware that there is genuine anti-government sentiment in the air. In one dastardly chess move, we now have a climate where the police have an excuse to increase their powers and the public have almost consented to this. The papers were showing images of ‘thugs’ caught on camera and encouraging people to ‘shop a moron’ they are actively trying to create a climate where we are doing the snooping and the detective work for the police.
Those involved in the riots were acting out what many had been feeling for a long time. In my mind, they were like an aspect of (my) subconscious energy taking the law in into their own hands. It’s funny how the police are now running around picking up people and pushing them through the courts for committing the same crimes that founded America and most of the old British Empire. To dismiss the underlying irony is dangerous. The looting was in most part against property and large stores. With all the talk of cuts in spending and government debt, many people feel they are being ripped off in the UK today and that sentiment was one of the factors driving the unrest. I recall when petrol prices started rising astronomically a couple of years ago there was a blockade carried out by lorry drivers and the prices dropped, accordingly. Petrol is now over £1 a litre and we are in more testing economic times now than we were then. No blockade, no complaints just acceptance.

The other issue that these riots bought up was the issue of race. I watched as the media attempted to racialise events. The murder of the three young men in Birmingham was one of the most poignant moments for me in the media coverage of the riots. Three young men of Asian origin were tragically killed when a car was driven into them following a brick being thrown into a car window. As far as I am aware the suspects for those murders were all black, but from my understanding there are long seated tensions between the Black and Asian communities in some parts of Birmingham. The media quite rightly highlighted the dignity of the father of one of the young men who was killed and then they went on to show solidarity from different communities against the looters/stroke rioters. I saw and heard stories of Sikhs in Southall, the Turkish community in Hackney and the broom wielding community in Clapham, who were predominately although not exclusively white. There was not a media representation of the resistance from the Black community. The Black community was either perpetrator or victim. The images showed rioters of all ages all races and of both sexes. The multiculturalism that supposedly won London the Olympics was now turning on the government. Black culture was blamed, rap music, even the slang spoken on the streets, blackberrys and Facebook were also accused. The latest that I’ve heard, Ken Clarke said it was caused by, and l quote "a feral underclass" . Wow!!!!!Are you hearing the language? The mention of class is ironic because these riots were defiantly fuelled by inequality, whether real or perceived.

I see these events as symbolic of the changes in consciousness. As they say change is the only constant. The one thing we can be sure of is that the world needs more balance, and the amount of energy that it’s going to take to create lasting real change is probably directly proportional times about 100, to the amount of energy it took to create it. So let’s see if we can all be part of the change.

Peace and Love DM

Comments (1)

On 28 September 2011 at 22:57 , Dark Maatter said...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-15070154

http://wideshut.co.uk/perfect-storm-the-england-riots-documentary/

 
rss