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Spotted this weekend in Maritime Square.
That’s a big muthaf***ing Smurf.
First they came for our malls,
This is dF
That’s a big muthaf***ing Smurf.
First they came for our malls,
This is dF
Aug. 15th, 2011
LONDON’S BURNING (2011 MIX)
Aug. 15th, 2011 07:25 pmWell, not at the moment. But you know what I mean.
And it’s hard to think of something to post apart from the obvious stuff (looting bad, riots bad, violence bad), or even the fact that David Cameron and Parliament are playing to type in the way they always seem to do when this kind of thing happens: namely, make big tough-sounding speeches about law and order and promise to solve the whole thing with even more law and order.
Sure. That’ll fix it.
The silliest aspect, of course, is Cameron’s plan to find ways to shut down social networking services like Twitter, Facebook and, um, BlackBerry Messenger, without which rioters couldn’t possibly figure out which buildings to set on fire and what storefronts to smash in.
I couldn’t tell you how serious Cameron is about this. I half suspect he’s saying it because it sounds hardline and decisive – not least because the London Olympics are less than a year away, and he will be goddamned and dipped in jam if a bunch of ASBO cases are going to ruin HIS Olympics. I’m sure at this stage he’d consider bringing dungeons and thumbscrews and public hangings back if he thought it was necessary.
Which is also why I seriously doubt he’s thought beyond the obvious goal of keeping rioters from organizing (“They use Twitter? We’ll shut it off. Problem solved. Honestly, it’s perfectly simple …”), and the problems of cutting off communications channels that other people could also be using when they might need it most – like when there’s a riot in the neighborhood.
Still, it says a lot that China is apparently chuffed by the news that Britain has come around to their way of thinking. That should be sending up red flags right there.
I’m not saying Cameron wants to turn England into China. I’m just saying that when yr considering a policy that will restrict communications and Chinese state media says, “Yr doing it right,” you might want to rethink yr options.
Anyway, since I’ve been struggling for the last few days to come up with a coherent post for all this, and essentially failing, I’m going to take the cop-out route and let other bloggers do my talking for me.
MediaBistro explains why censoring social networks is a useless idea.
Bruce Schneier explains why restricting comms technology in general on the rationale that Bad People might use it to do Bad Things is a dumb idea, particularly from a security standpoint. (Not that that’s stopped the San Francisco BART from doing the same thing.)
On the riots themselves, a London inner-city crime expert tells The Daily Beast the riots were some time coming.
And Dave Allen – former bass player from the band Gang Of Four – makes some good points about how England has been here before, and how the riots are at least partly the product of Cameron’s own austerity measures.
That’s a point worth making, especially in light of similar budget-slashing moves in the US and Europe. Whatever the rationales for cutting govt spending might be, it’s important to remember that those cuts are always made in the broader context of Real Life tradeoffs – particularly where people are disenfranchised as a result of that policy. And if the tradeoffs never even occurred to the people implementing those policies, that doesn’t absolve them from the responsibility of whatever actions the disenfranchised decide to take.
Obviously that’s not a license for the disenfranchised to smash up other people’s shit, either, and rioters should be held responsible for their own actions. But you don't get to help foster economic conditions that stack the odds in favor of the haves and against the have-nots and foster that level of despair, hopelessness and anger, and then expect the have-nots to just sit there and say, “Oh well, at least we don’t live in Somalia.”
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way,
This is dF
And it’s hard to think of something to post apart from the obvious stuff (looting bad, riots bad, violence bad), or even the fact that David Cameron and Parliament are playing to type in the way they always seem to do when this kind of thing happens: namely, make big tough-sounding speeches about law and order and promise to solve the whole thing with even more law and order.
Sure. That’ll fix it.
The silliest aspect, of course, is Cameron’s plan to find ways to shut down social networking services like Twitter, Facebook and, um, BlackBerry Messenger, without which rioters couldn’t possibly figure out which buildings to set on fire and what storefronts to smash in.
I couldn’t tell you how serious Cameron is about this. I half suspect he’s saying it because it sounds hardline and decisive – not least because the London Olympics are less than a year away, and he will be goddamned and dipped in jam if a bunch of ASBO cases are going to ruin HIS Olympics. I’m sure at this stage he’d consider bringing dungeons and thumbscrews and public hangings back if he thought it was necessary.
Which is also why I seriously doubt he’s thought beyond the obvious goal of keeping rioters from organizing (“They use Twitter? We’ll shut it off. Problem solved. Honestly, it’s perfectly simple …”), and the problems of cutting off communications channels that other people could also be using when they might need it most – like when there’s a riot in the neighborhood.
Still, it says a lot that China is apparently chuffed by the news that Britain has come around to their way of thinking. That should be sending up red flags right there.
I’m not saying Cameron wants to turn England into China. I’m just saying that when yr considering a policy that will restrict communications and Chinese state media says, “Yr doing it right,” you might want to rethink yr options.
Anyway, since I’ve been struggling for the last few days to come up with a coherent post for all this, and essentially failing, I’m going to take the cop-out route and let other bloggers do my talking for me.
MediaBistro explains why censoring social networks is a useless idea.
Bruce Schneier explains why restricting comms technology in general on the rationale that Bad People might use it to do Bad Things is a dumb idea, particularly from a security standpoint. (Not that that’s stopped the San Francisco BART from doing the same thing.)
On the riots themselves, a London inner-city crime expert tells The Daily Beast the riots were some time coming.
And Dave Allen – former bass player from the band Gang Of Four – makes some good points about how England has been here before, and how the riots are at least partly the product of Cameron’s own austerity measures.
That’s a point worth making, especially in light of similar budget-slashing moves in the US and Europe. Whatever the rationales for cutting govt spending might be, it’s important to remember that those cuts are always made in the broader context of Real Life tradeoffs – particularly where people are disenfranchised as a result of that policy. And if the tradeoffs never even occurred to the people implementing those policies, that doesn’t absolve them from the responsibility of whatever actions the disenfranchised decide to take.
Obviously that’s not a license for the disenfranchised to smash up other people’s shit, either, and rioters should be held responsible for their own actions. But you don't get to help foster economic conditions that stack the odds in favor of the haves and against the have-nots and foster that level of despair, hopelessness and anger, and then expect the have-nots to just sit there and say, “Oh well, at least we don’t live in Somalia.”
Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way,
This is dF
