Tottenham Riots

Doesn't freetown christiania count as an anarchist state? Ok maybe not a state as such
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freetown_Christiania

I know of one more in the woods somewhere in Wales I think but I can't remember the name. I'll get it once my college website comes back online.

edit: Also Anarcho-syndicalism in the Spanish Civil War. I have no idea what extent you want anarchism to have existed but it has occured in the past even if only for a little while.
 
In general, I go along with this.

However, when presenting alternatives - or even asserting something that exists e.g. left-wing, right-wing, authoritarian, dictatorial, 'new' labour (probably past tense now) and so-on; its best to come up with some tangible sense of identity.

Communism and Capitalism are the 2 political and social models that we are most familiar with and have most tangible experience of. Anarchy may have existed in olden times, but there wasnt a label around to use.
 
Alot of tension round here at the moment , we popped into Morrisons in west Brom (top of the Soho road) , as we pulled in a couple of police cars turned up outside and the helicopter appeared over head , they shut the shop and kicked us out immeadiately !
I spoke to someone at work shortly after and was told that West Brom town centre was closed at lunchtime , my sister has also posted that Croydon was evacuated at 2.00 .
 
I visited Christiana in the 1970s - it was all about Pot and not much else back then. I did hear that they did get more constructive later on, but I have no further exposure than that, as my Pot days ended in the 1970s
 
It was a bit more sophisticated than that when I learned about it, some biker war put a dampener on the drug trade apparently. But whatever the reasons I was simply pointing out saying anarchism has never existed and is a pipe dream isn't strictly true.
 
A fair point SP.

There may be other examples more in history perhaps, maybe an interesting topic to look into.

What sort of society are the Brazilian rain forrest people living in?
 
I'll hazard a guess at theocracy. Also I just realised that you can argue Freetown is a democracy. Every decision is made by everyone and there has to be 100% agreement which makes it different from the majority rule modern democracy uses, but isn't it still basically just a direct democracy? Or is democracy by definition majority rule?

edit: alternatively I'm making a mistake in using democracy as purely a system of state. I hold very little hope for my results in a couple weeks
You have a point about this being an interesting thing to research as well. Gives me something to do today.
 
Obviously that kind of society will only function for very small societies - its difficult enough sorting stuff out in a house with 4 in it - 2 is my personal limit.
 
Haha yeah that was the biggest criticism of anarchism my class had. In that sense I suppose it is a lovely idea that will never happen
 
We need better ideas turned into realisation than we currently have. Im too old (52) and as witness in some of the reactions to my posts, too pessimistic for some folks tastes.

So its up to you and your generation SP to do a bit more. My generation were just too complacent with what we thought we 'had' - without realising the inherrant volatility of our society.
 
Sadly we've not got much to do it with - little to no affordable housing, over-priced energy, no realistic possibility of any pension in later life (or indeed being able to retire before death, and hence no time to sit and think deep thoughts after retirement), no responsible media. Hmm. Not only that but a younger generation many of whom seem to believe they're 'owed' something, I'm not quite sure what for.

Yeah, this might be difficult. Can we just raze the whole thing and start over?
 
Well for what its worth, here is a gram or 2 of my take on this. Our current system is a shambles. To improve matters we (the UK) must start to address our over-dependence on Financial services as a cash cow - so that we a) have something to export and b) we can become somewhat more self-sufficient.

We in the UK absolutely have no choice other than too address our critical lack of infrastructure (particularly power generation capacity.) In my mind this is more important than the NHS i.e. you can have medicine, but it ain't a lot of use if you are freezing cold - when the lights go out (this problem is well known - if needs be I can dig up some references to it later - Im going out shortly.)

Everyone in the western world, could in my view do with being less materialistic - this may help with the young's 'Im owed a fast car, flashy clothes' mentality.

Probably not much crumbs of comfort there. Unfortunately as stated before I am not Mr Optimistic. I like to think that I am Mr. Realistic, rather than Mr. Pessimistic; as if you understand where you are and in what circumstance, a little bit of adjustment is sometimes possible - but it does take effort.
 
On the flipside I'd argue life is better than it was a few decades ago. Longer life expectancy, more tolerant society even though it needs more improving, some moves towards internationalism.
As for your ones:
Housing - overpopulation is an issue that will probably get too bad before its addressed because the solutions (birth rate caps are my preference) aren't what people want to hear. That said its a problem that could be argues lies at the feet of older generations, same as global warming.

Energy - Meh. Saudi woke up and realised they had the world by the nuts and could charge what they want. As with the population energy is one of the "wait until it sunbearable before trying to fix it" issues but I do see it being a problem with a fix. Options for cheaper energy are there they jsut ened governments to be wiling to put the investment in and a public willing to shut up and look past themselves for 5 minutes.

Retirement I don't know enough about to comment on but if life expectancy is going up why shouldn't the retirement age? If you can work then do so.

Media - Yeah because the media hasn't sucked long before now? Media control over the public is an issue that all the older generations faced and from what I've heard is actually losing its hold. Thanks to the internet people my age aren't relying on the same old tabloid every weekend to give them their news.

I've heard a few of the older people saying we're a generation with no respect and demanding something for nothing but I've never really heard actual reasoning for the belief? Other than the uni funding which could be summed up by people not liking being charged money for stuff. Old people complain jsut as much about pricing as we do. In fact the student union came round to the new system once they sat down and read it properly.

I don't think this generation is as screwed up as older people think it is yet every outgoing generation seems to claim the new one is sinking into the depths of human existence when I can't think of one off the top of my head that didn't lead a better life than the ones before.

edit: I'm going to have to have this rant sorry. If we're complaining about disaffected youth and how we have no respect, no drive and a terrible future do the older people ever think to consider their own influence on that? Seriously for the last few years all someone my age ever hears is how awful we are and how we're destroying the wonderful paradise you lot created. Anytime a young person is on the news its because he's stabbed someone, or someone got kicked around while the hundreds upon hundreds of cases of the "better" generation doing the exact same thing are ignored. That or its about how we like having a drink now or how we're having sex at earlier ages because we're devients commiting the biggest sins of life. We achieve anything and its thrown back in our face. Complain about politcal apathy: We actually made the effort to vote and organise protests only for people to say we're whining pissants with no idea how good a life we have. We have our big chance to shine during exams: We do well and the immediate reaction is "oh exams are clearly getting easier."

During these riots people have asked mentioned how annoyed people are at the political system, or we see bankers getting hundreds of thousand of pound bonuses but no one ever points out the general crap thrown in young peoples' faces by society in general. You get a bunch of people my age who just finished exams they worked damn hard for (and then got told we're still ****. Guarantee you that will be the response) and are now starting to make actual proper decisions like work or uni, shove a bunch of stories in their face about how we're all spoilt brats who do nothing but shank people, get pissed, shag anything while we're 7 and will achieve nothing in life and you don't think that might cause a tiny bit more problems than what some tosser in charge of Barclays is doing?

I've blown that hideously out of proportion to what's actually been said on the thread and I apologise for that while accepting I probably look like a raging idiot but everything I've said is more or less true. I'm an arguementative ***** anyway but I do get a teeny bit defensive when I read this crap about how me and my friends are terrible people and the world I'm going to live in is going to be something akin to Judgement Day.
 
Our current system is much better than you will see in 3rd world countries, but our society may well start to deteriorate - unless we collectively do something about it.

For me (purely my standpoint) the biggest enemy is complacency i.e. taking what we have for granted - and forgetting the sacrifices and difficulties that our predecessors went through, to give us the relatively prosperous society that we do enjoy.
 
Best of luck with your results SP, to me you make reasonably balanced points, so you cant be miles of.
 
Local Sikh station Sangat are streaming live images of west Brom/Handsworth http://sangattelevision.org/
 
Can't argue there - though I don't find anything wrong with the idea of an information/knowledge economy supplanting it. We don't (and won't have for some time) the industrial capability any more to rank up with other world leaders in that respect, so we have to find another option. Unfortunately changing roles this way does mean that the option for simpler jobs falls.



Burn the greenies in incinerators for a bit of power as a stop-gap, then build some nuclear plants. Done.



Can't argue there, yep. Although many aren't as materialistic as all that - it actually seems to be more a trait of those on benefits in my own experience. Sure, there are people I know who are materialistic - but not to as much a degree as the celebrity classes and the benefits class.



Effort I've got - now if I can just get the coup rolling.



Longer life expectancy is not necessarily a good thing - particularly as for the average person a larger portion of that lifespan will be spent as an invalid. The same life expectancy with less time as an invalid might well have been a better goal, but additional years sells papers better than '84 year old dies peacefully in sleep while climbing down from Kilimanjaro'.



Subtracting immigration, our population is actually shrinking. Very, very slowly however. My own solutions are slightly more drastic - so I won't bring them up here since that'd be a whole new debate.



Solved this one already - burn the hippies for a temporary fix (and to silence protests) and build some good nuclear power plans.



I partly agree - however it should be noted that life expectancy is going up, but the percentage of that life for which a person is healthy is going down. So you'll be expected to work longer, in a rapidly diminishing state of health, until you can no longer work and instead be shuttled off to lie helpless in a nursing home somewhere. Longer life without longer health is not a good thing.



It's partly the internet I'm talking about - at least once journalists were expected to check their sources. Now there are far too many examples of major headlines being taken from wikipedia and twitter (not a problem when they're accurate - slightly more serious problem on the many occasions when they're not).



I'm not one of the older generation, I don't think I even count as one of the older people yet. The entitlement thing applies more to those who have never worked and feel that they are owed something.

On the other hand if someone is torrenting music, films or anything else then you're demonstrating that they've got at least an aspect of this sense of entitlement. They're taking a copy of someone else's work without paying them for their effort. Why should you feel justified in doing this without any guilt?



More comfortable is not the same thing as better. More possessions, diversions, communications tools, travel and so on are not necessarily 'better'. I'm not sure what a 'better' life would consist of, but I'm fairly sure that it's more complex than just more stuff and a few extra years of tottering around drooling with your mind half gone.



I think it's started. Very unlikely to have reached a critical point yet, but we've got the rumblings going on.



I'd say the biggest enemy is entitlement, which ties into that. It's not so much about remembering sacrifices and difficulties as remembering that you as an individual are owed nothing, no benefits, no healthcare, no schooling, none of that. All of that is given as a generous gift, and in return you're expected simply to follow a few basic guidelines of behaviour and be a decent human being.



Nope - there might be anarchy in the transition, but the act of doing the razing wouldn't really qualify as anarchistic unless it's intended to destroy all authority. It would be more of a transitory phase into my new world order.
 
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