The riots - viewpoint from genune anarchists

[Sussex Nomad]

I think you will find that Hovagirl attempted to belittle my political beliefs first. But she can stand up for herself ok. And I did not call you stupid. Read the post and understand it.

Patronising me will get you nowhere pal.

 

[beorhthelm]

I think you will find that Hovagirl attempted to belittle my political beliefs first.

not really, she just used the common meaning of the dictionary definition. nor was it directed at you. there was anarchy in the streets of London. Anarchists can't just demand the public stop using a word in its common context because they want to lay claim to it exclusivly.

 

[HovaGirl]

which to an anarchist is breaking the law.... and thus entitled to fight back using law enforcement.

Indeed, but what about the policeman's action in trying to coerce the robber into stopping what he was doing?

 

[HovaGirl]

Just the opposite. I spend my time trying to understand how stupid I am. I was just trying to point out that the anarchist movements have every right to complain about the criminals and looters being defined as anarchists.

You don't seem to understand the difference between The Anarchist Movement and anarchy itself. The Anarchist Movement has hijacked a word of a different meaning, and given its own definition. Whatever you think of The Anarchist Movement, the looters were still acting in anarchic fashion.

 

[HovaGirl]

I think you will find that Hovagirl attempted to belittle my political beliefs first. But she can stand up for herself ok. And I did not call you stupid. Read the post and understand it.

Actually, I did not. I did not know what your political beliefs were. I just gave the definition of anarchy. You gave the definition of The Anarchist Movement. They use the same word, but with different definitions.

 

[HovaGirl]

Kropotkin criticised lawlessness. He didn't support it. Nor, of course, did he always support the lawmakers.

THE GREAT FRENCH REVOLUTION AND ITS LESSON.

On the fertile soil of south-eastern Russia, you will understand the famous words of the French royal intendant who advised starving peasants to eat grass if they were hungry; because there you might see (as it was in 1881) whole villages living on mountain-spinach, and sending their people to fetch some of it from a neighbouring province. There you would see the ruined but arrogant nobility preventing the peasant from making use of the uncultivated land; the arbitrariness of the functionaries; the lawlessness of the ministers; you would find the Bastille at Schlüsselburg, and you would have an insight into 'old France.' Personal rule returned in France with Napoleon, but not the feudal institutions. Neither the laws promulgated under the Bourbons nor even the White Terror could take the land from the peasants, nor reintroduce the feudal servitudes, nor reintegrate the old feudal organisation of the cities. And if now, especially during the last twenty years, the French peasants have again to complain of the accumulation of land in the hands of capitalists, they have enjoyed, at least for more than fifty years, a period of relative prosperity which has made the real might of the French nation.

Kropotkin was a Communist, rather than an Anarchist, though the two words have been fused together in the context of sharing government among the people. He was so disgusted with Lenin, he backed off, because Lenin was not following Communist orthodoxy.

 

[sammy g]

did not say they would not riot but that riots are rare compared to before the law.

i suggest u go to sky news website worth a listen, these two now help people who come out of prison. i think there judgment as they have been in gangs, prison and now help ex prisoner's. They r far better placed to give valuable insight than u. however please correct me if u have been in gangs, prison and now work with ex cons and i will listen to ur views as well!!

If you are suggesting (correct me if I am wrong) that tougher sentences are the solution for people that engage in offending behaviour then i disagree. Locking people up is not a deterrent it never has been and never will be for groups of people who, as we saw over the last few days, are swept away in a mindless and defenceless acts of stupidity.
I think for some people who have never experienced the criminal justice system and the secure estates its easy to say Cable Tv and PS2's make for an easy time. It doesn't and 99% of those people in Prison want to get out and never go back, those few that do prefer prison will have the most horrific, pathetic lives on the outside.
Prison works by rehabilitating offenders; drug treatment, education etc.
I do have experience of offenders both current and ex, not as one but in the job that I do.

 

[Lord Bracknell]

Kropotkin was a Communist, rather than an Anarchist, though the two words have been fused together in the context of sharing government among the people. He was so disgusted with Lenin, he backed off, because Lenin was not following Communist orthodoxy.

I'll settle for "anarchist-communist" - but decidedly anti-Bolshevik and anti-Leninist.

"The two great movements of our century - towards Liberty of the individual and social co-operation of the whole community - are summed up in Anarchist-Communism."

"Free, or anarchist-communism is the only form of communism that has any chance of being accepted in civilized societies; communism and anarchy are therefore two terms of evolution which complete each other, the one rendering the other possible and acceptable". - from Kropotkin's article on Anarchism, in the 1911 edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica.

http://www.blackcrayon.com/library/britt1910.html

 

[DIRK STEELE]

Actually, I did not. I did not know what your political beliefs were. I just gave the definition of anarchy. You gave the definition of The Anarchist Movement. They use the same word, but with different definitions.

sorry but the etymology of the word anarchy is not lawlessness but lack of a ruler or government. But hey... think what you like! I am as libertarian as they come....

 

[Sussex Nomad]

sorry but the etymology of the word anarchy is not lawlessness but lack of a ruler or government. But hey... think what you like! I am as libertarian as they come....

You just answered your own question... we had no 'ruler' on Monday night and anarchy reigned.

 

[DIRK STEELE]

You just answered your own question... we had no 'ruler' on Monday night and anarchy reigned.

Are you deliberately trying to be thick. Or just fishing again?

 

[Sussex Nomad]

Are you deliberately trying to be thick. Or just fishing again?

Are you deliberately out to abuse people or does it just come naturally?

 

[DIRK STEELE]

Are you deliberately out to abuse people or does it just come naturally?

 

[Sussex Nomad]

Well buddy you went from having a semblance of an articulate argument to smilies... what more can I say? Have a good day.

 

[DIRK STEELE]

Well buddy you went from having a semblance of an articulate argument to smilies... what more can I say? Have a good day.

And you call me patronising? Ha!

 

[HovaGirl]

sorry but the etymology of the word anarchy is not lawlessness but lack of a ruler or government. But hey... think what you like! I am as libertarian as they come....

Thank you. That's what I said in the first place. The looters were behaving as if they had no government and could do what they wanted. It was a weekend of anarchy.

 

[Lord Bracknell]

Thank you. That's what I said in the first place. The looters were behaving as if they had no government and could do what they wanted. It was a weekend of anarchy.

I'd describe it as "social banditry", rather than anarchy - in the sense used by Eric Hobsbawm in Primitive Rebels. Urban bandits, rather than rural bandits, obviously.

"The point about social bandits is that they are peasant outlaws whom the lord and state regard as criminals, but who remain within peasant society, and are considered by their people as heroes, as champions, avengers, fighters for justice, perhaps even leaders of liberation, and in any case as men to be admired, helped and supported. This relation between the ordinary peasant and the rebel, outlaw and robber is what makes social banditry interesting and significant ... Social banditry of this kind is one of the most universal social phenomena known to history".

 

[HovaGirl]

I'd describe it as "social banditry", rather than anarchy - in the sense used by Eric Hobsbawm in Primitive Rebels. Urban bandits, rather than rural bandits, obviously.

"The point about social bandits is that they are peasant outlaws whom the lord and state regard as criminals, but who remain within peasant society, and are considered by their people as heroes, as champions, avengers, fighters for justice, perhaps even leaders of liberation, and in any case as men to be admired, helped and supported. This relation between the ordinary peasant and the rebel, outlaw and robber is what makes social banditry interesting and significant ... Social banditry of this kind is one of the most universal social phenomena known to history".

Golly, I haven't read Hobsbawm in years! I think social banditry can be applied to the mythical Robin Hood, but I wouldn't apply it in this case. Few of these people were outlaws or criminals before the looting and many of them are not considered as heroes or fighters for justice by their peers, who have been made to stop and think by the actions of last weekend. The term "social banditry" might arguably be applied to those who organised some of it via Twitter, but it looks like the main swathe of the looters just got sucked in for a night of chance robbery, on the assumption that the law, and the Government, would do nothing about it. In that respect, I would argue it was anarchy.

 

[Waynflete]

As I said, trends towards words change as life evolves...

an·ar·chy

an·ar·chynoun /ˈanərkē/ 

1. A state of disorder due to absence or nonrecognition of authority
   • - he must ensure public order in a country threatened with anarchy
2. Absence of government and absolute freedom of the individual, regarded as a political ideal

define anarchy - Google Search

Your viewpoint is correct [MENTION=18704]DIRK STEELE[/MENTION] but so are those of others, just agree to agree huh?

I don't often agree with LondonBlue but he's spot on here. Anarchy can be applied to a political philosophy that argues for the absence of government (but not of societal rules). It can also be used to describe chaos and lawlessness.

Dirk Steele should (and does?) accept that the word is routinely used to mean the latter.
Hovagirl should stop stating that her view is simply 'what the word means' when it clearly can mean more than one thing.

 

[Lord Bracknell]

Golly, I haven't read Hobsbawm in years! I think social banditry can be applied to the mythical Robin Hood, but I wouldn't apply it in this case. Few of these people were outlaws or criminals before the looting and many of them are not considered as heroes or fighters for justice by their peers, who have been made to stop and think by the actions of last weekend. The term "social banditry" might arguably be applied to those who organised some of it via Twitter, but it looks like the main swathe of the looters just got sucked in for a night of chance robbery, on the assumption that the law, and the Government, would do nothing about it. In that respect, I would argue it was anarchy.

"Getting sucked in", as you put it, is a sign of the endorsement that marks the bandits out as "heroes, champions, avengers, and fighters for justice".

As Hobsbawm concludes, though, they are wrong. Banditry never succeeds in transforming society.