Riot fears

[Lencoboy]

Today I'm feeling triggered by reports on the news about widespread protests across Russia, complete with tales of inadvertent police brutality against said protesters, over Putin's antics, though I mostly share their sentiment for protesting. My dad has been watching both the BBC and Sky News channels quite a lot the past few days and today he has had them on non-stop and also asked me to do him a couple of favours around the house (with the news still blaring away), plus I'm having bad bouts of diarrhoea today at the same time, which isn't very pleasant.

All the stuff about Putin, Russia and Ukraine isn't the only thing that's triggering me right now; it's all the endless Armageddon-like stories concerning the COL crisis, and the article the other day about another 'Winterbourne View'-like ACU in Gtr Mancs (Prestwich I think). It seems as far as the media is concerned, this country (and the world in general) is really going to the dogs right now, but most ironically, whenever I'm out and about generally, I can't really sense anything mega abnormal nor out of the ordinary (as if the 'end of the world' is truly nigh).

But I'm also feeling dead guilty sitting here in the warmth of our house with the heating on ATM (my dad is the one generally putting it on right now, not me) and hearing lurid tales about people not only being unable to afford to have their heating on but also struggling to feed themselves right now, which I also recall hearing/reading about back in late 2008-early 2009 when we had the last GFC/COL crisis, and I recall feeling similar episodes of guilt back then too.

I just feel like an ungrateful barsteward right now.

[NoraB]

Best thing you can do is avoid the news as much as possible.

It's not helping you, Lenco.

[Lencoboy]

This evening I've suddenly started ruminating on riots all over again as my dad was watching the news on TV this evening when I returned from walking the dog, and they were talking about the various strikes taking place throughout the country ATM and into the new year amid the COL crisis, and I said to my dad (partly in jest) 'I wonder how long it will be before people in this country start rioting in response to the current situation like they did with the Miners' Strike in 1984 and the Poll Tax in 1990, both when Thatcher was in Number 10?' and he said that most people don't really need to full-on riot so much nowadays with the advent of social media and the Internet in general where they can express themselves more freely and make themselves heard alongside others with like-minded views, rather than resort to mass street fights and burning buildings, vehicles, etc, and even stuff that technically borders on terrorism, plus he said to me that full-on riots in this country have generally become fewer and far between particularly since the latter half of the 90s, especially as other more civilised means of expressing indignation against the system (as already mentioned above) have evolved since then, despite the odd bouts of disturbances that occurred between 2001 and August 2011.

[spectrum123]

I'm too old for it now. I peaked in 1990, I may dip out of this round of civil disobedience, that and it wouldn't do my chances of staying in job a lot of good!

[Lencoboy]

I'm too old for it now. I peaked in 1990, I may dip out of this round of civil disobedience, that and it wouldn't do my chances of staying in job a lot of good!

There's no reports of any actual civil disobedience (riots) in this country as yet, touch wood.

My dad said that he thinks the world has largely moved on since those dark moments of 1990, and believes that most people for the most part are better informed nowadays, despite a lot of the online disinformation concerns of recent years.

[pulisa]

Do you agree with your dad? Does it calm your fears about the potential you see for rioting?

[Lencoboy]

Do you agree with your dad? Does it calm your fears about the potential you see for rioting?

Now I've come to my senses a bit more I sort of do.

Perhaps the fact that riots in general becoming less prevalent in this country since the 90s (with our last major bout of disturbances being in 2011) might be an obvious explanation.

I also wonder if many people in this country just take things on the chin more nowadays, unlike in the past when they seemed far more publicly vocal and angry in general.

Also, I don't know if it's just me personally, but I perceive a lot of the protests and strikes of late to generally lack the 'bite' and general shock value of the likes of the Miners' Strike and the Poll Tax Riots, both of which seemed to be the last true bastions of major postwar political revolts in this country that people still continue to discuss today all these years later.

[BlueIris]

Looks like all the quality rioting is going on in Devon right now.

[Lencoboy]

Looks like all the quality rioting is going on in Devon right now.

Where about in Devon, and what's it all over?

I know there was a disturbance the other side of the channel in Paris the other day, which is hardly new.

[BlueIris]

Honestly, I'm not sure, I just know armed police were involved.