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London Riots: Government Prepares Troops - Martial Law Imminent. - 9th August 2011
Watch Here: http://youtu.be/hb1tUzsazZA
Okay, so let me see if I have this correct. Nobody seems at all concerned about the "rob from the poor to give to the rich" policies that triggered rioting among young people angry at being born into a life of perpetual debt-slavery to the Bankers, but everyone has their knickers in a twist that the riots might harm Britain's image for the Olympics?
Do you comprehend that if your priorities were not this out of balance up there would not be riots in the first place?
Following numerous reports of failures on behalf of police to arrest looters or adequately respond to the riots in London that are now sweeping across the entire UK, curfews and troops on the streets are now being readied as authorities prepare to enforce martial law to quell massive civil unrest.
BBC News twice reported this morning that troops were being readied. The statement was first made by a reporter at 8:30am and then repeated by a Metropolitan Police representative who said "all options were on the table".
U.K. Home Secretary Theresa May confirms that the government is considering "military support for the police". http://www.nasdaq.com/aspx/stock-market-news-story.aspx?storyid=201108090402d...
Curfews are also being discussed as authorities prepare to transform Britain into a locked down police state.
"Armoured vehicles have been brought in to clear the streets for the first time by police to tackle what senior officers say is the worst rioting and looting in living memory," reports the Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/09/london-riots-police-armoured-vehicles
"I have not heard of a curfew on mainland Britain in the past century. [It's] very difficult to impose. I'm not saying that it is definitely the way forward but it is something we have to consider," Diane Abbott, Labour MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington told BBC Breakfast. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/blog/2011/aug/09/london-riots-violence-looting-live
Former London mayor Ken Livingstone called for police to use water cannons to disperse the rioters. http://www.presstv.ir/detail/193059.html
Having started in poorer areas of London, the riots have now spread to other major cities including Bristol, Nottingham, Liverpool and Manchester.
There can be little doubt that the vast majority of the rioters are products of the country's broken society, nihilistic youths who care little about political grievances and are primarily focused with exploiting the chaos to steal as much booty as they possibly can while getting off on mindless violence. This behavior ensures the public will overwhelmingly support whatever measures are proposed to deal with them, even to the point of outright martial law.
These youths should not be seen as the vanguard of some kind of genuine revolution against an abusive system. If that were the case they would be rioting outside of Downing Street, the Houses of Parliament and Buckingham Palace. Instead they are burning down private homes and businesses while looting high-end electrical goods and clothing.
But what has exacerbated the situation is the lackluster police response, with numerous reports from the public that police stood back and allowed looters to pillage both large department stores and private small businesses for hours on end.
During the initial riots in Tottenham on Sunday night, police were criticized for "standing back and allowing rioters to cause havoc." This trend has continued throughout the three nights of mayhem, with eyewitnesses bewildered at how the police have obviously been ordered not to arrest looters and rioters in some instances. http://www.metro.co.uk/news/871655-tottenham-riots-police-stood-back-and-let-...
We have been predicting the onset of widespread rioting and civil unrest for years, particularly in the UK. Last year we wrote that crippling austerity cuts would force the economically deprived to "take to the streets with a mind set of nothing to lose if the government handouts they have become dependent on are drastically reduced." http://www.prisonplanet.com/austerity-fascism-is-coming-and-it-will-be-brutal...
Make no mistake about it, these riots will be hastily exploited by the system to turn Britain into an even more controlled and surveilled police state than it already is. The riots achieve absolutely nothing aside from making the establishment look reasonable in whatever response it takes, measures which will be fully supported by a public bombarded with images of chaos, looting and burning. Article Source: Paul Joseph Watson. http://www.infowars.com/uk-riots-government-prepares-troops-martial-law/
by Daniel Hamilton
August 9th 2011
The British government replaced police officers with TV cameras, and now all they can do is watch as the British youths, angry at being born into a lifetime of debt-slavery, revolt!
Okay, so let me see if I have this correct. Nobody seems at all concerned about the "rob from the poor to give to the rich" policies that triggered rioting among young people angry at being born into a life of perpetual debt-slavery to the Bankers, but everyone has their knickers in a twist that the riots might harm Britain's image for the Olympics?
Big Brother Watch representatives have frequently been derided as kooky technophobes with an effete obsession with personal privacy when putting forward our critique of the surveillance state.
The lines deployed against us are so tired as to have become tedious. “If it saves one life or solves one crime“, people say, “it’ll all be worth it.“ “If you’ve got nothing to hide“, champions of CCTV claim, “you’ve got nothing to fear.”
If people had listened to our arguments more clearly they’d have noticed that our arguments about personal privacy, while important, have always been caged in the context of encouraging effective crime-fighting.
As the London burned in the early hours of this morning, Alex Deane outlined the wasteful way in which the scare financial resources our Police forces possess have been allocated to CCTV systems.
Late last year, Big Brother Watch conducted the first study of the true cost burden of CCTV to local councils in the United Kingdom. Of the 342 local councils who responded to our information request, a total of £321,331,453.18 was spent on installing and operating CCTV cameras during the 2007 to 2010 period.
Hidden in the small print of the report was a crude calculation, based on the average starting salary of a Police Constable, as to how many officers could have been provided for the figure of £321 million. The figure equated to 13,536 over three years – or more than 4500 a year.
The Home Secretary Theresa May issued a brief statement saying: “what robust policing means… is dealing with the disorder on the streets, but then following that through – looking at the CCTV footage.” She is, of course, entirely correct.
The Deputy Mayor of London for Policing Kit Malthouse, whose illiberal instincts we have highlighted elsewhere, has gone on the record to praise the role CCTV is likely to play in bringing some of the violent thugs who have carried out these acts of wanton violence to justice.
Without doubt, there will be several (and it will be no more than that) cases where CCTV is crucial in securing convictions.
What the Home Secretary and Mr Malthouse prefer, though: the provision of an active and high profile Police force on the streets of major British cities which actually prevents crime, or complex CCTV systems which can only assist in solving crimes? Prevention, at risk of sounding simplistic, is better than cure.
Advocates of CCTV and the surveillance state will argue that both methods should be deployed equally. There’s merit in that argument and BBW would not for a minute seek to argue that all public CCTV cameras should be removed. The financial reality of policing in the United Kingdom, however, renders a two-pronged approach to policing which mixes a visible police presence with cameras trained on every inch of public soil, impossible.
Choices have to be made; and Big Brother Watch wants bobbies on the beat, not a network of CCTV cameras.
The surveillance state has failed – and it’s time to admit it.
The riots do not mean that Olympic visitors will not be safe in London, but some might need convincing
Okay, so let me see if I have this correct. Nobody seems at all concerned about the "rob from the poor to give to the rich" policies that triggered rioting among young people angry at being born into a life of perpetual debt-slavery to the Bankers, but everyone has their knickers in a twist that the riots might harm Britain's image for the Olympics?
Do you comprehend that if your priorities were not this out of balance up there would not be riots in the first place?
London riots day 3 Trouble on the streets of London. Photograph: Kerim Okten/EPA
Two hundred Olympics delegates are in town this morning to watch a beach volleyball test event on Horse Guards' Parade. They will have been assured that London's three nights of rioting won't dilute this picturesque spectacle in any way, but the IOC will surely be asking concerned questions about the safety of the capital as it reels from the impact of its worst destructive violence for thirty years, not least because the global coverage of the riots are hardly an advertisement for the world to come and stay.
That coverage is already looking beyond the riots to next year's Games. A CBS News piece begins:
Less than a year before London hosts the 2012 Games, scenes of rioting and looting a few miles from the main Olympic site have raised concerns about security and policing for the event.
Noting that some of the worst disturbances took place in the Olympic borough of Hackney, the Times of India reports:
[A] number of incidents of looting and arson have taken place in East London, within a few miles of the Olympic facilities. The latest violence happened when the police were conducting a "stop and search" operation. In fact, reports poured in later in the evening that there were running street battles between young people and policemen. The windows of London state transport buses were smashed.
The website Hotels for the Olympics writes:
Hackney, one of five designated Olympic boroughs that border the main cluster of Games venues, has seen some of the most serious disturbances. Shops in the Stratford Centre, which sits just a few yards from the main entrance of the Olympic Park, closed early after warnings from police that protesters were planning riots in the area.
The IOC and British Olympic Association have already been obliged to make a calming statements and Boris Johnson, expected back from his holidays later today, can expect to be required to elaborate on his hope, expressed in a telephone interview with the BBC, that, "People will have a fantastic Olympics," despite the riots.
How fretful should people be? The CBS piece quotes Tony Travers of the London School of Economics:
You can imagine how stretched the police would be if this were to occur during the Olympics, so I think this will create a worry within City Hall and the Home Office. It's not so much that this might happen again - unlikely - as that it reminds the people in charge that while the Olympic Games are going on, any other major event is going to be complicated.
Sound thoughts. It's worth adding that the disorder, though widespread, was mostly localised in parts of the city that seem unlikely to be priority destinations for Olympic visitors, and that the objects of the rioters' ire were police officers and property rather than passing foreign visitors.
As a long time Hackney resident I should add that although crime remains an issue locally, I do not cower in fear of it and very much like living here. It would be wildly alarmist to conclude from the riots that Olympic London will be a place of constant, inescapable criminality. Nonetheless, it seems that such worries are going to have to be addressed