LadyDeliah

Ok, I got past the gargoyle and still think it's a piece of crap. He says that there is no general moral decline and it's just the result of dysfunctional families. That's rubbish. Between him and Thatcher, the dog eat dog/competition mentality has been encouraged to infect most areas of our society. If you can't compete, you are no-one. If you can't consume what you are told to consume, you are no-one. If you complained about the rising power of the bankers and the correlating decline in manufacturing, you were accused of promoting the politics of envy. If you are poor you have no chance of getting into a decent school as competition for places in decent state schools raises the house prices and the middle classes get to buy their way in. There is no longer any fairness in our society. People who find themselves unable to compete for whatever reason, see the greed and avarice demonstrated by the winners, and occasionally get the hump. The sticking plasters that had been put in place by Blair, were ripped off by Cameron, despite warnings that it could all end in tears. But Cameron didn't care, cos he lives far enough away that rioting plebs would be unlikely to affect him. Blair was full of shit when he was in power and is still full of shit now.

Otta Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > LadyDeliah Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > > Tony Blair is a war-mongering toss-pot, who > > oversaw or made ready, the selling off of the > > majority of the public assets left after the > big > > Tory sell-off before him, and is therefore not > in > > a position to opine on moral decline! > > > So you don't agree with what he says in the > article then? > > I am no Blair fan, but he's a clever man, and that > article speaks sense. Sorry, I have to admit, I got as far as his gargoyle picture and had to retreat to my happy place. I should try better!

lol

Spooky! Just read that Nexus dude had mentioned Special Drawing Rights too. Honest SJ, it's not me!

StraferJack Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > the post is clearly the work of a nutter/bot/ > > (or possibly Lady Delilah in disguise ;-) ) > > The palpable glee with which some people drool > about imminent collapse is very disturbing. The > USA may be wrong in various matters, but if I have > to pick just one global superpower to shelter > under, it's that one every time Wasn't me, but I agree with a lot of what the OP has said.

Richard, that's not a nice thing to say. Why does it make him nuts anyway? The debts handed down by financiers is pretty flipping big and will never be paid off. In fact some Swiss banks are now talking about expanding the special drawing rights as a new global 'super currency' because the dollar is about to go tits up. They call it 'special drawing rights', but it will in effect be a currency and will be a way of re-branding the paper money/debt product for the more elite financial consumer and a way of by-passing the demise of the dollar as the global currency.

I agree with david. The teenagers are not politically sophisticated, but they understand that the MPs had their hands in the till, the papers acted illegally and the bankers ripped everyone off. They are not middle-class kids I'm talking about either, so there hasn't been a lot of molycodling involved either. Most of the kids who used the Kickstart services my son and daughter used to work for, were kids who had been excluded from school and had very difficult family circumstances. Same with Connexions. My son worked with some of the most dangerous Peckham youts and did his best to stop them knifing or shooting other people's kids. Cutting these kinds of provisions is a false economy and will only lead to more alienation as kids are forced to grow up in ever more dangerous neigbourhoods. I was talking to my son and other family members last night about this issue and I remembered an incident when we lived on an estate in SE1. I had seen a group of about 30 kids walk past my flat with bats and and other weapons. They came into our square whilst putting their hoods up to hide their identities. I called the police immediately and explained that there was going to be immediate violence and they needed to come mob-handed. These kids had apparently arrived from Lewisham to extract money from another young person on our estate who had sold drugs and owed them a substantial amount of money. The guy who owed the money was educationally subnormal and as a result was a total arsehole as he bought into the whole gangsta lifestyle thing despite having been beaten up and stabbed a number of times previously. Unfortunately, he knew the guys were coming for him and was in hiding, so the group of guys smashed all the windows in his mother's flat and beat her around the head with an iron bar. The police took over half an hour to arrive, by which time the perps had gone. This was normal for the area we lived in. My point is, that many of the kids in that area were too scared to talk to the police and the people who work hard trying to divert kids away from gangs, stand up for what is right and raise the kids expectations are needed if we don't want to incur massive costs by way of police, courts, prison, social workers, drug workers etc. Work on preventing the problem getting worse is really important. Our estate used to have running battles with the next estate, but brave youth workers started up football and other activities on both estates and ran a football compettion between the two esttates to try to create friendships. This did way more for community cohesion than anything the police could do. I was also on the local police panel at that time and they said the same thing. They loved the work that kickstart was doing because it made their lives easier. So Hugo, back to your point. There are many people in this life who feel they have an entitlement that maybe they don't, such as financiers, MP's and maybe the middle-class youth you mentioned earlier. I think, hoever, the kids who previously benefited from the slashed youth services expect little from life, but are angry at what they see as injustice. and I don't blame them. I am angry too. But I have an escape route and an ability to express my anger in a more contructive way.

Tony Blair is a war-mongering toss-pot, who oversaw or made ready, the selling off of the majority of the public assets left after the big Tory sell-off before him, and is therefore not in a position to opine on moral decline!

How very dare you, middle class, moi, how very, very dare you!

Yes, but after being sold the line that you can be part of the brave new world if you follow the rules, you then find out it's a plie of crap and you aren't one of the chosen few, then you are likely to be a bit miffed. My kids are resiliant and have a hard-nosed, pragmatic (cynical?) mother to guide them, but many dont have any guidance or have questionable guidance from ther parent/s. What can you teach your kids about succeeding in life if you are one of life's losers? If you've never employment or are addicted to drugs/alcohol or mentally ill? Many kida grow up with parents who can't show them a way out, even if they wanted to. That's wherre youth services are important. All this is academic any way as we are facing global economic and environmental meltdown and the winners in the new world may not be the same ones on top now. The ruthless and fearless are likely to be the winners as the social system that kept the bewildered crowd in check, breaks down. The pampered middle class may end up as collateral damage as the ruthless who inhabit the top and bottom of the social scale battle it out. Or it all might get better, somehow!

My daughter asks me if I have work, which I give her when it needs doing and I have the money. I don't give my kids anything for nothing. She cleans my house (cos I'm a slob) for ?5 per hour (don't you just love child exploitation?) and even cleans up the dog crap in the back garden for me, so I think she isn't scared of undignified jobs. She used to have a part-time job in Burgess Park cafe while she was at college, until it got taken over by someone else and all the staff were sacked. That was over a year ago and she's been looking for work since, with my help and enthusiasm. As it happens, she got one interview at a pub in New Cross and was offered the job but the boss was a total letch, so she didn't take up his offer. Similar thing happened to me when I was 18 and unemployed in 80's Merseyside, but the boss in that case sexually assaulted me, so I wasn't going to push my daughter to take the New Cross job. It's pretty heart-breaking seeing her getting more and more disillusioned, but hey, that's life, well mine in any case, not yours Hugo.

Cutting the Summer University completely in Southwark and the summer activities this year was also a huge mistake.

Connexions was a really useful service for kids in Peckham but it went a while ago. I have been informed that was under Labour, but I don't think the kids care much about which party are cutting their services to be honest and I doubt it makes a lot of difference to the cumulative anger.

Yes you can hide assets, hard to hide a piece of land!

Rosita I'm not sure if I understood your point, but I think you are assuming that I didn't understand what was going on because kids don't talk to their parents. Some kids don't talk to their parents, others do. I have a very open relationship with my own parents and my children. We discuss everything from politics to sex to music to martial arts. My daughter showed me some of the BB messages that she had received and I advised her to keep out of the way of the rioters because I didn't want her to get arrested for something she didn't do. My daughter and her teenage friends were all very angry at having their EMA taken away and fruitless job hunting. When Connexions was closed and the youth provision slashed, they were even more angry. I saw all of this happening and although I was shocked by the level of destruction I was not surprised by the riots. I was in Birkenhead at the time of the 80's riots and the general mood was very similar. Like I said above, the expression of the anger by looting, does not take away from the fact that this was a political act, bourne out of anger for a system that they felt they had no place or future in.

Looks like you had a lovely break. Great pics too.

Huguenot Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Possibly, or more likely you're insisting that > these people are oppressed victims fighting for > their rights because it suits your world outlook. > > You deny that they were just shopping with a > hammer instead of a wallet despite the airwaves > hot with kids cheering about the 'free stuf' they > was getting innit. > > If you can completely ignore the evidence like > this then it rather makes it pointless to discuss > it. Ok, my teenage daughter is the same demographic as those that went out rioting. She also got the same BB messages. They did say get free stuff, but they also said a lot of stuff about fuck the system and war against the police. It wasn't just about the free stuff. It was an insurrection. The fact that stuff was looted at the same time, does not take away the political content. It may have been a very basic politiical expression, but fuck the system and war on the police, is still political expression.

It's a class issue, but dividing people up by race makes it easier for the elite to turn people against each other and stop them joining forces. Divide and conquer!

I've been pleasantly surprised by some of the stories run by the Torygraph of late. They have been sticking the boot in a bit with the ConDems and their cronies.

So you think that someone with a big house or land that is too expensive for them to pay for by themselves in an LVT system, should be allowed to just sit there? Maybe that is the problem. Maybe they shouldn't have such a big house by themselves. Maybe they could invite people to live there and share the burden of the LVT. Maybe one person owning huge swathes of our countryside should not be propped up by our local tax system, infact the reverse should be the case. If they can't afford the tax on a huge piece of land, sell it. Or sell bits of it to other people who need homes/land etc.

Brendan Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Well I didn?t vote for you. I'm the vanguard, what you on about! I don't need to be voted for B)

I get to be president! lol

mockney piers Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > You make the 'ponzi scheme', by which you mean > fractional reserve banking, financial system sound > like a bad thing. > It's what made our world possible, it's what has > built our roads and bridges and hospitals and > allowed entrepreneurs. > You seem to sound gleeful at the impending > collapse of the international banking system. > Careful what you wish for..... So when all the gold is recalled, and the UK banks can't honour their promises, what happens next? Our financial system is based on smoke and mirrors. Chavez knows that we can't give him his gold back because we don't have it any more and the bit we do have has been promised to too many people. What's that going to do to our credit rating? He's calling the bluff of the Western financial system and I'm interested to see what the response will be. Will they have to declare war on Venezuela rather than admit they've looted his gold reserves? Who will they go to for credit to wage war on Venezuela? Interesting times we are living in.

And here is the official version! http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-18/chavez-emptying-bank-of-england-vault-as-venezuela-brings-back-gold-hoard.html

Hugo Chavez has recalled the 99 tonnes of Venezuelan gold held by British banks. Problem is, they only have 10 tonnes and that has been promised all over the place. Are we seeing the impending collapse of our ponzi scheme financial system, or will the UK Govt make some bogus allegation against Chavez and seize his assets rather than pay the Venezuelan gold back (cos they don't have it anymore!)? http://www.siasat.pk/forum/showthread.php?76499-Venezuela-demands-delivery-of-its-gold-deposits-from-Bank-of-England